FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019

Volume 6, Number 47

EIR Daily Alert Service

• P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390
• Italy’s March Into the New Paradigm Opens Big Door To Get U.D. On Board, Too
• China Will Achieve Poverty Alleviation, President Xi Confirms
• EU, Neo-Cons Mobilize To Prevent Italy From Becoming Part of the New Silk Road
• New German Book Insists a Child is the Worst Thing You Can Do to the Environment

• A Default Is a Default Is….Not a Default!
• Hearings on How To Introduce Glass-Steagall in Italy
• Venezuela’s TeleSUR Interviews EIR To Discuss President Trump and the North Korean Summit
• Some Activities in South Asia To Cool Down India-Pakistan Tensions
• Malaysia’s Mahathir and Philippines’ Duterte Agree on Peaceful Approach in South China Sea
• Bangladesh Premier Says Road Tunnel Under Karnaphuli Riber Will Build National Dignity, Better Lives
• The African Development Bank Moots Providing Continuous Power to 1 Million East Africans
• Kigali’s Foreign Minister Acknowledges Belt and Road Is Beneficial for Both China and Rwanda
  

EDITORIAL

Italy’s March into the New Paradigm Opens Big Door To Get the U.S. On Board, Too

March 7 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche today called attention to the strategic potential of the international constellation of forces coming together around the Italian government’s intention to sign a Memorandum of Understanding joining the Belt and Road Initiative during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy two weeks from now.

“Italy is one of the major industrial countries of Europe which has, under the new government, developed a very, very productive relationship with China. They have a very good relationship with President Trump. When Prime Minister Conte was at the G7 summit, he totally agreed with Trump that it should be expanded to be the G8 [by bringing Russia back in]. They also demand that the sanctions against Russia should be removed. And they have a very interesting and positive attitude towards overcoming the refugee crisis by joining hands with China in the industrialization of Africa,” Zepp-LaRouche pointed out in her weekly Schiller Institute webcast.

Add to that picture, that shortly after that European trip, President Xi may head to the United States for the reported (but not yet official) summit with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Largo residence, where they hope to finalize the urgently-needed broad economic agreement between the U.S. and China.

You would think this would cause great excitement, but the City of London and neo-con circles in the United States have set off a fierce storm of opposition. Zepp-LaRouche pointed to a report in the Italian media that there is one passage in the draft memorandum to be signed by China’s President Xi Jinping and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte which worries the U.S. Embassy most particularly: the phrase, a “Community of shared future for mankind/community of common destiny,” reported the Italian Start Magazine, writing the phrase in English.

“An insider who wants to remain anonymous says that if such content is part of the agreements between Rome and Beijing, the U.S.A. is ready for a barrage against Italy,” the Italian journal reported.

“If it is confirmed that this is really a bone of contention, then this is the smoking gun of the geopolitical faction that they oppose this idea of the one humanity,” Zepp-LaRouche said. She pointed out that Xi Jinping’s formulation that the aim of the Belt and Road Initiative, is to form a “community for the shared future of mankind, a community for the common destiny of humankind,” is the formulation which she has often emphasized is the closest approximation to what the Schiller Institute is pushing for, “namely a New Paradigm in the history of mankind, that you have to put the one humanity first, before all national interests, and that we have reached a point in the history of humanity where we have to think in terms of the united future of the one human civilization, being united in space travel and research, being united in other groundbreaking scientific breakthroughs, and overcoming geopolitics.”

The British defenders of the Old Paradigm, however, have a gigantic strategic vulnerability: They have little to offer the world by way of alternative. Their system is financially bankrupt and sinking into physical economic collapse, while China has raised 800 million people out of poverty over four decades, and is preparing to eliminateall absolute poverty at home within the next 22 months.

The world is turning towards this successful New Paradigm, while the British Empire is reduced to defending their oligarchical paradigm by promoting depopulation under the guise of a Green Agenda, going so far as to use children and young adolescents to argue for suicide and depopulation, declaring that having children is a crime against the environment!

This “green” lie has no science behind it. As Zepp-LaRouche happily put it in her webcast: “The science of the universe is anti-entropic, and science and technology are the driver of a continuous progress of civilization, a better understanding of the laws of the universe.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

China Will Achieve Poverty Alleviation, President Xi Confirms

March 7 (EIRNS)—Speaking today with deputies from Gansu Province, President Xi Jinping underlined the importance of reaching the goal of eliminating poverty by 2020.

“There should be no retreat until a complete victory is won,” Xi said. “Decisive progress has been achieved in the country’s tough fight against poverty over the past years, marking a new chapter in the poverty reduction history of mankind.” Xi stressed that the goal to eradicate extreme poverty must be achieved on time. He warned that the tasks ahead remain arduous and hard, as those still in poverty are the worst stricken. He also warned that “the practices of formalities for formalities’ sake and bureaucratism hamper the effective advancement of poverty reduction,” reported Xinhua. He further admonished against the tendency to celebrate short-term gains when it comes to addressing the problem of poverty and insisted that claims of success should be grounded in reality, and that the results of poverty-alleviation work must be able to stand the test of time.

Also today, Director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development Liu Yongfu gave a comprehensive briefing on the success of poverty reduction over the last years, addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the annual “two sessions.” Liu described that between 2012 and 2018, some 80 million people had been brought out of poverty at an average of 13 million people a year. Of the nine eastern provinces, eight were now free of poverty. He said there are still 832 counties enmired in poverty. In 2016, China lifted 28 counties out of poverty; and in 2017, another 125 counties, and in 2018, an estimated 280 counties were likewise relieved of poverty. In 2013, some 128,000 villages remained in poverty, whereas by 2018, there were 20,000.  Liu said the campaign had reduced poverty during that period by 85%, and the goal this year is to bring 10 million more people out of poverty. In 2019 the government will increase the funds devoted to poverty alleviation by 18.9%.

COLLAPSING WESTERN SYSTEM

EU, Neo-Cons Mobilize To Prevent Italy from Becoming Part of the New Silk Road

March 7 (EIRNS)—An EU Commission spokesperson issued a statement yesterday, warning the Italian government not to join the Belt and Road, at the same time as trans-Atlantic mainstream media have launched a campaign against Italy’s intention to sign a memorandum with China during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy over March 22-24. The EU Commission statement said, “All member states, individually and in the framework of subregional cooperation schemes such as the 16+1 format, have the responsibility of ensuring compliance with EU rules and EU Law and to respect the unity of the European Union in implementing EU policies.” The 16+1 format refers to the 16 Eastern and Central European countries that are working with China on economic development; 11 of them are EU members, and several others are candidates for EU membership.

What is behind the Commission statement is revealed by the German financial daily Handelsblatt today: “In Paris and Berlin they have a bad suspicion: China is using its economic effort to gain more and more influence on EU political decisions.” The example it gives is Hungary and Greece’s veto of a 2017 statement alleging China’s violations of human rights.

Therefore, Germany and France pushed to have a common EU policy against China on the agenda, which will be discussed at the March 21 EU summit, one day before President Xi’s arrival in Rome. The discussion is expected to be a “lively” one.

Handelsblatt worries that, “With Italy, China will possibly get for the first time a founding member of the EU and a member of the Group of the Seven (G7) major industrial nations for its giant enterprise.” Handelsblatt cites the input of Undersecretary of Economic Development Michele Geraci and the fact that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing in April. The first Belt and Road Forum in May 14-15, 2017 was attended by some three dozen heads of state and government and heads of international institutions, and over 1,200 delegations from various countries.

The New York Times joined its international media fellows in the campaign against Italy, writing a March 6 article entitled, “Italy May Split with Allies and Open Its Ports to China’s Building Push,” focused on Geraci. Interestingly, the Times coverage includes a photo of the port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy, which nobody—exceptEIR and some friends—has mentioned, so far, in the context of the Belt and Road.

The anti-Belt and Road campaign offered an occasion for traitors in the Italian government to come forward, such as Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Guglielmo Picchi, who tweeted that he believes, “there is still work to do and further reflections inside the government” and that “at this point no memorandum should be signed” on the Belt and Road. Picchi is a former investment banker with Barclays in London, a product of Bocconi University, and went from Berlusconi’s Forza Italia to the Lega in 2018.

New German Book Insists a Child Is the Worst Thing You Can Do to the Environment

March 7 (EIRNS)—German author Verena Brunschweiger, in her new book Kinderfrei statt Kinderlos: Ein Manifesto (Child Free, Instead of Childless: A Manifesto), released yesterday by Büchner Verlag and is getting prominent coverage, as in today’s Bildzeitung. The paper reports Brunschweiger’s recommendation that if woman has no children on behalf of the environment, she should get a €50,000 reward when she becomes 50 years old.

Austria’s daily Die Presse reports that, “The 38-year-old feminist researches the view that women who oppose children are courageous pioneers. Brunschweiger is quoted on the book’s cover blurb: ‘To live without children means to rebel against social expectations—and is therefore also a feminist decision.’ ”

In an interview with the Austrian Kurier, Brunschweiger substantiates her point of view. She holds that the decision to not put children into the world is also an ecological one: “A child is the worst thing that can be done to the environment. Every child not born into the world has a CO2 saving of around 58.6 tons per year,” she told theKurier.

The newspaper continues, that “at the same time, the 38-year-old also criticizes some mothers. ‘There are often selfish or narcissistic motives behind the desire to have a baby. The entire culture is currently geared towards bringing children into the world.’ With her book, the German wants to help break this taboo.”

The Kurier article concludes, “Brunschweiger is also politically active. Since 2002 she has been involved in the SPD [Germany’s Social Democratic Party], especially in women’s politics.”

A Default Is a Default Is… Not a Default!

March 7 (EIRNS)—The emperor has no clothes. How do you prevent a default, or a series of defaults, from bringing down the system? Simple: You declare that a default is not a default.

Bloomberg reports that, the “International Swaps and Derivatives Association is proposing that failing to make a bond payment wouldn’t trigger a CDS [credit default swap] payout if the reason for default wasn’t tied to some kind of financial stress. The plan earned initial backing from titans including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Apollo Global Management and Ares Management Corp.”

The next step is to declare a system collapse not a system collapse, when it occurs. After all, who says snow is white?

Hearings on How To Introduce Glass-Steagall in Italy

March 7 (EIRNS)—Italy’s Finance Undersecretary Alessio Villarosa (M5S) announced that a “Table” will be established, including hearings, on how Glass-Steagall can be introduced in Italy. In a statement reported by La Presse March 6, Villarosa says: “Today, at the Ministry of Economy and Finances, together with some M5S members of Parliament I have opened a working table on an issue which I consider to be a decisive one: Separation between commercial banks and speculative investment banks.”

The two functions had been rigorously separated until disastrous reforms in the 1990s. In recent years, Italy has learned that the universal bank model is structurally unstable and that that instability in the banking sector is a virus which spreads and pulls the real economy down.

A return to banking separation has been debated for years at the international level, and in 2012 some “tables” had been opened in Europe as well, after the release of “Report of the European Commission’s High-level Expert Group on Bank Structural Reform,” better known as the “Liikanen Report,” after the then Finnish central bank governor who headed the commission, that year.

“The Table is a first step to deal with a dossier clearly included in the Government Contract. Therefore, we proceed on the basis of a popular and parliamentary mandate. The banking system must go back to exclusively serve the real economy, rigorously avoiding investing depositors’ money in speculative financial operations.

“We intend to start our work through an investigation, asking all players in the sector to participate. It is a priority Table, also given the sensitivity of the action which, however, is necessary above all in light of fragilities shown by our banking system in the past,” Villarosa concludes.

ENDING THE STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Venezuela’s TeleSUR Interviews EIR To Discuss President Trump and the North Korean Summit

March 7 (EIRNS)—TeleSUR, the Ibero-American terrestrial and satellite television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela, broadcast a 20-minute English-language interview on March 4 with EIR’s Dennis Small on the significance of President Donald Trump’s North Korea diplomacy for the Venezuelan crisis. A half-hour interview with Small in Spanish was broadcast on the same subject two days later.

The interview was conducted by one of TeleSUR’s top anchors, Jorge Gestoso, and the blurb announcing the interview on their English website reads: “On Today’s show Jorge Gestoso interviews Dennis Small, Latin American Editor of Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), a weekly magazine founded by American statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, to talk about the outcome of Hanoi’s recent summit between the United States and North Korea and the contradictions within U.S. Foreign Policy.”

The entire tone and content of the interviews reflected an evident interest of circles in Venezuela (and beyond) to reach a negotiated agreement with the U.S., along the lines of the North Korean process. Small discussed the breakdown crisis of the trans-Atlantic system; the need for totally new economic and strategic architectures, as pioneered by Lyndon LaRouche, including his role in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI); why the British Empire is out to overthrow Trump, including reporting on William Binney’s latest revelations; the role of neo-cons within the Trump Administration such as Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Advisor John Bolton; and how an alliance of the U.S. with Russia, China, India and other nations is required.

Some Activities in South Asia To Cool Down India-Pakistan Tensions

March 7 (EIRNS)—Though nothing concrete has been placed before either Pakistan or India to cool down tensions, there are indications that some efforts are afoot to achieve that goal. To begin with, China has sent its own Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou to Islamabad for discussions. “He (Kong) is now visiting Pakistan. He is in communication with Pakistan on the India-Pakistan situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told the regular media briefing on March 6. To a question on whether Kong would visit India too, Lu said China is in contact with India and Pakistan concerning the current circumstances.

On March 6, Sputnik reported on Ambassador Vyacheslav Trubnikov, Vice-President of the Russian Council on International Affairs and Member of the Directorate of the Institute of World Economy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, speaking during a video conference between Moscow and New Delhi. Vyacheslav told the audience of former diplomats and security experts, that since “India and Pakistan are both full-fledged members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it can serve as an apt platform for aiding peace talks between two nuclear-armed neighbors.”

On Feb. 28, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had said that Russia was ready to suggest hosting talks between India and Pakistan to achieve settlement, if they wished that. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said Islamabad is ready to accept Moscow’s offer, but New Delhi has remained silent.

Malaysia’s Mahathir and Philippines’ Duterte Agree on Peaceful Approach in South China Sea

March 7 (EIRNS)—Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammad is visiting the Philippines, where he and President Rodrigo Duterte agreed that territorial issues in the South China Sea must be resolved “without resort to the threat or use of force.” Dr. Mahathir urged for China to define its claims in the South China Sea (rather than the vague “nine-dash line”), so that the other claimant countries, including Malaysia and the Philippines, can start to “gain benefits from the resource-rich waters,” according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

“I think that whatever may be the claim of China, the most important thing is that the South China Sea, in particular, must be open to navigation,” Mahathir said. “There should be no restriction, no sanction and if that happens, then I think the claims made by China will not affect us very much.”

The Mahathir and Duterte also committed to continuing the Trilateral Cooperation Agreement among Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in counter-terror operations across the South China Sea region.

Duterte thanked Mahathir for Malaysia’s role in negotiating a peaceful settlement of the Bangsamoro rebellion in southern Philippines. Mahathir responded: “I’m glad to see that, at last, peace has come to the southern Philippines. Development cannot take place in war. In war, we destroy, but in peace we build.” He said that Malaysia was looking forward to investing in the region.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Bangladesh Premier Says Road Tunnel under Karnaphuli River Will Build National Dignity, Better Lives

March 7 (EIRNS)—Inaugurating the boring of the 3.4-km four-lane-road tunnel under Bangladesh’s Karnaphuli River on March 3, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said: “I want to make Bangladesh such a country that the whole world looks on with wonder.” She went on: “I do not want fame and wealth. My only desire is that the people of Bangladesh walk with their heads held high. That’s why I want to do fresh things so that solvency comes in their life and they can stride with dignity,” Dhaka Tribune reported.

China Communications Construction Company has begun the boring of the road tunnel, which will be the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. The proposed tunnel will be around 9.1 km, including the 3.4 km under the Karnaphuli River, with a 4.89-km approach road alongside 740 meters of bridges, linking the main port city and western side of the Karnaphuli to the industrial zones on the eastern side of the river.

The tunnel will help connect the two parts of Bangladesh’s main port city, Chittagong. According to officials, Bangladesh wants to make Chittagong “One City, Two Towns,” based on the model of East and West Shanghai in China.

The African Development Bank Moots Providing Continuous Power to 1 Million East Africans

March 7 (EIRNS)—In a Feb. 27 article on its website, the African Development Bank (AfDB), pointing to regular power cuts in the East African countries from Kenya to Tanzania, from Uganda to Ethiopia, said this is about to change with the upcoming commissioning of a power transmission line to interconnect Kenya and Ethiopia. This project falls under one of the AfDB’s “High 5 priorities” to “Light Up and Power Africa.” Working with institutional partners, the bank has mobilized resources to ensure the success of this project. At a cost of $1.26 billion, the project was co-funded by the African Development Bank ($338 million), the World Bank ($684 million), the government of Kenya ($88 million), and the government of Ethiopia ($32 million).

The interconnection will function by means of a 1,068-km, 500-kilovolt high-voltage direct current transmission line, 437 km in Ethiopia and 631 km in Kenya with related facilities at Wolayta-Sodo (Ethiopia) and Suswa (Kenya). By December 2020, it will have a transmission capacity of 2,000 MW. This will make Ethiopia the energy giant of East Africa, while Kenya will become the epicenter of electricity trading in this part of the continent, the article explained.

“The project will initially be able to transfer 400 MW from Ethiopia to Kenya, but negotiations are under way to better match the capacity of the line to Kenyan demand,” said Joseph Njogore, first secretary at the Kenyan Ministry of Energy, at an energy forum held in Nairobi in August 2018.

Kigali’s Foreign Minister Acknowledges Belt and Road Is Beneficial for Both China and Rwanda

March 7 (EIRNS)—Answering a media query in Kigali on March 5, Rwandan Foreign Minister Richard Sezibera said that the Belt and Road Initiative is a partnership that is mutually beneficial for Rwanda and China, and addresses Rwanda’s development challenges, Xinhua reported. China is an important partner for Rwanda at all levels, and Rwanda welcomes the growing partnership with China, he said, and that Rwanda and China have important relationships in infrastructure development, party-to-party and people-to-people exchanges, and at the political level.

Last August, China Daily quoted Rwandan Ambassador to China Charles Kayonga as telling the newspaper through e-mail that in Rwanda, “we have had financing for a number of roads, and we have seen direct investment by Chinese companies in a number of businesses rise.”

Africa is in need of infrastructure, among other things, to achieve sustainable economic transformation, he said, describing that cooperation with China will help finance the infrastructure projects to help spur the continent’s industrial development, which will, in turn, favor China in its vision of going global.

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