South Africa Hosts Major BRICS Summit as Bloc Eyes Global South Expansion to Counter Western Powers

BRICS — the five-country bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — is holding a monumental summit in Johannesburg this week where the group will discuss a number of major issues, including expanding membership and how to improve financial cooperation. Over 40 countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS, and 23 countries have formally applied to join the bloc, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia. The summit is a “very unstable situation,” as member countries vary greatly on priorities and many potential candidates for membership are “mostly tyrannies, carbon-addicted economies,” says Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg. “Some of these machinations are hegemonic projects to stop dissent at home and actually call for a unity that does not benefit the masses,” says South African activist and scholar Trevor Ngwane, who criticizes BRICS as “projecting a false hope to the masses” for posing as an alternative to U.S. and Western imperialism. Transcript: Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Support independent media: Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: