EDITORIAL
Trump Must Be Allowed To Control U.S. Policy To Russia: We Must Crush Mueller’s Russiagate Scam
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—President Trump has consistently, and repeatedly, declared Robert Mueller’s Russiagate to be a total fraud, an attempt to overturn the will of the nation in the presidential election, and in several aspects outright treasonous. He has also repeated over and over, throughout his campaign and as President, that having friendly relations with Russia is a “good thing,” and critical for a successful U.S. policy in the world.
Yet, Russia policy continues to be run by others. President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov, in protesting various U.S. policies detrimental to Russia and to U.S.-Russian relations, almost always say that President Trump is committed to improving relations, but that the effort to remove him is holding him back. This is true, and must be quickly reversed.
A review of Lavrov’s comments at his year-end press conference today demonstrates the urgency for the success of the LaRouchePAC campaign to expose and destroy Robert Mueller’s British-directed coup attempt against Trump and against Russia.
Pointing at the U.S. illegal seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the U.S.; at the threat that the successful collaboration in Syria to defeat ISIS is now being turned into a partition of Syria or full-scale regime change; at the expansion of NATO military forces to Russia’s border; at unilateral sanctions and unilateral use of military force—Lavrov sounded a stern warning:
“We are witnessing a devaluation of international law, and the diminishing role of multilateral institutions.” The U.S. and its allies “still want to handle matters solely on the basis of dictating and putting forward ultimatums. [They] do not want to hear the viewpoints of other global policy centers and, actually, do not want to recognize the reality of the emerging multipolar world. The methods they resort to, to contain their rivals, are for the most part, rather dubious and unscrupulous. Their range is wide—from deploying a global missile defense system to unilateral sanctions, extraterritorial use of their legislation and threats to tackle any international issues in accordance with their own scenario exclusively, stopping at nothing, including the use of brute military force.”
These things are true—but, it is most important to emphasize that we are at a point in history that this world crisis can be rectified, that the U.S. can be pulled out from under the domination of British political influence and British ideology. Geopolitics can and must be destroyed—the Darwinian dog-eat-dog mentality of zero-sum conflict and confrontation—in favor of the win-win concept underlying the New Silk Road. This is what Trump embraced on his visit to China in November. This is what French President Macron equally embraced on his visit to China earlier this month. And this is what Lyndon LaRouche set in motion fifty years ago, by creating the new ideas required to lift mankind’s thinking to a higher level: to the level of the laws of the physical universe, to see fifty or a thousand years ahead in order to discover what must be done today.
The coup-plotters against Trump are in deep trouble. The U.S. Congress now has in its hands the documentary proof that the entire campaign to demonize Russia and to remove Trump from office has been based on lies, on fabrications by MI6 agent Christopher Steele and his accomplices. Much of it is classified and cannot be released to the public as yet, but key members of Congress have shown the courage to make it known that serious crimes have been committed by the FBI, Justice Department, and CIA leaders from the Bush/Obama era, operating today as a criminal cabal outside of government.
The effort to save their coup by declaring the President to be a racist, and a madman, expresses a state of hysteria and panic by the very people who are responsible for the racist and mad policies which have kept the world in poverty and perpetual warfare for the past two decades.
There is no time to lose. The New Silk Road is the means to unite the world behind a higher level of thought and cooperation. It will only work with a parallel campaign to restructure the bankrupt Western financial system, through Glass-Steagall and the related “Four Laws” presented by LaRouche. It is in our hands.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
High-Level Military Conference in Hawai’i Day Before False Missile Alarm
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—On Jan. 12, the day before the state of Hawai’i was thrown into existential chaos with the issuance of an erroneous nuclear missile attack alert, several hundred military commanders, politicians, and others were in Honolulu for the Chamber of Commerce’s Hawai’i Military Affairs Council. An annual event, this year’s conference had the added intensity of the media-induced hysteria of the war of words between American President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The gathering included an impressive representation of the U.S. Pacific Command, including Adm. Harry Harris, head of the PACOM, who gave the closing keynote; Maj. Gen. Russ Mack, deputy commander of Pacific Air Forces; Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf, a former PACOM deputy commander; and George Ka’iliwai, Pacific Command’s “director of the requirements and resources directorate,” according to an accounting by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The air was heavy with neo-con saber rattling.
“There is a real threat” to Hawai’i, General Leaf told the community leaders. “We’re closer” to Korea than the U.S. mainland, he said. “Easier.” He then insisted that Pyongyang’s nuclear missiles are not aimed at South Korea, not at Japan. “The U.S. is the designated recipient—and that’s because we are public enemy No. 1 to North Korea.”
In his summary presentation, Admiral Harris got straight to the point, telling the nervous attendees that, “While the possibility of a nuclear strike is slim, we now live in a world where we must be prepared for every contingency.”
The next morning the “accidental” nuclear attack warning set the entire state into panic, under the observation of the leading U.S. military command for Asia.
Ray McGovern: ‘Russia-gate Is Becoming FBI-gate’
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—In his piece, “The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate,” published by ConsortiumNews on Jan. 11, VIPS leader Ray McGovern, a leading Soviet analyst at the CIA for many years, slams liberals who are so blinded by “Trump-hatred” that they refuse to see that U.S. intelligence agencies are doing now what those liberals warned about in the days of Watergate: Manipulating U.S. politics, carrying out “a soft-coup.”
The centerpiece of McGovern’s argument here (delivered with his typical humor) is that even the already-released small fraction of text messages between former FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok and his lover, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, have given us “documentary proof” that “key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process” in the last days of the Obama Administration. And the main casualty resulting from those texts “is the FBI’s 18-month campaign to sabotage candidate-and-now-President Donald Trump by using the Obama administration’s Russia-gate intelligence assessment, electronic surveillance of dubious legality, and a salacious dossier that could never pass the smell test, while at the same time using equally dubious techniques to immunize Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers from crimes that include lying to the FBI and endangering secrets.”
McGovern suggests it is time Congress turn its “overlook” committees back into “oversight” committees, and find “the courage to attempt to carry out their Constitutional duty.” Congress must take on “J. Edgar Hoover-style blackmail on steroids, enabled by electronic surveillance of just about everything and everyone…. If, as many have concluded, the [Steele] dossier was used to help justify a FISA warrant to snoop on the Trump campaign, those involved will be in deep kimchi, if congressional overseers do their job.”
Texas Scandal Targets China Influence in Education
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—In an operation which may have implications for China education cooperation across the nation, the China Public Policy Center (CPPC) at the University of Texas has been sanctioned in its efforts to raise money from its host country. Specifically, the CPPC has been barred from accepting cash donations from the China United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), after the group had been smeared with allegations of having “communist” connections.
Beginning almost immediately after the Center opened its doors last August, Executive Director David Firestein had proposed making CUSEF a principal funder of the initiative. Within days, “several professors and university officials raised concerns,” according to Josh Rogin’s article in the Washington Post today. An investigation was begun, dragging on for several months. Eventually, Sen. Ted Cruz intervened, sending a letter in January to University President Greg Fenves, warning him that “collaboration” with the CUSEF could allow it to “disseminate P.R.C. [People’s Republic of China] propaganda within the Center and compromise its credibility.”
On Jan. 12, Fenves conceded, telling Cruz that accepting CUSEF money “could create potential conflicts of interest or place limits on academic freedom and the robust exchange of ideas.” With that, the precedent has been set.
An almost gleeful Rogin writes, “UT-Austin’s decision has implications not only for the future of Chinese money in higher education but also for the greater effort to counter Chinese interference in free societies, known as ‘sharp power.’ ” In closing, Rogin reveals the ultimate target of this operation: “hundreds of Confucius Institutes on college campuses that operate under opaque contracts and often stand accused of interfering in China-related education activities.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
British Construction Giant Carillion Goes into Liquidation
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—The huge British construction company Carillion collapsed this morning, after negotiations among the company, the government, and the company’s creditor banks fell through. The company employs more than 43,000 people, half of whom work in the U.K., and is involved with over 450 government projects, including high-speed rail; it also runs privatized prisons, housing for the Defense Ministry, and maintenance for Net Rail, the national rail grid. It is one of the premiere companies involved in the government privatization program. The company is said to have defaulted on £2 billion in debt.
Questions are being asked as to why the government kept giving the company contracts despite the fact that it was publicly known to be in trouble.
Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative Party chairman of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee, said, “This really shakes public confidence in the ability of the private sector to deliver public services and infrastructure.”
Mick Cash, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, remarked, “This is disastrous news for the workforce and disastrous news for transport and public services in Britain.”
Carillion has debts and liabilities of £1.5 billion with creditors that include RBS, Santander U.K., and HSBC, among others. By late morning the debt figure was £2 billion, which includes a pension deficit within of £580-£900 million. Its pension fund will now be managed by the Pension Protection Fund, according to media reports.
Rebecca O’Keeffe, Head of Investment at Interactive Investor brokerage firm, warned “It is far from clear at this stage what the wider implications will be from the liquidation of Carillion, both in terms of its impact on the construction industry and on the wider economy as a whole, not least from the enormous uncertainty that now afflicts the tens of thousands of Carillion staff and those other companies directly dependent upon it.”
How Many Zombie Companies Are There, Actually, in Europe?
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—The news reports about Carillion Construction Company’s collapse into liquidation in Britain, should be a reminder that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimated that 10% of all European firms are “zombie companies”; and the British accounting association known as RRR last year estimated the figure at 25% in the U.K. Zombie companies are firms which have no foreseeable hope of paying their debts, because their cash flow does not even cover the interest they owe, so they need more debt to pay interest. Jared Kushner’s 666 Corp. is a well-known example. The IMF, in its Global Financial Stability Report 2017, guessed that 20% of all U.S. corporations could become zombies with any marked rise in interest rates.
Now two significant companies have collapsed in Europe in the past 30 days. The first, Steinhoff Group, is a South Africa-based retail conglomerate which is not yet formally in bankruptcy, but has been melting down since December and trying to sell off units to cover margin calls. Its debts total about $25 billion, and involve a number of major banks.
Carillion is not a conglomerate and has much less securities debt—less than $2 billion in bonds. But as a fairly large construction company, operating internationally, it has billions in short-term project loans and a lot of joint ventures (involving joint borrowing) with other construction companies, which will now feel debt pressure as a result of its liquidation.
And bond market interest rates are rising.
Ironclad Guarantees Are Needed To Extend Turkish Stream to Europe
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—In a hard-hitting press conference today in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that Russia would extend the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline farther west to Europe only if the European Commission provides “ironclad guarantees” that the contract will not be broken.
Foreign Minister Lavrov pointed out that the first line of the Turkish Stream pipeline is being built to deliver natural gas to Turkey now. He continued that “the second [line] will only be constructed if we receive ironclad guarantees from the European Commission that they will not pull the same trick as happened with the ‘South Stream’ pipeline regarding Bulgaria.” Lavrov also stated that Bulgaria is again “ready to consider the possibility of taking the second line of the Turkish Stream.”
Lavrov characterized the European Commission’s action as “Rather dirty play, of course, but hopefully, the purely economic nature of the project, and the fact that leading European energy companies support it as an economic and commercial project, will still prevent those dishonest games from getting the upper hand,” according to coverage by TASS.
The Turkish Stream project enters Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, and Russia and Turkey have agreed upon the Turkish Stream landfall. Lavrov stressed that Russia “will be ready to accept any option wholly guaranteed by the European Commission,” reiterating, “It is only possible to extend the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline further to Europe if the European Commission provides ironclad guarantees that the project will not be broken.”
Lavrov explained that, in such European Commission actions, he sees “the fear of fair competition. As they are not yet good enough at fair competition, they are shifting to unfair competition, to political pressure, to making European countries build respective facilities [which would import U.S.-made liquified natural gas—TASS] and thus receive more expensive gas. This is the choice of European countries; we assume that they should be aware of their economic interests themselves.”
Here’s the Real ‘S***hole’ Story on Haiti
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—With all the moral outrage expressed by American lawmakers and others about President Donald Trump’s alleged “shithole” reference to Haiti—Trump later tweeted that he used the word “shithouse” and not “shithole”—it’s worth considering the following.
A Jan. 13 article by one Jim Holt on the Gateway Pundit website, was headlined “Trump Nailed It.” Why? Because Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince is one of the only large cities in the Western Hemisphere without a sewage system. It is, literally, swimming in human fecal waste. A 2012 report by National Public Radio (NPR) points out that the Haitian capital is a city the size of Chicago, without a sewage treatment system: There are 987,000 people living in the capital itself, and 2.6 million in the metropolitan area.
For those U.S. lawmakers who have been screaming about the President’s alleged remark, Holt suggests, “maybe we should send them to Port-au-Prince with a few buckets” so they might grasp the situation. Buckets? Yes, because human waste is disposed of every night by crews of “bayakou”—men who make about $3.80 a night by descending into manholes and removing raw human waste from septic pits and latrines, the which is then dumped into the garbage-filled canals that cut through the city, NPR reported. In the event of significant rainfall, streets become filled with raw sewage, making inhabitants vulnerable to infections and disease. The bayakou work in precarious conditions, with no protective gear, and are themselves subject to illness. They do not make enough to live on, and must seek day jobs to supplement their meager income.
It is precisely this horror show that China’s proposed $4.7 billion reconstruction plan for Port-au-Prince is meant to address, to build a state-of-the-art sewage treatment system and vast sanitation infrastructure.
Since the January 2010 earthquake, foreign donors have spent millions on a plan to build open-air sewage treatment plants across Haiti. One such plant was opened in 2012, at Morne a Cabrit, about an hour from downtown Port-au-Prince, and there were plans to build seven more in different cities, but those “stalled.” Morne a Cabrit is still the only operational sewage treatment plant in the entire country. Another plant, begun in October 2010 financed by the Spanish government, was finally completed in May 2012 after much delay. That plant operated only for 18 months before it had to shut down due to a “technical problem”—that has yet to be repaired.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
German-Chinese Cooperation in Belt and Road Countries
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—Munich-based German engineering and electronics giant Siemens AG is intensifying collaboration on Belt and Road-related projects in various countries and regions. According to Cedrik Neike, member of the managing board of Siemens, the company plans to cooperate more with Chinese partners under the framework of the initiative this year.
“With our experience and world-class project management, we have the potential to be bridge builders between Chinese players and international suppliers and customers, and together with our Chinese EPC [engineering, procurement, and construction] partners, we will focus on paving the road to success in these countries,” he said. “As one of the largest foreign-invested companies in China, Siemens has more than 32,000 employees working in numerous joint ventures and company operations spread across the country, and the Initiative will only help in tightening our relationships.”
Siemens has joined forces with more than 100 Chinese EPC players in exploring more than 60 overseas markets. Its partners include China National Petroleum Corp, the country’s biggest oil producer; China Petroleum and Chemical Corp; and PowerChina.
According to Neike, EPC contracts bagged by Chinese firms so far, are worth $125 billion, the total cumulative potential over the next 10 years expected to be $1 trillion.
“We see sweet spots in select countries where we can position Siemens as a high-value provider and partner of China,” he said.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Experts Determine Philippines Nuclear Plant Could Come Online
Jan. 15 (EIRNS)—For three decades, the completed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines has stood idle, a victim of the financiers’ coup that overthrew President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Recently, the government has decided to institute a nuclear power program, joining many other countries in Asia.
Last August, a study was initiated by the Nuclear Energy Program Implementing Organization under the Philippines Department of Energy, to assess the state of the idle Bataan plant. The study, carried out by Russian and Slovenian experts, with input from nuclear experts in South Korea, has determined that the plant could be rehabilitated and operated. The Energy Department received their recommendations last month, reported the Philippines Business Mirror yesterday.
With the now-public release of the Bataan plant recommendation, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said, in order to make a decision to go ahead, he is “looking at the community and the people,” who would have to accept powering up the plant. The DOE plans to finalize a program to “heighten public awareness,” to educate the community. The government has been paying nearly $1 million per year for maintenance of the plant, Cusi said, so he wants a decision made to “put a closure” on Bataan. Various other proposals have been made for use of the property, such as turning it into a tourist attraction.
But Cusi reports that, regardless of the decision on the Bataan plant, there will be a nuclear build program. “The policy is for nuclear,” he said. One option is a floating nuclear plant. “When I went to Russia,” he said, he learned that “this will be ready in early 2019. We can bring it in the country, and that is around 60 MW.” Cost is a big consideration, Cusi indicated. The Bataan reactor, nearly operational, is rated at 620 MW plant, which would make it a more efficient use of resources than a number of smaller plants. But it would need substantial upgrading and financial resources, as the technology is three decades old. Cusi said that while Bataan is the government’s responsibility, the private sector would have to “pitch in” for any other new nuclear facility to be built.
