“The ultimate suicide bomber is in Washington, DC,” said Dr Gerald Horne, warning that US moves to weaken China could plunge the capitalist world into depression. The election of far-rightist Jair Bolsonaro, “an agent of Yankee imperialism,” in Brazil is bad news for the BRICS, said Horne, a prolific author and professor of history at the University of Houston. “Sooner or later, the BRICS will transmute into the RICS” – Russia, India, China and South Africa, minus Brazil, said Horne.