Articles
Friday, November 29, 2024
The BRICS alliance of Emerging Markets and Developing Countries took a major step forward at its 16th summit held in the Russian city of Kazan on October 22-24. Following decisions taken at last year’s summit in South Africa, a total of nine countries took part as full members for the first time, with Ethiopia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran joining Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. BRICS now represents nearly half of the global population. A total of 36 countries participated in the summit, along with the leaders of six international organisations, which included Antonio Guterres, United Nations General Secretary.
BRICS has announced its intention to challenge the Western domination of the bank transfer system by introducing BRICS Pay as and alternative to SWIFT. This was a key announcement at the summit which showed a determination to continue to strengthen relationships between BRICS members.
Thursday, November 28, 2024
State intervention and planning are not capitalism’s preferred ways of working, yet the need for state and globally agreed action is essential to tackling global warming. Yet if there is no viable planet then there is no capitalism either. Could this existential threat force capitalism to deal with the climate crisis? Having posed the question and put forward demands for achieving progress, we certainly shouldn’t just wait for this to happen, nor can we afford to wait for socialism to rescue us either. We need to campaign today to make governments act to halt the continued warming of our planet.
We can also join with the developing world which is seeking climate justice. These are the countries often most affected by climate change, but they are not the ones which caused it. They demand that the industrialised countries who made their wealth from polluting the planet pay for the transition to a green future.