With the establishment of the BRICS New Development and Contingency Reserve Agreement as a centerpiece, other institutions required to have a functioning alternative to the disintegrating trans-Atlantic system are also being put in place. Russia and China continue to work on establishing a BRICS version of the SWIFT bank clearing system. And China has now taken steps to set up a new credit-rating agency and other facilities to help with the financing of projects along the New Silk Road.

That new credit-rating agency has just given the highest ranking to China, Russia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the UAE—not exactly what one might expect from S&P and Moodys!

Xinhua Finance describes its new service as follows:

“The Internet-based package is currently available in both Chinese and English, including four major products and services — the Silk Road Database, Xinhua Credit Reports, Consulting and Thinktank Services and a `business match-making’ instant messaging system. The database includes information on laws and regulations, latest policies, macroeconomic development, project information and investment risk assessment in countries along the Belt and Road.

“The credit information service offers credit and risk assessment reports on countries, companies and investment projects as references for investment decisions. The consulting and thinktank service provides clients with customized consultations from Xinhua’s global information networks and professional economic analysts.

“Another innovative feature is a deal-making platform designed to facilitate online business negotiations and promote business connections for investment projects. Xinhua also released an index on the technology, infrastructure and investment environment of Belt and Road countries on Thursday.

“With 41 sub-indices, the index analyzes the technology levels, economic development, as well as political, social, communication and transportation conditions of countries along the Belt and Road routes. Singapore, China, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia are the top-performing countries among those surveyed, the index showed.” 

On Tuesday, at the opening ceremony of the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said that the bank’s role in the coming years will be to help strengthen the economies of developing nations.

“The NDB is a new member and partner to the global development system. NDB’s support for infrastructure construction will effectively ease the bottleneck that has constrained emerging and developing nations for a long time, and will offer support for their economies’ upgrade and growth,” said Lou, according to the BRICS Post independent online daily.

The inauguration of the NDB was attended by Mayor Yang Xiong of Shanghai, where it will be based, and NDB President K.V. Kamath, among others. Kamath said, “The Bank would look at tapping financial and capital markets in BRICS nations” to “raise local-currency funds, so that in a way we break the challenge and the cost of dealing in hard currencies,” the Indian edition of Business Insider, a major business website, reported.

Lou Jiwei said the BRICS Bank will work closely with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Kamath made clear that, after a meeting with the AIIB in Beijing, the NDB had decided to set up a “hotline” with the AIIB to discuss issues, and to forge closer ties between “new institutions coming together with a completely different approach,” Livemint portal reported today. At the conclusion of the July 8-9 BRICS Summit in Ufa, Russia, close cooperation between the NDB and the AIIB was announced in the joint communiqué.

In addition, NDB Vice President Vladimir Kazbekov of Russia told TASS today that the NDB will start screening investment projects before this year is over. “Certainly, each country has its portfolio of projects. I think serious screening will start already by the end of the year,” Kazbekov said, Tass reported.

Solidarité et Progrès reported the reaction of Nicolas Hulot, the person in charge of organizing the COP21 Summit on Climate Change to be held in France in December, to a question posed today at the Summit of Conscience here, by Christine Bierre, editor-in-chief of Nouvelle Solidarité.

The response of Hulot, sheds light on the goals of the organizers of the Summit of Conscience and COP21.

Christine Bierre: Does Prince Philip of Edinburgh support this summit, and does this summit go in the direction of his campaign to reduce world population ?

Nicolas Hulot: I don’t know if he’s supporting the summit, but indirectly the presence of Martin Palmer at this Summit [Palmer, a close adviser to the Prince, had just chaired the morning session] seems to confirm that, and I think all this is going in the same direction as the thoughts, hopes, and aspirations of Prince Philip of Edinburgh.

Bierre: Including his desire, stated several times, to become reincarnated as a deadly virus in order to eliminate excess population?

Hulot: I haven’t read that; I cannot answer your question.

Hulot’s admission must be understood in the same light as the British daily The Sun‘s publication of videos of the future Queen of England making the Nazi salute, along with other members of her family, in 1933. Britain’s Channel 4 Television is preparing a program on its own historical research on the links between the British Royal Family and the Nazi regime, which will air July 30.

Prince Philip declared in August 1988, according to Deutsche Presse Agentur: “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”

Martin Palmer, Secretary General of the Alliance for Religions and Conservation (ARC), founded by Prince Philip of Edinburgh in 1995, is the advisor to Prince Philip on climate questions. In statements attacking the “anthropocentric gospel,” he attacks the difficulties that religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have in accepting that “human beings are simply not important, and that it is important to have a discussion among officials of different religions in order to eliminate the idea there is something unique about human beings.”