EDITORIAL

Sixty Attend Putin’s Eastern Economic Forum, as Britain Tries To Start War with Russia in Syria

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—The Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation today announced that Arab and American TV camera crews have been sent to Jisr al-Shughur in Syria’s Idlib province to begin shooting the footage of the planned “false flag” chemical weapons attack being prepared by British assets, aiming to drag President Donald Trump into a military attack on Syria. The Russians have provided evidence of the planned staging of an attack to the UN, the OPCW, and the U.S. State Department, but the British, French and the neo-cons in the U.S. are all repeating endlessly that Syria is planning a chemical weapon attack, and that there will be a full-scale military assault on Syria as soon as it happens. The fact that there is absolutely no military purpose for the government to kill a few civilians with chemical weapons is neglected, simply repeating ad nauseam that Assad is a monster who kills his own people. The fact that Idlib is largely under the control of terrorist organizations connected to al-Qaeda, which carried out the slaughter of innocents 17 years ago today in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, is an irony ignored by the war party, who are willing to join with that same al-Qaeda to overthrow yet another West Asian government which was no threat to anyone. That such an invasion could start a war with Russia and China, which could mean the end of civilization as we know it, is ignored.

The actual target of this British horror scenario is the danger, in their eyes, that President Trump will follow through on his intention to establish friendly relations with Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

In Russia today, in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, 6,000 political and business leaders from 60 countries have gathered to attend the fourth annual Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) organized by President Putin. The concept is that the vast Russian Far East is a “New Frontier” for all of Asia—and in fact for the entire world, if they choose to participate. The EEF follows by exactly one week the historic Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) hosted in Beijing by President Xi, with every African nation but one in attendance, nearly all of them heads of state and government.

What is demonstrated by these two international fora is that the majority of the world’s nations and people are turning to Russia and China as leaders of a new paradigm, a hopeful future based on transforming the poverty and subservience of the colonial and neo-colonial era into an era of peace and development worldwide. To the spokesmen for the Empire—both within the U.K., and in the U.S. and Europe—this hopeful future for mankind is perceived as a deadly danger, the end of Empire itself. The fact that President Trump wishes to be part of the new paradigm, rejecting the “special relationship” with Perfidious Albion, is the cause of both the British coup attempt against the U.S. President, and of the insane provocation for war against Syria, and potentially against Russia.

The U.S. economy, meanwhile, is booming, relative to the past decade, in response to the stimulus implemented by the Trump tax cuts, tariffs on steel and aluminum, and cutbacks on both regulations and the insane environmental restraints based on fake climate science. But the quadrillion-dollar-plus financial bubble created by decades of speculation and money-printing will not disappear through growth alone, and threatens to bring down the world economy when it crashes.

Trump’s intention therefore, to befriend Putin and Xi, is essential not only for peace, but also for development. Only this combination of great nations and great cultures can bring about a new Bretton Woods conference, to put the Casino Mondial out of its misery, and to establish a new world financial system based on the common aims of Mankind. This is our task. As Friedrich Schiller wrote in his poem The Artists: “The dignity of Man into your hands is given, Its keeper be! It sinks with you! With you it will be risen!”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Attacks on Trump and Corbyn—Similar Lies

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Consortium News published a “Letter from Britain: The Real Reason for the ‘Anti-Semite’ Campaign Against Jeremy Corbyn” yesterday that it received from journalist Alexander Mercouris.  In explaining campaign against U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to tar him with the “anti-Semitic” brush, Mercouris explains not only the British obsession with lying about Corbyn, but also the true reason for the lunatic assault on U.S. President Donald Trump—that Corbyn and Trump are anti-imperialist. Although Mercouris does not say so, it also explains the longer-lived and more vitriolic attacks against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s earlier target, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Mercouris first explains that anti-Semitism is a non-issue in Britain and that Jews are fully absorbed into the British establishment.  Next, he explains that Corbyn has always been associated with the anti-imperialist left-wing in British politics, dating to his parents’ support for the Soviet-allied Republicans in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.  The basis for charging Corbyn with anti-Semitism is his support for the Palestinian nationalists against the brutality of the Netanyahu regime in Israel, Mercouris writes.  But, he says, the left-wing of the Labour Party and Corbyn have always opposed anti-Semitism for the same reason that Corbyn supports Palestinian rights. Both positions are consistent and rooted in Corbyn’s anti-imperialism. Thirdly, Mercouris points out that Corbyn, first elected to Parliament in 1983, has a long history in British politics and that his views have been consistent and are well known among British subjects, and completely understood by the political leaders and journalists who are spreading the false “anti-Semite” attacks.

Mercouris then points out that Corbyn is “the one British politician who more than any other embodies the threat to the current status quo and to the British establishment’s hold on power.”  Like the variety of smears launched against LaRouche and Trump, Corbyn has been attacked as “a Communist, a Russian agent, a terrorist sympathizer, and a traitor.”  As with the broad acceptance of anti-Trump and anti-LaRouche in the U.S., Mercouris reminds us that “the parliamentary Labour Party, the entire Conservative Party and the media (including the BBC and the supposedly left-wing Guardian newspaper) have all embraced it.”

Mercouris indicates that the campaign has increased in venom over the last year because before the June 2017 general election, “the British establishment did not take Corbyn seriously, since it assumed that the British electorate would reject him in any election which he fought.  The horrifying realization following the June 2017 election that the opposite is the case has—not surprisingly—caused panic and has led to the establishment pulling out all the stops.”

The concluding section of the essay compares the universally accepted, but known to be false, anti-Semite smear of Corbyn to Russiagate.  First, Britain and the U.S. have been rocked by “popular insurgencies on the right and left and the rise of a seeming outsider.”  In both countries the establishment has responded with allegations that “are to anyone with even a basic grasp of reality utterly fantastic,” but, “In neither country does the sheer absurdity of the allegations seem to matter for those who have invested in the campaign.”

The allegations have not affected either target’s base of support, “but, in the meantime, real damage to the political system is being done.  Both countries are unable to formulate rational foreign policies.”

In both countries a form of political radicalism is on the rise and is especially popular with youth, especially in Britain. This accounts for the success, so far, of the two targets.  Their continuing success will not be determined by the truth of the allegations against them, which are not taken seriously by the general public or the accusers, but by the strength of support for their respective actions on behalf of their constituents.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Iraq Descending into Chaos

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—One reason why Iranians opposed to the Islamic Revolution ought to be very cautious about accepting U.S. “help” can be found right next door, in the chaos that is enveloping Iraq. The riots, last week, in the southern city of Basra were largely triggered by the collapse of the city’s water and electricity systems. Thousands of people have been treated in Basra’s hospitals for water-borne diseases contracted from contaminated drinking water. However, evidence that political factors have been injected into Basra’s turmoil were evident in the attack and burning of the Iranian Consulate. While this led some observers to conclude that the riots had an anti-Iranian character, U.S. diplomatic facilities, as well as the Green Zone in Baghdad have also been attacked.

The turmoil in Basra also comes in the context of a political crisis in Baghdad, where Shi’ite and Kurdish political factions have been trying to form a government in the wake of parliamentary elections that were held last May. News reports on the situation, taken together, indicate that the U.S. is playing a large role in trying to force an agreement that would keep the caretaker Prime Minister Haidar al Abadi in the job, rather than let it go to his rival, the cleric Moqtada al Sadr, whose bloc actually won the most votes, though far from a majority.

However, the recent riots in Basra have weakened Abadi’s position with several factional leaders, al Sadr among them, who are calling on him to resign. Al Sadr is opposed by the U.S. because he is perceived to be close to the Iranian leadership, though his actual relationship appears to be more ambiguous than that.

As British Prepare War in Syria, YouTube Removes Its Government and Related Channels

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—RT reports today that on Saturday, Sept. 8, YouTube took down the channels of the Syrian Presidency, the Syrian Ministry of Defense, and the Syrian state news agency SANA, as well as the privately owned TV networks, SamaTV and Addounia. As RT wrote, the action took place “as the battle for Idlib looms amid Russia’s warnings of an imminent false-flag chemical attack and Western preparations for retaliatory strikes.”

Going to any of these three channels produced the message: “This account has been terminated due to a legal complaint,” or “This account has been terminated for a violation of YouTube’s Terms of Service.”

YouTube, owned by Google, has demonstrated that not only do they service the British campaign to oust the President of the United States, taking down channels and sites which support Trump, but now they service the British war plan as well.

ECONOMY

China’s Belt and Road Narrows ‘Economic Inequalities Within Countries,’ Study Finds

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Based in the College of William & Mary, AidData study group, working with a team of economists and political scientists from William & Mary, Leibniz University Hannover; Heidelberg University; Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg; and Harvard University, has released a report today saying the “Chinese development projects—in particular, ‘connective infrastructure’ projects like roads and bridges—are found to create a more equal distribution of economic activity within the provinces and districts where they were located. The study also measures the impact of Chinese development projects on economic inequality between provinces and districts, and here too the results provide grounds for optimism: Chinese government-financed projects appear to reduce, rather than widen, economic disparities between regions,” wrote some of the authors of the Working Paper, in the Monkey Cage blog for today’s Washington Post. Working Paper 64 is titled “Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries.”

“By analyzing high-resolution satellite imagery of nighttime light intensity in a given area, researchers are able to estimate economic output at the local level. This measure is especially useful in remote, poor, and conflict-prone areas that lack reliable census, survey, and administrative data. However, since economic progress is often uneven, it’s not just the average level of nighttime light within a geographic region that matters. The geographical dispersion of nighttime light within a sub-national locality also tells us something about how widely or narrowly the benefits of economic growth and development are being shared,” the study found.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Putin and Xi Address Economic, Political Collaboration, and Korean Settlement, in Vladivostok Talks

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for talks on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok today. This was President Xi’s first time attending the EEF as President, although his seventh visit to Russia in that capacity. In comments before the meeting Putin told Xi that Moscow and Beijing’s relations were based on trust in areas ranging from politics to security and defense. Putin also said he expects trade volumes between the countries to reach $100 billion by the end of this year, up 30% over 2017.

Both leaders addressed the strategic situation. Putin said: “Our relations are critical, not only for our countries, but for the world as well.” Xi added that the partnership “allows us to jointly neutralize the external risks and challenges, and to assist joint development.”

According to Putin, the Chinese delegation to the EEF included about 1,000 people, of the 6,000 in attendance. “This is understandable, because the volume of our relations is very large,” Putin said, according to Sputnik.

Following their meeting, Putin said Russia and China will continue joint efforts to settle North Korean issue. “We will continue with our joint efforts on the political and diplomatic settlement of the situation on the Korean Peninsula in line with the Russian-Chinese roadmap,” Putin said. “We support steps taken by the authorities of China and North Korea on the restoration of bilateral relations and hope for the efficiency of another inter-Korean summit in Pyeongyang…. We firmly believe that an important element in the overall settlement of the situation on the Korean Peninsula is the normalization of relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States.”

The two Presidents also participated in a roundtable discussion on bilateral regional cooperation with representatives of their regions that collaborate with each other. “There are several dozens of cooperating pairs” of Russian and Chinese regions, Putin said. “We place great importance on this, and Chairman Xi Jinping spoke about it directly at today’s meeting.

Italy’s Salvini Slams European Union Sanctions Against Russia

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Matteo Salvini, the Italian Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, blasted European sanctions against Russia in an interview with RT yesterday, reported by Sputnik. “The next May [European Parliament elections] will give us a historic opportunity to finally change the balance of power in Europe and change relations with countries located outside Europe, I mean Russia. I always attract the [Italian] government’s attention to the losses [sustained during the sanctions period]. And I will continue to do this because the sanctions against Russia do not have any economic, political, social or cultural sense,” Salvini, who heads the Lega party, said.

The European Parliament elections are scheduled over May 23-26, 2019, in which the euro-skeptics, most of whom oppose anti-Russian sanctions, are expected to make big gains.

Sputnik points out that in July, Italian Sen. Roberto Mura said Italy was losing €7 million a day because of European sanctions against Russia.

Russia Opens Three-Day Eastern Economic Forum

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—The fourth annual Eastern Economic Forum opened today in Vladivostok from Sept. 11-13, hosting approximately 6,000 political and business guests from 60 countries, reported TASS. More than half the attendees are from Russia, about 1,000 from China, with other major delegations from Japan, South Korea, and Mongolia. The U.S., India, U.K. and France also had representation, likely from the business community.

Roscongress Foundation, which is organizing the Forum, said the business meetings will focus on four areas: Tools to Support Investors into the Far East; Industry Priorities in the Far East; International Cooperation Projects; and Improving Living Conditions.

China, India, Pakistan, Iran Have Plans To Enhance Economic Cooperation with Afghanistan

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)— Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told media at his press conference in Beijing on Sept. 10 that following his meeting in Islamabad with the Pakistani Premier Imran Khan last week, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China and Pakistan have decided to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor towards Afghanistan. “During (Wang’s) visit, we have reached consensus on advancing the CPEC. The key is to accelerate industrial cooperation and the projects related with people’s livelihoods. To extend the CPEC to the western areas and make the people get benefits from these projects,” reported India’s PTI.

Also, today India, Afghanistan and Iran held their first tripartite meeting at the Deputy Foreign Minister level, during which they agreed to focus on consolidating economic cooperation, including on Chabahar Port, enhancing cooperation on counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics, reported Asia News International (ANI). “The three sides agreed to hold the next round of consultation at an appropriate time in India in 2019,” said a joint statement issued at the end of the talks. The meeting was chaired by Afghanistan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Hekmat Khalil Karzai and attended by the Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Abbas Araghchi.

North Korea To Connect Railway to South Korea with Russian Help

Sept. 11 (EIRNS)—Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, North Korean Deputy Railways Minister Kim Yun Hyok announced that his country plans to connect its railways with those of South Korea.  “At the moment, we are determined to connect the railways of North and South Korea, this is a fundamentally important project and it is necessary to provide the best possible conditions for this project to be finally implemented,” Kim told the panel session at EEF today.

According to Sputnik, North Korean Railways Ministry’s Department of the External Affairs Deputy Director Kim Chang Sik said the project would be carried out jointly with Russia and South Korea. “In the future, we will develop this project on the basis of negotiations between Russia and North Korea, North and South Korea so that the owners of this project are the countries of the Korean Peninsula,” Kim Chang Sik said. Kim also said that the three countries should create “a joint group for the development of these railroads.”

The announcement is in line with the joint declaration signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, agreeing to connect railways on the peninsula. The connection will give South Korea access to the Trans-Siberian Railway. In this regard the South may take part in the Khasan-Rajin railway project, which was agreed upon in 2001 by then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia has already invited the South to participate.

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