With NATO bracing for a Russian offensive, with Ukraine's army undermanned and under-armed, and NATO officials admitting the alliance has nearly depleted its weapons stockpiles, Joe Biden was sent for a stroll through Kiev...
Aug. 14, 2024 (EIRNS)—“As humanity has been put on the brink of a civilization-ending nuclear war, largely through the machinations of the British and their fellow travelers in the U.S.A., any sensible person would be asking the question: How did we get here, and how do we turn instead toward durable survival?”
As the blatant insanity of the war party is increasingly apparent to anyone with an ounce of concern for humanity, the perpetrators are becoming even more reckless, but some courageous souls are stepping forward to sound the warning and demand a return to diplomacy to prevent a holocaust and a new dark age.On the insane side: Sixty members of Congress have issued a letter calling on President Biden to recognize Tibet as a separate nation, invite the Dalai Lama to the White House, and treat him as a head of state. They assert that China’s insistence that Tibet is part of China is an “obstacle to dialogue.” Perhaps these Malthusian fanatics would prefer that Tibet be returned to its condition under the Lama’s rule, with life expectancy of 35 and illiteracy at 95%. Then there is Tony Blinken, who toured Southeast Asia this week, giving a policy speech in Indonesia on his plan to NATO-ize the Indo-Pacific—perhaps he should say “NAZI-ize.” America is here to counter “Beijing’s aggressive actions,” he said to a nation whose vast majority of infrastructure developments are joint projects with China. He said that the U.S. will work “to connect our relationships in the Indo-Pacific with an unmatched system of alliances and partnerships beyond the region, particularly in Europe…. At NATO, we’re updating our strategic concept to reflect the Indo-Pacific’s growing significance, and address new threats, like the security implications of the climate crisis.” What happened to the “Atlantic” in NATO? He also called for the further militarization of diplomacy, promoting “a strategy that more closely weaves together all our instruments of national power—diplomacy, military, intelligence—with those of our allies and our partners.” On the sane side: Senior U.S. diplomat and China expert Chas Freeman, and senior (former) CIA official and Islamic expert Graham Fuller, have stepped forward to conduct interviews with EIR and the Schiller Institute, both issuing extremely stern warnings, from a highly informed perspective, that emergency measures must be implemented immediately if we are to avoid global war and possible nuclear annihilation. Both assert that the U.S. must come to terms with the fact that it is no longer the “only superpower” which can dictate terms and policies globally. There is a new reality, as China and Russia are offering peace through development to the world, rather than the economic and social decay of the degenerating trans-Atlantic powers, through the Belt and Road and respect for national sovereignty, so long ignored under the British “responsibility to protect” doctrine used to assert a new colonialism. Also on the sane side, a call was issued by President Sauli Niinistö of Finland for a new Helsinki Summit of the Organization on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the 1975 conference which launched the institution. This was a key part of the détente process which kept the peace in Europe and allowed some level of cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Western nations. Following discussions with both President Biden and President Putin, Niinistö said this was a “good time to bring the spirit of Helsinki back to the world. Once again, a positive spiral is needed, a precious foundation of the OSCE,” posing this as a way to defuse what he sees as growing tensions among major powers such as the United States, China, and Russia. Beginning the negotiations now for such a conference can and must break through the madness. Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche added a profound call for sanity in an interview on China’s CGTN TV today. Asked to make suggestions for today’s youth in a moment of great peril, she responded that the fundamental issue is the image of mankind, with two opposite views being contested. The one is that of the Malthusian and oligarchical view, that man is a parasite, polluting Mother Nature, and the fewer people the better, a view most evident in those promoting the climate scare. The other view is that which perceives that every person is sacred, blessed with the power of reason, capable of making discoveries of new principles of nature which can be applied to enhanced production and higher standards of living for all. She said that it is time for all of humanity to unite behind this elevated view, to form a common party of mankind which unites citizens of all countries in a common mission, without contradicting the interests of the diverse and beautiful cultures of the world. To start this process, she said, mankind must unite behind the urgent need to end the pandemic, and all future pandemics, by building modern health facilities in every country. This would create a potential branching point for the human race, building the basic infrastructure required for the health of all people, and ending once and for all the idea that poverty is an unavoidable part of civilization which can not be eliminated. In 100 years, she added, when we have become a space faring species, national boundaries will be less important.
June 19—Today, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to give a speech on foreign policy in emulation of the FDR-like declamation—in part, almost a soliloquy—uttered by his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, on the occasion of his appearance at the commencement exercise of American University on June 10, 1963. Candidate Kennedy has, on other occasions, expressed his opposition to the Ukraine war, saying in a May 13 interview with Russell Brand, "The Russians have been invaded three times through Ukraine. The last time they were invaded during World War II, they were invaded through Ukraine. One out of every seven Russians was killed—13% of the population. Russia was leveled.
April 20—The world’s leading finance ministers, central bankers, and private financiers gathered in Washington, D.C. the first three days of this week, for the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. They admitted publicly that up to 1.7 billion people face a severe food crisis and hunger this year. They nodded sagely at reports that inflation of 50, 80, even 120% on food and energy products had exploded in Germany and across Europe, not to mention desperate South America. They concurred that the debt of low-income countries had become utterly unpayable and would be blowing out shortly. And they congratulated each other on their scorched-earth sanctions with which they intend to wipe Russia—and any and all other rebellious nations—off the face of the Earth.
March 11—We are in an incredibly dangerous situation. Global NATO and echelons of the singular and collective “West” are perpetrating conflict and evil on the scale of mass suffering and death in Ukraine, and many other places, which is at the degree of genocide in Gaza.
July 24, 2024 (EIRNS)—China is playing an oversized role in current global diplomatic efforts to bring about peace in the various theaters of war around the world, each of which could escalate to thermonuclear confrontation more rapidly than most care to imagine.
Sept. 24—All reports are indicating that President Biden told Zelenskyy last week that U.S. ATACMS long-range missiles will be sent to Ukraine. If confirmed, this indicates an escalation of not only the war in Ukraine, but of the danger that the world as a whole will enter into a full-scale global war.
Feb. 25—In Ukraine this weekend, the military operations continue, with a focus on Kiev. Speaking from there, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today made sounds of both resistance and a call for ceasefire, and also proposed today that talks begin with Russia. President Vladimir Putin, who spoke with President Xi Jinping this morning, said that a high-level Russian delegation would be prepared to meet in Minsk, with Ukrainian representatives, on the security terms for Russia and the region, which Russia has repeatedly spelled out. Belarus President Alexandr Lukashenko affirmed that appropriate conditions would be provided for such a meeting in Minsk.The response of the U.S./U.K./NATO bloc to the situation is more of the same geopolitical logic, which led to the crisis in the first place. NATO heads of state and government met for a virtual session today, and issued a bellicose joint statement. The UN Security Council met late this afternoon, with a resolution by the NATO bloc, to denounce Russia; their next step is to take it to the UN General Assembly. President Biden spoke with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and the U.S. and EU today announced sanctions against Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov personally, and also members of the Russian national security team. All the while, there are pledges of continuing arms flows into Ukraine. A convoy of ammunition reportedly went in today from Poland. The situation will not remain in this phase for long. The military operations will be over at some point soon, and the world is confronted with a new moment in our continuing responsibility: What happens next? One direction is doom, by one or a combination of nuclear war, famine and disease. For certain, the current collapsing financial/economic system cannot be “put back together” again to function. The other direction is toward physical economic, and social advancement for all nations and peoples—a new era for humanity. What will the course of history be, is exactly the focus of the international statement/petition by the Schiller Institute, “Convoke an International Conference to Establish a New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations.” In multiple languages—the latest, Portuguese, it is in circulation for emergency action for a new paradigm. Already, the West is hardening its crazed policy outlook into evil extremes. Media in Germany are making references to Vladimir Putin “walking in the footsteps of Hitler, like 1939.” Instead of this, just go back and look at some of the true reference points in cultural and strategic history. For example, in on Sept. 25, 2001, Putin addressed Germany’s Bundestag, speaking in flawless German, of the joint opportunities between the nations of Europe, including Russia. “The Cold War is over. The world is at a new stage of development.” He spoke of common interests, in particular, of jointly combatting terrorism. He stressed the common economic interests between Russia and Germany. Further, “Russia is an extremely dynamic country within Europe, not just in political terms but also in economic terms.” Over the ensuing years, as these aspirations were countered by the U.K./U.S./NATO establishment, Putin again spoke out, this time against the dangers of the dominance in global relations by the U.S. bloc. In 2007, he addressed the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 10. He warned of the consequences of the “almost uncontained hyper-use of force in international relations.” He opposed the U.S. missile shield in Europe. In 2014, Putin gave an in-depth speech on March 18 to both chambers of the Federal Assembly of Russia, on the occasion of the request for admission into the Russian Federation, by the Crimean Parliament. He presented a history of Ukrainian and Russian peoples, reviewed the unlawful events of the Maidan coup the month before, denouncing the role of the neo-Nazis and others. But all the while, he held out the hand of good will to those genuinely protesting corruption in Ukraine, and to the international community. That same month, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, wrote an article (EIR, March 14, 2014,) “It’s Not About Ukraine; It’s About Thermonuclear War,” which ended with her warning that thermonuclear war is “pre-programmed for the immediate future,” if the West continues its encirclement of Russia, and lacks the policy ability and wisdom to see what is going on, and correct it. She wrote then: "But there is still a small window of time in which a full mobilization of the population and reasonable people in the institutions of the U.S. and Europe can force the changes required in the policies of the governments. The main points are: “• The imperial policy toward Russia and China must be replaced, and the underlying cause of the danger of war eliminated: the threat of disintegration of the trans-Atlantic financial system; “• The true character of the coup in Ukraine must be exposed and admitted, and the underlying cause of the danger of war eliminated: the threat of disintegration of the trans-Atlantic financial system; “• It must be immediately replaced by Glass-Steagall-style separation of the banking system and the creation of a credit system in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton.”
May 23—The world is stumbling into a new Dark Age. Consider the array of crises: The Western dollar-based financial system is unraveling in a hyperinflationary collapse; the “likelihood” of war between nuclear powers is casually discussed in all the news outlets; the pandemic continues to kill, while new epidemics emerge; famine is killing thousands and threatening billions.
Nov. 10, 2024 (EIRNS)—“In Flanders fields, the poppies blow/ between the crosses, row on row,/ That mark our place; and in the sky/ The larks, still bravely singing, fly,/ Scarce heard amid the guns below…” An unending sea of flowers, one for each killed on all the world’s battlefields, in wars that need never have been fought. This Remembrance Day, as today is known throughout the world, also called Veterans Day in some nations on Nov. 11, is the best time to commit ourselves, and our nations, to the immediate ending of conflicts that, in a thermonuclear age, hold the entire world hostage—starting with NATO vs. Russia, and Israel vs. “the world,” i.e., Palestine/Lebanon/Syria/Iran and others.
May 20—Today, Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, announced his request to the Court to issue warrants for the arrest on charges of “war crimes and crimes against humanity” of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders: Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, and Yahya Sinwar. Among enumerated charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, were “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”; “wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury”; “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime”; and “other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity….”
by: Harley Schlanger Dec. 17 -- Following the implosion of the COP26 climate summit and the farcical nature of last week's "Summit for Democracy", it is becoming increasingly evident that the power of the Trans-Atlantic alliance to enforce a unipolar order through false narratives, backed by military and financial intimidation, may no longer function. The alliance has generally succeeded in imposing its will on the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union, arrogantly assuming the role as the ultimate arbiter of what its defenders call the "Rules-Based Order" (RBO). Give up your sovereignty and play by the rules -- even when they undermine the development of your nation -- and you can be part of the club. But step out of line, and you will face the full fury of an international war machine, steered from the City of London and Washington. Just ask Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi, Yanukovych or Assad what the future has in store for you, if you defy the rules of the post-Cold War order!Yet, in spite of the devastation and destruction which can be unleashed on those nations and leaders which refuse to submit, the unilateralists been unable to successfully conclude the wars launched since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. The most recent example was the withdrawal from Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces were unable to crush an insurgency, and left a nation in disarray, with a majority of its population facing possible starvation, as the "nation building" which had been the ultimate announced goal built nothing which could be sustained. While the alliance still possesses the power to withhold funds to starve millions who have the misfortune to live in a country targeted as a rules' breaker, this is hardly a positive advertisement for the RBO. The willingness of nations to stand up against the drive for a unipolar world undermined the efforts to impose a global "green" dictatorship at Glasgow, and provoked derision from many towards the idea of a summit to enforce democracy, through threats and bullying. Yet the same institutions and individuals who were the architects of this policy seem to have concluded that they can still use their unilateral power to force the world to submit to their continued dominance. In the last weeks, following the retreat from Afghanistan, the Biden administration, with full backing from Boris Johnson's teetering government and NATO, moved ahead with its "Pivot to Asia", a containment strategy against China, and threats of military and other war-like acts against Russia, over Ukraine. In both cases a narrative was produced, which accused the two nations of aggressive intention and behavior towards Taiwan and Ukraine; a movement of weapons and troops followed, and the narrative was reinforced by allegations presented at various institutional settings, including at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Riga, Latvia on November 30-December 1. Then, in spite of what appears to have been a useful exchange between Presidents Biden and Putin during their video summit on December 7, the rhetorical assault escalated, as key figures, among them U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, British Foreign Minister Truss, and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, warned of "painful" measures against Russia, should they invade Ukraine. This, despite a pledge from Biden to host a dialogue with Putin and leading NATO members on Russia's concern over the eastward expansion of NATO, and Kiev's refusal to abide by the Minsk agreement. The belligerent attitude against both Russia and China was amplified at the so-called Summit for Democracy, which was a blatant attempt to divide the world into two warring camps, those of the "democratic" states against the "bullying, authoritarian" nations, headed by Russia and China. Sleepwalking Into Nuclear War The Schiller Institute's founder and chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche has repeatedly warned that the proponents of the RBO are risking a nuclear war, with their threats to expand NATO in the Indo-Pacific region, to counter the alleged threat from China, and through their buildup of forces on Russia's western border. She said that western media complicity, through a constant barrage of lies backing up the hostile narrative, is blocking recognition of the danger, leading to a population "sleepwalking" into a nuclear war. She called on officials to have the courage to speak out, and for citizens to mobilize to head off this danger. Saner voices are now emerging, provoked into action in part by comments from Sen. Wicker of Mississippi, the number two ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Wicker, on December 7, said that in the event of "Russian aggression" in Ukraine, "I would not rule out American troops on the ground. We don't rule out first use nuclear option." Later, in a clumsy attempt to backtrack, he still insisted that we should "not take anything off the table."
The spectacle taking place on Jan. 20 in the nation’s Capital, as the 46th President of the United States is inaugurated before an “audience” of 26,000 armed soldiers, poses an existential question before the citizens of the nation, and to the citizens of the world. Will the US retain its sovereignty—as Ben Franklin said, “a Republic, if you can keep it”—or will the British finally be able to realize their 245-year intention to crush the upstart Republic, and return the “New World” to the Old World of the Empire?The British are depending upon the instigation of mass chaos within the Republic, tantamount to a civil war, with the hyper-democrats and the hyper-conservatives, both, defining freedom and democracy as the right of every autonomous individual to have the “democratic” right to destroy society, be it anarchist rioters looting and burning cities across the nation to protest “institutional racism,” or an attack on the nation’s Capitol Building to protest a stolen election. What is historically known as “gang-countergang” imperial methods to divide and conquer, is in full display in the nation today. While this tragic diversion is taking place, the City of London and Wall Street have already begun the implementation of a new fascist dictatorship, replacing the determination of economic policies by an elected government, based on the consent of the governed, as the Constitution defines, with a network of Central Bankers and “too big to fail” financial institutions with absolute authority to bypass the government altogether, directing credit away from the real economy into a new “green bubble.” All that is required is for the faux-president to declare the Green New Deal, and the bankers simply take over. The World Economic Forum has scheduled a mega-conference for Jan. 25-29 called “The Davos Agenda” to roll out “The Great Reset Initiative,” to celebrate the take-over of the US economy and the Western world by Green Finance, as developed over the past decades by Prince Charles, former Bank of England chief Mark Carney, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Michael Bloomberg, and their oligarchical friends. BlackRock, which governs nearly $8 trillion (with a “t”) in rich folks’ money, has already begun the process, ordering power companies in South Korea, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines and more to cease producing coal-fired power plants or be bankrupted by a sudden withdrawal of their investors’ equity. Is this to “save the planet,” as the British Lords and Ladies insist, as the fake-news media insist, as Joe Biden’s controllers insist? Fairy tales for the gullible. Were our citizens not deprived of beauty, subjected to Lady Gaga rather than Marion Anderson, to rock music and rap rather than Beethoven and Schiller, they would not be so easily duped by fake science. Nor would they tolerate a few tech companies, which are subservient to the “surveillance state” under the NSA and the CIA, to literally declare themselves masters of information, that the 88 million Americans who wish to know what the President of the United States has to say can drop dead—or, as Hillary Clinton told Nancy Pelosi today, that the “cult followers” of President Trump should be investigated by a “new 9/11 Commission.” Simply discussing vote fraud has now been declared verboten by Big Brother. Fascism in not just this political censorship, nor the threat of a police state, or of a militarized nation as we see in Washington today. These are the social structures required to enforce fascism, which is, in essence, fascist economics, as in the Great Reset, Green Finance. The nation, and the world, will now be subjected to this new fascism. But it will soon expose itself. Helga Zepp-LaRouche noted today that ideology must eventually run into reality. Speaking of a conjunctural crisis such as we are experiencing today, the poet Percy Shelly said: “At such periods, there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving profound and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature.” The world is shocked at these developments within the United States. It is a moment in which souls must be uplifted, with beauty, with hope, and with courage, to break the divisions, to create unity behind the nature of man’s creative spirit, to unite the great nations of the world behind the vision of a new paradigm, as Lyndon LaRouche presented that idea, and the means to achieve it.
March 16—On Wednesday night, emergency international action was taken to save Switzerland’s Credit Suisse—to the tune of $54 billion. Less than one day later, it appears that California’s First Republic bank, larger than the recently bailed-out Silicon Valley Bank, has received the same treatment, getting an emergency bailout of $30 billion Thursday, this time from leading U.S. banks. Will these actions be successful in stemming the tide of contagion? How deep, how entrenched does it go? This is the proverbial $64 trillion question—the everything bubble.
Oct. 28—Four outstanding international events this past week provide platforms for ongoing momentum for development and peace, but the danger of the nuclear war threat remains severe.
Next Tuesday, April 6, based in Vienna, talks are slated to take place involving the principals of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to move things in some way out of the present danger zone, including the potential to lift the sanctions against Iran. This came out of an online meeting today, based in Vienna, among five of the original six JCPOA principals (the P-5 plus one)—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany, without the U.S.), and Iran, hosted by the European Union, which issued a statement on the April 6 meeting as the next step. The EU said the April 6 meeting will take place, “in order to clearly identify sanctions lifting and nuclear implementation measures, including through convening meetings of the relevant expert groups.” EU officials are to confer with the U.S. separately.In the abstract, this dialogue could be good, though in practice it comes in the context of fierce conflicts stoked by the London geopolitical axis. Positive initiatives will continue to go nowhere, except to war, without the initiation of development in the greater Southwest Asia region, and other locations now devolving into horrible humanitarian catastrophes. The perspective of development, and concrete programs were put forward at the March 20-21 international Schiller Institute conference, whose dialogue process is presently expanding tremendously. Panel 3, on March 21 was titled, “The Indo-Pacific, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia: Pivots for War, or Peaceful Development with the New Silk Road.” The 10 speakers came from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere. (A full report on this panel will be published in the EIR weekly, cover date, April 9). Yesterday, Hussein Askary, EIR Arabic Editor, gave an online briefing in Arabic to an audience of over 3,000 people, mostly in Iraq—with 6,600 views within 24 hours—which focused on the development perspective, in two ways. First, as the necessary reaction to the hopeless strategic conflict situation. Secondly, Askary spoke of the meaning of “development corridors” as presented by economist statesman Lyndon LaRouche, and as distinct from transportation corridors, which are routes of trade, not development. Despite the terrible suffering, there is hope and excitement for actual development to happen. It is notable that on March 30, Wang Yi, China’s Foreign Minister and State Councillor, finished a week-long trip to six countries in this Southwest Asian/Persian Gulf region. At his first stop, he issued a five-point program in an interview with Saudi media, the last point of which stressed China’s commitment to economic cooperation in development projects. Speaking to Al Arabiya, Wang said, “China has signed documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 19 Middle East countries and carried out distinctive collaboration with each of them…. As it fosters a new development paradigm, China is ready to share with Middle East countries its market opportunities, work with Arab countries to actively prepare for the China-Arab states summit, promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and expand new areas of growth, such as high and new technologies….” Despite all the terrible losses and obstacles, development is finding its place on the world agenda. This is reflected in the continued circulation of the statement released March 21 at Panel 3 of the conference, by Helga Zepp LaRouche, entitled, “Declaration of China Experts from All Over the World.” There is no denying the reality of China’s commitment and record to implement development—from lifting over 800 million people out of poverty, to reacting swiftly to defend against COVID-19, and aid nations around the globe. What is the likelihood this positive, action-outlook can prevail? Zepp LaRouche addressed this yesterday in her weekly Schiller Institute webcast, after reporting on the upcoming crazed deployment by U.S. Presidential Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry to India, and to the U.A.E. and Bangladesh, to attempt to coerce them to shut down their economy, for the purpose of cutting carbon emissions to “save the planet.” She also blasted the lies about so-called human rights violations in Xinjiang, which is a geopolitical fraud aimed at destabilizing China. Zepp-LaRouche concluded her webcast: “I think people realize that this is an effort to regulate everything in the direction of a green dictatorship, which will make life impossible to billions of people. So I think this Great Reset can be defeated and it can be replaced by an alliance for development, which is needed. We need European countries and the United States, hopefully, to work with Russia, China and India, to develop Southwest Asia, to develop Africa, Latin America, and say ‘No’ to this policy of genocide. Because there you find the genocide and not in Xinjiang.”
After a tremendous increase in fertilizer prices since 2019, and particularly during the course of 2021, the world stands on the brink of a substantial drop in global food production in 2022, at a time when mass starvation has already hit Afghanistan, Yemen, and six nations in Africa. If dramatic actions are not taken to reverse this process right away, more than 100 million more human beings can be added this year to the ranks of those in danger of starvation, which already number more than 200 million in the latest judgment of the World Food Program and its head David Beasley.The causes of this terrible toll of hunger and starvation are mostly a failed economic model which must be replaced; but in Afghanistan, they are viciously geopolitical and we must undo this punishment now. Regarding the economic failure: The World Bank Fertilizers Price Index for the world, which in April of 2020 was at 66.24 and in January 2021 had risen slowly but steadily to 82.96, by December 2021 had exploded to 208.01, more than tripling in 20 months. The rise of 60% in just the last two months of 2021 has particularly devastated farmers around the world. Their situation is even worse in the Northern hemisphere where fertilizer (and pesticides) for the spring planting look entirely inaccessible. The Wall Street Journal’s Jan. 21 article, “‘Farms Are Failing’ as Fertilizer Prices Drive Up Cost of Food,” reported that despite global food prices having risen to the highest level in a decade, rapid food inflation is almost certain to continue in 2022 due to fertilizer prices and accessibility. This, the paper understates, “would exacerbate hunger—already acute in some parts of the world.” World wheat output is set to drop by 10 million tons in 2022, according to the French agriculture analysis firm Agritel. The effect on maize production will be worse. Corn/maize production costs are rising 15-20% in the major producers America and Ukraine. Lower yields of many foods and agricultural products are projected around the world in 2022. Amid widespread famines already in 2020-21, and loss of informal agricultural work in the developing countries, food may enter global shortage in 2022. And according to the International Fertilizer Development Center, exceedingly high fertilizer prices could result in a reduction of agricultural output in Africa alone, which will be “equivalent to the food needs of 100 million people.” Although this monumental fertilizer price increase coincides with sharp rise prices of natural gas and is exacerbated by them, it is far larger, and far more widely and evenly spread around the world, than the natural gas spikes. As corn/maize growers in the United States insist, the gas price spike is not the primary cause of the fertilizer shock and loss of food production. In fact, as fertilizer use and price both rose in 2019, the International Fertilizer Association forecast that global production and use would drop after 2019, as they did—by roughly 10% in 2020-21. The huge fertilizer price rise after 2019 went along with sharp price rises across the whole range of important global commodities for industry and agriculture; its cause was wild money-printing by the major trans-Atlantic central banks starting late 2019; and global monopoly of production by a few big firms. Four monopolies control 75% of nitrogen-based fertilizer distribution: They are Nutrien Ltd., (Canada-based), Yara (Norway-based), CF Industries (U.S.-based), and Mosaic (part of Cargill, U.S.-based). Afghanistan is a terrible special case, where when NATO countries withdrew their forces after 20 years of destructive war, they retaliated with a punitive cutoff of international aid and development investment, and the United States Treasury seized Afghanistan’s own financial reserves. A German official just back from Kabul reported in Tagesspiegel Jan. 30 that 7 million children are starving now in Afghanistan; 1 million, he said, would be in hospital ICUs if they were in Europe. Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche said of the plight of Afghanistan’s population, and the world threat to food-growing this year, “This is the greatest threat to civilization, not nuclear weapons.” She demands, now with many others, that the frozen Afghan funds be released to restore the lost liquidity in the entire economy; and has launched Operation Ibn Sina, to make the nation an exemplar for building a modern healthcare and public health system in every country in the world. To do this the United States must cooperate with Russia, China, and India in particular. And it must break up both its biggest banks with Glass-Steagall, and with anti-trust acts break up the food monopolies.
The day after the June 16 Putin-Biden Summit, which both Presidents described as constructive, came more official views of what can come next, in a positive direction. In a Moscow interview, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov called the meeting “a new start.” He said that he had been instructed to move, without pause, for follow-up. Regarding the proposal made at the Summit for strategic stability talks, “I would say that we have a chain of direct instructions from the leadership in order to avoid pauses in practical interaction with the U.S….”In Washington, D.C., National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held an on-the-record phone call with the media June 17, reporting back on the administration’s view of the Biden trip for all three Summits, during which discussion, Sullivan said that Biden will seek a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in the coming period. The White House transcript reports Sullivan elaborating, “[W]hat the President said, about there being no substitute for leader-level dialogue as a central part of why he held the summit with Putin yesterday, also applies to China and to President Xi Jinping. He will look for opportunities to engage with President Xi going forward. We don’t have any particular plans at the moment, but I would note that both leaders are likely to be at the G20 in Italy in October…. [W]e will sit down to work out the right modality for the two Presidents to engage.” He referred to two modalities—possibly by phone or by a side-meeting at an international meeting—and then, or “something else.” Immediately following the Sullivan statement, State Department spokesman Ned Price affirmed to South China Morning Post the same message: that the administration foresees a meeting between Biden and Xi. China’s CGTN TV then broadcast this story, with international commentary. These events, measured for their potential, not for their apparent immediate results, make the Schiller Institute international conference June 26-27, and ongoing dialogue, vitally important. The critical element is providing the content of the policy needed—in service of all peoples and the future, and prompting discussion and motion on the means to make it happen. The driver is the urgency for collaborative action for a world health security infrastructure. This is undeniably in the common interest of all, and achievable through joint action. Look at the snapshot status of the pandemic and famine. The Southern Hemisphere is reeling. In Africa, the third wave of COVID-19 is raging in many nations, especially in Southern Africa. The nation of South Africa has deployed the military to try to keep certain commercial functions going. There are pitifully scant vaccines anywhere. In South America, the virus is out of control in many places. This week Paraguay registered 18.9 deaths per million, compared to 2.7 in India, 2.2 in South Africa and 1.1 in the U.S. Following Paraguay in rate of death, and are Suriname, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Brazil and Peru, all with conditions of silent horror. The world food picture is worsening. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s latest estimate is that food prices this year will be 20% higher than in 2020 for imported food for “Low Income Food Deficient” nations—meaning poor nations dependent on commercial or donated food imports. This means suffering and death. The World Food Program warns that 34 million people are at the point of starvation this year. Some 9 million starved to death last year, more than the COVID-19 death toll in 2020. WFP’s David Beasley is in Southern Africa this week on the crisis. He visited WFP operations in northern Mozambique, in Cabo Delgado, a location of terrorism and mass dislocation. Close to 2 million people in the nation are dependent on food aid. Against this backdrop, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President of the Schiller Institute, also spoke the day after the Putin-Biden Summit, with her evaluation. Participating in an international dweb-program, out of Trinidad & Tobago, she said, "The meeting between President Biden and President Putin yesterday in Geneva is a hopeful step in the right direction. They reiterated the discussion between Gorbachev and Reagan at the time, ‘that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’ I was very relieved when I heard that, because if you have nuclear war, we are talking about the end of civilization. So this is a first step, but it must be expanded…. “Now, my view is, the best way which could happen, and frankly I think the only way which will succeed, is if the United States and China would join hands, especially in the development of Latin America, of the Caribbean, of Central America: There are so many projects that would uplift the lives of people in Trinidad…. “I think that we need a modern health system in every single country, in Haiti, in Mali, in every country. They need the same kind of health system that we used to have in Germany before the privatization of the health sector; like the Chinese have demonstrated in Wuhan, where they were able to contain the pandemic in two months. But that requires modern hospitals, infrastructure, clean water. There are 2 billion people in the world who have no access to clean water! Electricity. “So I think that if the United States and China, and other countries, would join hands and say we have to defeat this pandemic and the danger of new ones, by helping to build up modern health systems in every single country, then that would be the common mission which would lift everything out of the realm of geopolitical confrontation, and serve the common aims of mankind. And that is what I really think has to happen.”
Dec. 27—The recent fusion breakthrough at the U.S.’s National Ignition Facility points to the powerful secrets that nature is just begging to reveal to committed searchers for truth! The breakthrough is all the more impressive in light of the pitifully low levels of fusion funding overall, and the fact that the NIF’s primary mission is to aid in the development of civilization-ending nuclear weapons. But the lessons of combined inertial-magnetic geometries — ideas championed nearly half a century ago by the LaRouche-founded Fusion Energy Foundation — illuminate more clearly a path towards the scientific technological breakthroughs which more than any other will define the next chapter of human history: the commercial controlled use of nuclear fusion power.
The Congress in the United States, a nation which once represented the highest stage of Western culture, has dismissed reason itself. A senile President is calling for unity, while his party is declaring that all those in the opposition party who exercised their constitutional right to challenge the pervasive and self-evident vote fraud are guilty of insurrection, while bringing an unconstitutional impeachment process against a private citizen who was once the President, attempting to disenfanchise his 75 million supporters by declaring him ineligible of ever again running for office. The people who cheered on the anarchist mobs who destroyed large portions of American cities all summer long—burning down police stations and federal buildings, killing policemen—are declaring a pre-planned riot at the U.S. Capitol, full of FBI stringers, to be the equivalent of the Confederacy’s war on the Republic, or even of al-Qaeda’s war on civilization.Behind this is the utter bankruptcy of the Western financial system, while the bankers who run that system are imposing a new form of fascist dictatorship upon the once sovereign nations of Western civilization. Henceforth, the bankers have declared, economic policies shall not be run by elected representatives of the people, but by the bankers themselves, in a “regime change” of the Western financial system. Credit shall no longer be issued in projects promoting the national interest, for the production of goods and services required to advance the general welfare, nor even to advance the profit motive of entrepreneurs, but rather, in conformance with their insistence to shut down industrial society to save the planet from carbon, based on the most absurd anti-scientific concoction of nonsense since the Stone Age. The Malthusian royals in Windsor Castle are delighted in their ghoulish drive to bring the world population down to their imagined “carrying capacity” of the Earth, in the range of 1-2 billion. In the process, a new “Green Bubble” is being created on Wall Street and in the City of London, in a desperate attempt to sustain the bankrupt banking system for yet a few more months. How is this possible? Drugs have something to do with it. The destruction of Classical culture and the advent of the Age of Ugliness has a great deal to do with it. The total control of the media and the educational system by satanists has also contributed, carrying out Bertrand Russell’s dream of being able to convince anyone that snow is black. The LaRouche Organization and EIR will release next week a White Paper to both expose this new Green fascism, and to provide the necessary ideas to defeat it. There is little time—the world is now faced with a general social breakdown crisis, and the extreme danger of a new global war, which, in the age of thermonuclear weapons, could end civilization altogether. On the other hand, if the ideas which spurred the Golden Renaissance, which spurred the Confucian Renaissance of the Song Dynasty, which spurred the renaissance eras in Islamic culture and Indian culture—if these powerful ideas can be brought to the fore, as they have following earlier dark ages, then the world can come together for an age of peace through development—development of our Earth, our Solar System, and beyond. Lyndon LaRouche’s ideas are more alive today than during his lifetime. He once said that when the world faces a breakdown crisis, people will look around to find out who had been telling the truth, rather than the lies that brought on the collapse. There is no solution to any part of this crisis without a solution to the entire global crisis, and, ironically, such a solution is more accessible today than ever before, precisely because the scope of this crisis of mankind is now unmistakably before us. The Chinese and the Russian Presidents addressed that truth in their speeches at Davos last week, which will be published in the next issue of EIR. Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed that truth in her speech on Martin Luther King Day (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHhtqM3UOjY&feature=youtu.be) It is time for all men and women to act, to master these profound ideas, for the sake of mankind’s immortal potential.
Jan. 3—The British colonial playbook is fairly predictable. If a war they launched is in danger of winding down or moving towards negotiations, they blow the situation up with the most offensive geopolitical provocation imaginable. They taunt their enemy and use targeted violence to try to force him to retaliate in kind.
Nov. 22—A tense, negotiated hostage exchange and temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is scheduled to go into effect sometime this weekend, possibly as early as Friday morning, local time. It will last only four days, with the possibility of extending it, day-by-day, for a few more days if things proceed as agreed. International aid agencies are already warning that the increased humanitarian aid that is also supposed to flow into Gaza will be far from what is needed and will scarcely ameliorate the human suffering there.
