The Center for Economic and Policy Research brought together leading experts in the study of economic sanctions to help to answer a critical, but often-ignored, question: What are the human consequences of US economic sanctions? Assessing a wide range of evidence, the findings of our panelists were unanimous: economic sanctions, even when touted as targeted, often have widespread deleterious effects on entire national economies, and therefore severely harm millions of everyday people.

Amid continuing social upheaval five months after the parliamentary coup against Pedro Castillo, the Peruvian Congress, controlled by the hard right, has approved the entrance of US troops into national territory to train the Peruvian military and National Police beginning June 1st through the end of the year. This comes after the Supreme Court ruled that protest is not a protected right under the 1993 Fujimori dictatorship era constitution. This also comes after a visit from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Peaceful Assembly and Association Clément Nyaletsossi Voule stated that there was no evidence of terrorism from protesters and called for accountability and political reform to end the crisis. As multiple reports from human rights observers have confirmed, the armed forces carried out extrajudicial killings and massacres during the first few months of the popular uprising following the overthrow of President Pedro Castillo. The Peruvian masses have stated that this was a clear US backed coup from the beginning and are now getting concrete evidence that the right-wing coup regime works hand in hand with the North American hegemonic power to train armed forces in so called “conflict zones”, particularly in the south of the country where the strike and blockades have been the strongest.

Earlier this week, South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that Moscow and Kiev had agreed to receive a mission of African leaders with their peace initiative on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later confirmed that the African mission was planning to visit Russia in mid-June or early July.

South Africa reported that applications for joining the BRICS are received almost weekly. According to Anil Suklal, Ambassador-at-Large for Asia and BRICS at the South African Foreign Ministry, we are talking about 30 countries. At the moment, BRICS consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. News portal NewZimbabwe reported last week, citing internal BRICS documents, that joining the group is now sought: * Algiers * Argentina * Afghanistan * Bangladesh * Bahrain * Belarus * Venezuela * Egypt * Zimbabwe * Indonesia * Iran * Kazakhstan * Mexico * Nigeria * Nicaragua * UAE * Pakistan * Saudi Arabia * Senegal * Syria * Sudan * Thailand * Tunisia * Turkey * Uruguay It is noted that all these countries will have to wait for the BRICS members to agree on the fundamental concept of expanding the group.