THURSDAY, JULY 11, 2019

Volume 6, Number 136

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• The British Empire Special Relationship Is Collapsing-Perfidious Albion Delenda Est
• U.K. Ambassador Darroch Resigns, With London Hysterical over Demise of Special Relationship
• Scarborough Likens Darroch Cables to Steele Dossier, Says Trump Suspicious of British Role
• J.P. Morgan Ship, Caught With 20 Tons of Cocaine in Philadelphia, Faces Forfeiture
• Pompeo and Bolton Following Dick Cheney’s Playbook for War on Iran
• U.S. Rebuked at UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency Session on Iran
• Venezuelans Begin New Mediation Effort, as U.S. Sanctions Are Killing Country’s People
• Pompeo To Descend on Argentina: Expect Rant Against Iran and Christina Fernandez
• British Refuse To Accredit Russian Media for So-Called ‘Media Freedom’ Conference
• The Fed Joins the Central Banks’ Reversal Back to Rate Cuts, QE
• Real Economic Output Going Down the Tubes in Germany
• Medvedev Approves 2,000 km Cross-Russia Toll Road From Belarus to Kazakhstan Borders

EDITORIAL

The British Empire Special Relationship Is Collapsing—Perfidious Albion Delenda Est

July 10 (EIRNS)—Both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, there is a growing recognition—and trembling by some—that the special relationship between the U.K. and the U.S. is in shambles, and could well be totally and irreversibly destroyed in the immediate future. The release of the diplomatic dispatches from former U.K. Ambassador to Washington (he resigned this morning) Sir Nigel Kim Darroch, KCMG (Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George) means far more than the exposure of the obscenely titled aristocrat for his role in the British imperial coup attempt against its former colony. Indeed, it has the potential of tipping the scales against the Empire’s control over the United States: The end of the “free market” economic construct imposed on the ruins of the Hamiltonian “American System” of directed credit and scientific progress; and the end of American military might being used as the “dumb giant” to carry out British colonial wars across Asia and the Middle East.

Lyndon LaRouche spent much of his 96 years fighting to educate Americans, and citizens of the world, to understand that the actual enemy of civilization was not some nation state, nor any combination of nation states, but the supranational Empire centered in the City of London and its controlled subsidiaries on Wall Street and in the financial centers in the other Western powers.

Now, the controllers of that Empire are in a state of panic, while people of good will are finally taking action to break the chains of the special relationship. In London, the lords and ladies are screeching against President Donald Trump for daring to denounce the criminal actions of the British Ambassador, for willfully mobilizing forces within the U.S. to carry out the treasonous coup attempt against the Trump Presidency. Former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkin, for example, raged that the President is “wacky and strange,” and claimed (wishfully, but incorrectly) that “most of America ignores” Trump’s tweets.

And in the U.S., Americans are increasingly ridding themselves of their subservience to the British Imperial mystique. The fact that British intelligence ran the entire Russiagate scam against the President is now openly being exposed by the Attorney General and by members of the Congress, as LaRouche PAC exposed from the beginning. Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times today wrote on the “Tale of Two Dossiers”—MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s and now Sir Kim’s dispatches. “Even before the extraordinary disclosures,” Scarborough wrote, “President Trump was deeply suspicious of the British government’s role in investigating him and his allies.” Now, he pointed out, the subversive Darroch dispatches “were likely distributed to the seats of power, including No. 10 Downing St.”

All of this has come just a few days after President Trump broke from the neoconservative crew surrounding him (whom we now know were being solicited by Sir Kim as “gate keepers,” the “Trump Whisperers,” the “individuals we rely upon to ensure the U.K. voice is being heard in the West Wing”). In Asia, Trump did his own diplomatic work, meeting personally with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and many others. The conditions have been established for the President to realize his original campaign pledge to be “friends” with Russia, and to reach an accord with China which goes beyond trade, to potentially realize LaRouche’s proposal for the U.S. to join China’s New Silk Road.

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s Moon landing in 10 days is an occasion both to celebrate Mankind’s creative “dominion over nature,” and to bring the entire world together in extending Mankind’s “extraterrestrial imperative,” as the great space scientist Krafft Ehricke posited.

Time is short for achieving this great mission. The Empire will not pass calmly into oblivion, but will risk anything—even nuclear war—to save itself. Also, the bubble in the Western financial system has again reached a bursting point, more bloated today than before the 2008 crash.

The best means to put this pregnant moment clearly before all nations and all citizens—both the danger and the solution—is for President Trump to act on the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche, placing “the power of reason” squarely before the human race. On Wednesday, July 17, LaRouchePAC will hold a rally before the U.S. Congressional office building with banners proclaiming “The LaRouche Case: Mueller’s First Hit Job,” and “Exonerate LaRouche!”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

U.K. Ambassador Darroch Resigns, with London Hysterical over Demise of Special Relationship

July 10 (EIRNS)—In a letter dated today, British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch officially resigned his position, stating that “the current situation is making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.” As if to say that the “special relationship is still intact,” Darroch thanked those in Britain and the U.S. who had offered their support over the past two days, and stating that “this has brought home to me the depth of friendship and close ties between our two countries.”

There are loud noises emanating from the upper echelons of the British Establishment—former diplomats and government officials, Members of Parliament, lords and ladies—denouncing Donald Trump’s effrontery in asserting that the United States is not a colony, and doesn’t need the likes of Kim Darroch. Tories are blaming former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson for Darroch’s resignation, accusing him of failing to publicly support Darroch during last night’s debate with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt over who will be replacing Theresa May as Prime Minister. MP and Foreign Office official Alan Duncan charged Johnson with “contemptible negligence” for throwing poor Darroch “under the bus.”

Poor Darroch? Lest anyone doubt that he was a key player in British operations to bring down Donald Trump, consider the Daily Mail’s July 9 mention of a secret memo Darroch wrote right after Trump’s November 2016 election, reported on Nov. 13, 2016 by theSunday Times. Suggesting that the U.K. could exploit Trump’s “inexperience” in office, Darroch wrote that “the president-elect is above all an outsider and unknown quantity, whose campaign pronouncements may reveal his instincts, but will surely evolve and particularly, be open to outside influence if pitched right…. We should be well placed to do this.”

So, behind the howls of indignation is rampant hysteria that the special relationship is unraveling and that London is losing control.

Chest-beating from other leading Tories includes:

• Former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Trump is the one who is “wacky and strange…. I can think of some people for whom that description would fit perfectly. One of them lives in the White House…. Mr. Trump’s tweets have been going on now for two years. Most of America ignores most of them. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t as well.”

• Lord Heseltine, former Tory Deputy Prime Minister: “This is characteristic of what [Trump] does. It is particularly regrettable when it applies to something to do with this country. He sounds off in a way that is totally beneath the dignity of the office,” he told the Daily Mail.

• Sir Christopher Meyer, former U.K. Ambassador in Washington, told BBC’s Radio 4 program that Trump is “insecure …which Sir Kim himself bore witness to.” Whoever leaked the cables, was someone “who set out, deliberately, to sabotage Sir Kim’s ambassadorship, to make his position untenable, and to have him replaced by somebody more congenial to the leaker.”

Scarborough Likens Darroch Cables to Steele Dossier, Says Trump Suspicious of British Role

July 10 (EIRNS)—“New Dossier Deepens Trump’s Suspicions about America’s Top Ally” is the headline on a Washington Times article July 9, in which author Rowan Scarborough zeroes in on the British role behind Russiagate and the attempt to overthrow President Donald Trump. Newly resigned British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch was a key player in this, and Scarborough usefully describes the trove of Darroch’s cables as a second anti-Trump dossier—the first being that compiled by MI6 operative Christopher Steele. Both those dossiers, Scarborough states, have deepened “the President’s suspicions about the U.S.-U.K. special relationship.”

Like Steele’s dossier, which consisted of 17 memos, requested by his Democratic Party handlers, Darroch produced his “dossier” in segments, “filled with anti-Trump vitriol.” And, Scarborough notes, even before the Darroch cables were disclosed, “President Trump was deeply suspicious of the British government’s role in investigating him and his allies about Russian interference in the 2016 election.”

Steele, of course, “shared his gossip with MI6 headquarters, raising questions about whether London’s top spies believed his criminal charges against Mr. Trump and whether they spread the material among the U.K. Cabinet.” In the Darroch case, there were two years’ worth of cables leaked; they went to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office “where they were likely distributed to the seats of power, including No. 10 Downing St.”

After news of the Darroch cables broke, former Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos tweeted that, “the U.S.-U.K. scandal that is going to hit headlines this week is about the MI6, in coordination with the CIA, running Stefan Halper at me in London.” Scarborough reviews the role of Stefan Halper in setting up Papadopoulos, recalling that Halper “is a business partner of Richard Dearlove, a former director of MI6.”

Papadopoulos states that “the U.K. knows that the President and Congress read and know about the U.K.’s interference in the 2016 election and are now trying to get ahead of the declassified information that’s going to hit the headlines. The U.K. is nothing more than a hindrance to U.S. interests in this new era.”

As for Russiagate, Scarborough points out that Darroch’s cables, “attacked virtually all aspects of Mr. Trump’s rule, including scandals, Russia, trade and Iran…. The ambassador also repeats a Democratic Party talking point that Mr. Trump is somehow indebted to Moscow.” Darroch wrote of “a possible Russian-Trump conspiracy: The worst cannot be ruled out.”

J.P. Morgan Ship, Caught with 20 Tons of Cocaine in Philadelphia, Faces Forfeiture

July 10 (EIRNS)—U.S. Attorney William McSwain issued a statement regarding a huge, relatively new container ship, the MSC Gayane, owned by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which was raided in June and caught with 20 tons of cocaine. McSwain said the ship is subject to forfeiture. “A seizure of a vessel this massive is complicated and unprecedented, but it is appropriate because the circumstances here are also unprecedented,” McSwain said, reported the July 9 Wall Street Journal. “When a vessel brings such an outrageous amount of deadly drugs into Philadelphia waters, my office will pursue the most severe consequences possible against all involved parties in order to protect our district and our country.”

The MSC Gayane is operated by MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. in Switzerland, the world’s second-largest container ship operator by capacity. Two other MSC ships were caught with smaller amounts of cocaine in U.S. ports earlier this year. Nonetheless, the Journal reports that MSC itself is not under investigation, and neither, it appears, is J.P. Morgan, despite the fact that the banks financing the drug trade are at the core of the business, as documented by EIR in its 1978 bestseller Dope, Inc. Instead, crew members have been arrested.

The MSC Gayane is new, built in 2018, with the capacity for around 10,000 containers, valued at $90 million.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Pompeo and Bolton Following Dick Cheney’s Playbook for War on Iran

July 10 (EIRNS)—On April 2, Brian Hook, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s special envoy for Iran, held a press conference to announce that the U.S. government had definitive information that Iran was responsible for killing over 600 U.S. troops during the occupation of Iraq.

“I can announce today, based on declassified U.S. military reports, that Iran is responsible for the deaths of 608 American service members,” he said. “This accounts for 17% of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.”

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter, in a report published in Truthout, debunks that claim, showing that its actual origin was then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2007 strategy to justify a war on Iran before the G.W. Bush Administration left office. Porter reviews the history of that effort, beginning with a Dec. 13, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon with Bush, Cheney, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cheney was demanding a U.S. air campaign on the charge that Iran was building a nuclear weapon, but this was rejected by the Joint Chiefs. Cheney then turned to blaming Iran for providing Shi’ite militias in Iraq with the “explosively formed projectiles,” EFPs, which were being used by the insurgents to blow holes through U.S. armored vehicles, killing and maiming the troops inside. Gen. David Petraeus, who was the U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, enthusiastically supported Cheney’s strategy, but all the evidence pointed to Hezbollah providing the EFPs, as well as the equipment and materials to produce, to the Shi’ite militias, not Iran. On more than one occasion, Porter reports, U.S. military commanders were forced to admit during press briefings that, in fact, there was no evidence tying Iran to the supply and use of EFPs against U.S. occupation troops.

In fact, Porter reports further, the increase in U.S. military casualties was attributable to Petraeus’s decision to target Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

“The bitter irony of the Petraeus propaganda campaign against the Mahdi Army is that Moqtada al-Sadr had stubbornly maintained his Iraqi nationalist stance completely independent from Iranian policy in Iraq since 2003,” Porter writes. “Meanwhile, rival Iraqi Shi’ite organizations, the Badr Organization and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), having fled to Iran years earlier, had followed strict orders from their Iranian patrons to collaborate closely with the U.S. military and civilian authorities to establish and consolidate a Shi’ite-dominated regime in Iraq.”

“When officials of the Trump Administration claim that Iran is responsible for U.S. deaths in Iraq, they are following Dick Cheney’s playbook,” Porter concludes. “As the Bolton-Pompeo team tries to steer the U.S. toward attacking Iran, it is important to draw that parallel to Cheney’s strategy, and understand the history behind this push for war.”

U.S. Rebuked at UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency Session on Iran

July 10 (EIRNS)—It appears that the U.S. found little support for its assertions about Iran’s reduction of its commitments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which met in special session today at the request of the U.S. Jackie Wolcott, the U.S. ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, accused Iran of “nuclear extortion,” but found herself rebuked by both Iran and Russia which pointed out that it was the U.S. that left the agreement in the first place and imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran. Iran’s Ambassador to the UN in Vienna Kazem Gharibabadi said ahead of the meeting on July 10 that it was “a sad irony that the same Regime which materially violated the JCPOA by withdrawing illegally and unilaterally from the deal is expressing concern over the mere implementation of the same deal.” Gharibabadi also slammed the U.S. sanctions, calling them “collective punishment of the ordinary people, contrary to the objectives and purposes of human rights, and should be considered as crimes against humanity.”

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador in Vienna, reported on Twitter that many states, including Russia, fired back at Wolcott that the U.S. could not both reject the deal and call for Iran’s full implementation of it. “Although for some reason they only refer to Tehran, in fact the United States, who are refusing to fulfill its own obligations under the nuclear deal, lost any right to demand this from others,” he said. “The discussion confirmed that the nuclear deal enjoys universal support,” Ulyanov reported after the meeting ended. “U.S. is practically isolated on this issue.”

The European Union, in its statement to the board, expressed “concern” about the measures that Iran has taken to increase its stockpile and purity level of enriched uranium, but also stated it “deeply regrets the U.S. withdrawal and calls on all countries to refrain from taking any actions that impede the implementation of the JCPOA commitments.”

Venezuelans Begin New Mediation Effort, as U.S. Sanctions Are Killing Country’s People

July 10 (EIRNS)—As a new round of mediation efforts began this week in Barbados between representatives of Venezuela’s Maduro government and the opposition, the need for a political solution to the ongoing Venezuelan crisis is more urgent than ever. A July 7 Financial Times article provided devastating data on the toll that U.S. sanctions has taken on the Venezuelan people, crippling the country’s source of income and placing the cost of food out of the reach of much of the population.

U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil firm have caused oil production to plunge. Crude oil sales account for 95% of Venezuela’s export revenue, and their rapid decline has negatively affected the import of food, medicines and other vital necessities. As recently as 2016, Venezuela was producing on average 2.3 million barrels per day—today production stands at between 740,000 and 850,000 bpd.

“We’re going to see a famine in Venezuela,” warns Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez, whose recent study showed that U.S. sanctions are directly responsible for a 797,000 bpd drop in oil production, worth $16.9 billion a year. In April, total imports amounted to $303 million, half of which were oil-related. This is just8% of the 2012 figure. Even if all those imports were food, they wouldn’t be enough to feed the country. Venezuela imports two-thirds of its food, almost impossible under the sanctions regime.

According to the Gro Intelligence website, 40% of Venezuela’s population of 30 million people rely on Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP), a government-subsidized food distribution program, which has also been targetted for U.S. sanctions by the Trump Administration, charging that government officials running it are corrupt. Nearly 90% of CLAP boxes are imported from Mexico and contain basic foods such as rice, pasta, oil, and sugar.

Thomas Shannon, former head of the State Department’s Western Hemisphere Division, is highly critical of U.S. sanctions. Shannon warns that keeping today’s sanctions in place, without any mediating action will have a “profoundly negative” impact on the Venezuelan people. “It is amazing that some people deny this, but it highlights, first the enormity of their miscalculation when they advocated the oil and gas sanctions, and second, their willingness to cause great damage to Venezuela to drive Maduro from power. Kind of like the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo. We are watching the destruction of Venezuela as a country and a society,” he told the Financial Times.

Pompeo To Descend on Argentina: Expect Rant against Iran and Cristina Fernández

July 10 (EIRNS)—On July 18-19, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will address the Western Hemisphere Ministerial on combatting terrorism in the Americas, in Buenos Aires, and will also attend the 25th anniversary commemoration of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish social center in the capital, which killed 85 people.

Expect that Pompeo will dedicate his remarks there to attacking Iran, as is his wont. Recall that both he and Vice President Mike Pence have repeatedly claimed that Iran is deeply involved in Venezuela, without ever having produced evidence.

In Argentina, the issue is a hot one. The 1994 AMIA bombing was blamed on Iran, but 25 years later, the case is still being litigated, as botched investigations, false evidence and foreign interference, e.g. from Mossad, and CIA/FBI, have prevented any resolution. In 2013, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, to allow Argentine investigators to question Iranian suspects in Tehran. Although the MOU was never implemented, it later became a pretext used by the London-directed establishment and allied judiciary to indict Fernández de Kirchner on charges she covered up Iran’s role in the AMIA bombing. That case is still ongoing today.

A focus of the Western Hemisphere Ministerial meeting will be countering Hezbollah, which is also accused of involvement in the 1994 AMIA bombing. Preparatory to next week’s conference, in mid-June, a workshop was held in Buenos Aires on just this topic, and included representatives of the State Department, the U.S. Justice and Treasury Departments, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and representatives of Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Panama, Peru and Colombia. Discussion centered on Hezbollah’s “global modus operandi … and terrorist and criminal infrastructure and activities in the Americas.”

According to the news agency Infobae, the U.S. wants to enlist Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri in labeling Hezbollah an international terrorist organization, urging the creation of the legal tools necessary to aggressively combat the group. Some analysts fear that an expanded and strengthened “anti-terrorist” law enforcement capability could also be used against Macri’s political opponents in the country. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who has ordered brutal repression against social protest, works closely with the FBI and DOJ to bolster law enforcement.

British Refuse To Accredit Russian Media for So-Called ‘Media Freedom’ Conference

July 10 (EIRNS)—British authorities refused to accredit Russian news agencies Sputnik and RT to the July 10-11 Global Conference for Media Freedom: London 2019. Where’s the media freedom?

The Russian Embassy in London denounced the denial of accreditation to TASS:  “This statement by the Foreign Office once again confirms our conclusion that the denial of accreditation was a politically motivated decision. As we pointed out earlier, we view it as an act of direct discrimination of Russian journalists. This decision looks particularly outrageous in a situation when RT and Sputnik work in the United Kingdom on legitimate grounds, under control of relevant regulatory bodies.

“When, despite the valid license, the decision to allow or not to allow a media outlet to this or that event (let alone, to a conference on media freedoms) is made by officials on the basis of their own political interpretation of disinformation, this can be described only as a censorship and a blatant interference of the executive power into the work of the media,” the Embassy said.

The embassy demanded to reveal concrete facts that justify those accusations within the next 24 hours.

“Otherwise, this accusation itself will become a clear example of disinformation, which in this case comes hand in hand with slander and smearing of professional reputation,” the embassy said. “By the way, it turns out that the Foreign Office’s initial statement that RT was not allowed to participate because the quota has already been reached was an act of disinformation, too.”

“U.K.’s pretense to be a ‘global leader’ in the fight against disinformation looks particularly clumsy against this background. Those [claims] are made by the government of a country which uses disinformation as a basis for most important elements of its foreign policy: air strikes on Syria were based on unconfirmed claims of chemical weapons use; demolition of political relations with Russia—on baseless accusations of our country’s role in the Salisbury incident. Earlier, an act of aggression against Iraq was justified with false claims they possessed weapons of mass destruction and so on. In all this case and in many others, the U.K. media is becoming an instrument in the hands of the U.K. government,” the Russian Embassy spokesperson said.

The Global Conference for Media Freedom is hosted by the British and Canadian Foreign Ministers Jeremy Hunt and Chrystia Freeland.

Conference participants were greeted by protesters demanding freedom for Julian Assange, reported Sputnik. Activists, some of whom taped their mouths with U.S. flags, unfurled banners reading: “Media Freedom. What about Julian Assange?,” “Free Assange. No U.S. Extradition,” “Facing 175 Years for Exposing War Crimes.”

In a related development, Britain refused a visa to a Russian Foreign Ministry representative, which the Russian embassy said “looks really weird,” in a statement today. “The U.K. side itself invited the Russian side to participate in the conference, accredited the Russian delegate, but then refused to issue him a visa….

“It is with great regret that we are watching the rhetoric on ‘Global Britain’ and ‘rules-based order’ lead to new violations of international law and generally accepted norms of diplomatic communication. The U.K. obviously prefers … convening narrow conferences of like-minded participants over inclusive discussions with a diversity of opinions.”

ECONOMY

The Fed Joins the Central Banks’ Reversal Back to Rate Cuts, QE

July 10 (EIRNS)—After Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony to House Financial Services today, the Federal Reserve is fairly well locked into a discount rate cut at the end of this month. His prepared testimony immediately created what financial media describe as a “100% expectation” of a cut now; so the lack of one—the Pittsburgh, Dallas and Kansas City presidents will argue against one—would cause havoc on stock and bond markets.

Regarding the real economic world, the key point in Powell’s prepared testimony was that business capital investment has fallen off dramatically after the relative “surge” of 2018 after the big corporate tax cut.

Other than that, the Fed chair largely pointed to the growing global manufacturing and trade recession, as a factor “outside” the United States. “Crosscurrents have reemerged,” Powell said. At the June Federal Open Market Committee meeting, “Many FOMC participants saw that the case for a somewhat more accommodative monetary policy had strengthened. Since then, based on incoming data and other developments, it appears that uncertainties around trade tensions and concerns about the strength of the global economy continue to weigh on the U.S. economic outlook.”

Powell also stated, during questioning, that the “very strong” June jobs report did not change the FOMC’s outlook. The Fed has its own data and can ignore the extreme “seasonally adjusted” month-to-month swings put out in Labor Department headlines. It is aware that the pace of U.S. job creation has dropped by about 15% from 2018 to 2019 and wage growth, which never got very far, is back down at 2.5% a year or lower.

The global reversion back to zero interest-rate policy and quantitative easing has come so far so fast, that Zero Hedge today was able to list 14 corporate junk bonds which currently bear interest rates below zero.

Real Economic Output Going Down the Tubes in Germany

July 10 (EIRNS)—Led by auto making, the German dominant industry, and chemicals, the manufacturing sectors report drastic “corrections” of their forecasts for the coming three months. In auto, this comes against the background a 12% drop in automobile production, 15% drop in exports in the past six months. In chemicals, BASF, the world’s leading chemical producer, expects a drop of 30% in production for the third quarter of 2019. All industry are announcing mass layoffs: Volkswagen 7,400; BASF, 6,000; Ford, 5,000, etc.

Short work will suffer strong increases in the near future: 34% of textile producers will sideline workers for several weeks or months; 28% of automakers; 20% of metallurgy companies; 17% of leather producers; 15% of rubber and plastics producers; 11% of machine builders. The figures are from a survey carried out by the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Medvedev Approves 2,000 km Cross-Russia Toll Road from Belarus to Kazakhstan Borders

July 10 (EIRNS)— Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has approved the construction of a new, toll road, the Meridian highway, across Russia, designed to significantly shorten cargo routes. The highway will stretch over 2,000 km from the Belarus border to the border with Kazakhstan, and it is expected to become part of the fastest trucking route between China and Europe. The motorway falls under China’s transcontinental trade and infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, which Russia supports, RT reported.

The project is expected to cost around $9.5 billion. The massive infrastructure project has won the support of the Russian government, RT cites Vedomosti business daily as reporting.

While the construction will fully rely on investors’ funds, the government has pledged to assist with attracting new investment for the project, including from China. However, investors want the government to ensure their minimal revenue of around $550 million, covering political risks such as the closure of state borders, RT wrote. Given the large capacity of the highway, and that tolls will be charged for trucks and cars, the project is expected to break even in 12 years.

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