FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2019

Volume 6, Number 92

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• As British Empire Coup Role Exposed, War Party Goes Wild To Keep Trump’s Hands Tied
• Secretary Mike Pompeo and China’s Wnag Yi To Make Parallel Visits to Russia
• Nuclear Envoys of U.S. and South Korea Meet in Seoul
• China’s Science Belt and Road Is a Boon for South America
• There are 643 Millionaires Who Work at Deutsche Bank
• EU Commission Reponds to Former Greek Ambassador Chrysanthopoulos, Thanks to Movisol
• Italy’s Five Stars Goes With ‘Clean Hands’ Campaign, at Least for European Election Campaign
• Former Sri Lanka Army Commander Warns of New Attacks
• In Africa, the Belt and Road Is Spurring General Socio-Economic Development

EDITORIAL

As British Empire Coup Role Exposed, War Party Goes Wild To Keep Trump’s Hands Tied

May 9 (EIRNS)—In her weekly strategic webcast today, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche warned of the extremely perilous situation the world is facing, with the Anglo-American war party and its neo-con appendages on a rampage against China, and under the guise of defending U.S. national security and “Western values,” are creating what Zepp-LaRouche called “a situation of potential, devastating confrontation.”

The levels of hysteria in the U.S. directed against China, as seen in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wild diatribe at the Arctic Council early this week in which he compared China to the Nazis of the 1930s, combined with additional provocations in the Middle East and Ibero-America by National Security Adviser John Bolton, have created “an untenable situation,” Zepp-LaRouche warned. “Either Trump succeeds in improving the relationship with Russia and China, and then every other crisis can be settled, or these neo-cons have the upper hand, and then the Trump Presidency will not succeed in what it set out to do.”

“I think,” Zepp-LaRouche said, “Trump is not well-advised to keep these neo-cons around him, because Trump has said repeatedly—he almost says it every day in some tweet—he wants to have good relations with Russia and China, and then the entire intelligence community, which just was caught red-handed in a coup attempt against his administration, they’re coming out with this absolutely violent anti-China line, and that the neo-cons in his administration, namely Bolton, Pompeo, [Vice President] Pence to a certain extent, they’re doing everything possible to heat up these crisis spots so that any kind of serious policy for Trump is impossible.”

Iran is a dangerous flashpoint, Zepp-LaRouche stressed. She cited the example of Pompeo’s antics this week, in which he was supposed to travel to Germany, meet with Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, but cancelled at the last moment claiming he had to deal with “an international security matter, without telling them what it was. And then he turns up in Iraq, to put pressure on the Iraqi government because of Iran … and from there he went on to Great Britain.”

A combination of events has dramatically escalated tensions. Iran has now announced it will begin to reduce its obligations under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement, related to production of certain nuclear materials, and has given its European partners 60 days to meet their obligations under the treaty. What will the Europeans do? “We’ve always said in the past, that if it would come to a military confrontation with Iran, it does have the potential of escalating into a big war.”

Zepp-LaRouche continued: “I find it really incredible that Trump tweeted several times that it was the British who are involved [in the coup against him], and then, Pompeo, following his visit to Iraq, went to Great Britain. He met with Theresa May and her Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and gave the ‘Margaret Thatcher Lecture’ in which he praised the ‘special relationship’ with Great Britain, said it’s vital, it’s vibrant…. But to praise the special relationship with Great Britain at a moment when the British were caught red-handed in a coup attempt against the U.S. President is really an incredible thing.”

And now, she said, look at former Vice President Joe Biden. He admitted at a fundraiser that he got a phone call from British Prime Minister Theresa May, asking him to run. “So this is incredible, here you have Theresa May calling on a Democrat to run against Trump, and this is obviously, completely in line with the House of Lords report of December 2018 [“U.K. Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order,” Dec. 5, 2018], where they said that the special relationship between Great Britain and the United States would not survive a second term of Trump.  So they’re openly trying to meddle again, and continuously, in the internal affairs of the United States.”

She assessed: “I think this is a really a very dangerous situation, because, if you look at the overall dynamic in the world, you have the new paradigm being centered around China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which China keeps emphasizing is a force of great good in the world, it’s a gift from China to the whole world, because it offers a win-win cooperation to all other countries. And the fact that there were 150 nations represented at the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on April 25-27, attests to the fact that all these countries see it in their own interest to participate in this new paradigm of cooperation.

“And the geopolitical factions of the Western world are trying to contain that. I don’t think it will be possible, at least not in any peaceful way. All of Europe is moving in the direction of the New Silk Road…. So I think there is clearly motion in the direction of reason and cooperation, and overcoming geopolitics. But this anti-China hysteria, which is being fueled by the same forces who were involved in the coup against Trump, obviously are trying to poison the well, and poison the atmosphere.” The outcome of U.S. trade talks with China is uncertain. The positive tone from both parties of a few weeks ago has now apparently been replaced. The Chinese are trying to save the situation, but were Trump to impose a new round of tariffs on China as threatened, China would retaliate, and that would “be a very bad escalation,” Zepp-LaRouche warned. “In my view, the most important strategic issue is, will the United States respond to the rise of China, which cannot be stopped by peaceful means, or will they try to contain China and cause a real strategic, big confrontation—-that would be a catastrophe for all humanity.”

“So I think it’s really important to take off the geopolitical spectacles, because they can only lead to a disaster,” Zepp-LaRouche advised. But taking off the geopolitical spectacles doesn’t mean becoming passive spectators. What is needed in Western Europe and the U.S. are the Four Laws proposed by Lyndon LaRouche in June of 2014. “You need this entire package. And we need more public debate about that…. I think it’s really up to you, the viewers, to mobilize around these questions and put pressure on the political landscape, Congress, [create] the environment that Trump can go back to his original intention.” The hysteria reigning in portions of both the Democratic and Republican Parties makes it hard for him to act. “We need a public debate and intervention. This is why you should join with us, become a member of the Schiller Institute … become active, because it’s our future which is at stake.”

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

Secretary Mike Pompeo and China’s Wang Yi To Make Parallel Visits to Russia

May 9 (EIRNS)—In separate, hastily-announced parallel visits, both U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and China’s Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi will be visiting Russia over May 12-13. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced yesterday that Wang Yi is to visit May 12-13, and meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on May 13 in Sochi. Also yesterday, the Ministry announced that Pompeo is to visit May 13-14 at the request of the United States, meet Lavrov on May 14, and possibly meet President Vladimir Putin.

The subjects the Ministry announced for the Wang Yi meeting were Venezuela, the Korean Peninsula, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran, in addition to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit to Russia and participation in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Cuba’s Prensa Latina quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry that Venezuela, Syria and Ukraine would be discussed in the Lavrov-Pompeo meeting.

The Ministry also told TASS that “Russia is ready to restart talks on strategic stability and consider concrete proposals in the context of Donald Trump’s statements on a new nuclear disarmament treaty.”  It is of interest that President Donald Trump advocated that China be party to the new treaty along with the United States and Russia.

Nuclear Envoys of U.S. and South Korea Met in Seoul

May 9 (EIRNS)—U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun met with South Korea’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Lee Do-hoon in Seoul today, South Korea’s KBS World Radio reported. The two sides exchanged opinions on a broad range of issues regarding situations on the Korean Peninsula, including the North’s launch of short-range projectiles into the East Sea on May 4, and Seoul’s plan to offer food aid to the North. Following the meeting, Biegun reportedly met with other North Korea experts in South Korea and exchanged views on the North’s political and economic situation.

What is interesting to note is that on May 7, the deputy North Korea envoys of South Korea and Russia discussed the Korean Peninsula issues in Moscow, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said. Jeong Yeon-doo, director-general of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) nuclear affairs bureau at the South Korean Foreign Ministry, was in Moscow to consult with Oleg Burmistrov, an ambassador-at-large for D.P.R.K. affairs. Jeong also had a luncheon meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, Xinhua reported.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

China’s Science Belt and Road Is a Boon for South America

May 9 (EIRNS)—In an article yesterday in Nature magazine, authors Lucien O. Chauvin and Barbara Fraser feature China’s joint astronomy project with Chile as exemplary of Chinese initiatives to enhance cooperation with South American astronomers as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Titled “South America Is Embracing China’s Science Silk Road,” the article is fourth of a series in Nature, which is planning at least one more on the Belt and Road’s relation to science.

Xi Jinping was pushing global cooperation on science and technology as critical to economic development before he became President and proposed the BRI, Monica Rubio, president of the Chilean Society of Astronomy in Santiago, told Nature’s reporters. She recounts hearing then-Vice President Xi give the opening address to an August 2012 meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Beijing, where he spoke “about investment, supporting scientists and plans for global development in astronomy with large telescopes. ‘He offered an aggressive approach that no one had anticipated,’ ” Rubio reported.

In 2013, China signed an agreement with the Chilean government to establish the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA) in the Chilean capital Santiago as a joint project of the National Astronomical Observatory of China and the University of Chile. The CASSACA project now helps fund research by Chilean astronomers and gives Chinese astronomers access time to key astronomical centers located in Chile, but its director, Chinese astronomer Zhong Wang has big ideas. One of them is to expand CASSACA “into a multidisciplinary center at which Chinese scientists could collaborate with researchers in Chile and other South American countries on studies of earthquakes, oceans, Antarctica, deserts, climate change and other fields,” Nature reports.

This approach of Xi was also exhibited in Central Asia when he visited Central Asia in September 2013. A year later, the Chinese Academy of Science funded an upgrade to a 1-meter telescope at Uzbekistan’s Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute. The improvement paved the way for the Uzbekistan institute to survey the northern sky in collaboration with China’s Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory. Uzbekistan has no experience in telescope making, observatory director Shuhrat Ehgamberdiev told the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (BCAS), so the most important technological part was done by China’s engineers.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

There are 643 Millionaires Who Work at Deutsche Bank

May 9 (EIRNS)—Deutsche Bank has the highest number of employees who earn over €1 million a year. With 643 millionaires, Deutsche Bank is ahead of all other European banks, according to the French daily Les Echos. Second comes Barclays with 542, and third HSBC with 399. BNP Paribas is fourth with 181, while Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo only comes in as 12th with 33 millionaires in its employ. So, the banks with largest numbers of millionaires are the banks with the highest volume of derivatives.

The highest-paid official at Deutsche Bank is investment banking head Garth Ritchie, who got €8.6 million in 2018, and €3.25 million the year before. And this, although Ritchie’s division is, like no other section of the bank, responsible for its near-bankruptcy status. Handelsblatt calculated that it has cost the bank €30 billion since 2008 in fines alone, not to mention the derivatives timebomb, which have turned Deutsche Bank in “a black hole with a hedge fund around it.” That’s the system, baby: The more you bankrupt a bank, the more you get paid.

Time for a Pecora Commission and Glass-Steagall.

EU Commission Responds to Former Greek Ambassador Chrysanthopoulos, Thanks to Movisol

May 9 (EIRNS)—The EU Commission responded to a letter by former Greek Ambassador Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos yesterday, in which Chrysanthopoulos demands damages for the EU Commission-enforced 60% cut in his retirement check. Chrysanthopoulos had sent his letter on Jan. 12, but the Commission only responded yesterday, after Chrysanthopoulos went public internationally the same day, exposing the fact that his request, addressed to the Commission in January, had not been answered. According to Chrysanthopoulos, it was specifically the Italian version of his exposure, published by the LaRouche co-thinker organization Movisol on its website, that prompted the Commission’s reaction. He credits Movisol, because the Commission’s response addresses him as former head of the Black Sea Organization, a characterization, in all the coverage, that only Movisol had used.

Chrysanthopoulos accused the Commission of violating Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union and Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights regarding the right to human dignity. He invoked Article 41.3 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which says that “every person has the right to have the Community make good any damage caused by its institutions or by its servants in the performance of their duties, in accordance with the general principles common to the laws of the member states.”

In its belated reply, Paul Kutos on behalf of Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker defended the austerity policies. “Greece successfully completed its ESM program in August 2018 and economic growth is taking hold,” the letter says. The Commission has always applied rules and “acted in good faith.”  The Commission spokesman writes, “On substance, I would like to emphasize that the Commission has paid great attention to ensuring that the memoranda of understanding concluded by the ESM and Greece are consistent with EU law. The Commission disagrees with your claim that the decrease of your pension would violate Article 2 TEU and Article 1 of the Charter.”

Juncker’s mouthpiece concludes: “The Greek authorities’ decision to reform the Greek pension system to put it on a viable footing, serves an objective of general interest. It strives to ensure the human dignity of each Greek citizen entitled to pension benefits at present and in the years to come.”

Ambassador Chrysanthopoulos is preparing a tough answer to that letter.

Italy’s Five Stars Goes with ‘Clean Hands’ Campaign, at Least for European Election Campaign

May 9 (EIRNS)—Italy’s Five Star Movement has been taken over by the British-controlled Clean Hands apparatus—at least for the period leading up to the May 23-26 European elections. The M5S is facing a major drop in its vote from that in the March 2018 national elections, and has decided to go full speed ahead with an “anti-corruption” campaign to hit its government coalition partner, the Lega, as well as the opposition Democratic Party, with which they are competing for second place in the polls.

The Lega suffered a first setback when Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fired one of its assets, Undersecretary of State to the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry Armando Siri, as a result of M5S pressures. Siri is under investigation for alleged corruption. Another investigation has been launched in Lombardy against several members of the regional council, and has expanded to Gov. Attilio Fontana of the Lega.

Two other investigations have hit Democratic Party officials—the governors of the Umbria and Calabria regions.

The M5S insists that all these officials should resign before they are proven guilty.

The mastermind of this campaign, according to many, is Clean Hands veteran prosecutor and member of the British-steered Transparency International Piercamillo Davigo, who is now head of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, the governing body of the judiciary. Davigo is said to be very close to the Five Stars.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Former Sri Lanka Army Commander Warns of New Attacks

May 9 (EIRNS)—Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, former Sri Lankan Army commander and now a Member of Parliament from the United National Party (UNP), warned in Parliament yesterday that he has information that new terror attacks like those on April 21, could occur on May 13. He was also highly critical of President Maithripala Sirisena, whose Sri Lanka Freedom Party shares a very uneasy coalition government with the UNP.

In a parliamentary debate, Fonseka, who is credited with having played a leading role in crushing the Tamil Tigers insurgency, declared: “We still have not neutralized the danger” of a new terrorist attack. “The politicians would not understand this. Anyone conversant with security affairs must be aware that the danger is still lurking. The situation is still chaotic. Terrorism is not a problem that can be eliminated within two to three weeks. A nonchalant approach is one of the serious obstacles to in resolving this crisis. The politicians capitalize on this crisis to sling mud at each other and score political points,” he said in his speech, according to The Island on May 8.

He warned that it would take at least two years to eliminate the danger, declaring that the government should hold the post of Law and Order Minister—which he said should be renamed Minister for National Security.  That portfolio is currently being held by the President, who Fonseka says is far from competent to hold it. He has been supported in this demand by at least 89 MPs from UNP, who sent a letter to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, urging he name Fonseka to the post. Fonseka was also opposed to reopening schools, saying he told the Minister of Education that it puts the students in danger.

Fonseka further explained it was wrong for the Minister of Defense and the National Security Council to think that the problem is over: “According to the President, the problem is now over. The NSC says that the crisis will be over in two weeks. It will take at least two years to strengthen the intelligence units and neutralize the threat. The security officials should realize this, and that the terrorists are now playing a game of hide and seek. In the meantime, there is another security warning that there will be bomb explosions at Nawala, Panchikawatte, Wellawatte and Fort Railway Station on May 13,” Fonseka warned.

Fonseka also said that Sri Lanka is the only country that eliminated terrorism through military operations, and that some 50% of the security force members with the experience of the war against the Tamil Tigers have left the service. Today, the army and the police do not have that wartime experience.

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

In Africa, the Belt and Road Is Spurring General Socio-Economic Development

May 9 (EIRNS)—In his article “Africa and China’s Belt and Road Strategy,” published May 8 in the Nigerian daily The Sun, Charles Onunaiju, director of the Center for China Studies Utako, Abuja, wrote that the Belt and Road strategy of international cooperation “already up and running and phenomenally redrawing the global development map with outlaying economic corridors and tremendous added value is also putting Africa in the front-line of emerging global economic hubs.”

Elaborating the contribution of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa, Onunaiju argued that, “Since the action plan of the Belt and Road strategy was rolled out, key infrastructure projects have sprung up in Africa taking shape from its concessional funding support and inspirations of facility connectivity. In respect of overland construction, Chinese companies through concessional financial support have built the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway in Ethiopia, which is the first electrified railway in Africa, the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway in Kenya, the Abuja-Kaduna Railway in Nigeria, Benguela railway in Angola, and many others, including Lagos-Ibadan-Kano-Abuja [railroad] under construction.

“With regards to the maritime component of Belt and Road Initiative, Africa features eminently in the key infrastructure projects. So far, Chinese companies have constructed the port of Bagamoyo in Tanzania, the No. 19 berth of the port of Mombasa and 3 berth of port Lamu, all in Kenya, the New port of Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo, or Congo Brazzaville, the Lekki Deep Seaport in Nigeria, the Kribi Deep seaport in Cameroon, and the port of Tamatave in Madagascar.

“Under the framework of the Belt and Road strategy of international cooperation, the port of Cherchell in Algeria has been built and is in operation, while the Port of Luanda in Angola is under construction. The distinct feature of each of these ports is that they either have access to major road connections or seat near the sites of industrial parks, thereby having significant impacts on economic development of the coastal areas of Africa.”

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