The BRICS Report

Newspaper offices have been targeted in a shooting in Maryland, United States. An immigration cloud hangs over Brussels ahead of the European Union (EU) Summit.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bongani Bingwa speaks to Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America correspondentSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guest: Professor Victor Sonkin : Lecturer at Moscow State University and freelance Journalist See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A radiation cloud, and a mystery, from Russia is again raising alarms Last month, French and German radiation safety officials identified the southern Ural Mountain region, home of Mayak, as the likely source of a cloud of a radioactive isotope, ruthenium 106, that they detected wafting over Europe. The plant at Mayak reprocesses spent fuel and produces isotopes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While Brazil’s economy as a whole is barely growing, but its e-commerce sector is thriving.   Thousands of Brazilian workers and members of trade unions took to the streets of Sao Paulo in protest , decrying government austerity measures and new labour laws due to come into effect.   Seaborn Networks has announced plans to build a cable system to connect South Africa with Brazil and onward to the US, while interconnecting with another new system, the IOX Cable, which will run from South Africa to India, connecting various Indian Ocean islands along its route.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Delhi is facing an air pollution crisis.   The LGBT community held its annual queer march parade in Delhi.   India is promoting a staple, simple dish as its brand food across the globe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China is churning out a new billionaire every 5 days The US might be the wealthiest country in the world, but it's not churning out the most billionaires. That title goes to China, which added 67 new billionaires in 2016, or one about every five days, according to a report on billionaires by UBS and PwC released Thursday. For the first time ever, Asia had more billionaires (637) than the US (538), the report found. Still, the US maintained a higher concentration of billionaire wealth, but Asia top that measure in the next three to four years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

American President Donald Trump’s adviser, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about meeting a Professor with close ties to the Russian government, highlight the coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian government’s meddling in the 2016 elections; and Kseniya Sobchak, a young glamorous woman, announced her decision to run for President.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stephen speaks to Professor Lyal White about how Brazil is outperforming South Africa, how Mr. Jair Bolsonaro is the Donald Trump of Brazil and a new transportation app for women that is gaining momentum.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stephen speaks to Dr Martin Davies  Managing Director for emerging Markets and Africa Deloitte about Sinopec no longer taking over Chevron/Caltex leaving Glencore to take a chance. China’s anti-corruption drive nets former Justice Minister and Alibaba’s latest retail offering live crabs in vending machines .  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Valery Shantsev, the second regional leader to lose his job this week amid reports that more could go as the Kremlin gears up for a presidential election in March. The reports said that the planned shakeup was connected to preparations for the March 18, 2018, presidential election in which Putin is widely expected to seek and secure a fourth term even though he has not announced his candidacy.   A film about Russia’s last tsar has created violent tensions as erotic scenes shown in trailers have enraged religious conservatives in Russia, who call the film blasphemous for depicting Nicholas in love scenes with the teenage ballerina. The film depicts the true story of a love affair between the future Czar Nicholas II and a young ballerina, Matilda Kshesinskaya, in St. Petersburg’s famed Mariinsky Theatre.    Sputnik celebrating 60th anniversary. Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957 sixty years ago, and is regarded as the start of the US-Soviet space race. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Super Wednesday’ Purge Snares Brazil’s Powerful Wednesday was a dramatic day for Brazil. It began with the arrest of Wesley Batista, the CEO of the world’s largest meat company, JBS SA. Then a former governor of Rio de Janeiro was yanked off-air by police mid-way through his morning radio show. In the afternoon, it was former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s turn to testify in court for a second time on corruption charges.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beijing’s new international airport has spent about 40% of its budget so far, or 30.8 billion yuan ($4.7 billion), as the massive facility gets set to take flight in 2019. The new airport, which will become the world’s largest by area, is located 46 kilometers (28.6 miles) south of Beijing’s city center.   A spike in sales of construction equipment, along with improved profitability at industrial enterprises and a hefty surge in the prices of raw materials such as coal and steel, is fuelling the debate about whether China has entered a new boom cycle. The latest positive indicator came from the excavating machinery branch of the China Construction Machinery Association, which announced that sales of excavators in China in the first eight months of the year rose by a massive 111.1 per cent year on year to 85,766.   The just-concluded summit of the BRICS, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa,in Xiamen, China, highlights China's new initiative for adding new impetus for an open economy, multilateral trade that benefit the world as a whole. China has also put forward the "BRICS Plus" approach by inviting leaders of Egypt, Mexico, Thailand, Tajikistan and Guinea for a dialogue on the sidelines of BRICKS' summit held in Xiamen on Sept 3-5.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A controversial Indian guru convicted of rape on Friday has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Indian media reported that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's followers set a vehicle alight just ahead of sentencing. The self-styled holy man was found guilty of sexually assaulting two female followers and jailed for 10 years for each, to run consecutively. And    India’s Supreme Court recently delivered an interesting judgment making privacy a fundamental right.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

PetroSA signs $400m deal with Russian company The Russian-government owned geological company, Rosgeo, has landed a 400-million USD deal to develop oil and gas blocks off the Cape south coast.   Thousands in Russia's Chechnya protest for Burma's Rohingya Muslims   Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Chechnya to protest what the Chechen leader called “genocide of Muslims” in Myanmar. Myanmar’s security officials and Muslim Rohingya insurgents are accusing each other of atrocities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where nearly 400 people, most of them insurgents, have died in clashes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Reuters on Wednesday that his recent conviction for corruption might mean that his Workers Party will have to field a candidate other than him in next year’s election. Lula’s 2003-11 government lifted millions from poverty and polls show he is still one of Brazil’s most popular politicians.   Brazil scraps an Amazon Reserve to allow mining   The government of Brazil has abolished a vast national reserve bigger than the size of Denmark to open the area to commercial mineral exploration, drawing sharp criticism from environmentalists and political opponents. The area, which straddles the northern states of Amapa and Para, is thought to contain rich deposits of gold, iron, manganese and other minerals.   Brazil is looking to offload its Olympic facilities   Brazil will try once more to rid itself of part of Rio de Janeiro’s Olympic Park, after the city government failed to find a buyer last year, according to two people directly involved in the negotiations. In an effort to find an operator for the park, the ministry of sport will work with the state development bank, BNDES, to determine how the concession will be run.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Chinese government has made the move to serve notice on the country’s foreign investment spree in football clubs, skyscrapers and Hollywood as it moves to curb rising levels of debt among domestic companies.   South Africa has finally launched the African Regional Centre of the New Development Bank. In 2015, the New Development Bank was launched with the opening of the head office in Shanghai, China   Last year, Beijing banned any more "bizarre" buildings. Now, China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce has continued the government's crusade for normalcy with restrictions on such names as 'scared of wife' or 'prehistoric powers'.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

India is marking the 70th anniversary of its freedom from British rule today.  It was in February 1947 that Prime Minister Clement Atlee announced the British government would grant India its independence and self-governance. How does the country measure its progress in these seven decades?   When British rulers divided the subcontinent into two nations, it prompted the greatest mass migration of people in history and unleashed a wave of violence that claimed more than a million lives. Seventy years have passed since the partition of India and Pakistan, and years on the partition and the violence that accompanied it continues to shape India and Pakistan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former President Lula was sentenced to nearly 10 years for corruption…   The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was found guilty of corruption and money laundering on Wednesday and sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison, a stunning setback for a politician who has wielded enormous influence across Latin America for decades. The case against Mr. da Silva, who raised Brazil’s profile on the world stage as president from 2003 to 2010, stemmed from charges that he and his wife illegally received about $1.1 million in improvements and expenses from a construction company for a beachfront apartment.   Only in Brazil: Congressman by day, Jailbird by night   For many politicians, a jail sentence means the end of your career, but not for lawmaker Celso Jacob. He still comes each day to Brazil’s National Congress straight from prison. Each morning he gets up at 5:00 am in the Papuda jail near Brasilia and waits for a car to take him to work. In the evening he returns and changes from his suit back into white prisoner’s overalls.   Brazil’s army is becoming a de facto police force   Brazil maintains the world’s 15th-biggest standing army, and spends more on defence than Israel does. The last time a big Brazilian city was attacked was in 1711, when a French corsair briefly captured Rio de Janeiro. The country’s official defence review states that “at present, Brazil has no enemies”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China is boosting Ghana’s government’s ‘One District One Factory’ initiative with a funding facility worth up to $2 billion. And Over the next three years, local authorities in China are planning to build more than 900 airports for general aviation — the segment of the industry that includes crop dusting and tourism and Lastly China is shifting from exporting to importing,” Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said in Detroit on Wednesday.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.