00:00 covering the summit for us today is our Chief Foreign Editor Rob Parsons, he's
00:03 with me now. And Rob, how important do you think this BRICS summit is? Because one
00:08 interesting aspect at least is that there are other countries who really
00:13 would quite like to join the bloc. Yeah, I mean that's one of the things that's
00:15 certainly going to be spoken about during this summit. Whether it will lead
00:19 to anything or not remains to be seen. But there's no doubt that there are many
00:23 within BRICS and outside of BRICS in the so-called developing world which
00:31 would like to be part of the club. But there are, you know, there are
00:35 different feelings about it within the existing club at the moment. There's no
00:38 doubt that China, perhaps supported by Russia, would like expansion. But there
00:44 are others who are wary of it. India, for instance, regards possible expansion as
00:49 being a vehicle for China in particular to expand its own global interests.
00:55 India has its own ambitions for BRICS, sees itself as being the leading force
01:00 for the so-called global south. So, you know, there is room for
01:05 disagreement there, but there are certainly countries, as I said, that are
01:09 queuing up wanting to join, to be part of this club, as a sort of counterweight, as
01:14 you put it in your introduction, to the developed world. So the G7, to the G, not
01:20 so much the G20, but global institutions like the World Bank, the
01:25 International Monetary Fund, to create separate sort of infrastructure that
01:31 will act as a counterbalance to those. And shortly we'll be hearing live
01:36 from those BRICS leaders, starting with Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa. But one
01:41 of those five leaders we won't be hearing from live is Vladimir Putin. He
01:45 couldn't go to South Africa because of that ICC arrest warrant I mentioned. Is
01:49 it embarrassing for Russia that he can't attend the BRICS summit in person? It's
01:53 intensely embarrassing for Russia, I would say. You know, Vladimir Putin is a
01:57 man who thrives on his macho image and to be seen to be running away, you
02:06 know, from attending the meeting like that because he's worried that he might
02:09 get arrested if he goes to Johannesburg because of the International Criminal
02:15 Court arrest warrant isn't a good look, particularly domestically where he's not
02:20 looking great anyway at the moment following the rebellion by Prigogine
02:26 last month, which caused, in June, which caused an intense embarrassment to the
02:34 Putin regime. To be seen to be not attending, to be having to send Sergei
02:38 Lavrov, his foreign minister, to attend is just not a good look at all. Indeed,
02:44 and we will be hearing nonetheless from Putin via video link relatively shortly
02:48 along with those other four BRICS leaders. We'll keep a close eye on those
02:52 live feeds. We'll bring you that as soon as it gets underway. For now though, Rob,
02:56 thank you.
