The world holds its breath as final preparations are made for the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa. This year, bloc expansion seems to be at the forefront of the agenda, with over 40 nations expressing interest in joining. How will the summit change the global geopolitical landscape? Veteran international affairs observer Pepe Escobar explains.
Johannesburg is gearing up for the 15th BRICS Summit, which will kick off on Tuesday and run through Thursday, with this year’s theme entitled "|BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism."
"Multilateralism" is perhaps the most significant word to describe the gathering nations' intentions, with the BRICS' combined economic might already outweighing that of the G7, and, when accounting for the human, geographic, economic and resource potential of countries that have expressed interest in joining, pose a serious challenge to the US-led international order.
"The great potential for creating a fair and democratic architecture of international relations lies in structures like BRICS," Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said last week on the eve of the summit.
Pointing to the bloc name's similarity to the English word "bricks", Naryshkin indicated that BRICS is a subtle nod to the US and its allies that the so-called "rules based international order" is on its way out.....more gelow
Nvidia would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday, Bloomberg reported. A Chinese expert said the move is shortsighted, noting that tightening restrictions despite domestic industry opposition will only accelerate China’s tech innovation and further diminish Nvidia’s chances of reentering the Chinese market.
Known as the Secure and Feasible Exports Act, the bill would order the US Commerce Department to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries, including China and Russia for at least 30 months. Any processors more powerful than those already approved for export to those nations would be subject to the measure, the Bloomberg report said.
The legislation comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the....more below
A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent's analysis of public court records.
The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence ...
Hundreds of retired Israeli police officers have urged the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, to reject Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in corruption cases.
On November 30, Netanyahu, who faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust in three separate cases, submitted a formal pardon request to the office of Herzog, claiming the long-running corruption cases were tearing the regime apart.
In a letter to Herzog, about 400 former officers, including ex-commissioners and deputy commissioners, said Netanyahu’s request contains “not even a hint of admission of guilt,” making it unacceptable.
They warned that “such a step without [Netanyahu’s] confession and remorse is liable to ignite severe violence in Israeli society.”.....more below
