Revolutionary Commerce: Inside Iran’s War Economy
July 4th, 2025
Via The Economist, a report on Iran’s economy: Even before the bombs began to fall, Iran’s economy was in a bad way. Six in ten working-age people were unemployed. Prices had risen by 35% in the past year. Some 18% of the population was living below the World Bank’s poverty threshold. Despite exporting gas and oil, […]
Read more »Beyond Geopolitics: The Domestic Drivers of China-Iran Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative
May 23rd, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at how the alignment of domestic socioeconomic interests is a key driver for continued Sino-Iranian cooperation, despite U.S.-led sanctions: More than a decade after the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its transformation of global supply chains and trade flows has garnered significant attention. Nevertheless, despite being identified as a crucial country […]
Read more »How a New Axis Called CRINK Is Working Against America
March 29th, 2025
Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, a look at how China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have united to defy Western sanctions and undermine U.S. interests: An axis uniting China, Russia, Iran and North Korea—dubbed CRINK by some Western officials—has emerged from the war in Ukraine, a loose alliance united by a mutual disdain for the […]
Read more »India Could Put Chabahar on Slow Burner as IMEC Gathers Pace
February 27th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how abandoning its Chabahar port project is not a preferred option for India as its Central Asia ambitions depend on trade via this Iranian port: To apply “maximum pressure” on Iran to “end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program and stop its support for terrorist groups,” U.S. […]
Read more »Chabahar: Where Trump Is Hurting India and Helping China
February 24th, 2025
Via the Asia Times, commentary on how President Trump’s decisions to end a sanctions waiver on the India-invested Iranian port, jeopardizes Quad cohesion and boosts China’s position and power: When Indian Prime Minister Narendra recently met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, Iran’s Chabahar Port wasn’t apparently on the two leaders’ broad […]
Read more »Will the Trump Administration Grant the Iran-Pakistan Pipeline Project a Sanctions Waiver?
January 22nd, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how – if Pakistan does not keep its part of the pipeline agreement with Iran – it will have to shell out a potential $18 billion to Tehran: Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik announced in December that he planned to request a sanctions waiver for the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project from […]
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.