EDITORIAL
America and China Must Cooperate To Solve Ibero-American Migrant Crisis
June 24 (EIRNS)—From EIR’s European Strategic Alert Service: The international media has recently been filled with heart-breaking stories and images of thousands of desperate immigrant children from Mexico and Central America separated from their parents after they illegally entered the United States. Leaving aside the outrageous fabrications by much of the media—and the fact that the whole issue has been promoted to try to stop President Trump’s successful approach to the Korean crisis—there is a very real immigration crisis in the Americas that has accelerated over recent years.
But taking a lesson from Socrates: If you want to come up with an answer, first ask the right question.
As of 2015, 11.5 million first-generation Mexicans (i.e., people born in Mexico), nearly 10% of the population, had emigrated to the United States; over 20% of El Salvador’s 6.3 million people had done the same. If you consider 1st-3rd generations (including the children and grand-children of those who emigrated to the United States) a shocking 28% of the Mexican population and 35% of the Salvadoran population fled their countries. The situation for Guatemala and Honduras is similar.
Why is this happening?
Because the potential relative population density of the economies of the region have been deliberately driven down to far below their actual populations. As Lyndon LaRouche has explained in his science of physical economy, when the potential relative population density—or the power of an economy to maintain a growing population at an improving living standard—falls below its actual population for any period of time, that population either dies off or flees. That is exactly what has occurred throughout this region as the intended result of British depopulation policies: Looting the population through City of London and Wall Street debts; unleashing deadly wars; and the takeover of those countries by London’s “Dope, Inc.” and narco-terrorist gangs. Exemplary is the fact that the satanic MS-13 gang terrorizing El Salvador and other parts of Central America was actually created in the Los Angeles ghettoes decades ago, under the eye of George H.W. Bush’s Contra-crack cocaine policy.
The only way to actually solve this problem is to reverse its cause. The collapsing potential relative population density of Mexico, Central America, and the broader Ibero-American and Caribbean region has to be dramatically reversed, by fully integrating these countries into the Belt and Road Initiative. Coordinated action by China and the United States can readily bring this about.
A first key project would be a high-speed rail corridor running north from South America, bridging the Darién Gap on the border of Panama and Colombia, through all of Central America into Mexico, and from there up across North America and the proposed Bering Strait Tunnel into the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
China and Panama are already jointly building the first leg of such a high-speed rail line from Panama City to the border with Costa Rica—whose government has made it clear that it wants in on the extension of the project—which will be the first high-speed rail line in the entire Western Hemisphere.
A second set of projects involves the extension of the Maritime Silk Road into the Caribbean Basin, with the construction of deep-water ports and associated industrial parks in Ponce, Puerto Rico (part of the United States) and Mariel, Cuba. These would in turn serve as central hubs for shipping to the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts, as well as ports throughout the Caribbean Basin and South America, which would be integrated with the recently expanded Panama Canal as well as the proposed Nicaraguan Grand Interoceanic Canal. It is estimated that the construction of the Nicaraguan Canal will require tens of thousands of skilled jobs, and its downstream impact would create productive employment for hundreds of thousands across Central America.
The United States, China and each and all of the nations of the region have a direct interest in constructing such a common future of win-win cooperation for their countries.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Austria Prepares Putin-Trump Meeting for Vienna on July 15, Writes TASS
June 24 (EIRNS)—Austria’s authorities are preparing to host a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, in Vienna on July 15, Austria’s Kronen Zeitungreported today, according to TASS. According to the newspaper’s sources, several days ago diplomatic representatives of Washington and Moscow arrived in the Austrian capital to discuss in detail holding the first bilateral summit between Russia and the United States, wrote the Russian news agency. Senior security officials from both countries have arrived in Austria to prepare for the meeting, and have started monitoring the situation to organize the talks.
The final decision on the summit’s date may be made in the middle of next week, the report said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday he was not ready to inform media about the venue and date for holding a possible Putin-Trump meeting, reported TASS. “We are not ready to provide this information,” Peskov said when asked to comment on the Austrian newspaper’s report. “We will inform you as soon as we are ready.”
Putin and Trump held a telephone conversation on March 20. According to the Kremlin press service, after the phone call the top Russian and U.S. diplomats were asked to explore the issue. On June 10, the Russian President confirmed he was ready to meet with Trump as soon as Washington was ready for the summit. On June 21, Peskov said, “Neither the Kremlin nor the White House has made any official statement” on a possible Putin-Trump meeting.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz confirmed in an interview with OE-24.TV that Vienna had offered to hold the Russian-U.S. summit. “Both Presidents are ready to hold dialogue. We offered to hold the meeting in Vienna. Over the past years Vienna has been a good venue for dialogue and talks,” Kurz said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had had a working visit to Austria on June 5, during which he had meetings with both President Alexander Van der Bellen and Chancellor Kurz.
Pompeo Says Bolton Russia Trip Should Set Up Trump-Putin Summit
June 23 (EIRNS)—U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told MSNBC reporter Hugh Hewitt on June 22 that National Security Advisor John Bolton is expected to leave for Moscow on June 24 or 25, and would be “meeting with his counterpart [Nikolai Patrushev]. And I think it’s likely President Trump will be meeting with his counterpart [Russian President Vladimir Putin] in the not too distant future following that meeting,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo said that when he was CIA director he had had “a chance” to work with Russia on common interests, such as in counterterrorism, “where the two nations had shared interests. And so we are having conversations with our Russian counterparts, trying to find places where we have overlapping interests, but protecting American interests we do not.”
He said that in his conversations with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since he became Secretary of State, he expressed “our displeasures,” including allegations Russian interference in U.S. elections, and Russia’s “behaviors” in Ukraine and Syria. But, he concluded, “we’ll continue to work to make sure they know our interests and our concerns, and then where there’s places we can find common ground, we’ll certainly try and do that.”
A Trump Faction Wants To Settle Trade Issue with China
June 24 (EIRNS)—There are several signs that some officials and economists in the Trump Administration, along with U.S. business leaders, are trying—with unknown chances of success—to reach a negotiated settlement to the trade dispute with China, before tariffs begin to take effect July 6.
A Bloomberg article June 22 reported that National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and some economic experts in the National Economic Council want to get a negotiation going quickly with China, rather than impose the tariffs July 6. This represents a factional situation against U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and trade advisor Peter Navarro, with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross perhaps on the “negotiate” side. Ross told a Senate Committee June 20 “there are already some signs that we may get an ultimate solution,” referring to China having suggested another round of negotiations.
Bloomberg reported, “Staff of the National Economic Council have contacted former U.S. government officials and China experts in recent days to gauge chances for high-level talks in the next two weeks…. One idea NEC staff floated was inviting Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan before the tariff deadline, they said.”
The South China Morning Post on June 23 reported, “In Beijing, Vice-Minister for Commerce Wang Shouwen, a key negotiator in the talks, held a two-hour meeting on Wednesday [June 20] with the American Chamber of Commerce in China, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. It was the first time in several months that such a senior official had met representatives of the influential lobby group, one of the sources said.”
But the SCMP report stressed that all formal discussions, government to government on any level, are now suspended.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
A Major Turn of Events in Syria’s South
June 24 (EIRNS)—UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is not making American policy in Syria. After her statement of June 22 that Russia is to be held responsible for violating the southern de-escalation zone, Russian warplanes joined the Syrian Arab Army’s battle last night. At the same time, the U.S. government notified the southern rebel groups, via a letter seen by Reuters, to expect no military intervention on their behalf. This apparently motivated more units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to turn to the side of the Syrian army against al-Qaeda and Hayt Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). As previously reported, even by Israeli officials, Iranian-supported militias are not acting in the area.
Were the Russian and U.S. actions coordinated? It would appear that, despite Haley’s threats, the Trump Administration is actually in support of the Syrian strategy to pressure any jihadi elements that don’t change sides to surrender and evacuate.
Al Masdar News first broke the news this morning that Russian aircraft had joined the campaign Saturday. A military source said that Russian aircraft had launched some 20 air strikes across northeastern Dara’a starting at about 23:00 Saturday local time (20:00 UTC) but that the majority of them hit the town of Busra Al-Harir, which practically divides the jihadi-held area in half. Within 40 minutes the number of air strikes was up to 30. Reuters reported that while Syrian government forces had so far made heavy use of artillery and rockets in the current assault, Russian warplanes had not been deployed until now.
The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement at midday Moscow time Sunday (UTC+3) reporting that FSA formations in 11 settlements had joined with the Syrian army to fight against ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra. “By the end of June 23 these settlements were fully under control of the legitimate Syrian authorities,” the Center for Reconciliation said. The statement comes just a day after the Syrian army and the FSA jointly repelled an attack by over 1,000 al-Nusra Front terrorists in the Syrian southern de-escalation zone, Sputnik reports.
It is possible that the developments in Eastern Ghouta, Aleppo and other areas will soon be seen here: Where some so-called rebel fighters will lay down their arms and settle their status with the government; others are evacuated to Idlib; and those that refuse, most likely ISIS, will be destroyed.
Iran’s Fars News Agency June 23 cited local sources reporting that the army’s rapid advances in Dara’a province caused jihadi groups to lay down their arms in the villages and towns of al-Lajah region (which Al Masdar called a major objective of the Syrian assault), and call for implementation of the reconciliation plan.
Humanitarian Disaster Unfolding in Hodeidah, Yemen
June 23 (EIRNS)—The military situation around the Yemeni Red Sea port of Hodeidah remains unsettled and unresolved, but it’s clear that the Gulf-backed offensive is presenting a serious threat to the civilian population there. “We hear loud explosions all the time,” Assem Mohammed, a 30-year-old pharmacist, told Reuters by telephone. “We haven’t had water for three days.” The cutoff of water is a huge humanitarian concern. “We’re seeing high levels of malnutrition on the ground,” Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen told Reuters yesterday. “Of the main issues we are concerned about, none is more significant right now than the possibility of a cholera outbreak,” she said. “We could see hundreds of thousands of people affected.”
According to the Reuters report, the UN estimates that 50-60,000 people have been displaced, while the World Food Program said that the upsurge in fighting could result in up to 1.1 million people being either displaced or trapped within Hodeidah city and in need of emergency food assistance.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Putin and Moon Jae-in Make Plans To Collaborate with D.P.R.K. and in Russian Far East
June 22 (EIRNS)—South Korean President Moon Jae-in met today with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, signing four MOUs, and launching preliminary studies for collaboration in three-way development projects with North Korea, and for South Korean developments across the Russian Far East, including cooperation with North Korean businesses and labor, as reported by Seoul’s JoongAng Daily.
With this being the third summit between Moon and Putin, since he took office in May 2017, Moon told the press: “We have agreed to bolster communication and cooperation to bring peace and prosperity to the Korean Peninsula and the Eurasian continent. President Putin and I have agreed to launch business projects to prepare for potential trilateral cooperation involving South, North Korea and Russia. Launching joint research on connecting railroads, electrical grid and natural gas lines will be a starting point.”
Putin praised the launching of talks between Moon and Kim Jong-un, and talks between President Trump and Kim. Moon invited Putin to visit South Korea at a convenient time in the future, an invitation Putin accepted.
Moon and Putin affirmed that they had a “common interest” in developing Russia’s Far East by “making use of the yet-to-be tapped North Korean economy,” once the sanctions are lifted. Moon’s New Northern Policy is centered on rail and pipeline connections through North Korea to link up with Russia and Chin, and on to Europe. At last year’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Moon presented what he called “nine bridges” between South Korea and Russia, being in gas, rail, electricity, shipbuilding, job creation, the Northern Sea Route, seaports, agriculture and fishing. Moon addressed the State Duma, Russia’s lower house, where he repeated his vision on June 21, and becoming the first South Korean President to address the Duma.
The two Presidents also agreed to increase the volume of their annual bilateral trade to $30 billion by 2020 from $19 billion.
Dominican Finance Minister Tells Xinhua, ‘We Wish To Become Part of Belt and Road’
June 22 (EIRNS)—In a June 21 interview with China’s Xinhua news agency, Dominican Finance and Planning Minister Isidoro Santana said that Belt and Road Initiative “seems to us to be a very good prognosis for the world, for the world economy and for Latin America, and we hope to become part of it.” Santana has just completed a one-week tour of China with a large delegation, which followed the May 1 establishment of diplomatic relations between the Dominican Republic and China.
Santana emphasized that China’s “spectacular economic growth” has increased its global influence, stressing that it has also played a key role “in the stability and growth of Latin America.” Although there are many areas of potential bilateral cooperation, Santana said, he expressed special interest in China’s helping to build the infrastructure projects the Dominican Republic needs.
One example would be expanding a port in the country’s north, he explained, “to expand it and transform it into a great, modern port, along with an industrial and services zone for the large international markets in the Bay of Manzanillo in the north,” which, he pointed out, are closer to ports on the U.S. East Coast. There is also interest in building a port that serves the tourist business, Santana said, as well as investments in highways, and eventually, in a railroad to link cities in the country’s north and south.
Yesterday, in fact, the Dominican Minister for Regional Integration Policies Miguel Mejia met with representatives of the China State Construction Engineering Corp. Ltd., precisely to discuss its possible involvement in building infrastructure projects. “As you are the largest construction firm in the world,” Mejia told them, “you will have great opportunities in our country, and we hope that our country will also benefit from the progress you have made as well,” El Caribe reported June 21.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Chinese Optimistic To Have Super Maglev Train by 2021
June 23 (EIRNS)—An international conference on “Better Transport, Better World” was held in Beijing June 18-21, with an attendance of 6,000 guests from all parts of the world discussing achievements in infrastructure development as well as new frontiers of technological optimism.
China is already working on the feasibility of a super high-speed maglev train that can reach a theoretical speed of 1,500 kph, adopted with high-temperature superconductivity magnetic suspension and vacuum valve technology, Zhang Weihua, chief professor of Southwest Jiaotong University, told the convention.
The speed boundary for wheel-rail transportation is 600 kph due to many factors, said Zhang, and “high-speed magnetic suspension rail transport will be the major direction of the future development for railway transportation technology.”
The scale-model train test line of the world’s fastest evacuated-tube high-temperature superconducting maglev train is now under construction in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province (which is also a terminus of the new 1,700 km rail line to Lhasa, Tibet, across the “Roof of the World”). It is expected to be completed and tested by the end of this year. The initial test speed can be as fast as 400 kph. Magnetic suspension plus vacuum creates an operating environment with low resistance, which can effectively improve the speed of future high-speed trains up to 1,500 kph as soon as 2021, Zhang said.
Astronaut Argues for U.S. To Return Man to the Moon, Not Diversionary Projects
June 23 (EIRNS)—President Trump has repeatedly stated that his administration’s goal is a manned return to the Moon. But what has been proposed is a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, which would not be in orbit close to the Moon, is a small human-tended facility that can only support manned operations for a few days at a time, and does not include manned landings on the Moon. At the National Space Council meeting on June 18, Jeff Foust reports for SpaceNews, former astronaut Terry Virts said the Gateway is not an effective step in manned exploration.
“It essentially calls for building another orbital space station, a skill my colleagues and I have already demonstrated” on the International Space Station, he said. “Gateway will only slow us down, taking time and precious dollars away from the goal of returning to the lunar surface and eventually flying to Mars.”
Virts said what is needed is an Apollo-style model of stepping-stone missions to return to the Moon, which includes developing and testing the technologies needed. “Unfortunately, the recently proposed Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway does not fill that role,” he said.
At the same Space Council meeting, know-nothing NASA Administrator James Bridenstine said that “the goal is sustainability.” He also emphasized the role of international and commercial partners in the project.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency (ESA) Council, laying out plans for future exploration programs, said one of its areas of focus will be to negotiate agreements for potential contributions to NASA’s lunar Gateway. Having no independent ability to launch crew, and a strong commitment for a manned lunar program, Europe has no choice but to jump aboard whatever program the U.S. puts forward. ESA will also continue to study manned lunar surface missions, which Gateway does not include.
U.S. Restricts Chinese Graduate Students in ‘Sensitive Areas’
June 23 (EIRNS)—New screening criteria for Chinese students applying to graduate schools in the U.S. in certain “sensitive” subjects have been implemented, limiting their visas to one year, with a chance for renewal. According to the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in a June 13 release, the Trump administration implemented the policy on June 11. “Although the subjects in question have not been publicly identified,” writes AIP, “reports suggest they include fields such as advanced manufacturing, robotics, and aeronautics.” It appears to be connected to the Administration’s public attacks on the “Made in China 2025” campaign to upgrade China’s work in high-tech areas.
FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February is quoted by AIP: “In our experience, there is no nation that targets America’s assets more aggressively than the Chinese government. And the Chinese government works hand-in-hand with Chinese companies and others to do everything they can, through all sorts of means, to try to steal our trade secrets, our economic assets. It involves things as varied as efforts to gain and steal trade secrets related to corn seeds in Iowa all the way to control systems for wind turbines in Massachusetts.” They also quote Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) explicitly targetting Chinese students as part of China’s supposed spy network.
Andrew Hamilton, the president of New York University, posted an op-ed in the Washington Post Thursday opposing the policy, stating: “Chinese PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in science departments across the country have proved themselves to be among the most talented. Making them unwelcome would result in two outcomes: The best of them will go elsewhere—Australia’s universities, or Western Europe’s—and science here will begin to ossify.”
OTHER
German Internal Government Crisis Continues To Escalate
June 22 (EIRNS)—Preempting potential calls for his dismissal over the deep dissent with Chancellor Angela Merkel on the refugee issue, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned against such deliberations in an interview with Passauer Neue Presse: “If a cabinet minister were dismissed on this pretext for his concern about security and order in his country and is addressing it, it would be a world premiere.
“I am chairman of the CSU, one of three coalition parties, and I am acting with the full support from my party. If the Chancellor’s office is discontented with the work of the Interior Minister, they should end this coalition.” Seehofer said he also has the support of the population, but that “there are many in Berlin who want to get rid of me.” The German government consists of the Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, Seehofer’s Christian Social Union, which is based in Bavaria and not (yet) a national party; and the Social Democrats.
However, in the CSU there are many who would rather get rid of Merkel. Bavarian Economics Minister Franz Josef Pschierer (CSU) is reported to have said at a local event June 17 outside Augsburg that “Merkel must go.” He later on said he could not remember exactly what he had said, but then put in that “The high time of Chancellor Merkel is over.”
This is also what many Germans think: An opinion poll done by the YouGov team showed 43% of those polled have the view that Merkel should step down; although 42% still think she should stay, no more than 32% believe the government coalition will survive and make it through the full term.
Africa? Merkel Shows Zero Interest
June 22 (EIRNS)—An EIR source at a leading German engineering firm gave a devastating assessment of EU policies on Africa. He told EIR that if little can be expected from the EU concerning a crash program to develop Africa—which would do greatly help allay the flight of refugees—nothing at all can be expected from Merkel: “There is zero, zero interest in the German government.” For many years to come, serious economic projects in Africa will be carried out by China, Turkey, and some Arab countries, but not by Europe, the source said.
There is no major project in Africa in which Europe has a leading role; rather, European firms are subcontractors to the Chinese. And unlike in France, where the banks make at least some credit available for French firms to join projects, the private banks in Germany are not giving anything. The source stressed that this completely discourages Mittelstand firms, or Germany’s high-technology small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs).
He welcomed the Schiller Institute’s campaign for the physical economic development of Africa, but voiced deep skepticism that the Eurocrats would change their minds.
