America’s “One Somalia” Policy is a Gift to China
November 1st, 2024
Via National Interest, commentary on how the U.S. State Department’s futile and ossified approach to Somaliland advances Beijing’s objectives in the Horn of Africa: On December 13, 2018, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the Trump administration’s new Africa strategy. “Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence […]
Read more »Horn of Africa: Any Port A Storm?
October 6th, 2024
Via The Economist, a report on how Ethiopia and Somalia are courting escalation in a quarrel over port access: Few parts of the world are more turbulent than the Horn of Africa, the continent’s north-eastern chunk that contains Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has been racked by war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, by civil war […]
Read more »Inside Somaliland: The State Eager To Become The World’s Next Country
September 1st, 2024
Via The Economist, a report on Somaliland: National day in Somaliland means joy, pomp and machines of war. On May 18th the president and assembled dignitaries watched, from the grandstand, the annual parade in the capital, Hargeisa, as police held back jubilant crowds. Acrobats, fire-eaters, cyclists and footballers flowed past, while a bemused lion paced in its cage, the […]
Read more »Can An Egypt-Led Alliance Block Ethiopia’s Efforts To Secure Sea Access?
August 27th, 2024
Via the Addis Standard, commentary on the potential for an Egypt-led alliance stand in Ethiopia’s way of securing access to the sea: For scholars in the field of political science and international relations, the international realm is basically the realm of balance of power, where states continuously struggle for much power and sustainable peace. The […]
Read more »A $2 Trillion Reckoning Looms as Ports Become Pawns in Geopolitics
August 21st, 2024
Via Bloomberg, an article on how ports have become pawns in geopolitics, as these gateways to global trade face costly conversions to retool in new era of rivalry, automation and green energy: For centuries, control of the world’s biggest shipping centers helped expand empires, spark and settle wars, ease poverty and build middle classes while […]
Read more »Somaliland’s Camel Herders Are Milking It
August 5th, 2024
Courtesy of The Economist, an article on how commercial dairies in Somaliland are scaling up: It is milking time on Mustafa Duale’s farm and the camels are lowing: an eerie groan, like the creak of an old door. A dozen herders strain the milk through a sieve into metal pails. They will sleep here tonight, in […]
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.