Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the joint GDP of BRICS countries, at a plenary session of the bloc’s business forum in Moscow Friday.

Putin noted that the total GDP of the members of the BRICS association is more than 60 trillion dollars and that its total share in the world gross product “confidently exceeds” the corresponding indicators of the G7 group.

The alliance, with a stated aim of counterbalancing the Western-led world order, initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but started to rapidly expand this year. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January; Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia formally applied, and a number of others expressed desire to join.

“According to the results of the current year, the average rate of economic growth in BRICS is projected at 4%. This is higher than the rates in the seven countries – there it is only 1.7%, and than the global rates – the global rates will be 3.2%,” Putin said.

The Russian leader also toured an exhibition of the Russian Direct Investment Fund dedicated to cooperation with the BRICS countries at the Forum.

In the next few days, Putin will be shaking hands with two dozen world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian at the BRICS summit in Kazan.

Officials in Moscow are already touting the gathering in Kazan as a massive success.

Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said two weeks ago that 32 countries confirmed participation, and 24 of them will send heads of state.

Putin will hold around 20 bilateral meetings in Kazan, Ushakov said, and the summit may turn into “the largest foreign policy event ever held” on Russian soil.

Egypt raised fuel prices Friday by between 10% and 17%, a move likely to impact the cost of both goods and services.

The Egyptian government said in a statement on Facebook that the decision was made in order to “reduce the gap between the selling prices of petroleum products and their high production and import costs.”

Egyptians have been grappling with soaring inflation as they navigate rising daily costs that reached another high over the summer including a previous 10% increase in fuel prices, a hike in subway fares and the local currency sliding against foreign currencies.

According to the new prices taking effect on Friday, the cost of a litre of diesel — which is heavily relied on for public transport — increased from 11.5 pounds ($0.23) to 13.50 pounds ($0.25), while the price of the 92-octane gasoline rose to 15.25 pounds ($0.31) from 13.75 pounds ($0.28).

The last fuel price increase went into effect on July 25. There was a previous increase in March when the government attributed the price hikes to the increasing costs of importing energy because of the depreciation of the local currency and the global surge in fuel prices amid the situation in the Red Sea.

Egypt reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund this spring to more than double the size of its bailout to $8 billion. The price hikes have been deemed necessary to meet conditions set by the IMF for further assistance to the country.

Just hours after Rigathi Gachagua was removed from office, Kenya’s President William Ruto has nominated Interior Minister, Kithure Kindiki, as his new deputy president.

A close ally of the Ruto, Kindiki was a top contender to be his running mate during the 2022 elections.

His appointment still needs to be approved by parliament.

On Thursday, Kenyan senators voted to impeach Gachagua on 5 out of 11 charges against him, including gross violation of the constitution.

He has denied the accusations, describing them as politically motivated.

Gachagua had failed to appear before senators to defend himself, instead requesting a postponement after being admitted to hospital with chest pains.

But they refused to delay proceedings, seen as showing their determination to remove him from the job, months after he fell out with Ruto.

Zimbabwe says it will compensate local and foreign white farmers who lost land and property more than 20 years ago in farm seizures meant to redress some of the wrongs of colonialism.

About 4,000 white farmers lost their homes and swathes of land when the Black-majority country’s then-president, Robert Mugabe, launched the often-chaotic redistribution program in 2000, which turned violent at times. Mugabe, who died in 2019, said it was aimed at addressing colonial-era land inequities after the southern African nation gained independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Compensation Plans and Payment Structures

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube announced Wednesday at a meeting with diplomats that his government approved 441 applications for compensation worth $351.6 million from local white farmers and 94 applications from foreigners worth $196.6 million, but only 1%, or $3.5 million, will be paid in cash to local farmers who lost land. The balance, Ncube said, will be paid through the issuance of treasury bonds.

Foreigners will receive an initial $20 million to be shared equally among the 94 claimants from Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and several countries in eastern Europe, he said.

White farmers who owned the majority of prime farmland were removed from their farms, often forcibly by violent mobs led by veterans of the country’s 1970s independence war. Some farmers and their workers died or were seriously injured in the violence that included beatings and rape, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Consequences of the Land Seizures

The seizures badly impacted commercial farming, forcing a country that was a key regional food producer and exporter to rely on assistance from donors. Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector has rebounded in recent years, but recent droughts are now the main challenge.

The compensation for the local farmers is not for the land — which Mugabe’s government said had been seized from Zimbabwe’s Black majority under colonialism — but for infrastructure such as buildings, wells and irrigation equipment. However, foreigners covered under agreements that seek to protect the property of foreign investors will be paid for both the land and the infrastructure.

Controversial Policy Shifts and Criticism

The payments are expected in the last quarter of 2024, finance minister Ncube said. Zimbabwe has been in talks with creditors, led by the African Development Bank, since 2022 to restructure its $21 billion in debt, with the white farmers’ compensation a sticking point.

In 2020, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government signed a compensation deal with the white farmers. Mnangagwa, who took power in 2017 after Mugabe was forced to resign following a popular coup, has sought to engage the white farmers and has even encouraged them to apply for new pieces of land.

All farmland now belongs to the government and those occupying it can only do so under lease. However, in a major policy shift, the government announced plans this month to allow beneficiaries of the reform program to sell the land they gained, but only to “Indigenous Zimbabweans,” a reference to Black Zimbabweans.

The move has attracted widespread criticism, especially because some who were politically connected became owners of multiple farms under the land redistribution that was meant to help the poor, and can now cash in.

Nigeria will become one of the first countries to roll out a new malaria vaccine after receiving a first batch of 846,200 doses.

Developed by scientists at the University of Oxford in England, the R21 vaccination was produced by the Serum Institute of India and Novavax.

The Nigerian Health Minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, says the doses represent a significant milestone in the country’s efforts to eliminate malaria.

Mosquitoes, which spread the disease to humans through bites, breed in water and are especially plentiful during the rainy season.

Malaria remains a major public health challenge in Nigeria, affecting some 97 per cent of the population.

According to the World Health Organization, it is the world’s worst-affected country, accounting for 31 per cent of global deaths from the disease.

The health ministry says the inoculations, which were procured in partnership with the international Vaccine Alliance, Gavi, will be administered freely.

A trial roll out will begin in two states with the highest malaria burden, Kebbi in the north and Bayelsa on the coast, before expanding nationwide.

A balance of 153,800 more doses is expected in the country on 26 October, bringing the number of available vaccines to a million.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has cancelled the auction of 27 sites earmarked for oil exploration, its government said, citing late bids and a lack of competition.

The auction of these sites, known as oil blocks, was launched two years ago but was cancelled because it was not as successful as expected and a new auction will be held, Oil Minister Aime Sakombi Molendo said in a statement. He gave no details on the timetable or the number of blocks that will be auctioned.

The 27 oil blocks whose auction was cancelled contain an estimated 22 billion barrels of oil.

The mineral-rich central African country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is believed to have significant oil reserves. Still, drilling has been limited to a small area on the Atlantic Ocean and offshore.

The auction is expected to be a game changer.

Environmental agencies have been sounding the alarm since the DRC launched the auction in July 2022, saying auctioning off more land for drilling would have consequences both in the DRC and abroad.

The DRC is home to most of the Congo Basin rainforest, the second largest in the world, and most of the world’s largest tropical peatland, composed of partially decomposed plant material from wetlands.

Together, they capture huge amounts of carbon dioxide — about 1.5 billion tons a year, or about 3% of global emissions. More than a dozen of the auctioned plots straddle protected areas of peatlands and rainforests, including Virunga National Park, home to some of the world’s rarest gorillas.

Nigeria’s Super Eagles squad arrived in Abuja on Tuesday, after boycotting their AFCON qualifier in Libya.

The decision came after the fooball team were stranded overnight at an airport in Libya, in what the team captain called ‘mind games’.

On Sunday, the players were meant to land in Benghazi, but their plane was diverted to Al Abraq, more than 200km away.

Those travelling were ‘abandoned’ and locked in the building, after arranging to leave, according to a Nigeria Football Federation official.

The chairman of the house committee on sports, Kabiru Amadu, said he was shaken by the trip, but that he was relieved to be back.

‘This trip, I wouldn’t say it was okay but, we thank God that we went and we came back safe. But it was a hostage situation,’ Amadu said.

Meanwhile the Libyan football federation said it was ‘deeply concerned’ by the incident, but rejected suggestions of foul play.