
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin today presided at the closing session of a summit of the Brics bloc, praising its role as a counterbalance to what he called the West’s “perverse methods.”
The three-day summit in the city of Kazan covered the deepening of financial co-operation, including the development of alternatives to Western-dominated payment systems, efforts to settle regional conflicts and the expansion of the Brics group of nations.
The alliance that initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa when it was founded in 2009 has expanded to embrace Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE

ROGER McKENZIE expounds on the motivation that drove him to write a book that anticipates a dawn of a new, fully liberated Africa – the land of his ancestors