Tag Archives: BRICS

Behind the Tin Curtain: BRICS+ vs NATO/G7, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on June 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

The division increasingly takes shape: the West vs. the BRICS and much of the rest of the world. From Pepe Escobar at unz.com:

Once upon a time, there existed an Iron Curtain which divided the continent of Europe. Coined by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the term was in reference to the then-Soviet Union’s efforts to create a physical and ideological boundary with the west. The latter, for its part, pursued a policy of containment against the spread and influence of communism.

Fast forward to the contemporary era of techno-feudalism, and there now exists what should be called a Tin Curtain, fabricated by the fearful, clueless, collective west, via G7 and NATO: this time, to essentially contain the integration of the Global South.

BRICS against G7

The most recent and significant example of this integration has been the coming out of BRICS+ at last week’s online summit hosted by Beijing. This went far beyond establishing the lineaments of a ‘new G8,’ let alone an alternative to the G7.

Just look at the interlocutors of the five historical BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa): we find a microcosm of the Global South, encompassing Southeast Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, Africa and South America – truly putting the “Global” in the Global South.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Politics, Propaganda

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BRICS Summit Reaffirms That Russia Not As Isolated As NATO Suggests, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

You’ve got something when you’ve got over half the world’s population and well over half the world’s natural resources either tacitly or explicitly on your team. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The recent BRICS summit managed to run its course this past week with very little fanfare, despite the fact that Russia is in the midst of a conflict with Ukraine that has led to a worldwide economic war. China is edging towards a potential invasion of Taiwan, and much of the planet is in the middle of a stagflationary crisis in the meantime.

The one major takeaway from the summit was the reaffirmed stance of the BRICS that they would continue to work closely with Russia in economic terms.

Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, there has been a running narrative in the western media that sanctions and the removal of Russian access to the SWIFT network would crush the country within a few months, leaving them penniless and unable to project military power.  This has not happened.

A picture was painted by journalists and politicians of a completely isolated Russia, destroyed by a global cancel culture campaign that would de-nation them.  In reality, Russian trade, specifically their oil trade, has actually expanded.  Both China and India have increased their purchases of Russian oil while enjoying discounted prices.  Simultaneously, Europe and the US are suffering from oil and gas inflation and the EU is cutting vital oil and gas supplies from Russia.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, Technology, Trade, War

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The ‘New G8’ Meets China’s ‘Three Rings’, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on June 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

Much of the world is not just turning its back on the U.S., it is constructing an alternative order. From Pepe Escobar at thesaker.is:

The coming of the new G8 points to the inevitable advent of BRICS +, one of the key themes to be discussed in the upcoming BRICS summit in China.

The speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, may have created the defining acronym for the emerging multipolar world: “the new G8”.

As Volodin noted, “the United States has created conditions with its own hands so that countries wishing to build an equal dialogue and mutually beneficial relations will actually form a ‘new G8’ together with Russia.”

This non Russia-sanctioning G8, he added, is 24.4% ahead of the old one, which is in fact the G7, in terms of GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP), as G7 economies are on the verge of collapsing and the U.S. registers record inflation.

The power of the acronym was confirmed by one of the researchers on Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergei Fedorov: three BRICS members (Brazil, China and India) alongside Russia, plus Indonesia, Iran, Turkey and Mexico, all non adherents to the all-out Western economic war against Russia, will soon dominate global markets.

Fedorov stressed the power of the new G8 in population as well as economically: “If the West, which restricted all international organizations, follows its own policies, and pressures everyone, then why are these organizations necessary? Russia does not follow these rules.”

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Posted in Banking, Business, Economics, Economy, Energy, Eurasian Axis, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics, Science, Technology, Trade

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BRICS Ministers of Finance Hold a Meeting – It Is Time to Replace Western Financial Trade Mechanisms and Remove The Dollar, by Sundance

Posted on April 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

The BRICS have decided it’s in their rational self-interest to abandon the American empire. From Sundance at theconservativetreehouse.com:

This is not some grand conspiracy, ‘out there‘ deep geopolitical possibility, or foreboding likelihood as an outcome of short-sighted western emotion.  No, this is just a predictable outcome from western created events that pushed specific countries to a natural conclusion based on their best interests.

You can debate the motives of the western leaders who structured the sanctions against Russia, and whether they knew the outcome would happen as a consequence of their effort, but the outcome was never really in doubt.  Personally, I believe this outcome is what the west intended. The people inside the World Economic Forum are not stupid – ideological, yes, but not stupid. They knew this would happen.

[Left to Right] Xi Jinping (China), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Narendra Modi (India) and Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa), the BRICS group.

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Posted in Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics, Propaganda

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How BRICS Plus clashes with the US economic war on Iran, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on August 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

The BRICS plus nations aren’t going to be the US’s most helpful allies imposing sanctions on Iran, and most of them will help Iran evade those sanctions. From Pepe Escobar at atimes.com:

Rhetorical war has far-reaching consequences, including a potential economic slump via the disruption of global oil supplies

China's President Xi Jinping, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa and Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrive for a group picture during the 10th BRICS summit on July 26, 2018 in Johannesburg. Photo: AFP/Gianluigi Guercia

China’s President Xi Jinping, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin arrive for a group picture during the 10th BRICS summit on July 26, 2018 in Johannesburg. Photo: AFP/Gianluigi Guercia

The key take away from the BRICS summit in Johannesburg is that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – important Global South players – strongly condemn unilateralism and protectionism.

The Johannesburg Declaration is unmistakable: “We recognize that the multilateral trading system is facing unprecedented challenges. We underscore the importance of an open world economy.”

Closer examination of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech unlocks some poignant details.

Xi, crucially, emphasizes delving further into “our strategic partnership.” That implies increased BRICS and Beyond BRICS multilateral trade, investment and economic and financial connectivity.

And that also implies reaching to the next level; “It is important that we continue to pursue innovation-driven development and build the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR) to strengthen coordination on macroeconomic policies, find more complementarities in our development strategies, and reinforce the competitiveness of the BRICS countries, emerging market economies and developing countries.”

If PartNIR sounds like the basis for an overall Global South platform, that’s because it is.

In a not too veiled allusion to the Trump administration’s unilateral pullout from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), Xi called all parties to “abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations and to settle disputes through dialogue and differences through consultation,” adding that the BRICS are inevitably working for “a new type of international relations.”

Relations such as these certainly do not include a superpower unilaterally imposing an energy export blockade – an act of economic war – on an emerging market and key actor of the Global South.

Xi is keen to extol a “network of closer partnerships.” That’s where the concept of BRICS Plus fits in. China coined BRICS Plus last year at the Xiamen summit, it refers to closer integration between the five BRICS members and other emerging markets/developing nations.

To continue reading: How BRICS Plus clashes with the US economic war on Iran

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It’s Our Party and You’re Not Invited, by Mark Sleboda

Posted on July 12, 2015 | Leave a comment

The world is moving away from US unipolarity, whether the US likes or acknowledges it or not. From Mark Sleboda, at theburningplatform.com:

For the week of July 6-10, the city of Ufa, Russia will have been at the center of the world, or more particularly the very center of the emerging multipolar world order.

Russia, with host and presidency duties of the annual heads of state’s summits of both BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), has taken advantage of the opportunity to hold both summits in concert.

The occasion is also being used to hold a meeting of the heads of the newly formed EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union). This is no coincidence or mere convenience – this is a definitive statement about world order and international relations.

Ufa was surely chosen by Russia for two reasons beyond simply pumping needed infrastructure money into the city. First, Ufa, as the capital of the Islamic majority Bashkortostan Republic will highlight the summits’ – and Russia’s multi-confessional – character.

Second, Ufa’s location in central Russia on the verge of the Urals – also stresses Russia’ enormous size, bridging both the West and the East.

The Western governments and press love to refer to the actions and positions of the West as “the international community”, but in Ufa we see a much more real representation of the international community.
With the confluence of these three meetings nearly every member of the Eurasian continent stretching from Belarus and Russia to China, and south to India, Pakistan, and Iran will have representatives present. Pakistan and Iran are two major forces within the Islamic World.

Brazil representing Latin America and South Africa for the African continent also provide a voice of the other major poles of the globe. What’s more the vast majority of these representatives will be heads of state. This is no minor convergence.

The five BRICS members alone represent over a quarter (26 per cent) of the earth’s land surface, nearly half of the world’s population (42 per cent), and nearly a third (27 per cent) of the world’s GDP – and growing rapidly.

To continue reading: It’s Our Party and You’re Not Invited

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Posted in Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Other Views

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