EDITORIAL
Outflanking Mad Theresa May’s March to World War III
March 29 (EIRNS)—As North Korean and South Korean officials met today to begin preparing for a summit of their countries’ leaders, expected to occur in late April, Schiller Institute founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche celebrated the growing potential for a peaceful resolution of one of the most dangerous crises on Earth out of which World War III could otherwise erupt. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, President Donald Trump’s immediate welcoming of that meeting, and now discussion of a summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kim Jong-un, “shows that if you have back-channels, and in this case, you had everybody involved,—Trump, Xi Jinping, Putin, but also Abe from Japan —, that if you have this kind of diplomacy and negotiation, there is no problem on this planet which cannot solved by people who have a good will,” Zepp-LaRouche stated in her weekly strategic webcast today. The necessary economic dimension of establishing a framework for stable development is also already under discussion, through the extension of the Belt and Road Initiative into the two Koreas, with the involvement of Russia and China, she said.
And what about Mad Theresa May’s drive to line up the entire world for war against Russia? Two weeks after launching the Skripal hoax, there is a very differentiated and interesting picture, Zepp-LaRouche remarked. She pointed to the Russian Foreign Ministry official statement of yesterday, that “unless the British provide concrete proof” of their charge that Russia is responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals, the Russian government has “come to the conclusion that there was an involvement of U.K. intelligence services in the operation,” in order to create an international provocation against Russia (see yesterday’s EIR Daily Alert).
That is what the LaRouche movement “put out as a hypothesis, immediately, that this whole operation was a new phase of Trumpgate, or Russigate, or Muellergate, however you want to call the effort, the collusion between the intelligence heads of the Obama administration with British intelligence to oust President Trump,” she said, launched as an attempt to reset the agenda in the direction of the geopolitical aims of British confrontation against Russia and China, as the British imperialists were losing control in the United States, in the world, and even at home.
“So therefore, the fact that now the Russian Foreign Ministry is also mooting the possibility of a U.K. intelligence involvement, I think is very interesting, because that sheds a very bad light on all of those who without any questioning and with any proof immediately fell into line behind Theresa May,” Zepp-LaRouche said.
Not everyone in Europe fell in line (not even New Zealand went along!), and now even from France, with all its tough talk, comes the announcement today from French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian that President Emmanuel Macron will go to Moscow in May, she said. Can the geopoliticians really be defeated? “I think the possibility is clearly there,” the Schiller Institute’s founder replied. “I don’t see that the battle is decided, yet, because, for the British Empire—what we call the British Empire, which is not identical with the British government or the British people—but when we say ‘British Empire’ we mean this system of leading financial institutions, the investment banks, the hedge funds, the insurance companies, the multilateral corporations, which are connected, naturally, with the private security apparatus,—I mean the neo-liberal model, that which has ruled the world for the last several decades, they want to keep their system going, and given the fact that it is about to go into another crash, of which many people are warning, I think the war provocation by Theresa May has everything to do with the fact that this system is about to blow out.
“So we should not sit on our laurels. This is not a legal question, this is a political question and it’s a systemic question. And fortunately, I think human nature is such that a great evil evokes an even greater good, so my tendency would be to be optimistic about the outcome of this battle. But the role of the British in this provocation, and its role in the coup against Trump, these are serious matters, and they require a resolution.
“And one could only hope that the people of America are mobilized enough to make sure this investigation in Congress goes in the right way, that Trump is getting the right support from his voters; so that the efforts to derail his policies whenever he has the impulse to have a good relationship with Russia, or with China for that matter, that his efforts are successful.
“Don’t be a bystander, sitting on the fence,” Zepp-LaRouche urged. “Join with the Schiller Institute in spreading the idea of the new alternative of the New Silk Road. Because we have to move humanity into a completely new age, a new era, where we find a better way to work together, as many peoples in this world, and that is the real task,” she concluded.
ENDING THE STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
North Korea and South Korea Begin High-Level Talks To Prepare Peninsula Summit
March 29 (EIRNS)—Officials of the South Korean Ministry of Unification held talks with their North Korean counterparts at Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone today, to discuss preparations for a summit meeting between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea. “We will hold close consultations with North Korea’s representatives to see to it that the summit is successful,” Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon, who leads the South Korean delegation, said before the beginning of the talks. The delegation also includes his deputy Chun Hae-sung, and the spokesman, Yoon Young-chan, for South Korea’s President, according to TASS.
The Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun also reported today, quoting North Korean leaders, that Kim Jong-un is open to a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, possibly in June. Abe had hinted at such a meeting recently. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, responding to this report, told a news conference today, “We maintain dialogue with North Korea through various channels and tools, including the Embassy in Beijing.” He would not say whether a summit was being planned.
China-India Relations Are Getting Back on the Right Track
March 29 (EIRNS)—During a press briefing in Beijing today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, commenting on the improving China-India relations, said “recently, thanks to the concerted efforts from the two sides, China-India relations have been developing with a sound momentum. We have seen new achievements in political cooperation and various fields. We attach importance to developing ties with India.” “We would like to work with India under the guidance of our two leaders, to maintain our exchanges at all levels, enhance our trust and properly manage our differences and ensure that bilateral relations could move forward along the right track,” IANS quoted Lu as saying.
A number of recent high-level meetings between the two countries has indicated that a sort of bonhomie has emerged. On March 28, following the 11th meeting of the India-China expert-level mechanism on trans-boundary rivers held in Hangzhou, Lu Kang was quoted as saying: “The two sides agreed to continue with such cooperation on the grounds of humanitarian principles, and on the basis of bilateral relations. China will continue with its cooperation with the Indian side on the provision of hydrological information and emergency response cooperation,” India’s Economic Times reported. Since last year, following a border stand-off, China had stopped providing India with hydrological information about the Brahmaputra River, which originates in China and flows into India.
From the Indian side some measures have also been taken. Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale has issued a directive to all government officials, not to attend any event that involves the Dalai Lama or his associates. Unofficially, India has also separated the Belt and Road Initiative, from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which it opposes, media reports indicate.
In the coming days, more high-level interactions are planned, culminating in a summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping in Qingdao, China in June, during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization annual summit. Next week, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is heading to China, and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is due to visit in April. The two sides are also expected to revive “hand-in-hand” counter-terrorism exercises when India Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visits China in April, a defense source said. The drills were suspended earlier, Asian Age reported today.
Much Disagreement among German Politicians To Berlin’s Ongoing Anti-Ostpolitik
March 28 (EIRNS)— Some political figures in Germany have more sense than the Berlin government on the Skripal case. Matthias Platzeck (SPD), chairman of the German-Russian Forum and former Governor of Brandenburg, told ARD TV network that sanctions against Russia should be lifted and a dialogue restored. “If we continue to whip up the spiral of sanctions, it will not result in peace,” he said. He argued that restrictive measures “have failed to even approximately bring about” what the West had wanted from Moscow. “We have to look for new ways so as to restart the dialogue,” Platzeck said, according to a report by TASS.
On the Skripal poisoning case in Great Britain, he called for taking “a sober look” at the situation and said that “Germany must make a contribution to impartiality.”
Social Democratic Party (SPD) Deputy Chairman Ralf Stegner gave an interview to the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, under the headline “In the SPD, Discomfort over Russia Sanctions Grows,” in which he asserts that the expulsion of Russian diplomats over the Skripal case, “is not the smartest thing to do” and could trigger an escalation “that can cause us a lot of damage.” Stegner demanded “that concrete evidence for Russian responsibility [for the poisoning] be finally put on the table.” Under Western principles, he said, “appearance and plausibility alone are not enough to reach a verdict.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that Stegner is not the first SPD leader who has raised criticism regarding the government decisions. Stegner was preceded by Rolf Mützenich, deputy head of the Bundestag faction, and before him, there was the former EU Commissioner for Enlargement Günter Verheugen. By contrast, the SPD’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas justified the actions by citing Moscow’s refusal to meet the British ultimatum.
New Book on Death of Dr. David Kelly, Who First Exposed British Lies about WMD
March 29 (EIRNS)—Just as the British are being caught out in new lies against Russia about weapons of mass destruction, a new book has appeared about the late British arms expert Dr. David Kelly, called An Inconvenient Death—How the Establishment Covered Up the David Kelly Affair, by Miles Goslett. Dr. Kelly was part of the effort with Lyndon LaRouche and others to expose Tony Blair’s lying about supposed Iraqi WMD in 2003—but shortly after he was revealed as the source for the story that Blair’s WMD dossier had been “sexed up,” Kelly was found dead on July 17, 2003, under unexplained circumstances.
Goslett reports that Prime Minister Blair was in the air when he got the first report of Kelly’s death, but within minutes, he gave instructions to set up a full-blown public inquiry (the Hutton Inquiry), which interrupted and ultimately derailed the routine, legally required coroner’s inquest.
“Instead of an inquest,” Sputnik reports, “which typically takes months to prepare and is a rigorous examination of what led up to and caused an unusual or violent death,” Blair and Lord Falconer, who as Lord Chancellor headed the judiciary “instigated the Hutton Inquiry, which opened just 24 days after the body was found, and lasted only a few weeks. Hutton’s report was published in January 2004, and concluded that Kelly took his own life.”
Hutton classified all medical records and photographs of Kelly for 70 years.
The Express interviewed author Goslett today about an unnamed witness in his book. “Mr. Goslett claimed the person had spoken with Dr. Kelly in July 2003, shortly before his death, about his work in the government, and ‘carried a burden’ about it ever since.
“Goslett goes on to say: ‘They said that in July 2003, Dr. Kelly told them something about his work, rather than his personal life, which had shocked them so profoundly that they believed they should have gone straight to the police to report his claim. They never did so, for reasons best known to themselves, but they remain reluctant to let go of the likelihood that what he told them has some link to his death.’
“ ‘At the time of going to press, the person concerned would not elaborate other than to say they believed there must be a coroner’s inquest into Dr. Kelly’s death. They accepted that they would probably be called as a witness if an inquest were held and they would have to give evidence on oath.’ ”
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
How To Solve U.S.-China Trade Imbalances
March 29 (EIRNS)—As a U.S. Senate delegation visits China, the Trump Administration has apparently extended into the June the time available to negotiate U.S.-China trade imbalances, before U.S. tariffs will go into effect. As EIR has reported, the LaRouche movement knows how the imbalances should be solved, and there are forces in both countries that agree with it.
U.S. farm-state Republican Senators Steve Daines (MT), Chuck Grassley (IA), Ron Johnson (WI), David Perdue (GA) and Ben Sasse (NE) were in Beijing March 27 meeting with Premier Li Keqiang and others, mainly on trade questions. According to Chinese media, Premier Li called on the U.S. to meet China halfway, while the Senators called the U.S.-China relation one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world, and stressed that there is no reason for conflict.
On March 28, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told CNBC television that the comment period for U.S. tariffs against China will be 60 days after their publication on April 6, rather than the 30 days announced earlier. That would potentially allow negotiations until June before any tariffs are imposed.
In her Schiller Institute webcast today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche pointed to the presentation on China’s CGTN television which recently supported the policy for Chinese investment in U.S. infrastructure through a U.S. infrastructure bank or a national bank—as have other leading Chinese and many Americans. She also cited Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s proposal that the way to resolve the trade deficit is to increase the volume of trade, and “that way you could have also joint ventures between the United States and China and third countries. And that is obviously the approach which we have been proposing for a very long time.”
Transaqua Project Presented at China Day Meeting of Top French Multinational
March 29 (EIRNS)—Schneider Electric, an 180-year old French electrical company with 120,000 employees and a very strong Chinese presence, held a China Day at their Paris area headquarters, a full day of presentations and animations on the activities of this group, in particular in China, and on the New Silk Road on March 22.
As part of the panel on the New Silk Road, Schiller Institute representative Sébastien Périmony was invited to give a ten-minute briefing, on both the Feb. 26-28 historic International Conference on Lake Chad in Abuja, Nigeria, which he had attended, and at which the giant Transaqua project to refill Lake Chad was adopted; and on the major progress of Chinese African new rail connections in the continent. In response to a question, Périmony spoke of the need for a space exploration and nuclear power development policy for Africa, reporting that the International Atomic Energy Agency had recently examined the nuclear engineers from Ghana and Nigeria.
Also speaking on the panel was Pierre Dhomps, an industrialist with 34 years of experience helping French companies settle in China, who just authored an excellent booklet on the Silk Road; and Antoine Cid, representing a French cultural association, who spoke on the cultural side of the New Silk Road, and on China’s ancient “Tianxia” concept. The company’s China Day also included a full cultural program of Chinese opera, a chorus of the Chinese employees of the company, a small Chinese classical orchestra, dramatic recitation and other activities.
Throughout the morning, top company officials gave presentations on the company’s international activities, and in China in particular, where it has developed one of their strongest operations since the early 1990s.
Schneider Electric, which used to be one of the steel giants in France, has now structured its operations around electricity, energy efficiency, energy security systems and sustainable technologies, including providing quite complex systems to guarantee energy safety in large industrial production sites, such as nuclear power plants.
Nigeria and China Are in Dialogue on the Belt and Road Initiative
March 29 (EIRNS)—The Round Table Dialogue held recently in Abuja, Nigeria organized by the Center for China Studies and chaired by Nigeria’s former Foreign Minister and former ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, Alhaji Aminu Wali, discussed the strategy of connectivity across countries, and within countries. The Belt and Road Initiative will spawn an elaborate network of land, rail and maritime transport arteries and industrial clusters along its now-inclusive global routes, Charles Onunaiju wrote in his article, “Nigeria and China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” published in the Nigerian daily, The Sun, on March 28.
“The dialogue recognized that the core feature of the Belt and Road, which is essentially connectivity, is at the heart of the contemporary challenge of Africa, and therefore urged Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular, to play decisive roles in the mechanism of the Belt and Road by appropriate policy engagement,” wrote Onunaiju in his description.
The Deputy Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Nigeria Li Jing, addressed the Dialogue, saying, “the continent’s development agendas are therefore in synergy with the Belt and Road initiative, and there is no doubt that Africa and Nigeria, through appropriate policy facilitation, could align to the central features of the Belt and Road to advance her modernization and industrialization.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Justice Department IG Investigating Page FISA Request and FBI/DOJ Relation to MI6 Agent Steele
March 29 (EIRNS)—Justice Dept. Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced yesterday that he has opened an investigation into the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance applications regarding one-time Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, on what the Department of Justice and FBI knew about “former” MI6 agent Christopher Steele at that time, and on all their dealings with Steele as they relate to those FISA Court applications.
Horowitz said that he had begun the investigation in response to requests from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Members of Congress.
As EIR has reported, Horowitz is a straight shooter, whose investigation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s actions with respect to the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Clinton Foundation, led to the release of the now-infamous SMS text messages between former Russiagate lead case agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, proclaiming their hatred of Donald Trump and the need for an “insurance policy” against his election. The revelations about McCabe’s actions eventually to his being fired from FBI.
U.S. Court Allows Limited Discovery of Saudi Arabia in Victims’ 9/11 Lawsuit
March 29 (EIRNS)—U.S. District Judge George Daniels in the Southern District of New York has ruled against Saudi Arabia’s bid to completely dismiss lawsuits by the victims and their families in the 9/11 attacks, who allege that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia helped finance Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the attack against the United States.
Judge Daniels is allowing the plaintiffs limited discovery under the September 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), concerning two individuals, Fahad al Thumairy, of the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California, and Omar al-Bayoumi. Both are documented in the long-suppressed 28 pages from the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, to have provided support to the San Diego cell of 9/11 terrorists. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, then FBI Director, engaged in what then Joint Congressional Inquiry Co-Chair Sen. Robert Graham (FL) calls “aggressive deception” of the Congress concerning the Saudi government links to this cell, as well as the role of an FBI informant who rented a room to the three hijackers and otherwise assisted the cell. Under Judge Daniel’s decision, discovery will be limited to demonstrating that these two individuals were acting on behalf of the Saudi government. Judge Daniels otherwise dismissed the rest of 9/11 families’ claims. Al-Bayoumi had been characterized previously by the FBI as a Saudi agent.
Given the limiting scope of Judge Daniels’ decision, EIR is conducting further investigations regarding its significance. As we stated in the Mueller dossier, the best route to justice in all of this is for President Trump to declassify as much about 9/11 as can be known, concentrating particularly on all links to known British assets or agents, inclusive of the Bush family, Dick Cheney, and the other individuals implicated in the “Children of Satan” series commissioned by Lyndon LaRouche. The 9/11 families should not have to suffer through many more years of litigation based on willful coverups of the truth.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Roscomos and NASA Mission Planners Will Meet To Flesh Out Joint Lunar Operations
March 29 (EIRNS)—Representatives of the Russian space agency, Roscomos, will meet with NASA mission planners in Houston on April 9, to discuss progress in Russia’s work on a module to be part of NASA’s lunar orbital “gateway,” Sputnik reports today. NASA’s current “gateway” concept is for a small station in near-lunar orbit, to be periodically visited by crew. It will receive crew via the Orion manned spacecraft, which is under development by NASA. NASA has no plans for a manned landing capability, but instead there is the expectation that a lander will be developed by a private company.
The Russian module, which is an airlock that would be used by crew for extravehicular activities—EVAs, or “space walks—and for docking other modules, would be built by Energia, which built Russia’s modules for the International Space Station. At the April 9 meeting, the two space agencies will discuss Russia’s work so far, and what is necessary to integrate Russia’s module with NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which would carry it to the lunar orbital gateway. The plan is for the Russian module to be built by 2021, and be sent to the U.S. the following year.
Over the past few months, during the fast and furious Russiagate campaign, astronauts and cosmonauts alike have stressed that cooperation in space has not been affected by political tensions on the ground, but rather stands as an example of the possibility and importance of cooperation among major powers.
