Image is from @Parsani@hexbear.net, who got it from @RNAi@hexbear.net, who got it from Discord.
Thread update: Prigozhin's fucking dead.
The BRICS summit will begin on Tuesday and end on Thursday, with various world leaders, politicians, and representatives meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
America's anxiety about the summit has been obvious. They have been complicating the event by pushing for the arrest warrant for Putin to be upheld if he steps foot in the country. While this is a remarkably dangerous and unhinged thing to do - even by America's standards - to the leader of a nuclear superpower who could end the world within an hour, it does betray their desperation. Unfortunately, for those of us who wanted to see Putin surrounded by an army of security guards fending off people holding handcuffs, he has sent his Foreign Minister, Lavrov, in his place. Additionally, America has likely been spreading rumors about the lack of interest in gaining new members in the organization.
With apparently 20 countries formally seeking membership and another 20 informally doing so, the bloc has been elevated, whether they like it or not, to the position of the international vanguard of the non-western world. It is extremely important to say that this is not the same as it becoming an anti-American bloc, and many of them (including original members Brazil and India) wish to keep a friendly relationship with the United States. Nonetheless, with the United States' policy of "if you are not with us, you are against us," and as the US seeks to weaken China, in coming years many of them might find themselves under hostile pressure.
BRICS has to try and solve many problems if they are going to chip away at America's stranglehold of the world economy. These problems - like mitigating the dollar's status as a global reserve currency, and America's dominant role in the world economy - are extremely complicated, and will takes years, even decades, to be overcome. Therefore, one should temper their expectations and excitement for this summit. It took tens of millions of deaths in cataclysmic wars, and then several more decades, for America to reach its current position. I see no reason to believe why its downfall will be any less bloody and elongated.
To end on a less depressing note, I've been searching for appropriate anagrams given the list of countries that seek to join BRICS. Obviously not all of them will make it in, but even so. The best I've come up with is HIBISCUS EMANCIPATES BBBBKKRVV.
(also, "bulletins and news discussion" can be rearranged to "libidinous newsstands uncles".)
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
In my opinion, if the TeleSUR article's list is accurate:
First ones in: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates
In a couple years: Algeria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazahkstan, Morocco, Thailand, Venezuela, Vietnam
Eventually: Cuba, Ethiopia, Honduras, Senegal
Too unstable right now: Argentina (depends on elections), Palestine, Nigeria (depends on Niger conflict)
I have no idea: Bahrain, Kuwait
I don't know much about how this works, so pardon my question.
Why would it take such a long time for a country to join this group? Is there a strict requirement?
(Actually, I'm not sure what this group is for other than a "bloc" that isn't the West (??). Like is this for trade agreements and stuff? Military alliances? Idk)
this is actually one of the really big issues, because you and @spectre@hexbear.net are right - the original group wasn't meant to really be an organization in the way you might call NATO or the SCO or OPEC an organization, and yet that role is being pushed upon them, and each of the five BRICS countries has a different idea as to what that means. At every BRICS summit they've leaned more and more into forming a formal organization, with the establishment of the New Development Bank and so on, but it's really just kind of a non-western G7.
China and Russia essentially want to use it as a counterweight against the United States (they will say that they don't engage in bloc politics, and it's true that they aren't asking countries to choose between them and the US, but really we all know what's going on here), whereas Brazil, India, and South Africa are considerably more chill.
AFAIK the idea of there being a "mechanism to join BRICS" a few years ago would be seen as kind of silly, because BRICS is... BRICS. It's five countries linked by a common theme, that theme being "fast-growing economies that would make up a plurality/majority of the world economy by 2050". So there's a lot of debate right now inside BRICS about what "expanding" it even means in that context. is BRICS still that definition, or is something else now? hopefully we see things elucidated at this summit, but I can't say I'm holding my breath as China and India are hard to get on the same page a lot of the time and have just fundamentally different visions of the future.
Thank you for explaining :comfy:
Yeah when I heard about the term almost a decade ago it was just a shorthand for "large developing economies, specifically these 5". Now I guess it's a whole org with some sort of goals?
Personally I view it more of a sign that these are shifts are happening, rather than necessarily a force for them
That first batch of countries is ~500 million people, that would put BRICS close to 50% of the world population
First: BRIIIECSSU
As an Argentinian:
UAE is a weird one. My understanding is that they have taken on the role that the Saudis had held with the US pre-MBS, and that a lot of stuff they do is stuff that the US wants done but doesn't want its name on. Would not be completely surprised if they didn't get into BRICS right away because of it.
The reason I mentioned them is because Russia took the UAE's side in a territorial issue I think, China is generally getting involved with them, and India's been making deals with them lately, and I don't see any particular reason Brazil or South Africa would be unhappy about them joining
Interesting. I'm looking through the GCC-Russia joint statement on those islands, and it could definitely be read as "We really hope you guys don't go to war over these islands!" Given the trading/weapons relationship between Russia and Iran, it would seem stupid of Russia to try and piss off the Iranians over islands that are probably way more important to their security than the UAE's.