China Focuses on Africa’s Strategic Trade Routes
January 7th, 2026
Via Reuters, a report on China’s renewed Africa focus on strategic trade routes: China’s FM to visit Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania and Lesotho Trip extends 36-year-old tradition of making first trip to Africa African states looking for investment over loans – analyst China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing […]
Read more »Kenya Unrest Offers East African Rivals An Investment Opportunity
July 16th, 2025
Via Semafor, commentary on how recent Kenyan unrest is offering its East African rivals an investment opportunity: Kenya’s neighbours stand to attract investors who are increasingly wary of the political volatility that has gripped East Africa’s biggest economy. Deadly protests marking a year since the wave of anti-government demonstrations that shook Kenya — once again […]
Read more »The Railway That China Hopes Will Take On The US In Africa
March 22nd, 2025
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on the railway that China hopes will take on the US in Africa: Mukololo Chanda still recalls the glory days of Africa’s “freedom railway”. Almost four decades ago, fresh from high school in Zambia, she began working as a switchboard operator on the railway built by Mao Zedong’s […]
Read more »China, America, and the Great Railway Race in Africa
March 7th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at how China and the United States are engaged in a battle for access, resources, and influence along railways in Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the DRC, echoing trends from the colonial era. The Mukuba Express had been motionless for eight hours, stopped in a small village about 50 miles west […]
Read more »Global Mining’s Dangerous New Reality: Guns, Hostages, Arrests
January 6th, 2025
Via the Wall Street Journal, a report on how – with the U.S. and China intensifying demand for critical metals and minerals – host countries are making hostile plays for more of the profits: Neil Warburton was finishing up his breakfast of porridge and local honey when the armed soldiers converged. The Australian veteran mining executive […]
Read more »Is the U.S. Answer to China’s Belt and Road Working?
December 18th, 2024
Via Foreign Policy, a report on how the International Development Finance Corporation has put the United States more on the map, but China remains king of global infrastructure: U.S. President Joe Biden combined two of his passions during his much-delayed trip to Africa last week: U.S. foreign policy and trains. At the Lobito port on […]
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.