MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

Volume 6, Number 228

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. BOX 17390, WASHINGTON, DC 20041-0390

Schiller Institute Conference in Germany Unites Those of Goodwill for Creating a New Paradigm

• Farcical Yovanovitch Hearing; Republicans Go Limp

• Soros’s Open Society Foundation Demands Joe diGenova Be Banned from Fox for Telling the Truth

• In ‘Goodwill’ Gesture to North Korea, Esper States U.S.-South Korea Joint Air Exercise Is Postponed

• Next Normandy Four Summit Set for Dec. 9 in Paris, To Seek End to Fighting in East Ukraine

• Iraq’s Top Shi’ite Cleric Blasts Government Inaction in Face of Protests

• Russia Expert Stephen Cohen Asserts Zelensky Needs Trump To Back Kiev Overture to Putin
• ArcelorMittal Announces Shutdown of Italy’s ILVA Steel Plant, Largest in Europe
• Venice Flooding Is an Avoidable Manmade Disaster-And Not ‘Climate Change’
• A Defeat for Neoliberalism!! Chile To Get a New Constitution, Government and Opposition Agree
• China and Mekong Nations Target Major Asian Meth Cartel Run From Toronto by Canadian Citizen
• Ghan Parliament Okays Cash-For-Bauxite Trade Deal With China, to Green Howls From WWF

EDITORIAL

Schiller Institute Conference in Germany Unites Those of Goodwill for Creating a New Paradigm

Nov. 17 (EIRNS)—Two events this past week demonstrate the two opposite futures facing mankind today. In Washington, the outrageous and self-evidently fraudulent impeachment investigation, run by the House Democrats and the corrupt intelligence and diplomatic officials left over from the failed presidencies of George Bush and Barack Obama, while boring most Americans with their inability to even name a crime being investigated, is nonetheless a dangerous continuation of the attempted coup against the President of the United States by British intelligence and their neo-Nazi allies in the former Ukraine government. Failure to prevent this coup would almost certainly mean world war in the near term.

At the same time, an international conference of the Schiller Institute brought together over 300 “patriots of their nations and citizens of the world” (as Schiller defined true citizenship). The Conference was dedicated to the memory and the living ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, under the title: “The Future of Humanity as a Creative Species in the Universe.” Keynoted by the founder and Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche (“We Can Shape a New Era of Mankind”), speakers included:

• Wang Weidong, Minister Counselor, Director of the Commerce and Trade Department at the Chinese Embassy in Germany, on “The Potential of the New Silk Road for Europe”;

• Natalia Vitrenko, doctor of economic sciences, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), former Member of Parliament of Ukraine, on “LaRouche’s Science of Physical Economy as the Key To Solving the Problems of the World, Eurasia, and Ukraine”;

• Professor Andrei Ostrovskii, Deputy Director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, on “Russia in the Chinese One Belt, One Road Initiative: Possibilities and Prospects”;

• Jozef Miklosko, Former Vice Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia, on “LaRouche and Science”;

• Theo Mitchell, former State Senator of South Carolina, on LaRouche, “The Man Who Should Have Been President of the United States”;

• Nino Galloni, former director general of the Budget and Labor Ministries, Italy, on “Fatherland, Nation and State as Seen by Progressive Catholics and by Lyndon LaRouche.”

Other speakers from members and friends of the Schiller institute from the U.S., Greece, France, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. A concert of music by Beethoven, Schumann and Schubert, dedicated to the memory of Lyndon LaRouche, was held on the first evening of the two-day event.

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche, in her remarks, captured the crucial aspect of her late husband’s ideas required for today’s “citizens of the world” to overcome the permanent warfare, cultural degradation, and the terminal collapse now facing the world financial system, and to create a new paradigm based on a global renaissance of artistic and scientific creativity:

“It is absolutely unique to LaRouche that he has demonstrated the crossover between relativistic physics and the creativity of the human mind as such, and the connection of that domain to Classical forms of art and statecraft.  Lyn provided ample proof that it is only through Classical forms of poetry, drama, and music that those faculties of the mind capable of generating valid hypotheses of new insights into the lawfulness of the universe are developed.  Why in music, poetry, and drama, the same battles against reductionist and deductionist conceptions have to be fought, and why therefore the quality of metaphor, irony, and Furtwängler’s idea of playing between the notes are so crucial to elevate the mind into that higher Riemannian mindset. With that goes the education of the emotions out of the realm of the sensual and profane, up to the level of agapic passions. The oligarchical model of society and image of man reduces the individual to a creature of hedonistic desires, easily manipulated, and accepting the role of the ‘underling’ by the powers of Thrasymachus’ ‘rules-based order.’ It is the cognitive experience associated with Classical forms of composition which set the individual free by evoking the beauty of the mind and unleashing the kind of agapic love for mankind which is necessary to choose the New Paradigm of the one humanity, leaving the narrow-minded evil pursuit of alleged geopolitical interests of a privileged class at the expense of the lower classes behind.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Farcical Yovanovitch Hearing; Republicans Go Limp

Nov. 15 (EIRNS)—In the farcical hearing conducted by the House today, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch essentially put on a Sturm und Drang performance of her claims against Donald Trump for wrongful employment termination, under the direction of Adam Schiff. Ranking Republican Devin Nunes pointedly declared that this were better taken up by the Human Resources part of the Foreign Relations Committee, since Yovanovitch had absolutely nothing to say of relevance about the summer’s negotiations concerning military aid to Ukraine or impeachment of the President. She had literally cried about being fired in her prior deposition in the House basement, and Schiff did everything in his power to get her to repeat the performance. President Trump, obviously knowing the inability of his Republican colleagues to stand up to strong women who are lying through their teeth (witness Christine Blasey Ford), tweeted during the testimony:

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors. They call it ‘serving at the pleasure of the President.’ The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than preceding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.”

The President was promptly attacked by Schiff, and the media, for “attempted witness intimidation,” and the woman her State Department colleagues call the “Iron Lady” said, in stage voice quiver, that she found the President’s tweet, well, intimidating. As predicted, the emotional framework of “#MeToo” was used to dramatize this appearance to its intended audience, suburban women voters whom the Democrats believe are already upset about the President’s, well, “maleness.” [Monster White Orange Man Confronts Accomplished Immigrant Woman and Fires Her for Reasons Assumed.]

As President Donald Trump emphasized, look at what President Volodymyr Zelensky said about Yovanovitch, in their July 25th conversation. Zelensky said that he had found out that Yovanovitch did not accept his election and was loyal to former President Petro Poroshenko, Washington’s favorite and Zelensky’s rival. The President has an absolute right to hire or fire ambassadors, a proposition which even Yovanovitch admitted was a “good policy.”

The President’s instincts were correct, and his Republican colleagues acted like uninformed cowards today. Once again, here is Yovanovitch’s relevant résumé and trail of color revolutions, something publicly available to thinking Republicans willing to do the slightest bit of homework:

In 2004, after serving as one of the key State Department anti-Russian diplomats, Yovanovitch played a central role in the Ukraine regime-change operation known as the “Orange Revolution.” She promoted the scandal of Ukraine selling four Kolchuga radar systems to Iraq in violation of the United Nations sanctions. This led to the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma being replaced by Washington and London’s choice, Viktor Yushchenko.

In 2005 she was Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic at the time as the British-U.S. Tulip Color Revolution occurred in that country, led by the State Department and the British.

From 2008-2011 Yovanovitch was U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, where she was heavily involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in neighboring Azerbaijan (a separatist operation as part of a regime-change operation).

Each of these color revolutions devastated the targeted populations while the United States debased itself by performing the role of military gendarme for British strategic and financial interests.

Yovanovitch was U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from Aug. 18, 2016, until she was recalled, in May 2019. She was at the helm of the Embassy at the point when the Manafort black ledger smear campaign was at full bore, when the Ukrainian Ambassador to Washington was writing an op-ed against candidate Trump in the Washington Post, when Alexandra Chalupa was bragging that, on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC, she had assembled a gaggle of Ukrainian journalists, Ukrainian government officials, and Ukrainian private intelligence operatives to go after Trump. Ministers with whom she was in close contact, such as the brutal Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, ran a rage-filled social media campaign against candidate Trump—Avakov, the man who ran neo-Nazis in ethnic cleansing operations in Donbas. The most prominent anti-corruption activist and American darling Leshchenko, with whom Ambassador Yovanovitch worked closely, was feeding fake information to Fusion GPS about Trump’s Russia connections, which became part of Christopher Steele’s dodgy dossier.

Yovanovitch scrupulously denied knowing much about any of this, indicating that she either spent her time in Ukraine hiding under a rock or that she was lying. She absolutely affirmed that she did absolutely nothing about it, spoke to no one about it, while claiming, to Congressman Jim Jordan, that these actions did not constitute action by the government of Ukraine, but only by certain individuals.

In March 2019, U.S. Embassy employees in Ukraine were leaking that Ambassador Yovanovitch was telling Embassy employees and Ukrainians to pay no attention to President Donald Trump, because he was going to be impeached. She denied this today.

This was before a wave of articles featuring Ukraine’s former prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko claiming that Yovanovitch had instructed him not to prosecute certain individuals, including those Ukrainians most involved in the Ukrainian efforts to target and smear former Trump campaign advisor Paul Manafort as a Russian agent. Those individuals are all involved with the National Endowment for Democracy and the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center (AnTAC), which is a joint project of George Soros and the State Department.

Soros’s Open Society Foundation Demands Joe diGenova Be Banned from Fox for Telling the Truth

Nov. 15 (EIRNS)—George Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF) and allied organizations, are throwing a fit over remarks made by former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joseph diGenova on Fox News’ Lou Dobbs show Nov. 13, regarding Soros’s extensive influence inside the U.S. State Department, as well as overseas FBI operations, including with NGOs. Patrick Gaspard, president of the OSF, is demanding that diGenova retract his statements and be banned forever from Fox, for daring to attack Soros’s “philanthropic organization.”

In his Nov. 14 letter to Fox Executive Director Suzanne Scott, Gaspard labeled diGenova’s statements “McCarthyite, beyond rhetorical ugliness, beyond fiction, beyond ludicrous.” He was joined by Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who called diGenova’s statements anti-Semitic, the Washington Examiner reported. Naturally the Washington Post agreed.

Such moral outrage! DiGenova had discussed the Nov. 13 testimony given by State Department official George Kent in the House impeachment hearings, and commented on remarks about Soros made by Dobbs. There’s little doubt, he said, that Soros “controls a very large part of the career foreign service of the United States State Department,” as well as “the activities of FBI agents overseas who work for [non-governmental organizations]. That was very evident in Ukraine. And Kent was part of that. He was a very big protector of Soros.” He further stated that Soros “had a daily opportunity to tell the State Department” what to do in Ukraine “and ran it.”

DiGenova elaborated that Soros “corrupted FBI officials, he corrupted foreign service officers. And the bottom line is this, George Soros wants to run Ukraine, and he’s doing everything he can to use every lever of the United States government to make that happen, for business interests, not for good government business.” Actually, it is not just business, but his intention, on behalf of his sponsor, the British Empire, to provoke a war between the U.S. and Russia.

In ‘Goodwill’ Gesture to North Korea, Esper States U.S.-South Korea Joint Air Exercise Is Postponed

Nov. 17 (EIRNS)—The United States and South Korea will postpone a planned joint air exercise that was criticized by North Korea, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said today at a press briefing with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo in Bangkok, Thailand, where the defense ministers of ASEAN are meeting. Esper pointed out that he didn’t see the move as a concession to Pyongyang but a “goodwill gesture” that he hopes North Korea will reciprocate by returning to nuclear talks, Stars and Stripes reported.

“We have made this decision as an act of goodwill to contribute to an environment conducive to diplomacy and the advancement of peace,” Esper said at the press conference, say media reports. “We encourage [North Korea] to demonstrate the same goodwill,” he stated, urging the North “to return to the negotiating table without precondition or hesitation.”

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Next Normandy Four Summit Set for Dec. 9 in Paris, To Seek End to Fighting in East Ukraine

Nov. 16 (EIRNS)—The French Presidency announced yesterday that the next Normandy Four summit of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France will take place on Dec. 9 in Paris. “A summit in the Normandy format will be held on Monday, Dec. 9. It will bring together in Paris the heads of state and government of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine,” a presidential administration spokesman told TASS on Nov. 15. “Plans for such a summit were discussed by the French and Russian Presidents at their meeting in Fort de Brégançon on Aug. 19,” he said, and mentioning that the topic had been also addressed at the G7 summit in Biarritz.

The summit will take place on the background of “considerable progress at the talks” reached this summer that has made it possible to “ensure disengagement of forces in a number of zones of conflict along the contact line” in east Ukraine, he said. “The summit will open a new stage in the implementation of the Minsk agreements.” The French announcement has been confirmed by both the Ukrainian Presidency and the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Meanwhile, OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger told Le Monde that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has contributed to real progress towards settling the Donbas conflict. “Such a turn of events has become possible after a change of President in Ukraine,” he said, commenting on the disengagement of forces on the Donbas line of contact, reported TASS. “We witness real progress regarding adherence to the ceasefire.”

Greminger stressed, however, that this progress should not be overstated, that the disengagement needs to be extended over the entire 450 km line of contact, and that there still needs to be agreement on what special status will mean for Donbas. The decentralization issue needs to be discussed, he said, along with the conditions for elections on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. “For this, we need direct political control, which is possible in the course of the so-called Normandy Four summit,” Greminger said.

Iraq’s Top Shi’ite Cleric Blasts Government Inaction in Face of Protests

Nov. 16 (EIRNS)—Iraqi’s top Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a harsh statement yesterday condemning the lack of action by the government on promised electoral reforms which are supposed to lead to a new election. In early October, Sistani’s support for the protesters was described in news reports as tepid, but over the last couple of weeks he has issued statements showing strong support for them. “Although not a short time has passed since popular protests began calling for reforms, and the blood of hundreds of martyrs and thousands of injured and wounded was shed in this honorable way, the demands of protesters have not been met on the ground so far. This deserves attention,” Sistani said in a sermon read during Friday prayers yesterday.

The reforms, promised by Iraqi President Barham Salih are supposed to move the country away from the sectarian system—in which the President is a Kurd, the Prime Minister a Shi’ite, and the Speaker of the Parliament is a Sunni—imposed by the U.S. after the 2003 invasion. Sistani, in his sermon, demanded “smooth” passage of both election and electoral commission laws. “If those in power think that they can evade the benefits of real reform by stalling and procrastination, they are delusional,” he warned. “What comes after these protests will not be the same as before, and they should be aware of that.”

The death toll in protests since Oct. 1 is reported to now be 320, with thousands wounded. This morning, according to reports, protesters in Baghdad were pushing towards the Green Zone and security forces were blocking the bridge to keep them out.

Russia Expert Stephen Cohen Asserts Zelensky Needs Trump To Back Kiev Overture to Putin

Nov. 16 (EIRNS)—Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, and one of the most knowledgeable experts on Russia, was interviewed on Nov. 13 by Aaron Maté in his PushBack media on The Grayzone website, on the situation in Ukraine. Cohen said that President Volodymyr Zelensky ran as a “peace candidate,” pledging to end the war in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, winning a landslide with over 70% of the vote.

“So, that means he has to negotiate with Vladimir Putin,” Cohen said. “But his willingness—and this is what’s important and not well reported here—his willingness to deal directly with Putin, which his predecessor, Poroshenko, was not or couldn’t for whatever reason, actually required considerable boldness on Zelensky’s part, because there are opponents of this in Ukraine and they are armed. Some people say they’re fascists, but they’re certainly ultra-nationalist, and they have said that they will remove and kill Zelensky if he continues along this line of negotiating with Putin.”

Cohen says the key is what Trump will do. He criticizes Trump for the call to Zelensky referencing Biden, which he considers a “distraction,” and goes on: “But the more important thing is … I want to know if Trump encouraged Zelensky to continue the negotiation with Putin, and here’s why. Zelensky cannot go forward as I’ve explained. I mean, his life is being threatened literally by a quasi-fascist movement in Ukraine, he can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia, with Putin, unless America has his back. Maybe that won’t be enough, but unless the White House encourages this diplomacy, Zelensky has no chance of negotiating an end to the war, so the stakes are enormously high.”

Cohen also points out that “there’s no transformative or decisive type of leadership in Europe,” while the current moment is a crucial turning point which must not be missed: “I have a book called Lost Opportunities [Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War by Stephen F. Cohen]. There were moments in history, political history, when there’s an opportunity that is so good and wise and so often lost, the chance. So, the chance for Zelensky, the new President who had this very large victory, 70%-plus to negotiate with Russia an end to that war, it’s got to be seized. And it requires the United States, basically, simply saying to Zelensky, ‘Go for it, we’ve got your back.’ ”

ECONOMY

ArcelorMittal Announces Shutdown of Italy’s ILVA Steel Plant, Largest in Europe

Nov. 15 (EIRNS)—ArcelorMittal, the London-based steel giant which had “rented” the ILVA steel plant in Taranto, Italy, has announced the shutdown of all three active blast furnaces of the plant. ArcelorMittal had won a tender to purchase the plant and is renting it as a prelude to the formal acquisition, but has withdrawn from the contract, inducing a break in the rules by the Italian government.

The shutdown of the largest steel plant in Europe can be characterized as the latest act of the 1992 “Britannia coup” in Italy, to deindustrialize the country, including through privatization (see EIR Investigation, “Italy: Behind the Scandals, an Even Bigger Scandal,” April 23, 1993). Another product of that coup is the failed protection of the sinking city of Venice (see report below).

The shutdown of the Taranto ILVA plant means job losses for 10,000 directly and 20,000 indirectly in a town of 200,000 residents—virtually hitting each and every family—and would force Italy to start importing steel for its industrial sectors, shipyards above all, but also automotive.

The rules the Italian government is accused of breaking concern legal immunity for management during the environmental clean-up established by the contract. The management, however, made it clear that, even with legal immunity, they won’t be able to comply with the new deadline for the clean-up established by the court.

This is the sad epilogue of a crisis started by the “Clean Hands” faction when, in 2012, Taranto prosecutors arrested the Riva family, owners of ILVA, and seized the plant on allegations of environmentalist crimes. Eventually, the plant was run by government commissioners and sold to ArcelorMittal in a 2018 tender.

As expert Prof. Franco Battaglia, among others, has argued, the prosecutor’s case is based on fake statistics.

In a release yesterday, ArcelorMittal has announced that the first blast furnace will be shut down on Dec. 12; on Dec. 30 the second one, and on Jan. 15 the third one.

ArcelorMittal is also closing other steel plants in Europe, for instance in Krakow, Poland.

Venice Flooding Is an Avoidable Manmade Disaster—And Not ‘Climate Change’

Nov. 15 (EIRNS)—While international media are screaming “climate change” over the current flood (“Acqua Alta”) which is damaging Venice’s monuments and artistic works, the infrastructure that would have prevented the flood has been blocked for years through a “Clean Hands” investigation.

The infrastructure is called MOSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) and is an integrated system consisting of rows of mobile gates that are able to isolate the Venetian Lagoon temporarily from the Adriatic Sea during “Acqua Alta” high tides. Together with other measures, such as coastal reinforcement, raising quaysides, and the paving and improvement of the lagoon, MOSE is designed to protect Venice and the lagoon from tides of up to 3 meters.

In 2014, the MOSE work was 87% completed, when prosecutors arrested managers of the building consortium and local politicians on allegations of bribery. Works were unnecessarily frozen and the consortium was replaced by three government commissioners. With the consortium out, the know-how was also out. Since then, work has not advanced, and some MOSE mechanisms, due to inactivity, have deteriorated and need to be replaced.

Although many agree that prosecutors should not stop the work in such cases, nevertheless government and political forces seem too weak or afraid to oppose the almighty “Clean Hands” faction, which is using the anti-corruption issue to block public works and industrial activity nationwide also the ILVA case).

As for climate change, Venice regularly undergoes the Acqua Alta tides. This is neither the first, nor the highest flooding; in 1966, the sea level reached 194 cm, (6.3 ft.), compared with the current 181 cm (5.9 ft.).

Lower flooding occur 150 days a year in Venice. However, the salt seawater endangers millennia-old monuments, as their stone soaks up the salt, and makes them become friable. But the MOSE was planned to exactly eliminate this threat.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

A Defeat for Neoliberalism! Chile To Get a New Constitution, Government and Opposition Agree

Nov. 15 (EIRNS)—In a major victory for the Chilean people who have been out on the streets protesting for almost four weeks, in the wee hours of this morning, representatives of the government and the opposition announced, after a marathon meeting, an “Agreement for Peace and a New Constitution,” with a commitment to begin the process of drafting an entirely new constitution to replace the one imposed in 1980 by fascist dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. It was that 1980 document, authored by a follower of Hitler’s “Crown Jurist” Carl Schmitt, that provided the legal framework for imposition of the “Chicago Boys” Mont Pelerinite economic program which for 40 years has viciously deprived Chileans of their most basic economic and political rights.

The agreement states that a plebiscite will be held in April 2020, in which citizens will vote on a new constitution, and then decide on either a mixed constitutional convention (consisting of 50% of congressmen and 50% citizens elected for that purpose), or a constitutional convention in which all participants are elected, to write the new document. Members will be chosen in October, followed by a nine-month period in which the constitution will be written.

This morning, Santiago’s Plaza Italia, the site of mass protests, and especially of the historic Oct. 26 demonstration of 1.2 million, was entirely draped in a white sheet reading “Paz” (“Peace”). As the daily El Siglo observed, overturning the 1980 Constitution has been a demand of the Chilean people for decades. Now, the holding of a plebiscite “and the fact that the door has been opened to a new Constitution is a defeat for the right wing, for those conservative sectors, … and a triumph for progressive, democratic and transformative forces.”

Just 36 hours before the marathon that produced the agreement, Santiago had been convulsed by a huge general strike and widespread protest that shut down the city. President Sebastián Piñera, who for weeks had resisted the demand to throw out the 1980 Constitution, finally realized he had no option but to relent. Chileans had made clear that anything less than an entirely new Constitution meant continued protest.

There is hard work ahead, however. Sen. Jose Ossandon, from the right-wing National Renewal Party, part of Piñera’s ruling coalition, emphasized to El Mostrador that the debate isn’t over, and that many issues remain to be addressed right away: ending political privileges, pocketbook issues, and social justice and respect for human rights. Deputy Gabriel Boric, from the Broad Front, specified that pensions, wages, inequality, and decent quality of life must be addressed now.

China and Mekong Nations Target Major Asian Meth Cartel Run from Toronto by Canadian Citizen

Nov. 17 (EIRNS)—Chinese drug police are now working with Mekong countries—Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam—to take down drug kingpin Sam Gor, a Chinese-born Canadian citizen, in a “joint operation,” said Andy Tsang, deputy commissioner of China’s National Narcotics Control Commission. “They are one of the major threats,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.

The investigation’s target, naturalized Canadian Sam Gor (né Tse Chi Lee of Guangzhou), had long been identified as the Asian drug kingpin on par with Mexico’s “El Chapo” Guzman or Pablo Escobar, has built the foundations of his drug empire in Toronto, giving Canada the unusual central role in a multinational drug network that is the subject of probes by authorities on three continents, reported Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

The porous, lawless border areas of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos have for decades been a hub for heroin production, but the so-called Golden Triangle drug trade is now pumping unprecedented quantities of synthetic drugs into the global markets—fueling a $61 billion drug trade, controlled by a mega-cartel that Sam Gor heads.

Sam Gor, who had served nine years in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking before his release in 2006, was a trafficker in Afghan heroin. Since 2010, according to Canadian officials, Gor and his cartel transformed methamphetamine into a volume business, causing the use of meth to surge in Australia, Japan, South Korea, and throughout Southeast Asia. Meth seizures across East and Southeast Asia more than tripled between 2013 and 2018.

Ghana Parliament Okays Cash-for-Bauxite Trade Deal with China, to Green Howls from WWF

Nov. 17 (EIRNS)— An international agreement that will see Ghana and China trade in bauxite in exchange for cash worth $2 billion has been approved by the Parliament of Ghana amidst concerns from some members from the Minority Caucus.

This follows the adoption and approval of the report of the Finance Committee on the Master Project Support Agreement between the government of the Republic of Ghana and China’s Sinohydro Corporation Ltd for an amount up to $2 billion for the construction of roads and bridges, GhanaWeb reported. Beijing has released a first tranche of funds worth $649 million under the Sinohydro deal, Ghanaian Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said. The agreement also included a 300 million yuan ($42.7 million) grant and debt forgiveness worth $35.7 million to help with Ghana’s infrastructure development, he said.

Besides the opposition by the Minority Caucus, citing growing debt and also opposing what they described as attempts by the Ministry of Finance to “hide the debt” involved in the agreement, the project is also under attack from the environmentalists. According to South China Morning Post, the World Wide Fund for Nature (aka World Wildlife Fund, WWF) is running a campaign alleging the project would destroy the ecosystem of the 233 sq. km Atewa forest in southeastern Ghana. Atewa is part of the Upper Guinean Rainforest.

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