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Chinese President Xi Jinping walks past Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during the BRIC meeting last week. Marco Longari / AP  

Brics meeting in South Africa  

Analysis: Warning to the West - time to start mud wrestling  

Is it a victory for China that Brics cooperation is expanded with six new member countries? Yes, CNN's Nectar Gan believes. No, says Raja Mohan in Foreign Policy. 

The fact that the countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - invite more members increases Bric's global presence, writes Nectar Gan. And China has long wanted to recruit more countries to its alternative world order.  

"Many countries feel marginalized in an international system that they feel is dominated by the United States and its wealthy allies," she writes.  

Arguing that it is a great victory exposes an "enormous ignorance of the countries of the global south", thinks Raja Mohan instead. New countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are allied with the United States.  

"Even if they have differences with Washington, they are unlikely to abandon American security guarantees for unproven Chinese promises."  

Russia and China have constantly overestimated the possibility of building an "anti-Western coalition". On the contrary, Brics is now becoming more divided, according to Mohan.  

In his final words, he nevertheless adds that it is a warning to the West. Now you have to "come down from your high pedestal" and instead "wrestle in the mud" with China and Russia.

 

The house where the Security Police arrested two people suspected of gross illegal intelligence activities and aiding and abetting the same crime. Jessica Gow/TT 

 

The spy charge in Stockholm 

Säpo: Cases in the US and Europe are similar to the espionage charges in Sweden  

 

Several cases in the US and Europe have similarities with the Swedish investigation into gross illegal intelligence activities where a man in his 60s is charged, reports Ekot.  

 

The similarities concern, among other things, that it is suspected that technology has been procured on behalf of the Russian state, and in several cases a connection to the Russian intelligence service, GRU, is also suspected.  

 

It is reported that company names and persons that appear in the Swedish security police's investigation also appear in investigations abroad.  

 

There should also be a connection between the Swedish investigation and a major indictment in the United States where a man, who is suspected of illegally buying and exporting technology with military uses, appears in both investigations, according to the radio.   

 

Achilleas Chiras / AP  

 

The Greek forest fires  

EU: The fires the largest ever measured  

 

The large fire raging north of the Greek city of Alexandroupolis is the largest ever recorded in the EU. This is stated by the spokesperson of the European Commission according to AFP.  

 

Now the Union gathers strength and sends nearly half of the EU's firefighting aircraft to fight the fires. A total of 11 planes, one helicopter and 407 firefighters from the EU's firefighting fleet have been sent to Dadia National Park, north of Alexandroupolis, according to the commission.