Mexico’s López Obrador Announces ‘Every Young Person To Work’ Program, Inspired by FDR

Xi Jinping on Taiwan Straits Policy, Stresses 5,000-Year-Old Culture Unites Both Sides

In Syria Peace Effort, More Evidence Shows All Roads Do Lead to Moscow

Energy Department Takes Two Steps Forward, One Step Back on New Nuclear Reactors

China Well Ahead of United States in Rail Gun Development

Somali Foreign Ministry Declares UN Envoy Persona Non Grata

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EDITORIAL

What the World Needs Now

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—As all the world now knows, Chang’e-4 touched down today on the far side of the Moon for mankind’s first-ever controlled landing there.  As EIR Founding Editor Lyndon LaRouche had correctly forecast even before the Chang’e-4 mission was formally announced in December 2015, a new era has opened for mankind. Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist and father of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, was interviewed today on CGTN television, and discussed his discovery that the Moon’s helium-3 will provide fusion energy to power mankind for the next 10,000 years. At the same moment, the great promise the lunar far side offers for low-frequency radio astronomy—of which LaRouche’s Basement Science Team has written—was already being exploited as early as yesterday, when the Chinese lunar lander was coupled with their Queqiao relay satellite, to make a compound low-frequency radio telescope reaching out far beyond our galaxy, while sheltered by the body of the Moon from the Earth’s interference.

Meanwhile, the lunar lander is measuring the local water concentration, towards a future manned landing.

But still more important is Chang’e-4’s role in our species’ historic progress from Earth, and out into the Solar System, the galaxy and beyond, which was begun, against tremendous odds, by heroic Germans, Russians and Americans of the 20th Century. But then it was cruelly shut down by Britain after the American manned Moon landings of 1969-72. Now at last, that great crusade of humanity has finally been resumed again after two lost generations.

We recall the words of the great Soviet space scientist Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov to his team at Baikonur on Oct. 4, 1957, when Sputnik was successfully launched: “The dreams of the best sons of humanity have been realized—the assault on space has begun.”

A new era has opened, if… If and only if we properly take advantage of it.  If, instead, we miss this last chance, mankind can fall back into the darkness of the last century or worse.

On the same day, Jan. 2, President Donald Trump enraged the British foe with a televised hour-and-a-half Cabinet meeting, in which he placed responsibility for peace in both Afghanistan and Syria, on the cooperation, with U.S. support, between those countries and their neighbors, including India, Pakistan, and Russia in the case of Afghanistan; and Turkey and Russia, perhaps with Iran, in the case of Syria. The President said that the Soviet Union had been right to intervene militarily into Afghanistan in 1979, from which terrorism was flooding into their country. As Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche has noted, President Trump is opening the door to a Peace of Westphalia solution for Southwest Asia—one which Kissinger, speaking for his British masters, excludes. Those British masters will never forgive Donald Trump for this as long as he lives.

The complete transcript of the President’s exchange with his Cabinet are posted on the White House website.

But, once again, what is supremely important about this great change is not the facts in themselves (still less commentary about them), but rather what we, mankind, do with them—or fail to do.

The Jan. 4 issue of EIR includes a March 1998 speech by Lyndon LaRouche entitled, “Toward a New Bretton Woods.”  He was speaking, among others, to officials and advisors of then-President Bill Clinton, and effectively to the President himself. After vividly pulling together the total idea of the New Bretton Woods system from its elements, including such features as the Machine-Tool Principle and the Eurasian Land-Bridge, LaRouche said, in effect, “You respond that those are all good proposals. Indeed, you admit that they are beautiful ideas.  But, you say, they are ‘not in the cards.’

“Well, let me say something to you: Lead or get out of the way!”

An article in the same issue by LaRouchePAC leader Dennis Speed opens with what he says is a Chinese proverb, very much to the same effect.  “Those who say it is impossible, should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

In his referenced speech, LaRouche tells the unvarnished truth about what is leadership and what is not.  Is the leader the one who painstakingly reads and rereads the instruments (or the sacrifices) to minutely weigh the odds of success or failure? Will Trump be impeached?  Will this or that terrible thing happen (i.e., to me)? Or, does he boldly mark out the previously unseen critical path, and throw everything into the scales for victory, as Germany’s Gen. Alfred von Schlieffen did in World War I? Fight relentlessly to turn the flank, sparing nothing, even if—as is often the case—the future progress of the war cannot yet be foreseen.  This is the way the fight must be waged on many fronts for LaRouche’s New Bretton Woods.

NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Chang’e-4 Opens a New Chapter in Lunar Exploration

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—At 02:26 UTC, or 10:26 a.m. Beijing time, today, China achieved a milestone in lunar exploration that had never been attempted by any other nation: The Chang’e-4 lander set down on the surface on the far side of the Moon. The lander and the small rover, named Yutu-2, after its predecessor Yutu, which sits on the opposite, Earth-facing near side of the Moon, will conduct the world’s first highly anticipated in situ study of the near-polar region of the lunar far side. As James Head, Brown University lunar scientist stated: “This is a historic step in the international scientific exploration of the Moon, opening up the ‘luna incognita’ of the lunar far side to surface exploration for the first time.” This advance should also be an historic step in reworking U.S.-China relations in space cooperation.

Speaking on why China chose to undertake a mission on the far side, Wu Weiren, Chief Designer of China’s lunar programs said: “Exploring the unknown is human nature. The Moon is a mysterious world to us. We have a responsibility to explore and to understand it. Exploration of the Moon will also deepen our understanding of the Earth and ourselves.”

Also interesting were the comments by Prof. M.S. Prasad, from Amity Institute of Space Science and Technology in New Delhi. He said about the success: “It means opening up more cooperation with the space-faring countries. It will lead to a better geopolitical situation. There will be more robotic and manned missions and hopefully large commercial payload missions. This will open a new era where we have lunar orbiting gateway communication.”

U.S. reporting of this major advancement consisted of short descriptions of the mission. The comments from the NASA leadership was immediate, anticipating a revolution in our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon and the Solar System.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “Congratulations to China’s Chang’e-4 team for what appears to be a successful landing on the far side of the Moon. This is a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment.”

NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen tweeted: “As part of the international science community, we look forward to learning about this rather unexplored part of our Moon.”

China’s official CGTN TV network aired short educational videos over last night and this morning, explaining the Chang’e-4 mission, and situating it within China’s multi-phase lunar exploration, and interspersed with comments by various space experts.

CGTN’s “Global Watch,” aired late last night in the U.S., included a half-hour program on Chang’e-4 mission. Chinese aerospace engineer Yang Yuguang answered questions in some detail regarding the mission. Asked about the obstacles to landing on the lunar far side, he mentioned telecommunications and telemetry which required a relay satellite. Yang said that we will move from exploration to exploitation and begin to utilize the resources of the Moon. He said that the most important resource to be exploited on the Moon was helium-3 as a source of fuel for controlled nuclear fusion. It was a critical element recognized by lunar scientist Ouyang Ziyuan, who estimated there were 10,000 years’ worth of helium-3 on the Moon. The same theme is taken up in a separate report on CGTN, in which it said that 40 grams of helium-3 as a fuel for fusion could replace 5,000 tons of coal.

The head of China’s National Space Agency for international cooperation Xu Yansong stated that in addition to the challenge of communication, were geographic challenges, because of mountains in the area. The next steps will be additional robotic missions, and then human missions would be next, and a man-tended lunar base. Asked about international cooperation, Xu said NASA is working on the Lunar Gateway, and China is working on the initial design phase of that. This is the first indication that China is considering participation in the NASA project. China is also willing to be a part of the European Space Agency’s Moon Village effort. The program is important for the common destiny of mankind, he said.

Correction: Chang’e-4 made its landing on the lunar far side on Jan. 3, not on Jan. 4 as yesterday’s EIR Daily Alert mistakenly misstated.

U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC

Trump’s Proposal To Withdraw Troops from Afghanistan Has Got the Ball Rolling in the Region

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—Following the Dec. 20, 2018 revelation to the media by unnamed U.S. officials that President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to withdraw nearly half of more than 14,000 U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan, regional powers have jumped in to evaluate what their future role will be, and how they should respond to the post-withdrawal phase.

Today, India Today reported the arrival of Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib in New Delhi to meet with Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, over the security situation in Afghanistan, and to discuss ways to enhance cooperation between the two nations.

On Dec. 25, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had been called to Beijing by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, after which China issued a statement saying “the two sides agreed that military actions will not help solve the Afghanistan issue, and political reconciliation represents the only practical and viable way out of it.” A day earlier on Dec. 24, the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani visited Kabul, and according to the Tehran Times, Shamkhani told Hamdullah Mohib that Iran is holding talks with a faction of the Taliban.

During his Jan. 2 cabinet meeting, President Trump had urged Russians, Pakistanis and Indians to join the fight against the Taliban and ISIS, according to Radio Free Europe and its Iranian outlet Radio Farda, which quoted him as saying: “You take a look at other countries. Pakistan is there. They should be fighting. Russia should be fighting. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan [in the 1980s] was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. Why isn’t Russia there [now]? Why isn’t India there? Why isn’t Pakistan there? Why are we there and we’re 6,000 miles away?”

Developments in the Afghan situation could also help to reduce hostilities between Pakistan and India. On Dec. 22, during his address to a parade in Karachi, Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa called upon the Indian leaders to fight against hunger, disease and illiteracy, rather than fight against each other, The Dawnreported.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Message to the Commemoration for Russia’s Alexandrov Choir Ensemble

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—On January 3, 2019, for the third year in a row, a memorial was held in Bayonne, New Jersey for the victims of the Dec. 25, 2016 plane crash which took the lives of the many members of Russia’s famous Alexandrov Ensemble, journalists, philanthropist Elizaveta Glinka, and others, en route to Syria. This memorial, organized by the Schiller Institute, took place at the foot of the Tear Drop Memorial, a 100-foot statue, sited at the New Jersey waterfront opposite lower Manhattan, that was gifted to the United States by the Russian Federation in 2005 in honor of the victims of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Schiller Institute founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche sent the following, moving message to the Commemoration event:

“Two years after the tragic death of 64 members of the Alexandrov Choir Ensemble on their way to Syria on December 25, 2016, that country is now almost entirely freed from the terror of ISIS due to the determined intervention of Russia in collaboration with the Syrian army. This liberation demonstrates what human beings can do when they unite with a good plan and for a just cause, and that, as Friedrich Schiller would say, even the most tyrannical foe can be subdued. As now there will be a more hopeful period in the history of Syria, with the economic reconstruction and the return of millions of refugees, the memory of the Alexandrov Choir Ensemble will be written into the history of Syria and should be celebrated every year with beautiful concerts in many cities, celebrating the Russian-Syrian friendship and the immortality of great art and the artists, who devote their lives to the ennoblement of mankind.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Italy Won the Fight with Brussels, But It Is Not Enough

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—The budget law voted by the Italian Parliament as a result of the negotiations between Rome and Brussels, which led to an agreement on a 2.04% deficit of GDP for 2019, is described either as an Italian victory or a surrender to the EU, depending on political alignments.

Minister for European Affairs Paolo Savona, in an article published Dec. 21 in the daily Milano Finanza, wrote that given the conditionalities, it was not possible to get more in the negotiations, but more investments are needed in order to avoid a failure. Savona wrote, “The government has stood firm in defending the minimum that’s indispensable to relaunch the jobs offer, especially for youth, and to fight poverty, whereas the European Union has not shown sensitivity in the first link of this inescapable chain of relations. The word ‘growth’ appears only in the statistics indicating a reduction of the GDP forecast from 1.5% to 1%, the same as in 2018. Given the conditionalities, we could not obtain more in the negotiations.”

Savona, however, is well aware that 1% growth is not enough, and calls for mobilizing more investments. There are two ways to accomplish that: Either the EU allows Italy to exclude investment spending from the deficit figures (as in Lyndon LaRouche’s “capital budget”) or investments must come from the private sector. “Additional investments can only come from the private sector, unless a specific European agreement is reached to exclude public investments from fiscal parameters, or to boost the aggregated demand at the European level, mobilizing the existing huge surplus of foreign accounts.” (By this he means Germany.)

“A prudent estimate suggests that in 2019, investments in Italy cannot go below 1% of GDP if we want to achieve the forecast growth. A 2% rate is better, if we want to protect the country from speculative attacks.”

In a public event earlier in Rome, Savona had complained that “with the current EU leaders we cannot have a dialogue beyond contingencies. I hope that there won’t be irreparable damage. Italy cannot wait in an unacceptable situation of high unemployment and poverty. If we don’t find a solution, the number of angry people will increase.”

On his side, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Alberto Bagnai wrote a long post on his website responding to followers who are disappointed with the result of the confrontation with Brussels. Bagnai makes it clear that, were it the Lega, they would have handled it differently. However, the Lega has only 17% of the votes, he stresses, and is the minority partner in a coalition.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Democratic Republic of Congo Defends Against Foreign Intervention in Presidential Elections

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—The Democratic Republic of Congo held Presidential and general elections on Sunday, Dec. 30. Current President Joseph Kabila was put in place in 2001 by foreign interests, and now those same forces want to plunge the country into chaos to prevent the D.R. Congo, a strategically important African country, from being involved in the Belt and Road momentum.

The D.R. Congo is key for the Transaqua project to replenish Lake Chad, as a large section of the waterway to Lake Chad will go through Congo’s highland, crossing the Congo River tributaries and building up to 20 dams and hydroelectric plants in the D.R. Congo alone.

Even while the vote is being counted, foreign interference has been massive. Last week the government expelled the EU ambassador, and this week it shut down Radio France International, the main francophone radio network in the country. The credentials of RFI’s main correspondent were also revoked. The Congo government has also suspended Internet and SMS messaging, in order to prevent the spreading of false vote results that could feed unrest.

While Reuters and trans-Atlantic media in general rant about election chaos and voter intimidation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Elector Observation Mission, headed by Zambian Foreign Minister Joseph Malanji, declared on Jan. 2 that “the 2018 Presidential, Legislative and Provincial Elections were comparatively well managed and the voting process proceeded relatively smoothly, enabling the majority of the people of the D.R.C. to exercise their right to vote. On this note, Hon. Malanji commended the people of the D.R.C. for turning out in their large numbers to exercise their right to vote.”

Similarly, the African Union observer mission, headed by former Mali President Dioncounda Traoré, in its statement in French yesterday, congratulated the Congolese people for a major victory in holding the elections. “The Congolese people, who were able, by means of their conscience, patience and fierce determination to finally leave behind the infernal spiral of violence and killings, gratified us with elections that generally took place in a peaceful and quiet atmosphere, despite interference and organizational, political and security challenges.”

SCIENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Will Provide a Sea-Based Trade Route for Central Asia

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—In an insightful article in the Jan. 2 Eurasia Review, a Pakistani scholar, Syeda Dhanak Fatima Hashmi, points out that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is looked upon by the landlocked Central Asian countries not simply as a network of connectivity, but more as an access to the busiest maritime trading route—the Indian Ocean—and to cross-border power exchange.

In her article, Hashmi writes that the development of Gwadar Port on Pakistan’s Makran Coast on the Arabian Sea—a bay linking the Indian Ocean with the Strait of Hormuz—will allow Turkmenistan, which borders the Caspian Sea, an access to the Indian Ocean.

Tajikistan is also eyeing access to Gwadar Port, as it would be a junction to connect that landlocked Central Asian state with the rest of the world. Uzbekistan has expressed a similarly supportive stance about CPEC. The participation of energy-rich Uzbekistan in the CPEC project has the potential to double Pakistan’s energy supply for the next six years, ensuring the country better access to electricity.

Kazakhstan, a major beneficiary of the Belt and Road Initiative located in northeast Central Asia, bordering China and Russia, is also apparently eager to launch joint projects under CPEC, and has highlighted the importance of the CPEC project for Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region. Kazakhstan would like to join the mega-project as it would provide an alternative route for access to sea, she said.

Indian Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor Sets a Record for Continuous Run

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—On Dec. 10, one of India’s indigenously designed and built pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR), Kaiga 1, located in the southern state of Karnataka, broke the record for running continuously by remaining in operation for 962 days. The previous record holder was unit 2 of the United Kingdom’s Heysham II plant, an advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) which had completed an unbroken 940 days in service when it was taken offline for a scheduled maintenance outage in September 2016, World Nuclear News reported on Jan 2. Both the PHWRs and AGRs have the advantage of not having to shut down during refueling.

Kaiga 1 was taken offline on Dec. 31 for scheduled inspections and maintenance, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) announced. Kaiga 1 began initial commercial operations in 2000. In October, the unit set a new world record for continuous operation of a PHWR when it completed its 895th day of operation. The previous record for a PHWR was set in 1994 by Canada’s Pickering unit 7, with an unbroken run of 894 days of operation.

Three of NPCIL’s reactors—Kaiga 1, Rajasthan unit 3 and Rajasthan 5—have now achieved continuous operating runs of over two years, the company said. Rajasthan 3 operated for 777 days, while unit 5 at the same plant operated for 765 days. NPCIL stated: “The commendable role played by the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd and Southern Regional Load Despatch Center by providing stable electrical grid conditions over years of operation, thereby preventing tripping of the reactor, has also been a crucial contributor towards achieving this milestone.”

Iran’s Efforts To Regenerate Lake Urmia Have Borne Fruit

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—Located in northwestern Iran, Lake Urmia was second only to the Caspian Sea as the largest saltwater lake in the Southwest Asia, a haven for birds and bathers. However, the lake, once 5,000 km2 in area and fed by 13 rivers, became a victim of prolonged drought, over-drawing of water for farming, and dams, according to an April 2018 story by National Geographic. In 2013, as the lake area diminished to a mere 700 km2, Iranian authorities under President Hassan Rouhani stepped in and made revival of the lake a priority project.

“One of my promises was to revive Urmia lake, and I am still committed to that promise,” Rouhani said during a recent visit to the region. Some positive results are finally emerging and the lake’s surface area reached 2,300 km2 last year, according to UN Development Program figures. “This is the beginning of the lake’s revival,” said Abolfazl Abesht, who heads the wetlands unit of Iran’s environment department. He warned it would take “decades” to return to its original 5,000 km2, but at least “now the trend (of shrinking) has stopped,” Middle East Online reported.

OTHER

Korean Expert Says Kim Jong-un Is Committed To Economic Growth and Cooperation with South

Jan. 3 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Radio Sputnik’s “Loud & Clear with Brian Becker,” Hyun Lee, a member of the U.S.-based Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, commented that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year speech signaled that North Korea wants to concentrate on economic development and cooperation with South Korea, which international media effectively ignored focusing only on Kim’s statement that he was willing to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.“The most striking thing is that the U.S. media is focusing exclusively on what Kim Jong-un said about the nuclear talks with the U.S. But when you look at the actual speech, that part was just maybe one to two paragraphs of the entire speech. The majority of the speech was about building a self-reliant economy and continuing to improve North-South relations. He, Kim Jong-un, proposed two slogans to the people of North Korea, which is like the banner that will guide the entire society this year. One of them was, ‘Let us open a new road of advance for socialist construction under the uplifted banner of self-reliance.’ The second one was, ‘Let us usher in a heyday of peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean Peninsula by thoroughly implementing the historic North-South declarations,’ ” said Lee.“It’s clear from Kim Jong-un’s speech that the economy and Korean relations will be priorities for North Korea this year,” Lee stated.His speech contrasts with the New York Times claim that the “essential message” of Kim’s address was that “If U.S. Keeps Sanctions, North Korea Will Keep Nuclear Program.” Lee disputed theTimes assertion, saying that, “just a little historical background: Former leader Kim Jong-Il was facing a world where the Soviet Union had collapsed. There was no more socialist trading bloc. The country was facing an economic crisis, especially in light of intensified U.S. sanctions as well. And so, at that time, North Korea felt that building up its defense was the number-one priority. For North Korea, when they said ‘military first,’ it was building up national defense as a priority, but it also meant that the army played a very significant role in the construction of its economy. So it was the military in North Korea that rebuilt factories, built the dams, irrigated canals for agriculture. So ‘military first’ has a deeper meaning than just ‘defense first,’ ” said Lee.“And then we come to last year’s New Year speech by the new leader, Kim Jong-un. North Korea was feeling confident that it had completed some very successful nuclear and missile test launches. They determined their nuclear weapons program was successful enough as a deterrent for their country against mainly U.S. nuclear threats. Having completed their nuclear weapons program, North Korea felt they were confident to shift their national focus to building their economy,” Lee told Radio Sputnik.“This is something not necessarily new. Since the economic crisis of the mid-1990s to early 2000s, they have been pursuing what’s called the ‘byungjin’ line, which is two parallel tracts: [one] pursuing its nuclear weapons program for deterrence, and then also [one] pursuing a self-reliant economic development model. Now, I think they’re signaling that they’re ready to go full speed ahead in focusing on their economy,” said Lee.Lee is an Editorial Advisory Board member of the “Zoom in Korea” blog. An English translation of Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s speech is available on its website. Reach us at eirdailyalert@larouchepub.com or call 1-571-293-0935