EDITORIAL
Spygate Knocked Out Russiagate; Now, For a New Economic System
May 23 (EIRNS)—“Spygate,” the exposure of British filthy operations against U.S. elections and the Presidency, is now in the process of knocking out Russiagate, which itself was a treasonous concoction by these same networks. President Donald Trump zeroed in on this in multiple tweets yesterday and today, writing, “Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State. They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made-up scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal, the likes of which this country may never have seen before! What goes around, comes around!” He tweeted this morning, “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest scandals in history!” Details are now coming out, including crimes by an interagency taskforce (FBI, Treasury, and CIA, at least) starting in early 2016, long before any “official” mandate for an investigation of Russia and Trump, and interlinked tightly with British espionage networks.
We are at a moment of opportunity to make way for the new economic system, now proceeding through the Belt and Road Initiative framework, and long overdue in the Trans-Atlantic area.
The potential for enlistment into the fight for a new system is shown in Italy, where citizens voted March 4, against the EU’s anti-nation policies. The Italian vote was a continuation of the uprising against Wall Street/City of London economic and geopolitical killer practices, as seen in the 2016 Brexit vote, the 2016 Trump vote, the Austrian 2017 vote, and the like, an uprising process which has not stopped, albeit not completed.
The enemy is completely deranged at the very thought of an Italian government coming together, favorable to any of the precepts of Lyndon LaRouche’s specified “Four Laws” for a successful economic transformation. The two parties, the Five-Star Movement and Lega, are on record in favor of Glass-Steagall bank reorganization and a credit institution. Italian President Sergio Mattarella is to announce his decision tomorrow, about a possible M5S-Lega government. Opponents are hysterical. Germany’s Second TV station said that Brussels must deal with Italy like a wild horse: put a gag-bit on her, and rein her in. Germany’s senior CDU Member of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, is presenting horror scenarios: “The Italian economy will collapse. The Italian banks will collapse.” The same Brok who supported the British/Obama-orchestrated 2014 Maidan Nazi coup against Ukraine, after that nation’s government chose not to align with the EU.
But the casino-economic system these hysterics back, is blowing apart, and you can’t blame that on Italy. The bubbles of global hot money speculation have burst in Argentina and elsewhere. The Argentine peso has plunged more than 30% against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of this year, while the plunging currencies of Turkey, Brazil, and Mexico follow close behind. In three weeks’ time, Argentina faces the due date of a second $30 billion round of its Lebac debt (peso-denominated bonds issued by the Argentine Central Bank), after only succeeding in rolling over the first $30 billion which came due on May 15 by wild gimmicks which won’t be easy to redo.
Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche summed up the situation today: the “Italy-bashing shows the utmost arrogance and unwillingness to consider why any of this is happening,” but, she insisted, “the Erinyes are at work!”
Or, as Trump said of Russiagate changing to Spygate: “What goes around, comes around.”
This is the time for all good people to mobilize!
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
China Ponders End of Limits on Births, in Search of Expanding Creativity
May 23 (EIRNS)—The Communist Party of China’s Global Timespublished a fascinating “Observer” column on May 22 suggesting that “China is considering an end to all limits imposed on the number of children a family can have.” The suggestion is sourced to Bloomberg rather than to a Chinese origin, but also states that Bloomberg credits a source “familiar with the matter.”
The reasoning of author Yu Ning is the most interesting aspect. He writes that there is no confirmation of the report, but, “one thing is certain: China’s understanding of population has been changing and a growing population is now being considered more of an asset than a burden.
“The old view holds that population is a burden, and when resources are limited, controlling the population will help reduce the pressure on resources, employment and economic development. China’s family planning policy, introduced in the late 1970s, is estimated to have prevented some 400 million births, reducing pressure on resources and the environment.”
Now, however, China is seeing that people, “especially young people, are a source of creativity. It’s believed more people will create more opportunities and inspire more exuberant creativity. Nowadays talent is being highly sought after by Chinese cities with an eye for further development. This indicates the idea that population, especially talent, as a resource has been widely accepted by local governments and society. A huge population not only provides a bigger pool of human capital, but also creates demand and spurs greater consumption. The sheer size of China, a huge country with a population of over 1.3 billion, is one of China’s core advantages. Why did China’s high-speed rail develop faster than any other country in the world? Its large population and frequent migration of people propped up the huge demand for high-speed rail as a popular means of transportation.”
He writes that 7 billion people have travelled on the high-speed rail system since the first one opened in 2008, and says further that China overtook the U.S. as the largest consumer of IT products in 2013. But, he writes, “More importantly, with huge consumption demands brought about by its population, China has made a greater contribution to the global economy.”
He concludes: “The potential of China’s development lies in giving full play to the advantage of the population, improving the quality of the people and promoting mass production and mass consumption. Chinese policymakers have been fully aware of this.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
‘Oh! What a Tangled Web’ of British Spies Was Woven against the Trump Presidency
May 23 (EIRNS)—Practically on the hour, new revelations are surfacing that further expose the British web of spies behind the fraudulent Robert Mueller coup attempt to bring down the Trump Presidency. As Scottish author Sir Walter Scott famously wrote in Marmion: “Oh! What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!”
On May 22, the Wall Street Journal editorial board raised some intriguing questions about CIA/MI6 operative Stefan Halper, starting with “who asked Mr. Halper to keep tabs on the Trump officials, and when and why?” The Journal points to discrepancies in Halper’s claim that he only contacted Trump campaign advisers/aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos after the FBI had launched its official investigation on July 31, 2016.
But, as the Journal writes, it was in late May or early June of that year, that Halper invited Page to a mid-July symposium at Cambridge University, at which Halper’s close friend, former MI6 director Richard Dearlove, was a speaker, as was Halper. Thus, Page met Halper for the first time at that mid-July symposium. His round-trip fare to London was paid for by its organizers, the Center for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), a Cambridge research institute. Halper and pal Dearlove also belonged to something called the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, described by the Journalas “an academic forum for researchers and one-time practitioners of spycraft.” They resigned from it, with much fanfare, in 2016, claiming “unacceptable Russian influence on the group.”
Then there is the matter of former CIA Director John Brennan’s inter-agency task force, which he set up in mid-2016, using as a pretext a bogus Estonian intelligence report that Putin was pouring money into the Trump campaign, as EIR has reported. A May 22 article in American Spectator magazine revisits that task force matter, pointing out, that both before and after the FBI began its official probe, Brennan was “bringing together into the same room at CIA headquarters a cast of Trump haters across the Obama administration, whose activities he could direct,” including Peter Strzok, the FBI liaison to Brennan, DNI Jim Clapper, and “an assortment of Brennan’s buddies at the Treasury Department, Justice Department and White House.”
American Spectator author George Neumayr reports that Brennan’s Langley group had access to Stefan Halper’s file “and sized him up as the perfect embed.” As did the Journal, Neumayr emphasizes “that Halper came out of the brainstorming of Brennan’s group is clear from the fact that his first known meeting with Carter Page preceded the formal opening of the FBI’s probe.” Neumayr raises the many unanswered questions about Halper’s deployment: How he first became involved in the case, the extent of information provided, whether his July 2016 interaction with Page was brokered by the FBI or, perhaps, by another intelligence agency? Halper, reportedly, feared a Trump Presidency “as it could harm the special relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain,” Neumayr wrote.
Dirt Revealed on Halper Sting Operation on Trump Campaign ‘Is Just the Beginning’
May 23 (EIRNS)—Interviewed on the Simon Conway Show on Des Moines radio station WHO-AM on May 21, former Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis reported that he had met with British/FBI operative Stefan Halper, and believed that Halper was attempting to establish an “audit trail” that would provide the FBI with justification to obtain warrants to spy on members of the campaign.
“They were trying literally to plant evidence or create an audit trail that would lead investigators onto something. They then would have justification to go back for their [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrants and all their other things,” he said, speaking of the FBI and Halper.
Clovis said his meetings with Halper were quite low level, dealing largely with academics, but that Halper had used a previous meeting with Carter Page to gain access to Clovis, which he then used to set up a meeting with campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
“What unsettled me … is the fact of what he tried to do with George Papadopoulos, and that was to establish an audit trail from the campaign or somebody associated with the campaign, back to those Clinton emails—whether or not they existed, we don’t know…. This to me appears to have been a deliberate and intentional effort on the part of the leadership of the FBI to create something that did not exist, and that is exactly what this looks like.”
Former Trump campaign manager Michael Caputo reported on Fox’s Laura Ingraham show that at least one other government informant was attempting to be planted in the Trump campaign.
“This person … is not the only person who came at the campaign. And the FBI is not the only Obama agency who came at the campaign. I know because they came at me, and I’m looking for clearance from my attorney to reveal this to the public. This is just the beginning,” Caputo said.
Add to this picture, that Paul Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, filed a motion in court on May 21, charging that Senior Assistant Special Counsel Andrew Weissmann had leaked information to the Associated Press last spring on the investigation into Manafort’s financial records. One day after that meeting, AP published a major exposé disclosing alleged Manafort money-laundering. FBI officials filed an official complaint against Weissmann, for failing to follow normal procedures in dealing with the media. Robert Mueller protégé and lead prosecutor Weissman has a history of prosecutorial misconduct going back to the 1990s, and is a very close Clinton ally.
Alaska Governor Walker in China, Glad To Be ‘First in Line’ for New Trade Commitments
May 23 (EIRNS)—Alaska Gov. Bill Walker is leading a trade mission in China over May 19-26 to further business in his state. He was in Beijing yesterday, with Keith Meyer, the head of the state’s gas line corporation, which is working on a project to build an 800-mile natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Kenai coast in the south, as part of a $45 billion China-Alaska liquefied gas export project. Other businesses on the trip involve seafood, minerals, organic baby food, and tourism.
The Alaskans arrived over the May 19-20 weekend, and Walker and Meyer met early May 21 with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, who had just returned from Washington, where he had worked out new trade arrangements with Trump.
Walker exulted, reported by the Fairbanks Daily News Miner, that “We were absolutely first in line. … it was impeccable timing on our part. We just happened to be there on the morning after. I mean, he returned two hours after our flight got into Beijing, from Washington.” The News Miner reported that Walker considers to Alaska as one piece in a “geopolitical puzzle,” but says, “I don’t care what piece I am. I’m just happy with the result.”
China is the state’s largest trading partner. Chinese President Xi Jinping personally visited Governor Walker in Anchorage on his way back to China from his first visit with Trump in Florida a year ago April.
COLLAPSING WESTERN SYSTEM
German Hysteria over New Italy Government: The End of the Euro Is Nigh!
May 23 (EIRNS)—The high possibility of a new “debt-making” Italian government composed of the Lega and the Five-Star Movement party is a “nightmare” for Germany, its mainstream media comment; particularly if Paolo Savona should become the new finance minister, the man who says that “the euro is a German prison,” the end of the euro and the Eurozone is near, media warn. An Italian referendum may also be held on the euro. Enough reason for many to become hysterical. Bildzeitung adds another horror to its portrait of the new government: Lega chairman Matteo Salvini is a “fan of Putin.”
IFO Institute for Economic Research director Clemens Fuest, also the chairman of the chief economic advisory council of the German government, said that the future of the euro system is seriously threatened now, urging the financial markets to call the Italians back to discipline. German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) Vice-President Achim Dercks voiced highest concern about the prospects of policies coming from the new Italian government. The CDU’s senior Member of the European Parliament Elmar Brok, is already depicting horror scenarios: “The Italian economy will collapse. The Italian banks will collapse. Many Italians will then try to bring their savings into other countries to protect them from chaos.” Brok warns against any European solidarity with the new Italian government, insisting tough attitudes are required: “The storm signs are up.” Keep in mind that Brok was among those in February 2014 who supported the Maidan stormtroopers against elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, after he withdrew Ukraine from a dodgy alliance with the EU: Is Brok thinking of financial warfare to force a regime-change in Rome, too?
Daniel Caspary, chairman of the CDU-CSU group in the European Parliament, called for EU financial warfare against Italy, should the new government stick to its plans: “If need be, the financial markets will push them back to the path of virtue.” This goes with the expectation that designated new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is a political lightweight against the two heavyweights Macron and Merkel. Financial warfare against Italian banks is already on: Intesa San Paolo lost 12% in share value on the market; Unicredit lost 7.5%.
Some experts, however, for instance at the Brueghel Institute in Brussels, warn that if the EU and Eurozone are turning the screws too much, the Italians may even become more rebellious, and furthermore, that the crisis may spread into Spain and other southern countries, creating a situation which then could no longer be manageable.
Argentina’s Casino Economy Can’t Defend Falling Currency
May 23 (EIRNS)—Despite a rash of desperate measures taken in the past two weeks in an attempt to defend the peso, including jacking up interest rates to 40%, and promising to do the International Monetary Fund’s bidding, Argentina’s Mauricio Macri government is still scrambling to avert disaster. Today, the peso dropped further, as the dollar jumped back up to the rate of 25 pesos after a short period of stabilizing at a lower rate, and Argentina, along with Turkey, is now identified as the most vulnerable of a looming “emerging markets” crisis.
In the two and a half years since he became President, Macri has increased Argentina’s foreign debt—much of it in dollars—by $203.4 billion. Macri’s problem now is that he’s turned Argentina into a casino economy, completely dependent on the carry trade. Having eliminated every single regulatory mechanism put in place by the previous government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to prevent financial vultures from moving into the country, Macri is now paying the price. It’s no accident that his government earned the moniker of “offshore government”; in addition to his personal offshore activities, revealed by the Panama Papers, the top officials in the Finance Ministry have all or part of their personnel assets stashed away in foreign tax havens, also according to the Panama Papers.
According to Clarín’s veteran reporter Marcelo Bonelli, Macri only prevented a debacle on May 15, when $30 billion in short-term Lebac bonds came due, by secretly negotiating with the country’s largest banks, including foreign ones (HSBC, Santander, and BBVA, among them), on lowering the bank reserve ratio to entice them to buy back Lebacs at a 40% interest rate. Argentina has become such a playpen for vultures that when the exchange rate was at 20 pesos/dollar, JP Morgan and BlackRock each pulled $1.5 billion out of the Argentine market, only to return again when the exchange rate reached 25 pesos/dollar, and to purchase new BoTe bonds, at 40%.
On June 19, another $30 billion in Lebacs will come due, and, according to the daily Ambito Financiero, the Central Bank and Treasury are trying to convince holders to swap their current bonds for ones with longer maturities to avoid a disaster.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
President Moon Urges ‘Calm’ Preparations for June 12 Summit To Ensure Success
May 23 (EIRNS)—In talks in Washington yesterday with U.S. President Donald Trump and other Administration officials, South Korean President Moon Jae-in emphasized the importance of continuing preparations for the June 12 summit in Singapore between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, stressing, according to Yonhap news, that, while skepticism about the success of the summit is understandable, the effort must be made nonetheless to ensure its success.
In meeting with White House security officials, Moon urged that preparations for the June 12 summit continue “calmly without any second thoughts,” and declared that Kim Jong-un is committed to its success, despite recent statements. The North Korean leader is serious about denuclearization, Moon told Trump. Moon also indicated that dialogue between the North and South will resume as soon as the current Max Thunder military exercises end on May 25.
“Practical and detailed discussions” between the North and the U.S. are necessary, Moon said, on ways to denuclearize and to guarantee the North’s security. According to Yonhap, Trump vowed, “we will guarantee his safety.” Moon further said that, “I am confident President Trump will be able to formally end the Korean War, which could not be done over the past 65 years, by successfully holding the North Korea-U.S. summit, while also establishing a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and normalizing diplomatic ties between the U.S. and North Korea….”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also quoted by Yonhap May 22, saying the U.S. will do everything possible to ensure the success of the June 12 summit.
“We’re preparing, we’re continuing to do our work and lay the foundation for a successful meeting. I’m confident we’ll get there,” Pompeo told reporters after the Moon-Trump meeting. Pointing to future economic cooperation, he said that, as a result of denuclearization, Kim “would find American investment, American technology, American know-how of real value to his people. I do think it’s something that, if we get this right and we get the denuclearization right, that America would be quite capable of delivering them with lots of things that would make life better for the North Korean people.”
In testimony today before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Pompeo said that denuclearization is the U.S.’s top national security priority. “A bad deal is not an option,” Pompeo said. He indicated that plans for the June 12 summit are proceeding, although stating that the final decision “will ultimately be up to Chairman Kim.”
Damascus Is Now Completely Free of Terrorists, a Great Victory!
May 23 (EIRNS)—Today, for the first time in seven years, the Syrian capital of Damascus and surrounding areas are completely free from terrorists, after the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) cleared out the last pockets of Islamic State from the al-Hajar and al-Aswad districts and the adjacent Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp.
The SAA has spent the last month on this campaign and succeeded in negotiating an exit for the remaining terrorists, without much of a fight, Sputnik reported today, a fact largely ignored by Western media. Israel’s Ha’aretz reported today that Islamic State now only controls two besieged desert areas in Eastern Syria, while another insurgent group loyal to ISIS controls a small enclave in the southwest.
President Bashar al-Assad today welcomed Alexander Lavrentiev, President Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy for Syria, who arrived in Damascus with his delegation. Lavrentiev conveyed President Putin’s congratulations on the complete liberation of Damascus, while President al-Assad thanked the Russian people and their leadership for their support. Russia, he said, is a partner in this victory, and also stated that the effort will continue until the last terrorists are eliminated and terrorist hotbeds liberated, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported. SANA continued that in the discussions between Assad and Lavrentiev, an emphasis was placed on developing mechanisms to implement the outcomes of Assad’s May 17 Sochi meeting with President Vladimir Putin, in terms of combatting continuing terrorism, ramping up Russia’s participation in Syria’s reconstruction, and pushing the political process forward.
Russia UN Mission Warns Western Nations Encouraging Militants’ Chemical Weapons Attacks
May 23 (EIRNS)—The Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations has posted a report, “Destruction of Syria’s Chemical Weapons,” documenting the process by which Syria, with Russia’s help, destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile, and subsequently met every criterion established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and allowed extensive OPCW inspections which verified that no chemical weapons existed in the country.
Yet, the UN mission continues, thanks to manipulation by Western nations at the UN Security Council, and redefining the scope and operations of OPCW Fact-Finding Missions (FFM) and the Joint Investigative Mission (JIM), Syria is again being blamed for carrying out chemical weapons attacks, “confirmed” by remote investigations and relying on “evidence” provided by armed opposition groups and pro-terrorist NGOs (White Helmets).
The Russian Mission’s report points out that Russia’s own proposal for a UNSC resolution or statement condemning acts of chemical terrorism in Syria and Iraq, has been rejected by Western nations, which prefer to cling to their “groundless accusations” against Bashar al-Assad, and, by doing so, “give a sense of impunity to the militants, encouraging them to use chemical weapons.”
Russia has repeatedly warned of the ongoing threat of chemical terrorism in Syria, as well as in Iraq and Southwest Asia more broadly, it states. “Militants are using toxic agents with increased frequency,” and “possess the technical and manufacturing capabilities to produce warfare chemicals in their own right and established far-reaching supply channels to access precursors,” it warns. Moreover, among the ranks of the terrorists are former officers from Mideastern countries who used to work on chemical weapons programs in Iraq and Libya, and in Syria before it joined the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The report is posted in English to the Russian Foreign Ministry website.
OTHER
Petition on White House Website, Urging ‘Early Summit’ between Trump and Putin
May 23 (EIRNS)—The White House website petition page “We the People” now lists as one of its official petitions: “President Donald Trump Should Hold Early Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Since it was just added today after reaching its first 150 signatures, the petition is currently near the bottom of the list.
Correction: Due to a typographical error, the text of the petition reported in yesterday’s EIR Daily Alert was inaccurately copied. The correct text reads:
“Ronald Reagan famously said: ‘A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used.’ Unfortunately, today a new Cold War between the U.S. and Russia again poses an existential threat to the people of both nations and to the whole world. Therefore, we urge President Trump to follow in the steps of Ronald Reagan and to start a direct dialogue with President Putin in search of solid and verified security arrangements. As President Trump said repeatedly ‘only haters and fools’ do not understand that good U.S.- Russia relations are also good for America. By all indications President Putin feels the same way for his country. A summit should be arranged as soon as possible.”
