FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2019

Volume 6, Number 33

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• The Fruits of Lyndon LaRouche’s Passion and Dedication Are Everywhere Around Us
• There’s No Denying It: It Was Never Anything But a Coup!
• House Votes Up Resolution Against Yemen War
• Kremlin Spokesman Says U.S. Sanctions Bill Borders on Racketeering
• Time For an Occidental-Oriental New Silk Road
• Zimbabwe’s President Mnangagwa Sees Ethiopia as a Positive Development Model
• Belarus and Poland To Develop Trade and Logistics Hubs as Part of the Belt and Road Initiative
• Egypt Broadening Its African Continental Policy
• Italian Prime Minister Conte Calls European Parliament Attacks on Him ‘Their Swan Song’
• The Spanish Government Is Going Under
• BBC Journalist Confirms That Alleged Douma Gas Attack in Syria Was Staged
• Russia, Turkey, Iran Talks Focus on Creating a De-escalation Zone in Syria’s Idlib
• Europe and China Space Agencies Working Out Cooperation Perspectives

EDITORIAL

The Fruits of Lyndon LaRouche’s Passion and Dedication Are Everywhere Around Us

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Among the statements of support and condolence coming in from around the world to his wife Helga and his associates since Lyndon LaRouche’s death two days ago, we can start, today, by taking special note of those from Italy and those from Russia. The new Italian government, not yet one year old, despite its problems, represents the first such successful revolt in Western Europe against the tyranny of the European Union and for economic development. It has enshrined Franklin Roosevelt’s Glass-Steagall law, championed around the world by LaRouche, as everyone knows, in its coalition program.

This would never have happened without Lyndon LaRouche’s patient work, and his repeated visits to Italy with his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It would never have happened without the LaRouche Italian organization Movisol. But what else was integral to it?  None of it would have happened without the campaign of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche and the Schiller Institute for the Verdi tuning of C=256 Hertz, beginning in 1988. The world’s leading singers, led by the greatest Italian artists, championed this lower tuning at home and around the world.

From science, from music, comes a political revolution.  Who would have believed it possible?  Who but Lyndon LaRouche?

The great change for the better in Russia visible under Vladimir Putin’s leadership since 2000, was prepared by decades of Lyndon LaRouche’s work, beginning latest 1977 when Russia was part of the Soviet Union. It was then that LaRouche began to elaborate what became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative when President Ronald Reagan announced it as U.S. policy on March 23, 1983. It was simultaneously a scientific-technological program, a military program to overcome Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), and an economic program for world development. Its objective was a world Westphalian system featuring combined economic development, as Franklin Roosevelt had envisioned for the post-World War II world.

The new Soviet government of Yuri Andropov (and his successor Mikhail Gorbachov) rejected the SDI, and LaRouche forecast that the Soviet system would collapse within about five years as a result.

Thus, already under the Soviets, LaRouche and his views were well known in Russia, especially among scientists—but he continued his involvement there even from the Federal prison where he was thrown as revenge for winning the U.S. government for the SDI policy. Paroled after five years, LaRouche made the video “Storm over Asia,” which forecast the course of British intervention against Russia through Central Asia, which later became the first great crisis Putin had to face as President. LaRouche travelled to Russia repeatedly in the 1990s, meeting with leading scientists, politicians and economists.

In Russia, in Italy, these are only two of the many ways in which LaRouche has profoundly shaped history, as a citizen, without money or political office.  We are carrying on from here to bring his efforts to fruition.

Note to Readers: Due to a staff conference over the President’s Day weekend, we will not be producing the EIR Daily Alert on Monday, Feb. 18.  We will resume with Issue 34 on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

There’s No Denying It; It Was Never Anything But a Coup!

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to “wear a wire” in meetings with the President.  After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey’s deputy director, launched a phony “obstruction of justice” investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the “Russia Collusion” investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well.

Now, after its own two years of investigation and 200 interviews, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) has said, “There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”  Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) said he disagrees with the way Burr characterized the evidence, but declined to give his own assessment.

Veteran criminal attorney John Dowd, a member of Trump’s legal team from June 2017 to March 2018, said, “I know exactly what he [Mueller] has.  I know exactly what every witness said, what every document said. I know exactly what he asked.  And I know what the conclusion or the result is.”

What will be the result of the probe?

“It’s been a terrible waste of time…. This is one of the greatest frauds the country has ever seen. I’m just shocked that Bob Mueller didn’t call it that way and say, ‘I’m being used.’ I would’ve done that.

“I’d have gone to [then Attorney General] Sessions and Rosenstein and said, ‘Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the FBI to get even.’ ”

Asked about Mueller’s final report, he responded, “I will be shocked if anything regarding the President is made public, other than, ‘We’re done.’ ”

At the same time, former NSA Technical Director William Binney has published new evidence which shows that the DNC documents posted by WikiLeaks in July 2016, were probably not hacked over the internet, by Russians or anyone else—rather, the only available forensic evidence indicates that they were downloaded from within the DNC’s network. His evidence is summarized in an article he co-authored with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Col. Pat Lang’s “Sic Semper Tyrannis” blog yesterday.

House Votes Up Resolution against Yemen War

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—The U.S. House of Representatives, yesterday, passed the war powers resolution against U.S. military support to the Saudis in Yemen. The vote of 248-177 was reported to be largely along party lines. It is expected to pass the Senate.

“The only patriotic thing, if you care about our troops, if you care about American interests, if you care about the outrage that the Saudis are inflicting on Americans and on the world, then the only patriotic thing to do is to vote for this resolution,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), the resolution’s chief House sponsor, said ahead of the vote. Increasing the anger in the Congress was the administration’s failure to meet a deadline, on Feb. 8, to submit a report to Congress on the murder of Saudi national, Jamal Khashoggi.

White House and Congressional Republican opposition is based on the argument that U.S. forces are not engaged in combat operations, so therefore the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which is the basis for the Khanna resolution, does not apply. On the other hand, if the resolution does pass and goes to President Donald Trump’s desk, it will be the first time that the U.S. Congress has actually exercised its Constitutional war powers in more than 15 years, albeit of course from mixed motives.

Kremlin Spokesman Says U.S. Sanctions Bill Borders on Racketeering

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Responding to the U.S. Senators’ efforts to impose new sanctions on Russia by proposing a bill on Feb. 13 called the “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DASKA)” of 2019, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said behind such proposals “there is an absolutely concrete, pragmatic and aggressive trading approach, having nothing to do with international trade rules…. This policy sometimes borders on racketeering. I mean various provisions of the draft law aimed at disrupting various energy projects of Russian companies, undermining the activities of Russian banks with state participation,” Peskov said, reported TASS.

The proposed legislation, an updated version of an earlier bill that did not muster enough support, seeks to increase economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Russia “in response to Russia’s interference in democratic processes abroad, malign influence in Syria, and aggression against Ukraine, including in the Kerch Strait,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who proposed the bill with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among other members of the Foreign Relations Committee.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Time for an Occidental-Oriental New Silk Road

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Peter Gauweiler, a former longtime member of the Bundestag and leading politician of the Christian Social Union—the Bavarian partner of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union—endorses China’s Economic Silk Road Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road—the components of the Belt and Road Initiative—as meaningful steps towards the creation of “new economic centers of mankind,” which will renew the global economy.

In an opinion piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today, Gauweiler reviews the Berlin-Baghdad Railway and the Suez Canal as great projects Germany and France built in past centuries, encouraging for new great projects in the context of an “Occidental-Oriental Silk Road.” These, he said, could be a joint project of Europe and Africa, for instance in support of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s Suez Canal II economic development perspective.

And, Europe and Germany should stop embargoing Syria because they dislike President Bashar al-Assad—a view which simply does not fit into a situation that requires a renewed Peace of Westphalia, as in the period after the 17th-century Thirty Years’ War, Gauweiler writes. As then, so today, the issue is not who wins and who loses, but whether all sides can make peace, constructive for all.

Zimbabwe’s President Mnangagwa Sees Ethiopia as a Positive Development Model

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Deeply impressed with his delegation’s tour of Ethiopia’s multimillion-dollar industrial parks on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, on Feb. 11, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa vowed this was the path Zimbabwe must follow to ensure vibrant economic growth and employment creation. The tour was meant to see how Zimbabwe could derive beneficial experiences from the industrial parks concept. Zimbabwe is in the process of establishing Special Economic Zones across the country similar to those of Ethiopia.

Mnangagwa, First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa, and other government officials arrived on Feb. 8 in Ethiopia, which was hosting the African Union General Assembly on Feb. 10-11.

Following his tour, Mnangagwa told reporters that, “The history is that the government of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia built these factory shells and then invited companies in the textile sector from India to come and do business here. As a result of that, it’s now about six years old. This entity alone [Jay Jay Textiles] employs in excess of 4,000 workers but they have other places where they have similar factories having 45,000 employees in the past five years working in these shells built by the government. I think this is the way to go. They have created employment for the youth and particularly women. You can see inside there that the young girls and women are working. The market, we have been briefed, are top-end markets in the U.S.A. It is an eye opener that we also in Zimbabwe have the intention of creating economic zones, economic parks of this nature and that is the way. It creates employment. It brings technology. It brings you skills into the country. This is the way to go,” Harare’s The Herald quoted him as saying.

Belarus and Poland To Develop Trade and Logistics Hubs as Part of the Belt and Road Initiative

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—During their Feb. 13 meeting, Belarus Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki discussed coordination within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Belarus news agency BelTA reported. In particular, they discussed joint efforts to implement infrastructure projects and to develop trade and logistics hubs as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Belarusian authorities have been actively involved in the Chinese BRI, seeing it not only as opportunity to strengthen Belarus’s international position but serving as an important partner of China’s in Eastern Europe and to attract Chinese investors. Belarus counts on gaining China as an important partner in the international arena.

At the same time, China perceives Belarus as an important state in the Eurasian Economic Union and investments in the country are seen as a way to facilitate the entry of Chinese companies into the markets of the member states of this organization, according to an August 2018 report by the Polish Institute of International Affairs.

Also, Poland is very much in a strategic position when it comes to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The country is very strong in terms of logistics: 25% of road transport in Europe is operated by Polish companies. It is not surprising that the Chinese e-commerce behemoth, Alibaba, chose Poland as its logistic hub.

Egypt Broadening Its African Continental Policy

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—In his two statements addressed to the opening and closing of the 32nd African Union summit on Feb. 10-11, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stressed Egypt’s commitment to working with the pan-African organization and member states to consolidate national security, enhance development plans and promote moderation. For officials working on Cairo’s Africa policy, the three tracks el-Sisi highlighted are about strong military and police forces; expanding and upgrading infrastructure and confronting militant groups that promote radical religious views, Al Ahram Online reported today.

Al Ahram cited Amira Abdel-Halim, an expert on Egypt-African relations and researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, saying “it makes perfect sense that Egypt commits itself to promoting security in these two zones.” These zones have seen several militant groups significantly undermine security and stability, not just in East Africa and the Sahel and Sahara but also in parts of West and North Africa. In June last year, Egypt saw the inauguration of the headquarters of the Sahel and Sahara Anti-Terror Centre.

Sources at the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Investment say that Egypt is trying hard to push development in Africa. Already, Egypt has proposed closer cooperation among the three economic sub-regional groupings—COMESA, ECOWAS and SADC that cover East, West and Southern Africa.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Italian Prime Minister Conte Calls European Parliament Attacks on Him ‘Their Swan Song’

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Corriere della Sera andRepubblica, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte reacted to the assault he had to face in the European Parliament on Feb. 12 as described in the Feb. 13 Alert, by saying that “for some MEPs, their speech on Tuesday was somehow their swan song.”

Conte said that he is bitter, because although he expected to be attacked, “I did not expect their unseemliness, their falsehoods…. How can anyone claim that Italy let children die at sea? It never happened.

“They insulted me, and through me, our country as a whole. I could not accept that, and I had the duty of remarking that, unlike others, I am not the figurehead of some business group, nor do I have a conflict of interests.” Conte was referring to Belgian Liberal Democrat faction leader Guy Verhofstadt, who accused him of being “the puppet of Mr. Salvini and Mr. Di Maio,” the Lega and M5S leaders, who are the Deputy Prime Ministers.

“If anything, I was bitter because an opportunity was lost. We could have discussed the future of the Union, and instead, some MEPs turned the floor in Strasbourg into a talk-show arena.

“My government … represents the change going on in Italy and Europe, which is why they attacked me. Many of them know that they will not be reelected. They are children of forces with an old vision. The new wind is blowing them away.

“They all speak about financial stability, but not about political and social stability. They overlook the very high domestic support which my majority has, and other countries do not have. Socialist Premier Pedro Sanchez in Spain is going straight ahead to early elections. In Belgium, they had a government crisis on the fiscal compact.”

The Spanish Government Is Going Under

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—The Spanish government which has called for overthrowing Venezuela’s elected President Nicolas Maduro, was overthrown yesterday by a vote of its own Parliament. On Feb. 15, likely lame-duck Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will announce the date of early elections. The government was voted down on the budget proposal yesterday. This will have the effect, among others, of creating a major increase of the planned deficit, thus throwing Spain (against its will) onto the list of the bad boys in the European Union, according to the EU bureaucrats.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

BBC Journalist Confirms That Alleged Douma Gas Attack in Syria Was Staged

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Riam Dalati, a BBC producer in Syria, posted on his Twitter account yesterday that the videos shot by the jihadis and the White Helmets in Douma, outside of Damascus, supposedly showing the results of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack, were faked. The alleged chemical attack occurred on April 7, 2018, just as the hold of the Jaysh al Islam jihadis over Douma was collapsing. U.S., British and French military forces responded four days later with cruise missile attacks on alleged Syrian chemical weapons facilities. Within days of that attack, evidence that the whole thing was faked began pouring out of Syria, not only from the Russian military, but also from journalists who visited Douma, and other sources as well.

For his part, Dalati tweeted yesterday that, “after almost six months of investigations, I can prove without a doubt that the Douma hospital scene was faked. No fatalities occurred at the hospital.” He tweeted further that “The ATTACK DID HAPPEN, Sarin wasn’t used, but we’ll have to wait for @OPCW to prove Chlorine or otherwise.” Furthermore, “I can tell you that Jaysh al-Islam ruled Douma with an iron fist. They coopted activists, doctors and humanitarians with fear and intimidation.” Within hours, however, reports Sputnik International, Dalati’s Twitter account went private. Not long after that, a BBC spokesperson told Sputnik that Dalati was expressing his own opinion. “The producer was expressing his personal opinions about some of the video footage that emerged after the attack but has not claimed that the attack did not happen,” the BBC spokesperson said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters during her regular briefing today that the Russian government was waiting for an official statement from the BBC on its position about the alleged chemical attack. “The culmination of this theatre of the absurd may be considered the statements by a producer from Britain’s BBC, who confirmed, based on his own research, the staged nature of the footage with the direct participation of the ‘White Helmets,’ ” she said.

Russia, Turkey, Iran Talks Focus on Creating a De-escalation Zone in Syria’s Idlib

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Following today’s three-way talks among Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, host President Putin stated that, “Let me note that the Iranian and Turkish colleagues are ready to work as a team with an aim of finally defusing tensions and stabilizing Idlib. We have agreed to take additional steps in this respect,” TASS reported. He also announced that a Syrian constitutional committee will be formed soon. The three are the guarantor states for Syria’s ceasefire, known as the Astana Process.

“These meetings,” Putin explained, “have facilitated progress in improving the situation in Syria. A ceasefire is in place almost throughout the entire country, which means that the level of violence has declined. It is a specific joint measure and undoubtedly a positive result.” He also suggested that Russia, Turkey and Iran will be taking “concrete practical steps for the complete elimination of this hotbed of terrorism.”

Following the meeting, the three parties issued a 17-point statement. One of the points stated that the “U.S. decision on the withdrawal of its forces from Syria, if implemented, would be a step that would help strengthen stability and security in the country in compliance with the above-mentioned principles.”

This is the fourth summit of the guarantor countries of the Astana Process on Syria. The first meeting of the Astana trio was in Sochi on Nov. 22, 2017.

The Russian delegation to the Feb. 14 talks included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, among others. Among the Turkish delegation were President Erdogan, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak. The Iranian delegation included President Rouhani, Chief of Staff for the Iranian Armed Forces Gen. Mohammad Bagheri and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

Europe and China Space Agencies Working Out Cooperation Perspectives

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—“ESA is conducting exploratory talks with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) regarding possible European cooperation on the following Chinese Moon missions,” said James Carpenter of the ESA’s Directorate of Human and Robotics Exploration. Back in 2017, for example, a joint workshop of the two space agencies on lunar samples was held in Beijing.

Later this year, China intends to pursue a sample-return effort to retrieve lunar rocks for analysis on Earth via its Chang’e-5 lunar mission. That prospective outing’s debut depends, however, on the Long March 5 rocket return to flight, as it suffered a launch failure in July 2017. If successful, the Chang’e-5 mission would be the first lunar sample-return project in more than four decades since the Soviet Union’s 1976 Luna 24 mission.

In the meantime, Europe and China could advance a nascent partnership in human spaceflight. Carpenter spotlights the ESA-China intergovernmental framework agreement signed in 2005 as well as a pact signed in 2014 that opens the possibility for the two space agencies to share resources on the ground and in space dedicated to training and actual spaceflight of international human crews. “At the moment, the cooperation on scientific utilization is advancing,” he says. “Discussions have occurred regarding astronaut training, possible flight opportunities for European astronauts as well as the cooperation in the area of infrastructure, but no specific plans have so far been confirmed.” The ESA has also provided Mars environmental data to the CNSA in view of the Chinese Mars mission set for departure in 2020, he states.

A 2005 collaboration agreement for ESA participation has provided ground stations for control and data relay of the Chang’e-missions, starting with Moon orbiters Chang’e-1 and Chang’e-2 in 2007 and 2010, respectively, as well as the Chang’e-3 spacecraft, which in 2013 conducted China’s first lunar landing. “The Chang’e-4 mission will advance technical maturity for future robotic and human landings,” he says. “The next step will be Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6 sample return from the Moon. A number of other robotic landers are planned in the upcoming year that could build up, de facto, a lunar robotic village—a precursor to human settlements.”

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