Double standards, and let's band together to save Southside FM and build a better South Africa
There are moves afoot to impeach Ayman Odeh, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset known for his principled stands against what Israel is doing in Gaza.
Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said: 'War is the continuation of politics by other means.'
It is the obverse vis-a-vis Israel's Knesset, for their parliamentary duties have become the perilous as typically the Jewish lawmakers like the apartheid SA lawmakers acted in a similar fashion, with Helen Suzman one of the few active opponents Prime Minister BJ Vorster's war against anyone who opposed his government.
And so in the Knesset, being an opponent to apartheid has led to the continuation of war by other means. What was Odeh's crime? In January 2025, soon after the two-month Gaza ceasefire came into effect, he reportedly tweeted that: 'I am happy about the release of the (Israeli) hostages and (Palestinian)prisoners. From here, both peoples (sic) must be freed from the yoke of the occupation. We were all born free.' Scant attention was paid by the 'only democracy in the Middle East', ignoring the parliamentary legal adviser that impeachment was illegal.
Nevertheless, it carried on. It looks like the mask of democracy has slipped as (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) Bibi's minions mimic their Arab cousins (Arabs and Jews bear a similar bloodline).
The next move – Supreme Court action? | Saber Ahmed Jazbhay Newlands
Band together save Tamil radio station
Southside FM faces financial crisis; Icasa gives 3 month ultimatum', highlights a regrettable reality.
The Chatsworth community radio station is facing a critical financial crisis that threatens its very existence.
This institution has been a cornerstone of community life, providing a platform for local voices. The South Indian community needs to fully support Southside FM. Let's rally together to save our station. Tamil culture has been an important characteristic that embodies our rich cultural heritage.
We need your (community) support to preserve our culture for future generations. It's time for a major shake-up and a new chapter. Maybe it's time for the station to seek more additional vibrant board members, the likes of Morgan and Darsen Nadasen, Merebank Tamil School Society, and Professor Gan Moodley to play a crucial role in shaping the station's future.
If elected it will have people making significant contributions towards reaffirming Tamil values, as this is important so it can be passed down to the next generation. Let's make it happen. We owe it to ourselves, our community, and future generations to preserve this vital institution. The fate of our radio station reflects our community's values. We need to act now to ensure that Southside FM continues to thrive. It is unfortunate that staff are volunteering. Hats off to the presenters Thashriya Naidoo, Yogambal Singaram, Lalitha Gurukkal, Daeshni Pather, and not forgetting Station Manager Tansen Nepaul and many others who work tirelessly on a voluntary basis, sacrificing their time, energy, and expertise – you will be richly blessed. It is also unfair for these presenters not to be paid. Something has to be done.
I love the quote by Elizabeth Andrew that so aptly expresses puts their devotion into context: 'Volunteers do not necessarily have the time, they just have the heart'. | Dhayalan Moodley Mobeni Heights
Let's build on this for the good of SA
Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube's announcement of the Safe Schools Programme is a welcome sign of urgency and intent.
School safety is a foundational issue – learners cannot thrive in classrooms where violence, fear or instability are the norm.
For too long, South Africa's education debate has been weighed down by basic questions of safety, sanitation, infrastructure and attendance. This programme is an important step forward, but let us be clear: Safety is only the beginning, not the end goal.
The real crisis in education is not just about safety, but about outcomes – and what those outcomes mean for the future of our economy. We are in the grip of a long-term unemployment crisis, especially among the youth. And while government and civil society focus on interventions to stimulate job creation, too often they ignore the truth: Jobs don't just appear – they are built by entrepreneurs.
The question is whether our education system is producing the kinds of learners who will go on to create businesses, innovate products, and grow industries. Right now the answer is no. If we truly want to prepare learners for life beyond the classroom, we must go beyond ensuring safety. We must commit to building schools that nurture entrepreneurial thinking, problem-solving, curiosity and digital fluency, because that's where job creation really begins – not in a policy, but in a classroom that gives every child the confidence and tools to dream big and build boldly.
Gwarube has opened the door, now let's walk through it and transform our schools from safe zones into launch pads for a thriving business ecosystem in South Africa. | Nicole Mirkin CEO at Omnia Strategic Counsel & Communications
Digging an even deeper hole for itself
Israel will only be digging a deeper hole for itself internationally if it proceeds with a plan outlined by its Defence Minister Israel Katz to eventually forcibly relocate the entire Palestinian population to a 'humanitarian city' on the ruins of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, from where they will be unable to leave once relocated. | Eric Palm Gympie, Australia
Have we truly lose our critical thinking?
If you can create a global crisis, you can promote a global solution, right?
Successful and famous businessmen and philanthropists such as Bill Gates, George Soros and Klaus Schwab are masters of making us believe that if we do not agree with them or go along with their sick ideas for a better future, we are the problem.
Think of the 2020 Covid Pandemic, so-called global warming and other potentially dangerous, but highly fabricated, man-made dilemmas, such as water or food shortages. They were all designed to make you believe that if we don't do something quickly, or if don't trust the global elites and unelected oligarchs, something terrible will happen if we do not heed their calls.
Meanwhile, the opposite is true, but any attempt to discredit these obscenely rich know-it-alls, is drowned out or deemed to be 'misinformation/disinformation.
When you hear woke doomsday prophets, such as Greta Thunberg spew garbage about the planet busy dying from too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Bill Gates warning us of the 'next global pandemic, or Klaus Schwab – whose brainchild is the World Economic Forum – tells you that you will 'own nothing and be happy', you know that its time to start asking some serious questions.
How did these unelected bullies get so wealthy, influential and arrogant, and why do we listen to them? When the World Economic Forum suggests that we should start eating crickets and bugs instead of meat, due to rising carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere, are we honestly going to believe this rubbish?
It's scary that so many people believe these lies and spend 99% of their lives with their heads buried deep in the sand. Can we not think for ourselves anymore? Have we lost the ability to think critically?
A big threat to our privacy is the rise of CBDC's, or Central Bank Digital Currencies, and digital ID. Could you imagine the immense power that would be given to any government if we allow them to track our every move and transaction.
This is already happening in some parts of the world, such as Scotland and Australia and other first-world countries. | L Oosthuizen Durban
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Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Bloom dances dangerously close to ‘anti-Semitism denialism' in a hostile UCT campus climate
In this piece, David Saks has, on behalf of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, authored a reply to Kevin Bloom's article in which the journalist reflects on the narrative that the council of the University of Cape Town had chosen to wilfully sacrifice donor funding on the altar of its so-called Gaza resolutions. Bloom writes that a pro-Israel lobby is attempting to shut down criticism of the Jewish state. Saks challenges this reflection. Those following the debate over the escalation of anti-Semitism at US universities will well remember the almost surreal occasion back in December 2023 when Harvard University's then president Claudine Gay could not bring herself to concede that calls for the 'genocide of Jews' would violate Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment. Asked this question before a congressional hearing, Gay essentially answered instead that it all depended on the context. It was a telling moment, and a revelatory one. More than any officially commissioned report, it demonstrated the extent to which even the most extreme anti-Semitic attitudes had come to be tolerated on leading US campuses, from the most senior leadership downwards. Anti-Semitism on university campuses continues to manifest at unprecedentedly high levels, not only in the US, but globally. South Africa has certainly not been immune to these trends, but, on the whole, it has been considerably less of a problem compared with what is happening abroad. Unfortunately, in recent years the University of Cape Town (UCT) has been something of an exception. Particularly in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 terror attacks against Israel, but for some time even before that, Jewish students and faculty there have reported being subjected to a range of threats, insults and general abusive behaviour. Not unlike what happened at Harvard, the failure of the university to take appropriate action to address these incidents, combined with its move over the past year towards instituting a boycott of Israeli academia, has contributed to a campus climate that is increasingly anti-Semitic and unsafe for Jewish students and academics. A broadside against mainstream Jewish leadership in SA It is against this background that Kevin Bloom's latest article, which I consider to be a broadside against the mainstream Jewish leadership in South Africa, should be considered (Zionism untethered — inside the legal battle for the soul of UCT, 18 June 2025). In this piece, Bloom weighs in against a court application brought by Professor Adam Mendelsohn in respect of two resolutions adopted by the UCT council last year. How the purpose and substance of Mendelsohn's application was misrepresented by Bloom from a legal and technical point of view has since been adroitly unpacked by Elsa van Huyssteen. Suffice it to say here that contrary to the impression that Bloom tries to create, even a cursory reading of Mendelsohn's affidavits would show that the litigation is not about Zionism and the war in Gaza. Rather, it is about whether the UCT Council, in adopting the impugned resolutions, has exercised its powers 'in accordance with its members' fiduciary duties to UCT', and also over whether the resolutions themselves 'infringe on the right to academic freedom by prohibiting individual academics from pursuing research collaborations of their choice'. Van Huyssteen also points out that the application in no way concerns the contents and applicability of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism, for all that Bloom tries to make out that Mendelsohn appeared 'to be insisting' on UCT adopting it. From the perspective of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), a significant concern is that Bloom not only dismisses credible claims of unprecedented anti-Semitic abuse and harassment faced by Jewish students and staff on university campuses worldwide, including at UCT over the past 18 months, but also suggests these claims are fabricated to suppress criticism of Israel. This emerges most clearly in his quoting approvingly of an affidavit from Princeton University's Professor Joan Scott that has likewise been submitted to the UCT Council. According to Scott, [Zionist] students on US campuses 'express their discomfort in terms of feeling 'unsafe' or 'threatened' … when there is little or no evidence of any physical danger they have experienced'. On this Bloom comments, 'And so Daily Maverick could not help but wonder: Was this also the reality of Zionist fears on the UCT campus?' He adds that this would be for the Western Cape Division of the High Court to decide, but of course has already made his own view on the subject quite obvious. Beyond his misrepresentations over the purpose of the court application against UCT, what Bloom is also arguably doing here is engaging in what can broadly be characterised as 'anti-Semitism denialism'. According to this way of thinking, not only should claims made by Jews themselves about prejudice against them be treated with scepticism, but their very motives in making them should be called into question. It is not, in other words, only about Jews being objectively wrong when they speak out against anti-Semitism, but that they are being wrong on purpose because they have another agenda. Anti-Semitic prejudice To make an obvious point, portraying Jews as being capable of fabricating persecution narratives about themselves and coercing others into accepting them as true is itself a form of anti-Semitic prejudice. There is even a designated term for this, namely 'The Livingstone Formulation'. Coined by University of London academic David Hirsh, this focuses on the manner, particularly on the political left, in which accusations of anti-Semitism are (almost reflexively) responded to with counterclaims that the complainant is weaponising anti-Semitism to suppress criticism of Israel. As Hirsh shows, this rhetoric device is itself dishonest and propagates anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish power and deceit. Anti-Semitism denialism has a long history. Its most infamous form is Holocaust denial, which asserts that the systematic genocide of European Jewry during World War 2 did not occur and was fabricated by Jews for their own malicious purposes. Those who adhere to such beliefs are for the most part far right Nazi apologists, but anti-Semitism denialism often surfaces on the left as well. One thinks of the persistent insistence by acolytes of the former Soviet Union that there was no problem of anti-Semitism behind the Iron Curtain and that those claiming otherwise were simply engaging in anti-Soviet propaganda. Such knee-jerk defences on the part of the hard left continued throughout the Cold War era, even as Soviet Jewish dissidents were being dispatched to the gulags for such crimes against the state as learning Hebrew, practising their religion and wishing to immigrate to Israel. Then there are those who deny the persecutions that triggered the mass exodus of Jews from Arab-speaking countries following Israel's establishment. That countries like Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Yemen today have no or at best a few dozen Jews still living there, whereas prior to 1948 there were tens of thousands, is either never acknowledged, or attributed to the evil machinations of the Zionists themselves. As a local example of anti-Semitism denialism, I would remind readers of how last year then Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola blandly informed the international community that there was 'no anti-Semitism in South Africa' and that claims to the contrary were 'a nonsense'. This came just weeks after the SA Jewish Board of Deputies had met with President Cyril Ramaphosa and provided him with chapter and verse details on how local anti-Semitism levels had escalated by more than 600% following the 7 October 2023 massacres. It was also despite legal proceedings, both criminal and civil, having been instituted in a number of these cases. In the wake of Lamola's statements, social media was awash with claims that Zionist Jews were fabricating charges of anti-Semitism to divert attention away from what was happening on the Israel-Gaza front. The self-same insinuations that Bloom makes in his article, in other words. A common feature of anti-Semitism denialism in all these cases is that those propagating it do so in the face of extensive and conclusive evidence to the contrary. Which brings us to the issue about anti-Semitism on university campuses. Has there indeed been a significant escalation in this regard, as Jewish rights organisations insist, or, as Kevin Bloom and his ilk would have you believe, are such claims no more than a Zionist sleight of hand aimed at silencing and penalising those who speak out against Israel? In actuality, it is not a question at all. That university and college campuses globally have become hotbeds of anti-Semitism is attested to by a copious and ever-growing body of evidence that is as conclusive as it is damning. However much the actions and rhetoric of those concerned might be couched in anti-imperialist, anti-apartheid or anti-Zionist narratives, in practice it consistently manifests in Jews on campus being subjected to acts of intimidation, gaslighting, character assassination, exclusion, verbal or written insults and sometimes physical violence. Harassment, vandalism and assault Since the events of October 7 there have been a plethora of detailed investigative reports demonstrating the extent to which the situation has deteriorated at institutions of higher learning throughout the Western world. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks incidents of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the US, found that incidents on college and university campuses spiked by 321% in 2023, most occurring after 7/10, and the 2024 figures were not much better. Typical examples of the incidents recorded were Jewish students being routinely confronted by militant anti-Israel activists making such statements as 'Death to Jews', 'go back to Poland' and 'the 7th of October is going to be every day for you'. Beyond the in-your-face abuse, insults and threats has been the practice of social shaming, whereby students and faculty are encouraged to avoid normalising relations with Jewish students. The parallel situation in the UK was described in a report by the Community Security Trust, whose purpose is to work for the safety and security of the UK Jewish community in December 2024. This found that in the academic years covered by the report (2022-2024) 325 university-related anti-Semitic incidents were recorded, which was more than double the figure recorded in the previous report. Recorded instances included 10 cases of assault and 21 of damage and desecration of Jewish property. Globally, leading universities are waking up to the fact that they have a real problem, and some at least have been doing something about it. One is the University of London's Goldsmiths College, which commissioned an independent inquiry that in due course concluded that Jewish students and staff had indeed experienced anti-Semitism in the course of their studies or work. The Council and Executive Board of Goldsmiths fully endorsed the findings, stating that anti-Semitism would not be tolerated and that the college would be 'acting against such behaviour as a form of racism'. Similarly, Harvard University established a task force 'to examine the recent history of anti-Semitism and its current manifestations on the Harvard campus with the aim of identifying causes of and contributing factors to anti-Jewish behaviours'. The final report of that body, released in April this year, confirmed that instances of anti-Semitic harassment at the university had reached unacceptably high levels. One of the most alarming indicators of the breakdown of Harvard's on-campus community was found to be the multiple accounts of social shunning that had emerged in the course of the investigation. From these two credible investigations (among others that have been conducted) one can easily see that anti-Semitism on both US and UK campuses has not been overstated or even invented by the Jews themselves, but is a genuine and pervasive menace. Since both were commissioned or conducted by the relevant academic institutions themselves, Bloom would not even have the supposed excuse of rejecting them on the grounds of their having been sponsored by Jewish organisations. Why, then, does he persist in disregarding this body of evidence? Regrettably, and in stark contrast to other South African university campuses, UCT has also reportedly witnessed a significant increase in anti-Semitic attacks. Contrary to the offensive strawman argument that Jews/Zionists seek to conflate all legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, no mainstream Jewish leaders are in actuality seeking to shut down debate on this, or any other subject. Robust but acceptable discourse The problem rather is when what can be regarded as robust but acceptable discourse over issues that are well known to be highly emotive and bitterly contested goes beyond simply engaging in free speech to amount to intimidation, harassment, incitement to violence and racially charged hate speech. Those who wish to condemn Israel, even in extreme, exaggerated terms, have every right to do so. However, conveying intense hostility toward Jews who are connected to Israel in a way that violates their dignity, threatens their safety and deprives them of their right to express their own beliefs and opinions is another matter altogether, and indeed, must be regarded as anti-Semitic behaviour. Particularly since October 7, but also before that, the SAJBD received regular reports of anti-Semitic attacks. These have included Jewish students being physically assaulted while praying on campus, slapped, having posters they were carrying ripped out of their hands and torn up, and those displaying outward manifestations of their Judaism being crassly insulted and not infrequently threatened. All these incidents have been brought to the notice of the university, with disciplinary action being taken against one of the perpetrators, but not to date against others. There is another kind of harassment that is going on, more low level and not as egregious and in-your-face, but much more pervasive, and, from a psychological point of view, just as harmful. By way of example, a Jewish student at UCT reported sending a neutral question on a course WhatsApp group asking when their essays would be returned, to which another student replied: ' When Palestine is free', and to which several classmates responded with agreement, emojis, and affirmations. This was in a context that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Israel-Palestine issue, but was motivated solely by the student's being Jewish. The anti-Israel boycott resolution adopted by the UCT Council last year has only legitimised this kind of 'othering', exacerbating hostility towards Jewish students on campus, emboldening those who use anti-Zionism as a smokescreen for anti-Semitism, and reinforcing the idea that Jewish students must disavow Israel to be accepted. Bloom attempts to turn all of this on its head by holding anti-Zionist Jewish dissidents (like himself) to be victims of harassment and persecution by fellow Jews seeking to intimidate them into silence. This rather clumsy piece of misdirection quickly falls apart when considering the objective evidence of who is trying to censor who. On the contrary, it is those who wish to identify as Zionist and express views supportive of that ideology and of the State of Israel who are being bullied, smeared, silenced and sidelined. In a democratic society, this should not be allowed to happen anywhere. And that is especially true when it comes to universities, institutions whose fundamental purpose is to provide intellectual spaces where a full spectrum of opinions on the widest variety of topics can be safely expressed and civilly debated. DM
IOL News
2 hours ago
- IOL News
Senior clerics visit Gaza following deadly church strike
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa (L) and a members of a Christian visit the Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City on July 18. Image: Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP Two of the most senior Christian leaders in Jerusalem travelled to Gaza on Friday after Israeli fire killed three at the Palestinian territory's only Catholic church, provoking international condemnation. The rare visit came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel "deeply regrets" the strike on the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and blamed a "stray" round. Israel strictly controls access to the territory, where the civil defence agency on Friday reported that further Israeli strikes killed at least 25 Palestinians, including a family of five in their own home. Local people used their bare hands to pick through the debris in the southern city of Khan Yunis in a desperate search for survivors. "Entire families are buried under the rubble," Louai Abu Sahloul, a relative of the victims, told AFP, adding that the relentless wave of strikes was taking its toll. "People are like walking dead, tired of hunger, pain and destruction everywhere in Gaza," he said. The Catholic Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Theophilos III, headed to Gaza and met local Christians following Thursday's strike. They visited both the Holy Family Church and the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in what the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem called "the shared pastoral solicitude of the Churches of the Holy Land and their concern for the community of Gaza". The Greek Orthodox Jerusalem Patriarchate called it a "powerful expression" of church unity and solidarity. 'Stop the needless slaughter' The clerics last week visited the occupied West Bank with diplomatic representatives from more than 20 countries after an attack on an ancient Byzantine-era church blamed on Israeli settlers. Both churches said the Gaza visit had been facilitated with the help of aid agencies and also involved the delivery of food supplies and emergency medical equipment. In Italy, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the delegation arrived with 500 tonnes of aid for local civilians. Pope Leo XIV, the leader of the Catholic Church, said he was "deeply saddened" by the strike on the church, where hundreds of displaced people were sheltering, including children and those with special needs. His predecessor, Pope Francis, kept in regular contact with parish priest Father Gabriel Romanelli and repeatedly called for an end to the Gaza war, which has created a humanitarian crisis for the people living there. Romanelli was one of 10 people injured in the strike and was seen with bandages on his leg. The Vatican said the pope called Pizzaballa on Friday morning to ask about the situation in Gaza and the condition of Romanelli and the other wounded. "He expressed his support and affection to the entire community gathered around the parish and those suffering from the violence, and reiterated his intention to do everything possible to stop the needless slaughter of innocents," a statement read. The pontiff also spoke with Netanyahu and expressed concern about the "dramatic humanitarian situation", renewing his appeal for negotiations, a ceasefire and the end of the war, a separate statement added. A spokesman at Netanyahu's office told AFP the conversation was "friendly" and the prime minister expressed his regret. 'Mistake' Both Italy and France called the strike "unacceptable" while US President Donald Trump called Netanyahu after having "not a positive reaction" on hearing about it, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. "It was a mistake by the Israelis to hit that Catholic church, that's what the prime minister relayed to the president," she told reporters. The Jerusalem churches, which have jurisdiction for Catholics and members of the Greek Orthodox Church across Israel and the Palestinian territories, said they had ensured the medical evacuation of those injured. One was in a critical condition and two others were seriously wounded, the Jerusalem Patriarchate said. Out of the Gaza Strip's population of more than two million, about 1,000 are Christians. Most of them are Orthodox but according to the Latin Patriarchate, there are about 135 Catholics in the territory. Israel's military maintains that it does not deliberately target churches and religious sites. But the Jerusalem Patriarchate said there had been "repeated assaults on Christian holy sites in Gaza". The war was sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Israel's military retaliation has killed at least 58,667 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. The UN considers these figures to be reliable. AFP
IOL News
5 hours ago
- IOL News
BRICS: Economic Power, Soft Power or Both?
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attend a plenary session of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025. BRICS leaders at a summit on Sunday took aim at US President Donald Trump's "indiscriminate" import tariffs and recent Israeli-US strikes on Iran. Image: AFP BRICS, more recently, BRICS+ is playing an increasingly prominent role on the global stage through both its economic strength and growing diplomatic influence. Representing nearly half the world's population and a substantial portion of global GDP and trade, the group has demonstrated clear economic power. At the same time, its efforts to promote multilateralism, cultural exchange, and peaceful conflict resolution reflect a deliberate use of soft power. Its core focus areas—political cooperation, financial development, and people-to-people engagement—showcase a blend of hard and soft influence. From launching the New Development Bank to encouraging trade in local currencies and hosting youth and academic forums, BRICS is a formidable force in a shifting global order. BRICS upholds three main pillars: (1) political and security; (2) economic and financial; and (3) cultural and people to people cooperation. Regarding pillar (1) the grouping addresses global security issues and aims to improve global governance through the promotion of multilateralism. For example: BRICS foreign ministers convene routinely on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Their cooperation also extends to areas such as counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, and broader security issues. (2) It enhances trade, investment, financial stability, and promotes sustainable development. For example, Finance ministers from BRICS countries hold frequent meetings, often in parallel with gatherings of the G20 and the IMF/World Bank. Their joint efforts focus on boosting trade among member states, improving the resilience of supply chains, and enhancing financial collaboration in areas like digital innovation and sustainable finance. (3) The grouping intentionally cultivates cultural exchange, academic collaboration, and the overall strengthening of people-to-people connections. For example, BRICS hosts a range of activities and programmes, such as scholarly forums, cultural celebrations, and youth exchange initiatives. If this makes the reader think that the grouping is just a talkshop, recent developments have proven the opposite. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading BRICS is seen as an economic power due to its aforementioned global standings in terms of GDP and resources. It is supported by the world's second-largest economy, China, and others like India; Brazil; and Russia. The grouping holds 24% of total global exchanges in international trade. This allows it to have a formidable global economic influence. It owns approximately 72% of the globe's reserves of rare earth metals; 43.6% of global oil production; 36% of the world's natural gas production; and 78.2% of the global production of mineral coal. It has, through its economic and financial pillar emphasised intra-BRICS trade and equitable global economic development, where BRICS+ countries are provided increased sovereignty regarding its conduct, particularly in trade. The grouping has established its own bank, known today as the New Development Bank (NDB), discussed in 2014 and established officially in 2015, showed the core BRICS member countries pool finances to form the bank. This allowed for countries to be given loans with fairer loan terms that does not impede on a countries economic sovereignty. This issue was brought to the BRICS Summit in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, where this 'fairer' financial model was discussed as a major step in global transformation regarding multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The NDB, however, has to think carefully if it wants to be increasingly efficient in this 'fairer' model as it is still institutionally tied to the US dollar and concomitant US sanctions against other BRICS members. In the spheres of finance and currency at the BRICS summit, there was a realistic atmosphere seeing the replacement of the United States (US) dollar with a coordinated system, not dominated but shared by many currencies as an unrealistic endeavour in the near future. Here it is important to note that the grouping does not wish to destroy the US dollar but rather create a fairer global financial system. The grouping is thus of the opinion that BRICS countries should increase trade in their own currencies as a mitigating force regarding US dollar dominance. In alignment with BRICS' mission to address global issues and insecurity through the promotion of multilateralism, BRICS has signed the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) agreement, where it pledged no formal alliance with any major power bloc. The grouping believes in a non-violent approach to conflict through dialogue. This, however, does not mean that the grouping will be mum to wrongs committed by one country/countries toward another. The BRICS summit received global attention, particularly when calling out the US for its attack and Iran–during its confrontation with Israel–arguably exacerbating conflict within the region–Iran attacked the US base in Qatar soon after. In the Russia and Ukraine conflict, the grouping has continued to facilitate a peaceful settlement of conflict between the two countries. BRICS is neither solely an economic powerhouse nor purely a soft power bloc; it is a strategic blend of both. Its significant share of global GDP, abundant natural resources, and strong presence in international trade demonstrate clear economic strength. At the same time, its emphasis on multilateralism, cultural exchange, and peaceful conflict resolution reflects a conscious use of soft power. Through its three interconnected pillars: political and security cooperation; economic and financial collaboration; and people-to-people engagement, BRICS promotes a global model based on fairness, sovereignty, and inclusive development. Whether through the NDB's efforts to increase trade in local currencies, or cultural and academic initiatives, BRICS is using economic leverage to build credibility while advancing soft power to influence global norms and foster cooperation. By: Cole Jackson Lead Associate Chinese & South American Specialist * MORE ARTICLES ON OUR WEBSITE ** Follow @brics_daily on X/Twitter & @brics_daily on Instagram for daily BRICS+ updates
