Hi Global Recap readers,

I hope your week’s going great.

I want to start today’s newsletter off with a rather hilarious clip from the BRICS summit in South Africa.

Check it out. 👇

Chad Putin

This is a clip from yesterday’s BRICS summit event.

As you all know already, Putin couldn’t make it to the summit in person this year. Because you know… there’s an outstanding arrest warrant. Instead, a 17-minute video of his speech was played for the audience.

There was a twist though - his voice sounded VERY different, and no one knows why.

The Kremlin has published the video on its website, and it sounds perfectly normal. Weird.

📈 Top News

🚀 India makes history! India has achieved a historic feat by successfully soft-landing its Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar south pole. This maneuver was attempted by Russia, a few days ago, but it failed.

Click here for more.

🚢 China’s coast guard plays chase with Philippine boats in disputed waters. The South China Sea is heating up as eight Chinese ships chase and block four Philippine boats on a resupply mission to a remote outpost.

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🇩🇪 Prigozhin is presumed dead. Russian authorities have confirmed that Prigozhin’s jet crashed in Russia - killing all 10 people on it. Prigozhin was on the “passenger list,” but it isn’t clear whether he was actually on the plane.

Wikipedia looks prepared though.

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🇷🇺 Russia eyeing Georgia next? The former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two regions that seceded from Georgia, could formally be annexed if there are “good reasons.”

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🔥 Nuclear security risk alert, The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports ongoing nuclear security risks near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, including multiple explosions in the past week.

Click here for more.

✍️ In-Depth

China
Xi’s No-Show Sparks Speculations

🇨🇳 Xi skips speech, sparks mystery. The Chinese president was supposed to give a speech at a business forum in South Africa, but he didn’t show up. His commerce minister read his speech instead, without explaining why. What’s going on with Xi?

📉 China’s economy faces challenges. Xi’s speech was meant to defend China’s economy and its support for emerging markets, as the world worries about its troubles with deflation, property slump, and debt crisis. Biden called China’s woes a “ticking time bomb” for the world.

🚀 China boasts resilience and potential. The speech read by the commerce minister praised China’s “super-size market” and its “high-quality development”. It also criticized “hegemonic” acts of other nations, implying the US. China said it would lower barriers to foreign investment.

🌎 Xi meets other BRICS leaders. Despite his absence at the forum, Xi attended a dinner with the leaders of South Africa, Brazil, India, and Russia, who are in Johannesburg for the annual BRICS summit. He also had a bilateral meeting with India’s Modi.

🔎 China remains secretive and opaque. The Chinese state media did not mention Xi’s absence, and instead said he delivered the speech himself. China rarely answers questions on the movements or health of its leaders. So we probably will never know why he skipped his speech