TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2019 Volume 6, Number 129 EIR Daily Alert Service P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• President Taking Back Foreign Policy? Good! But Who Will Stop the Global Economic Collapse?
• The British Government Engineered Fake OPCW Reports on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attacks
• Manufacturing Indices Show Recession Is Global
• Global Slowdown Drives BIS Warning That Crash May Be Near
• Global Times: DMZ Meeting Has ‘Broken the Stalemate’ and ‘Driven Resumption of Dialogue’
• British Empire’s Chatham House Targets U.S. for ‘Climate Civil Disobedience’-on July Fourth
• NAACP Joins Coalition for First U.S. Maglev Route
• North Korea’s Media Laud Panmunjom Meeting Between Kim and Trump
• China and South Africa Advance Partnership for Space Exploration

EDITORIAL

President Taking Back Foreign Policy? Good! But Who Will Stop the Global Economic Collapse?

July 1 (EIRNS)—In an international strategic webcast today, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche noted with pleasure that President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un revived “the Singapore Spirit” this weekend that they had first established in June 2018. In American terms, she said, the complete surprise engineered by Trump at the DMZ—following meetings with Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia which helped it happen—represents a return to policymaking by the President. It flanks the well-known “chickenhawks” of the British Empire war party. It is very promising, Zepp-LaRouche said, and was seen as such by the other major powers at the G20 meeting. There is good reason for optimism that it was seen as such by the American people also.

The Japanese government may also be playing an important role in this; perhaps a new “Asian security architecture” is being discussed to stop proliferation of intermediate- and short-range nuclear missiles.

But what is crucial, is that President Trump’s meetings with Xi and, particularly, with Putin, were not sabotaged this time by the war party!

Just two weeks ago, the President had been pushed to within 10 minutes of war with Iran, and treasonously kept in the dark about plans to commit cyberbombing of Russia’s electricity grid—an act of superpower war. The U.K.’s “Mayhem” government has pushed President Trump into military attacks before, with fakery (see the expose below). For decades the U.S. war party in Congress and the White House has acted like so many British imperial Haushofers, Churchills and Mackinders. In a republic, a patriotic President makes foreign policy, particular with other great powers. If President Trump can reestablish this, he should get Americans’ total support.

But those great powers did nothing at the G20 meeting to deal with the grim origin and companion of war, economic collapse. The world economy is falling into recession, with the threat of another, worse financial blowout. Look at EIR’s special July 5 issue, “The Bitter Truth about the Economic ‘Recovery.’ ”

The flailing European Union is useless in this crisis. As Lyndon LaRouche insisted for two decades until his death, the leaders of the United States, China, Russia and India must take the lead, with other sovereign nations as possible, exclude the British and launch a New Bretton Woods credit system like the one Franklin Roosevelt envisaged after World War II. The LaRouche economic principles, including Glass-Steagall bank regulation and Hamiltonian national banking, are the way out of the danger, and must be put into action by those powers.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

The British Government Engineered Fake OPCW Reports on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attacks

July 1 (EIRNS)—The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), created to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, has been corrupted by the same British networks that created and financed the White Helmets in Syria, which have been accused of staging chemical weapons attacks in Syria then used as pretexts for a U.S. cruise missile strike on Shayrat, Syria in April 2017, and again, but with the British and French joining in, in April 2018. This is all documented in a June 26 report of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, an ad hoc organization convened by Prof. Piers Robinson, Chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism at the University of Sheffield from 2016-2019, who is one of four co-authors of the report.

The June 26 report, “How the OPCW’s Investigation of the Douma Incident Was Nobbled” (i.e., illegally interfered with), is based on publicly available documentation of the false flag Douma chemical attack of April 7, 2018, which the authors cite with internet links, and communications with OPCW staff who were angry at the behavior of upper-level management in these investigations. The Working Group came to two groundbreaking conclusions (among others). They show, first, the deep connections between certain of the OPCW investigators and the Syrian White Helmets organization; and second, the role of British government information warfare operations in suppressing any evidence that tended to contradict the official narrative that the Syrian government was responsible for the two cited and other chemical incidents in the Syrian war.

The Working Group report follows up on the suppression of an OPCW engineering assessment leaked about one month ago, which showed that the gas cylinders that were allegedly the source of the gas used in the April 2018 incident in Douma, were placed on the ground manually rather than dropped from aircraft as was alleged by the Syrian opposition. The engineering assessment’s conclusion,however, was never cited in the Fact Finding Mission’s final report on the Douma attack, however. The authors of the engineering assessment also never saw the final report before it was completed. The Working Group’s investigators concluded that OPCW management stepped in to prevent any conclusions in either the interim or final reports except the official conclusion that the Syrian government was responsible.

The Working Group authors quoted an internal note shared among OPCW staff that stated: “The OPCW report on the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria on 7 April is currently under review by management. As it is currently drafted, the report indicates a high degree of probability that the alleged chemical attack was staged by an opposition group.” The note concluded: “I predict that the OPCW simply will not be allowed to issue a report that raises any doubts on the pre-judged guilty party.”

The OPCW mission was split into two groups for the Douma investigation, an arrangement that was criticized by the Russians. One team, Team Bravo, went to Damascus to work with the Syrian government. The second team, Team Alpha, went to Turkey to deal with claims made by the Syrian armed opposition. That team was led by a Len Phillips who, it turns out, had close connections with the White Helmets organization, and who had excluded evidence of staged provocations from his reports on previous incidents. The Working Group authors report that they have been told that Phillips met regularly in Turkey with James Le Mesurier, founder of the White Helmets. There is also evidence that Phillips was in contact with at least one member of the White Helmets who was in Douma at the time of the incident. Phillips also follows two other groups on Twitter: Chemical Violations Documentation Center Syria, and the Syrian American Medical Society, both opposition-linked groups that have provided evidence of alleged attacks to the Phillips team.

In the Douma report and two other investigations that Phillips led, there are indications that evidence favoring staging, rather than a chemical attack, was ignored or distorted, the Working Group finds. “This strengthens the case for retracting all these reports, not just the Final Report on the Douma incident, and allowing independent reassessment of the material collected,” the authors write.

The second explosive element of the Working Group report is the explicit identification of the role of the British government in fomenting the chemical weapons fakery. “From combining all available information, it is now clear that several entities involved in reporting and documenting alleged chemical attacks have their origin in a covert program launched by the U.K. government in 2012,” the Working Group report states. “In this program, like a low-budget theatrical production, the same actors reappear in different roles. For instance, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (HdBG) appears successively as covert agent collecting samples for Porton Down, as independent chemical weapons expert quoted in the media, as the founder of a small business setting up an NGO to collect evidence for the OPCW, and from 2016, described as a ‘former spy,’ in the role of a humanitarian worker coordinating a network of hospitals. It is likely that this program would have attempted to co-opt OPCW staff, especially U.K. nationals.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Manufacturing Indices Show Recession Is Global

July 1 (EIRNS)—Purchasing Managers’ Indices of manufacturing, published all over the world today for the second quarter, show that a global recession is under as measured by manufacturing and industry. Exceptions are some nations central to China’s Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects, but the advanced-sector economies are all falling.

The manufacturing sector of China itself, like the U.S. manufacturing sector, has stopped expanding this year. Behind the noise of all the indices and sub-indices based on surveys—two such for June were published in China today, one a government survey of state-owned enterprises and the other a private survey of SMEs, both appearing to show contraction by a small margin—the consistent picture is one of manufacturing stagnation since the beginning of 2019. This is also true of U.S. industrial production and manufacturing employment data. In China, it appears that what is actually contracting is manufacturing for export; for example, that sub-index of the China’s official NBS Manufacturing Index was at 46.3 in June, which is well below zero growth.

Many other Asian manufacturing indices for June show zero growth or below: Taiwan 45.5; South Korea 47.5; Japan 49.3; Australia 49.6; Malaysia 49.9. But Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka continue to show manufacturing expansion. This is “soft” data from surveying purchasing managers and CEOs of SMEs, but it shows impact on manufacturing of the general situation of stagnation in world trade.

One Purchasing Managers Index for U.S. manufacturing released today is that of the firm Markit, whose chief economist is Chris Williamson. His comment: “U.S. manufacturers reported business conditions have remained the toughest for nearly a decade in June. The past two months have seen the lowest readings since the height of the global financial crisis in 2009. The survey … paints a worrying picture of marked declines in both output and jobs. The June survey sub-index readings are consistent with manufacturing output contracting at a quarterly rate of 0.7% and factory payrolls falling by 18,000.”

Contraction in the German, Italian, and French indices was certainly no surprise.

The so-called “global purchasing managers’ index,” put out by JPMorgan, piggybacks on all the others. The economist compiling it, Olya Borichevska, summed up: “The global manufacturing sector downshifted again at the end of the second quarter. The PMI surveys signaled that output stopped growing, as inflows of new business shrank at the fastest pace since September 2012…. Conditions will need to stage a marked recovery if manufacturing is to revive later in the year.”

Global Slowdown Drives BIS Warning That Crash May Be Near

July 1 (EIRNS)—The reports of manufacturing declining around the world, in indices released today, suggest that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warning of a serious leveraged-loan danger to the major trans-Atlantic banks is linked to potential corporate default waves coming in the recession. The BIS June 30 Annual Economic Report said, “If anything, the slowdown appears to be worsening and spreading.”

In this context, the BIS “central bank of central banks” noted, “One … vulnerability is high household debt in many advanced economies, especially those not directly affected by the Great Financial Crisis. These historically high debt levels limit the scope for households to drive economic activity. Another vulnerability is clear signs of overheating in the corporate sector in a number of advanced countries. Following high growth, the leveraged loan market is now some $3 trillion in size, comparable to the collateralized debt obligations that amplified the subprime crisis. Structured products such as collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) have surged. Credit standards have been declining as investors have searched for yield.”

It continues: “Should the leveraged loans sector deteriorate [with defaults], the economic impact could be amplified through the banking system and other parts of the financial system that hold leveraged loans and CLOs. There could be sharp price adjustments and funding tensions. These risks should be seen in the broader context of the longer-term deterioration in credit quality and the generally high corporate leverage in many advanced economies. High levels of debt also point to vulnerabilities in a number of emerging market economies. In some cases, these are in the household sector. Most often, they are in the corporate sector, not least as foreign currency debt has expanded strongly since the crisis.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Global Times: DMZ Meeting Has ‘Broken the Stalemate’ and ‘Driven Resumption of Dialogue’

July 1 (EIRNS)—After U.S. President Donald Trump met with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone on June 30, China’s Global Times published an editorial titled, “DMZ Meeting Helps Break U.S.-N.K. Deadlock.”

“The unique and unexpected meeting seemed like a decision that Trump made on a whim. Whether it was an impromptu decision or an elaborate arrangement, this Kim-Trump meeting will help break the impasse between Washington and Pyongyang,” write the editors. They point out: “Trump is forthright. He is keen on and good at seeking attention and causing a sensation. Such methods applied to promoting peace and stability can produce great results and make certain breakthroughs.”

The editorial states that after the Hanoi meeting between Trump and Kim failed in February, the sides were deadlocked, and Trump faced tremendous pressure if a third meeting were to be held. But,Global Times assesses, “However, all the opponents were caught off guard by Trump’s unscheduled greeting and meeting with Kim at the DMZ. This meeting seems symbolic, but it has broken the stalemate between the two sides and driven the resumption of dialogue. It is in fact another micro turning point in bilateral ties.”

Acknowledging that “leaders’ personal friendship can never replace the countries’ national interests,” Global Times editorial states, and “North Korea is now implementing a new strategy and actively promoting domestic economic development. Hence, easing international sanctions is much needed.” Trump did not relax sanctions; the U.S. hopes to see more commitments from North Korea toward denuclearization.

Both leaders have contributed to the significant reduction of fierce confrontations to a relatively stable situation, which is significant progress. “If the peninsula situation can keep moving forward on the basis of existing achievements, regardless of the speed, no retrograde steps can be taken. The international community is eager to see such a phased summary and consolidation,” the Beijing editorial urges, concluding: “The meeting provides possibilities for North Korea and the U.S. to find solutions. The U.S. elite should be less hostile against North Korea, view the country more objectively and change their stereotypes. The Trump Administration can contribute to this if it is willing to. It will be crucial for how the history evaluates Trump’s contribution to resolving the peninsula nuclear issue.”

British Empire’s Chatham House Targets U.S. for ‘Climate Civil Disobedience’—on July Fourth

July 1 (EIRNS)—In what might be seen as the British Empire’s idea of “celebrating” American Independence, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), also known as Chatham House, on July 4 will discuss just what role “civil disobedience” should play in protests regarding alleged manmade climate change. On that day, the oligarchs will assemble for a “debate,” respectfully titled, “Climate Action: A Role for Civil Disobedience?”

The banner gives away the game. “In spite of this ever-growing public awareness of the urgency of climate action, environmental scientists and activists have struggled to motivate the wider public, policymakers and corporations to push through the disruptive and ambitious policies needed. … In recent months, however, a new sense of urgency has been injected into the environmental debate by movements including the Extinction Rebellion in London and the Youth For Climate strikes internationally.”

This “new sense of urgency” covers for the planned outbreak of “anti-institutional” violence. One of the featured speakers at the July 4 event is Farhana Yamin, an Associate Fellow of Chatham House’s Energy, Environment and Resources Department, an “climate change lawyer,” and Advisory Board member of the UNFCCC Momentum for Change initiative, and an active member of the disruptive, self-proclaimed nonviolent Extinction Rebellion (“XR”). In a typically Malthusian protest on April 15, members, including Yamin, glued themselves to the doors and windows of Royal Dutch Shell’s corporate headquarters, and spray-painted the walls with the slogan “Fossil fuels are killing us—zero carbon now.”

Since its inception in London on Oct. 31, 2018, “XR” has engaged in repeated “civil disobedience” demonstrations, drawing hundreds and even thousands of youthful would-be activists into the fray, via such gimmicks as its maiden event, which featured teenager Greta Thunberg, giving one of her canned speeches.

After a year’s worth of blocking roads and bridges in the U.K., XR invaded the United States with an “action” targetting the New York Times June 22. The goal of the “several hundred” who followed their Twitter feeds to the event, was to “force” the Times to follow in the goosesteps of Britain’s Guardian, and substitute “climate emergency, for the term “climate change.”

NAACP Joins Coalition for First U.S. Maglev Route

July 1 (EIRNS)—The Baltimore Sun of June 28 reported that the Maryland state NAACP, headed by Wandra Ashley-Williams, has endorsed and joined the promotion of the project to construct a magnetic levitation rail line from Washington to New York, and will organize for it in minority communities as a high-technology job-training and job-creation opportunity. The group will be pushing especially for the Maryland section of the proposed maglev line that will go from Washington to Baltimore.

The NAACP will work with the Northeast Maglev company, which is pursuing the environmental impact statement and the federal funding for the project. The Japanese government has, for years, offered $5 billion in partial funding, which is planned to use Japanese maglev trainset technology. The line would slash travel times to one hour between Washington and New York, and one-quarter hour for the Washington-Baltimore route. Northeast Maglev says building this section of the maglev route will create 74,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs.

The Sun reports the new ultra-high-speed corridor is being actively opposed by a Bowie, Maryland outfit called Citizens Against the SC Maglev Coalition, which claims—not surprisingly—that it will disturb the environment and displace homeowners. This group is trying to instigate minority communities against the maglev project, which the NAACP’s activities will help to counter. The actual route in Maryland is underground, along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway right of way.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

North Korea’s Media Laud Panmunjom Meeting between Kim and Trump

July 1 (EIRNS)—The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, praised the meeting between Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, writing that “The top leaders of the D.P.R.K. and the U.S. exchanging historic handshakes at Panmunjom” was an “amazing event,” and describing the truce village, Panmunjom, as a “place that had been known as the symbol of division.”

According to a report by Xinhua, KCNA reported to North Koreans that Kim and Trump discussed “issues of easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula” as well as “issues of mutual concern and interest which become a stumbling block in solving those issues.” It further asserted, “The top leaders of the two countries agreed to keep in close touch in the future, too, and resume and push forward productive dialogues for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in the bilateral relations.”

Kim said it was the good personal relationship he had with Trump that made such a dramatic meeting possible at just one day’s notice and that the relationship with Trump would continue to produce good results, according to KCNA. The two leaders’ “bold, brave decision” that led to the historic meeting “created unprecedented trust between the two countries,” which have been tangled in deeply rooted animosity.

Trump, Kim, and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in held an unprecedented press conference, before Kim and Trump began their 53-minute meeting, according to Cheong Wa Dae, aka, the “Blue House,” Seoul’s Presidential residence: “On their way to Freedom House, the summit venue located south of the inter-Korean border, Trump and Kim joined President Moon for a brief but unprecedented three-way gathering. The Pyeongyang-Washington talks began shortly afterwards. President Moon did not go in, having announced a few hours prior to a media briefing following his summit with Trump that ‘today, we’ll focus on talks between the U.S. and North Korea. Inter-Korean talks will ensue on another occasion.’ ”

President Moon was quoted by the White House as telling the press conference: “The two leaders have just presented such a big hope to the 80 million Korean people as well as to the whole world. So I do look forward to great progress being made in your subsequent dialogue.”

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

China and South Africa Advance Partnership for Space Exploration

July 1 (EIRNS)—On the sidelines of the China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Coordinators’ Meeting on June 25, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor signed a partnership agreement for work on the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope.

The SKA Organization was founded in 2011, and now involves organizations from 13 member states (Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom): The SKA itself will eventually involve a network of radio telescopes spanning 1,000 square meters of “lens” spread over two continents, Australia and Africa. The control center is located in the United Kingdom.  The SKA Observatory, to oversee delivery of the radio telescope, was made a treaty organization in March 2019, reported the SKA Organization.

Integrating the numerous lenses will be a network of super-computers, scanning the sky “10,000 times faster than and with 50 times the sensitivity of any radio instrument on Earth.” Expected to be fully operational in 2024, several segments have already been built, with more in view.

The bilateral agreement heralded the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the South African Radio Astronomy Observation (SARAO) and National Astronomical Observatory, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in respect of the Radio Astronomy Research Exchange Program, according to Space in Africa news agency.

“What’s really important is for China to partner with South Africa and many other countries across the world in the Square Kilometer Array. The Astronomy Institute of China has signed the agreement, and it’s a commitment to fully participate in the process of building this mega radio telescope,” she told Space in Africa. “We are also going to see young people from South Africa coming to China for postgraduate studies in astronomy sciences, in astrophysics, in mathematics and engineering.”

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