Afghanistan Has What China Wants
April 20th, 2013
Via Foreign Policy, a look at China’s interest in Afghanistan: As we near the date of withdrawal for U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, the debate about the country’s largest neighbor has shifted. No longer are American analysts worried about Chinese investments free-riding on U.S. and NATO stability efforts. Now, the hope is that China’s massive […]
Read more »How Afghanistan Is On The Leading Edge Of A Tech Revolution
March 3rd, 2013
Via Time Magazine, an article on Afghanistan’s mobile money initiative: In the eyes of the rest of the world, war-torn Afghanistan is a place with a beaten-down infrastructure, the minimum of modern amenities and certainly none of the services made possible by the latest technological advances powering the Internet, financial services and telecommunications. Surprisingly, however, […]
Read more »TAPI’B? Bangladesh Expresses Interest In Pipeline Project
November 11th, 2012
Via Eurasia Review, a report that Bangladesh has expressed interest in joining the TAPI project. As the article notes: Bangladesh said last week that it is keen to join the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project. The pipeline is already projected to cover nearly 1,700 km, and would need to be extended if Bangladesh were accepted […]
Read more »Has The Time Come For A Kabul Stock Exchange?
October 29th, 2012
Via Time magazine, an interesting article on the possibility of an Afghan stock exchange: The project seems, at the least, ill-advised: establishing Afghanistan’s first ever stock exchange amid the uncertainties of security and the suffocating presence of official corruption. But that is exactly what two young Afghans want to do. Ahmad Bassam and his partner […]
Read more »Afghans Wary As Efforts Accelerate To Tap Mineral Riches
September 9th, 2012
Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on how the potential of a mining boom is splitting various factions in Afghanistan: If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and […]
Read more »NATO, Post-2014 Afghanistan, And The Energy Dimensions of Security
August 8th, 2012
Via The Journal of Energy Security, some thoughts on the direction that Afghanistan’s energy security will take within a NATO context in the future: Afghanistan History is waiting to be made in a post-2014 Afghanistan. As the Alliance’s 2012 Chicago Summit Declaration points out, NATO’s role will soon undertake a historic shift from a combatant […]
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.