 South Africa has reaffirmed that it will hold the BRICS summit in August, dispelling rumors that it might be shifted due to pressures over the attendance of Russian President Vladimir Putin. How is South Africa dealing with these pressures? In a shocking verdict, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that race-based admission policies for higher education, which are also known as affirmative action, are unconstitutional. Why is the clock being turned backwards? And a court in the UK ruled that the government's controversial plan to send refugees to Rwanda is illegal. Will this halt these kinds of inhumane policies? We will be answering these questions and more in this episode of Daily Debrief. We begin with BRICS, the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Now there has been a lot of interest in this grouping because of its economic might and the possibility of it emerging as an alternative to the U.S.-led order. The BRICS summit is scheduled to be held in August in South Africa. But recently, there was a controversy over the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. There is a warrant against Putin issued by the International Criminal Court. And South Africa is bound by treaty to arrest him if he goes there. This led to speculation that the summit might be shifted. But now South Africa has come out and said very clearly that the summit will go on. We have with us Abdul Fumor. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. So first of all, what's the latest from South Africa on the BRICS summit? Well, as you rightly pointed out, they have confirmed that the summit will go on as planned. And basically that puts rest to the rumors that the summit will be shifted to China or any other country. It also basically kind of clears it that what Ramaphosa did going to Russia meeting with Putin last month, earlier this month, sorry, basically has created a background, kind of some kind of arrangement has been made to basically continue with the preparation of the summit. This also means that South Africa has basically come out of the pressures exerted on it by the US and other Western powers to basically turn against Russia, take a clear-cut position on the war and basically do things which they have been wanting South Africa and other third world countries and the South countries in the Southern world to basically do. And so this is all what so far has been, you can say this is the latest development. But though it says that summit will go on, it is not clear yet whether Putin will physically attend the meeting or there will be some other mechanisms to basically make the summit possible. Right. Of course Abdul, could you just talk a bit more about what you are referring to that is the kind of pressures that South Africa has been facing. I understand that US congressmen, the ambassador in South Africa, all of them have made pretty controversial statements. Exactly. If you see that apart from those statements made by individual members of Congress or the diplomats here and there, US in fact formally alized South Africa for supplying weapons to Russia as they did with Iran and some other countries. They have also basically asked South Africa to formally ask South Africa that if they are not taking a clear-cut position on Russian war, sorry, Ukrainian war, there will be sanctions. Of course secondary sanctions, which sanctions because South Africa is one of those countries which has continued its economic relations with Russia. It has no other option, of course, for various reasons given the historical links, given the dependence on Russia for grains and fertilizers and so on and so forth. So it has continued its relationship with despite the fact there are strong sanctions imposed against Russia. So there has been threats of sanctions, there have been threats of other kinds of measures against South Africa and also the idea that it is supplying weapons to Russia and so on and so forth. So all these things were basically attempts to push South Africa away, not only from Russia, it seems that there is a greater pressure to basically shift South Africa's alliance with BRICS as a grouping also. These pressures are, of course, there is a short-term objective of putting South Africa away from Russia but also from the BRICS given the fact that there is a larger geostrategic game which is going on vis-à-vis China and there is also some kind of attempt to put pressure on other countries in the group to basically put them away from this particular grouping. So this is a part of the pressures of different kinds, statements or the threats of sanctions on the allegations on different fronts are basically a diplomatic way to basically use both stick and carrot to persuade South Africa to move away from BRICS. Abdul Afghur is also, I think it's interesting because it's not just South Africa, many African countries in fact refusing to take the stance that the US has wanted them to take on the question of the war, like you said, economic ties being one reason but also an interesting dynamic taking place in the continent. Exactly, most of the African countries will are not in a position to basically follow the dictates of the US or European Union because first, of course, there has been a long experience which has kind of consolidated a mobilized set of opinion which is based on experience of their colonial experience or the recent imperialist interventions in one way or another that basically has won the history is part of the position which basically decides what African countries will do. Apart from that, there is a larger realignment in the global politics which is happening both because everyone is basically clear about one thing that the US as an economic power is declining and there is an alternative which is emerging which is China or a group of countries in the global south which basically can provide an alternative economic support or economic assistance without the imperialist dictates which they were forced to follow earlier. So, given this option which most of the African countries are looking towards, they have it now and the thing that this will become much more viable in the coming years, there is no reason for them to basically follow one sided relationship which was the case all these years. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Abdul. Very interesting process will be, I think you will also be covering it in the run up to the summit in August and the August summit itself might come up with some interesting conclusions, a stock of a BRICS currency for instance. Thanks so much for talking to us. Moving on to slightly depressing but unsurprising news, the US Supreme Court has ruled that race based admission policies for higher education are illegal. Now, this is known as affirmative action. Now, the court is dominated by conservatives and said that such policies violated the right to equal protection of the law. Now, these policies didn't come in isolation, they were the result of the civil rights movement in the 60s and 70s and these policies recognized the structural discrimination that black and brown students faced. But it turns out now that these policies are now which are progressive are now being called illegal. We have with us Natalia Marquez of People's Dispatch for more. Natalia, before we get into the larger politics of the issue, could you quickly summarize the judgment for us? So on June 29th, the Supreme Court ruled that race based admissions policies for higher education, colleges and universities also known as affirmative action policies are unconstitutional for violating the 14th amendment of the US Constitution, which is the right to equal protection of the law across race. So what this means is that it's essentially now impossible for colleges and universities to factor race into admission. Doing away with the policies of affirmative action that a lot of institutions had used in particular elite institutions to ensure that there was more, there were more people of color, especially black and brown students at these colleges and universities. Colleges and universities, especially elite ones in the United States, have a long deep history of racism and not accepting black and Latino students, which has contributed to the racial wealth gap and the low amounts of generational wealth across generations of black and Latino people in the United States. Right, absolutely. And why is affirmative action important? And could you maybe take us through what is the, you know, where did it stem from and what was its significance for students? So affirmative action actually was never really codified into law in terms of university admissions in the United States. That's why the use of affirmative action varies widely by institution across the country. But the legacy of universities prioritizing black and brown students in some cases originated from the struggles of the civil rights movements in the 1960s and 70s. These included, you know, the voting rights movement, the movement to end Jim Crow segregation, you know, just really the movement to right past racial wrongs. And they, you know, although affirmative action policies were not perfectly implemented by many means, you know, elite institutions often found a way around admitting working class black and brown students from the United States, either filling racial quotas with wealthier black students from other countries or whatnot. And although that studies have shown that actually white women have principally benefited from affirmative action policies because of the imperfection of policies that prioritize black and brown people, affirmative action still did help in some ways in admitting more and more working class people of color into elite universities. Actually, in 1995, the University of California system banned affirmative action. And in 1998, which was the first year after the ban that was affected by the ban, the number of black and brown students or black and Latino students specifically nearly halved at the university system's two most competitive institutions, which are the University of Los Angeles and the University of California, Berkeley. So it's expected and predicted that because of this ruling, the admission rate of working class black and brown students will plummet. And that will only widen the racial wealth gap in a country where this wealth gap has already been widening for the past few decades. And it has actually not been getting smaller. So, you know, widening inequality, right? And, you know, affirmative action is not necessarily important just for diversity's sake, although often mainstream arguments in favor of affirmative action will say that, oh, you know, diversity in institutions is important. Actually, the movement to fight for affirmative action policies was not a movement for diversity, for diversity's sake or solely diversity. It was part of the larger civil rights struggle. So in conjunction with, you know, the civil rights organizing that we know best, the bus boycotts, boycotts against, you know, Jim Crow segregation, whatnot. There was also a really thriving civil rights student movement. And the student movement fought for a lot of different things that would right historical wrongs in universities, like ethnic studies, you know, the idea that, you know, history taught in universities needs to teach the history of all people and teach the history of the marginalized and disenfranchised as a priority. You know, the struggle for admitting more black and brown students at universities where, you know, like the University of North Carolina that didn't admit black students until the 1950s. The policy of prioritizing the admissions of people of color would write those past historical wrongs and actually benefit, you know, benefit people of color in terms of eliminating structural racism and eliminating the racial wealth gap. And so, you know, this was part of a larger racial justice movement, not a movement for just for diversity. And I think putting that struggle in that context is really important. And also affirmative action is part of a larger movement at opening up university admissions for more people in general, right? The United States has some of the most competitive elite and expensive institutions in the entire world. Of course, we have a massive student debt crisis. The average undergraduate education costs over $145,000. And admitting more working class people of color is part of reversing that, part of opening up educational opportunities for everyone. Oftentimes, the argument against affirmative action is that it lowers the amount of educational opportunities for Asian people and white people. When this isn't necessarily the truth, and the focus should be on opening up educational opportunities for historically disenfranchised people like black and brown people and also demanding more educational opportunities for everyone. That was Natalia Marquez talking about a verdict which has been widely condemned by sections across the United States, including the establishment. And we need to see how this will impact the lives of thousands of students. But moving on from a court in one Anglo-Saxon country to another, we go to the United Kingdom, where a court of appeal ruled that the conservative governments plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful. This extremely controversial policy which was pushed by the conservative government under Rishi Sunak and earlier governments required asylum seekers to be sent to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed. The ruling overturns a December verdict by a lower court, which held the plan as lawful. Now this ruling is a major blow to the Tory government's anti-refugee policies, but it may not be enough to stop it. We have with us Anish to talk more about this. Anish, first of all, could you maybe take us through what this policy is in some detail and what the court said? The basic fundamentals of the policy is basically that the UK government had to deal with the Rwandan government with certain diplomatic assurances that it will act as this sort of a third country, a safe country for asylum seekers to have their refugee status processed. Now they will have to spend an indefinite amount of time there. Most of the people who might have already reached the United Kingdom by a very perilous ride, either by boat or any other way, where to be sent there, where to be deported there. And then they had to wait their turn to actually have their asylum application processed. Now this whole process was widely, not only because it actually just adds some other further steps to block any kind of actual real asylum or refuge for refugees who may have been fleeing from not just war but also extreme impoverishment and complete instability that, again, as we have always reported, an outcome of interventionist policies by European countries, which includes the United Kingdom. So in this situation, this sort of violation of aid to seek asylum. So technically they did not deny you the right to seek asylum. But what happens in Rwanda is that, more or less, there is a great deal of likelihood that people who would want to seek asylum will be denied on pretty much any kind of spurious grounds. Now this is not something that the United Kingdom is trying to do for the first time or is something novel. It was something that actually happened under the Trump administration where you had these migrant caravans, they were called migrant caravans. They were essentially asylum seekers who were being pushed to Mexico or other countries or even sent back home. So the whole point of this policy is deportation rather than actually affording asylum to people who might need them. And this is something that the court has observed because as it's, even though the letter actually doesn't deny anybody's right to asylum, it actually creates further roadblocks to actually get asylum, especially for people who might have already reached the United Kingdom. And this is very specifically being the larger part of this whole story, not just stories. It actually began much earlier, but stories kind of, you know, amplified it in recent years, which is basically to turn the boat's back campaign, where they just do not want. They have created this bogey of boat people trying to invade. Actually, Soela Brayvam and the person who authored the bill itself, she actually said that the asylum seekers were invading Britain. And she refused to apologize for that. So they actually do believe this fact that asylum seekers are somehow trying to invade the United Kingdom and take over the countries by gaining asylum, which does not give them any kind of special treatment. It gives them some basic rights and it actually prevents them from a whole host of employment in the United Kingdom. But nevertheless, it is being used as this bogey to whip up sort of nationalist and, you know, even right wing populist frenzy in the UK. Well, Anish, of course, not to mention the fact that the countries refugees were going to be sent to is Rwanda, which is notorious as an agent of the Western powers, and especially in Africa and also has a very bad record with refugees. But does it seem like this verdict is really going to change the government's position? Because this has been multiple governments, like you said, the Liz Truss government also had the same policies. Boris Johnson was no different. So do you think what is the government likely to do at this point? Well, the government might find other ways to actually because considering the statements that we've seen so far, Brave Woman actually said that they will do pretty much anything to prevent the boats from coming to the UK, which is a very dangerous sort of policy because you know very well that these people are going through a very dangerous journey across the Mediterranean and they are using most of them are traveling on makeshift boats, which are not essentially boats. Many of them are just like larger life jackets or just rubber or some kind of contraption that traffickers actually created. So in many ways, they are victims of air trafficking, but they've gone through a very perilous journey and to prevent them from actually reaching the shores of the UK, which is their primary policy shows that this government is not going to change. And they might find other ways to do what they actually aim right now, which is to prevent asylum seekers from reaching the UK. And that is going to create more sort of like so this policy essentially was an attempt to was a face saving attempt in many ways, trying to pretend that they are they are not denying anybody's asylum. They are not denying anybody's rights, but they just do not want to do it on British soil. Right now, they might we do not know how things will move on from that. We do know that Sunna definitely wants to appeal against this verdict. He wants to go to the Supreme Court on that way, but Breverman's position and considering the fact that she is definitely part of the most right wing sections within the Conservative Party has often been associated with national conservatism, which is basically a more brazen way of saying crypto fascism is in many ways kind of using the same kind of rhetoric that we often associated Johnson or any kind of parties like the BNP or UKIP for that matter, who were very notorious for their anti-refugee, anti-immigrant policies and this coming from somebody who is a doctor of migrants is clearly you know that also that's highly ironic. Yeah exactly, but definitely the fact that she's doubling down on her position shows that there might be you know bigger problems in the offering in coming days. Right, thank you so much Anish. Of course also a challenge for activists and organizations. I think the last time there was a plan when the plan was being executed to send them to Rwanda there was a vast protest by activists. I believe one of the European courts intervened and stopped it. So definitely a lot of legal battles ahead and I'm sure you'll be covering it and we'll come back to you for this. Thanks so much. So from the front lines of diplomacy to an attack on progressive policies and also the lives of migrants and refugees being at stake. We have covered all this on this episode of Daily Debrief and that's what we try to do on this show every day which is to cover some of the major developments across the world, understand the perspectives of people's movements, understand the perspectives of those who are struggling fighting for a better world. So do keep watching Daily Debrief and other videos and stories on People's Dispatch.