The One Thing That Works In Afghanistan: Mobile
March 15th, 2017
Via Canada’s Globe and Mail, an interesting look at Roshan, one of Afghanistan’s telecommunications providers: One Friday last October, a man drove his Toyota Corolla up to Green Village, a residential complex on the eastern outskirts of Kabul. At dusk, he detonated a car bomb in the neighbourhood that many Western expatriates call home. Gunfire between […]
Read more »The Taliban Stones Commission and the Insurgent Windfall from Illegal Mining
March 12th, 2017
Via the United States Military Academy, a detailed report on the Taliban’s increased footprint in Afghanistan’s mining sector and their efforts to formalize their role in the mining sector by creating the Dabaro Comisyoon, or “Stones Commission”: Afghanistan’s vast mineral deposits, a complex assortment of metals, industrial minerals, mineral fuels, precious and semi-precious gems, and hydrocarbons—including […]
Read more »Pakistan and China: Don’t Fear Chabahar Port
February 1st, 2017
Courtesy of The Diplomat, a look at what Iran’s Chabahar port deal with India and Afghanistan really means for China and Pakistan’s CPEC: Recently, on the sidelines of the sixth Heart of Asia Conference-Istanbul Process in Amritsar, India, Afghanistan and India planned to start air cargo transportation over Pakistan. The move will help greatly in exporting Afghan goods, such […]
Read more »India, Iran: Cooperating On Central Asia
January 27th, 2017
Via the National Interest, some commentary on how – from security to energy – the two rising powers of India and Iran have many interests in common: Iran and India have long had historical, cultural, and commercial ties. Tracing back a millennium, both countries have framed their shared roots as a “civilizational relationship.” Over the […]
Read more »Saving Private Enterprise In Afghanistan
January 2nd, 2017
Via The New York Times, commentary on Afghanistan’s private sector: In early December Afghan fashion found a place in the Middle Eastern edition of Vogue magazine, lithe models posed in colorful, high-end gowns and accessories made by craftsmen from Afghanistan. The couture in Vogue’s pages was also featured in a United States-sponsored exhibition I visited here in […]
Read more »TAPI: A Transnational Pipe Dream
December 15th, 2016
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), a detailed look at the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline: Forecast Until the Taliban and the government in Kabul arrive at a settlement to end the war, building the Afghan portion of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline will be difficult. So long as India and Pakistan are at loggerheads over the contested […]
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.