TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2019

Volume 6, Number 59

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• Exoneration Can Now Change Everything
• Guiliani Warns ‘Whoever Was Behind ‘Russia Collusion’ Will Soon Be Outed
• Belt & Road Has Committed $500 Billion To Developing Countries
• Global Times Runs Editorial on China as Impetus For European Growth
• Pyongyang Returns to Kaisong Liason Office After Trump Rescinded Treasury Sanctions
• Fed Move Last Week Signalled Recession, To Some Experts a Crash
• B-52s Continue Provocations Over Baltic Sea
• Russia Will Keep ISS In Orbit If NASA Withdraws From the Project
• Trump Gives Aid For Huge Farm Belt Flooding; Wieczorek Urges U.S. Must Join Belt & Road
• European Commission’s ‘EU-China-A Strategic Outlook’ Seeks Confrontation on China-EU Path

EDITORIAL

Exoneration Can Now Change Everything

March 25 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump correctly called the “legal” events of this past weekend his exoneration, and it can now lead to very profound changes in a national and world situation which was becoming extremely dangerous.

The President’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani immediately spoke of getting to “the name of the person who started this.” We know that the now-exploded “Russiagate” was started from British General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) signals intelligence and MI6 foreign intelligence in 2015, a network run by Sir Richard Dearlove and Sir Andrew Wood; the President and his attorney know the attack was British. Therefore, a focused counter-investigation led from the White House will blow up the U.S.-British “special relationship” and British Empire war and Cold War policies. It would end the geopolitical war-confrontation policy London has dragged Trump into through relentless, McCarthyite “Russiagating,” led on the ground shamefully by leading Democrats—the new, true “neo-cons.”

President Trump could become relatively much freer to pursue the policy what he has spoken for but been blocked from doing, cooperating with other great powers—particularly Russia and China—for peace. And perhaps even for the development of previously war-wracked regions.

Best of all, this sudden shift has started just as internationally, the new paradigm of economic and scientific progress epitomized by China’s Belt and Road Initiative of great infrastructure projects, is expanding in Asia, in Africa and Latin America, and now in Europe with the new Italy-China agreement.

But the LaRouche movement—which first traced this disgraceful attack on the Presidency to British intelligence, and drove this crucial truth home—must take the lead in these changes. Not only has it been fighting for the economic changes to make this possible, beginning with Glass-Steagall bank separation and Hamiltonian national credit, and for scientific breakthroughs in nuclear power and space exploration rather than “greenie” radical pessimism.

More at the heart of the matter: The prosecutions and media persecution of Lyndon LaRouche and his movement set up the United States for three decades of deindustrialization, cultural demoralization and war. They deprived it of the economic and strategic leadership LaRouche represented against the financial crashes he forecast so accurately, and deprived it of the great projects and scientific advances he designed for so many regions of the world.

And those who organized the attacks on him, were precisely those his movement has now exposed again in “Russiagate”—British intelligence who feared his threat to the Royal Family’s “eco-fascism”; Anglophiles here like Henry Kissinger who in official bodies demanded LaRouche’s prosecution; Wall Street bankers; above all, the national liberal media.

LaRouche must now be exonerated, as demanded by a national petition drive, to exonerate and free the country for his ideas. And it is President Trump who could be freed to exonerate LaRouche, and free himself to act as he intended in the White House.

Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, speaking to those organizing this effort today, said, “Obviously, it has to lead to the British. Do Trump, and Giuliani, and these people know that it was British intelligence? You can be 100% sure that they do. But obviously, it is absolutely up to us to accelerate this campaign, and the best way to do that is to push for the exoneration of Lyn, because as we have said many times, it was exactly the same apparatus, which is now caught in perpetrating a coup attempt against the President of the United States—and failing in it—who were behind the legal prosecution of Lyn and his associates, and who were behind the cover-up of 9/11. And these people have to be brought to justice, and also Lyn has to be exonerated: Because as long as there is this state that there was any legitimacy to what was done to Lyn, people will be blocked from having access to his ideas.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Giuliani Warns Whoever Was Behind ‘Russia Collusion’ Myth Will Soon Be Outed

March 25 (EIRNS)—Former New York City mayor, personal lawyer and friend of President Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani warned today on Fox News that whoever convinced the FBI to pursue the Russia collusion investigation into the Trump campaign, would soon be “outed.” He called on Trump’s “shameless” critics to apologize for their false accusations in the wake of the Mueller Report’s admission that there was “no collusion” with Russia by President Trump after a 675-day investigation.

Interviewed on “Fox & Friends” today after Mueller reported “no collusion,” Giuliani was asked if someone tricked the FBI into opening the investigation.

“Yes, yes, yes—and you’re going to find out, believe me, who it was,” Giuliani said, point out that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, and the MI6’s Christopher Steele were already familiar to the public.

“Now the question is, if there were three investigations—no evidence of collusion—who made it up? I want to know who did it. Who paid for it? Who fueled it?… There has to be a full and complete investigation, with at least as much enthusiasm as this one, to figure out, where did this charge emanate, who started it, who paid for it.”

Giuliani went no further, saying, “Just pay attention.” He urged Democrats to “at least stop and say, ‘I was wrong.’ ”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Belt and Road Has Committed $500 Billion in Developing Countries

March 25 (EIRNS)—India’s Business Standard newspaper today reported, in “Belt and Road Gives Boost to China’s Outbound Investments,” that “From 2014 to 2018, China has committed an investment of more than $1 trillion in about 1,700 projects in 130 nations across the world. More than half of it has been in countries which are part of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was announced in late 2013.”

The data and charts which Business Standard cites are from “data maintained by … American Enterprise Institute.” The daily says, “China’s outbound direct investment (ODI) doubled after the wheels of the BRI were set into motion. Chart 1 shows that the scale of Chinese ODI rose above $200 billion for three consecutive years post-BRI.”

This puts it on the same scale as China’s investment in its own, now vast, high-speed rail network during those years—actually, 30-35% greater.

“More than half of the investments after 2014 were in regions along the Belt and the Road. Emerging economies were key beneficiaries of BRI-related investments,” while China’s investment initiatives in advanced economies remained relatively constant and on a separate track.

The study also finds that the BRI infrastructure investments and commitments have not been concentrated in a few large developing countries.

“The financing of projects along the BRI was relatively well distributed among the recipient countries. The top 10 countries constituted only a fourth of total investment along the BRI in 95 countries.”

Global Times Runs Editorial on China as the Impetus for European Growth

March 25 (EIRNS)—The March 24 editorial in China’s Global Times, aptly headlined, “BRI Will Inject Positive Impetus in Europe,” presents the benefits Italy will receive from a strengthened relationship to China’s Belt and Road, following Italy’s signing an MOU with Beijing joining the BRI on March 22.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe continues this week. More than 123 countries and 29 international organizations have signed onto cooperation to jointly build the Belt and Road, which they see as a means to increase their development and prosperity.

The United States has been publicly opposing Italy’s endorsement of the Belt and Road, the editorial says. Some warn the MOU is spreading China’s influence, and Italy could turn into China’s “Trojan Horse.”

Global Times counters that “the BRI is about cooperation.” For Italy, it’s “a chance to revive its port and serve as a new economic driving force. Compared to other Western countries, Italy’s cooperation with China lags. Other countries should be happy for Italy’s new foreign potentials,” Global Times says.

The editorial goes on, “Some Americans are too sensitive. Their view of China is increasingly geopolitical, as if Beijing is always aiming at Washington, regardless of the country China develops relations with. The U.S. is still powerful, but Americans’ nerves are collapsing too quickly. We sincerely hope the friendly and broad-minded MOU between China and Italy will dispel other countries’ anxiety….

“A few countries hope that Italy’s relations with China will not become too close. This shows their unhealthy state of mind.”

Noting that “Some Europeans are concerned that China’s rise will hurt Europe,” the editorial concludes, “Competition always exists, and as a continent that started the industrial revolution, Europe should have confidence. Europe still leads China in technology. Instead of expecting China to stop its development, Europe should move faster.”

Pyongyang Returns to Kaesong Liaison Office after Trump Rescinded Treasury Sanctions

March 25 (EIRNS)—EIR reported in this space yesterday that North Korea on March 22 had announced that they were withdrawing their representatives from the Liaison Office between North and South Korea in Kaesong, set up in September to facilitate improving relations. It appeared that the withdrawal was ordered in retaliation for the new sanctions announced on March 21 by the U.S. Treasury. But, as EIR also reported, President Trump rescinded those sanctions on March 22, declaring them to be unnecessary.

Sure enough, this morning, the North Koreans showed up at the office as usual.

“The North Koreans said that they came down [to the liaison office] for the shift as usual,” according to a South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman, as reported in the Korean Herald. The spokesman also said that the North expressed unchanged commitment to run the office in accordance with the agreement signed by Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in, the leaders of two Koreas, during their summit at Panmunjeom in April last year, the Herald reports.

Projects now under discussion must be carried out within the restrictions imposed by the UN and U.S. sanctions. They include arranging for video reunions of families separated by the Korean War, and discussions between the two military forces to carry out the bilateral military accord aimed at reducing tensions and building trust.

Trump also deployed Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, to Beijing on March 24 to continue U.S.-China coordination regarding North Korea, according to the U.S. Embassy in China.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Fed Move Last Week Signalled Recession, to Some Experts a Crash

March 25 (EIRNS)—The Federal Open Market Committee’s actions in its March 20 meeting signalled a new quantitative easing program on the horizon. This sent the yield curve on U.S. Treasury securities into an inversion; the interest rates on long-term securities continued falling again Monday, being already below the rates for the shortest-term securities. This is usually a sign of economic recession, and others reinforce it in the depressed housing market, slowing productive job creation and business investment—not to mention the major European economies being in recession or close to it.

Now the debate is on, as to whether the depression will trigger a general financial crash by creating a wave of defaults of hyper-leveraged corporations of all sizes.

Business Insider India website on March 25 asked, “The Next Economic Crisis Is Almost Here—Will It Be Worse than 2008?” Prof. Emeritus Edward Altman, a bankruptcy expert, says the doubling of U.S. corporate debt means it could very well be worse than that terrible collapse.

AEI’s resident fellow Desmond Lachman, also March 25, wrote that the worldwide average debt/GDP of 250%, plus “general asset mispricing” (i.e., all categories of debt are too cheap, not just mortgage debt) means this “will be much more severe than the average post-war recession”—and some of those have been very severe (1979-81, 2008-10).

The Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), posted a long analysis, “The Economic Crisis and the Central Banks,” by Eric Toussaint, CADTM founder and spokesman and member of the Scientific Council of ATTAC. He was involved in the assessment of Greek debt for the 2015 incoming Syriza government. He also wrote a report for CADTM in Nov. 14, 2017, “The Mountain of Corporate Debt Will Be the Seed of the Next Financial Crisis,” five months after EIR’s forecast of the same. Toussaint says the December 2018 near-crash of stock markets “was yet another signal of an impending major financial crash.” “Everything is in place for a new international financial crisis to occur. We don’t know exactly when it will break out.” It will be more severe than that of 2008.

The wild-card “hard-Brexit” factor is updated in the Financial Times blog Alphaville blog. First, all big Eurobanks have operations in London which, in many cases, are their biggest operations, and they hold sovereign bonds of EU countries which are “zero risk” and require no capital back-up. If the EU country becomes a “foreign country” to the London bank units, their parent banks’ balance sheets will become impaired and their derivatives counterparties hit with potentially very large losses. Second, the same London divisions hold $115 billion in debt in Europe under British law. With the sudden disappearance of British law for them under a “hard Brexit,” derivatives on this debt are likely to blow up.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

B-52s Continue Provocative Flights over Baltic Sea

March 25 (EIRNS)—U.S. B-52 bombers deployed to Fairford, England, continue to fly provocative flights close to Russia. Four of them were reported to have flown over the Baltic Sea in a 24-hour period on March 22 to demonstrate “U.S. ability to maintain sustained combat capacity for a prolonged duration,” according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe press release issued on March 23. Another USAFE release, issued today, describes the flights “as a clear and visible demonstration of U.S. commitment to regional security.” Such a demonstration could only be aimed at Russia, as if Moscow were intending to invade the Baltic states and Poland.

On March 23, TASS cited the Russian National Defense Control Center reporting that B-52s had been intercepted twice by Su-27 fighter jets over the Baltic Sea the day before. “Two U.S. aircraft had been detected by the Russian airspace monitoring system at a considerable distance from the state border of the Russian Federation and then were taken to escort,” the statement says.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Russia Will Keep ISS in Orbit if NASA Withdraws from the Project

March 25 (EIRNS)—Roscosmos is willing to maintain the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit even if the United States withdraws from the project, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin told journalists, reported TASS.

“This is Roscosmos’ proposal. We believe that we can keep the station, in case the Americans decide to withdraw from this project, through other countries and partners. We have technological and technical capabilities to keep the station on the orbit and fully provide both electric energy and water there,” Rogozin said.

Rogozin also said Russia plans to add its new Science-Power Module (SPM) to the station by 2022. “Here the Russian Federation has a unique opportunity. We can duplicate the SPM. Its design makes it possible to turn [it] into home for other states—there can be the SPM-2, SPM-3, SPM-4, they may grow further, extending the international part of the station. We formulated this proposal, and we suggest our new partners doing it,” he said.

Trump Gives Aid for Huge Farm Belt Flooding; Wieczorek Urges U.S. Must Join Belt and Road

March 25 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump on March 23 granted federal disaster aid status for 56 of Iowa’s 99 counties, after granting the same to Nebraska on March 21, for relief from the huge Missouri River system flooding. More such disaster declarations will be coming as the flooding continues downriver in the Missouri-Mississippi Basin. This area includes an important part of the U.S. farm belt, which especially grows corn, soy, cattle and hogs.

Full damage assessment is still not possible. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Contingency Director toured much of the Nebraska-Iowa-South Dakota Missouri River region by helicopter beginning March 20, and emergency work is now proceeding in key places. In Nebraska alone, for example, there are 350 miles of levees along the Missouri, Platte, and Elkhorn Rivers, and their tributaries, which have experienced major breaches.

Mount Vernon, South Dakota farm leader Ron Wieczorek, who ran as an independent for his state’s Congressional seat in 2018, sent a message to his networks this weekend about the flooding and farm crisis. The LaRouchePAC-endorsed candidate said: “The only engine powerful enough to stop the farm crisis is for President Trump to bring the U.S.A. into the One Belt, One Road—100 nations are already on board, and we have a standing invitation to join.” Building infrastructure corridors of development in the Americas—disaster protection, modern rail, nuclear power—is the context in which all the apparently insoluble conflicts we face in this hemisphere can be resolved, from the suffering of migrants, to resolving Venezuela’s productive future, not British regime-change and conflict.

During the course of the flooding disaster, one positive feature stands out: big infrastructure works. The Nebraska Cooper nuclear power station is operating safely at full power, at its site in Brownville, along the Missouri River. In South Dakota, the Gavins Point Dam and power generation plant are operating fully on the Missouri River. The 1957 structure in addition is providing a critical river crossing, via the Crest Road over the dam, while the nearby Highway 121 bridge is undergoing flood repair. This connectivity is critical for the region.

These examples are part of what was to be an integrated system of water, power, and development projects for the entire Missouri River Basin, but it was never fully built out. In 1944 the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Project was approved by Congress, named after its two engineer designers, Gen. Lewis A. Pick and William Glenn Sloan. When completed, it was to have 147 dams and reservoirs for flood control and other purposes, 38 hydropower plants, a navigation channel 9 feet deep by 300 feet wide, from St. Louis on the Mississippi, up to Sioux City, Iowa, and continuous levees for 1,500 miles. (See EIR, June 10, 2011, “No More Floods! Build the Missouri River Development Project.”)

Only a portion of Pick-Sloan Project was ever built. It was Blocked, as was the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) project to upgrade the resource base all across western North America.

OTHER

European Commission’s ‘EU-China—A Strategic Outlook’ Seeks Confrontation on China-EU Path

March 25 (EIRNS)—A report by European Commission and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, produced for the European Council on March 12, in anticipation of the European Council March 21 summit, set forth a confrontational outlook for future China-EU relations. Produced in advance of the historic signing of the BRI MOU between China and Italy, the 20-page “EU-China—A Strategic Outlook,” while couched in diplomatic language, nonetheless reflects an underlying “Thucydides Trap” outlook.

Stating that “China can no longer be regarded as a developing country,” the functionaries, instead of grasping this opportunity to ride on the back of a rising power, instead set forth a ten-point strategy to defend their holdings. The approach largely reflects the intent to tie China to existing treaties and obligations—WTO, Paris Climate Accord—along with new (yet to be written) law—on 5G technology; along with additional legislation to guard against “foreign state ownership” of corporations— to defend their “fortress Europe.”

Key points are:

Action 1: The EU will strengthen cooperation with China to meet common responsibilities across all three pillars of the United Nations-Human Rights, Peace and Security, and Development

Action 2: In order to fight climate change more effectively, the EU calls on China to peak its emissions before 2030, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Action 3: The EU will deepen engagement with China on peace and security, building on the positive cooperation on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran….

Action 7: To ensure that not only price but also high levels of labor and environmental standards are taken into account, the Commission will publish guidance by mid-2019 on the participation of foreign bidders and goods in the EU procurement market. The Commission, together with Member States, will conduct an overview of the implementation of the current framework to identify shortcomings before the end of 2019.

Action 8: To fully address the distortive effects of foreign state ownership and state financing in the internal market, the Commission will identify before the end of 2019 how to fill existing gaps in EU law.

Action 9: To safeguard against potential serious security implications for critical digital infrastructure, a common EU approach to the security of 5G networks is needed. To kickstart this, the European Commission will issue a Recommendation following the March 21 European Council meeting.

Action 10: To detect and raise awareness of security risks posed by foreign investment in critical assets, technologies and infrastructure, Member States should ensure the swift, full and effective implementation of the Regulation on screening of foreign direct investment.

Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935