We will all need plenty of time and introspection to analyze the full range of game-changing vectors unleashed by the unveiling of BRICS 11 last week in South Africa.

Yet time waits for no one. The Empire will (italics mine) strike back in full force; in fact its multi-hydra Hybrid War tentacles are already on display.

Here and here I have attempted two rough drafts of History on the birth of BRICS 11. Essentially, what the Russia-China strategic partnership is accomplishing, one (giant) step at a time, is also multi-vectorial:

- expanding BRICS into an alliance to fight against U.S. non-diplomacy.

- counter-acting the sanctions dementia.

- promoting alternatives to SWIFT.

- promoting autonomy, self-reliance and instances of sovereignty.

- and in the near future, integrating BRICS 11 (and counting) with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to counter imperial military threats, something already alluded to by President Lukashenko, the inventor of the precious neologism "Global Globe".

In contrast, the indispensable Michael Hudson has constantly shown how the U.S. and EU's "strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war."

Thus Prof. Hudson's contention that the proxy war in Ukraine - not only against Russia but also against Europe - "may be thought of as World War III."

In several ways, Prof. Hudson details, we are living "an outgrowth of World War II, whose aftermath saw the United States establish international economic and political organization under its own control to operate in its own national self-interest: the International Monetary Fund to impose U.S. financial control and dollarize the world economy; the World Bank to lend governments money to bear the infrastructure costs of creating trade dependency on U.S. food and manufactures; promoting plantation agriculture, U.S./NATO control of oil, mining and natural resources; and United Nations agencies under U.S. control, with veto power in all international organizations that it created or joined."

Now it's another ball game entirely when it comes to Global South, or Global Majority, of "Global Globe" real emancipation. Just take Moscow hosting the Russia-Africa summit in late July, then Beijing, with Xi in person, spending a day last week in Johannesburg with dozens of African leaders, all of them part of the new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 (actually 134 nations), presided by a Cuban, President Diaz-Canel.

That's the Russia-China Double Helix in effect - offering large swathes of the "Global Globe" security and high-tech infrastructure (Russia) and finance, manufactured exports and road and rail infrastructure (China).

In this context, a BRICS currency is not necessary. Prof. Hudson crucially quotes President Putin: what's needed is a "means of settlement" for Central Banks for their balance of payments, to keep in check imbalances in trade and investment. That has nothing to do with a BRICS gold-backed supra-national currency.

Moreover, there will be no need for a new reserve currency as increasingly more nations will be ditching the U.S. dollar in their settlements.

Putin has referred to a "temporary" accounting unit - as intra-BRICS 11 trade will be inevitably expanding in their national currencies. All that will develop in the context of an increasingly overwhelming alliance of major oil, gas, minerals, agriculture and commodities producers: a real (italics mine) economy capable of supporting a new global order progressively pushing Western dominance into oblivion.

Call it the soft way to euthanize Hegemony.

The 50-year-old jet won't turn the tide of the conflict in Kiev's favor, but it profits its partners to keep pretending...

As the Western establishment media begrudgingly accepts what many analysts have long predicted - that Kiev's counteroffensive is a catastrophic failure - it seems that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky hasn't gotten the memo.

He seems adamant that the mercurial F-16 fighter jet is the missing link required to spur his depleted military to victory against Russia. There is, however, a little problem with his thesis - there's more than one, actually, but let's start with the most obvious.

Even as Ukraine's long-awaited, much-hyped, but now obviously failed counteroffensive grinds to a bloody and costly halt, it seems the pro-war enthusiasts in the West and their proxies in Kiev still believe that the F-16, an American fighter jet that first took to the skies nearly 50 years ago, can somehow save the day for Zelensky and his NATO handlers. But at the same time trouble seems to be brewing in paradise as the Western media, which has thus far played such a pivotal role in overhyping Kiev's military capabilities, is now less than convinced that this aging American castoff can play anything close to a defining role in NATO's stalling proxy war against Russia.

For former President Donald Trump, a picture is worth... more than $7 million.

Trump's campaign says he has raised $7.1 million since Thursday when he was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in the state and became the first former president in U.S. history to ever have a mug shot taken.

Spokesman Steven Cheung said that, on Friday alone, the campaign brought in $4.18 million — its highest-grossing day to date.

The record haul underscores how Trump's legal woes have been a fundraising boon for his campaign, even as his political operation has spent tens of millions on his defense. The mounting legal charges have also failed to dent Trump's standing in the Republican presidential primary, with the former president now routinely beating his rivals by 30 to 50 points in polls.

While Trump described his appearance Thursday as a "terrible experience" and said posing for the historic mug shot was "not a comfortable feeling," his campaign immediately seized on its fundraising power.

President Vladimir Zelensky should recall how World War II ended for Japan, the former US intelligence officer says...

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will conclude with Kiev's unconditional surrender, according to Scott Ritter, a former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that "Ukraine does not trade its territories, because we do not trade our people."

The message was dedicated to the Third Crimea Platform Summit, where Ukraine discussed ways of "de-occupying" the peninsula, which reunited with Russia in 2014 following a referendum triggered by the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev earlier that year.

Replying to Zelensky's post, Ritter wrote that "it was NATO that suggested a trade. Russia isn't trading anything."

Repeated diplomatic efforts by the US, France and a host of African nations to secure a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Niger, where the democratically elected president, Mohamad Bazoum, was ousted in a military coup late last month, have failed. That may leave a military intervention as the only viable means available to remove the junta from power. A war between Niger and its neighbors would, however, not be a simple thing: Such a conflict could create problems for Africa, Europe and the US of a far greater magnitude than those posed by the existence of yet another military junta in a region that has been plagued by a wave of military takeovers during the past decade.

The Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has rejected a three-year transition plan leading to elections put forward by the coup leaders, putting Ecowas and Niger on a path toward war. Since the junta, led by Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani, seized power following a bloodless coup on Jul. 26, Ecowas has taken a hardline position that Bazoum must be restored to power, or else the organization — originally created in 1975 to promote trade relations but since having moved on to using collective force to maintain regional security — would intervene militarily.

Any Ecowas military intervention would be complicated by the presence of US, French and European military personnel in Niger. As a former French colony, Niger has long hosted a sizeable French military presence. This provides security for uranium fields in Niger owned and operated by France, as well as supporting regional security efforts designed to defeat Islamic terrorists operating in the Sahel. The US likewise supports this counterterrorism effort, and views Niger, where the US maintains two large bases, as the foundation of its military presence in West Africa.

Kiev keeps its Western backers updated about the situation on the ground, President Zelensky's senior adviser has said...

Western military officials are regularly updated by Ukraine on the situation on the battlefield, President Vladimir Zelensky's top adviser has admitted, confirming a report about a recent meeting between Kiev's top general, Valery Zaluzhny, and NATO commanders.

According to Podoliak, Kiev's military strategy remains "flexible," and evolves in accordance with the situation on the ground.

He told a Ukrainian TV channel Saturday:

"There are a lot of meetings like that. The General Staff is constantly making adjustments, depending on what is happening on the front line. Obviously, these adjustments are always being discussed with our partners in order to actualize the deliveries of additional [weapons]."

The Guardian reported on Saturday that "eleven days ago, some of the most senior soldiers in the NATO alliance traveled to a secret location on the Polish-Ukrainian border" to meet with Zaluzhny and "his entire command team." The goal of the five-hour meeting was to "help reset Ukraine's military strategy" in light of its sluggish offensive, the newspaper said. Ukrainian and NATO officials reportedly also discussed plans for the winter and beyond.

Divisions are brewing among EU member states as the bloc's leadership seeks a total of €86 billion ($93.2 billion) in additional funding, including financial support for Ukraine and salary increases for EU bureaucrats.

Brussels' request for additional funding to fill the gaps of the EU budget and provide assistance to Ukraine has sowed discord among EU leaders who are seeing their domestic budgets dwindling and skepticism over the Kiev regime's ability to win, according to the Western mainstream press.

EU member states have called for reductions and a longer approval timetable, while Ukraine's botched counteroffensive makes war skeptics in both the Old Continent and the US even more doubtful about additional military support.

A veteran South African official detailed meeting with an unprepared and "desperate" Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, begging for local help rolling back the popular coup in Niger. The recent BRICS conference might give Nuland even more to fret about.

When US Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, traveled to South Africa on July 29, her reputation as a blunt instrument of Washington's hegemonic interests preceded her.

According to a veteran South African official who attended meetings with the senior US diplomat in Pretoria, however, Nuland and her team were demonstrably unprepared to grapple with recent developments on the African continent — particularly the military coup that removed Niger's pro-Western government hours before she launched her multi-stop tour of the region.

"In over 20 years working with the Americans, I have never seen them so desperate," the official told The Grayzone, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The United States bought 416 tonnes of uranium from Russia in the first half of 2023, which is 2.2 times bigger than in the same period last year and the largest amount since 2005, Sputnik has calculated using data of the US federal statistical system.

In the first six months of 2022, the US bought 188 tonnes of uranium from Russia, and 418 tonnes in January-July 2005.

Russia supplies the US only with uranium-235 enriched fuel, which is the country's main "radioactive" imports. However, the analysis also took into account data on imports of natural and depleted uranium, which the US purchases from other countries.

The cost of imported Russian uranium amounted to $696.5 million, which is the highest value since 2002, the year when the US started to break data down by months. The cost of supplies increased 2.5 times year-over-year, and Russia's share in US uranium imports grew by 13 percentage points to 32%.

Trump has problems of his own

Americans actually agree on something in this time of raw discord: Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president in a second term. Only a few years his junior, Donald Trump raises strikingly less concern about his age.

But they have plenty of other problems with Trump, who at least for now far outdistances his rivals for the Republican nomination despite his multiple criminal indictments. Never mind his advanced years — if anything, some say, the 77-year-old ought to grow up.

A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds much of the public oddly united in sizing up the one trait Biden cannot change.