BRICS News

Antonio Guterres has led the UNHCR for a decade and promised to make refugee issues and humanitarian aid priorities should he become secretary-general [Xinhua]
Antonio Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal and former UN refugee chief, has been unanimously selected by the Security Council to be the next secretary-general.
Guterres beat out nine other strong candidates, including Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva who is the European commission’s vice-president.
All 15 Security Council ambassadors agreed to formally vote for Guterres on Thursday.

Strong data from mining and manufacturing helped boost the South African economy in Q2 [Xinhua]
Low commodity prices, policy uncertainty and weak investor confidence have pushed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to lower its 2017 economic growth forecasts for Africa’s two largest economies.
In its World Economic Outlook Report, the IMF brought South Africa’s forecast GDP expansion for next year down to 0.8 per cent, compared with the 1 per cent it had originally anticipated in July.

While the Paris Climate accords are not legally binding and there is no measure of enforcement, peer pressure has pushed countries to ratify the deal [Xinhua]
The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France on Tuesday ratified the Paris Agreement on climate control, paving the way for the 28-nation European Union to do the same later this week.
World powers such as the US and China ratified the deal last month.
China and the US are the world’s top two producers of man-made carbon emissions, accounting for 38 per cent of the world’s total emissions.

The Syrian crisis has widened the gap between Moscow and Washington [Xinhua]
The US State Department on Monday made good on its promise to suspend its contacts with Russia over the Syrian crisis.
According to various wire reports quoting US officials, Washington will withdraw staff it had allocated to the establishment of the Joint Implementation Center (JIC) to monitor the Syrian ceasefire and decide which rebel groups are actually Al-Qaeda/Islamic State affiliates and make for legitimate targets.

This is the second consecutive month that the manufacturing PMI is in growth territory, signaling China’s corrective economic policies are working [Xinhua]
Chinese stocks on the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong rallied on Monday rising 1.13 per cent to 23,559.9 following a positive manufacturer’s report over the weekend.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Saturday reported that China’s manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for September was level and unchanged at 50.4 from a month earlier.

China’s 13th five-year plan for the period beginning 2016 and ending 2021 has taken into account a huge budget dedicated to elderly care [Xinhua]
The National Health and Family Planning Commission predicts the number of China’s elderly (above 60) to reach 240 million – or 17 per cent of the population – by 2020.
The Commission’s deputy head Liu Qian said the government would improve the medical insurance system and basic public health services.
But he also said that there were about 260 million Chinese afflicted with chronic disease.

As Zika cases spike in Singapore, the government has been spraying insecticide in and around residential districts [Xinhua]
Thailand has reported the detection of the debilitating microcephaly disease in two babies and has confirmed it was caused by the Zika virus.
Microcephaly, where a baby is born with a much smaller head than average, occurs during pregnancy and has been linked to the Zika virus. Microcephaly can cause brain defects, and mental and physical disabilities.

Inflation, at nearly 9 per cent while interest rates are at 14.25 per cent, has dented hopes for a recovery [Xinhua]
The last week of September ended on a rather optimistic note for the Brazilian economy despite its drop on the global competitiveness scale.
Earlier this week, global ratings firm Moody’s said the Brazilian economy could be turning the corner, especially in the wake of former President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment.

The yuan is the currency of choice for the BRICS New Development Bank. It is the fourth most used currency in the world [Xinhua]
In what local media has heralded as an “important and historic milestone”, the Chinese renminbi (yuan) currency has been included in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) new Special Drawing Right (SDR) currency basket.
The decision to add the yuan to the IMF’s basket of four reserve currencies, known as Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, was taken last December.

Chairman and CEO of French energy company EDF Jean-Bernard Levy, British Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Greg Clark, chairman of China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) He Yu attend a signing ceremony in London [Xinhua]
After a two-month delay, Chinese, French and UK officials signed the contract for a $23.4 billion Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear power station to be built in Somerset, England.
London gave approval for the contract on September 15.