SOUTH AFRICA - The BRICS leaders adopted a declaration of their 15th summit in Johannesburg, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday. "The Johannesburg II Declaration has been adopted," the South African leader said. According to the document, six new members, namely, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will join BRICS next year. The BRICS summit is taking place in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24. South Africa serves as the rotating chair of the BRICS group this year. The country’s BRICS Sherpa Anil Suklal said earlier that about 30 countries were seeking to join BRICS.

SOUTH AFRICA - The BRICS group of nations, bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, does not waste energy on discussions about geopolitical rivalry with other groups, such as G7, South Africa’s BRICS Sherpa Anil Sooklal has told TASS. "We don't waste our energy on discussions in terms of rivalry and counterbalance and so forth. Because that's not what BRICS is about," he said. "BRICS is about the global south. It's about reforming the global architecture and working towards a more equitable global order," the South African diplomat added.

RUSSIA - Next year’s BRICS summit in the Russian Volga area city of Kazan will be the first top-level event of the group with the attendance of newly adopted member states, South Africa’s BRICS Sherpa Anil Sooklal has told TASS. "Definitely. That's the decision. They have taken a decision to expand, so Russia will be the first meeting of the expanded BRICS family," he said, answering to a reporter’s question. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said earlier the leaders had eventually come to terms about accepting new members and approved a document specifying membership’s principles, requirements and procedure.

HAWAII - Damage from the deadliest wildfire in modern US history, which killed over 100 people and destroyed countless homes and businesses in Hawaii, could range from $4 billion to $6 billion, according to estimates by Moody’s RMS. The global catastrophe risk modeling and solutions company said on Tuesday the estimate reflects direct and indirect losses from damage to physical assets. It does not take into account the blaze’s effect on Hawaii’s gross domestic product, government spending on the response to the catastrophe, or the social cost of the fires.

INDIA - The lander module from India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully touched down on the surface of the Moon on Wednesday. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Indians across the globe celebrated the achievement, which makes India the fourth nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, the US, and China. The event was live streamed by the ISRO on its YouTube channel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi watched the landing from South Africa, where he is attending the BRICS summit. “We have seen history being made, and this makes our life worth it. This is the beginning of a developed and ‘New India,’” he told ISRO scientists. Uniquely, the Chandrayaan-3 mission is the first in history to land near the lunar south pole.

USA - Anthony Fauci has reemerged from retirement and urged the Biden administration to implement a “strict lockdown” this winter for all unvaccinated Americans. The disgraced government bureaucrat appeared at a university virtual event recently titled, “Pandemic Lessons and Role of Faculty in Pandemic Preparedness with Dr Anthony Fauci.” During the appearance Fauci made it clear that he supports locking down and punishing those in society who are not yet vaccinated. Fauci falsely claimed that New York City was overrun and had “cooler trucks outside because they had no places to put the bodies.”

JAPAN - Fishermen from the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima will continue opposing Japan’s decision to dump radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean, starting on August 24, the head of an industry association told Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura at a meeting in Iwaki. "Although you approved the [water] discharge decision at a Cabinet meeting, we will continue protesting against this process," NHK quoted Tetsu Nozaki as saying. In response, Nishimura emphasized that Japanese officials could no longer postpone releasing the water as he called on Fukushima fishermen to understand. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said earlier that the discharge of water that was used to cool the reactors at the plant would begin on August 24, barring any obstacles in terms of the weather or sea conditions. According to Kyodo, in the 2023 fiscal year (ending on March 31, 2024) as much as 31.2 metric tons of wastewater will be released into the ocean. The overall concentration of tritium in it would be about 5 trillion becquerels.

USA - Tucker Carlson, of Fox News fame, recently met with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic in Budapest, Hungary. The journalist pointed out that the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline has put a serious strain on the European Union’s economy and mentioned that the world was “resetting” in reaction to the conflict in Ukraine and the West’s pledged support for Kiev. Carlson raises some good issues, and an important one to expand upon is the fact that the EU economy is lagging significantly since the outbreak of the war last year. A June piece by the Financial Times titled ‘Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing’ details how the EU is now considerably dependent on the US for its technological, security, and economic needs.

EUROPE - Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has argued that Western politicians need to be more realistic in their attempts to isolate Russia, as the country will always be the European Union's neighbour and a key international player. Speaking on Monday at a panel discussion in Spain, Schallenberg cited the 20th Century German diplomat Egon Bahr, the architect of Ostpolitik – the policy of normalising relations with the East during the Cold War – who said: “America is irreplaceable, but Russia is unmovable”

SOUTH AFRICA - BRICS will become economically more powerful than the G7, the Russian president said in an address to the Johannesburg summit. The US dollar is losing its global role in an “objective and irreversible” process, the Russian president told participants at the BRICS Summit in South Africa on Tuesday. Vladimir Putin spoke via videolink, after choosing not to attend the event in person. De-dollarization is “gaining momentum” Putin declared, adding that members of the group of major emerging economies are seeking to reduce their reliance on the greenback in mutual transactions.

UK - Britain's high streets are enduring a scourge of shoplifting targeted by county lines-style gangs stealing items to order as thefts rise by more than a quarter in a year. Chain retailers and independent businesses are suffering from a crime epidemic fuelled by people struggling with food bills amid high inflation, experts say.Small gangs are 'hitting' stores in what the British Independent Retailers Association described as 'stealing to order' and compared to the county lines issue for drugs. More businesses are investing in CCTV but many smaller retailers cannot afford security guards and face all of their profits being wiped out by a successful theft. Reported retail thefts have now risen by 27 per cent across ten of the UK's largest cities - and were up by 68 per cent in some, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said.

USA - There are reports circulating that colleges and offices are beginning to reinstate COVID mask mandates and contact tracing despite no new cases of the virus being reported. The Atlanta Journal 'Constitution' reported Monday that Morris Brown College, a black private liberal arts college has reinstated the measures as part of a “precautionary step.” The report notes that students and staff will all be asked to mask up while on campus, only one week after classes began.

USA - Amid all the talk of an imminent planetary catastrophe caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, another fact is often ignored: global greening is happening faster than climate change. The amount of vegetation growing on the earth has been increasing every year for at least 30 years. The evidence comes from the growth rate of plants and from satellite data. In 2016 a paper was published by 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries that analysed satellite data and concluded that there had been a roughly 14% increase in green vegetation over 30 years. The study attributed 70% of this increase to the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The lead author on the study, Zaichun Zhu of Beijing University, says this is equivalent to adding a new continent of green vegetation twice the size of the mainland United States.

GREECE - Firefighters made a horrifying discovery after battling a raging wildfire that has gripped northeastern Greece for four days. Eighteen bodies were found in the Avanta area of Alexandroupolis. Authorities are now probing whether these victims were migrants who might have entered the country via Turkey's nearby border. This shocking find comes as hundreds of firefighters battle numerous wildfires fuelled by strong winds across Greece. In the last 24 hours, two people lost their lives, and two firefighters were injured in separate incidents.

CANADA - Around 19,000 people have fled the area after fires broke out . Officials in Canada have declared a state of emergency as the "worst wildfire season ever" forced thousands of people to flee their homes. David Eby, the Premier of British Columbia, says the state of emergency means chiefs can impose travel restrictions. It comes as he pleads for people to avoid the central Interior and south-eastern parts of BC. Eby says access to emergency accommodation in Interior is "becoming increasingly tight" as more and more people are forced out of their homes.