{"id":14932,"date":"2026-01-10T09:54:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/14932\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T09:54:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:54:06","slug":"china-russia-iran-begin-brics-plus-naval-drills-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/14932\/","title":{"rendered":"China, Russia, Iran begin BRICS Plus naval drills in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> China, Russia, and Iran launched joint naval exercises in South African waters on Saturday, marking the start of a week-long BRICS Plus operation aimed at ensuring maritime safety, South African authorities said. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"491\" data-end=\"770\">The drills, dubbed Exercise WILL FOR PEACE 2026, bring together navies from the expanded <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/news\/brazil-says-brics-payment-system-feasible\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BRICS<\/a> group\u2014which includes Brazil, India, China, Russia, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and the UAE\u2014for joint safety operations and interoperability exercises, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News.Az<\/a> reports, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"772\" data-end=\"1024\">South Africa emphasized that the exercises are apolitical and focused on improving maritime security and collaboration. \u201cThere is no hostility towards any country,\u201d said Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1026\" data-end=\"1299\">The expanded BRICS bloc is increasingly seen by members as a counterweight to Western economic dominance, prompting criticism from some pro-Western political parties and U.S. officials, including President Donald Trump, who has called the grouping \u201canti-American.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1301\" data-end=\"1430\">Observers from Brazil, Egypt, and Ethiopia also attended the opening, highlighting the bloc\u2019s growing international engagement.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China, Russia, and Iran launched joint naval exercises in South African waters on Saturday, marking the start of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63,9885,235,176,584,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-14932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-brics-plus","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-south-africa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}