EDITORIAL

As Financial Crash Looms, Stakes in U.S. Midterm Elections Are War or Peace

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—The world is at a turning point, with a looming financial crash so evident that even the International Monetary Fund is warning of a likely new “Great Depression.” Combine this with the just-released report by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which calls for a genocidal deindustrialization and depopulation of the planet, and the need for urgent change to an entirely new paradigm couldn’t be more clear, as Schiller Institute founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche underscored in her international webcast today.

“You need a New Bretton Woods system; you need Glass-Steagall; we need to get rid of the casino economy; we have to have credit for the financing of the real economy and we have to have a new credit system to basically finance investments on a multinational level among all the countries of this world, to get the world out of this danger of a depression,” Zepp-LaRouche stated. And the time for action is now, because of the looming financial crash, and the simultaneous efforts by the British Empire to sow economic and political chaos, particularly in the United States, where the George Soros-financed mob violence of the past few weeks is aimed at unleashing a “color revolution” against President Donald Trump, to ensure he cannot follow through on his promise to have good relations with Russia and China, and reindustrialize the United States.

Trump has correctly said that the Democrats have “gone crazy, wacko,” to which Zepp-LaRouche added that the violent antics around the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, show that the Democrats have “lost all sense of limit! This is a completely hysterical situation, and very dangerous … the geopolitical establishment went completely crazy—as a matter of fact they’re escalating their campaign, both against Russia and China in unprecedented ways. And it is the question of war and peace. People should understand that the Democrats have really gone crazy on the issue of Russia and also China, and they should not fall into this trap,” because “this would mean World War III.”

Zepp-LaRouche pointed out that even after the crash of 2008, the financial elites “didn’t draw any conclusions from their own mistakes,” and continued with the same insane policies which have created the conditions for a new, worse crash, which even has IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde worried. But the chance of the IMF “reforming” itself is zero, Zepp-LaRouche warned. “The IMF is really a bankrupt organization, and that was stated by my husband,” Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “in 1975 when he proposed to replace this IMF with an International Development Bank, which would provide long-term, low-interest credit for development projects in the developing sector. If that would have been done, we would not have a migration problem,” Zepp-LaRouche noted. “We would have prosperous countries around the globe; but now, with the New Silk Road,” this policy is moving in the right direction.”

Instead, the imperial financiers “just kept pumping money—quantitative easing. And now, basically all these instruments of the Central Bank are completely exhausted, and used up.” Their attempts to bludgeon countries into submission, as is being done with Italy, will backfire. “I think one should not forget that both the Italian government coalition parties, the Lega and the Five Star Movement party, have Glass-Steagall, not only in their party program, but also in the coalition treaty…. If somebody from the outside pushes them into a crash, I would not exclude the possibility, or I would say it’s quite probable that they would implement Glass-Steagall as a self-defense … you need Glass-Steagall; we need to get rid of the casino economy.”

The reality is that there is a revolt taking place “right now in the whole world … against these failed neo-liberal policies,” Zepp-LaRouche observed. The revolt is such that a political “earthquake” is likely when next April’s elections take place in the European Parliament. But Zepp-LaRouche cautioned, we can’t wait until April, because “the crisis is upon us now.”

The just-published IPCC report to “decarbonize” the planet, is, in part, a response to that revolt, but specifically, “a desperate effort by the forces of Empire against Trump … especially against the New Silk Road, against the Belt and Road Initiative…. And it’s an effort to really throw a monkey wrench into this dynamic,” Zepp-LaRouche admonished. The whole discussion of whether man’s CO2 emissions cause climate change “is completely absurd,” but also “very dangerous, because as you can see the brainwashing of the population.” The point is, she emphasized, “this has nothing to do with real issues. This is mass psychosis, and it’s driven by the hedge funds, by Wall Street, because the CO2 emission trade is quackery.”

And, “to impose a global carbon tax, which is also what is being pushed, would mean that they have again a good weapon against national sovereignty, because once you agree that national economies have to submit to policing in terms of their carbon emissions, here you go again in the direction of globalist eco-fascism. It’s not scientific. I think it’s the opposite: it’s oligarchical and it’s an effort really aimed, in my view, primarily against the New Silk Road, but naturally also against Trump, against Germany and many other countries.”

And, Zepp-LaRouche concluded, “we have to have the opposite approach: We have to have an optimism about man being able to go into fusion power, to develop completely new scientific methods for energy, safety, for raw materials security, space travel.”

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

President Trump and Xi Jinping To Meet at the G20 Summit at Buenos Aires

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to meet at the G20 summit in Argentina, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing officials in both countries. The G20 Summit is scheduled to be held at Buenos Aires on Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

In another report today, the New York Post wrote that the White House is moving ahead with plans for President Trump to sit down with China’s leader, amid increasing tensions between the two countries over trade, during the G20 summit meeting. The Trump Administration—pushed, says the Journal, by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow—has been in contact with Beijing in recent days to go ahead with the meeting with President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires.

The Journal also reports that President Trump has dedicated a team to prepare for his summit with President Xi. One man involved in the planning is Christopher Nixon Cox, the grandson of President Richard Nixon, whose trip to China in 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations between the two nations. The planning team on the Chinese side is led by Vice-Premier and Politburo member Liu He, China’s Harvard-educated top economist.

President Putin and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, i.e. all the leaders of the Four Powers, are also expected to attend the G20, where the possibility of a Putin-Trump meeting has also been discussed.

U.S. Senate Agitated over Disappearance of Saudi Journalist Khashoggi

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—The Oct. 2 disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, is further agitating a U.S. Congress already concerned about civilian casualties in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) and top Democrat Bob Menendez (NJ) have sent a letter to President Trump, signed by 20 other Senators, triggering an investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. “It’s pretty clear to me that something very bad happened to this man,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News. “If this happened, if they murdered this journalist who works for the Washington Post in a consulate in Istanbul, Turkey—that’s a game changer for me…. If they did this, there’ll be hell to pay.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said yesterday that he plans to introduce legislation to cut off all military aid to Saudi Arabia until Khashoggi is returned alive. “To me, this is just one more reason why we should be very suspect about selling arms to the Saudis,” Paul told Shannon Bream, host of Fox News @ Night. “If they have the ability and also the audacity to go into another country and kill a journalist, these aren’t the kind of people maybe that we want to be selling arms to.”

Meanwhile, seven senators, four Democrats and three Republicans, signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, questioning his department’s certification that the Saudis and the U.A.E. are making efforts to reduce civilian casualties in the war in Yemen. “While we appreciate your timely submission, after reviewing the unclassified and classified components and receiving updates from our staffs regarding the administration’s Sept. 20 briefing, we find it difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two of your certifications,” they wrote.

“In short, we are skeptical a certification that the two governments have undertaken demonstrable actions to reduce the harm to civilians is warranted, when the Saudi coalition has failed to adopt some U.S. recommendations while civilian deaths and casualties due to coalition airstrikes have increased dramatically in recent months,” they wrote, according to The Hill.

Trump Speaks to Saudi Official about Jamal Khashoggi, Who Had High-Level Contacts in Turkey

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump said yesterday that he had discussed the Oct. 2 disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi with an unnamed senior Saudi leader at the “highest level…. It’s a very serious situation for us and this White House,” Trump told reporters, stating that talks have taken place “more than once. I think we’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Trump. “I’m not happy about this. We have to see what happens.”

Trump said the White House has been in contact with Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz and he hopes to meet her “fairly quickly.”

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who lived in northern Virginia, had friends among the advisors to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, including Yasin Aktay, a commentator in Yeni Safak, which is a mouthpiece for Erdogan. Khashoggi had met Cengiz in May at a conference in Istanbul. He was planning to marry her in Turkey, and had already bought an apartment in Istanbul. Cengiz told Reuters that they were planning to marry on Oct. 9, before Khashoggi flew back to Washington.

Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, to get documents proving he was divorced, as per Turkish law. He was told it was easier to get the documents in Turkey than from the Saudi Embassy in Washington. He visited the consulate twice because the first time, on Sept. 28, he was told it would take a few days to prepare them. In between he was in London for a one-day conference organized by the Middle East Monitor.

When he returned to Istanbul he went to the consulate, where he handed Cengiz his two mobile phones before he went in. His fiancée told Reuters he left instructions that she should call Yasin Aktay, the Erdogan aide, if he didn’t reappear. She was also told to call Turan Kislakçi, another Turkish pro-government journalist.

When he did not exit the consulate, Cengiz called Aktay, who immediately contacted Turkish security forces and intelligence officials. “Of course I also called the office of the President, who was in a senior party committee meeting at that point,” Aktay said.

The New York Times and Turkish media have not only published the names of the 15-man Saudi alleged hit squad that flew to Istanbul and entered the consulate that day, but also claim they are all members of the Saudi security services. They have even published a picture of two of them standing next to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who Khashoggi had strongly criticized. Unnamed Turkish officials cited by the New York Times assert that Khashoggi was murdered inside the consulate and his body was dismembered. Both the pro-government Daily Sabah and the Washington Post cite, in the words of the Post editorial board on Oct. 8, “a grisly account offered by official Turkish sources—that Mr. Khashoggi’s body was dismembered and spirited out of the building.”

Secretary Pompeo Threatens No U.S. Aid for Syria Reconstruction if Iranian Presence Persists

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)— In a speech at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said if Syria does not remove Iranian troops and allied forces from the country, it will not receive reconstruction aid from the U.S. “The onus for expelling Iran from the country falls on the Syrian government, which bears responsibility for its presence there,” Pompeo said. “If Syria doesn’t ensure the total withdrawal of Iranian-backed troops, it will not receive one single dollar from the United States for reconstruction,” Pompeo said. (Does this mean that the U.S. will give Syria aid if they do expel the Iranians?)

Pompeo did not demand a withdrawal by Russia, which is in Syria at the invitation of the government. Damascus had not invited the U.S.

Google against Free Speech

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—As part of the Jacobin/fascist surge of an upper-crust minority mob in the United States, an internal Google briefing, leaked to Breitbart news agency, calls for a policy shift away from “free speech,” towards “good censorship.” Google denied this to be a policy document and said it was only an internal research paper. But as a matter of fact, huge resources were used to produce it, and the recommendations are consistent with the dominant media practices.

On pages 66-68, the “the briefing argues that Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are caught between two incompatible positions, the ‘unmediated marketplace of ideas’ vs. ‘well-ordered spaces for safety and civility.’ The first is described as a product of the ‘American tradition’ which ‘prioritizes free speech for democracy, not civility.’ The second is described as a product of the ‘European tradition,’ which ‘favors dignity over liberty and civility over freedom.’ The briefing claims that all tech platforms are now moving toward the European tradition.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

EU Emissions Lunacy Threatens 100,000 German Jobs at Volkswagen

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess warns that the decision just taken by EU environment ministers to reduce CO2 emissions by 35% by 2030 will lead to massive layoffs in Germany. Speaking to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Diess said that “the change with such rapidity and its consequences are barely manageable.” It will force a reduction of one-fourth of the VW labor force in 10 years, or some 100,000 jobs. “Such an industry can crash quicker than many want to believe,” said the head of what is far and away Europe’s largest manufacturing company.

Both German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) and Chancellor Angela Merkel defended the EU agreement. The SPD wants to go even further: A paper by the SPD Bundestag faction calls for a 40% reduction by 2030, according to the Munich-based daily.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Russia Vows To Continue Exposing Anglo-American Chemical Weapons Provocations in Syria

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Georgy Kalamanov, Russia’s chief delegate to the 89th session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Executive Council, said yesterday that Russia will continue to expose provocations by what he called “a group of U.S.-led countries” against the Syrian government, which are expected to produce the impression that Damascus uses chemical weapons.

“The opponents of Syria’s legitimate authorities never stop claiming that the government forces are to blame for using chemical weapons against civilians. Allegedly there are confirmations of this in reports by the Joint Investigative Mechanism based on information gathered by the fact-finding mission in Syria,” Kalamanov said, according to TASS. This “pseudo-information” however, comes from NGOs such as the White Helmets which are on the payroll of the U.S., Britain, and other countries, he stated. “We will continue to expose the real background of this dirty provocative game, which is being continued by a group of U.S.-led countries against the legitimate government of Syria, with the help of distorted facts and fake videos filmed on orders by the White Helmets and their likes,” Kalamanov said.

Less than 24 hours after Kalamanov made these remarks, the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria reported that an ISIS faction in Idlib had seized chlorine canisters, intended for exactly the kind of provocation that the Russians have been warning about, from an element of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). “The Western countries, while planning provocations against Syrian government forces and employing their controlled bandit groups, do not take into account the complicated situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone. As a result of those irresponsible steps, poisonous chemicals ended up in the hands of Islamic State terrorists whose actions are hard to predict,” said center commander Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko.

Russian Federal Security Service Has Detained Top Hizb ut-Tahrir Terrorists in Tatarstan

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) press service announced today the detention of “the head and subordinate chieftains” of the Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) terrorist outfit in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, TASS reported. HuT, originating in Jordan in 1953 and the Salafi movement blacklisted across parts of Europe and much of the Middle East, is controlled top down from Britain.

“As a result of a special operation in Tatarstan, conducted by the FSB in cooperation with the Interior Ministry and the National Guards forces, a head and his subordinates of a regional branch of the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami terrorist organization have been detained,” the FSB press service reported. “Besides engaging Muslims into becoming a part of the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami terrorist organization, they have also been working to set up a closed network structure on the territory of Russia, and pursued the task of recruiting people for militant formations of the terrorist organizations active on the territories of the Middle East countries.”

Despite being outlawed in Russia, HuT has set up cells in the volatile northern Caucasus region of Russia and in most of the Central Asian states.

Progress Reported in Implementing the Idlib Buffer Zone in Syria

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—Yesterday was the deadline for the removal of heavy weapons from the buffer zone in Idlib. “The pullout of heavy weapons from the demilitarized zone was completed on Oct. 10,” the Turkish Defense Ministry said, reported AFP. Rami Abdel Rahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said no heavy weapons were visible in the buffer zone already from Oct. 9, but he otherwise refused to confirm that the pullout from a part of the planned zone that falls inside Latakia province, but said any such weaponry was not out in the open. “They could have been moved to trenches or secret locations,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his view in Moscow that the Sochi agreement is being complied with, but in any case, he sees no hurry to comply with the deadlines, as long as progress is being made. “These agreements on setting up a demilitarized zone in the Idlib de-escalation zone are being complied with,” he said, adding that Turkey, which seeks cooperation among all the groups operating there, plays a key role in their implementation. “Our information confirms that this process is progressive,” Lavrov stated. He recalled that the demilitarized zone should be fully operational by Oct. 15, and said that a delay of one or two days makes no difference. “The quality of that work is far more important. We strongly support our Turkish partners’ efforts.”

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

China’s Premier Li Keqiang Attends SCO Heads of Government Council in First Tajikistan Visit

Oct. 1

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

Soyuz Launch to International Space Station Fails, in a Rare Manned Rocket Incident

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—Today at 2:40 p.m. local time (4:40 a.m. EDT, 08:40 UTC), the engine on the rocket launching the Soyuz spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague to the ISS, had an anomaly just two minutes after its launch from the Baikonur launch complex in Kazakhstan. As designed, the spacecraft separated from the rocket and the crew made a successful emergency landing. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was at Baikonur for the launch, and tweeted that the crew is safe, which is the most important thing.

Malfunctions of Soviet/Russian man-rated boosters are extremely rare. The only similar engine failure was on a launch in April 1975, just three months before the joint Apollo-Soyuz linkup in orbit, space analyst Marcia Smith points out. A launch abort on Sept. 26, 1983 was not an engine failure, but was caused by a Soyuz rocket catching fire just before launch. That crew also escaped unharmed.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, its main criminal investigative agency, has opened a criminal investigation over violations of safety rules, the IC’s press-service has told TASS.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos immediately formed a commission to investigate the technical cause of the failure. This accident comes on the heels of the investigation into the hole mistakenly drilled into the Soyuz capsule that is parked at the ISS, which was covered up after it was drilled. It has not been made public, whether it was a case of sabotage or of incompetence.

The first job of the new Roscosmos commission will be to collect data from telemetry and any debris that is found on the ground. They will also have a unique view of the launch from footage taken by ISS commander, astronaut Alexander Gerst of Germany.

In a rather “in your face” counter to those plotting to impeach President Donald Trump over his determination to have a working relationship with President Vladimir Putin, the American Embassy in Moscow released a statement, which includes the words: “The extensive joint crew training program, developed thanks to the many years of open cooperation between our countries in the field of space, contributed to the fortunate outcome of this incident.”

OTHER

Russian Senator in Brussels Proposes EU and Russia Should Exclude Sanctions on Lawmakers

Oct. 11 (EIRNS)—Russian Federation Council member Sen. Alexey Pushkov, who is in Brussels to meet with members of the European Parliament, called for the European Union and Russia to begin reciprocally lifting restrictive measures and sanctions on parliament members, reported TASS. “My position is that it is important to exclude parliament members from sanctions. In my opinion, the EU should establish a dividing line—everything that hampers dialogue and contacts between parliamentarians should be excluded from the sanctions regime. It is up to them, but they are violating their own principles here because parliament members are elected precisely to express their points of view and the opinions of their electorate. They should not by punished for it,” Pushkov told reporters.

“Conditions have not been created yet for mutual refusal of sanctions against parliament members, but we should promote this effort. I think that if the process of lifting sanctions starts at all, it will start with this,” he said. Not only has the EU blacklisted some Russian Federal Assembly members, but Russia has also put several European Parliament members on a similar list, Pushkov stated.

“The people I met understand that EU-Russian relations have hit a dead end. They generally think that it is important to get out of this situation, and that sanctions do not bring any results in this regard,” he concluded.