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Absolutely astonishing that Iran and Saudi Arabia would be admitted side-by-side. Geopolitical arch-rivals joining the same economic bloc like this might signal a watershed moment for multipolarity.
"Look at all those Bad Countries"I'm sure some fed lib will be saying this unironically within the next 24h.
:goose-honk: then why is Saudi Arabia's military exclusively equipped by your country?
:goose-chase: WHY IS SAUDI ARABIA EXCLUSIVELY ARMED BY YOUR COUNTRY MOTHERFUCKER?
Maybe the bloc can be a mediator for the Nile damn conflict, since it's a big economic issue for both.
That's what immediately sprung to mind for me as well. If they could come to a compromise about the hydro reservoir filling speed, that'd be a huge increase in stability for the whole area.
Most likely the New Development Bank will give loans to Ethiopia to fill up the damn slowly.
Egypt doesn't have to worry about the river running low, and Ethiopia can balance the lost gains from filling up the damn quickly with cheap cash from BRICS.
Well yeah BRICS isn’t exactly some Avengers assembly, it has a limited scope. Class is the defining line of struggle in capitalism, that is why coalition can be found among quite distinct groups. Fred Hampton and the Rainbow Coalition are one historical example. Maybe some people are reading BRICS as a stronger association than it is, but it is a Very Big Deal because it actually is a direct threat to US hegemony, maybe the largest ever depending on how successful it is in the next decade.
I agree that BRICS isn’t significant yet, it’s a looming storm cloud for the US. I meant more broadly that de-dollarization is the most direct non-military means for other nations to challenge US hegemony.
If BRICS is able to budge even oil trade away from USD then that has cascading effects. When countries need fewer USD to buy oil then they don’t need to export as much other things to the US to maintain their USD balance.
I was so taken aback by Iran and Saudi that I didn't even pick up on that. I suppose it's not unprecedented in BRICS since China and India have that perpetual border kerfuffle.
Unfortunately the other members were swayed by the argument "Vuvuzela no iPhone".
I think China wanted to expand more and India wanted to expand less. Sounds like there was a lot of last-minute horse trading done to get even these countries admitted.
Imo this was as good of an expansion as could be expected.
Any more and it looks like they're overreaching.
A shame Indonesia, Nigeria, and Venezuela were skipped though.
Thats fucking it , OMG !!!!
80% of the worlds Petroleum , Suez Channel , Saudi Arabia AND Iran and UAE , the Hole fucking Umma basiclly !!! It is so fucking over ...
BYE BYE G7, BYE BYE !!!!
- Show
Even before the new members are added, BRICS GDP PPP was higher than the G7's for the first time.
Every few years some IR wonk writes an article about how Ethiopia is the up and coming middle power of the Horn of Africa and this might be the first manifestation of that in a long time.
this might be the first manifestation of that in a long time
I'm not quite sure what "this" and "that" refer to in this sentence. I also can't say that I know what an "IR wonk" is, necessarily.
Ethiopia's membership in BRICS might be a sign of its increasing status as a legitimate middle power in the horn of Africa.
Yeah, sorry, I can see why that was confusing. My bad.
And IR wonk is an International Relations nerd.
The last "fuck you" of the outgoing government maybe?
Realistically these talks will have been going on for many months, if not more than a year.
Modi apparently played a last-minute spoiler role:
An agreement had been meant to be adopted following a plenary session earlier on Wednesday, but the source said it had been delayed after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced new admission criteria.
Asked about the delay, an Indian official aware of the details of the talks told Reuters late on Wednesday that the discussion were continuing.
"Yesterday ... India pushed for consensus on criteria as well as the issue of (candidate) names. There was a broad understanding," he said.
The BRICS country official said that admission criteria India's Modi proposed included requiring members not be the target of international sanctions, ruling out potential candidates Iran and Venezuela.
Modi was also pushing for a minimum per capital GDP requirement.
"These are the things Modi brought in today," the official said. "So they are becoming a little bit of a spoiler."
Looks like he ultimately conceded on Iran.
criteria India's Modi proposed included requiring members not be the target of international sanctions
Modi was also pushing for a minimum per capital GDP requirement.
Very strange of Modi to want to open that can of worms. India hardly has the highest gdp per capita.
even more funny, 3 of the 6 new members have higher GDP per capita than india.
One of them is Argentina
He lands one spacecraft on the moon and suddenly he thinks he calls the shots
The Grauniad were peddling a story this morning about how Xi not giving some scheduled speech about BRICS spelled doom for the entire enterprise.
This announcement flies in the face of every prediction I've seen. India opposing expansion, Argentina not being able to join because of American creditors pulling strings. That weird shit about Xi you mentioned.
Nice to see the geopolitical equivalent of "I'd like to buy a vowel."
BRICS truly gunning for world peace with:
Iran + Saudi Arabia
Egypt + Ethiopia
China + India
