BRICS News

The Russian navy has routinely held drills with allies and BRICS members such as China and India [Xinhua]
The Russian Pacific Fleet Command announced on Tuesday that the India-Russia naval exercises – named Indra NAVY-2016 – will begin on December 14 and comprise two stages.
Naval-land drills be held off the southeastern coastal city of Visakhapatnam in India from the 14th to the 18th. Phase two, which involves naval sea drills, will begin on December 19 and conclude on the 21st.
This is the fifth such set of exercises under the Indra name.

The draft UNSC resolution was to help in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged city of Aleppo, its authors said [Xinhua]
China and Russia late on Monday night vetoed an United Nations resolution seeking to declare a week-long ceasefire in the war-torn city of Aleppo.
Both countries said that they had not been given prior time to study the draft resolution and Moscow added that it feared any ceasefire would be used by Islamist terrorist organizations to regroup and redeploy themselves against the forces of the Syrian government.

The Heart of Asia conference attended by PM Modi and President Ghani looks at ways to help in Afghanistan’s reconstruction [Xinhua]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday stressed the need to eradicate terror networks that threaten south Asia.
“We must demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks. Support for peace alone is not enough. It must be backed by resolute action,” Modi said at the inauguration of the Heart of Asia Summit, which looks at ways to help in Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

Rescue workers were quickly at the scene of the blast at the Baoma Mining Co. late Saturday [Xinhua]
Chinese authorities have confirmed that 32 miners died in an explosion at a coal mine in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Saturday.
This was the second such mining accident in a week.
State news agency Xinhua reported that 149 workers from a total of 181 were rescued while the rest remain trapped underground.

Temer, Rousseff’s replacement, is very unpopular in Brazil; polls show voters want him to be accountable for alleged corruption [Xinhua]
Tens of thousands of protesters representing various political factions and loyalties filled the streets of several major Brazilian cities on Sunday to demonstrate against what they said was an attempt by some government officials to silence the judiciary which is investigating massive corruption on a government scale.

Beijing issued an orange alert on Sunday as air quality worsened in the capital and other areas [Xinhua]
China’s National Meteorological Center (NMC) has warned of heavy smog in the capital Beijing and other provinces in northern China such as Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Henan and Shanxi. It issued an orange alert for polluted air on Saturday.
China’s color code alerts include red – as the most dangerous and lethal, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
The air pollution will last until Monday by which time it will be dispersed by a cold weather front.

Xi has made combating climate change and air pollution (in many of Chinese cities) one of his government’s priorities [Xinhua]
President Xi Jinping said in a statement released by the Chinese Central Authority on Friday that his country will increase environmental inspections and crackdown on polluters.
The statement referred to the project as part of China’s aim to develop an “ecological civilization framework,” as the country continues to grapple with toxic air pollution levels.

Xi called Kissinger China’s “old friend” when the two met in Beijing on Friday [Xinhua]
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed as “petty” a phone call between Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen and US President-elect Donald Trump and said it doesn’t change the reality of Washington’s stable ties with Beijing.
“This is just the Taiwan side engaging in a petty action, and cannot change the ‘one China’ structure already formed by the international community,” Wang said at an academic forum in Beijing, state media reported.

The Syrian army is pushing ahead as it begins liberating major parts of rebel-held eastern Aleppo [Xinhua]
Islamist rebels from a number of groups in Aleppo have announced that they will be joining forces in order to better organize and defend the parts of the city under their control, sources in two groups said on Thursday.
Rebel groups are trying to hamper further gains by the Syrian government forces and their allies, which have in recent days, recaptured almost a third of the rebel-held areas in the eastern part of the city.

China’s economy has grown at a rate of 6.7 per cent so far this year, falling within government forecasts of GDP growth in the 6.5 to 7 per cent range [Xinhua]
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has released data which shows that the economy is picking up pace.
The manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) rose to 51.7 in November from October’s 51.2, NBS said in its survey tracking the health of some 3,000 large and state-owned companies