The BRICS grouping must rank as one of the oddest geopolitical blocs in history. It was born in 2001 from the mind of a Wall Street economist as little more than a mnemonic shorthand device to describe the growing importance of developing economies. Ever since, the five countries it comprises—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, a later addition—have been trying to transform their snappy acronym into a global player. Nobody has promoted the ambition to leverage the BRICS bloc into a source of influence more enthusiastically than Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sees the grouping as a potential vehicle [...]
Dilma Rousseff has faced worse. Nothing that happens to her as president of Brazil could compare with the physical pain inflicted on her by professional torturers from the military dictatorship she fought to topple as a young revolutionary. But now that she is the one holding power, she is facing an avalanche of troubles, including the wrath of the people, the perils of a global economy and the stubbornly uncooperative forces of nature. Sadly for Rousseff, all signs indicate her problems are only about to grow worse. The dire signals started emerging a long time ago. But the evidence that [...]
2015 has already been a very difficult year for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. After a hard-fought re-election last October, the most competitive in the past two decades, Rousseff is now confronted with the need to implement meaningful fiscal adjustments amid declining approval ratings and popular unrest, after hundreds of thousands took to the streets in protest Sunday. The series of negative developments since her re-election has been dramatic but is likely to get even worse, with Rousseff in the eye of a political perfect storm. The scandal and ongoing investigations surrounding state-controlled oil giant Petrobras are the biggest concern, having [...]
