Suriname: The Land Alcoa Damned
November 4th, 2018
Via the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, a detailed look at Suriname, where a struggling country’s past and future has been shaped by Alcoa and its aluminum: It electrified this South American country even as it drowned a jungle, so the 1.2-mile-long dam Alcoa built here to harness the Suriname River is more than stone and turbines. It’s a symbol, […]
Read more »Afghanistan’s “Sneakernet”
November 4th, 2018
Via New York Magazine, an interesting look at Afghanistan’s offline marketplace of digital content — the “Sneakernet”: At a dusty street market in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Aziz is shopping for digital files: games, music, videos, ghazals (recitations of love poetry), and naat (anthems praising the Prophet Muhammad), to add to his already extensive mobile entertainment collection. When he makes […]
Read more »China Powering Economic Growth in Mozambique
October 25th, 2018
Via Future Directions International, a report on China’s economic engagement with Mozambique: China’s trade with the Portuguese-speaking countries (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste) grew by US$82 billion in the first half of 2018, an increase of 21.5 per cent on the previous year. While the overall leaders were Brazil […]
Read more »Jakarta Predicted to Become the World’s Most Populous City in 2030
October 19th, 2018
Via Future Directions International, commentary on the opportunities and challenges facing Jakarta which is predicted to become the world’s largest city in 2030: A recent report by Euromonitor International has predicted that Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city on the island of Java, will become the world’s most populous city by 2030. That prediction includes the population in the […]
Read more »Enter The Dragon: China’s Belt And Road Rising In The Middle East
October 4th, 2018
Via the Hoover Institute, commentary on China’s BRI impact on the Middle East: Cairenes are not modest about their beloved city. It is Umm al-Dunya, they say, the mother of the world. They also call it simply Masr, the Arabic term for Egypt, suggesting, of course, that there is really nothing worth noting in the vast country […]
Read more »Iraqi Kurdistan Struggles To Rebuild Tattered Economy
October 2nd, 2018
Via Oil & Gas Daily, an article on Kurdistan’s economic challenges: The oil-rich Iraqi region of Kurdistan is struggling to rebuild its economy, a year after an ill-fated independence referendum that Baghdad deemed illegal. A massive yes vote in the September 2017 plebiscite provoked a furious backlash by the central government, turning a long-cherished dream […]
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.