2 . Since 2008, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China—the BRIC countries—have met every year to discuss topics of global importance. At their third summit (峰会) in China in 2011, the leaders invited South Africa to join, thus becoming the BRICS. The four foreign ministers met on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 2016. Their leaders’ first meeting was held in Sapporo on the eve of the G8 Toyako-Hokkaido Summit in 2008, and their first standalone (单独的) summit was the following year in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Since then, the BRICS ministers responsible for foreign affairs, finance and the economy, trade, agriculture and health have met. At the official’s level, there have been meetings held to discuss science and technology, national security, competition and statistics.

While the concept “BRICS” was first created by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs to refer to the investment opportunities of the rising economies, the leaders’ meetings transcend the financial topics to involve many different summit-level topics relating to global governance, such as development, peace and security, energy and climate change and social topics.

The mission of the BRICS Information Center is to serve as a leading independent source of information and analysis on the BRICS interaction and institutions. Documentation from the BRICS and research and reports will be published on this website as they become useable.

Special attention will be paid to the interaction (合作) and each other’s influence of the BRICS with the world, and including the BRICS relationship with the Group of Eight (G8), Group of Twenty (G20), and other different summit institutions and broadly many-sided organizations.

4 . 4 Best Basketball Camps in the USA

PGC Basketball Camps

For the last few decades, PGC (point guard college) basketball camps have helped thousands of players improve a variety of skills. While the name may have you believe it's for point guards only, that's not the case.PGC basketball camps operate in a number of different states and they have over 100 camps all over the country.While many of the PGC basketball camps are aimed at youth in high school and college athletes,there are also the Skills Academy camps for those as young as the 4th grade.

Nike Basketball Camps

Nike offers introductory camps, shooting camps, overnight camps, day camps and many more. There are even camps that let you work with former or current NBA and WNBA players. One of the best things about Nike camps are the quality of coaching and instruction you will get. They also operate in nearly every state,so no matter where you are, there is likely a Nike basketball camp close. These Nike camps are also great for all ages.

NBC Basketball Camps

Since the early 1970s, NBC(Northwest Basketball Camp) has been among the world leaders in the space.Whether you are in elementary school, junior high or high school, there is an NBC basketball camp for you. These camps are offered across the USA,as well as in Canada and even the UK. The camps they offer include clinics.team camps, overnight camps, and college prep camps, just to name a few. They aim to provide you all of the tools you need to succeed in basketball and in life.

The National Basketball Academy

The National Basketball Academy (also known as TNBA) partners with NBA teams like the Bucks and Pacers to provide camps, clinics, and training for basketball players of all ages. TNBA operates in Milwaukee,Orlando. Houston. Indiana, and Cleveland. It also operates in many other nations around the world such as Brazil, France, Argentina, and Spain. These camps and clinics range from a single day to multiple weeks. They also host various tournaments(锦标赛) so you can show off the skills you have learned.

The term“organizational culture” refers to the norms and values of an organization, which together make the personality of the company. These values and norms are shared by people working throughout the organization. They govern the way employees interact with each other, within the workplace. Therefore, improving organizational culture is the need of the hour, as people want to work for a company that enables them to keep a balance between their work and personal life. The organizations that treat their employees well and provide a good working atmosphere have shown an increase in the productivity of their employees. As a result, the attrition rates(损耗率) are also lowered, which saves a company the costs spent in hiring and training the employees. So, a healthy organizational cultural is a win-win situation for the management, the customers, the shareholders and most importantly, the employees themselves.

When it comes to improving organizational culture, raining your employees in the right way is an important step towards improving your organization’s work culture. When your employees know how to do things the right way and what the company expects from them, the rates of conflicts and errors can be brought down significantly. In addition, through the right training, your employees will become enthusiastic and be interested in working as a team and improving the work atmosphere as a whole. Then a productive environment will be created.

Another good way to bring about positive changes in the culture of the organization is by analyzing the existing culture and comparing it with the expectations of your employees. Bring changes accordingly. You can also organize discussions with your team members and talk about matters related to the current culture of the organization. Try to bring about the changes you find justified.

Conflicts are an unavoidable part of any organization and have direct bearing on the health of its culture. How they are handled is an indicator of the common organizational culture. Therefore, when conflicts do arise, the management must settle them quickly and kindly, in case they become worse over time. More importantly, an unmistakable and just conflict resolution mechanism should be created. If employees feel they are all being treated equally, they are more likely to accept their mistakes and the judgment of the management.

Since the organization is a collection of people, cooperation is a must to attain the objectives. Team building is vital in this respect and the management must show the willingness or intention to involve employees in this process. They may be fun activities, like sports, games or serious ones. At the end of the day, such exercises strengthen the team spirit and the employees’ loyalty towards the organization, because cooperative teamwork proves a healthy organizational climate.

6 . “Without trust,” writes Rachel Botsman, “society cannot survive, and it certainly cannot thrive."

Clearly, we are in trouble. Two-thirds of people surveyed last year in 28 countries expressed low levels of trust in "mainstream institutions" of business, government and media.

In “Who Can You Trust?” Botsman, an Oxford lecturer offers a timely and accessible framework for understanding what trust is, how it works, why it matters and how it is evolving. It is an important guidance to the obstacles and opportunities we face as a society if we are to repair and redefine trust.

Through human history, trust has evolved in three basic stages: Local trust was enough when people lived in small communities and everybody knew everybody else; industrialization and urbanization required institutional trust so that people could trust complete strangers running governments, corporations, and standards for international trade, commerce and finance. We are now living through a massive global .shift of trust from institutions to individuals: distributed trust facilitated by high-tech platforms, many of which are run by the private sector.

This shift is caused by several factors. First, accountability is unequal. Rich, powerful and well-connected individuals have been able to accumulate vast quantities of often undocumented wealth by avoiding tax and anti-bribery laws, while ordinary people are likely to be caught and punished for lawbreaking. Second, people in power are no longer seen to deserve greater respect as the details of their lives are exposed.

Botsman does not prescribe how we deal with that. But if the old ways of giving and cancelling trust such as voting, markets and consumer choice are no longer functioning, then we must change or replace them. Systems must be "driven democratically and rationally," become more "transparent, inclusive, and accountable" and, most important, be designed to "put people first," which profit-driven platforms have failed to do sufficiently.

Tech executives are responding to the trust crisis mainly with promises of more and better technology. But Batsman warns that the responsibility for ensuring that the robots being used are trustworthy lies with the human beings who design and use them. We have not thought through how we hold those people accountable, let alone their robots. She warns against a natural tendency "to become over-reliant on machines." Ideally machines should be programmed to "understand" their own limitations and even seek human help or intervention.

A growing number of people hope that new trust mechanisms can be established through the use of exciting new technologies such as the blockchain（区块链）. In essence, blockchains are digital public ledgers of transactions that cannot be changed, thereby creating greater transparency and accountability and making corruption much harder.

However, Botsman warns that the blockchain is no panacea for human trust. Whether blockchain systems lead to more accountable governance and a more just global economy will depend on their design and the intentions of those who build them. There is no app for fixing trust.

"Who Can You Trust?" does make a clear case for why it is important for the companies, governments and other institutions to be much more transparent and subject themselves to new mechanisms that can credibly hold them accountable. It is the only way they can hope to earn and maintain trust in the future.

7 . Finding a suitable name for a baby is a big deal in China.When picking out a Chinese name,parents usually select two or three characters that have a carefully thought out meaning, but when deciding on an English name, many of them struggle.That's where Jessup and her company, Special Name,come in. In the last few years, Jessup has helped name 677,900 Chinese babies, and earned over $400,000 in the process, more than enough to pay her college fees.

Jessup came up with the idea for Special Name in 2015,after accompanying her father on a business trip to China.One of her dad's business partners,a Mrs.Wang, asked her to help choose an English name for her daughter.Jessup felt honored and quickly realized the importance of choosing a proper name in Chinese culture.The woman wanted people to be surprised by the things her daughter could achieve,so Jessup suggested the name"Eliza"after the character Eliza Doolittle from the play Pygmalion.Mrs.Wang seemed delighted with Jessup's choice."If Mrs.Wang needed this service,maybe other parents would as well,"Jessup thought.

After returning to UK,Jessup borrowed ￡1,500 from her parents and paid a web designer to build a website,She then spent her free time filling up a database(数据库)with around 4,000 English names,associating them with five major personality characteristics,like honesty and optimism.

In the beginning, Jessup offered the service for free to promote the website,but later,she started charging fees.The business is almost completely self-sufficient,requiring only a small team in China that manages technical operations.She updates the database each month,allowing her to focus full-time on studies.

8 . Elyse Fox said no one in her family spoke about mental health while she was growing up. As a result, Elyse, 27, said she didn’t really know how to talk about what she was feeling. But now, Elyse understands that her depression(抑郁) is not something to be embarrassed about – it’s just a small part of her overall health that she has to take care of. In order to spread that message, Elyse started @sadgirlsclubpbg, a real-life club that gathers girls together to let them know that if they’re struggling with their mental health, they aren’t alone. That way, Elyse said, girls who understand that others are going through can start to break down the stigma(耻辱) surrounding mental health, showing that   it’s nothing to be ashamed of. At the same time, they’re supporting one another and sharing resources. While the group meets in person, Elyse keeps the community going on Instagram, a social media platform. We talked to Elyse about how social media can create a supportive community for people with mental illness.

Teen vogue: Why did you start Sad Girls Club?

Elyse Fox: I started it in February of this year … after I put out a film about my mental illnesses in December. I removed my mask and said, ‘Hey, I’m not as happy as I seem, I’m depressed and here’s my story.’ That’s when I received a wave of girls saying, ‘I feel the same way.’ So I wanted to   create something for girls to connect in real life and in person to get rid of the stigma around mental illness.

TV: Why is it important to talk about mental health?

EF: Because the conversation needed to happen and it needed to happen now. Because one in five Americans is going through some type of mental illness. If you aren’t personally, you know someone who is. It’s out of people’s control.

TV: Do you think social media help with mental illness?

EF: Absolutely. I think with social media it’s so easy to be honest. You being your true self and removing a mask and being honest with yourself and followers is the best way to heal(治愈). People are connected with realness. You can reach so many people from different countries, different ages.

TV: What do you want young women of color to know about mental health?

EF: I want everyone to know about mental health, that it isn’t something that is visible. It doesn’t have a face, no age range. It’s something we can cope with - and it’s best to do it together rather than alone.

TV: Anything you’d like to add?

EF: I’d add that anyone would encourage women or anyone going through anything to find a friend or to speak out and seek help. Even if it’s a simple conversation with a teacher. As a person who kept everything inside for over 20 years, it’s extremely helpful.