THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2019

Volume 6, Number 116

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• Gestures of Friendship Diplomacy Highlight Real Potential for a New Paradigm Shift
• U.S. and Polish Presidents Sign Agreements on U.S. Forces; Trump Urges Friendship With Russia, China
• New Document Trove Reveals Early Involvement of Obama State Department With M16’s Steele
• Andrew McCarthy Exposes ‘Steele’s Shoddy Dossier’ as a Sham, From Start to Finish
• Could John Bolton Be on His Way Out? He Swears There Are ‘No Divisions’ in Trump Administration
• RIIA/Chatham House Puts Out Delphic Appeal for Conference on a ‘New Bretton Woods’ System
• Hangzhou-Rome Direct Air Route Marks the 50th Anniversary of China-Italy Diplomatic Ties
• Wilhelmshaven To Join the Maritime Silk Road, Plan To Build Major Chinese Logistics Center
• NASA Launches ‘Hidden Figures Way’ at Washington Headquarters To Honor Female Space Icons
• Russia’s Rosatom and China Help Nigeria To Go Nuclear
• Turkey Angered by U.S. Threats vs. S-400 Purchase, as Russia Readies Delivery ‘Within Weeks’
• Mexico Blocks Financiers of Migrant Caravans, With Soro’s Role in the Crosshairs

EDITORIAL

Gestures of Friendship Diplomacy Highlight Real Potential for a New Paradigm Shift

June 12 (EIRNS)—An electric moment came today at the White House Rose Garden, during the joint press conference by President Donald Trump and his guest, Polish President Andrzej Duda, who had met and signed two memoranda—one on stationing 1,000 U.S. troops in Poland—then spoke to the media. A reporter asked Duda, “Do you regard Russia as an ally or adversary?” When Duda was well into his response, stressing that Poland is “part of the West,” and that Russia is “showing its unkind, imperial face,” attacking Georgia and in 2014 attacking Ukraine, etc., Trump interrupted, stating forcefully, “I hope that Poland is going to have a great relationship with Russia. I hope we’re going to have a great relationship with Russia and, by the way, China and many other countries….” He spoke of meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping soon.

In fact, Trump’s intervention this afternoon comes in the midst of a number of other notable gestures of nation-to-nation friendship in recent days. These passing, but serious expressions, added to initiatives of actual substance taking place in diplomacy at present, indicate the very real potential for forcing into being an historic shift in international relations, in which the United States begins to realign with the other Great Powers for collaboration on a new world credit and development system, and the Belt and Road Initiative. An important moment in this process is the June 28-29 G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan.

This week, heads of state are gathered in Central Asia for taking joint action on security and development. Today in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, national leaders arrived for the two-day sessions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as President Xi Jinping. Various bilateral and trilateral meetings are planned or possible. Following this, comes the June 14-16 Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Xi, as is his custom wherever he makes a state visit, wrote an article published today for the people of Tajikistan, which is also the CICA host. He points out that Tajikistan was the very first nation to sign on to Silk Road Economic Belt, and that the two nations’ relations go back 2,000 years.

Among other instances of positive diplomacy this week: President Trump has repeatedly praised “the beautiful letter” he received June 10 from D.P.R.K. Chairman Kim Jung Un. Speaking to White House media on June 11, before leaving for Iowa, Trump said: “I think that North Korea has tremendous potential…. I think that North Korea, under his leadership—but North Korea, because of what it represents—the people are great, the land is great, the location is incredible between Russia, China, and South Korea—I think North Korea has tremendous potential.  And the one that feels that more than anybody is Kim Jong Un. He gets it. He totally gets it.”

Trump, on the same occasion, praised Mexico. “Mexico is doing a great job at the border, really helping us. … They’ve been working very hard. We’re doing very well together. A good relationship. … I have a lot of respect for the President of Mexico, I have a lot of respect for the people we dealt with” in last week’s negotiations.

Most significantly, two meetings have occurred this week between U.S. and Russian officials, despite the intense atmosphere of demonization of Russia and attempted Trumpgate. Today in Prague, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov “to build on the discussions held by Secretary Pompeo and Foreign Minister Lavrov during their May 14 meeting in Sochi, Russia,” as the U.S. State Department reported. Yesterday at the State Department, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov met with U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs David Hale, for closed-door talks. This was also done in October 2018.

Perhaps the clincher for knowing that the potential is great for leaving behind the old paradigm of monetarism and perpetual conflict is that the Royal Institute for International Affairs/Chatham House—the official policy arm of the British geopolitical elite—has come out with a Delphic call for a “New Bretton Woods Conference.” In the small print, they define this to mean discussing new “economic models,” such as ending economic growth because of the threat to the climate!

We can take heart and wisdom from the legacy of Lyndon LaRouche. As Helga Zepp-LaRouche said at his June 8 Memorial, these enemies will not prevail. “Lyn’s vision of a fully developed world becoming a reality in the form of the World Land-Bridge is now happening: Of a new form of international relations among nations, of a dialogue of Classical cultures replacing confrontation, and of the vision of an international cooperation of colonizing the Moon and a joint Mars mission.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

U.S. and Polish Presidents Sign Agreements on U.S. Forces; Trump Urges Friendship with Russia, China

June 12 (EIRNS)—Today, President Donald Trump and the First Lady received Polish President Andrzej Duda and his wife at the White House, where the two leaders met, and then held a joint press conference. Duda now proceeds to Houston for energy talks there with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and others, and then continues on his six-day visit to the U.S.

Trump and Duda announced that they signed two agreements. One is on military relations, in which the U.S. has agreed to station 1,000 troops in Poland. Poland plans to buy a number of F-35 fighter jets. The other memorandum concerns collaboration against crime, which they referred to as preparatory to Poland gaining visa-free status with the United States at some early time. Another focus was on Poland expanding its purchases of U.S. LNG, and expanding its facilities as a gas transfer hub. This was discussed as allowing Poland to not be reliant on a single supplier—namely Russia.

An exceptional moment at the press conference came when a reporter asked Duda, “Is Russia an ally or adversary of Poland?” Trump interjected, “Boy, that was a set-up question.” Then, after Duda spoke for some time, stressing how Poland was “part of the West,” and Russia has shown “its unkind, imperial face” in the way it has attacked Georgia, then in 2014 attacked Ukraine. At this time, Trump intervened. He interrupted the reporter, and said: “I hope that Poland is going to have a great relationship with Russia. I hope we’re going to have a great relationship with Russia and, by the way, China and many other countries….”

New Document Trove Reveals Early Involvement of Obama State Department with MI6’s Steele

June 12 (EIRNS)—On June 10, Judicial Watch released a trove of 43 pages of documents from the U.S. Department of State, showing its early and close involvement with British “ex”-MI6 operative Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS and related Russiagate culprits. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a June 10 press release: “These documents show that Fusion GPS and Clinton spy Christopher Steele had a close relationship with the Obama State Department.” The time frame of the documents goes back to before 2014. Fitton said, “The State Department under John Kerry is emerging as another center of the Spygate conspiracy against President Trump.”

This morning, President Donald Trump quoted Tucker Carlson in a tweet, and also remarked: “ ‘Someone should call Obama up. The Obama Administration spied on a rival presidential campaign using Federal Agencies. I mean, that seems like a headline to me?’ @TuckerCarlson It will all start coming out, and the Witch Hunt will end. Presidential Harassment!”

Judicial Watch obtained this material in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on April 25, 2018, on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation, against the State Department, after State failed to respond to three previous FOIA requests. Monday’s press release details what Judicial Watch then demanded: “Any and all records in the custody of the State Department related to the provision of documents to British national Christopher Steele and/or his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, or the receipt of documents from Steele or his firm. Time period is January 20, 2009 through the present.”

Since Monday, Fitton has been on Fox News “Hannity,” which also has run other commentary on this new documentation. Analyst Sara Carter discussed the foreign outsourcing involved in this State Department activity to other nations’ intelligence operations, in particular to intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Italy.

Fitton reported on Fox News June 11, how Steele and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson communicated with State Department Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer, who shopped Steele’s reports around, in particular to Victoria Nuland, then the infamous Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, within months after she helped in the overthrow of the elected Ukraine government.

Fitton was quoted in Sharon Rondeau’s “Post & Email” platform as having said: “It’s just incredible to see … the State Department, it was all hands on deck in terms of targeting President Trump. … They were meeting with Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, Clinton aides Sidney Blumenthal and another Clinton associate, Cody Shearer; there was more than one dossier obviously going in to the FBI and the Justice Department, not from only Christopher Steele, but created by the State Department itself, targeting Trump; and the documents show that Jonathan Winer was in touch with Glenn Simpson in September of 2016, who then immediately contacted, Winer did, Victoria Nuland, a top aide at the State Department, and then after the election, they’re working hand-in-glove with Steny Hoyer’s guy on the Russia issues and obviously conveying information that they were gaining from Christopher Steele….” The “guy” is likely Hoyer’s national security adviser, Daniel Silverberg.

Andrew McCarthy Exposes ‘Steele’s Shoddy Dossier’ as a Sham, from Start to Finish

June 12 (EIRNS)—A lengthy piece published today by National Review editor Andrew McCarthy is appropriately named “Steele’s Shoddy Dossier.” In great detail, McCarthy documents the fact that British intelligence agent Christopher Steele’s so-called “dossier” was a collection of invented, unsubstantiated allegations—including misspellings and wrong facts—and so bad that Steele’s former MI6 superior Sir John Scarlett categorized it as “woefully short” of professional intelligence standards.

That’s an understatement. As McCarthy points out, the 17 reports authored by Steele were a “visible” part of a “commercial” venture, “unlikely ever to be corroborated and patently suspect due to questions about who commissioned them and why they were generated.”

Steele, McCarthy asserts,was nothing more than a “quite willing political hack … marshaling (or inflating) information in the light most favorable to his clients.” The FBI and Justice Department knew very well about Steele’s “political hack” status, and that many of his allegations were unverified; yet they went on to peddle Steele’s “work,” using it to acquire a surveillance warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

McCarthy goes on to detail the numerous instances in which the FBI made no effort to verify Steele’s allegations about Donald Trump, whereas other, less “prestigious” agencies, or State Department personnel discovered that Steele’s evidence was faulty, such as his claims to have had “senior” Kremlin officials as sources, which turned out to be a myth.

Could John Bolton Be on His Way Out? He Swears There Are ‘No Divisions’ in Trump Administration

June 12 (EIRNS)—Speaking yesterday in Washington at the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network annual meeting, National Security Adviser John Bolton took time out of his speech about enhanced U.S. cybersecurity capabilities, to insist that there were absolutely no policy divisions in the Trump Administration, as some media have insisted.

In fact, Bolton said, according to the Wall Street Journal, “we have substantial reason to believe that North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China have made a decision to—and you can see it publicly—to try to sow disinformation about the administration, and to say that the President and his advisors are divided.” The U.S. media are complicit in spreading such misinformation as well, he charged. When asked about reports that President Donald Trump appeared to break with him on such key issues as North Korea or Iran, Bolton replied that no, this is just disinformation spread by the media.

One could assume that Bolton is worried about his job. Writing in “Bolton’s Long Goodbye” in Consortium News today, former CIA counterintelligence officer, whistleblower, and VIPS member John Kiriakou says that his many contacts across Washington’s political spectrum tell him that Bolton’s days are numbered. The idea that the five above-named countries spend their time conspiring on how to embarrass Bolton, is laughable, he said, and suggests a more likely scenario is that Trump is not happy that Bolton has aired his disagreements with the President in the media on key foreign policy issues. Trump sees his legacy as the President who got the U.S. out of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Bolton is the reason this hasn’t happened yet, and that the U.S. is still involved in the Yemen war, Kiriakou remarks.

According to Kiriakou, Trump’s acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has quietly held private meetings with a half-dozen potential replacements for Bolton.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

RIIA/Chatham House Puts Out Delphic Appeal for Conference on a ‘New Bretton Woods’ System

June 12 (EIRNS)—An article was posted today, “Renew the Bretton Woods System,” by top Royal Institute for International Affairs/Chatham House operative Stephen Pickford, which is a sleazy Delphic operation to sidetrack and confuse anyone seeking discussion on how to create an actual new world credit system to replace the currently disintegrating City of London/Wall Street menace.

Pickford, a former high official in “Her Majesty’s Treasury,” begins, “The gradual disintegration of the global rules-based economic order requires a new ‘Bretton Woods’ conference to reaffirm the benefit for all countries of internationally accepted, treaty-based economic relationships—and to reinvent the institutions to manage those rules.”

Read on, and you find the operative paragraph, giving away the whole show. Under a section addressing a change in the IMF, Pickford says that the assumptions in Article 1 of the IMF founding principles no longer apply. Pickford writes, “Article 1 embodies assumptions about good economic management. But the erosion of the Washington Consensus, the support for the Occupy movement, questioning of the capitalist system, and the challenge from climate change to the primacy of economic growth as an objective, all point to the need for a broad debate on different economic models.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Hangzhou-Rome Direct Air Route Marks the 50th Anniversary of China-Italy Diplomatic Ties

June 12 (EIRNS)—A new direct air route was launched today linking the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou and Rome, Italy, as part of a celebration to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Italy. The round-trip air service will be offered by Air China three times a week, on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, flying an Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

“China and Rome were connected by the ancient Silk Road over 2,000 years ago, and the launch of the new air service under the Belt and Road Initiative is part of an important celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Italy,” said Ding Hong, general manager of Air China in Zhejiang province, whose capital is Hangzhou. This is Air China’s first direct air service to Rome from eastern China and the fourth direct passenger route that Hangzhou’s Xiaoshan International Airport has opened to Europe.

Bilateral exchanges between the two countries have been on the rise in recent years, and last year total bilateral trade surpassed 50 billion yuan (about $7.2 billion). The number of tourists from Zhejiang to Italy also has risen rapidly in recent years, with passengers from Hangzhou and Wenzhou alone registering an annual increase of 14%, according to Air China.

Wilhelmshaven To Join the Maritime Silk Road, Plan To Build Major Chinese Logistics Center

June 12 (EIRNS)—An MOU has been signed between Li Xiangyang, General Manager China Logistics; Tong Laiming, Vice President China Chengtong Group; and Andreas Bullwinkel, JadeWeserPort-Marketing GmbH, on a project for building a Chinese logistics center at this northwestern German port, which is the only natural deep-water seaport that can also handle the largest categories of container vessels. The MOU was signed on the sidelines of last week’s Transport Logistics 2019 fair in Munich.

The plan is for the establishment of a big logistics area of 20 hectares, with the perspective of taking a leading role as a maritime freight hub plus redistribution via the German and European rail grid in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, Bullwinkel explained.

China Logistics, based in Beijing and operating 58 logistic centers in China and internationally, is a subsidiary of the China Chengtong Group and handles freight by road, rail and sea.

Dr. Berend Lindner, Deputy Economics Minister of Lower Saxony, where Wilhelmshaven is located, welcomed the MOU, saying the fact “that one of the biggest logistics companies globally is investing in Lower Saxony emphasizes the productive capacity of Germany’s only deep-water container port.”

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

NASA Launches ‘Hidden Figures Way’ at Washington Headquarters To Honor Female Space Icons

June 12 (EIRNS)—The 300 block of E Street SW outside NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. was renamed “Hidden Figures Way,” today, in honor of the women who worked as “human computers” at the agency when it first started launching astronauts into space, during the 1960s.

In attendance at the renaming ceremony outside NASA Headquarters were NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), sponsor of S.3370-Hidden Figures Way Designation Act. Also attending was Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of Hidden Figures, and members of the families of “human computers” Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, as well as Christine Darden, a mathematician who worked alongside them at NASA Langley. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson unveiled the new street sign at the corner of 3rd Street and what is now Hidden Figures Way.  During the ceremony Shetterly stated: “Naming this street ‘Hidden Figures Way’ serves to remind us, and everyone who comes here, of the standard that was set by these women, with their commitment to science and their embodiment of the values of equality, justice, and humanity.”

Later NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted, “Introducing Hidden Figures Way! Today, we honored our ‘human computers’ by designating the street outside of our headquarters as a symbolic way to pay homage to their work that made spaceflight possible.”

NASA’s website coverage of the ceremony declares: “Visitors to NASA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. will forevermore be reminded of the African American women who were essential to the success of early spaceflight.” What a beautiful dedication to such brilliant and creative minds, who calculated the trajectories needed to get our astronauts into space and to the Moon, and return them safely to Earth.

Russia’s Rosatom and China Help Nigeria To Go Nuclear

June 12 (EIRNS)—In an interview with the Nigerian daily The Nationon June 3 at the X1 Atomic Energy Conference in Sochi, Rosatom’s Central and Southern Africa CEO Dmitry Shornikov said, “Discussions between Nigerian and the Russian government on the issue [of building nuclear power in Nigeria] have reached an advanced stage and hopefully would lead to success in the long run,” he said. “This is evident by the agreement which the country signed two years ago in relation to this issue. We believe that the federal government’s gesture would culminate in signing more agreements in the immediate future,” said Shornikov. He said the agreements would lead to siting nuclear energy plants and production of electricity in Nigeria.

Responding to a question about Nigeria’s preparedness to utilize nuclear energy, he underlined that “a whole lot of things must be on the ground before any country can actualize or practicalize the use of nuclear energy. First, is a well-articulated policy, which spells out the reasons behind the issue of generating nuclear power, the megawatts which the country intends to generate, the distribution and transmission capacity and others as contained in infrastructure provisions of that country in particular,” Shornikov told The Nation’sAkinola Ajibade.

Shornikov also described how Russia is also working with nuclear newcomer Rwanda, South Africa which has the only nuclear reactor on the continent, and Egypt, in developing nuclear energy for the continent.

Nuclear power is part of a strategy to industrialize Nigeria that President Muhammadu Buhari had started to implement four years ago and will continue in his second term. He is doing this also with help of China and with Chinese methods. Abuja’s aim is to shift from an oil export-based economy to an agro-industrial economy, with investments in infrastructure and manufacturing. Buhari’s Presidency has also been able to reverse the balance against the Boko Haram terrorists, and, although the fight has not yet been won, it is helping to win international support for the Transaqua project to replenish Lake Chad.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Turkey Angered by U.S. Threats vs. S-400 Purchase, as Russia Readies Delivery ‘Within Weeks’

June 12 (EIRNS)—Turkey has responded angrily to growing threats from Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and from the U.S. House of Representatives, warning that Turkey will suffer harsh repercussions should Ankara go ahead with the planned purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system.

Last Week, Shanahan penned a letter to Turkey warning that the U.S. would remove Turkey from the F-35 program in which it had been participating, unless it cancelled the S-400 purchase. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said that Shanahan’s letter violates the spirit of the strategic partnership between the two countries, and reported he was preparing a response. Tomorrow, he said, he’ll discuss the matter personally with Shanahan by phone.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry also responded harshly to the non-binding resolution passed June 10 in the U.S. House, which threatens Turkey with reprisals should it continue with the S-400 purchase. Under the title “Expressing Concern for the United States-Turkey Alliance,” the resolution condemned Turkey for purchasing the S-400 system, claiming that it endangers the “integrity of the U.S.-Turkey alliance and undermines NATO,” of which Turkey is a member.

Like Shanahan, the resolution warns that unless Turkey halts the S-400 purchase, the U.S. will terminate its participation in the F-35 program, and impose sanctions through CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act). The Turkish Foreign Ministry statement replies that the resolution “does not comply with the rooted amity and alliance relations of Turkey and the U.S. It is not possible to accept the unfair and groundless claims of the bill about Turkey’s foreign policy and judicial system.”

According to Ahval News, the Turkish news site Haberturk reported June 10 that Moscow wanted to complete the installation of the first S-400 missile system by July 15, and that a nine-member Russian team would visit Turkey on June 27-28, ahead of the system’s expected delivery.

OTHER

Mexico Blocks Financiers of Migrant Caravans, with Soros’s Role in the Crosshairs

June 12 (EIRNS)—On June 6, just as Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and his team were negotiating in Washington, the Financial Investigative Unit (UIF) of Mexico’s Finance Ministry announced it had blocked the bank accounts of 26 individuals, accused of trafficking Central American migrants and illegally organizing migrant caravans to the U.S.-Mexican border from Central America.

As the Finance Ministry and Foreign Minister Ebrard have made clear in recent statements, Mexico is committed to cracking down on the criminal apparatus—human and drug traffickers, money-launderers and gangs—behind the unprecedented numbers of migrants moving from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border. No one is mentioning names, but drug kingpin George Soros is a likely candidate, given his role as an agent for Dope, Inc.’s Opium War against the Americas, and his role in financing migrant caravans to the U.S.-Mexico border.

On June 5, Mexican authorities arrested Irineo Mujica and Cristobal Sanchez, leaders of the People Without Borders (Pueblo Sin Fronteras—PSF) NGO which has organized and coordinated migrant caravans from Central America, with funds from U.S. and Mexican NGOs financed by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. There are unconfirmed reports that PSF accounts were among those blocked by UIF.

Some pro-López Obrador internet media and related networks in Mexico have suggested that there is a “secret agreement” between Mexico and the U.S.—not of the kind that President Donald Trump hinted at in remarks to the media—but one in which the two Presidents would take on the Soros apparatus that threatens both their nations.

There is no confirmation that this is the case, but as the Finance Ministry reported, in blocking the 26 accounts, the UIF zeroed in on the “traffic of migrants, specifically migrant caravans to Mexico between October of 2018 to the present, as well as the flow of financial resources through money transmissions on our national territory.” The UIF reported that in the indicated time frame, it identified a group of people who, from Chiapas and Querétaro, carried out “unusual operations to different countries, including some that are considered to be high-risk jurisdictions by the International Financial Action Group (FATF-GAFI—Financial Action Task Force).”

Of particular note, the UIF reported it had “detected a series of financial operations and transfers from Querétaro to six cities on the U.S. border—Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Acuna, Piedras Negras and Reynosa.” Most interesting is the report that these presumed illegal payments for migrant trafficking “reveal the relationship that exists between the movement of the migrant caravans and deposits in accounts in the mentioned cities, originating in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Cameroon, the U.S. and England.” The name of England, Soros’s home base, has caught a lot of people’s attention.

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