Putin to miss BRICS summit by mutual agreement, South Africa says
www.aljazeera.com
Putin’s absence at the summit has been announced by the South African presidency, ending months of speculation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the summit of the BRICS group of nations in South Africa in August “by mutual agreement”, South Africa’s presidency said on Wednesday.

“By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the summit, but the Russian Federation will be represented by Foreign Minister Mr [Sergey] Lavrov,” Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for President Cyril Ramaphosa, said in a statement.

South Africa faced a dilemma in hosting the summit because, as a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March for alleged war crimes, it would theoretically be required to arrest him if he were to attend.

The dilemma led to intense debate in South Africa and the West about whether the warrant would be executed, given South Africa’s stance of neutrality on the war in Ukraine and Pretoria’s historic ties to the Kremlin.

In 2015, South Africa also failed to arrest then-Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, who was also the subject of an ICC warrant.

The leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa will attend the summit, the presidency said.

BRICS, a bloc of emerging economic powers comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China was formed in 2019 as BRIC. South Africa joined the following year after an invitation from China, expanding the group.

Ethiopia, Iran and Argentina have also applied to join the bloc.

mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/

    • Carcosa@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Publication: Global Economic Prospects, June 2023

      " In Russia, the contraction this year is envisaged to be milder than initially forecast, partially due to the continued flow of energy exports"

      “In the United States, growth is expected to weaken significantly through 2023 and early 2024, mainly as a result of the lagged effects of the sharp rise in policy rates over the past year”

      “Growth is forecast to strengthen in 2023, to rates higher than projected in January, mainly reflecting developments in the regions’ [second] largest economy—the Russian Federation.”

      " Output in Russia is projected to contract less than anticipated in January mainly due to more resilient-than-expected oil production and higher- than-expected growth momentum from 2022"

      “Increases in U.S. interest rates associated with inflation or reaction shocks should lead to more adverse spillovers because rising interest rates would coincide with weakening U.S. economic activity and dampened investor sentiment.”

      "The recent moderation in U.S. yields since the onset of U.S. banking sector stress appears to reflect negative real shocks amid heightened risk aversion and expectations of slower U.S. growth. "

      https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6e892b75-2594-4901-a036-46d0dec1e753/content

      • mea_rah@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Right, now if you stop cherrypicking sentences that fit your agenda and just look at the numbers, for 2022-2024, the prediction is for russia to have negative growth of -1.1% while for USA this all adds up to 4% growth.

        And again, all of the previous stuff about sizes of economy applies.

        • Carcosa@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          Never once did I claim that the Russian economy would overtake the United states simply that the 2023 growth projections were higher for Russia than the United States. I will say you are correct regarding the size and cumulative natures of GDP growth, but add the caveat that this Russian economy growth is in spite of sanctions and removal from the SWIFT banking system.

          I’ll quote my original post:

          Russia is not on the verge of collapse, the IMF predicted that Russian GDP would rebound slightly in 2023 to 0.3 percent growth, and in 2024, the Russian economy is predicted to grow by 2.1 percent.

          https://www.newsweek.com/russias-economy-forecast-outperform-us-within-two-years-1777788

          That’s higher than the IMF’s projection for the United States, which it said would see only 1 percent GDP growth that year, and down from a predicted 1.4 percent in 2023, and the 2 percent the U.S. enjoyed in 2022.

          https://tradingeconomics.com

          www.statista.com

          I’ll again ask for any support to your claim that Russia will collapse politically

          MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/. The proportion of Russian citizens’ confidence in President Vladimir Putin amounted to over 80%, according to the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center that published the results of a survey conducted between April 10 and 16 among 1,600 respondents aged over 18.

          “When asked about trust in Putin, 80.1% of respondents answered positively (+0.4% over the week), the approval rate of the Russian president’s work was up by 0.4% and stood at 77.5%,” the pollster noted.

          https://tass.com/society/1607641

          I acknowledge the bias with tass

          "Prigozhin has insisted that Putin wasn’t the target of his mutiny. Rather, he wanted to depose the leadership of the Russian defense ministry, with whom he’d been feuding. But Putin came out against Prigozhin’s armed march. And after a daylong revolt, Prigozhin backed down and agreed to go into exile in Belarus to avoid treason charges against him and his Wagner Group mercenary forces.

          Pomeranz noted that, aside from exiled or jailed opposition leaders, there are no serious figures openly styling themselves as alternatives to Putin in Russia right now." https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/30/vladimir-putin-ousted-wagner-group-00104272

          Putin’s ability to secure the support of regional governors and heads of states within the Russian Federation during the PMC Wagner rebellion highlighted his enduring influence in the political realms. This crisis served as a testament to the unity and support that Putin commands from key figures in Russia.

          In the broader post-Soviet context, Putin’s phone conversations with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Turkey provided him with a clear understanding of who stood by his side during this tumultuous period.

          https://www.specialeurasia.com/2023/06/24/putin-wagner-crisis-power/

          • mea_rah@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            Never once did I claim that the Russian economy would overtake the United states

            The article you shared did, which I pointed out. I’m disputing your article, I’m not saying you wrote it. Not sure where you came with that idea.

            simply that the 2023 growth projections were higher for Russia than the United States

            Higher in what sense? Comparing percentual growth of two economies that are not even in the same league is misleading at best. Somalia has predicted growth of 3.7% in 2024. What does that say compared to russia? Nothing really. It makes as much sense comparing percentual growth of US economy to russia’s. USA could drop to 0.5% growth and russia could achieve whooping 5% growth and in actual absolute numbers, the US economy would still grow faster.

            I’ll again ask for any support to your claim that Russia will collapse politically

            By “claim” you probably mean my personal opinion which I declared as such?

            I feel like you’re just making up some non-existing claims and then keep disputing them. I have no time for that.