EDITORIAL

The British Are In ‘Flight Forward,’ Frantic To Save the Empire

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—Prime Minister Theresa May took to the floor of the Parliament today to report that the Crown Prosecution Service and Police had issued warrants for two Russian GRU officials who, they claim, had carried out the Skripal attacks last March. “We were right,” she said with a stiff upper lip, “to say in March that the Russian State was responsible.” Mugshots were released of two people whose names, she declared, were aliases (how they know they are GRU officials if they don’t know their names was not explained). “This chemical weapon attack on our soil was part of a wider pattern of Russian behavior that persistently seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the world,” she intoned.

At the same time, dire warnings have been issued to Syria and Russia that there will be a major military response if Syria uses chemical weapons in Idlib. This is despite the fact that Russia has presented the proof to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and to the UN that the British intelligence-linked Olive security outfit and the British-sponsored White Helmet terrorists have prepared a false flag chlorine attack in Idlib, to be blamed on the Syrian government, to trigger such a military atrocity by the U.S. and the U.K.

Also at the same time, in the U.S., Washington Post fraudster Bob Woodward released a book claiming that numerous Trump cabinet officials made wildly slanderous statements about Trump—all third hand from anonymous sources, of course. Chief of Staff John Kelly called the claims “total BS,” while Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called it typical Washington, D.C. fiction, and saying “the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief President Trump, or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is a product of someone’s rich imagination.”

Worse, the New York Times, apparently for the first time, printed an “anonymous” op-ed, by someone claiming to be a “senior official in the Trump Administration whose identity is known to us,” under the title: “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration—I work for the President but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” Whether this person is or is not who they claim to be, it is clearly part of the British coup attempt, as proven in the op-ed itself. After calling Trump amoral, unhinged, and more, and claiming there is discussion within the administration of using the 25th Amendment to remove him for mental incompetence, it then states: “Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations [read: the British Empire—ed.]. Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals. On Russia, for instance, the President was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better—such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”

And, while news about the British drive for war with Russia and their attempted coup against the government of the United States fills the airwaves and the press, not a single word—repeat, not a single word—has been reported in the U.S. or British media about the truly historic conference which took place on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Helga Zepp-LaRouche declared this week that this event will be recognized in history as the end of the era of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Every African nation except one was represented at the conference in Beijing (the “one” was Swaziland, the last holdout on the African continent which still maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than Beijing). All but six were represented by their head of state or government. They reviewed the transformation taking place across Africa due to the Belt and Road Initiative since the last FOCAC meeting in 2015, and laid out plans for the even more rapid development over the next three years, and on to 2063—the target year for full modernization over 50 years, adopted by the African Union in 2013, and centennial of the OAU/African Union founding. One after another, the leaders of the African nations described the actual liberation taking place, finally seeing in China the example that real development and the escape from poverty is possible. The program launched at the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, where the formerly colonized nations met for the first time without their colonial masters, has finally been realized.

But no one reading the Western press would even know that this transformative event had taken place.

Rather, there is only the new McCarthyism, trying to demonize Russia and China, to revive the “enemy image” which should have been eliminated with the fall of the Soviet Union and the recognition of the People’s Republic of China.

Trump threatens this new McCarthyism, insisting that America should be friends with Russia and China. No longer will the U.S. accept Lord Palmerston’s imperial dictate for the Empire, that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests.” The “special relationship” is to be no more.

This is the cause of Theresa May’s hysterical rant today in the Parliament. Better war, led by the “dumb giant” America, than to see the Empire destroyed in a world united through a shared vision of universal development.

Britain’s drive for war must be exposed and stopped, along with their Russiagate coup attempt in the U.S. A victory for the common aims of mankind is within our grasp, but the danger is great, and the time is short.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Theresa May War Cry against Russia to the Parliament

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—Prime Minister Theresa May today addressed the Parliament with an escalating level of hysteria against Russia which can only be intended as a call to war.

“We were right to say in March that the Russian State was responsible” for the Skripal poisoning, she said. “And now we have identified the individuals involved, we can go even further…. The Government has concluded that the two individuals named by the police and [Crown Prosecution Service] CPS are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU. The GRU is a highly disciplined organization with a well-established chain of command. So this was not a rogue operation. It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian State.”

On Russia, she was openly threatening: “This chemical weapons attack on our soil was part of a wider pattern of Russian behavior that persistently seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the world.” She repeated the usual lying claims, that Russia “fomented conflict in the Donbas, illegally annexed Crimea, repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European countries and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and election interference. They were behind a violent attempted coup in Montenegro. And a Russian-made missile, launched from territory held by Russian-backed separatists, brought down MH17,” referring to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, shot down over Ukraine in July 2014.

She said that her government would “push for new EU sanctions regimes against those responsible for cyber-attacks and gross human rights violations – and for new listings under the existing regime against Russia. And we will work with our partners to empower the OPCW to attribute chemical weapons attacks to other states beyond Syria. Most significantly, Mr. Speaker, what we have learnt from today’s announcement is the specific nature of the threat from the Russian GRU. We know that the GRU has played a key part in malign Russian activity in recent years. And today we have exposed their role behind the despicable chemical weapons attack on the streets of Salisbury. The actions of the GRU are a threat to all our allies and to all our citizens…. [T]ogether with our allies we will deploy the full range of tools from across our National Security apparatus in order to counter the threat posed by the GRU.”

Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov responded: “We heard or saw two names, but these names mean nothing to me personally, just like you, I believe,” he said. He stated that Scotland Yard had admitted in a statement that these names were contrived. “I do not understand why that was done and what signal the British side is sending. That is difficult to comprehend.”

Woodward’s Book Fear: Trump In the White House Is a Farce

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—The Washington Post fraudster Robert Woodward’s latest gossip volume, Fear: Trump in the White House, has been soundly denounced by those who actually have served in the Trump White House day to day, and by those who were reported by Woodward to have denounced Trump—all from third-hand, anonymous sources, of course.

Among the tweets sent by the President are these:

“The already discredited Woodward Book, so many lies and phony sources, has me calling Jeff Sessions mentally retarded and a dumb southerner.  I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing. He made this up to divide!”; and

“Isn’t it a shame that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost.  Don’t know why Washington politicians don’t change libel laws?”

The Pentagon issued the following statement from Secretary of Defense James Mattis:

“The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward’s book were never uttered by me or in my presence. While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility….

“In serving in this administration, the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is a product of someone’s rich imagination.”

Current Chief of Staff and former National Security Advisor John Kelly said:

“The idea I ever called the President an idiot is not true, in fact it’s exactly the opposite.  As I stated back in May and still firmly stand behind, ‘I spend more time with the President than anyone else, and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship.’  He always knows where I stand, and he and I both know this story is total BS.  I’m committed to the President, his agenda, and our country.  This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.’ ”

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Pompeo Admits There Are Terrorists in Idlib

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—In the midst of all of the hue and cry about the possible humanitarian implications of a Russian-backed Syrian government assault on terrorist-held Idlib province, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted that, indeed, the province is occupied by terrorist groups.

After saying that the humanitarian crisis “could be different in kind,” he told reporters yesterday traveling with him en route to Shannon, Ireland that the Russians have the narrative that there are terrorists in Idlib. “That is a true statement. We share their concern about terrorism emanating from northern, northwest Syria. We absolutely agree with them there are terrorists in those locations and they need to be taken care of such that they don’t export terror around the world,” he said, according to the State Department transcript.

But, he went on, “It is not the way to do that to put the lives of all these innocent civilians at risk and create a humanitarian crisis, and I think that’s what you saw the President saying last night, was, we’re happy to work on the terrorism issue in this place, you made an agreement to handle this in a way that is different [referring to the de-escalation zone] from what it appears you’re thinking, please take that seriously.”

Nonetheless, the world knows what happened to Raqqa when U.S. air power and U.S.-backed forces cleaned out the terrorists by destroying the city.

Israel Bombs Syria and Then Brags About It

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—A military source told Syria’s official news agency SANA yesterday that Israeli warplanes flying at low altitude from west of Beirut, launched air strikes against military sites in Tartus and Hama. The source said further that the army air defenses downed a number of the hostile missiles and forced the attacking warplanes to flee. One person was reported killed and four others wounded. The Syrian Observatory said several explosions had been heard in the areas around Masyaf and Wadi al-Uyoun near Hama city, areas where there are Iranian military facilities.

The Israeli government usually doesn’t comment on such strikes, and this time was no exception, except that the Israeli Defense Forces bragged yesterday that it has now carried out a total of 200 air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria and fired 800 artillery shells, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post. According to the IDF, the strikes were aimed at preventing Iranian entrenchment in Syria and the strikes supposedly led to Iranians evacuating several bases in Syria and have also had an effect on Iran’s arms smuggling, presumably to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And yet, Iran is still seen as entrenching itself in the region, including by the alleged transfer of ballistic missiles to Iraq, as claimed by Reuters last week.

Spanish Government Cancels Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia for Yemen Strikes

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—The center-left government of Spain canceled the sale of 400 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia due to the concern of their use in Yemen. The government led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in office after a no-confidence vote against then Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on June 1, 2018, has expressed its concern over the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition using bombs on Yemeni civilians. Rajoy had signed the bombs deal with Saudi Arabia in 2015.

“We confirm the news,” a Defense Ministry spokesperson said, declining to give any further details. The ministry also said last month that they condemn the killings of noncombatants in Yemen. They also mentioned that they had never sold arms that could be used against civilian populations and it would review any sales that have not been closed yet and could be used in attacks on unarmed civilians.

The freeze “shows a trend of waning European patience regarding the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Yemen,” said Kristina Kausch, a senior resident fellow at the Brussels-based German Marshall Fund of the United States.

In April, the government of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy still signed another big deal, involving the Spain selling a warship to Saudi Arabia worth $2.2 billion.

ECONOMY

Argentine Finance Minister Tells Citizens To ‘Be Patient’ as Currency and Social Crisis Deepens

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—“Be patient?” Speaking from Washington where he met Sept. 4 with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and other Fund officials, Finance Minister Nicolas Dujovne claimed he had had “productive” meetings and that he hoped a revised version of the existing $50 billion standby loan can be finalized in the second half of this month. The news site Infobae reported today that Dujovne is also negotiating a $5-$10 billion credit line from the U.S. Treasury, although he is being coy about this.

Argentina is in recession, he said, and if the current situation isn’t stabilized, through austerity reforms, “everything will be more difficult,” Ambito Financiero reported him as saying. Indeed. Despite the central bank’s daily dollar auctions, which are draining reserves, the peso continues to slide. Yesterday Argentine stocks and bonds traded on Wall Street dropped by 16% as well.

In remarks reported by Bloomberg today, Mohamed el-Erian, chief economist at Allianz SE, warned that despite president Mauricio Macri’s “carefully choreographed effort” to appear he’s in charge, there “is no easy and risk-free way out of Argentina’s currency crisis,” especially in a global economy “facing greater uncertainty with respect to “growth, trade, policy-coordination and financial conditions.”

In the face of official forecasts that inflation, now at 30%, will reach 40% by year’s end, popular discontent is raging. In several provinces, there are reports of supermarket looting by citizens who can’t afford to buy food, which Security Minister Patricia Bullrich claims is just “guerrilla warfare,” led by the political opposition. Security is being ramped up in major cities. But, according to Página 12, in a Sept. 4 meeting, six provincial Social Development Ministers called on Congress and the Executive to immediately declare a National Food Emergency, as austerity and inflation are placing food out of the reach of poorer citizens. The CGT labor federation is mooting it may move up the Sept. 25 date of its announced general strike.

Portuguese Express Excitement over Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—Portugal’s Association of Friends of the Silk Road “believes that the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) … will contribute to the development of the Atlantic Maritime Route, in which Portugal can play an important role,” several Portuguese dailies reported as the FOCAC summit opened in Beijing on Sept. 3.

Prof. Fernanda Ilheu, president of the influential Silk Road Association, told Portuguese news agency Lusa that the expansion of “win-win” cooperation between China and African nations, and the specific maritime cooperation projects which could be expected to be signed in Beijing, would be important for Portugal. The Presidents of Africa’s Portuguese-speaking nations attending are expected to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and that will contribute to the development of the Atlantic Maritime Route “in which Portugal could play an important role,” because China is encouraging European nations to participate as strategic partners in third countries around the BRI, “in this case, China with Portugal in projects in Portuguese-speaking countries,” she explained.

Professor Ilheu, speaking before the summit, did not name any specific projects for possible collaboration, but the announced plan for an ocean science/blue economy cooperation center with Africa is definitely one area in which Portugal has great interest. Portugal’s Minister of the Sea has been discussing Portuguese cooperation with China on exactly that subject, and the Friends of the New Silk Road Association has itself had a task force dedicated to “Blue Economy” development for over a year, drawing up proposals for Portugal-China cooperation in developing advanced technologies for fisheries, mining of ocean-bed resources, etc.

Giant Backlog in Global Infrastructure Development: Transport, Electricity, Water

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—The investment special broadcast yesterday by ARD, Germany’s national first television network, shed light on the giant underdevelopment of infrastructure globally. At the moment, and certainly for some time, China is the only really major investor, with its New Silk Road strategy, the special observed.

According to OECD figures, investments in the range of $71 trillion are required globally by 2030. Dirk Rogowski, manager of Veritas Investment, which has created a special infrastructure fund, sees the need for $94 trillion by 2040—of which in his view $15 trillion are not yet covered. Nearly half of that sum will have to go into transport infrastructure—already now 31.7 million km of road globally require maintenance. “That is 40 times the distance between Earth and Moon and back,” Rogowski said.

In terms of energy, the United Nations states that still some 1.1 billion humans have no access to electricity, and global demand will increase by 40% in the next two decades. Water supply is another area, where giant investments are required—estimated to cost $7.5 trillion by 2030—and the UN states that currently some 663 million humans have no access to fresh water.

Canada’s Trudeau Refuses To Scrap ‘Dispute Resolution Mechanism’ in Renegotiated NAFTA

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—After her second round of talks in Washington today with the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on updating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the talks continue to be “constructive.” “We continue to work hard. The atmosphere continues to be constructive and positive. There is good faith and good will on both sides,” she said, according to Reuters.

However, on Sept. 4, talking to the reporters in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that Canada will not sign a renegotiated NAFTA that eliminates the dispute resolution mechanism, which Trump insists on scrapping. The mechanism allows a team of lawyers to decide if a nation’s sovereign laws can be suspended to conform to the trade agreement.

Trudeau also insisted that the agreement must protect Canada’s “cultural sectors”—including the news media—reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), a federal Crown corporation. Referring to the existing NAFTA’s cultural exemption clause, which means cultural goods are not treated like other commercial products, Trudeau said “it is inconceivable to Canadians that an American network might buy Canadian media affiliates, whether it’s newspapers or TV stations or TV networks. It would be a giving up of our sovereignty and our identity and that is something that we will simply not accept,” CBC quoted him saying.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Nigerian President Buhari Debunks the ‘So-Called Chinese Debt Trap’

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, has emerged from the hugely successful Forum on China-African Cooperation summit with a refutation of what he called “insinuations about a so-called Chinese debt trap.”

“Let me use this opportunity to address and dispel insinuations about a so-called Chinese debt trap,” he reported on his official Twitter account @MBuhari, reported by media such as Nigeria’s televised TVCNews today. “These vital infrastructure projects being funded are perfectly in line with Nigeria’s Economic Recovery & Growth Plan. Some of the debts, it must be noted, are self-liquidating. Nigeria is fully able to repay all the loans as and when due, in keeping with our policy of fiscal prudence and sound housekeeping.”

He gave examples. “I am happy to note that Nigeria’s partnership with China through FOCAC has resulted in the execution of critical infrastructure projects valued at more than $5 billion, over the last three years. We have completed West Africa’s first urban rail system, valued at $500 million, in Abuja. Before then was the 180 km rail line that connects Abuja and Kaduna, completed and commissioned in 2016, and running efficiently since then,” the President declared.

He continued: “Nigeria is currently leveraging Chinese funding to execute $3.4 billion worth of projects at various stages of completion: upgrading of airport terminals, the Lagos-Kano rail line, the Zungeru hydroelectric power project, and fibre cables for our internet infrastructure and others.

“Less than 3 months ago, Nigeria signed an agreement for an additional $1 billion loan from China for additional rolling stock for the newly constructed rail lines, as well as road rehabilitation and water supply projects,” he wrote in his tweet.

Comparing the fruits of Chinese cooperation in Africa to the wasteland left by the colonialist powers, it is easy to see why the latter’s media shamefully hide any coverage that FOCAC 2018 even occurred.

‘Debt Trap’ Hoax Exposed by Chinese Special Representative on African Affairs

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—At a Sept. 4 morning press conference at the FOCAC Summit in Beijing, Xu Jinghu, the Special Representative of the Chinese Government on African Affairs, was asked the inevitable Anglo-American media question by Britain’s Reuters about whether the $60 billion financing that President Xi Jinping promised in aid for Africa in his keynote address, would create debt problems for Africa.

Xu first went through the importance of the eight areas outlined by President Xi in order to raise the level of production and productivity of the African economy (reported in yesterday’s EIR Daily Alert.  She also made clear that all of the projects are carried out in close consultation with the African countries in order to meet what they see as their real needs for further industrialization. She stated that Africa is in “the ascending phase” of its development and “faces a gap in the funding for all of their endeavors.” “They need capital development and the African and Chinese economy, which is more developed, are therefore complementary.”

Then she commented, “You have to take into consideration the international situation. The costs of financing for development on the international market has become very expensive and most of the African countries are still dependent on exporting their raw materials. And the price of these have fallen. That has increased the debt of African countries a great deal.  And if you look at the African countries, you will see that China is not the creditor of those African countries with the biggest debt burden. Chinese help is aimed at advancing Africa’s development, not its debt accumulation.”

Reuters reports none of these remarks.

OTHER

Parubiy: Ukraine Needs Direct Democracy as Under Adolf Hitler

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—According to TASS today, the neo-Nazi Speaker of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) Andrei Parubiy, appearing on the Freedom of Speech evening program broadcast by the ICTV channel, said: “It is necessary to delve into and introduce direct democracy to Ukraine, with Adolf Hitler being its torchbearer.” Another member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, Vadim Rabinovich, the leader of the For Life party and president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, is filing a lawsuit against Parubiy for “Nazi propaganda.”

“We’re not going to follow the Nazis’ path,” said Rabinovich. “I call on Europe, and Germany in particular, to evaluate the Ukrainian Speaker’s actions, and I believe that he must step down. Today, I am filing a lawsuit against Parubiy for Nazi propaganda, which is banned in our country.”

In his appearance on the TV show, Parubiy described Adolf Hitler as a true proponent of democracy, claiming that he “practiced direct democracy in the 1930s…. We need to remember that.”

Parubiy’s statement was also covered in a Ukrainian website called Siver Post, who quoted Viktor Medvedchuk of the pro-Russian party Ukrainian Choice denouncing Parubiy’s statement, and countering that “a model of direct democracy is Switzerland, not Hitler’s Germany.