EDITORIAL
What Are the Real Issues Behind All This?
June 15 (EIRNS)—The British have repeatedly assassinated American Presidents, after first assassinating the father of our Constitutional system, Alexander Hamilton. But you would have to go all the way back to Abraham Lincoln, to find the sorts of repeated threats against a President, especially threats of murder, that are being made against President Donald Trump right now—under British direction. A “comedian,” Kathy Griffin, is circulating a photograph of herself on the Internet, holding up a replica of the President’s severed, bloodied head.
At the same time, the protracted stabbing-murder of President Trump is being regularly performed before large audiences in New York’s Central Park, under the proud sponsorship, and with the repeated vigorous endorsement of the traitors at the British-loving New York Times—under the absurd guise of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The “actor” allegedly portraying Julius Caesar in this bloody farce, is dressed and made up to look exactly like President Trump—while his wife speaks with a Slavic accent and looks and dresses just like the President’s wife Melania.
Obviously, no one believes the New York Times that this represents “freedom of speech.” It represents deliberate incitement to political murder, or even a license to kill—and that, even while an innocent U.S. Congressman, Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, and another innocent man, are in critical condition in a Washington, D.C. hospital, after being shot yesterday morning by a crazed mass-shooter looking for “Republicans” to kill.
Much more just like this could be adduced.
The British Empire, whose bloodlust is behind all of this, just called this morning for Trump’s impeachment, in their flagship Financial Times of London, arguing that there is more than enough evidence to charge the President with obstruction of justice.
The reason for the parallel to the same murderous hysteria whipped up against Abraham Lincoln, is that the issues today are actually no less important than they were then. Then, it was the question of the survival of this Republic in the face of that same British Empire—a question which involved the future of the entire human species. Now, EIR Founding Editor Lyndon LaRouche has made it clear that the victory of former FBI Director Jim Comey and Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s FBI in their attempted coup against President Trump, would plunge the world into a nuclear war which would destroy our civilization and perhaps our species.
On the other side, the continuation of the Constitutional institution of the Presidency under the legitimate President Donald Trump—and the prosecution and conviction of the foreign-sponsored traitors who would wreck it—moves the United States into the “New Paradigm” for which Lyndon and Helga LaRouche have fought for almost half a century, by way of President Trump’s open and sincere commitment to peace and partnership with Russia and China. Franklin Roosevelt’s Glass-Steagall Act must be restored, as President Trump has promised, as part of Lyndon LaRouche’s “Four Laws” of June 2014, encompassing national banking, massive Federal credit issuance, fusion power development, and a full space program in an international cooperative effort.
This is the choice that is now before this generation.
NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Chinese and Spanish Bidders Urged To Join Building Inga-3 Congo River Hydropower Project
June 15 (EIRNS)—The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (D.R.C.) Agency for the Development and Promotion of Grand Inga (ADPI), in charge of developing the Grand Inga, the world’s largest hydropower generation plant, has urged the bidders for the Inga-3—Pro Inga, led by ACS and Eurofinsa, both based in Madrid; and Chine d’Inga, led by China’s two largest hydropower companies, Three Gorges Corporation and Sinohydro—to come together to form a consortium to build the 4.8 GW plant, with an estimated cost of $12 billion. The Grand Inga project, of which Inga-3 is a part, would have a generating capacity of 40 GW and would be developed in seven phases beginning with Inga-3, which itself would have two phases. In October 2013, the D.R.C. sealed a deal with South Africa whereby the latter committed to buying 2.5GW of the 4.8GW to be generated by Inga-3. As of now, D.R.C.’s power generating capacity is about 2 GW of power, and that of South Africa is close to 50 GW.
Grand Inga, consisting of Inga-3 thru Inga-8, is a mighty project, and once built, will have twice the capacity of China’s Three Gorges Dam, which contains the world’s single-largest hydropower generating plant. Grand Inga is unique in many aspects.
The Inga dams are located in the western part of the D.R.C., about 50 km upstream of the mouth of the Congo River where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and 225 km southwest of the capital Kinshasa, on the Congo River. The Congo River is the world’s second largest in terms of the volume of water it carries (42,000 m^3/s), after the Amazon, and the second longest river in Africa (4,700 km), after the Nile River. It empties into the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, creating what is famously known as the Congo Plume. The plume is a high productivity area arising from the rich nutrient flow from the river, and is detected as far as 800km offshore. The plume accounts for 40%-80% of total carbon productivity and is one of the largest carbon sinks in the world, according to the International Rivers Journal.
AIIB Approves Two Loans and an Equity Investment Totaling $324 Million
June 15 (EIRNS)—On June 15, a day before its second annual meeting to be held in Jeju, South Korea, D.J. Pandian, Vice President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), announced that the bank has approved two loans and one equity investment worth $324 million in Georgia, Tajikistan, and India. “The bank’s first-ever equity investment of $150 million, aims to help attract private capital for infrastructure projects in India,” said Pandian, AIIB’s website reported today. With this $324 million, in two years, AIIB’s approved loans and investment have reached $2.5 billion, disbursed to 16 projects in countries including Bangladesh, Oman, and Pakistan.
One loan of $114 million co-financed with the Asia Development Bank will be disbursed to help build the Batumi Bypass Road Project in Georgia. This involves construction of a new, two-lane 14.3 km highway to provide a bypass to the Batumi port, Georgia’s second-largest city. The road will be built on a new alignment, which passes through a number of mountainous settlements. Due to the terrain, this stretch of road requires construction of 5 tunnels and 19 bridges over rivers and valleys, AIIB’s website reported.
The second loan of $60 million has been awarded for conducting the first phase of rehabilitation of the Nurek hydropower plant (HPP) in Tajikistan. The first phase will consist of rehabilitation of the power plant and replacement of auto-transformers; improvement of the safety of the operation of the Nurek HPP; and supporting the implementation of the project, and strengthening the institutional capacity of Barqi Tojik—the national integrated power company of Tajikistan.
Greece Promoting Sino-European Cooperation
June 15 (EIRNS)—In a meeting with Han Zheng, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, who is on an official visit to Athens, Greek Parliament Speaker Nikos Voutsis said Greece is working to promote strategic cooperation between the European Union and China.
“The Greek Parliament contributes efficiently in the implementation of the agreements established between our two countries, agreements that over the past ten years have become more and more frequent and significant,” Voutsis told Han.
Voutsis also referred to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s participation in the May 14-15 Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, where he spoke of the financial, commercial, cultural, and educational dimension of the Sino-Greek cooperation.
For his part, Han thanked the Greek Parliament for its efforts to further enhance bilateral relations, and expressed confidence that the two countries’ cooperation and friendly relations will further deepen, according to Xinhua.
U.S. ECONOMIC & POLITICAL
U.S. Senate Votes Up Anti-Russia Sanctions
June 15 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted 97-2 in favor of an amendment to pending Iran sanctions legislation that will not only codify sanctions against Russia that were imposed by President Barack Obama before he left office, but also imposes new sanctions. The Trump Administration obviously opposes it.
As described by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) on the floor of the Senate on June 13, aside from codifying existing sanctions, the amendment also attacks Russian economic activities in gas and oil production, rail, shipping and metals and mining. It also imposes secondary sanctions on foreign entities doing business with certain Russian energy projects, to include foreign financial institutions that facilitate those activities. It sanctions Russian government officials, their relatives and close associates deemed to be responsible for “significant corruption” in Russia and elsewhere, and those who work for or on behalf of the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, those who invest or support the construction of Russian energy export pipelines, and corrupt government officials who enrich themselves after making deals to privatize state-owned assets.
Finally, it provides that no sanctions can be lifted by the President without Congressional review. The amendment provides for an expedited process by which Congress can have hearings and then a vote on whether or not it rejects the President’s proposed lifting of any, or all, of the sanctions. During that process, the sanctions will remain in place unless the Congress votes in agreement with the President.
The Senate voted 98-2, today, to pass the underlying Iran sanctions legislation as amended. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.
Trump To Host South Korea President, Unofficial Talks on the North Could Begin Soon
June 14 (EIRNS)— U.S. President Donald Trump will host South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House, June 29-30, to advance economic cooperation and discuss ways of strengthening the two countries’ ”ironclad alliance,” the White House said on June 13. The White House also stated that “the leaders will also coordinate on North Korea-related issues, including countering the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threats.”
The Korean Times, citing diplomatic and security sources, reports that unofficial talks involving North Korea could be held next month and include diplomats and experts from countries involved in efforts to denuclearize D.P.R.K. (North Korea), including member states of the long-suspended six-party denuclearization talks. They will be attending the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) to be held in Singapore.
The NEACD is an annual diplomatic and security forum regarded as the “Track 1.5” platform where North Korea, along with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia, usually send senior nuclear envoys and other experts.
While the event will be organized by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) of the University of California, the dates and program have not been confirmed. Last year’s meeting of the NEACD was held in Beijing. Bilateral talks among the members of the six-party talks, including North Korea, could take place on the sidelines of the meeting.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Hillary Clinton Acted To Prevent Italy-China Cooperation in 2011
June 15 (EIRNS)—In the context of negotiations for building the European terminal of the Maritime Silk Road in Southern Italy, there were meetings in Rome between the executives of the Chinese Investment Corp. (CIC) and Italian officials in September 2011, including then-Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti and then-Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. In the latter meeting, the CIC asked for a list of ten major projects to finance in Sicily. The list was quickly drafted and delivered to the CIC.
According to an account in the Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, CIC head Lou Jiwei discussed with the Italians helping to finance infrastructure in the amount of €60 billion. Among these projects were the Messina Bridge, the Augusta port and other ports in southern and northern Italy.
This report went unnoticed at the time, while a fake news report by London’s Financial Times, according to which Italy wanted China to simply buy Italian debt, dominated the news coverage.
The Italian-Chinese investment plans alarmed the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton, who soon afterwards raised the issue with Frattini. Eventually, the Berlusconi government, already under siege, was toppled in December that year.
Negotiations between Italy and China were so advanced that the Port of Augusta had already received a first loan of €100 million to build a logistics service area next to the port. Additionally, a protocol of understanding had been signed in Rome between the Sicilian administration and the China Development Bank.
With the EU-imposed a government under Mario Monti that year, which stopped the construction of the Messina Bridge, and with the political change in Sicily after the election of the new Democratic Party governor Rosario Crocetta, the project was buried. A last attempt was made with a visit by the third-highest state authority of China, the chairman of National People’s Congress, in 2012, but Crocetta, a militant homosexual who has no competence whatsoever, did not raise any relevant issue with his Chinese guest. After that, Beijing decided that the Italians were unreliable and ended their efforts.
The European Union Implements More Bail-Ins against Depositors
June 15 (EIRNS)—The Italian government has obtained a green light from the EU in Brussels to apply the Spanish Banco Popular solution to two banks in the Veneto region, Popolare Vicenza and Veneto Banca, which are threatened with a recovery procedure by the EU. There will be no bail-out formally, because the two banks will be sold to larger banks (one of them being Unicredit), but the government will inject money under the clause of “precautionary recapitalization.”
The condition for all this is that owners of subordinate bonds will be sacrificed, for a total amount of €1.25 billion. These are retail customers who were sold such bonds as “safe” by their own bank, at over 10% yield per annum, and with a maturity of 10 years. Those customers are already up in arms, and have announced legal actions, based on the precedent that a court has already ruled against Popolare Vicenza in a case where bonds were sold without the necessary information about the actual risk involved.
Another bail-in is coming for owners of Monte dei Paschi (MPS) subordinate bonds. The EU Commission has approved the Italian government plan to recapitalize MPS with €6.6 billion, de facto nationalizing 70% of the bank. The condition is the sacrifice of 40,000 retail owners of subordinate bonds for a total of €2.1 billion. Attorneys for MPS, however, claim that these customers will lose only between 15% and 25%.
These bonds were issued by MPS in 2008, in order to help finance its acquisition of Banca Antonveneta. This was the illegal deal allowed by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Italy, that cost Antonveneta up to €18 billion, with losses that MPS concealed with derivative schemes sold by Deutsche Bank and Nomura. That deal is the main cause for the bankruptcy of MPS today, and which would have been prevented if the bank separation regime, which existed in Italy until 1995, had not been lifted, allowing a commercial bank such as MPS to go into investment banking.
SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE
China Launches Advanced X-Ray Telescope To Study Black Holes, Pulsars, and ‘Unique Observations’
June 15 (EIRNS)—China launched its Hard X-Ray Modulation Telescope, (HXMT) dubbed “Insight,” from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 11 a.m. today (0300 UTC). As described by Chinese scientists, it is a more advanced instrument than previous X-ray satellites, and will study pulsars, and black holes, and search for gamma-ray bursts that correspond to gravitational waves. The “Insight” telescope, which is “the result of the wisdom and efforts of several generations of Chinese scientists,” as Xinhua reports, is designed to operate for at least four years. It is the last of four space science missions to be launched under the 12th Five-Year Plan.
The telescope will be able to detect a broader range of frequencies than previous satellites, with a trio of detectors for the high-, medium-, and low-energy X-ray range. It also has a detection area described as the largest in the world in its energy band. Xiong Shaolin, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of High Energy Physics, says the telescope “can identify more features of known sources,” in addition to detecting new X-ray sources.
Of particular interest, Xinhua’s report continued, is to further understand astronomical objects that have been observed, but are not well comprehended. “We are still not clear about the interior of pulsars,” said Zhang Shuangnan, the lead scientist for the mission. “Current physical laws cannot describe the substances in the state of a pulsar well, since no lab on Earth can create a density as high as a pulsar. So we have to conduct more observations.” Understanding what makes pulsars “tick,” will aid in the use of their precisely regular emissions in spacecraft navigation.
Black holes are another area of great interest, Zhang also explained. “There are so many black holes and neutron stars in the universe, but we don’t have a thorough understanding of them,” Zhang said. Black holes “can generate various types of radiation, including X-rays and high-energy cosmic rays, as well as strong jets.” So far, about 20 have been found in our Milky Way galaxy. Zhang said that sometimes a black hole is “calm,” but other times, it is “bad tempered,” and when it gets “angry,” it generates very strong electromagnetic radiation. They have not been observed long enough to explain why. Scientists expect that the unique observations from the Insight telescope will “bring new breakthroughs in physics,” said Zhang.
South Africa’s Transnet Seeks Further Cooperation with China’s Railway Construction Corp.
June 15 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Xinhua in Johannesburg at the June 13-14 Africa Rail 2017 conference, the Chief Advanced Manufacturing Officer of South Africa’s state-owned Transnet, Thamsanqa Jiyane, said they are negotiating with China’s locomotive manufacturer, China Railway Construction Corp. (CRRC), “to take their relationship to another level.” Transnet has been providing CRRC facilities to produce locomotives. “The Chinese within a short space of time, have done what the EU and the United States failed to do over years in terms of skills transfer, and some of the things we never dreamed we will have…. The Chinese have brought a new kind of partnership, where they impart skills for our future use on our own,” said Jiyane.
The collaboration between these two firms took off following the visit of China’s Vice President Dr. Li Yuanchao, to South Africa last November 2016. Among many areas of agreements signed during the visit, the cooperation of Transnet and CRRC was an important one. The agreement called for joint production of locomotives by China’s CRRC and South Africa’s Transnet. Through technology transfer and local production, the joint venture—which is expected to become a major production base for the African railway network—has helped Transnet to upgrade products and technologies. Wang Guojun, General Manager of CRRC South Africa, told Xinhua that CRRC has supplied South Africa with more than 250 locomotives since 2013.
OTHER
Russia Briefing on Rebuilding Aleppo, Stresses Need for Recovery Assistance
June 15 (EIRNS)—The Russian Mission to the United Nations in Geneva sponsored a live-streamed briefing, yesterday, on “Aleppo: A City without Terror. New Life, New Hope,” at which the several speakers stressed the importance and necessity of the recovery of the Syrian city of Aleppo, which was liberated from the jihadis last December. Alexey Borodavkin, Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, called on the international community to extend assistance to the Syrian authorities in restoring Aleppo, and not hinder this effort with sanctions. “It is crucial to assist the Syrian authorities in their efforts to restore life in the city to normal, and not try to interfere with this work by using unilateral, unlawful and inhuman sanctions and false charges,” he said. “These practices should have been terminated long ago.”
“We are calling upon all countries, international organizations and non-governmental organizations to present a common front in the cause of assistance to Aleppo to let the people of that long-suffering city forget the hardships they survived as soon as possible and to restore peace, calm and prosperity to the land of Syria,” Borodavkin said.
Hussein Diab, the governor of the province of Aleppo, joined Borodavkin in this call, pointing out that Western sanctions are inhibiting the importation and production of vital medicines inside Syria. “I would like to use this opportunity to reiterate our demand to lift unjust sanctions which are aimed against the Syrian people, above all, that hindered and keep hindering the restart of local manufacturing, first of all, the pharmaceutical and medical production. The sanctions hinder supplying our people with necessary medications and medical services,” Diab said.
Gen. Vladimir Savchenko, the chief of the Russian Reconciliation Center, reported, among other things, that the restoration of electricity and water to parts of the city have allowed 70,000 people, including 40,000 children, to return to their homes. He and other speakers described the intense level of humanitarian activities being carried out in Aleppo by the Russian military, to include provision of medical care, and delivery of over 850 tons of humanitarian aid supplies.
