FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019 Volume 6, Number 28 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• A Changing American Minset a Great Opportunity To Advance the New Paradigm
• More Crimes from Special Counsel Mueller-Violating ‘Woods Procedures’ for FISA Warrants
• U.S. War Party Sees El Salvador’s Elections as ‘Setback’ for China in the Region
• Japanese Premier Abe Wants His People To Take Part in Finalizing Russia-Japan-Peace-Treaty
• African Bank Head Adesina Explains ‘Africa Will Not Develop Through Aid, But Through Investment’
• Split Between M5S and the Lega in Italy’s Governing Coalition Is More Than a Comedy
• German State May Step In To Preserve ‘National Champions’ in Industry
• U.S. Naval Operations Chief Seeks Firmer Rules To Prevent Naval Conflicts in South China Sea
• Russia Offers to Help U.S. in Its Talks With the Taliban
• Russia and China Plan To Help Africa Go Nuclear

EDITORIAL

A Changing American Mindset a Great Opportunity To Advance the New Paradigm

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—Those in the United States attempting to recruit their fellow citizens to the fight for statesman Lyndon LaRouche’s programs of the Four Laws and the New Bretton Woods system, are beginning to notice a degree of change—people are able to think a little better and to understand more. These are qualities whose strengthening is crucial—and not just for citizens of the United States—if the fight for a New Paradigm is to be won, and the British Empire, its rotting Trans-Atlantic system and hedonistic culture, laid to rest once and for all.

One factor which has borne down harder and harder on the ability of Americans to think, ever since the death of Franklin Roosevelt, and still more since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, has been an ever-growing cultural pessimism. Brute enemy force changed history with Kennedy’s assassination, as it did in the near-assassination of Ronald Reagan and in the unjust imprisonment of Lyndon LaRouche. But these direct enemy actions were complemented by the intangible force of growing cultural pessimism—a product of economic decay, cultural degradation, spreading drug epidemics and permanent wars—which dull the mind to the point that urgently-needed great efforts come to seem so impossible that they can’t be imagined or understood. “Forget it. They’ll never let you do that.”

Perhaps the biggest factor in induced cultural pessimism is endless, no-win wars. The British Empire is well aware of that, which is why it imposed the Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria wars on the U.S. one after the other—as the Roman and predecessor empires always did to destroy nations earlier.

For a President to now stand before Congress and the American people, as Donald Trump did in his State of the Union speech Feb. 5, and tell them, authoritatively, that all the “forever wars” are going to be ended, is a unique and historic event. Even the 70-year-old Korean war may well be ended by a peace treaty as early as this year. President Donald Trump is optimistic that real progress can be made in his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

In the same address, President Trump announced that American astronauts would be going back into space on American rockets this year, and that he was launching campaigns to eradicate AIDS, fight childhood cancer, and lower the cost of prescription drugs.

The defenders of the Old Paradigm will not go quietly, and as Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche has emphasized, while the current situation represents a moment of great opportunity, it also is one of great danger. To the degree that a shift in the American mindset is visible, this provides a great opportunity to win America for the LaRouche Plan, the ramifications of which will be felt worldwide.

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

More Crimes from Special Counsel Mueller—Violating ‘Woods Procedures’ for FISA Warrants

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—Veteran investigative journalist John Solomon published an article in The Hill Feb. 6 asserting that when he was FBI Director, now-Special Counsel Robert Mueller was hauled before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court about concerns in the 2002-2003 time period regarding FBI “material omissions” in warrant applications.

According to Solomon, the FISA judges cited 75 such incidents prior to and during the Bush Administration’s war on terror, the vast majority of which occurred prior to Mueller’s FBI tenure, and demanded that Mueller reform FBI practices. Among the things the FBI had not told the Court was that one of the FISA targets was their own informant.

Solomon says that Mueller told the FISA judges that the FBI would commit to the so-called “Woods” FISA procedures in effect today, to ensure that such cheating and material omissions did not occur in FISA warrant applications. Mueller, as this news service has documented, is, among other things, a coverup and legal con artist. Among his feats to date is defeating any real investigation into the Bush/Saudi/British role in the 9/11 murders of almost 3,000 Americans. It is unknown whether Mueller’s final report will claim that Trump has been compromised by the Russians or obstructed justice, although many have speculated this is unlikely. It is absolutely clear, however, that the report will be a grand effort to manufacture enough smoke to justify the otherwise completely illegal MI6, GCHQ, CIA, and FBI penetration and attempted entrapments of an American presidential campaign and subsequent efforts by former FBI Director James Comey et al. to fabricate an obstruction of justice claim against the President.  Mueller aims, at a minimum, to allow people who committed outrageous crimes against the U.S. Constitution in trying to defeat and/or subvert Trump, to escape justice and emerge scot free.

So, convincing FISA judges who were angry that they were being repeatedly duped by the FBI in contravention of the Fourth Amendment, that new procedures would be written and their enforcement would cure the problem, is simply a small helping of Mueller’s fakeries. Witness the FISA warrant application pertaining to Trump associate Carter Page, written, allegedly, under Mueller’s Woods procedures, which neglected to mention that MI6 operative Christopher Steele was biased and would do anything to prevent Trump’s election, a fact known to the drafters of the warrant application; that former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was paying for Christopher Steele’s work, a fact also known to the warrant’s drafters; and that the MI6 Christopher Steele dossier was full of completely unverified and salacious allegations. The sloppy and fabricated Steele “dossier” was presented, instead, as fact in that warrant application.

U.S. War Party Sees El Salvador’s Elections as ‘Setback’ for China in the Region

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—Pro-British Empire war-mongering elements inside the Trump Administration are salivating over the prospect that the victory in El Salvador’s Feb. 3 presidential elections of 37-year-old “outsider” Nayib Bukele, could augur a diplomatic shift in the country, away from China and back toward Taiwan—ostensibly to the benefit of the United States.

In August last year, El Salvador’s President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, of the leftist FMLN party, broke with Taiwan and established diplomatic ties with China, provoking a hysterical reaction from the Trump Administration’s neo-con war-mongers, who also sought to punish Panama and the Dominican Republic for having established ties with China within the previous year.

During his electoral campaign, Bukele said he would consider breaking diplomatic relations with China in favor of Taiwan. A senior administration official quoted by the Washington Examiner Feb. 5, commented on how positive Bukele’s election was. Who knows, he chortled, “we may even see the first readjustment of diplomatic relations—but this time away from China towards Taiwan.”

In Feb. 5 comments, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino suggested that the election of Bukele, who ran on a straight anti-corruption platform, could signal a return to a “strong partnership” with the U.S. based on mutual security concerns, respect for “the rule of law,” and “inclusive economic growth.” Examiner reporter Joel Gehrke added that this would provide the U.S. with a “newly-reliable partner” in Central America, “in the context of a high-profile clash with [Venezuela’s] Maduro regime and a longer-term competition with China in the Western Hemisphere.”

Pro-British Empire war party elements are already at work in Panama and the Dominican Republic, seeking an outcome in those nations’ upcoming presidential elections—Panama in May 2019, and the Dominican Republic in May 2020—more favorable to their geopolitical goals, to put an end to the Peace of Westphalia system of sovereign nation-states and ensure that the United States won’t collaborate with China and Russia in the Belt and Road Initiative in the Western Hemisphere.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Japanese Premier Abe Wants His People To Take Part in Finalizing Russia-Japan Peace Treaty

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged the Japanese people’s participation in moving the Japan-Russia peace treaty talks forward. “It is not easy to resolve the issue that remains 73 years after the war. However, we must do it. I will work on resolving the territorial dispute step by step,” Abe said, TASS reported. Both Russia and Japan have claimed an island chain that Russia identifies as the Southern Kurils, and Japan calls the Northern Territories since the end of World War II. The lack of resolution has prevented the two from signing a peace treaty between them.

“For progressing in negotiations, it is very important for every citizen to deepen their interest and understanding of the problem, and the government should work together with the people as a whole,” Abe said.

Abe also pointed out that after his visit to Moscow in January this year, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked their Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Taro Kono to hold the next round of talks on the peace treaty in February. Abe said that he expects to hold another meeting with Putin in June, when the Japanese city of Osaka will host the G20 summit, TASS reported.

African Bank Head Adesina Explains ‘Africa Will Not Develop Through Aid, But Through Investment’

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)— African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina told diplomats at the Annual Diplomatic Luncheon in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on Feb. 5 that the future for Africa looks promising, although the continent will not develop through aid but rather via investment, reported a release from the bank on Feb. 5. In its latest report on intra-African investment, the AfDB said there was a significant increase in cross-border investments to $12 billion last year from $2 billion in 2010. Referring to the bank’s publication African Economic Outlook 2019 which forecast growth of 4% this year and 4.1% in 2020, Adesina said, “economic opportunities in Africa were generating considerable interest globally and that an agreement last March establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area would create the largest free trade area in the world.”

Adesina also pointed out that the bank’s “High 5” priorities were already producing significant impact, with 4.5 million people connected to electrical grids last year. Nearly 20 million more people had access to improved agricultural technologies and industrial investments in the private sector had benefited 1.1 million. “We need to achieve universal access to electricity. We need to help Africa to become self-sufficient in food,” Adesina told the diplomats. “We need to achieve a fully integrated continent. We need to industrialize Africa and improve the quality of life for its people.”

The High 5 website lists as its focus areas: Light up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialize Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Split between M5S and the Lega in Italy’s Governing Coalition Is More Than a Comedy

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—The Italian government might fall if it fails to overcome two hurdles in the coming days. The first hurdle is the vote in a parliamentary committee on lifting immunity for Lega leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, allowing him to be charged with a crime, and the second hurdle is the decision on the European “TAV” high-speed rail between Turin and Lyon in France. Both decisions depend on whether the M5S leadership will follow its Jacobin constituency or not.

Preconditions to remove the first obstacle have been laid, as both Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and M5S leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Development Minister Luigi Di Maio produced memos saying that the actions of which Salvini is accused—illegal detention of immigrants on a ship—were undertaken in concert with the entire government. This means that if Salvini is incriminated, the entire government is incriminated as well and should resign. Such a deterrent should work on M5S hotheads in the parliamentary committee, but that remains to be seen.

The second hurdle looks more difficult, because the M5S and the Lega have hardened in their opposing positions. A vote against the investigation of Salvini will encourage the M5S hardliners even more against the TAV, for fear of losing even more support among their green constituency. According to the latest poll, the Lega is almost 10 points ahead of the Five Stars, at 33% against 24%.

The split on the TAV was aggravated when M5S Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli delivered a cost-benefit report on the TAV to the French government and the EU Commission, but not to his own government. The report was produced by anti-TAV professors and saying that the TAV is not viable and its construction should stop.

Toninelli’s behavior has irritated the French government, which has already spent a lot of money and built a major part of an Alpine tunnel on the French side of the TAV. M5S leader Luigi Di Maio’s meeting with a delegation of the Yellow Vests in France aggravated things further.

Lega head Salvini also expressed his irritation over the fact that the French government was informed of the cost-benefit analysis, while the Italian government was not. It is expected that publication of the cost-benefit analysis will cover Toninelli with ridicule, as one of his main arguments against the viability of the infrastructure is that shifting freight from the roadway to rail will lose the government income from gasoline taxes and highway tolls.

Since it is hardly possible for the M5S and the Lega to backtrack on such a key issue, it is possible that they will agree on a compromise until the European elections in May. What this means for the TAV’s construction is not clear. The EU Commission, which is providing €3.4 billion in financing for the project, might withdraw the funds.

Another blow to the government is the announcement that Minister of European Affairs Paolo Savona will leave the cabinet and go to head the National Commission for the Market and Business (Consob) regulatory agency. Although he never made a huge issue of it, it’s known that Savona wanted to have a massive investment program instead of so-called social expenditures, or have a higher budget in order to include both.

German State May Step In To Preserve ‘National Champions’ in Industry

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—Germany’s Economy Minister Peter Altmaier announced a new law that would give his government a veto over non-EU takeovers of German companies, as well as the ability to step in during the nationalization process of a strategic company. “It can go as far as the state taking temporary stakes in companies—not to nationalize them and run them in the long run, but to prevent key technologies from being sold off and leaving the country,” the New Europe newspaper quoted him as saying.

The report states that, indeed, until recently, the terms “national” and “industrial policy” were considered a contradiction in terms, but that the new German industrial policy affirms the government’s commitment to manufacturing and is in line with the goal to have German industry account for 25% of the country’s GDP by 2030, up from 23.4% today.

The “strategic” industry sectors that Germany will protect are steel and aluminum, chemicals, machine and plant engineering, optics, autos, medical equipment, Green technologies, defense, aerospace, and 3D printing. Food supply is another strategic area. Altmaier cited the 2016 acquisition of German robotics maker Kuka by a Chinese company as an example of what this law would strive to avoid in the future. But Altmaier should also have mentioned that at that time, no German or other Western investor would step in to pull Kuka out of troubled waters, so that China’s Midea firm stepped in as the investor of last resort. This takeover is of a different nature than the many takeovers by Anglo-American vulture funds out of pure greed in recent years.

Altmaier’s agenda at the same time includes the consolidation of the nation’s biggest private financial institution, Deutsche Bank, motivated by the idea that “national political and economic interest” makes a German source of industrial financing indispensable.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

U.S. Naval Operations Chief Seeks Firmer Rules To Prevent Naval Conflicts in South China Sea

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—Speaking at meeting of the Atlantic Council in Washington on Feb. 6, Adm. John Richardson, the 31st Chief of Naval Operations and reportedly an adviser to President Donald Trump, said it is necessary to firm up rules governing naval encounters in disputed waters such as the South China Sea, where near misses between warships continue to test territorial claims and rights to free navigation, South China Morning Post reported today. “Let’s not be obstructing one another, driving our ships in front of one another, throwing obstacles in front of the ship,” he said.

Rules based on a transponder-based automatic identification system could be used to share vital information among ships to avoid collisions, Richardson said. “So, just putting in some of these enforcement mechanisms makes it harder to play fast and loose with the rules,” the admiral said. “But you’ve got to make a move to enforce those things. I think a lot of that structure exists, it’s just we’ve got to be a little more muscular in enforcing it.”

Richardson, who was in China last month, said when he met with his Chinese counterpart, Commander of the PLA Navy Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong, and Gen. Li Zuocheng, Chief of the Central Military Commission Joint Staff, discussions took place to seek a deeper understanding and minimize the risk of conflict. “Our thinking is different, [yet] we have common interests in many areas. I would say a denuclearized Korean Peninsula is an area where we share common interests,” Richardson said. “We have differences, some big differences, in terms of how we consider the South China Sea.”

China and the United States agreed to a document in spring 2014 to prevent miscalculations and unanticipated escalations of encounters at sea. The voluntary Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) among 21 states, including the United States, China and ASEAN, governs communications protocols for naval crews, but is voluntary and not legally binding.

Russia Offers To Help to U.S. in Its Talks with the Taliban

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—According to a RIA Novosti report today, cited by Reuters, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Russia is ready to help the United States advance its negotiations with the Taliban on withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan. The offer was made yesterday after a Feb. 5-6 conference in Moscow, organized by the Afghan diaspora in Russia, attended by, among others, the Taliban and some non-government Afghan political figures including former President Hamid Karzai, Associated Press reported. Diplomat Zamir Kabulov, the Russian presidential envoy on Afghanistan, told RIA Novosti today that Russia is willing to assist the U.S. in talks with the Taliban on the withdrawal of U.S. troops, reported AP, but expressed doubt that the U.S. would pull out all of its troops.

The Afghan talks between the Taliban and the U.S. are expected to resume soon in Doha. Meanwhile, Nadir Naim, an Afghan politician, in a Feb. 6 article for Al Jazeera, said the key to the resolution will lie in understanding the Taliban of today and not the Taliban of 1995 when it took power in Kabul.

He emphasized that, “to achieve sustainable peace, the Afghan government, with the help of the U.S., will need to strike a balance between acknowledging the needs and expectations of the Taliban and providing the necessary protections for segments of the Afghan population that feel threatened by the group…. An inclusive regional consensus is imperative; the U.S. won’t be able to do this alone if it wants sustainable peace in Afghanistan. Moscow, Beijing, Islamabad, Tehran, New Delhi and Ankara would all want a say in the final settlement.”

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

Russia and China Plan To Help Africa Go Nuclear

Feb. 7 (EIRNS)—An article by Sebastien Malo for Thomson Reuters Foundation pointed to the increasing demand in Africa to install nuclear power generation. The article, however, did not detail how the African countries are preparing to usher in this high-tech power generation. As of now, South Africa is the only country on the continent operating a nuclear power plant.

Both Russia and China are involved in materializing this African dream, the article said. Ethiopia’s memorandum of understanding on nuclear cooperation with Russia paves the way for the construction of a nuclear power plant and a research reactor in the long term, said Frehiwot Woldehanna, Ethiopia’s State Minister for Water, Irrigation and Electricity. Like Ethiopia, emerging nuclear states Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia and Ghana have signed agreements with Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom. Chinese state-owned nuclear firms have also taken the lead in the region, sealing deals with Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, according to World Nuclear Association data, writes Malo.

Ethiopia has invested heavily in hydropower. Its most ambitious project under construction is the Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile River that will churn out 6,000 MW at full capacity when completed within the next four years, according to Ethiopian Electric Power, the state-owned utility. But Woldehanna worries about betting on an abundance of water for the country’s main source of electricity, as droughts become more frequent. With rivers sometimes drying up, “you cannot fully rely on hydropower,” said Woldehanna and that nuclear technologies have “environmental” advantages over other power sources. Plans for a nuclear power plant in Ethiopia remain at the “pre-feasibility stage,” but the country is serious about building one, he emphasized.

Sub-Saharan Africa produces only as much electricity as Spain, but has 18 times the population, and with 6 out of 10 people having no access to electricity, nuclear is increasingly attractive.  Even among those who have electricity, the frequent power outages make it difficult or impossible to run business or industry. Reuters cites the executive of an Addis Ababa cookie factory who paid out $100,000 for equipment to keep machinery running during blackouts. She said that Ethiopia’s plans to upgrade its power and electricity delivery would mean businesses would have reliable power—and people reliable jobs.

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