Due Diligence – Page 14 – KCS Group Asia Ltd

Creating a Dictator

Articles / Corruption, Democracy, Due Diligence, Kremlin, Putin, Russia, Russian Business / 01/2023

The quagmire of a lengthy, painful, and ultimately unsuccessful campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s is credited with hastening the demise of the Soviet Union. History could well be repeating, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stretches into an eleventh month and domestic discontent with Putin’s war continues to rise. Could this be the trigger that [...]

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Russia’s second front

Articles / Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Due Diligence, Mexico, oil and gas, Putin, Russia, Venezuela / 01/2023

Vladimir Putin’s efforts to change the world’s balance of power requires not just a strong military, but serious influence over the world’s oil & gas markets, and to be really effective, he needs more than just Saudi Arabia and Iran on side – he needs control directly or indirectly of South America’s oil production as

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Yandex – The Moral Maze

Articles / Due Diligence, Putin, Russian Business, Technology, Yandex / 01/2023

Yandex, ‘The Russian Google’, was hit by sanctions after the EU decided it had played an active role in spreading propaganda at the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine. Yandex’s founder, Arkady Volozh, managed to avoid personal sanctions by leaving the board and selling his shares. For Russians, Yandex was more than just another tech-giant.

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China: Tiananmen Square 2.0

Articles / China, Democracy, Due Diligence, President Xi, Taiwan / 12/2022

The recent unrest in China against the zero-Covid lockdown policy, spanning multiple cities and regions, certainly emulates the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. While no iconic photos of brave individuals standing in front of an army of tanks have surfaced yet, the courage of the Chinese people under authoritarian rule protesting for freedom and liberty needs

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Cryptocurrency: Step right up for a miracle?

Articles / Anti-Money Laundering, Cryptocurrencies, Due Diligence, Fraud, Organised crime / 12/2022

As the pioneers and settlers spread out across the Wild West, a new type of person sprang up in the saloons and squares of the new world: the snake oil salesmen. These charmers would offer tonics promised to cure absolutely any ailment, for an unbelievable price, in a deal that the good townsfolk would be

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Multipolarity and the Middle East: The not-so-beautiful game

Articles / China, Due Diligence, Middle East, oil and gas, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia / 12/2022

Four years ago, one of the defining images of the 2018 World Cup was of Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman together in the stands, sharing a joke as hosts Russia hammered Saudi Arabia five-nil. There will be no such repeat this time, given that Russia is – amazingly – too corrupt even for FIFA

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Blue or Green? The Gulf’s Hydrogen Gamble

Articles / climate, Due Diligence, Gulf, Hydrogen, Middle East, oil and gas, Saudi Arabia / 12/2022

Hydrogen is the simplest element in our universe, formed from a single proton and electron pair. Burning hydrogen produces heat without carbon, with pure water as the only by-product. In theory, it’s the cleanest of fuels. Harnessing its power would be an elegant solution to the energy crisis – and with hydrogen representing 75 percent

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Russia and Putin: The end of the road?

Articles / Corruption, Due Diligence, Kremlin, Putin, Russia / 12/2022

If you drive south-east out of St. Petersburg, you find yourself on the Trans-Siberian Highway, a network of roads eleven thousand kilometres long that is, depending on your disposition towards Australia, either the longest or second-longest highway on the planet. But even eleven thousand kilometres must come to an end, and the prospect of Vladivostok

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Circus of Horrors

Articles / Corruption, Due Diligence, Europe, Hungary, oil and gas, Russia / 11/2022

If Vladimir Putin has, throughout the war, been something of a magician – distracting you with the left hand while acting with the right – then Viktor Orban has been its acrobat, walking a thin and very dangerous tightrope between alignment with the EU, on which Hungary remains dependant for financial aid and international prestige,

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Brazil: Future imperfect

Articles / Brazil, BRICS, China, Corruption, Due Diligence, Lula da Silva, Russia / 11/2022

Although according to its national anthem, Brazil’s future ‘mirrors greatness’, the country presently finds itself looking to the past, in more ways than one. After four years of rule by the right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, this dictatorial populist lost by a margin of just 1.8%, the thinnest in Brazil’s history, to Lula da Silva – who

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