 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Siddharth Roy who's joining in from Bali is on the ground. Siddharth G20 has always been an important event for all of us because we watch what international affairs look like and this is a place where leading players do meet. What are you hearing on the ground particularly with the two most important issues will start with the first one which is the Ukraine issue. Are there possibilities of some thought or are we going to see the continuation of keep Russia isolated, give them a pariah state as which what the western world seems to be doing of course led by the United States. To be quite direct about what is up with the G20, it is essentially facing a complete communications breakdown both internally and externally and the breakdown is so big that what we expect the G20 to be might entirely be derailed and it has everything to do with of course the Russia and Ukraine going on. So picture this that we have had zero talks between the US and other major powers barring the back channel talks between India and them or China and them. There's such a standoff that we all know that you know the family photo as I call it the photo of all the leaders standing together was foregone. It's gone to an extent where they don't even want to be seen in one photo together. How does the G20 even function when communications are at this level? Let alone the possibility of a thought, I don't think we have seen such a breakdown, such an isolation since the peak of the Cold War. That is what the ground reality is. Now it is much too, I mean there is no other way to dress this up but the West's approach primarily of course the United States but also their allies in the US. So we can use the term like the NATO allied countries kind of. It has not only on Russia they're in trying to isolate Russia the so-called project of isolating Russia. What is ending up is they are isolating even the other people who have traditionally been their allies. Say for example the Saudi Arabia. We know that there is no communication like official communication happening between the Saudi Arabian contingent here with the American contingent. So from a functioning point of view that G20 literally has a huge long list of things to attend to. It's not just the leader's summit right? It's not just military and security affairs. There is a massive event called the B20, the business side stream of it. Do you see anything about that much outside? No. There is O20, the one related to ocean and affairs. Do you see much about that? No. So not only is the communication being broken down between the powers that be, the ones who can really make decisions, come to agreements and so on and so forth. It literally has come to a point where there is no external communication neither because as if the entire agenda of G20 has been hijacked by nothing other than the Russia-Ukraine affair. In this case isolate Russia as the strategy. Not simply that it will be focused on discussing Ukraine but focused on isolating Russia. Is that what in the sense you are telling me? Absolutely. It is not merely that we've already been through several sessions of the United Nations and the Security Council and so forth where the NATO nations and Ukraine have been lobbying different countries and telling them come on board, get against Russia. It's not merely that tactical thing. Now it's come down to a matter of we will discuss nothing but Russia and Ukraine. And at the front lines of this very sorry state of affairs is in fact the Western corporate media. So I'm standing outside the meeting rooms. The reason I'm actually hanging outside of the meeting rooms is because here is where I'm getting inside the meeting rooms. It's just the very prepared statements which are vacuous to say the least. What would expect that in G20 you will actually come out with concrete things but we're getting nothing of the sort. I invite anybody watching this to just go on Twitter. You will see that there is nothing other than inter alia. There is nothing overtly stated by any of the leaders, any of the delegations that we're going to do AX, YZ, etc. So standing outside here, coming back to the point of the Western press, I obviously have been fraternizing with them and talking to them. It is very evident that they have come with a single point agenda of rabble rousing, cornering the Russian delegation and the reluctance of the Russian team to actually interact with the press, the Western press is evident that they are not interested in playing up to these games. Now what is this doing in terms of news and communicating to the outside world is that if an entire contingency of journalists have come simply to raise a ruckus, then there will be no briefing to the press. The world at large will not know what is happening. What are the conversations here? That's a very interesting point because G20 is a place which was an expansion from G7. Idea was that it will get the big leaders of the world in who are the decision makers for their countries. If G20 does not become such a platform, that means we are going back to the belief that G7 can run the world and that's really then what is likely to happen. And you can see that Southeast Asia is a major economic player in the world today and Indonesia being the G20 head today is a recognition of that and after that it was going to be India's turn. Now if this is what happens to G20, in fact what it does is to knock out the intermediate players globally who are the emerging countries. India is not just an emerging country. It's a big economy now. It's replaced UK as the fifth largest economy in the world. So given all of that, it means going back to the old boys club of the G7. Is that what the idea is that isolate Asia, marginalize the rest and we will decide what's going to happen in the world? Without a doubt, I mean what is happening here is now you have the US and its allies in Europe who are holding the entire agenda of G20 hostage. So that is, if that is not a negation of the very spirit of moving from a G7 to a G20, what else is? If you really look at, you know, there were the rumors, I mean there's nothing but more than rumors that Putin did not attend because of a threat of assassination. I have not found, I mean not that there is no real evidence to back that claim up, but let us unpack that argument a bit here. Let us for argument sake assume that yes, there was a credible threat to Putin being assassinated attack, something like that. If that's the case, is it not a complete negation of all the efforts put in by the Indonesian government to actually secure this island? This island today has become a fortress. There is no stone left unturned to use a cliched term which is being done by the Indonesian government to keep the people, the delegates, the leaders, everybody safe. So where, I mean, basis what was this rumor floated on the internet that Putin is going to be assassinated? That is an absolute negation of the very effort that this is a place which is outside of wars. This is like the culmination of the ultimate efforts of diplomacy where there will be talks. So that has been initiated, point one. Point two is that the Indonesian government, the Indian government, both these, let's not say government, let's say Indonesia and India have been showing a lot of goodwill. If you read the, if you go and watch the press conference, the interview done by India Sharpa for the G20, Amitabh Khan with Vion, you'll see, read inter alia. It's, he says that, you know, we are trying to be honest brokers. What does that mean? That means we are really trying to make this work, but we are unable to. The Sharpa meeting going on is extending to insane hours. Like the Sharpas are trying to come up with a basic protocol, a basic common minimum program of getting the people to talk. So in all ways, in every way imaginable, the brouhaha over centralizing Russia and Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine by the west is completely derailing the spirit and the letter of G20. And we are not going to see anything except now the economic sanctions play out in the world. And of course, the military course of the war, which has become de facto a NATO versus Russia war, because all the arms, ammunitions, et cetera, coming from the NATO sources and the Ukraine's economy at the moment is completely underwritten by the European Union and the United States. But moving away from that, do you see any other movement taking place, for instance, the US, China? Do you see any thawing on that count also? Or shall we say that this G20 will have to be written off and we are back to the height of Cold War, no talks and posturing, et cetera, et cetera, as the international, in the name of international diplomacy. Let me elaborate a little bit on this. If you see the Saudi crown prince, MBS had declared, his office had declared that he will be traveling to India and Pakistan in the coming month. And the office of the crown prince just doesn't go out and say something without probably years, if not months of planning. Last night, that was withdrawn. Now, this is a meeting between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, India. What happened in behind the scenes that the crown princess has said that, oh, maybe it's not going to happen. Because what essentially is happening, Praveel, is that given the preponderance, the hegemony, which one issue has taken over everything else at G20, there is a sense of disappointment among delegates of all countries who quite clearly see that nothing is going to move ahead when it comes to the diplomatic relations. As far as the military, centering the militaristic concept is concerned, you see, the West is really playing a dirty game here. Besides their mainstream media, the corporate media, which obviously takes a side, you see the rumors are being spread out on social media, especially Twitter. And the interesting thing is that it's getting retweeted and endorsed and quoted by the mainstream media. A big example of that is that just two days before some from somewhere a tweet came out and it went viral that Russia is probably going to launch a whole horde of missile attacks on Ukraine. Now, is that right? Is that wrong? We don't know. We'll know in the coming day or two. But the interesting part is that how is it that dark news was brought out in connection with the G20? The tweet said that Russia planning to launch a massive missile attack on Ukraine during G20. Why would you say during G20? The war has been going on for months now. So, what has G20 got to do with it? Secondly, you see the duplicity here at play. I mean, there is just no other word to use. You know, the time for using euphemisms is gone. That it was, I think, March or April earlier this year, when the same bunch of Twitter slash mainstream media who had said, oh, Russia is out of missiles. Yeah, we remember that. Yeah, Russia was out of missiles. If Kerson was a complete declaration of defeat or whatever, why did you come up with a possible missile attack story? You have not put forth one piece of paper, one intelligence report, which backs this claim up. And as yet, there has been no change. Like it's not like there's been a and what's the connection with G20 again. So what we are essentially seeing here is that the militaristic voice from the West, the agenda from the West is actually hijacking every other aspect. And this is an absolute, this is just a slap in the face of all the other countries, whether the BRICS nations or the non-West G20 members of trying to actually talk about things. I mean, there are other things to be talked about. I think that's a very important point that you're making. The G20 success or failure should not hinge only on Ukraine, but a whole bunch of other issues. None of that is on the agenda. It seems that isolating Russia is the primary agenda. The military resolution of Ukraine seems to be the only agenda. And we are back to rather dismal times, which were the height of Cold War. But even during the height of Cold War, they were back channels operating all the time. Conversations did take place. What we seem to see is a total breakdown of communications currently. Maybe in the future, 20 years down the line, we'll come to know maybe there are some back channel communications still taking place. But on the face of it, every communication seems to have broken down. And what you're telling me, this G20 is being set up for a failure and a platform to use against Russia, but not to really do anything, meaning fully diplomatic terms. And it does mean marginalizing all the other countries, players like Indonesia, ASEAN, India, Saudi Arabia, which has just come in. All of these players are going to be therefore not really heard in any meaningful sense. So actually to take more from your point, you see there, the spirit of G20 could have seen a very positive expansion during this session. The African Union has been quite vocal this year, saying that South Africa cannot be the only member. The African Union should be given a seat at G20. If the spirit of G20 was to be inclusive and be accepting of the new global reality, the new multipolar global reality, then that is a very legitimate demand. And here is the interesting part. It is not that there aren't big powers who are not willing to consider and talk about the African Union getting a seat. But what has happened is that that has been washed out. We don't see formal reporting about it. And the reporting part is very crucial here, Praveen. I have been, as I said, moving around in the circles of the press call that has come in. You can see that they have been prepped. What they are going to report is what they already have decided. They are being coached by members of the U.S. State Department and other places. It's quite evident in the way they are speaking. And what this has done is that, of course, beside the standard thing of pushing an agenda, is that independent minded journalists, including my own self for that matter, who won't simply take the official press statement and run it, they stand a very clear risk of being barred from knowing what is happening. That combined with the fact that the only reporting coming out will be like some soft, vacuous statements from ex-leader and y ambassador leads to a complete failure even to the external world. So as things stand today, there is very little hope for G20 to come out with concrete agreements and agenda and programs and so on and so forth. The only possible silver lining to this is that because India was, as we all know, that India was castigated by Ukraine and not very subtly slammed by the U.S. and Europe for not overtly siding with Ukraine against Russia during the UN Security Council meetings. But India has interestingly turned out to be the only nation which is capable of actually talking to all the parties involved. There is, in fact, there was a mention, we're not certain about that. Maybe India actually is going to have a bilateral talk with China as well. But other than that, what all reporters here know is that India is really becoming like the centerpiece for all the back channel talks. The Americans won't talk to the Saudis. The ex won't talk to y, yada, yada. So India has, some of it to its active credit, but also maybe the scenario that's emerged is that India is becoming very important to helping these parties at least do some talking. So if not this one, and perhaps if things get a little better on ground, perhaps the next G20 is where we'll see some disarmament, some stepping back and the thought that you mentioned. So historical past of India with Russia in keeping the channels open, buying Russian oil and goods, of course means communication is also there. So if you want to talk to Russia, but don't want to seem that you're talking to Russia, maybe then you talk to India, is what I hear you saying, could be the... Actually more the legacy of the non-aligned movement. It is almost like we are reliving history. Those of the younger generation who haven't seen the Cold War, who haven't seen the hiddies of the non-aligned movement, it's almost like a return to history. That's a good point, but let's not forget, it doesn't work when it comes to China. When it comes to China, India is not it comes to Russia, it is. So more complex global scenario as yet, but you have hit the nail right on the head, question of the African Union is a very major issue and the fact that they are not players except South Africa is, but again South Africa doesn't represent Africa as you rightly said, and particularly sub-Saharan Africa doesn't really consider South Africa to be representing it. Really complex global scenarios, hopefully, hopefully this G20 will not be a complete failure and maybe some doors, if not doors, windows will open, but as of now fingers crossed and things for what's in that you're telling us things really do not look good. And on that note, I'm going to close this discussion, come back to you again during the course of this next two days, these two days and see whether something will be salvaged or not, or will we go into this winter on a global freeze. Thank you very much for that for being with us and giving us a wonderful view, a brown view of what's really happening in Bali. That's all we have, the time we have today news click, we'll come back to you on our further reportings in Bali, particularly since we have said that, who is there and is going to talk to us, hopefully in the future as well.