The Story Behind China’s Long-Stalled Mine in Afghanistan
January 11th, 2019
Via The Diplomat, the story behind China’s long-stalled mine in Afghanistan where – nine years after Chinese companies took control of Mes Aynak – copper extraction has yet to start: One-third of the Afghan population lives below the poverty line (earning less than $2 a day) and a further 50 percent are barely above this […]
Read more »Afghanistan’s “Sneakernet”
November 4th, 2018
Via New York Magazine, an interesting look at Afghanistan’s offline marketplace of digital content — the “Sneakernet”: At a dusty street market in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Aziz is shopping for digital files: games, music, videos, ghazals (recitations of love poetry), and naat (anthems praising the Prophet Muhammad), to add to his already extensive mobile entertainment collection. When he makes […]
Read more »China To Join Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline?
September 12th, 2018
Via Silk Road Briefing, an interesting look at the possibility of China joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline: China has expressed interest in joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, by building a link from Pakistan to China. This could act as alternative to Chinese plans to build a fourth China-to-Turkmenistan pipeline. The China-to-Turkmenistan line has to cross […]
Read more »Afghanistan: Recovering from the Brink of Economic Collapse?
August 4th, 2018
Via National Interest, a look at Afghanistan’s economic situation: As recently as four years ago, Afghanistan’s war economy was on the brink of collapse when unemployment soared following the departure of thousands of American and foreign forces that had, in effect, created a parallel economy. At the time, the Afghan government had no functioning fiscal […]
Read more »Central Asia Opens the Door to Afghanistan
May 11th, 2018
Via The Diplomat, a report on Central Asia’s efforts to actively engage Afghanistan on several fronts: The Central Asia states are redrawing the boundary of their region, so the cartographers will have to run to keep up. “Central Asia” as a defined place of states and borders is a recent idea, dating to the immediate post-Soviet […]
Read more »TAPI’ng Out: Iran Ready To Swap Turkmenistan Gas For Delivery To Pakistan
May 2nd, 2018
Via The Times of Central Asia, a report on Iran’s skepticism about TAPI: Iran’s deputy petroleum minister expressed doubts about the probability of completion of Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline and said his country is ready to swap Turkmenistan’s gas destined for Pakistan, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported on April 29. Hamidreza Araqi said that Iran is the […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.