BRICS summit will test India's diplomatic mettle in more ways than one: ORF VP Harsh Pant - The Tribune

• India is attempting to build consensus among member nations at the BRICS summit to overcome deep global divisions. • Harsh V Pant of the Observer Research Foundation notes that India will prioritize the developmental challenges of the Global South to foster unity.

• Former President Donald Trump stated on September 9 that he intends to speak with countries that sanctioned settlements to understand their reasoning. • Otzma Yehudit filed a 39-page request alleging that two nonprofits linked to the Ra’am party, Aid 48 and Humanitarian Deeds, transferred millions of shekels to terrorist organizations.

• The Ministry of National Defense dispatched a local fact-finding mission to the Middle East to evaluate troop deployment to the Strait of Hormuz. • The mission focuses specifically on the strategic logistics and security requirements of deploying personnel to this critical waterway.

• Professor Michel Chossudovsky released a video on September 9, 2026, discussing the historical and geopolitical implications of the September 11, 2001 attacks. • The presentation argues that the 9/11 attacks were instrumental in changing the nature of wars led by the United States and NATO.

• Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro publicly criticized China during the Seoul Defense Dialogue after receiving a note from Chinese officials mid-speech. • Teodoro read the note aloud to the forum, describing the communication regarding South China Sea arbitration as actual coercion and bullying.

Former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon said AI will become ‘superhuman systems’ that can cause human extinction by the end of the decadeJust a day after three Anthropic researchers warned that artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, lawmakers have begun lashing out about the risks of the burgeoning technology.Ted Cruz, a republican senator from Texas, said in an interview on ABC’s The View, that AI poses a “catastrophic risk” and that he “read that whole tweet thread that that developer put out. It was highly concerning. Continue reading...

Helena Foulkes beats incumbent Dan McKee after criticizing handling of Providence’s Washington bridge, now expected to be completed in 2028Rhode Island’s Dan McKee became the first sitting governor to lose a primary in nearly a decade, bested not by a more progressive challenger or a more youthful upset but by frustration over a bridge.McKee lost his Democratic primary to Helena Foulkes, a former longtime executive with Rhode Island-based retail pharmacy CVS, the Associated Press said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Senator lends support to ‘great friend’ Dave McCormick, Republican running for re-election in PennsylvaniaDemocratic senator John Fetterman made a surprise virtual appearance at the Republican midterm convention, delivering a video address supporting Dave McCormick, a Republican running for re-election in Pennsylvania.Fetterman, who has increasingly broken with his party since his election in 2022, said he would always reject “extremes and socialism” in the video, repeating an oft-used Republican critique of the Democratic party’s increasingly popular left wing. Continue reading...

Critics say threshold pushes higher-paid staff to cut back on work and often mothers to stop working to avoid losing entitlementJohn Healey has been urged to fix the £100,000 childcare “cliff edge”, that means some higher-paid employees cut back on work to avoid losing their entitlement.Since the latest expansion of taxpayer-funded childcare in 2024, families with young children in which both parents earn less than £100,000 a year can be entitled to 30 hours a week of care - or none at all, if one of them cross that threshold. Continue reading...

School staff tell focus groups they believe school system in England and Wales cannot deal with attendance crisisTeachers have so little belief in the importance of pupils’ full school attendance that they would take their own children on term time holidays if they could, staff have told a three-year research programme.Frontline staff do not believe the school system is set up to deal with an ongoing attendance crisis in England and Wales, where nearly one in five children are now missing at least 10% of school, according to a report based on in-depth conversations with teachers. Continue reading...

Trump administration to seek extra funding from Congress to ‘dismantle’ Los Tiguerones over narcotics traffickingThe US has designated Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang, which stormed a television station during a live broadcast in 2024, as a terrorist organisation as the Trump administration expands its campaign against narcotics traffickers it says are destabilising Latin America.US secretary of state Marco Rubio made the announcement in Quito, where he met Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa, one of several rightwing allies of Donald Trump whom Rubio is courting as a security partner during a three-nation tour through Latin America that began on Tuesday. Continue reading...