BRIC countries

First came the booming economies. Then came the rush of investors. Now the so-called BRIC nations -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- are talking about forming a political alliance.

Move over BRIC. RIC or the troika of Russia, India and China are taking over. A regional formation will take up international issues like the reform of the UN and the Security Council, according to Konstantin V Vnukov, director, first Asia department, Russian foreign ministry, and head of delegation for trilateral cooperation between India, Russia and China, on a visit to the capital for the seventh ministerial of the troika.

Carlyle Group, the world's second- biggest private-equity firm, plans to raise as much as $4 billion to invest in Asian companies as the credit freeze stalls U.S. and European leveraged buyouts, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The continued rise of the emerging economies, particularly India and China, is never far from the headlines. What impact these economies will have on the twenty-first century is the subject of much debate, with the possibility of a shift in global political power a recurring theme. It is often assumed that the emerging economies are following the same path to development that the established economic powers did - but this assumption is worth questioning.

Does the decline of U.S. geopolitical hegemony make multilateral global governance less likely or more likely? A feature story on the CBS Sunday Morning program yesterday dealt with the shifting world economy and particularly with the rise of economic power in Asia.

The French government will lobby hard to have at least four more permanent members added to the UN Security Council and to transform the G8 into a G13, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday.

Bric - another acronym every silicon.com reader should be aware of and, no, it's nothing to do with Microsoft or operating systems. It actually stands for Brazil, Russia, India, and China and was coined by the investment bank Goldman Sachs when they published a report titled Dreaming of Brics in 2003. The report was essentially some controlled future gazing, based on economic fundamentals and projections right out to 2050.

The world's perception of China as a major global power is growing, with many people believing it will rival the United States in influence by 2020, according to a major survey released this week. Russia's image as a world power has also rebounded sharply in the last two years, while India and Brazil are expected to emerge rapidly as economic and political heavyweights, according to the survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a German research group.

A new study finds the most people around the world see the United States' role as a global power diminishing. Meanwhile, though almost half of Germans see their country as a world player, they also see that role shrinking over time.

The "BRIC" nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - are all experiencing rising inflation and adopting similar measures to prevent prices of goods spiraling out of control, according to a report by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).