FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2019

Volume 6, Number 37

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• Physical Laws of the Universe Must Prevail Over Dangerous, Entropic, ‘Strategic Environment’ at Play
• Sputnik Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on INF Crisis
• China Proposes To Buy Additional $30 Billion in U.S. Agro-Products, in Context of Trade Talks
• Putin’s Federal Assembly Aress Highlights Russia’s Cooperation With China on Belt and Road
• Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Project-Soon the Biggest in the World
• China Intends To Remain a Strategic Partner of Iran
• Green Hysteria Pushing for March 15 ‘School Strike 4 Climate’ To Target Youth Worldwide
• British Empire Goes for Broke With ‘Humanitarian Aid’ Provocation Against Venezuela
• U.K. Chancellor Hammond Backs Off From Defense Secretary’s War-Mongering Against Beijing
• President Putin Orders Creation of a National Space Center To Upgrade Russian Aerospace
• Malaysia and China To Revise Major Belt and Road Rail Project
• Premier Li Keqiang Explains China’s Rate Lowering Is NOT Quantitative Easing
  

EDITORIAL

Physical Laws of the Universe Must Prevail over Dangerous, Entropic, ‘Strategic Environment’ at Play

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche made reference to the current dangerous “strategic environment” in an interview posted today by Sputnik International, in an exchange focused on the deadly implications if more U.S. nuclear weapons are positioned in Europe. In the article titled, “Europe To Sign Own ‘Suicide Pact’ If Hosts New U.S. Missiles—German Politician,” she warns, “If Europe were to accept the installation of new U.S. missiles on its territory in this strategic environment, it would sign a suicide pact.” She explained, “Despite President [Donald] Trump’s stated intention to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia, including that he may have one idea of replacing the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] treaty with a new agreement, Putin has to take into account the contrary intention of the neo-cons in the Trump Administration and the British ‘minister of war,’ Gavin Williamson, who threatens to use ‘hard power’ and also claims that the ‘boundaries between peace and war are becoming blurred.” (Her reference is to Williamson’s Feb. 11 anti-Russia, anti-China rant at the Royal United Services Institute.)

At this moment, the very dangerous zone of confrontation is in the Americas, centered on Venezuela, where British geopolitical schemes are in play which can start a war. These involve the full range of dirty operations, going back years—in particular to the period of President Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, with British interventions to subvert the economy, pit sides against each other, and fabricate wild propaganda constructs about the need for “humanitarian regime change” against “failed socialism.” The relevant history of this is available in detail from a Feb. 2 interview by Iran’s Tasnim news service with EIR Ibero-America Editor Dennis Small. The neo-con line-up in the Trump Administration is beating the drums for confrontation, if not intervention, and unfortunately the President, under siege from the British coup assault, is falling into some of this geopolitical claptrap. Even First Lady Melania Trump made remarks recently against “socialism,” citing her own experience growing up in Soviet socialist Eastern Europe, implying that regime change is in order for Venezuela.

There are very dangerous deployments on the ground at points along the Colombian and Brazilian borders with Venezuela, under the name of staging of humanitarian aid. The figurehead for the regime change, “interim President” Juan Guaidó, who set Feb. 23 as a deadline for aid, said “volunteer brigades” will be dispatched to these border points. Anticipating violence, the Maduro government has closed all ports and shut down air traffic until Feb. 24. Guaidó is also calling for humanitarian corridors, and other confrontational moves—all taken from the Gene Sharp/National Endowment for Democracy playbook.

Another dimension of the onslaught by the same British Empire networks of operatives, is to whip up mass green hysteria, in particular, by herding youth into a worldwide March 15 “School Strike 4 Climate” day, when they are supposed to boycott classes, to protest that adults are too slow to act against CO2. Targetted nations include the United States, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and many more. The idea that this climate action day is a “grass roots,” locally run phenomenon is bunk. A key coordinating outfit is 350.org, present in 180 nations, which has received millions in funding since its founding in 2007, from the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others. The March 15 Climate Action Strike is especially venal, since it targets vulnerable youth.

We will expose the evil of this, in the context of the strategically important initiative by President Trump to form a commission on climate, to look at the actual truth of the matter in scientific terms. It is referred to as the proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security. Trump is the only President to speak out against the lies on climate. We will put forward the method to look at the true laws of the universe. This is an urgent, strategic necessity, whose principles have been so well presented through the life’s work of Lyndon LaRouche.

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

Sputnik Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on INF Crisis

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—Sputnik International published an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, identified as head of the Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) party, warning that if Europe hosts new U.S. missiles it will sign a “suicide pact,” and that the solution to strategic tensions is to expose the real authors of Russiagate. The interview was published in the English (Sputnik International) and Portuguese-Brazilian editions of Sputnik, and picked up by a newswire in Indonesia. The dispatch was headlined: “Europe To Sign Own ‘Suicide Pact’ If Hosts New U.S. Missiles—German Politician.” Excerpts follow:

“Europe’s possible agreement to host U.S. intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles will be tantamount to signing a ‘suicide pact’ in light of Russia’s declared resolve to target these potential security threats, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the leader of Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party, told Sputnik.

“ ‘If Europe were to accept the installation of new U.S. missiles on its territory in this strategic environment, it would sign a suicide pact,’ Zepp-LaRouche said.

“According to the politician, amid somewhat war-mongering rhetoric in the West, Putin ‘just reintroduced a reality principle and clarity’ with his warnings.

“Meanwhile, Europe’s ‘fundamental self-interest,’ Zepp-LaRouche believed, lay in removing sanctions on Russia and re-establishing good relations with Moscow by creating ‘an economic zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the basis of integrating the Belt and Road Initiative, the Eurasian Economic Union and the EU.’

“She went on to note that such cooperation would create ‘a new security architecture’ that should become the basis on which Europe builds its cooperation with the United States.

“When asked to suggest ways to overcome the rifts in the global security environment between Russia and the West, Zepp-LaRouche opined that once the ‘real authors’ of ‘Russiagate’—the scandal around Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which Russia strongly denies—were revealed, ‘most of the strategic tensions would evaporate.’ ”

China Proposes To Buy Additional $30 Billion in U.S. Agro-Products, in Context of Trade Talks

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—According to a Bloomberg article today, citing “people with knowledge of the plan,” China is proposing that it could buy an additional $30 billion a year of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans, corn, and wheat as part of a possible trade deal being negotiated by the two countries.

“The offer to buy the extra farm produce would be part of the memorandum of understanding under discussion by U.S. and Chinese negotiators in Washington, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are confidential,” Bloomberg wrote.

China has repeatedly offered to increase purchases of agricultural and energy products to shrink the U.S. trade deficit. Since a tariff truce agreed in December, it has resumed imports of some farm goods including soybeans and President Donald Trump this week said “a lot of corn” would be next on Beijing’s shopping list. In 2017, China imported a total $24.2 billion in American agricultural products, 60% of that with oilseeds.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Putin’s Federal Assembly Address Highlights Russia’s Cooperation with China on Belt and Road

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—During his 90-minute Address to the Federal Assembly on Feb. 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized the importance of boosting relations with China and greater involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative. Under Putin’s plan, Russia will step up government spending and investment in areas such as artificial intelligence and big data, and strengthen external relations of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) by linking with the Chinese Belt and Road initiative, People’s Daily reported today.

President Putin will become a key guest and participant of the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in April 2019 in Beijing, Russia’s Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov said last December. “We believe that a major event of the first half of 2019 will be the coordinated visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China, who will take part in the second summit of the Belt and Road Forum,” Denisov said, TASS reported.

During China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia last July, Xi had said that Russia is an important partner in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, and had urged the two countries to carry out the Northern Sea Route cooperation so as to realize an “Ice Silk Road,” reported Xinhua.

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Project—Soon the Biggest in the World

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—China’s Great Bay Project, incorporating Guangdong Province and the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, is one of four major Great Bay areas in the world, the others being New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. On Feb. 18, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council released a blueprint for China’s Great Bay Project’s further development, aimed also at consolidating the “one country-two systems” relations with Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions. Of course, the opening last year of the spectacular Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has created huge potential for further integration and development of the region.

The blueprint shows, according to the Global Times account of Feb. 19, that the Great Bay Area has a combined GDP of $1.5 trillion as of 2017, placing it second among the four major bay areas. But it is on track to soon be the largest.

Interestingly, Global Times writes: “While the New York Bay Area has an overwhelming advantage in the finance industry, the San Francisco Bay Area, led by Silicon Valley, excels in the tech industry, and high-end manufacturing defines the Tokyo Great Bay Area, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Area is a combination of all necessary economic factors in the three city clusters,” quoting Song Ding, a research fellow at the Shenzhen-based China Development Institute. “Hong Kong is on par with New York as a financial center. Similar to San Francisco, Shenzhen has given birth to a complete chain for high-tech industries. And the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong is the cradle of manufacturing,” Song said.

China Intends To Remain a Strategic Partner of Iran

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—The day before the Feb. 21 arrival of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamad bin Sultan in Beijing, in his Feb. 20 meeting with Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, China’s President Xi Jinping said the two countries had a long friendship and shared long-tested mutual trust, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement issued today, reported Reuters.

“No matter how the international and regional situations change, China’s resolve to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran will remain unchanged,” Iran’s PressTV quoted President Xi as saying. China and Iran should further deepen strategic mutual trust and continue to support each other on core interests and major concerns, Xi declared, Reuters reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is in China leading a delegation that includes Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani and the ministers of finance and petroleum, as well as the CEO of Iran’s central bank.

Reuters characterized Iran as a bitter foe of Saudi Arabia, the richest and most influential Arab country in the region, and it is evident from Xi’s statement that China wants to have balanced relations with these two adversaries. China is one of Iran’s important oil buyers and is currently enjoying a six-month waiver from U.S. sanctions until May to continue buying from Iran. In January 2018, China imported 749,000 barrels of oil from Iran, but as the United States pulled out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran in May and reimposed oil sanctions in October, Chinese imports from Iran dropped significantly.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Green Hysteria Pushing for March 15 ‘School Strike 4 Climate’ To Target Youth Worldwide

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—A filthy green operation, especially reprehensible for targetting youth, is in motion internationally, for students to boycott classes Friday, March 15, and stage a “School Strike 4 Climate” action, to demand adults do more to cut CO2. Self-described on websites and social media as a grass roots uprising, it is no such thing.

The rotten pedigree of this is given in detail for Australia, in an article exposing the “School Strike 4 Climate Australia,” by a researcher from the Citizens Electoral Council, Jeremy Beck. It is titled, “ ‘Climate Action’ Is Brutal Austerity,” Here is an excerpt:

“According to the ‘School Strike 4 Climate Australia’ website, their network is student-led, decentralized and grassroots. But it doesn’t take a researcher long to discover this network is controlled top down, and funded, by the City of London-centered financial oligarchy. Two mobile numbers are listed as contacts for media inquiries. Are they for school students—Year 12 student leaders perhaps? No! A quick internet search shows that they link to Charlie Wood and Alex Fuller.

“Wood is Australian Campaign’s Director of 350.org, an environmentalist activist organization with a presence in 188 countries. It had a $16.8 million total revenue in 2017, and public records show wealthy foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation have collectively funnelled in tens of millions of dollars to 350.org since its founding in 2007. The CEO of 350.org in Australia, Blair Palese, was a board member of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. Greenpeace has collectively received billions of dollars from establishment-run foundations….

“Fuller is Communications Manager of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), which had a total income of more than $2.8 million in 2017 alone. Curiously, the AYCC Facebook page links to the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and GetUp. Both have been establishment fronts from their inception. The ACF was established by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1964; its patron was the Governor-General, and its Chairman of the Benefactors and National Sponsors Committee—i.e. chief fundraiser—was Sir Maurice Mawby, managing director of Conzinc Riotinto Australia (CRA, later Rio Tinto).”

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

British Empire Goes for Broke with ‘Humanitarian Aid’ Provocation Against Venezuela

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—As per the British Imperial script, Venezuelan “interim President” Juan Guaidó, with full support from the neo-con cabal inside the Trump Administration, has begun to travel to the Colombian border town of Cucuta from Caracas, in preparation for the Feb. 23 deadline on which he says humanitarian aid will begin to enter the country.

A scenario for violence is taking shape. Guaidó is reportedly accompanied by volunteer brigades, that will disperse to several points in Venezuela’s western state of Tachira and southern state of Bolivar which border Cucuta and the Brazilian city of Roraima, respectively. Guaidó also mentioned Puerto Cabello and Puerto La Guaira as two ports at which humanitarian aid may be arriving, and provocatively demanded that a humanitarian corridor be opened up “by land or by sea.” Citizens should demonstrate all over the country, he said, and accompany his “caravan” to the border, and to several military bases.

President Nicolas Maduro has vowed that no humanitarian aid will enter Venezuela, and has effectively placed the country on lockdown. He announced today that as of 8:00 p.m. tonight, Venezuela’s land border with Brazil will be closed entirely, and the border with Colombia probably closed soon. All Venezuelan ports are closed until Feb. 23, and all air traffic has ceased across the nation.

The ratcheting up of tensions is such that in his daily press conference yesterday, United Nations spokesman Stéphane Dujarric issued an urgent plea to “all parties” to “depoliticize” humanitarian aid, and “advance toward serious political negotiations and a reduction of the tensions we’re seeing.”

Neo-con Vice President Mike Pence didn’t get the memo. The White House today announced that he will be traveling to Colombia Feb. 25 at the invitation of President Ivan Duque, where he will address representatives of the Lima Group of nations that support regime-change to “define concrete steps that support the Venezuelan people and a transition to democracy.” Pence will demand that Maduro resign.

Adm. Craig Faller, head of the U.S. Southern Command, said yesterday that the U.S. favors a diplomatic solution to the Venezuelan crisis, but added that “our obligation as professional military is to be ready,” should other action be required.

U.K. Chancellor Hammond Backs Off from Defense Secretary’s War-Mongering against Beijing

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—Appearing on the BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond tried to distance himself from Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson’s Feb. 11 threats against China, in which he said that, after Brexit, Britain would use military force to support its interests in the Pacific and outlined plans to deploy its new, largest aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabethto the Pacific.

Hammond had been scheduled to visit China for trade talks over the Feb. 16-17 weekend, but the Chinese cancelled the visit after Williamson’s bellicose remarks before the Royal United Services Institute.

Hammond pointed out that HMS Queen Elizabeth will not even be sea-worthy for another two years and no decisions have been made or even discussed about where its early deployments might be. “And when those decisions are made, they’ll be made in the National Security Council,” Hammond said. When asked whether if Williamson’s gaffe had damaged relations with China, Hammond replied, “it’s a complex relationship and it hasn’t been made simpler by Chinese concerns about Royal Navy deployments in the South China Sea,” the Independent quoted him saying.

Hammond’s reaction to Williamson stems from the dilemma that the U.K. faces in dealing with China. On the one hand, Britain, having committed itself to exit the EU, is desperate to have stronger economic relations with China. U.K. exports to and imports from China hit a record high in 2017. China was the U.K.’s sixth largest export market that year, worth £22.3 billion ($39.43 billion) and its fourth largest source of imports, worth £45.2 billion, according to the House of Commons Library report, “Statistics on U.K. Trade with China,” published Feb. 8, 2019.

On the other hand, the old imperial, bigoted anti-China policy of the British Empire rears its ugly head through Williamson and many such others of his ilk lodged in the British hierarchy.

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

President Putin Orders Creation of a National Space Center To Upgrade Russian Aerospace

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual Address to the Federal Assembly yesterday included an order to Roscosmos space agency and the Moscow government to create a National Space Center. Putin said, “Russia has unique technologies for that [space applications] but such tasks demand fundamental upgrading of the entire space sector,” TASS reports. It will be created on the grounds of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, which is a huge facility, that manufactures the Proton rocket and the modules for the International Space Station (ISS). According to Putin, the center will unite key organizations, design bureaus, and production facilities. Its main task will be the training of researchers and staff.

Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin told reporters that the center is expected to start operations in three-and-a-half years. The initiative apparently came from the space community. “This project was presented to the President and he backed it,” Rogozin said. He said that “some 20,000 designers and engineers of Roscosmos will gather in one place.”

This is distinctly different from the way the space sector has functioned historically, with different design bureaus competing with each other. By centralizing key personnel from the aerospace institutions, everyone should be on the same page.

Russia is in the midst of rebuilding its space infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities, nearly destroyed during the 1990s under IMF austerity. Key to that rebuilding is bringing in a new generation of young scientists and engineers. The problem of the lack of a next generation in Russia is similar to that the U.S., where the previous, Shuttle/ISS generation is retiring, and there has been a budgetary hiring freeze, with little or no replacement with new scientists and engineers.

Malaysia and China To Revise Major Belt and Road Rail Project

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—Malaysia has become one of the poster-countries for the anti-China mob’s attacks on the BRI, claiming that when Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad returned to power last year, he cancelled the rail and other projects to avoid the “Chinese debt trap.” However, Dr. Mahathir was one of the first national leaders to commit to attending the 2nd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in April, and now is on the verge of reaching a renegotiation of the important East-West high-speed rail project.

Mahathir has consistently maintained that the postponement or cancellation of the projects was not the responsibility of China, but due to the corruption of the previous Najib regime, which diverted billions of dollars from Najib’s One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), leaving the country with huge debts.

On Feb. 19, Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah announced that China was willing to reduce the $20 billion cost of the East-West rail, while also reducing the size of the project. “China understands our constraint, and they are willing to scale down the size of the project and the cost,” Saifuddin told the press. “The discussion is probably in the last mile.”

Saifuddin also reported that Malaysia intends to re-open its Embassy in North Korea after the upcoming Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi. Relations were broken when Kim Jong-un’s brother was killed in the Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017.

OTHER

Premier Li Keqiang Explains China’s Rate Lowering Is Not Quantitative Easing

Feb. 21 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a meeting of the State Council on Feb. 20, Premier Li Keqiang reiterated that the 1% lowering of the Reserve Ratio Requirement for Chinese banks was not part of a policy of quantitative easing. “I am here to reiterate that the sound monetary policy has not changed, nor will it change. We are determined not to engage in ‘big flood irrigation’!” Li said. He said, however, that the two ratio cuts of 1% announced by the People’s Bank of China in January were called for by the economic situation, stating that China’s deposit reserve ratio was higher than any major economy in the world. He also said that it would send a strong signal to the market players, and would assist in help resolve the lingering problem of a dearth of lending to the small-and medium-sized enterprises.

Li demanded that the relevant departments should carefully analyze the changes in the actual loans to the real economy and to small- and medium-sized enterprises since the beginning of this year. They should examine the “problems” and take targeted measures, Li said. “The fundamental way to solve the long-term problems of China’s development is to comprehensively deepen reforms and promote high-quality development, so as to promote reform and adjust the structure to promote economic stability,” he explained.

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