MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2020

Volume 7, Number 33

EIR Daily Alert Service

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

• Munich Conference Further Exposes Huge Divide Between Trump and the Washington Swamp
• Pelosi Insists on Threat From China’s Huawei, as Lawmaker Asks ‘Is Your Democracy So Fragile?’
• Pompeo Boasts ‘The West Is Winning!’ at Munich ‘Westlessness’ Conference
• Esper Joins Pompeo and Pelosi in China-Bashing at Munich
• Heavy Hospital Bed Losses Dramatize How Unprepared U.S. Is for an Epidemic Like Coronavirus
• Attorney General Barr Intervening in Mueller Victimization Cases of Roger Stone, Michael Flynn
• Trump Again Distances Himself From His Cabinet and Military, This Time of the Philippines
• Lavrov Admonishes, NATO Should Look at the Consequences of Its Own Actions
• Fed Tried Tapering Again-Be Ready for Another Crash
• IMF Whines to Argentina’s VP, ‘We Didn’t Violate Our Statutes’ on $57 Billion Bailout Loan
• How Wall Street Elite Will Steal You Blind for ‘Climate Change’
• China Could Be Involved in Building British High-Speed Rail
• World’s Longest Fiber-Optic Telecomm Cable Will Link Southeast Asia to U.S. Mainland
• Johnson’s Chancellor of Exchequer Resigns, Replaced With Fairly Unknown Hedge Fund Manager

EDITORIAL

Munich Conference Further Exposes Huge Divide Between Trump and the Washington Swamp

Feb. 16 (EIRNS)—Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, fresh from orchestrating the impeachment—the last phase of the three-year campaign to overthrow the U.S. government—exposed herself as a full-fledged neocon during her appearance at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, where her rabid attack on China was totally in sync with the equally rabid attack on China from Secretary of State Pompeo at the same forum. Demanding that the world stop using Huawei technology—and by implication all Chinese technology—Pelosi denounced President Xi Jinping for undermining American “democratic values, human rights, economic independence and national security.” (See Documentation for how Chinese lawmaker Fu Ying exposed Pelosi’s idiocy before the Munich audience.)

Pompeo used the same psychotic phrases, essentially lifted from the 70-year-old speeches of Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare hysteria: “China is increasingly trying to co-opt officials at the state and local level…. They’re trying to affect not only our federal level but our state and local officials as well. And this is happening all across Europe and, indeed, all across the world.”

One cannot help but recall the words of Commander Jack D. Ripper in the brilliant film “Dr. Strangelove”: “I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

Pelosi and Pompeo demonstrate here that there is no fundamental difference between the Democrat side of “the swamp” and the Republican side, which has stood in the way of President Donald Trump’s clearly stated intention to end the regime change wars and establish friendly relations with China and Russia. Recall what he said just last month at the Davos Economic Forum: “Our relationship with China, right now, has probably never been better.  We went through a very rough patch, but it’s never, ever been better.  My relationship with President Xi is an extraordinary one.  He’s for China; I’m for the U.S.  But other than that, we love each other.”

This issue can and must be resolved, immediately, or the combination of the escalating economic-strategic confrontation between the United States and China and Russia, and the impending explosion of the out-of-control financial bubble across the entire U.S.-European banking sector, will drive the world to a war that would certainly end civilization as we know it.

As to Pelosi and the Democrats, that part of the problem is being addressed aggressively. Not only did the coup-attempt fail thus far, both with the Russiagate hoax and the impeachment charade, but President Trump and his Attorney General are taking action to expose and prosecute the Obama Administration operatives who served the British intelligence officials’ effort to overthrow the government of Donald Trump. AG Barr is also moving to correct the illegal prosecutions of innocents in the Mueller witch-hunt, including Roger Stone and Gen. Michael Flynn. The Democratic Party is in a state of disintegration, desperately hoping that the green fascist billionaire Michael Bloomberg can bail them out of their self-imposed collapse.

But Pompeo and his neocon cohorts within the Trump Administration are due to be exposed and removed from office. Pompeo has turned himself into a would-be colonial lord, touring South America, Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, all with the same message—break relations with China and Russia or face the full weight of American sanctions, regime-change subversion, and even military destruction, with the same results as those imposed by George Bush and Barack Obama in Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Trump needed the Republican Party leaders to block the crazy Democrats in the impeachment trial. This is not the case for the November election, since Trump directly communicates with the American people through his huge rallies and his Twitter exchanges, bypassing the controlled corporate media. He can finish the job of draining the swamp by adding Pompeo to the list that already includes John Bolton, Generals Mattis and Kelly, Dan Coats and others.

The LaRouche movement mobilization of the population to back such a cleansing, while also building an expanding constituency in the U.S. for the President to adopt the full LaRouche program, is the necessary and sufficient means to reverse the danger of sleepwalking into global war and economic depression, and to set in motion a truly global economic and cultural Renaissance. We call on President Trump to exonerate Lyndon LaRouche, as the surest means of unleashing that Renaissance—provoking the minds of the world citizens to the power of reason.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Pelosi Insists on Threat from China’s Huawei, as Lawmaker Asks ‘Is Your Democracy So Fragile?’

Feb. 15 (EIRNS)—In her speech at the Munich Security Conference yesterday, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned countries to steer clear of Chinese tech giant Huawei as they build their next-generation cellular networks, showing her “solidarity” with Pompeo and Esper’s anti-China diatribes there. Pelosi, however, was called out by one of China’s top female legislators.

In the discussion period, Fu Ying, former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, now chairwoman of the China’s National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee, politely informed Pelosi that when China first opened up, 40 years ago, “all the technologies came from Western countries, from the developed world. China has maintained its political system, the system led by the Communist Party, and has become successful, not threatened by the technology. How come, if Huawei’s technology with the 5G is introduced into Western countries, then it will threaten the political system? Do you really think that the democratic system is so fragile that it could be threatened by this single, high tech company of Huawei?” which drew considerable applause.

Pelosi, utterly disconcerted, attempted to sputter incoherently above the ovation for Fu: “Let me just say that—let me say to those of you who are applauding back there, that Huawei was created by reverse technology of American initiatives—that was one of the main ways they got started. So, yes, we take—we know the capabilities that Huawei has.

“We don’t want to emulate the Chinese system.  We do not want to be arresting millions of Uighurs, threatening Tibet, in terms of its culture, religion and faith, undermining democracy in Hong Kong, etc.  So, it isn’t a question of, ‘We have Huawei and we are a model, so why are you afraid of Huawei?’…

“I tell you, unequivocally, without any hesitations, be very careful when we go down this path, unless you want to end with a society like China, or an economy like China, which is not in the free enterprise mode…. If you want a free flow of information, if you want to build a collective conscious of values and respect for human rights and the rest, don’t go near Huawei.”

A preceding question from an unidentified individual probably got Pelosi going on her destabilization, asking: “I very much appreciated your comments on China and our Huawei 5G. Does it mean that you agree in substance with the China policy with President Trump?”

Pelosi first agreed they agreed, but then stopped, before going on à la Pompeo and Esper: “This is so predictable, I don’t know why it’s not self-evident to everyone that you do not want to give that power to an entity created by the People’s Liberation Army. Okay, so that’s where it came from—if they had an idea, good. But it is in furtherance of—and you know what, I’ll say this other thing: there are all kinds of aggression.

“There’s aggression into another country, as we saw with Ukraine. There’s aggression—economic aggression and the rest. This is the most insidious form of aggression. To have that line of communication, 5G, dominated by an autocratic government that does not share our values.”

Pompeo Boasts ‘The West Is Winning!’ at Munich ‘Westlessness’ Conference

Feb. 15 (EIRNS)—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his fellow West Point side-kick Defense Secretary of Defense Mark Esper probably thought they were at the Munich Security Conference to read the Riot Act to recalcitrant “internationalists.” The State Department titled Pompeo’s speech, “The West Is Winning,” a clear attack on the theme of “Westlessness,” as this year’s conference was titled.

Pompeo asserted that “Western values” would prevail over China’s desire for “empire.” “I’m happy to report that the death of the Transatlantic Alliance is grossly exaggerated. The West is winning, and we’re winning together,” he gloated. Regarding empire, Pompeo said that Russia’s 2014 so-called “annexation of Crimea,” cyber threats in Iran, and economic coercion by China, showed that all three countries were still “desiring empires” and seek to destabilize the “rules-based international system.” Pompeo no longer refers to “international law,” such as the principles in the UN Charter, which the U.S. had broken regularly under Bush, Obama, and still today, but only “rules-based order,” meaning whatever rules he chooses.

He reiterated his perennial, hysterical tirade on China and on Russia, pinpointing them as the key enemies of the West. And how did he indicate that the West has “won?” He pointed to the success of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, the last two of which, would probably have winced at being including, as both focus on creating good relationships with Russia and China.

Pompeo ended by relating a recent visit to a Ukrainian hospital to visit the wounded in the fight with their fellow (albeit Russian-speaking) Ukrainians. Pompeo gushed that as he was about to leave, one of the patients ripped off a unit badge from his uniform jacket to give him. Moved by this gesture, Pompeo didn’t clarify if the soldier was a member of the Ukraine armed forces fighting on the Ukrainian side or a member of one of the Ukrainian fascist units also fighting the Russians on behalf of “the West.” Perhaps he had better see which this was before he hangs it up in his office. But for Pompeo, it probably doesn’t really matter. While his speech may have been well received by any yahoos in the Munich audience, for most of them and back here at home, it left a bad taste in their mouths.

Esper Joins Pompeo and Pelosi in China-Bashing at Munich

Feb. 16 (EIRNS)—Secretary of Defense Mark Esper joined his “fellows in arms,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in bashing China as a threat to Europe and the United States, during his speech yesterday to the Munich Security Conference.  “America’s concerns about Beijing’s commercial and military expansion should be [Europe’s] concerns as well,” Esper declared. “China is currently applying economic and political pressure publicly and privately on many Indo-Pacific regions and European nations, to seek new strategic relationships,” he went on, calling the Belt and Road Initiative one such example. The BRI has wide-ranging implications for the U.S. and its allies as data security and military interoperability, he claimed. He dubbed private company Huawei another example, because it developed and is exporting 5G networks that threaten secure communications and jeopardize U.S. alliances.

Esper claimed that Chinese President Xi Jinping is “leading his nation even faster in the wrong direction: more internal repression, more predatory economic practices, more heavy-handedness and a more aggressive military posture.” The international community needs to be aware of the challenges presented by China’s manipulation of the longstanding international rules-based order (whatever those are) that have benefitted the world for many decades, he said.

Heavy Hospital Bed Losses Dramatize How Unprepared U.S. Is for an Epidemic Like Coronavirus

Feb. 15 (EIRNS)—The wave of hospital closures in the U.S., especially in rural areas, creates an automatic lack of capacity for handling emergency diseases, or even seasonal influenza and routine medical needs, as evidenced in Texas this week. On Feb. 13 there appeared two headlines the same day in the capital, Austin. First, in the Austin Statesman, “Proposed Medicaid Change Could Hurt Texas Hospitals,” referring to the fact that many that will close if their federal payments for poor patients are cut. Second, in Community Impact, “The First Coronavirus Case in Texas Was Just Confirmed. Here Is What Austinites Need To Know about the Virus.”

Statewide in Texas, at least 24 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, which is 15% of the state’s total. Right now, some 158 rural hospitals remain open, but half of them are operating at a loss. The proposal that the federal government will reduce Medicaid rates of payment to these institutions will shut them down.

Not just hospital staff, but the Texas Chamber of Commerce and others are activated against the federal government implementing its proposal to cut funding. The public comment period on it ended Feb. 1. It is not known when, or if, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services will act.

The President of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals John Henderson told the Austin Statesman Feb. 13, “This is as scary as anything we have dealt with in my 20 or so years in rural health care.” The same situation exists in states across the country.

Attorney General Barr Intervening in Mueller Victimization Cases of Roger Stone, Michael Flynn

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Attorney General William Barr is directly intervening to correct the horrible wrongs imposed on innocent victims under the Mueller with-hunt, including RogerStone and Gen. Michael Flynn.

In an interview with ABC News on Feb. 13, he explained that he had not been pressured by President Donald Trump to intervene in the Roger Stone sentencing recommendation, or any other cases. He said he supported the conviction of Stone, since he had lied to the Congress, but that he was blindsided by the excessive sentence the prosecutors proposed. He then went on (which has become the headline story everywhere): “I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases. I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody … whether it’s Congress, a newspaper editorial board, or the President. I’m going to do what I think is right, and you know … I cannot do my job here at the Department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me.”

While clearly mentioning the President, it should be remembered that Barr is being “bullied” by the press and the Pelosi gang on a daily basis, including calls for his impeachment as a “toady” for the President.

Today the New York Times leaked that Barr has appointed a prosecutor from St. Louis (i.e., not from Washington) to review the entire case against Gen. Michael Flynn. The very worried New York Times reports this from “sources,” and writes that it is “highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors.” More likely they are concerned that it could trigger more criminal investigations into the coup against the President, and even into their own role in that treasonous operation.

Trump Again Distances Himself from His Cabinet and Military, This Time on the Philippines

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump on Feb. 13 was asked by the press what he thought about Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte scrapping the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) this week, giving the U.S. 180 days to pull its troops and equipment out of the country (see EIR Daily Alert, Feb. 10, 2020). His response: “Well, I never minded that so much, to be honest. We helped the Philippines very much. We helped them defeat ISIS. I don’t really mind if they would like us to do that—it will save us a lot of money. My views are different from others.” He also said that he has a very good relationship with Duterte—Duterte had said the same thing about Trump, distinguishing him from the Congress and the State Department for their outrageous attacks on his country—the Congress imposed Magnitsky sanctions for arresting the former Justice Secretary when she was caught in drug deals, and the State Department lifted the visa of the former chief of police (now a Senator) who ran Duterte’s war on drugs.

Indeed, Trump is distinguishing himself from those raging against Duterte. Defense Secretary Mark Esper commented on Duterte scrapping the VFA: “I do think it would be a move in the wrong direction as we both, bilaterally with the Philippines and collectively with a number of other partners and allies in the region, are trying to say to the Chinese, ‘You must obey the international rules of order. You must obey, you know, abide by international norms….’ As we try and bolster our presence and compete with [China] in this era of great power competition, I think it’s a move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had with the Philippines for their strategic location, the ties between our peoples, our countries.”

The annual large-scale Balikatan U.S.-Philippine military operations fall within the next 180 days, and are therefore likely to go ahead. After that, unless things are changed, such exercises would require new agreements, or be cancelled.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Lavrov Admonishes, NATO Should Look at the Consequences of Its Own Actions

Feb. 16 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 15, advised NATO that it should look at the consequences of its own actions. “Escalating tensions, NATO’s military infrastructure advancing to the East, exercises of unprecedented scope near the Russian borders, the pumping of defense budgets beyond measure—all this generates unpredictability,” he said. He then urged for Europe to focus on security cooperation and helping to uphold international treaties, instead of following a policy of confrontation.

“Give up on promoting the phantom of the ‘Russian threat’ or any other threat—before it’s too late—and remember what unites us all,” Lavrov said. He observed that “breakthrough technologies” must not be used to disrupt international stability further, stressing the importance of efforts aimed at “preventing an arms race in space and not allowing the militarization of cyberspace.”

Lavrov also declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed for a summit of the founding members of the United Nations not because it’s some kind of private club, but rather that, under the UN Charter, the five nations—Russia, United States, China, United Kingdom and France—“bare particular responsibility for everything happening in the sphere of maintaining global peace and security.”

ECONOMY

Fed Tries Tapering Again—Be Ready for Another Crash

Feb. 15 (EIRNS)—Starting today, the upper limit of Federal Reserve injections into the overnight repo market will be reduced from $120 to $100 billion, and bi-weekly operations will be reduced from $30 to $25 billion now, and then to $20 billion from March 3 on. The Financial Times complains that the correction is more energetic than expected. The Fed will continue to buy $60 billion a month of Treasury bills on the secondary market.

Pam and Russ Martens in their “Wall Street on Parade” website have compared the cumulative figures of the current Fed bailout to the cumulative figures of the 2007-2008 bailout, which really ended in 2010. In four months, from Sept. 17, 2019 to Jan. 15, 2020, the cumulative figure of liquidity the Fed has injected to bail out Wall Street is $6.6 trillion, according to Fed figures.

In the period from December 2007 to July 21, 2010, the cumulative amount of money provided by the Fed was $29 trillion, according to Levy Economics Institute.

The cumulative figures do not mean that the money supply in the system increased by that figure, of course, since much of it is repaid after days or weeks, but it gives an indication of how long the debt rollover lasted and how serious the problem was.

The current bailout is, on average, bigger: $1.65 trillion a month versus $0.93 trillion in the big 2007-2008 bailout.

IMF Whines to Argentina’s VP, ‘We Didn’t Violate Our Statutes’ on $57 Billion Bailout Loan

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—In his Feb. 13 press conference in Washington, a very defensive IMF press spokesman Gerry Rice was forced to respond to the Feb. 8 accusation by Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner that the IMF had violated its own statutes, when it lent the country an unprecedented $57 billion in 2018, which was used to abet capital flight and speculative currency operations. In 2019, almost $27 billion fled the country, and throughout the 2015-2019 term of Mauricio Macri’s government, capital flight totaled $88.3 billion, Ambito Financiero reported.

The Fund, Fernández de Kirchner said, should accept a “substantial haircut,” and pointed out that Argentine debt makes up 60% of the Fund’s loan portfolio. When asked about this, Rice told a reporter “I can absolutely assure everyone that there was no violation of IMF rules,” and then retailed that a “haircut” is impossible because it would violate IMF statues!

Not so fast, tweeted Fernández de Kirchner yesterday in response to Rice. “No comment; we Argentines know how to read,” she said, and included an image of Article IV of the IMF’s statute which refers to “the use of the Fund’s general resources for capital transfers.” Part a) Section I of that document states that no member country may use the Fund’s general funds “for a considerable or continuous flight of capital. The Fund may ask a member country to adopt controls to “prevent the Fund’s financial resources being used for that purpose.”

In an interview with Radio Rivadavia yesterday, President Alberto Fernández described the Vice President’s comments as “very pertinent, because I’ve said many times that, in terms of the statute prohibiting lending money to cover runs on the currency, the Fund failed. What Cristina says is that if [the Fund] failed on that, they should accept a haircut. This is absolutely pertinent.” He said that in his meetings with the IMF prior to taking office, “I told them they had failed to comply with norms that prohibit lending money to cover runs on the currency.”

Yesterday, the visiting IMF delegation met with Social Development Minister Daniel Arroyo, who bluntly portrayed “the social catastrophe” Argentina faces, seen in the recent deaths from malnutrition of poor indigenous Wichi children in the northern province of Salta. He told the IMF: “We can’t pay.”

How Wall Street Elite Will Steal You Blind for ‘Climate Change’

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—Whereas EIR’s 2019 special report, “ ‘CO2 Reduction’ Is a Mass Murder Policy, Designed by Wall Street and the City of London,” warned that Wall Street two top establishment dons, George Shultz and James Baker III, were pushing for a carbon tax that would immediately shut down all coal production and use, and oil only a bit more gradually, and would steal employment and wealth from Americans, today’s Washington Post announced it with fanfare and praise.

Starting with a dinner meeting on Feb. 10 with the nine of twelve members of the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, the Climate Leadership Council is pushing out their Baker-Shultz carbon tax. The Climate Leadership Council is a large grouping of the biggest Wall Street banks, funds, and insurance companies, and the biggest oil companies. It says its carbon tax is supported by “more than 3,500 U.S. economists, four former Federal Reserve chairs, 27 Nobel laureates in economics and 15 of 16 living former chairs of the presidential Council of Economic Advisors” (all except Joseph Stiglitz). Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says there’s “wide agreement” for it; it’s the entire elite of Wall Street. And the Post flares off a lead editorial in praise of the “carbon tax and dividend” plan—won’t cost anyone a penny, it says.

The tax starts at $45/ton on coal and rises every year—that immediately doubles the price of coal and eliminates coal mining and coal-fired power in one fell swoop. It taxes natural gas at $2.28 per thousand cu. ft. to start—that more than doubles the price of natural gas overnight. It’s estimated to raise the price of gasoline by about 38 cents a gallon; oil, by about 25%. And after collecting the tax, the government is supposed to give every household of four a “carbon fee dividend” of $2,000 a year.

If you use 20 gallons of gas a week, you’d spend close to $1,000 a year more on gas. Two cars for your family of four? Your gasoline costs would go up nearly $2,000 a year. There went your carbon fee dividend—before you actually received it at the end of the year. Then there’s the natural gas you use for heating and cooking, or the oil. And the quickly ballooning cost of electricity, now that you would be using wind- and solar-generated power, German-style. The Germans now ruefully call their electric bills their “second mortgages.”

Of course if you work in coal or oil or at power plants run with them, or build plants, or work on pipelines or at refineries, chemical plants, etc., you would likely be unemployed when your dividend arrived, and probably driving less, heating and cooking less, eating less, using less electricity….

That is precisely the idea of Baker, Shultz and the rest of the Wall Street elite, not to mention Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, the British royals, and Sir Michael “Mouseolini” Bloomberg.

It is useful that your present President is strongly opposed to it; it gives you something to work on if you’re willing to act to stop this.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

China Could Be Involved in Building British High-Speed Rail

Feb. 15 (EIRNS)—Great Britain is in talks with China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) in regard to the construction of Britain’s HS2 high-speed train network. According to the Feb. 14 Financial Times, the U.K.’s Department for Transport officials confirmed that “preliminary discussions” had taken place between CCRC and HS2 Ltd, but said no “concrete commitments” had been made. “The [Transportation Department] is always keen to learn from the experience of others and to consider approaches that offer value for money,” the department informed FT.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the decision earlier this week to sign off on beginning the HS2 project. Current plans call for the line to be finished by 2040, but Johnson has said he wants it finished by 2035. The FT reports that the CCRC had written to HSA2 Ltd. saying it could complete the project by the date, and do so at a reduced price.

The letter, which was first reported by Building magazine, states: “We are certain that we can offer a cost that is significantly lower than the projections we have seen. The advantages are too great, in our opinion, too great to dismiss on the basis that there are obstacles to overcome. You will find that the Chinese way is to seek solutions, not linger on obstacles and difficulties.”

World’s Longest Fiber-Optic Telecomm Cable Will Link Southeast Asia to U.S. Mainland

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—A 16,000 km Internet-enabling fiber-optic cable will be launched from Singapore, cross the Java Sea and then curve northwards through the Banda Sea east of the island of Sulawesi andon through Micronesia before crossing the Pacific Ocean. A 300 km branch of the new Southeast Asia cable will come ashore near the Java coastal settlement of Tanjung Pakis, 50 km northeast of Jakarta, where it will plug into the network of the Indonesian mobile telecom operator, Asia Times reported today.

On completion, the cable, named TPN for its developer, Trans Pacific Networks, will be the first subsea route to directly connect Singapore, Indonesia and the U.S., and will have the capability to serve several markets in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The cable will eventually make landfall near the Eureka, California port town; 360 km north, in Pacific City, Oregon is the terminus for the second, newly laid 13,600 km high-capacity cable linking the U.S. to China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Set up by the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act of 2018 (BUILD Act) to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the International Development Finance Corp. is backing the TPN, which IDFC sees will be a critical element of the Indo-Pacific digital infrastructure.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Johnson’s Chancellor of Exchequer Resigns, Replaced with Fairly Unknown Hedge Fund Manager

Feb. 14 (EIRNS)—British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has conducted a rather brutal cabinet reshuffle. His Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid resigned over the fact that Johnson demanded that he fire five of his advisors. Johnson then appointed Rishi Sunak, an ultra-loyalist, as Javid’s replacement, a move seen as giving Johnson de facto control of the Treasury.

Sunak is virtually unknown, and has held no government office before taking over the Treasury Ministry, the second leading role in Britain’s government. While Javid had been a managing director of Deutsche Bank, Sunak worked as a hedge fund manager for Goldman Sachs until forming his own hedge fund, and later as a partner at the hedge fund management firm the Children’s Investment Fund Management until he went into a partnership to form the Theleme Partners hedge fund. The Children’s investment Fund Management is a notorious funder of the climate change movement, including the notorious Extinction Rebellion, whose CEO is a board member of the Carbon Disclosure Project. Sunak is married to the daughter of Infosys founder, N.R. Narayana Murthy, one of the richest men in India.

The Guardian writes that Johnson’s top advisor, Dominic Cummings, was behind the move, with an eye to give Johnson more control over economic policy and spending plans, and making a shift towards greater spending. It also occurs when the new budget is supposed to be presented March 11 if it is not delayed, which left the Treasury in shock. Javid was a believer in balancing the books.

No one is speculating as to what such a move means if a financial crisis comes along.

The job of chief secretary to the Treasury, who will play a key role in the upcoming spending review, went to the former Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay. It seems that many of the Remainers—those who wanted to Remain in the EU—also lost their jobs.

Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935