Rare Earth In Myanmar: Economic Opportunity Or Environmental Costs?
January 3rd, 2025
Via Eurasia Review, a look at Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry: Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry sits at the intersection of short-term opportunity, environmental degradation, and geopolitical conflict, shaping the future of local communities and global rare earth supply chains. Key takeaways Some local communities stand to gain economically from rare earth mining, which generates […]
Read more »Drugs, Scams and Sin: Myanmar’s War Has Made It the Global Crime Capital
January 1st, 2025
Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how Myanmar has become a magnet for criminal syndicates, particularly from China, destabilizing law enforcement across much of Asia: The flower fields stretch out from the mountain village along most every road — fluttering patchworks of white and pink and purple. The beauty in this corner […]
Read more »Myanmar Civil War Casts Shadow over China’s CMEC Corridor
December 16th, 2024
Via Geopolitical Monitor, a look at the shadow that Myanmar’s civil war is casting over China’s CMEC Corridor: Over the past decade, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments in Myanmar have focused on the development of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), a major infrastructure project designed to connect China’s Yunnan Province to the Indian Ocean via […]
Read more »China’s Wagner? Beijing Establishes Private Security Company in Myanmar
December 2nd, 2024
Via Geopolitical Monitor, an article on China’s use of a private security company in Myanmar: China is collaborating with the Myanmar military junta to establish a joint security company to protect Chinese investments and personnel in Myanmar. On October 22, 2024, the junta formed a working committee to draft a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the initiative, […]
Read more »Myanmar Rebels Seize Rare-Earth Mining Hubs, Threatening Supply Chains
November 8th, 2024
Via Nikkei Asia, a report on how rebel activity in Myanmar, the world’s 3rd-largest rare earths producer, is disrupting exports to neighboring China: Armed rebels are taking control of key rare-earth mining areas in Myanmar, a development that threatens to disrupt supply chains for electric vehicles and other products that pass through China. The Kachin […]
Read more »Speeding Up the Economy: The Role of Methamphetamines in the Southeast Asian Boom
October 12th, 2024
Via The Diplomat, an article on how – faced with ruthless economic demands – increasing numbers of Southeast Asian workers are turning to a cheap, addictive drug that enables them to “work without stopping:” Like many teenagers around the world, Ngo started using drugs after being encouraged by his friends. But what separates his experiences […]
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.