SOUTH AFRICA - This week it was announced that Iran and Argentina had applied to join the BRICS. The BRICS — which until recently has been made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — is a forum that allows countries outside of Western developed economies to forge alliances on economic issues. As it gets larger, its influence and economic importance grows. Last week at one of the BRICS forums President Putin announced that Russia, alongside China and other BRICS nations, was getting ready to launch a new global reserve currency made up of a basket of BRICS currencies. If successful, such a reserve currency would be a direct threat to the currently dominant US dollar.

SOUTH AFRICA - Leaders of the BRICS group have decided to invite six more countries to join their alliance. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have all been invited to become members of BRICS, said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who hosted a three-day summit of the emerging markets group in Johannesburg this week. Their membership will take effect January 1, 2024. “We value the interest of other countries in building a partnership with BRICS,” Ramaphosa said. “We have tasked our Foreign Ministers to further develop the BRICS partner country model and a list of prospective partner countries and report by the next Summit.”

JAPAN - Japan has begun its controversial discharge of treated waste water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking protests in the region and retaliation from Beijing.

FRANCE - The West should stop talking about sending arms to Kiev and engage diplomatically with Moscow, the ex-French president has said. The Western push to incorporate Ukraine into NATO can only lead to an escalation of the conflict with Russia, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said, expressing doubt that the opposing parties in the stand-off have used all the tools at their disposal to achieve peace. "My analysis is that the world and Europe are dancing on the edge of a volcano. It can get out of hand at any moment. There have been enough deaths, and it seems to me that the path of diplomacy and discussion has not been used to the end and that it is now appropriate to use it."

USA - In an age of overcriminalization, round-the-clock surveillance, and a police state eager to flex its muscles in a show of power, we are all guilty of some transgression or other. By accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc. It’s getting harder to hide, even if you think you’ve got nothing to hide.

NETHERLANDS - The Netherlands and Denmark said on Sunday that they would give Ukraine long-demanded F-16 fighter jets. The move was announced during a meeting between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, as the leaders toured an airbase in Eindhoven. Both the Netherlands and Denmark are in the process of phasing out older US-made F-16 fighter jets and replacing them with modern F-35s. Denmark has around 40 aircraft of the older type in its inventory. Kiev has long demanded combat aircraft from its Western backers, arguing that F-16s – and, potentially, planes of other types – would help turn the tide in the conflict with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly urged the West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with sophisticated weaponry, arguing that it will only prolong the hostilities without changing the outcome.

USA - Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former head of the Vatican’s highest court, warns in a new book that a move toward “synodality” is causing “evident and grave harm” to the Church. In his foreword for The Synodal Process Is a Pandora’s Box by José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcue, Cardinal Burke notes that the synodal path already put into practice in the Church in Germany has spread “confusion and error and their fruit, division – indeed schism” and with the imminent Synod on Synodality in Rome, “it is rightly to be feared that the same confusion and error and division will be visited upon the universal Church.”

VATICAN - The term is often used to describe the process of fraternal collaboration and discernment that bodies like the synod were created to express. But some critics have suggested that the term is vaguely defined, and could be used in a move toward a more democratic or parliamentary way of governing the Church and teaching doctrine.

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.