00:00 We now go back to South Africa where our special envoy Juno Soner has the latest updates from the second day of the BRICS summit underway in that country.
00:08 Good afternoon from here, from Johannesburg, South Africa.
00:15 The summit of the BRICS, the summit has started its second day.
00:19 The meeting of the presidents has just finished.
00:22 And all of the presidents have expressed themselves in favor of expanding the bloc, which is one of the hot topics here.
00:32 The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, has reminded that the last summit he attended was 2010, where South Africa was still a candidate.
00:42 And the country became a member just one year later in 2011.
00:47 And the Russian president, whose country will assume the presidency of BRICS the next year, 2024,
00:55 has expressed that his country is willing to do everything necessary to implement the decisions taken on this summit,
01:03 at this summit regarding the expansion of the bloc.
01:06 And here comes the breaking news regarding the expansion, which countries will join the BRICS.
01:12 Now, this is no official news, this is not really confirmed news, but two different sources,
01:19 very close to the Brazilian delegation here at the summit, have told us that the following five countries will join BRICS at this summit.
01:29 And these are from Latin America, Argentina, and then from the Middle East, respectively West Asia,
01:35 it is Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
01:42 Again, this is not yet confirmed news, but it comes from sources very close to the Brazilian delegation here at the summit,
01:51 very close to the Brazilian presidency.
01:54 And the sixth country whose membership is still in discussion is Indonesia.
01:59 So, we will keep on monitoring how the discussions continue on these issues, on the enlargement of BRICS,
02:05 but obviously, should all these countries, these five countries, be included into BRICS,
02:10 that would change the landscape, the global landscape, specifically in terms of energy enormously.
02:19 That would be an earthquake in terms of energy global politics.
02:23 We will continue monitoring that for Telesur here in Johannesburg, South Africa.
02:29 Thanks, Janus, for the latest info on this paramount summit.
