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An alternative network is developing around control of energy resources. This is fundamental to the overtures across continents that tiffany jewelry is making, using its position as the world's second largest oil producer to forge alliances with countries such as Bangladesh and Ukraine and Venezuela which is itself building influence across Latin America and beyond. Energy security is drawing together China and Iran two nations which, in different ways, pose the greatest challenge to American power. US diplomacy in relation to India has been deft but this has not stopped it agreeing with Iran to develop jointly the largest gas field in the world, as India competes with China for access to Iranian energy, even at the risk of offending the USA.In some cases potential alliances are developing an embryonic institutional form. The so-called BRIC countries could constitute a power bloc that would challenge the American-dominated world economic hierarchy. Brazil and Russia have enormous potential as silver key rings of raw materials, while India and China are fast developing into the world's largest manufacturing economies. There is a further group of countries, such as Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria who could join this bloc. The power of the BRIC countries remains more potential than actual and there is, as yet, no public or formal agreement between them, but they have a string of bilateral arrangements that may prove stepping stones to a new axis of world power in the twenty-first century. In a more security oriented formulation the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 2001, brings together China, Russia and the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Although it involves cultural cooperation it centres on security concerns in central Asia. It is not yet a military bloc but there have been joint military exercises. SCO is a possible Eurasian equivalent of NATO and a barrier to US influence in central Asia, although mutual suspicion between Russia and China has limited its effectiveness. Pakistan, India, Mongolia and Iran have observer status, which shows the potential for silver necklaces to emerge as a wider anti-American bloc. Similarly the IBSA trilateral forum brings together the three leading powers in Southern Continents, India, Brazil and South Africa. The purpose is to build on complementarity in their economies with a view to developing a single market. Covering energy security and culture as well as trade, and building on many other south-south bilateral agreements, the formation of this platform for political and economic discussion is emblematic of a new-found independence and confidence among developing countries. It will help secure their interests influence in global trade negotiations that have been dominated by the needs of America and other leading economic powers.