Leaders of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - converged on Johannesburg on Tuesday (Aug 22) for a summit where they will weigh expanding the bloc as some members push to forge it into a counterweight to the West. Heightened global tensions provoked by the Ukraine war and a growing rivalry between China and the United States have added urgency to a drive to strengthen the bloc, which has at times suffered from internal divisions and a lack of coherent vision. South Africa hosted China's Xi Jinping, the leading proponent of enlarging BRICS, for a state visit on Tuesday morning ahead of ... (full story)