EDITORIAL
Trump-Putin Summit Agreed On! Geopolitics Can Be Crushed!
June 27 (EIRNS)—The long-awaited summit between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin has now been officially agreed upon, the date and location to be announced in Washington and Moscow on June 28. Nearly two years after British intelligence orchestrated the creation of the FBI’s “Get Trump Task Force” under James Comey, with Peter Strzok, et al., the British Empire’s nightmare—a summit between these two presidents—is set to occur.
President Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov announced the agreement following U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s meetings today with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu and Ushakov. “This is actually what John Bolton’s visit was planned for and it yielded the results we had expected,” Ushakov reported, further saying that the discussion was “especially useful precisely in the context of preparing a summit meeting.” Discussions covered everything from strategic stability in the world, control of nuclear armaments and disarmament generally, to regional issues, with a focus on Syria, the intra-Ukrainian crisis, North Korea and the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, Ushakov reported. And, of course, the canard of “Russian meddling in U.S. elections.”
As the Moscow meetings were going on, President Trump reiterated to reporters at the White House, “I’ve said it from day one: Getting along with Russia and with China and with everybody is a very good thing. It’s good for the world, it’s good for us, it’s good for everybody.”
The announcement provoked such howling from geopolitical diehards as the statement by German conservative daily Die Welt that this summit is an absolute catastrophe, because there is the danger that Trump and Putin could make an agreement, whereby the NATO maneuvers in Eastern Europe are reduced and that Trump could portray himself as the big peace-maker.
“That shows you how absolutely crazy this neo-liberal/neo-conservative faction on both sides of the Atlantic is,” Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche exclaimed in her weekly webcast today. “What could anybody who likes to have world peace wish better than that Russia and the United States, which after all are the two most powerful nuclear forces on the planet, if they could come to a strategic agreement? This is a very important, good development.”
In her view, “the two Presidents will hit it off very well, because they have basically a better understanding of the strategic situation, than their critics.”
Add to the picture, that also today, Chinese President Xi Jinping received U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis in Beijing, for the purpose of building strategic trust between the two countries. “This is exactly what should happen, that you have an increasing cooperation among the largest powers in the world: the United States, China, Russia, and as we discussed earlier, there is also some slower motion on the side of India, to come to such an agreement,” Zepp-LaRouche declared.
As for Europe, while the European establishment remains incapable of recognizing that their Western model is about to collapse, the Schiller Institute president believes that her proposal for an EU summit with President Xi and African leaders to reach an agreement to cooperate in developing Africa into a modern economic powerhouse will come to fruition. “You could have a situation where any number of European countries could call such an emergency summit in July, in August. One could take the UN General Assembly in New York, to put this on the agenda, and one could form in the meantime, a ‘coalition of the willing’—to give that horrible phrase a more positive meaning—and one could start moving in that direction,” she said.
That June 18 proposal is being circulated around the world in at least 10 languages now.
Add, now, the results of recent U.S. elections, which show that there is “quite good reason to think that not everything is controlled by the financial oligarchy, that money no longer buys every seat, which it used to do for a long time, and that there is the chance to really change the situation in the world for the better,” Zepp-LaRouche said.
If more people “join in this optimism, that man is indeed greater than his destiny, and that if many people of good will are joining forces together, that—as Schiller says in one of his writings about the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain—that you can bring down even the arm of the strongest tyrant by uniting for a good plan,” she concluded.
ENDING GEOPOLITICS
Mattis Meets with President Xi and Chinese Minister of Defense
June 27 (EIRNS)—Today, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with Wei Fenghe, China’s Minister of National Defense, and then with President Xi Jinping, for the purpose of building up mutual trust, as was stated explicitly, between the two nations on military relations. Recent disagreements over military activities in the South China Sea, the status of Taiwan, and the United States’ cancellation of Chinese participation in the May RIMPAC (Pacific Rim) naval exercises have heightened concern over the two nations’ strategic relationship.
Mattis invited Commander Wei to visit him at the Pentagon. At their meeting, Wei told Mattis, “China and the U.S. can develop together only when they both agree on no conflicts, no confrontations, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.”
President Xi assured Mattis that China seeks no conflicts, but that it will not permit the loss of even one inch of Chinese territory, which Xi said, was inherited from China’s ancestors.
Mattis thanked Xi. He told reporters that the talks had been “very, very” good. He expressed interest in pursuing respectful cooperation between the two powers. He said, “I am happy to be in China and we are assigning the same high degree of importance to the military relationship.”
In advance of the meetings, China’s Defense spokesman, Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, explained, “China attaches great importance to developing military relations with the U.S. and hopes that the U.S. and China can meet each other halfway and work together to make the bilateral military relations an important stabilizing factor for relations between the two countries.”
Russian Energy Minister Novak in Washington, Meets Energy Secretary Perry
June 27 (EIRNS) —Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, in the U.S. to attend the World Gas Conference, met yesterday with U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry in Washington, to discuss “bilateral energy cooperation, the current state of collaboration and future perspectives, presence of U.S. companies on the Russian market, including such companies as ExxonMobil, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Honeywell, among others,” Novak told reporters following the meeting with Perry.
Novak reported that the two also discussed the Nord Stream 2 project for a new export gas pipeline running from Russia to Europe across the Baltic Sea, which is an anathema for anti-Russia ideologues.
On that, “we have exchanged opinions, as they say. We will keep discussing this issue, because Secretary Perry and I agreed to maintain contact,” Novak stated. He reported that he invited Perry to the Russian Energy Week in Moscow next Oct. 3-8, and that the two “agreed to maintain contacts and cooperation in this area, because energy has the potential of becoming the driving force for our relations.
“In general, this market will keep growing, it will become more and more globalized. Worldwide gas consumption will grow, especially on regional markets, such as Asia-Pacific and Africa, where lots of people have no access to traditional sources of energy. That’s why there is huge potential for developing cooperation in this area and for joining forces. I think that such an opportunity exists.
“But, of course, we will need to make maximum effort to turn the [Russian-U.S.] energy cooperation into, as I have already said, the driving force of our relations,” Novak said.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Wall Street Democrat Loses Congressional Primary to Young Anti-Wall Street Activist
June 27 (EIRNS)—In a major upset, Rep. Joe Crowley, a 20-year Democratic Congressman from New York City, in the top rung of House Democratic leadership, lost his primary yesterday to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and well-spoken activist against Wall Street and for Glass-Steagall. With 98% of the precincts in the 14th CD reporting, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had 57.5% and Crowley had 42.5%, in a district that included parts of Queens and the Bronx.
Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto-Rican American and former Bernie Sanders volunteer, won because she hit at Crowley’s ties to Wall Street, accusing him of being out of touch with the reality of his district.
Crowley is head of the Queens County Democratic Party, and the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, who was considered as Nancy Pelosi’s likely successor as House Speaker if she had stepped down. This was the first primary Crowley had faced since 2004. He spent over $3 million, 10 times the budget Ocasio-Cortez had.
In reaction President Donald Trump tweeted: “Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election. In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!”
The Glass-Steagall message is reverberating in political circles. Wall Street’s Bloomberg news service posted a warning this morning that “Democrats’ Anti-Wall Street Wing Just Won a Major Victory,” quoting victor Ocasio-Cortez that “It’s time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same.” Bloomberg then commented: “She called for reviving the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression era-law that kept investment banking and consumer lending separate for more than six decades until it was scrapped in 1999. Some lawmakers blame the repeal for contributing to the 2008 meltdown, an argument that Wall Street flatly rejects.”
This Crowley defeat manifests the “Italian dynamic” of upset to the establishment, evident in several places. Also in New York, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D,) a long-time Democratic fixture, lost a sizable portion of her majority yesterday, to a relative unknown. On Staten Island, former Congressman Michael Grimm failed in his comeback attempt against the incumbent Dan Donovan, who was endorsed by Trump.
In South Carolina, just one day after Donald Trump appeared on his behalf at a raucous rally, Gov. Henry McMaster won his primary against businessman John Warren in the runoff for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. McMaster is a strong supporter of Trump.
Peter Navarro Hoists a Ragged Flag, in Report Charging China with ‘Economic Aggression’
June 27 (EIRNS)—While President Trump speaks of reaching fair trade agreements with China, the second largest economy in the world supporting a population four to five times that of the United States, Peter Navarro, Assistant to the President for Trade and Manufacturing Policy, is conducting a campaign that challenges China’s right to produce an economy on a scale commensurate with its population and other resources. As is well known, China, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping has established itself as an economy of global stature in the production and export of infrastructure, other products, and the growth culture that is renovating and expanding the world economy.
To agitate opposition to this breakthrough in global progress, Navarro has issued a hastily and sloppily produced pamphlet, “How China’s Economic Aggression Threatens the Technologies and Intellectual Property of the United States and the World,” dated June 2018, which is an embarrassment to the White House, under whose banner it was issued. It consists of 20 pages identifying purported acts of aggression that it alleges is proven by the material identified, but not presented, in 14 pages containing 163 footnotes, mostly citations. The basis for the argument is in the charge of “economic aggression,” defined under the terms of footnote 3 as non-compliance with “global norms and rules” of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is the WTO whose purpose is to control the entire global economy under its own rules, as the now disintegrating European Union attempted to control Europe under its.
The six specific categories of aggression Navarro lists could describe United States policies, or the British Empire’s as easily as it does China’s. These are, “Protect China’s Home Markets from Imports and Competition,” “Expand China’s Share of Global Markets,” “Secure and Control Core Natural Resources Globally,” “Dominate Traditional Manufacturing Industries,” “Acquire Key Technologies and Intellectual Property from Other Countries, Including the United States,” and “Capture the Emerging High-Technology Industries That Will Drive Future Economic Growth and Many Advancements in the Defense Industry.”
Why would anyone rather attack China’s growth than join as a partner in it, as its President Xi Jinping has invited all nations on the planet to do, exciting the interest of many, including Navarro’s boss at the White House? The answer lies in what China was before undertaking its current growth initiatives. Under the policies of globalism, China’s people were enslaved to a policy of low-wage manufacture for the low-cost consumer goods it exported through Walmart and other globalist concerns to the benefit of the consuming classes of the world. The British dream of dominating a world of shrinking populations and shrinking capabilities has no hope against a growing China, especially not a China with the United States as its partner and ally. Hence, Navarro, who is counting on a United States too stupid to understand the great fraud he is so clumsily attempting.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Caribbean Countries Enthusiastically Embrace the Belt and Road Initiative
June 27 (EIRNS)—Caribbean nations are eagerly pursuing economic cooperation with China, both to develop their own economies, and locate themselves as important components in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aimed at developing the broader Caribbean, Central and South American region. Consider these examples:
First, Trinidad & Tobago (T&T): Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley was in Beijing last May, meeting with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, during which Rowley was quoted as saying by Xinhua on May 15, that “in this new era, T&T is willing to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative…to expand trade and investment cooperation…[and] to help boost the development of relations between China and the Caribbean and Latin American countries.” T&T has maintained diplomatic relations with China for 45 years.
A Chinese delegation visited T&T June 16-19 to follow up on Rowley’s trip, led by the Vice Mayor of Beijing Wang Ning, and Zhang Chuancheng, deputy general manager of the Beijing Construction and Engineering Group (BCEG). BCEG signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the T&T state company Evolving Technologies and Enterprise Development Company (eTeck), to build the $104 million Phoenix Park Industrial Estate, Point Lisas, to be financed by China’s Eximbank, the daily Newsdayreported. Two other important deals were signed, and according to T&T’s Communications Minister Stuart Young, the government now expects to see an influx of Chinese investment “in some very significant projects,” the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian reported June 19. He said that the signed agreements are in keeping with the BRI, “which will enable T&T to be a gateway to Central America and other parts of the region.” At least five Chinese banks will be invited to set up branches in TT, and within a few weeks, construction will begin on a Panamax dry docking facility at La Brea.
Second, Jamaica: China’s Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Wang Jiangping visited this country June 20-22 to discuss, among other projects, expansion of the Special Economic Zones under the Logistics Hub Initiative. Mike Henry, Minister Without Portfolio at the Jamaican Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, emphasized that Wang’s visit “is very important as we [prepare] ourselves for the development of the Belt and Road structure that relates to the development of the logistics hub,” the Jamaica Information Service reported June 21.
There is great excitement about the involvement of China’s Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company (JISCO), in building the Jamaica-Gansu Industrial Park and Special Economic Zone in Saint Elizabeth with a $3 billion investment. Minister Wang describes the project as a “win-win for all,” and says China will push to have more of its companies to come to Jamaica “to find potential investment opportunities.” When completed in 2023, the project is expected to generate 20,000 jobs, and another 80,000 when the broader industrial complex is completed in 2035, the Jamaica daily Gleaner reported June 24. The Alpart alumina refinery which JISCO already operates in Nain, Saint Elizabeth, will initially anchor the industrial park concept, the Gleaner explained, but eventually the project will incorporate an electricity plant, mechanical fabrication and processing and manufacturing of goods for export, and is considered to potentially be a “game changer” for the local and national economy.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
India’s Second Moon Mission Lays the Basis for He-3 Mining in the Future
June 27 (EIRNS)—India is preparing its second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2, for launch later this year, to continue its lunar exploration program. India’s first lunar mission, an orbiter, with help from an instrument contributed by NASA, increased our picture of the extent of water ice on the Moon. This second mission will include a lander and a rover.
A Bloomberg wire focuses in on the Indian scientists’ stress on the importance of one particular resource on the Moon—fusion fuel, helium-3. The article implies that the Chandrayaan-2 rover will be able to find helium-3. In fact, as far as we know, helium-3 is in the lunar soil only in parts per billion. It took scientists on Earth with the most sophisticated laboratory equipment to find helium-3 in lunar samples brought back by Apollo astronauts. The helium-3 is not in a concentrated form, but there is a lot of it.
Gerald Kulcinski, head of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin, the article reports, estimates there are 1 million tons of helium-3 embedded in the lunar soil. He believes that only a quarter of that could realistically be brought back to Earth, but that is still enough to meet current world energy demand for at least two centuries, maybe as many as five, Kulcinski says.
Indian scientists are looking toward the next steps in lunar exploration, most likely to include a lunar sample return mission, as is also being planned by China.
K. Sivan, the head of the Indian Space Research Organization said that ISRO envisions a series of space missions, including a space station, and an Indian crew on the Moon. “We are ready and waiting,” Sivan said.
Kenya Needs a National Atomic Energy Commission, Says Education Cabinet Secretary
June 27 (EIRNS)—“It is highly regrettable that we have not effectively harnessed nuclear technology for the benefit of our people,” said Education Cabinet Secretary, Ambassador Amina Mohamed, opening the meeting of Vice Chancellors and Representatives of regional institutions involved in human resources development in nuclear science in Africa yesterday. She has called for the creation of a central government nuclear commission, to put under one umbrella all of the country’s nuclear activities. “We in Kenya realize that we must establish a National Atomic Energy Commission for our country to coordinate all the work we are doing in different institutions and offices,” she said.
“The application of nuclear science and technology avails enormous benefits,” she said, “including mitigating climate change, enhancing generation of energy, improving human and animal health, and increasing food production.”
Secretary Mohamed is a passionate supporter of science and technology for Kenya and for Africa. On June 16 she praised China’s role in supporting science in Africa, through a new joint center in Kenya. Her commitment is reminiscent to that of Naledi Pandor, Science and Technology Minister of South Africa, also a woman who is an outspoken promoter of science and education for Africa.
After Decades of Political Sabotage, Indonesia May Go Nuclear
June 27 (EIRNS)—Indonesia created its atomic energy agency, BATAN, in 1964. Not long afterwards, Edward Teller delivered a series of lectures on nuclear science in Indonesia, to help the country lay the basis for a nuclear energy future. Indonesia has three nuclear research reactors, the first, under Atoms for Peace. And has clearly developed much of the needed human capital to build nuclear power plants. Now, after decades of delay, Indonesia may finally go nuclear
Nuclear energy advocate, Bob Effendi, who is a member of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s National Economic and Industry Committee, has taken on the arguments of the opposers. Effendi challenges the widely-held idea that coal and gas reserves give Indonesia a virtually limitless supply of fuel. The former oil man states reserves will be depleted by 2034-40, and that renewables have a potential of only 15% of what it is claimed to be. Indonesia needs nuclear.
Instead of arguing with the opposition, Effendi proposes that the country circumvent any real and perceived problems with nuclear energy, and leapfrog over today’s uranium-fueled reactors, to revive molten salt reactor technology. That more efficient and safer nuclear technology was actually first investigated 60 years ago but never commercially developed anywhere, he reminds.
Over the past two years, President Widodo has re-evaluated his stand against nuclear energy, reports Asia Times. Indonesia has been discussing procuring a floating nuclear plant and a 10 MW experimental reactor from Russia, and may soon be ready to draw up a longer-term plan for a full-sized commercial plant, and finally, go nuclear.
OTHER
Mexicans Go to the Polls on July 1 amid Massive Dope, Inc. Violence and Terror Campaign
June 27 (EIRNS)—Mexicans will go to the polls on July 1 to vote for President and 3,000 other federal, state and local offices. Since the electoral season began last September, over 100 candidates have been assassinated and more than 1,000 others were forced to withdraw their candidacies under threat from the drug mob and associated criminal gangs. In 2017, over 30,000 Mexicans were murdered in drug-related violence.
In other words, Mexicans will vote under a pall of narco-violence and terror, in a country now dominated by London’s drug trade and the British Empire’s agenda: drug legalization, gay rights and gender politics, environmentalism, the fight against corruption, and a shift from a presidential to a parliamentary system. The turning point in Mexico occurred with the 2009 gubernatorial election in the state of Sonora, where the drug mob violently imposed their candidate as the winner—a harsh reality pointed out promptly at the time by Lyndon LaRouche. This had everything to do with the Obama Administration’s policy of systematically legalizing the drug trade, leaving Mexico, as more than one embittered nationalist told EIR at the time, to provide the corpses while the U.S. government did Dope, Inc.’s bidding.
For the current election cycle, the die was cast when the PRI party—still the institutional repository of what remains of the Mexican nationalist tradition that was last in power with President José López Portillo (1976-82)—selected as its candidate then Finance Minister and bankers’ boy José Antonio Meade, rather than Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, a strong nationalist and political descendant from circles associated with López Portillo. The other two major candidates are Ricardo Anaya of the PAN party (a right-wing proponent of liberal economics), and the left populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, widely known as AMLO, of the Morena grouping. At this point, AMLO is way ahead in the polls and is expected to win handily on July 1.
Where does AMLO stand on the Belt and Road Initiative, the central strategic issue facing every nation on the planet? He recently announced that he was in favor of working with China to construct a high-speed rail line across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which is an excellent project. But he was also instrumental in joining London and the Obama White House in sabotaging President Enrique Peña Nieto’s agreement with China a couple of years ago to build that same trans-Isthmian railroad, as well as a high-speed rail link from Mexico City to Querétaro, and a third rail line from Mexico’s Pacific coast up to El Paso, Texas. AMLO’s current proposal is reportedly to do this with a public-private partnership (PPP) headed by Carlos Slim, who is both one of the world’s richest men and also the World Wildlife Fund’s man in Mexico. López Obrador’s proposed cabinet chief is Alfonso Romo, who comes out of the world of hedge funds and investment banking. And the whole movement around him actually came into existence as a kind of color revolution.
But worst of all, AMLO has proposed to strike a drug legalization and peace accord with Mexico’s narco-traffickers, Colombia-style. Making a pact with the Dope, Inc. devil, and working with the Belt and Road, are two mutually exclusive policy universes. AMLO is going to have to choose.
That said, China’s New Silk Road Spirit is catching on across the planet, and people in Mexico are waking up to the new reality. The Mexico LaRouche Movement (MOCILA) has been playing an important role in bringing that new reality to the policy discussion in the country.
Voters’ Revolt Continues in Local Runoffs in Italy
June 27 (EIRNS)—The voters’ revolt against the old paradigm continued in Italy with the pro-EU Democratic Party (PD) losing historical strongholds in municipal runoffs on June 24. The Democratic Party-led center left coalition lost major cities in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, where it had ruled uninterruptedly since World War II, in favor of the center-right and the Lega.
In Tuscany, the PD lost in traditional strongholds such as the cities of Pisa, Siena and Massa. Even the town of Ivrea in Piedmont, which has been a PD stronghold since 1945, voted for a center-right mayor.
The town of Imola elected a Five Star Movement mayor; Imola had also been held by the center-left since the end of World War II. The M5S also took the city of Avellino, in Campania, Southern Italy.
The daily La Repubblica described the left’s defeat in Pisa and Massa as “the collapse of the red fortress.”
Nota Bene: Whereas the Lega rules with the M5S in Rome, it ran with its traditional allies in a center-right coalition in the June 24 local elections.
The Democratic Party (PD) is one step away from disintegration and PD pundits are in total disarray. The oligarchical faction wants to accelerate the PD disintegration by imitating France’s President Emmanuel Macron and founding a new party, called “Republican Front,” to attract all voters who are opposed to the “populists.” Their candidate for the job is Carlo Calenda, a relic from the Monti government into the subsequent Letta, Renzi, and Gentiloni governments as Economic Development Minister.
