00:00And to go deeper on the importance of this year BRICS Summit, we are joined by U.S. human
00:05rights and labor rights lawyer, Dan Kowalik.
00:07Hello, Dan.
00:08Welcome to From the South.
00:10Good morning.
00:11Hi, good morning.
00:12Dan, all is ready for the summit to begin in a couple of hours.
00:16This summit in particular comes in a key moment in the international arena.
00:20All eyes are on what the BRICS 2024 Summit can produce.
00:24So what can we expect and how important is this year's summit?
00:29Well, it's very important.
00:30I mean, I think the world is waiting, you know, for the expansion of this multipolar
00:37world of another pole to essentially protect the rest of the world from the West and the
00:44United States.
00:46There's some hope that eventually a new currency will come out of this to compete with the
00:51U.S. dollar.
00:52I guess Putin has signaled that that won't come at this meeting, but I think eventually
00:57that will come.
00:58And I think the one thing I understand will come out of this is that Venezuela will be
01:03admitted as a full partner of BRICS.
01:08Growth of the BRICS format is one of the main topics in this year.
01:12Earlier this year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
01:16joined the block.
01:17Other countries, as you were saying, have expressed their readiness, like Venezuela,
01:20Cuba and many others.
01:22So the question is, how can BRICS, as it continues to grow, bring about that multipolar world
01:27with enhanced cooperation and win-win trade among the peoples of the world?
01:31Well, I think the main thing they can do is to try to protect countries from U.S. sanctions.
01:38Right now the U.S. has 30 percent of the world's population under sanctions.
01:44And the only way it's able to do that is through its dominance of the world economy, through
01:50the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
01:52And so I think BRICS will have to come up with a new currency that will be able to compete
02:00with the U.S. dollar so countries don't have to depend on the dollar, and therefore the
02:06sanctions won't hurt as much.
02:09And of course, BRICS will open up new paths of trade, again, that will allow countries
02:14to be able to avoid the worst of the sanctions.
02:20Just earlier today, President Putin had a meeting with the New Development Bank President
02:26Dilma Rousseff, and they were talking about enhancing these transactions in national currencies
02:31and in the idea of creating a new currency for BRICS countries to trade in for the benefit
02:37of the nation.
02:38How could this currency be?
02:40How would it work?
02:42Well, I'm not an economist, so I'm not exactly sure how it will work, but I think ultimately
02:49if you get buy-in from all these countries, which represent, I think they'll end up representing
02:57a majority of the world's population.
02:58I mean, when you have China and India alone, you have a huge percentage of the world's
03:03population.
03:04So if you have all these countries buy into a new currency, and if that currency is backed
03:09by something, by oil, for example, or gold, I think that they would have a real chance
03:16to compete with the U.S. dollar, which is frankly backed on nothing but the full faith
03:22in credit clause of the U.S. Constitution.
03:24And I think people are realizing they can't really put faith in the dollar, because, again,
03:31it's based on nothing.
03:33And the U.S. is so far in debt that the dollar, again, once there's an alternative to it,
03:41I think the dollar will collapse.
03:45Another important topic coming to the table in this summit, aside from the growth of the
03:49BRICS, is also the Israeli ongoing aggressions against the peoples of the Middle East.
03:54And what role can BRICS play to bring an end to the Tel Aviv expansionist policies and
03:59secure peace and stability in the Middle Eastern region?
04:03Well, again, when you have key members of BRICS, like Russia, China, Iran, you have
04:08a bloc that really could stop this genocide if they wanted to.
04:15And that might require a military intervention of some kind.
04:18And you know, Russia's already intervened in Syria to end that dirty war that the West
04:25started in 2011.
04:30And I think, you know, Putin's been making noise that if Israel keeps going farther into
04:36Lebanon and certainly if it goes into Syria, that they will have Russia to contend to.
04:42So I do think this represents a bloc that could end this war.
04:48Also high interest in the Ukraine crisis.
04:51Many nations are talking about how to bring an end to a negotiated process.
04:56And Putin himself said that he is willing to negotiate with Ukraine if it's done in
05:01the framework of the document drawn up in Turkey, where Ukraine will declare itself
05:05neutral and will reduce its armaments, and will, of course, not join NATO.
05:10So do you think, how could this process happen in this BRICS summit?
05:13What can come out of this?
05:14Well, first of all, we have to remember there was a deal that seemed that both sides could
05:21live with back in March 2022, meaning, you know, within about a month of the war starting,
05:27frankly, in which Ukraine could have kept all of the land it had prior to the special
05:32military operations beginning in February 2022.
05:36And the U.S. and U.K. intervened to kill that peace deal.
05:39So obviously, peace is possible, though I think in this, by now, it's not going to be on
05:45terms that were offered then.
05:47I don't think they're going to be able to get back those four voted to go with Russia.
05:51But, you know, certainly, again, I think the countries that are in BRICS and the BRICS
05:59alliance can play a big role in helping negotiate a peace deal.
06:04Thank you, Dan, for your time here in From the South.
06:09It's our pleasure.
06:10We're going to stay tuned with everything that happens on BRICS, and we're going to
06:12be reporting here in From the South.
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