FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2019

Volume 6, Number 147

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• LaRouchePAC Petition Pledges Signer’s Commitment to the Moon-Mars Mission
• U.S.-Japan Sixth Dialogue on Space Sees Moon as Stepping-Stone to Mars
• Italian Sovereignist Site Publishes Call for ‘Exoneration of the Great Economist Lyndon LaRouche’
• Face-to-Face U.S.-China Trade Talks To Resume Next Week
• Trump Resists Sanctioning Turkey for Its Purchase of the Russian S-400 Air Defense System
• Hardline Faction in Iran Advocating Talks With the U.S.
• Italian Government Reverses Opposition to Turin-Lyon High-Speed Rail
• ‘Extinction Rebellion’ Is Just Phase One of Malthusian Terrorism
• China’s Defense White Paper Draws a Line in the Sand Over Western Provocations, Separatisms
• Germany Insists That Persian Gulf Patrols Are the Job of Regional States, Not Europe
• Ohio Strikes Victory for Nuclear Power, Will Keep Its Plants Open at Major Savings Over ‘Green’

EDITORIAL

LaRouchePAC Petition Pledges Signers’ Commitment to the Moon-Mars Mission

July 25 (EIRNS)—Today, the LaRouche Political Action Committee in the United States issued the petition “We Commit To the Moon-Mars Mission,” whose text is immediately below, seeking for signers to pledge their commitment to the following program “and call on President Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress to commit to it as well.” The petition is being issued at a time of renewed international optimism, seen in the outpouring of excitement and pride on the 50th anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing. With the unraveling of the British intelligence-run Russiagate hoax against President Trump, now is the time to mobilize to bring the United States into the New Paradigm and guarantee a future of unlimited potential for future generations, through this program:

“• Successfully realize the Artemis mission to bring humanity—including the first woman—to the Moon to stay in 2024, as President Trump and his NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine have called for.

“• Make Artemis the first step towards the industrialization of the Moon as the economic platform enabling human colonization of Mars and human exploration of the Solar System—as first thoroughly defined by the late space visionary Krafft Ehricke.

“• Develop advanced fusion propulsion spacecraft, fueled by the helium-3 resources on the Moon—enabling safe and rapid human travel to Mars and other regions in the Solar System, with the goal of achieving constant 1-gravity acceleration/deceleration as the standard for human interplanetary missions.

“• Achieve this Moon-Mars program through an international 50-year crash program, as outlined by the late economist Lyndon LaRouche—ensuring the high rates of economic payback on Earth which can only be reached by developing new space and fusion technologies, and sharing those technologies internationally as the basis for durable peace on this planet.

“• Reform or eliminate the speculative and predatory aspects of the international financial system, as a necessary step to ensuring sovereign nations can generate the long-term credit agreements needed to facilitate this mission.

“• Remove barriers to international collaboration in space—especially impediments to U.S. cooperation with China and Russia (as typified by the so-called Wolf Amendment, barring NASA from working with China).

“The program coheres with remarks made by Lyndon LaRouche to a Dec. 3-4, 2009 international conference in Russia:

“In order to realize the objectives which stand before us now, we have to give mankind a new mission—mankind as a whole. The mission is typified by the idea of the Mars colonization. This requires us to make the kinds of changes, in terms of scientific progress, which are needed for mankind’s future existence.

“We have many problems on this planet. And we can not solve those problems, extensively, without going into a development of the Solar System as a habitat of mankind. We’re on the edge of doing that, scientifically. There are many scientific discoveries, yet to be made, which will make it possible to act for man’s colonization of Mars. That will be in some time to come. But what we need now is the intention of accomplishing the Mars colonization program. We need to educate and develop generations of young people, who will be oriented to that kind of mission. In the coming period, we will have the birth of young people who will be part of the colonization of Mars, in one way or the other, before this century is out.

“We need to give mankind a sense of purpose, developmental purpose, not only throughout the planet, but through the influence of Earth on the adjoining regions of the Solar System, and beyond.

“Those objectives are feasible. There are, admittedly, many problems to be solved, scientific problems, which are not yet resolved. We have many questions. But, essentially, we know this is feasible. We know this should be feasible within two or three generations. What we have to do, is give to people, who will be the grandchildren, born now, to give them something to realize. When we’re dead and gone, they will be there, three generations from now, four generations from now. They will be the people who actually colonize areas beyond Earth itself. We need to give them the opportunity to do so. We need to give society, in the meantime, the mission-orientation of achieving that colonization, for our descendants, three generations or so down the line.”

“We, the undersigned, pledge our commitment to realizing this Moon-Mars mission, and we call upon President Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress to commit to it as well.”

The petition is posted, and can be downloaded for distribution, from the LaRouchePAC Action Center page.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

U.S.-Japan Sixth Dialogue on Space Sees Moon as Stepping-Stone to Mars

July 25 (EIRNS)—On July 24 in Washington, D.C., Japanese government representatives came for the Sixth Meeting of the U.S.-Japan Comprehensive Dialogue on Space to pursue their shared goal of continuing to advance bilateral space cooperation, further strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance, and to ensure the safe and stable use of outer space now and in the future.

The dialogue represents the “the strong and shared commitment of two of the world’s most advanced spacefaring nations to further enhance bilateral space cooperation and to cooperate closely with the international community to ensure the continuous, safe, and stable use of outer space for current and future generations,” the joint statement posted to the State Department website said.

The high-level representation included the U.S. President’s National Space Council, National Security Council, and NASA, and Japan’s National Space Policy Secretariat, the Cabinet Office for Japan, Office of National Space Policy, the Ministry of Defense, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and other high-level representatives and government bodies from both nations.

Recognizing the outcome of the May 2019 United States-Japan summit, both nations shared the intention of strengthening cooperation, particularly in the area of exploration of the Moon as a stepping-stone to Mars. They acknowledged plans to accelerate discussions on Japan’s participation in the Gateway and in lunar surface operations.

Recalling discussion at the April 19, 2019 U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee, participants reviewed and confirmed progress on Japan’s development of a Deep Space Radar and on plans for hosting U.S.-provided Space Situational Awareness payloads on Japan’s Quasi Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) planned for launch in 2023.

At the Sixth Comprehensive Dialogue Meeting, they said, “both Japan and the U.S. renewed their strong determination to expand bilateral cooperation in Space Security, Space Situational Awareness, Space Traffic Management, Space Exploration, Commercial Space, Earth Observation, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems, and to seek opportunities for engagement with Third Countries and Multilateral Organizations.”

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

Italian Sovereignist Site Publishes Call for ‘Exoneration of the Great Economist Lyndon LaRouche’

July 25 (EIRNS)—Scenarieconomici.it, the sovereignist blog founded by Prof. Antonio Maria Rinaldi, published an article today by one of their columnists, economist Nino Galloni, on the campaign to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche. Under the headline “Call for Exoneration of the Great Economist Lyndon LaRouche,” Galloni wrote:

“Lyndon LaRouche was a great philosopher, politician and economist, who passed away last February. At the beginning of the ’80s, after having exposed the first and decisive steps by British intelligence to back and promote Islamic fundamentalism, LaRouche was put on trial in his country, the U.S.A., accused of ‘conspiracy.’ The trial turned out to be a farce, raising indignation among jurors and public opinion. Although at the end, the accusations were dropped [in mistrial], another trial was started soon after with the same accusations (a different venue, where judges and jurors would be more manipulable, was chosen. Everything has been documented.)

“With the proceedings conducted in an irregular way, LaRouche ended up in jail for several years, until President Clinton personally had him freed. During his years in prison and after, LaRouche studied, wrote and published fundamental works, which have been translated into all languages, and created a political movement with solid roots, including in Europe.”

Concluding, Galloni gives the LaRouche PAC Action Center link to the petition for LaRouche’s exoneration, explaining that “the following link aims at gathering support for a full exoneration, less than one year after his death.”

Scenarieconomici.it is the most followed economic blog in Italy.

Face-to-Face U.S.-China Trade Talks To Resume Next Week

July 25 (EIRNS)—The governments of China and the United States have announced that direct U.S.-China trade talks will resume next week for the first time since Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met in Osaka at the end of June. (Negotiators have held two telephone discussions since then.) The U.S. negotiators, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, will meet in Shanghai over July 30-31, with a delegation led by China’s Vice Premier Liu He and including Commerce Minister Zhong Shang. All previous rounds of these talks in China were conducted in Beijing, but the Chinese had asked that this round be moved to Shanghai.

Mnuchin told CNBC, “I would say there are a lot of issues. My expectation is this will be followed up with a meeting back in D.C. after this, and hopefully we’ll continue to progress.”

A U.S. Treasury statement said, “The discussions will cover a range of issues, including intellectual property, forced technology transfer, non-tariff barriers, agriculture, services, the trade deficit, and enforcement.”

Unofficial background briefings are said to report that China will resume buying agricultural goods from the U.S. as a goodwill gesture during this round of talks, while Washington will ease its pressure against the Chinese communications giant Huawei. There was a White House meeting with Huawei’s U.S. supplier firms earlier this week, to discuss the procedure by which they could apply for licenses to continue to sell to Huawei, subject to national-security vetting. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said that all their applications would be processed over the next several weeks.

Trump Resists Sanctioning Turkey for Its Purchase of the Russian S-400 Air Defense System

July 25 (EIRNS)—No official statements have been issued following the July 23 meeting between President Donald Trump and 45 Republican Senators to discuss sanctions to punish Turkey for taking delivery of components of the Russian S-400 air defense system. What has leaked out, however, indicates that Trump does not want to impose sanctions on Turkey, while some of the Senators, particularly Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch of Idaho, were pushing hard for Turkey to be slammed under the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

According to the Washington Post, citing unnamed individuals who were there or were briefed on the meeting, Trump appeared to be advocating negotiations with Turkey instead of harsh sanctions—leading to a “robust discussion” and an open dispute between Risch and the President. Furthermore, Trump is reported not to have been all that interested in the sanctions question, spending the first hour of the 90-minute meeting discussing other matters instead, despite the fact that the meeting was expressly called to discuss the sanctions.

According to several Republicans who emerged from the meeting, the discussion focused more on “how we can negotiate with Erdogan,” rather than on imposing sanctions. “What the President’s trying to do is have a much broader approach to this thing,” Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), a Trump ally, said after the White House meeting, suggesting that a sanctions-heavy approach only made sense “if you just look at what Turkey’s trying to do now.”

“Look at the broader issues of the entire region and then what’s going on with other major countries, you might get in a different situation,” Perdue continued. “We’re trying to develop allies in the world.”

“There’s a possibility that you have to bring Russia into some kind of conversation about what their position is in the Middle East—they want trade, they want some kind of commerce with us, too,” Perdue said.

The meeting took place in Washington on the same day that Russia put forward a proposal for a collective security arrangement for the Persian Gulf which may provide the basis for the conversation Perdue suggested to take place.

Hardline Faction in Iran Advocating Talks with the U.S.

July 25 (EIRNS)—On July 19, the New York Times ran a story that the hardliners in Iran have split on the question of whether to talk to the United States. Notably, the leading figure on the side of those who say that the U.S. and Iran must talk is former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Rouhani’s immediate predecessor.

“Mr. Trump is a man of action,” Ahmadinejad told the Times in a lengthy telephone interview. “He is a businessman and therefore he is capable of calculating cost-benefits and making a decision. We say to him, let’s calculate the long-term cost-benefit of our two nations and not be shortsighted.” Ahmadinejad further said that Tehran and Washington should directly resolve the long list of disputes that began with the 1979 revolution, the seizure of the United States Embassy, the taking of American hostages, the mutual accusations of regional meddling and all the rest. “World peace, economy and culture would greatly benefit from us working together,” said Ahmadinejad. “The U.S. wants to address wider issues than the JCPOA [2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal]. The issues at stake are more important and wider than whether the JCPOA should live or die. We need to have a fundamental discussion.”

This does not mean that Ahmadinejad believes that Tehran should talk to the U.S. while the Trump Administration is maintaining suffocating sanctions on Iran. “If you choke the throat of anyone in the world and say come and talk, it won’t be valid,” he said. “Negotiations must take place in calmer, more respectful conditions so they can be long-lasting.”

If the Times is reporting what Ahmadinejad said accurately, this suggests that a faction of the hardliners—and the Times report named three other prominent conservatives with the same view—is more closely aligned with the reformist elements in Iran on whether to talk with the U.S. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, as reported by the Iranian presidential website, reiterated Iran’s stance in remarks to his cabinet on July 24, in which he said that if the other parties to the 2015 nuclear agreement “fully comply with their obligations, we are able to return to the previous situation, and if the other party takes the right and balanced action, and a ceasefire in the economic war is announced, there will be an opportunity to talk to each other and to come to a conclusion.” He further said, “Of course, there are countries as intermediaries, and there are correspondences and calls underway, and everyone should know that we will never miss the opportunity for negotiation.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Italian Government Reverses Opposition to Turin-Lyon High-Speed Rail

July 25 (EIRNS)—Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte gave the go-ahead to the construction of the Turin-Lyon high-speed rail (TAV) tunnel in a speech in Parliament yesterday. Conte explained the reversal of his previous position, citing an improved financial situation thanks to more funds coming from the European Union. The Five Star Movement (M5S) sees Conte’s announcement as a betrayal, and its deputies left the floor when he spoke.

The go-ahead for the Turin-Lyon infrastructure project is a welcomed decision, but comes after a year of its being blocked. Furthermore, the basic approach of the M5S ministers has not changed. All major infrastructure projects are being blocked under M5S Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli on the pretext of new cost-benefit analyses, including the Brescia-Verona TAV section which would complete the Pan-European Corridor 5 (Lisbon-Budapest) on Italian territory.

‘Extinction Rebellion’ Is Just Phase One of Malthusian Terrorism

July 25 (EIRNS)—The radical Malthusian activist group “Extinction Rebellion,” which justifies its protest actions by proclaiming an alleged climate emergency, has been recruiting among notorious groups in Leipzig’s “Conne Island” youth and counterculture center. More is expected to come after this first graffiti attack on sculptures of Bach, Beethoven, Goethe, Mendelssohn and others in Leipzig, and also in other cities.

Today, the Leipziger Volkszeitung reports that the Extinction Rebellion has defaced eleven statues of “prominent figures”—Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Goethe—with slogans like “Climate Crisis Is Genocide.” In a statement, the Extinction Rebellion (XR) warned that by means of such actions, “we want to draw attention to the fact that everything these statues are supposed to remind us of, and what those people worked for, are at stake because of the climate catastrophe. The declaration of a climate emergency cannot wait any longer.” Similar vandalism and actions will take place in the future, it continued, “in order to draw attention to the urgency and need for action against the climate catastrophe.”

The antics of this group, which identified itself as the “Extinction Rebellion Leipzig Province,” should not be underestimated. In fact, the real terrorist wave justified by the what they insist is anthropogenic “climate emergency”—“climate change” is insufficient for XR and their co-thinkers—is already in the making, with the “Deep Green Resistance” manifesto: It demands the destruction of everything related to human civilization on the entire planet: infrastructure, industry, and agriculture.

The manifesto talks about four phases of the forced return to (at best) primitive life for a minuscule human population as it existed tens of thousands of years ago: 1) mass education of recruited cells in resistance, mapping out of preferred sabotage acts; 2) first active training in select acts of sabotage, for instance against coal power facilities; 3) sabotage on a broader scale, with an ultimatum warning to change ways of life generally; and 4) the final destruction of everything that represents human civilization, thereby elimination of basis of existence for billions of humans.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

China’s Defense White Paper Draws a Line in the Sand over Western Provocations, Separatisms

July 25 (EIRNS)—A front-page article in yesterday’s Global Timesunderlines a major thrust in the National Defense White Paper, released July 24, which has drawn a line in the sand over the intensification of provocations from the West aimed at destabilizing China.

“The international security situation China is facing is unstable and uncertain,” Global Times says of the white paper, “noting that regional conflicts and wars continue and international strategic competition is on the rise.” The white paper named “Taiwan independence separatists forces and their actions as the greatest immediate threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits and the biggest barrier to the peaceful reunification of the country. …Taiwan secessionists have only one destiny—nowhere,” said Senior Col. Wu Qian, the spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. “The PLA will try its best to realize the reunification and have the fortitude to risk a war,” Colonel Wu told the press conference at the release of the paper on July 24.

The recent arms sales to Taiwan, together with the unprecedented four days Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen was allowed to stay in the United States during her “stopover” en route to the Caribbean islands, giving a speech at Columbia University along the way, have created great apprehension in China that the neocons in the Trump Administration are pushing to change the “one-China policy.”

Global Times reports that the white paper also pointed out that external separatist forces for “Tibet independence” and the creation of “East Turkestan” (Xinjiang) launch frequent actions, posing threats to China’s national security and social stability, stating that Chinese law enforcement broke up 1,588 terrorist gangs in Xinjiang alone since 2014. “The white paper also for the first time defined that the PLA’s missions and tasks are to provide strategic support to consolidate the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the socialist system, safeguard national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, protect China’s overseas interests, and promote world peace and development,” Global Times writes.

The white paper also stated for the first time that China’s defense strategy is not aimed at achieving hegemony. Zhou Bo, the director of Security Cooperation Center of the MND’s Office for International Military Cooperation, underlined the reason for this emphasis. “Since the Chinese military has been participating in more military operations other than war in recent years, it is necessary for the PLA to reiterate its fundamental principle, especially given that some countries have shown concerns over the country’s military development.”

Germany Insists that Persian Gulf Patrols Are the Job of Regional States, Not Europe

July 25 (EIRNS)—Repeatedly over the past weeks, the German government has rejected calls coming particularly from London and Paris, but also from Washington, that Germany send ground troops to northern Syria, that German Navy vessels be deployed to the Persian Gulf, and that Germany increase its naval presence in the Mediterranean.

The argument of Berlin in all of these cases has been, first, that by constitutional law, Germany is bound to have parliamentary consent for overseas military missions that could involve combat situations. A gray zone does exist, in terms of preparations for such potential missions, but here, too, Germany practices restraint.

In terms of the Persian Gulf situation, the German Foreign Ministry holds that the protection of the maritime routes is the obligation of the states directly bordering those waters. Germany would like to see the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) upgraded in this direction—which may involve arms deals too, naturally. Germany’s naval deployment capabilities are limited in any case, since numerous naval buildup programs have never been undertaken over the past 20 years. German experts also point to the case of the Royal Navy, which is known not to have capabilities for a patrol and escort mission in the Gulf area either. A “European task force” would require a UN mandate, in any case.

An actually interesting aspect is that there have been ideas in the past in Germany to include Iran in an active security agreement for the Gulf—but that depends on a constructive Iranian agreement with the United States.

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

Ohio Strikes Victory for Nuclear Power, Will Keep Its Plants Open, at Major Savings over ‘Green’

July 25 (EIRNS)—Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation on July 23 that will keep the state’s two nuclear plants operating. The Davis Besse and Perry nuclear plants are owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, which became bankrupt, after losing money operating them. The company said that without financial support to make the plants economically viable, it would shutter them. Now, Ohio joins New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut, whose governments are also keeping their states’ nuclear plants open, in a vote for sanity.

Customers will actually save money, even though FirstEnergy will be paid $160 million per year from 2021-2027 to keep the plants open—because the legislation ends mandates for so-called renewable energy. It has at last been recognized in Ohio, that “renewables” have not been cost-effective and have raised the price of electricity. A July 24 article in Forbes calculates the two nuclear plants produce eight times as much energy as all the solar and wind in Ohio; that it could cost $25 billion to replace that nuclear power with solar generation and $22 billion by wind, and use 300 to 2,600 times as much land area.

The Trump Administration and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have not found steps that the Executive Branch could take that Congress would approve to save other at risk plants. The state-by-state approach being used to avoid an immediate crisis, should be superseded by the kind of FDR regulation of electric utilities that provided customers with universal access to power at a regulated price.

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