EDITORIAL
Bertrand Russell Was Wrong; Human Creativity Can Overcome This Crisis!
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Those of you who have not become personally totally demoralized, know that the United States and much of the world are in existential crisis. This is far worse than 2008, and far worse than 1929. In the United States, you would have to go back to the pre-Civil War period, or to the time before our Revolutionary War, to find such a level of threat to our country. Nations including our own could effectively cease to exist before this cruel winter ends.
This is a season of death here. Cut off from hope, cut off from a useful existence, cut off from everything, many of our citizens are simply going out to kill themselves, whether with heroin or firearms.
In the trans-Atlantic area, we have a disaster which has apparently little or no future for mankind. However, in terms of Russia and China, we do have something that could be the answer to the problem. You have to understand that the history of mankind in recent times, has been that Asia has been a different region from the trans-Atlantic area. And it’s the trans-Atlantic area, as centered in the British Empire, which is the primary source of all the evil that’s hitting now.
The key to understanding this, is the history of the British Empire. The British Empire is the source of evil, whereas you have a different possibility available in terms of Russia and China.
For mankind, there is always an available solution to this kind of problem. Where does it lie?
It lies in human creativity, and yes,— you can get there. On certain conditions. In order to get there, you will have to abandon most of the baggage you would like to carry with you. Which is essentially the British Empire, and those parts of the planet which are tied to the British Empire.
Like the current financial system. This financial system is a fake. It’s the source of the destruction. You have to get rid of the financial system,— and that is the key to the solution.
As soon as we do that, the bleeding will stop!
It is Bertrand Russell who created this, and it was Bertrand Russell’s influence on the U.S. economy, and related things, which caused this destruction.
This problem goes back to the death of the great genius Gottfried Leibniz at the end of 1716. Leibniz was the key to that entire period of history; his death left a huge gap among our forces. Leibniz was the inspirer of the American Revolution, along with much else. Later, decades after Leibniz’s death, it was the genius Alexander Hamilton who came forward to pick up Leibniz’s role and effectively found the U.S.A. Only Hamilton’s economic principles make sense!
Our crisis today is far worse than what Franklin Roosevelt faced, but the same Hamiltonian principles apply. Those principles can bring about a turnaround and eventual recovery now, as they did then. The problem is that so many U.S. citizens have become too stupid to grasp them. The stupidity which is manifest in submission to Wall Street, and even more particularly to the FBI system which substantially took power in the U.S. beginning in 1944, even before Franklin Roosevelt’s death. It was the introduction of the FBI system which has caused the destruction of the economy of the United States.
U.S. citizens’ minds have fallen prey to the evil influence of London’s Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), whom Lyndon LaRouche has called “the most evil man of the 20th century.” Russell devoted his life to making men stupid so that they might be easily controlled,— or, as now, killed. His method was to insist on mathematical thinking, which has long been the leading form of abject stupidity worldwide. Beginning in 1900, he succeeded, and progressively destroyed the 20th and 21st centuries. For most readers, this is what you “learned” in school. If you have children, this is all they are so-called “learning,” and in a more wretchedly stupid form. This is the stupidity which Albert Einstein, like Lyndon LaRouche, never accepted, and spent most of his life fighting.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Xi Jinping Offers Win-Win Collaboration to Arab League through the One Belt, One Road
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Speaking to the Arab League today in Cairo following his historic visits to Tehran, Riyadh, and Cairo, Chinese President Xi Jinping presented an offer of peace and development, accompanied with specific aid, investments, loans, and joint projects that total more than $55 billion to the region, including the Palestinians. CCTV broadcast the speech live with simultaneous English translation, and other Chinese TV stations broadcast in Arabic. The English transcript was posted in full by Xinhua.
Xi opened by saying that the Chinese “believe in hope and encourage it by peace,” and framed the speech entirely in the “One Belt, One Road” policy. “The key to overcoming difficulties is to accelerate development,” Xi said. “Turmoil in the Middle East stems from the lack of development, and the ultimate solution will depend on development, which bears on everyone’s well-being and dignity. It is a race against time and a struggle between hope and disillusion. Only when young people are able to live a fulfilled life with dignity through development can hope prevail in their heart. Only then will they voluntarily reject violence, extremist ideologies and terrorism.”
“Outside nations cannot impose solutions, and China will not look for a “proxy,” he said. Instead, China is offering a “win-win” strategy for all the countries of the region based on mutual interests. He also referred to the injustice toward the Palestinian people, reiterating China’s support for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, and announced 50 million yuan ($7.6 million) for the Palestinians.
He described four areas of closer Chinese-Arab relations:
First, on terrorism and extremism, he said the cause can’t be linked to a single country or a single religion. “We should treat the symptom, but also the cause.” Therefore, China created a research institute on Chinese-Arab reform in China, to which 100 “famous people” from Middle East religious institutions will be invited. China will also provide $300 million in law enforcement to help the Arab countries fight terrorism.
Second, work on structural reform, innovation, and a push for “oil-plus” trade relations. China would like to see agreements for the long-term purchase of oil and a long-term energy strategy cooperation that involves innovation. He told them, “China’s investment is entering the fast lane,” and the emphasis will be on manufacturing exports and transportation.
Third was “energy capacity cooperation,” and using Chinese progress in developing efficient industries such as auto production, that can create jobs in the Arab world. He referenced the $15 billion in investments just signed in Egypt, along with: $10 billion in loans to Arab countries for manufacturing capacity, and $20 billion for U.A.E. and Qatar for high-end industries. Another $10 billion is going for other projects. China and the Arab States have also set up a training center for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and clean energy.
The fourth area is “civilizational exchanges” based on joint respect for cultures. Cooperation in this area will result in discovering “more areas for win-win cooperation through the One Belt, One Road.” China is inviting 100 scholars and experts and will provide 1,000 positions for Arab youth leaders to visit China. They will also invite parties to decide on 10,000 scholarships and 10,000 positions for trainees in China. Under another project, China and the Arab States will launch a “Silk Road Book Translation” program for the translation of 100 Chinese and Arab classics into each other’s language. “The Chinese and Arab civilizations each have their own systems and distinctive features,” Xi said, “yet they both embody the common ideals and aspirations of mankind for development and progress, and they both champion such values as moderation, peace, forgiveness, tolerance and self-restraint.”
U.A.E. Daily Welcomes Xi Jinping Bringing of Schiller Institute New Silk Road Strategy to Arab World
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—The Arabic U.A.E. newspaper Al-Ittihad published an excited column by scientific and technology advisor Mohammed Aref on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran, which gives full credit to the “New Silk Road Lady,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute she founded for this new visionary policy.
Aref’s column, titled “China’s 51st Century” (according to China’s historic record), gives a very poetic and enthusiastic image of the tour by President Xi to the region and of China’s emphasis on the New Silk Road and economic development in its new policy paper on Chinese-Arab relations.
In 1997, Aref was the first Arab journalist to write a thorough review of the EIR’s first Eurasian Land-Bridge Report, in a full-page article published in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat, for which he was then the Scientific Editor.
After debunking the argument that China’s economy is in decline, Aref writes in his U.A.E. article:
“China is redrawing the map of the world, turning the seven continents into six by making Asia and Europe one continent. ‘Let the world be, for no one can succeed in conquering the world and changing it,’ as the Chinese saying goes, and as expressed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry Arab Policy Paper which was issued last week, in which the Silk Road, which used to link China with the Arab world for more than 2,000 years, is revived. The road of Chinese wisdom is like the ‘Silk Road’ which connects the greatest continental Asian-European land-mass, and extends between the shores of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans through infrastructures for agriculture, industry, trade, technology, science and culture.”
Aref concludes his column:
“ ‘The Arab-Asian Land-Bridge: The Pulsating Heart of the New Silk Road’ was the tile of my report in a London newspaper in November 1997, and I never imagined, then, that this project, which was designed by the Schiller Institute, would be adopted by China and that the Chinese President would bring it with him to the Arab region this week. Last September, Beijing celebrated the release of the Chinese version of the new report ‘The Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge.’ In the next month, the Arabic version of the report will be published, prepared by Hussein Askary, the Iraqi member of the Schiller Institute, which was established the German Academician Helga LaRouche, who is called by the Chinese ‘The Silk Road Lady,’ because she paved the way for the New Silk Road through hundreds of conferences and scientific and political seminars, and she ‘established the concept of the Eurasian Land-Bridge as a war prevention tool,’ according to the Chinese scholar, Deng Yifan. Helga LaRouche and China are like the woman, about whom the Chinese proverb states: ‘The female always surpasses the male by her calmness, and she becomes fruitful even in her silence.’…”
China and Egypt Sign Electricity, Transport and Infrastructure Projects
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Following his talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo on Jan. 20, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a joint statement with el-Sisi, said: “The two sides have agreed to undertake 15 projects … mainly in sectors like electricity, transport and infrastructure. The total investment in these projects is $15 billion. These projects will offer a new impetus to the economic development of Egypt,” Shanghai Daily reported today.
Egyptian state television broadcast live the signing of 21 agreements at the presidential office in Cairo in the presence of the two leaders. Shanghai Daily reported that the deals include infrastructure projects which run from power generation to the first phase of a new Egyptian administrative capital; a $1 billion loan for Egypt’s central bank; and a $700 million loan to state-owned National Bank of Egypt.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Run on Monte dei Paschi
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Shares for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the world’s oldest bank, fell 22% yesterday, reducing the stock value to one-fifth of net capital. According to an article in the Italian daily Il Fatto, depositors who had more than €100,000 have pulled €1 billion out of the bank since January 1. The rate of withdrawal is €2billion a month. Liquidity at MPS has gone down from €20 billion to probably €17 billion, the “target” level of one-tenth of the assets. A default is not far away.
Both Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Treasury Minister Pier Carlo Padoan have gone on television to say that Italian banks are safe, that there is no reason to panic. Renzi, however, said that MPS is up for sale and that the government is not concerned that foreign investors might buy it.
The Italian government should better sue Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Netherlands’ Finance Minister, who wrote “Three Reforms To Boost Europe” in the Jan. 18 Wall Street Journalthat ratings on government bonds, such as those held en masse by Italian banks, should be reviewed.
IMF Completely Neglects Growth Effects from Silk Road
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Folker Hellmeyer, chief economist at the Bremer Landesbank, the bank of the city-state of Bremen, and a dissident voice among analysts in Germany, notes that the situation at the beginning of 2016 is quite risky globally, but that the IMF in its latest assessment did a propaganda job for the U.S. economy, while the Fund simultaneously neglected entirely the positive aspects in the case of China.
In its prognosis for China, the IMF sees a drop from the 6.9% growth in GDP reached in 2015, to 6.3% in 2016 and 6.0% in 2017. “Apparently, the effects from the beginning implementation of the Silk Road Project were not paid attention to in this forecast,” Hellmeyer criticized. “I expect an expansion of GDP by at least 6.5%—emphasis put on ‘at least.’ ”
Hellmeyer calls the IMF’s current, small downward correction of its October forecast for the United States, from 2.8% to 2.6% in both 2016 and 2017 astonishing. “The impression that the IMF is doing marketing for the U.S.A. is strong, given the circumstances…. Food for thought!’ ” Hellmeyer concludes.
In numerous previous interviews, Hellmeyer has stated that he does not want to join the “China-bashing” which seems to have become a standard in mainstream media reporting, and that he believes in the New Silk Road strategy.
Spain’s Population Drops: More Deaths than Births
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Latest statistic released this week by the National Statistics Institute (INE) show that Spain’s population has dropped for the third consecutive year as Spaniards emigrated, foreigners returned to their own countries, and deaths increased faster than births.
According to an English-language report in El País yesterday, Spain’s population dropped by 146,959 between Jan. 1, 2014 and Jan. 1, 2015; the INE put Spain’s current population at 46,624,382.
Spain’s former population of 4.7 million foreigners has decreased by as much as 300,000, as economic conditions in the country worsened.
More important is that the number of deaths in 2014 was 31,678 above the number of births, which, in addition, were the fewest since 2000. This is the first time Spain has had more deaths than births since the 1936-39 Civil War. A person dies in Spain every 69 seconds, while a child is born every 86 seconds, at which rate there would have been 19,268 more deaths than births recorded in 2015, experts predict. They also estimate the loss of about a million people over the next 15 years, and that by 2063 there will be 330,423 more deaths than births.
The big problem is that the population continues to age while the birth rates continue to be low. Spanish women on average are now having their first child at age 31.8, and the median number of children born to each woman is 1.32, while in the rest of Europe it is 2.1.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Russia Plans Broad-Ranging Military Drills with a Number of Nations
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Russia is planning air and naval drills with a number of nations this year, TASS reports. “In accordance with the plan for international activities, our units will participate in a tactical exercise in Serbia, in an exercise of the Egyptian armed forces, and in a joint peacekeeping and humanitarian demining exercise in India, as well as in three exercises by special operations units in Belarus,” Russian Airborne Forces commander Vladimir Shamanov said today. Shamanov also said that Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Armenia “are showing interest in joint humanitarian drills with Russia’s Airborne Troops at the North Pole.”
In addition, Russia’s fleet will participate in a range of international naval exercises this year jointly with China, Egypt, India, and other countries, according to the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Vice-Adm. Alexander Fedotenkov. “To continue work on strengthening ties with the naval forces of foreign countries in 2016, a number of joint drills have been planned: with the navies of China, Egypt and India,” TASS quoted Fedotenkov as saying. “The Navy’s coastal troops will hold brigade-level tactical exercises in 2016 involving an Arctic motor rifle brigade and a research tactical exercise with live fire from coastal missile systems in the Arctic zone.”
Ischinger at Davos: Russia and NATO Must Reduce Tensions
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Sputnik news service, Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, called for Russia and NATO to reduce tensions.
“I think there is a willingness by NATO members generally, and certainly by the European Union, to end this conflict,” Ischinger said, adding that he was happy to see “willingness to stretch out a hand to see how Russia will react to this” from the Western side. “We need to restore trust, we need what we call in our language confidence-building measures. We need to restore discussions between Russia and NATO. My impression is that 2016 is a very interesting year. It is going to be the most difficult year for the European Union ever, but it is also a year which offers the opportunity to reduce the risk of conflict and the level of disagreement between Russia and the West.”
Ischinger called on Russia to send a signal that investments and investors from Western Europe are welcome, “that Russia is interested in trust-building and confidence-building.”
“I see the opportunity, I see even the need to get our act together between Russia and the West,” Ischinger said, stressing that it is impossible to establish peace without Russian participation.
The Munich Security Conference this year will take place on Feb. 12-14. The Kremlin announced yesterday that President Putin would not be attending.
Italian Journalist Giulietto Chiesa Says Cologne Events Were a ‘Set Up’ against France and Germany
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Giulietto Chiesa, former Moscow correspondent of various Italian newspapers and currently editor of Pandora TV, said he believes the Cologne year-end events and the Istanbul Jan. 12 suicide attack are part of an attack against Germany and France. He has said this on his Facebook page and in interviews, notably with Radionews24, which is owned by the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.
The media narrative on the Cologne events “is quite phony, with some hints of truth. Why Cologne and why Istanbul, where a bomb goes off and kills Germans?”
If we look at the past year and at the attacks in Paris, the idea coming to one’s mind is that “two large European countries, which are the pillars of current Europe—which I do not like, but I acknowledge that they are the pillars—are targetted by a clear attack. I am talking about states, not peoples, and of the leaders of those states, that is Hollande and Merkel.” Then he asks, “Why, for instance, is Great Britain never involved” in destabilizations?
In Cologne, a situation was exploited, with thousands of young men who have no jobs, no money, nothing to do, by someone with “a lot of money” to spend for the job. Also the Volkswagen scandal is not accidental, Chiesa said. “It is a direct strike by the U.S.A. against Germany.”
What is the purpose? To punish France and Germany for their foreign policy initiatives. “When Merkel and Hollande went to Moscow, with no American presence, to negotiate with Putin for an end of the war in Ukraine, I believe that somebody in Washington went literally berserk. These forces wanted the war to go on to its bitter end.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Obama Makes Big Endorsement of His Buddy Erdogan; Ash Carter Not
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—President Barack Obama has given what is clearly a major endorsement of his Muslim Brotherhood buddy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Following a telephone discussion between the two on Jan. 19, the White House readout quoted Obama extending his condolences for the Jan. 12 suicide bombing in Istanbul.
Both the White House and the Turkish Presidency issued written statements saying, “The President [Obama] spoke today by phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express his condemnation of, and offer condolences for, the Jan. 12 terrorist attack in Istanbul. The two leaders pledged to deepen cooperation in the fight against terrorism and reiterated their shared goal of degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL. The President also condemned the recent string of [outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party] PKK attacks against Turkish security forces and stressed the need for de-escalation.”
It seems that Obama’s enthusiasm towards Erdogan is not shared by U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who told reporters today in Paris that Ankara needed to do more against ISIL, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP): “Turkey occupies a key position in the [anti-ISIL] coalition—it is hosting aircraft and making other contributions. I do believe that Turkey can do more, and therefore the kind of campaign plan I was discussing with other ministers … would very, very much benefit from a stronger effort by Turkey….
“The Turkish border is a place where ISIL fighters have gone back and forth, logistics and supplies for ISIL have been furnished,” AFP quoted Carter as saying.
OTHER
Colombia Gears Up Mass ‘Medical Marijuana’ Exports for British Empire
Jan. 21 (EIRNS)—Just weeks before President Juan Manuel Santos’ Feb. 4 visit with Barack Obama, Colombian Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria told Bloomberg that his government is working to develop “medical marijuana products” into “an export industry similar to wines in Chile and broccoli and asparagus in Peru…. This is going to be a new commodity, there’s an emerging global medical marijuana business,” and international companies will be coming to Colombia to get in on it,” Gaviria said. He did not name which ones in the interview, published on Jan. 14.
Hundreds of Colombian patriots have given their lives resisting the modern-day British Opium War against their nation over the past three decades. No so President Santos, an advocate of legalizing marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs, whose closest mentor is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In December 2015, Santos signed legislation “regulating” the licensed production and exportation of marijuana.
Drug legalization is also the central plank of the peace accord which Santos’ government is set to sign with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) drug cartel. President Barack Obama ordered the U.S. State Department to help negotiate that accord, the final details of which are to be worked out during Santos’ U.S. visit.
