Afghanistan: Can Pomegranates Power The Economy?
December 5th, 2014
Via BBC, a report on Afghanistan’s economic prospects: As delegates gather in London for a conference on Afghanistan, the prospects for reducing the reliance on foreign aid are increasingly focused on two sectors of the economy: agriculture and hydrocarbons. Harvest time is coming to an end in the fruit orchards of Kandahar, a province now […]
Read more »Afghanistan’s Natural Resource Strategy
July 13th, 2014
Courtesy of The Diplomat, a look at Afghanistan’s natural resource strategy: The pending outcome of the Afghan presidential election run-off on June 15 will decide a host of measures that will guide the country’s future development. While the presidential candidates have largely been opaque as to the methodology of their many and bold promises, it […]
Read more »From New York Heroin Dealer To Afghanistan’s Biggest Oil Man
July 8th, 2014
Via Reuters, an interesting story on Afghanistan’s nascent oil industry: One-eyed Rateb Popal’s debut as an Afghan businessman was not promising: he was caught smuggling heroin and locked up in a New York federal prison for almost a decade. Popal had better luck once back in Afghanistan, where he emerged from obscurity to make millions […]
Read more »What’s To Become Of Afghanistan’s Mines?
April 2nd, 2014
Via Foreign Policy, a look at the future of Afghanistan’s mining sector: Five days after Sardar Ahmad Khan, his wife, and two of their three children were murdered by teenage gunmen while having dinner in a Kabul hotel on the eve of Nowruz, the Persian new year, I visited a mutual friend, Nader Nadery, to […]
Read more »Future Of Silicon Valley May Lie In The Mountains Of Afghanistan
March 20th, 2014
Via Venture Beat, an article on Afghanistan’s lithium reserves: An Italian helicopter flies over western Afghanistan during an international operation. Lithium reserves have been found in the western part of that country. The future of Silicon Valley’s technological prowess may well lie in the war-scarred mountains and salt flats of Western Afghanistan. United States Geological […]
Read more »Afghanistan’s Minerals Await Vital Railroads
March 7th, 2014
Via BusinessWeek, an interesting article on Afghanistan’s logistics challenge: At the Naibabad freight terminal near the northern Afghan town of Mazar-e-Sharif, workers rush to unload wheat and construction materials from Uzbekistan that have arrived on Afghanistan’s only railroad. Trucks will have to carry the cargo through the icy Hindu Kush mountains to the rest of […]
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.