"The new Eastern Bloc: China, Russia and India are joining forces"

This month, as Newsweek goes to print, an international organisation all but unknown inthe West is set to announce that its membership will soon include countries representing halfthe world's population. If the hopes of its leading backers – particularly Russia – are realised, the 15th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Russian city of Ufa will mark the moment when this previously obscure body starts to demand much closer attention from the West.