The first of the six new South African Airways (SAA) Airbus A330-200 long-range jetliners is sprayed with water to mark its first landing in Cape Town on February 8, 2011. South African MP Dirk Feldman got hosed while flying to India on an official visit, and drunkenly tried to open the SAA plane door mid-flight. (GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images)
South African MP Dirk Feldman "had too much to drink and they say he lost his inhibitions."
India's slow GDP growth and its political hurdles to economic policymaking are two key reasons that India risks losing its investment-grade rating, according to a new report from Standard & Poor's.
Heads of the BRICS countries (L to R) President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa pose prior to the BRICS summit in New Delhi on March 29, 2012. (PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images)
As Indian business leaders pushed for measures to double trade between and among the so-called BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to $500 billion over the next few years, a host of mostly western naysayers stepped forward to claim that the BRICS are too deeply divided to emerge as a coherent negotiating bloc.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps.
The world's leading emerging market economies are challenging tradition. Financial leaders from the BRICS on Saturday said they will consider putting forward their own candidate to take over as president of the World Bank when Robert Zoellick leaves later this year, Reuters reported.
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