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Leaders of the five economies agree to work on credit rating agency, trade in local currency and cooperation on tax evasion While a key agreement on setting up a   BRICS   credit rating agency eluded them, leaders of the five emerging large economies ended their eighth summit with a commitment to strive for greater synergy and higher economic growth. With Indian and Chinese exports to the West shrinking, Prime Minister   Narendra Modi called for doubling of intra-BRICS trade to $500 billion by 2020. This was seen as a key to spur growth in BRICS economies, two of which have recorded negative growth. Chinese President Xi Jinping drew attention to “some countries getting more inward looking in their policies… Protectionism is rising and the forces against globalisation are an emerging risk,” he said. The ‘Goa Declaration’, issued at the end of the summit, welcomed “experts exploring the possibility of setting up an independent BRICS Rating Agency based on market...

Barack Obama cancels meeting with new Philippine President Duterte US President  Barack Obama  has cancelled what would have been his first meeting with Rodrigo Duterte, according to a White House spokesman, hours after the Philippine leader described his American counterpart in vulgar terms. Duterte called Obama a "son of a whore", saying that he would not be lectured by the US leader on human rights, according to AFP news agency. Inside Story - Can Rodrigo Duterte win the war on illegal drugs? Duterte's tirade came as he bristled at warnings he would face questioning by the US president at their scheduled meeting over his war against drugs in the Philippines, which has claimed more than 2,400 lives in just over two months. "You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum," Duterte told a news conference shortly before flying to Laos to attend a summit on Monday. "We ...

PM Modi to meet Chinese president; will attempt to win support for NSG membership Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  will be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday in the Uzbekistan capital Tashkent in an attempt to win Beijing's support for India's membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Modi will be meeting President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting that is currently on in Tashkent. The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organisation which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Highly placed sources said that the meeting between PM Modi and President Xi Jinping would be an exclusive one-on-one discussion, where the top agenda would be to seek China's support for India's membership in the NSG. China, till now, has been playing the role of a dampener on the issue of clearing the way for India's admission to...

The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda boss, Liu Qibao, has extolled the success of  Alibaba , the giant Internet company, as the kind of uplifting story that offsets the country’s reputation abroad as corrupt and authoritarian. “We have many iconic brands and archetypal individuals with many stories that people love to hear,” Liu told a conference of officials in January. Alibaba and similar success stories, he said, should be seen as “shining calling cards for the image of contemporary China.” The Alibaba Group, and party propaganda overseers in Beijing, are about to take that premise a step further, going beyond using the narrative of one of China’s most lucrative businesses to improve China’s reputation - and instead using its cash and digital skills. On Friday, the company announced that it would attempt to directly reshape global news coverage of China, which it says is too negative, by buying the media assets of the SCMP Group, including The South China Morning Post,...