Wednesday, January 9, 2019

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2019Volume 6, Number 6EIR Daily Alert ServiceP.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

Bad Economic News From France & Germany

City of London Imploding as Financial Center as Brexit Looms

Trump Tweets on Ending Endless Wars

U.S.-China Trade Talks Extended as in Hopes of Reaching an Agreement

Another Neo-Con Proposal to Restrict President Trump’s Foreign Policy Power

Russia’s Kalibr Cruise Missile Answers U.S. Deployment of Tomahawks Globally

Italy’s Di Maio Tells French Minister: “Stop Impoverishing Africa!”

EDITORIAL

Brits Find It’s Not So Easy To Contain Human Creativity

There are two outstanding strategic developments over the past week which bear emphasizing, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche remarked today. The first is the epochal achievement of China’s Chang’e-4 lunar mission, which is already producing a “Sputnik”-like effect internationally—ranging from enthusiastic congratulations and calls for ongoing cooperation from Africa, Ibero-America, Asia, and parts of the scientific community in the West; to teeth-gnashing frustration from the likes of Germany’s mass tabloid Bild Zeitung, which is horrified that China has leapt ahead of the West in this fashion.

What Chang’e-4 shows to anyone who cares to open his eyes, Zepp-LaRouche stated, is that China is on the right path of science-based physical economic development, including the Belt and Road Initiative; and that the West is idiotically wrong, and must come to its senses—a task which will be at the center of the upcoming Schiller Institute conference.

The second major development was the outright cancellation of NASA’s invitation to Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin, who had been scheduled to come to the U.S. to address NASA leaders and hold meetings with his counterparts. This action, taken at the instigation of Democratic Senators and others, is utterly insane, Zepp-LaRouche said: The U.S. cannot even get to the International Space Station without Russian rockets! We are sawing off the branch of the tree that we are sitting on. Moreover, if we are to forge a global alliance for development led by the Four Powers specified by Lyndon LaRouche—the U.S., Russia, China and India— the cancellation of the Rogozin visit was the worst thing you could possibly do.

These two developments reflect processes underway which have opposite directionalities; as such they epitomize the task immediately facing the planet today.

They occur in the context of mass strike ferment that is sweeping the planet, albeit unevenly, a ferment which is stubbornly eluding British control. Its expressions include:

• The Chang’e-4 mission: The British are finding out, to their dismay, that when human creativity per se captures people’s imagination, it is contagious.

• The Brexit process: As the United Kingdom careens towards a March 29 “hard-Brexit” break with the EU, major capital flight from the City of London has already begun, amounting to more than 10% of the total assets of the British banking sector, according to some accounts—not to mention the far more significant derivatives speculative bubble that is run by London.

• The Trump Presidency in the United States: Trump continues to stand up to the noisy attempts to stop his stated policy of ending the “endless wars” everywhere. This is not only Syria that is at stake, nor even the whole of Southwest Asia; it is the entirety of the “special relationship” with the British, and their geopolitical and economic madness.

• The Yellow Vest protests: As LaRouche ally and former French presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade has stressed, what is occurring is mass strike ferment that is happening in France, but it is not of France—it is part of the same global process of rejection of the failed institutions seen elsewhere.

• The López Obrador Presidency in Mexico: AMLO is steadily returning Mexico to its historic, nationalist policies of economic growth, a strong Presidency, and respect for national sovereignty and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations. London thought they had killed off that Mexico—but they were wrong.

Just as the British are finding, more generally, that it is not so easy to contain and kill off human creativity, once it is abroad in the land.

SCIENCE AND Infrastructure
Chinese Rover Yutu-2 Prepares for the Lunar Day and Night on the Far Side

Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—Chinese engineers are preparing Yutu-2 to survive the extreme temperatures on the Moon, during both day and night. As we know, the “dark” far side receives the same two weeks of sunshine as the near side, and without an atmosphere to moderate the temperature, it gets extremely hot. Yutu-2 has been placed in standby mode, to protect itself from the 200° Centigrade daytime heat, the China National Space Agency announced. It will resume exploring on Jan. 10. But two days later, the rover will prepare itself to survive the two-week lunar night, when temperatures will drop to ˗180°C. The rover will fold up its solar arrays to act as a blanket. In 2014, on the near side, the Yutu rover became immobilized after only one lunar day, most likely as a result of being unable to cope with the extreme temperature. During the two-week night, the Chang’e-4 lander, which has a small radioisotope thermoelectric generator producing some heat, will be capable of limited function.Zhang Yuhua, deputy chief commander and designer of the mission, told Chinese state media that the Yutu-2 rover’s next activity will be to travel to the front side of the lander and image the craft. The three 5-meter antennas of the low-frequency spectrometer for pioneering astronomy have been deployed, and will be visible in images the rover will take of the front of the lander. After that, the rover will go to its planned area and start a series of scientific exploration projects, as the scientists had planned, Zhang said.Engineers have tested the scientific payloads aboard both the lander and rover, and communication with the relay satellite, all of which are functioning as expected. African Leaders Congratulate China’s Groundbreaking Moon Exploration Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—Senegalese President Macky Sall congratulated China for the success of its Chang’e-4 mission to deploy a lunar rover on the far side of the Moon, when he met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Jan. 6. Senegal, which is currently co-chair of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), was the last stop in Wang’s four-nation tour of Africa that began in Ethiopia. Traditionally China’s foreign minister makes the first overseas trip of each year to Africa.According to Xinhua, Sall said that “this major technological breakthrough has shown that China is taking the lead in the field of technological innovation…. China’s African friends are proud of its achievement.” He expressed Dakar’s hope to strengthen their cooperation with China in scientific and technological innovation.African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat had said much the same thing, when he met with Wang on Jan. 4 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the AU has its headquarters. Expressing his congratulations on the successful landing of the Chang’e-4 lunar probe, Faki told Wang, “for humans, the Moon is out of reach, but with its super-scientific capabilities, China has successfully achieved this landing event, making history.” He, too, said that Africa, as a friend of China, greets its success, and hopes that African countries will strengthen cooperation with China in science and technological innovation. Xinhua reported that Wang, in responding to Sall, said that China’s achievements are also achievements of developing countries, “stressing that developing countries have the right and ability to achieve rapid development in the field of scientific and technological innovation.”Between those two stops, Wang visited The Gambia and Burkina Faso, two countries which had only established relations with China in 2016 and 2018. Cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative was on the agenda in each stop, as was China’s commitment to helping to bring peace to Africa, which is fighting off terrorism. Wang told AU Commission Chair Faki, and Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and Foreign Minister Alpha Barry, in particular, that China will “soon” provide its $45 million commitment for the anti-terror force of the Group of 5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger), plus additional support for equipment as well as equipment for the fight against terrorism. One Burkina Faso newspaper called Wang’s pledge “a breath of fresh air,” because while the G5 Sahel counter-force is backed by the United Nations Security Council, international funding has been way below commitments. China Daily Editorial Reflects on Chang’e-4 Mission, ‘Dream of All Mankind’ Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—In its editorial yesterday headlined “Exploring Outer Space for Benefit of Mankind,” the semi-official China Daily takes stock of the significance of the Chang’e-4 mission to the lunar far side. “The successful landing of China’s Chang’e 4 probe on the far side of the Moon on Jan. 3 marks a significant step forward in the exploration of outer space and paves the way for future space missions…. Both the country and its people have a good reason to take pride in this pioneering achievement, which contributes to the efforts to learn more about our home planet’s satellite, the Solar System and the universe beyond…. Following the Chang’e 4 mission, China is expected to quicken its steps in exploring outer space.“In recent years, each significant achievement made by China’s space industry has drawn global attention. Although its space industry is comparatively young, China’s commitment to the exploration of outer space has always been crystal clear and consistent. It is committed to the principle of using outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes the militarization of or an arms race in outer space. Its door is open to international cooperation in space exploration…. China’s commitment to international cooperation demonstrates its unwavering belief that outer space is a common home for all humanity and that its space dream is part of the dream of all humankind.” COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM City of London Is Imploding as a Financial Center as Brexit Looms Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—The consulting and accountancy firm EY (Ernst & Young LLP Financial Services) issued a report on Jan. 7 stating that banks and other financial companies “have shifted assets worth at least £800 billion ($1 trillion) from the U.K. to Europe thanks to Brexit,” the Financial Times reported yesterday. The consultancy said the figure represented roughly 10% of the total assets of the U.K. banking sector, and was a “conservative estimate” because some banks have not yet revealed their contingency plans. “Our numbers only reflect the moves that have been announced publicly,” said Omar Ali, head of financial services at EY. “We know that behind the scenes firms are continuing to plan for a ‘no deal’ scenario.”The Brexit deadline is March 29, and the British Parliament is set to debate Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal proposal again this week, ahead of a planned vote on Jan. 15. Thus far, no agreement has been possible. A CNN article on the matter reported that “If May ultimately fails to push the agreement through, the chances of the country crashing out of the European Union without a deal will soar. The Bank of England said the fallout from that scenario would be worse than the 2008 financial crisis. For financial institutions, a no-deal Brexit would be a nightmare. The country’s agreements with EU regulators would cease to exist and banks would find themselves in a legal vacuum, meaning they would be unable to continue doing some of their business across the bloc.”“London has been Europe’s undisputed financial capital for decades, and is home to the international headquarters of dozens of global banks,” CNN explained. But it is more than that. As EIR has repeatedly documented, the real elephant in the room is the $1.5 quadrillion world derivatives bubble—which is orders of magnitude greater than simple bank assets or obligations. And the world derivatives trade is centered unquestionably in the Square Mile City of London. Bad Economic News from France and Germany Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—German industrial production sank for the third month in a row. The Federal Statistical Office reported that production in November sank 1.9% on a monthly basis and 4.7% on yearly basis. In October, it was respectively ˗0.8% and +0.5%. Production of investment goods sank 1.8%; consumer goods 4.1%. Also energy production sank 3.1% on a monthly basis; construction was down 1.7%.Bad economic news also from France: the trade deficit in November has been higher than expected: €5.09 billion instead of €4.9 billion, and also the current account balance shows an unexpected deficit of €2.8 billion. U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC Trump Tweets on Ending Endless Wars Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump again commented on his policy to withdraw from the endless wars on Twitter late yesterday: “Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a glorious end!” U.S.-China Trade Talks Extended in Hopes of Reaching an Agreement Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—Chinese and U.S. officials meeting in Beijing on a trade agreement extended those talks for another day, after the talks on Tuesday, Jan. 8, ran until midnight. Both sides indicated progress was being made. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC yesterday that there is “a very good chance” of a settlement; this morning, President Donald Trump tweeted that “Talks with China are going very well!” An unnamed source from the Chinese side told the Wall Street Journal that the talks have been “constructive”; China’s Global Times, while calling the talks “tough,” wrote that the extension suggests officials from both sides are committed to reaching an agreement. Ross on Monday, like the Wall Street Journal today, named as a sticking point U.S. concerns about enforcement mechanisms for Chinese making good on their pledges. Global Times suggested that an agreement on some areas might be reached on this round (such as China purchasing U.S. agriculture and energy products), leaving “thorny issues such as economic policy changes” to later higher-level talks. An editorial earlier today in Global Times reiterated the Chinese government’s determination to work with the U.S. to avoid confrontation, despite obstacles thrown up by geopolitical factions—such as “a U.S. warship touring in Chinese waters…. No matter how hard, the only choice for both countries is to explore peaceful coexistence while avoiding mutual strategic exhaustion. A win-win result for China and the U.S. seems to deviate from the orthodoxy of games between major powers, but the zero-sum game is even tougher to play,” the editorial wrote.“Will the U.S. lose the game? The U.S. is still the world’s greatest power with unapproachable scientific and military strengths. Its huge global alliance system is also nearly impossible for China to catch up on. China cannot overthrow the U.S. simply with strength. Will China lose? China has the world’s most complete industrial system and potential far greater than that of the U.S. to be a mega market. China is also a nuclear power. “China has been keeping a low profile facing China-U.S. disputes, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted that Beijing is incapable of counterstriking fiercely…. Beijing and Washington have to explore a new path. The process will be very sensitive. It may even run into short-term and regional excitement. However, both sides do not want to strategically collide with each other, so they must know when to stop before going too far.” Another Neo-Con Proposal To Restrict President Trump’s Foreign Policy Powers Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—The British assets just won’t give up. Gen. John Allen, who headed the U.S. anti-ISIS campaign under Barack Obama and now heads the Brookings Institution, in a Jan. 4 op-ed (“Learning from Trump’s Syria Debacle,” The Hill) co-authored with fellow Brookings neo-con Michael O’Hanlon, insists that Congress must codify restrictions on the President’s right to make foreign policy post-haste—and reverse the Syria pullout order in the process.The duo assert that Trump’s Syria order “brought us to the precipice of a full-blown crisis in civil-military relations,” and propose three steps to ensure that “the capricious, impulsive way in which President Donald Trump” ordered the Syria withdrawal cannot be repeated in some bigger situation—say, a violent naval confrontation with China or a showdown with Russia over a Baltic nation.Discovering a sudden interest in Congress being involved in war policy after 16 years of Presidents Bush and Obama waging unconstitutional wars which they supported, Allen and O’Hanlon urge the House and Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees to immediately convene hearings on the Afghanistan and Syria decisions, and Congress as a whole to renew the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), “to clarify the limitations on unilateral presidential action.”What’s more, Congress or the President must formalize, effective immediately, that “simple presidential statements or tweets should no longer be used to set policy.” National Security Council Decision Directives should be required. And, this “policy should be retroactive so that the President’s recent comments about Syria and Afghanistan would therefore be reinterpreted as presidential aspirations, not current and actionable policy, which have shaken our national security community and our allies as well.” STRATEGIC WAR DANGER Russia’s Kalibr Cruise Missile Answers U.S. Deployment of Tomahawks All Over the World Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz, famous for promoting anti-China and anti-Russia hysteria, ran an article on Jan. 4 on his Washington Free Beacon online newspaper, which acknowledges that Russia has developed a serious capability with the deployment of its Kalibr cruise missile, while he intends to sow fear that Russia will soon be targetting U.S. cities with it. “Russia is deploying long-range, precision cruise missiles to the western Atlantic that American defense officials say will allow Moscow to target Washington and other East Coast cities with conventional or nuclear attacks,” Gertz writes at the outset. These weapons will be arming submarines and surface ships that will be sent to patrol off the U.S. East Coast and these deployments are expected in the coming months. Gertz cites an Office of Naval Intelligence report that Kalibr capability is being built into all new submarines and surface vessels of the Russian Navy and which gives even modest vessels “ ‘significant offensive capability.’ ‘The proliferation of this capability within the new Russian Navy is profoundly changing its ability to deter, threaten or destroy adversary targets,’ ” he quotes the ONI as saying.Now the shoe is on the other foot. What Gertz fails to note is that Russia has no offensive against Europe or the United States, but is merely responding to the provocations regularly cited by President Vladimir Putin. Specifically, the U.S. Navy routinely sails guided missile destroyers into the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea from where, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, they can threaten Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities. The Russian Navy has employed Kalibr cruise missiles on numerous occasions against terrorist targets in Syria to great effect, launching them from both submarines and surface ships operating in the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas. Clearly, the deployment of the Kalibr missile in the western Atlantic by the Russian Navy will be a message to the permanent war crowd in the U.S., not unlike that Russia has hypersonic weapons, as announced by President Vladimir Putin in his nationally televised speech on March 1, 2018, which are a response to the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. Current versions of the Kalibr have a range of about 2,000 km with a 400-500 kg warhead. In a Jan. 8, 2019 report, however, TASS cited a defense industry source reporting that a new version of the Kalibr, called Kalibr-M, is under development. This missile will have a range of 4,500 km and be able to carry a 1-ton warhead, doubling the performance of the existing missile. According to the source, large surface ships will be equipped with it, starting with frigates, as well as nuclear submarines. “Kalibr-M is designed to destroy land facilities and will be able to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads,” the source said. The Kalibr M is expected to come into service during the lifetime of the current 10-year state armament program which concludes in 2027. OTHER López Obrador Reasserts Mexico’s Principle of Non-Intervention in Other Nations’ Affairs Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—Mexico is coming under great pressure for refusing to sign the “Lima Group” letter condemning Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s re-inauguration. Asked (twice) about that decision during his Jan. 7 press conference, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador answered at great length.“Who has a [copy of the] Constitution out there?” he first asked the press corps. “Article 89 of the Constitution, Subsection 10. Let’s see, you should help me. There among my powers as President of the Republic—”The journalist who asked the question began reading the relevant paragraph on the foreign policy powers of the Presidency. When he got to the statement, “the head of the Executive Branch shall observe the following statutory principles: the self-determination of peoples,” López Obrador interrupted—“there you have it.” Next principle: “non-intervention.” The President again interrupted: “Slow down, slow down. Repeat that.” And so the exchange continued through the reading of the principles of “the peaceful solution of disputes” and “the prohibition of the threat or use of force in international relations.”There you have it, López Obrador repeated. “Non-intervention and self-determination of peoples is a Constitutional principle. That is sometimes forgotten because there was a time when this policy was not complied with.” He reminded the press that it is a principle which is not only from the Constitution, but it is a political principle expressed by the great President Benito Juárez, who declared after having restored the Republic after the French-Anglo occupation: “Peace is respect for the rights of others.”“For me, the best foreign policy is a domestic one,” López Obrador went on. “We have a lot of work in Mexico. If we end corruption in Mexico; if there is employment, progress, well-being in Mexico, we are going to be respected throughout the world.”We are not going to intervene in Venezuela, in the same way that we are not going to get involved in U.S. domestic disputes, the President continued. “We cannot be sticking our nose in the domestic life of another country, because we do not want anyone, any foreign government intervening in matters which correspond only to Mexicans….”He concluded: “I am very happy because we have gone back to the foreign policy tradition which always gave us a special place in the world.” Italy’s Di Maio Tells French European Minister Loiseau, ‘Stop Impoverishing Africa’ Jan. 8 (EIRNS)—French Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau has reacted to remarks by Italy’s Deputy Prime Ministers Luigi Di Maio (M5S) and Matteo Salvini (Liga) in support of the Yellow Vest protests against the French government (see EIR Daily Alert Jan. 8), stating: “France refrains from giving lessons to Italy. Salvini and Di Maio should learn to keep your own house in order,” Loiseau tweeted yesterday.Today, Di Maio responded to Loiseau on Facebook: “Perhaps she doesn’t remember when her President Macron compared us to leprosy, in speaking about our government. … What hypocrisy. … The French people are demanding change and attention to their demands. I cannot help but share those wishes, and I don’t think I am saying anything offensive to French citizens. It is clear that something must change. For instance, it is time to stop impoverishing Africa with colonialist policies that cause waves of migration into Europe which Italy has often had to deal by itself.”

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