JOHANNESBURG, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The BRICS group of nations has decided to invite six countries - Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - to become new members of the bloc, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
The debate over expanding the BRICS bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has topped the agenda at a three-day summit in Johannesburg ending on Thursday.
While all BRICS members have publicly expressed support for growing the bloc, there were divisions among the leaders over how much and how quickly.
Reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Carien du Plessis and Anait Miridzhanian Editing by Alexander Winning
Funny how when countries the US doesn't like unite the media starts calling it a bloc instead of an alliance.
Breaking out Cold War language for totally altruistic reasons I'm sure.
what's saudi doing worth literally any support besides this?
lol omg. as dumb as it is, i was imagining the building would be some kind of really interesting pseudo arcology, because it's big enough to create a lot of options for microclimates. but no.
it's just a big shell with screens on the interior over a little tower in the middle so people can look out of the tower and feel like they're not in KSA.
Saudi sucks but maybe they will suck less if they join the BRICS. As awful as that country’s government is, the USA is still worse.
maybe but i don't see them breaking off from their status as Important US Ally any time soon.
The fallout from Khashoggi’s chainsawing seems at least to have driven a pretty deep wedge between Saudi Arabia and the USA. “We can execute journalists but you can’t.”
It's kind of a big deal to see them shift away from America. That's it though.
Pretty hard to me to support a bloc or whatever you want to call it with so many reactionary countries in it, tbh.
The point isn't to support them, it's to end the western forever wars, break dollar hegemony and negate the ability of the Washington consensus to effect change in these countries
The end goal is native socialist development and eventual overthrow of these regimes, whether thru peaceful or violent means, that trajectory is infinitely more likely to be realized when these states don't have the US empire acting as a scaffold
Fair. But if it lessens the US's stranglehold on the world, seems like a good thing in the long term.
Prigozhin got got yesterday and the rebel alliance is trying to double or even triple its power. I’m glad the writers for the new season have finally woken up.
The possible new acronyms are not looking great. ASCII Erebus? bi saucerise? cues Siberia? cia suberise?
It's gotta be BRICS+ too bad for additional members unless one of the new members wants to change their country name to start with a K
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