Q:  As to whether it's going to be on the agenda, it's another issue, isn't it? 

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I couldn't hear you.

          Q:  As to whether it's going to be placed on the agenda of the upcoming UN General Assembly, in September, is another issue, isn't it?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think that depends on the courage of a couple of leading forces, and I'm not so pessimistic.  Because, you see, last month, there was a very important meeting in Yekaterinburg, in Russia, where the foreign ministers of Russia, China, and India met and then the next day they included the foreign minister of Brazil.  And they are planning to have other countries associated with it, South Africa, Mexico, and so forth.  And I think there is a motion where many of these Asian countries realize that they have to change course.  Because they are vulnerable in the collapse of the financial system, and if they don't take measures to protect themselves, they face terrible crises, too. 

          So, I think we are really in a changing period, a revolutionary period, and I think it's time for new and bold ideas.

          Q:  Now, Mrs. LaRouche, the UN Food and Agriculture summit is ongoing in Rome.  Do you have hope that they may turn things around somewhat?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Well, I think what happened in Rome so far, is exactly what I thought would happen, namely that the dividing line is very clear.  You had people such as Mr. Zoellick from the American trade delegation, who went to the summit and said exactly what was to be expected, that there should be more free trade, and he offered short-term food aid, but with the completion of the Doha Round attached to it.  Then you had other people going in the same direction.

          But you had also a whole bunch of people who spoke very differently, namely, the representative of Kazakhstan, for example, announced a very ambitious program to increase the food production in Kazakhstan.  And he said: For us, the end of free trade is really what has happened. Then, as I said, the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights of the United Nations, de Schuetter--he is the successor of Mr. Jean Ziegler, who actually called biofuels a "crime against humanity"--so this Mr. de Schuetter made a very good speech, by introducing a resolution, saying that the whole food issue has to be treated as a human rights issue.   And then he quoted all the articles of the UN Charter, why food security is a human right, and then he demanded a New Deal in agriculture.  And you know what a "New Deal" means:  It refers to the policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which he introduced in 1933 when he became President, and when the United States was in a deep Depression.  And with the New Deal, Roosevelt at the time, brought the United States out of this Depression by simply giving state credits to anybody who wanted to produce something useful.           So, we have been campaigning for a New Deal and a New Bretton Woods since many years, and I have myself issued several calls for a New Bretton Woods system, which have been signed by hundreds of VIPs around the world, and there has been a discussion for a New Deal for Europe by the new Finance and Economics Minister of Italy, Mr. Tremonti.  Then the former President and now Prime Minister of Russia Putin has called for a New Deal for Russia.  [Former] President Kirchner of Argentina has called for a New Deal for Latin America.  So there is a debate, and I think we need just to have more discussion about this.

          Q:  Now, Mrs. LaRouche, the U.S. are generally--still on the UN Food and Agriculture summit held in Rome--the U.S. says biofuels contributes 3% to the prices we are having in the global food crisis, and the UN says, no, it contributes 65%.  Biofuels:  How much of an issue is it?  How important is it, how essential is it to the global food crisis?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:  Well, I think it is important, because if you consider that with one tank full of biofuel, of one single car--one simple filling of your tank--a human being can live half a year or more!  So, you know, therefore, at a point when you have a billion people going hungry every day, I think it is perverse, and degenerate, and insane, and immoral, to use food for fuel!  It's just not right!

          First of all, economically, it's stupid, because you are not saving the environment one bit.  All you are doing is helping the speculator.  And if you would stop using food for biofuel, worldwide, immediately, you could feed {500 million} people with that!  Now for me, that is not a little issue, it's a big issue.  It's not the totality of the problem, but it's one the immediate measures one could do to help to solve the problem.

          Q:  Now, Mrs. LaRouche, you're saying this issue of biofuels, the world continuing with biofuels is economically foolhardy.  And here we are, the representatives of the United States at the UN Food and Agriculture summit in Rome, says it's going to continue.  So where does that lead the world?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Oh, fortunately this gentleman is not the only American.  You know, I have issued this call for food doubling in May, and if you go on the internet, you got to www.larouchepac.com website, or you go the Schiller Institute website, http://www.schillerinstitute.org/food_for_peace/hzl_double_food.html, you find there a list of the people who have signed my call in the meantime.  And you will find that there are many elected American officials, both acting state representatives, former senators, many trade unionists, mayors, city council members, and it is actually growing movement worldwide.  For example, just today, I got the message that eight sitting congressmen of the PRD party in Mexico have signed my call; the head of the leading agriculture research university; a leading trade union in Mexico; the head of the agriculture commission in the parliament of Argentina; there are many websites in Russia; many signers from other Latin American countries;  we have a farm commission in Europe of farmers who absolutely agree with me. 

          So it's a growing mobilization, and we are not looking at countries just as the official elected officials, but we are trying to take the interest of the lower 80% of the population, who need somebody who defends their interest.  And I think we are in a situation where that question is going to be decisive.  Because it's the system of the financial oligarchy which is failing right now.  So if you think what it means what I'm saying, when I say that the globalization system is more bankrupt today than communism was in '89-'91, nobody would have ever thought that the Soviet Union would collapse--except my husband, who already predicted that it would happen, in 1983, where he said, if the Soviet Union continues with their then-existing policies, they would collapse after five years.  And it did take six years, so he was off by one year, but he was on the record of having predicted it absolutely precisely.

          So, I think that we are right now, in a situation where you will see that all the schemes which people thought would work are not going to work, and there will be a tremendous opportunity to use this crisis to change a system which needs to be changed anyway.  And the Chinese have this character for "crisis" and it means at the same time, "a chance."  And I think that's the way to look at it: Use the crisis as a chance to correct what was wrong for a long time.

          Q:  Interesting suggestion. 

          This is Radio Gold, 90.5 FM Stereo here in Accra; we're also live on www.myradiogoldlive.com and www.gfmradio.com.  Live from Germany, we have Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche.  She's the international president of the Schiller Institute and chairperson of the German political party, Citizens Movement Solidarty, as well as a journalist for {Executive Intelligence Review}, and wife of American economist and former Democratic Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche....  The topic is the global food crisis. [gives phone numbers for texting comments and questions]  My name is [Musala Munsari] and the program is produced by Roland Roqua Steven...

          Coming back to you Mrs. LaRouche, you scratched the surface of [of beton?] on your campaign for doubling of food production.  But tell us more:  What {exactly} is the campaign about and how effective is it?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Did you ask how effective the campaign is?

          Q: Yes, what is it exactly about and how effective is it?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Well, I think it is very effective, because my call for doubling of the food production has been published by many countries:  For example, last Sunday, the official Egyptian state paper {Al Ahram} had on their front page a picture of President Mubarak, a picture of myself, a picture of {EIR}, our magazine which you just mentioned, and it reports extensively about my call to double food production; and then basically said this is exactly the line with which President Mubarak would go to the FAO conference in Rome.  And then the next day, on Monday, they had more coverage, basically discussing more details of my proposal.  Then this proposal was published by almost every major newspaper in the Gulf states, in Bahrain, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria.  As I said, in many Russian webpages; then you have a huge discussion about it in Latin America. 

          And we are continuing with this campaign until it becomes the dominant issue:  Because it's the only answer to the present system.  You know, if you have right now, a situation where the free trade faction says, "Africa should develop cash crops and export food."  Why?  So that then the African countries could pay their foreign debt!  Now, I think this is totally crazy.  I think what needs to be done first is you have to have food security, you have to have national sovereignty, and I think if you now look how many forces are echoing--maybe they were inspired by what I said, maybe they came independently to the same conclusion--it doesn't matter:  You have a growing movement of people who are talking the same way I'm talking.  For example, at the FAO conference, the Chinese minister of agriculture, Mr. Sun Zhengcai also blasted the biofuel, and also talked about food security for all as a fundamental human right.  And basically demanded that eradication of hunger, malnutrition, on a global level.  Then you had President Wade of Senegal who also spoke at the FAO conference and he is now proposing a "Great Green Wall," to be built 7,000 from Dakar to Djibouti, to basically have a 5 km wide green strip across the desert with trees, to create a new green lung, and in this way, to fight against the climatic changes in a meaningful way; and alongside of the Great Green Wall, he is planning to build water capture basins, because a large quantity of the water lost by evaporation.  Then Japan wants to help Africa to make the same kind of Green Revolution as Asia did in the '60s. 

          So I could probably add a lot of more people.  For example, the Russian Agriculture Minister Gordeyev, who is by the way a clear opponent of the WTO, he is also pushing to increase food production.

          So, all I'm saying, is while this is all is not yet a coherent policy, but all of a sudden, after many years of supposed globalization, people would say there is no alternative to globalization; but what you're seeing now is a very broad discussion of many countries and forces in the world who want to go back to the pre-GATT, pre-WTO kind of a system. 

          For example, even in Europe, which as I said, is not in the greatest condition right now because of the European Union bureaucracy, you have a very important discussion by the French Agriculture Minister Barnier, who is defending the European Common Agricultural Policy, which is essentially a protectionist system, which comes still from the era of Adenauer and de Gaulle.  And he's supported by Seehofer, the German Agriculture Minister, by Zaia, the Italian Agriculture Minister, and Barnier actually proposed the same system of the CAP, a joint African Common Agricultural Policy, modeled on the European one for Africa, for Latin America, and so forth. 

          So I think that there is plenty of motion, and I think it is very, very important that people in Ghana and other African countries really follow this, because this is a big change which is occurring right now.

          Q: And there's another dimension, that I'd want you to look at, Mrs. LaRouche, as far as the global food crisis is concerned: And that is the crude oil price spike on the global market.  How does it relate to the food crisis?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Well, obviously the speculators have jumped in the oil in the same way.  And if you have oil prices of now $135-plus--I don't know what the last was today.  But, remember, that an oil price of $25 is neutral to the economy.  People were saying for a long time, if the oil price would go up to $50, this would detonate things.  And then they said, "Oh no, if it goes to $80, that's the end." "If it goes $100, that's the end."  Now, we're at $135 and people are predicting it may go up to $200, and obviously, this is fueled by the speculators and obviously, also the fact that the fossil fuels are becoming less available. 

          So you have a clear need to think about a different energy source, and the obvious way to go, is peaceful nuclear energy, and there in particular, I think the high-temperature reactor, the pebble-bed reactor, which is right now developed by South Africa and by China, is the direction to look in.  Because this is an inherently safe variety of nuclear energy, because it was designed to shut down if there is the slightest irritation, and nothing can ever happen. 

          But, I think more fundamentally, I think one has to really consider the fact that we are right now, globally, in a hyperinflationary explosion, which can be only compared to what happened in Germany in 1923.  Now, in 1923, when Germany was forced, through the Versailles Treaty to come up with the entire cost in reparation for World War I, even no historian today would maintain the point that Germany was the only guilty party for World War I, nevertheless, the Versailles Treaty imposed all of this debt payment and reparations on Germany.  So then, the Reichsbank started to print money, disregarding the strength of the German economy, and then in 1923, this whole thing exploded and you had from the spring of '23, when one pound of bread would cost maybe 1 Reichsmark, it went up to 5, to 100, to 1,000, to 1 million, to a billion; and then in November it became so absurd, that people were literally pushing money with wheelbarrows to the baker, because half an hour later the inflation would force the price up again.  And then in November, it came to an end.

          Now, because of globalization, what you see right now, is that that hyperinflation is developing around the globe, in every single country of the planet.  And as long as the central banks, starting with the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, have responded to the banking crisis with pouring liquidity into the market, by trying to bail out the banks who are sitting on three-digit trillion sums of toxic waste of worthless paper, which they can not sell, because if they start selling them, it would turn out that they're worth almost nothing.  And therefore, as long as the central banks are trying to bail out these banks by pouring in liquidity, this is fueling the hyperinflation.

          And therefore, this is not going to get any better, it's going to get worse.  And if we are supposed to avoid a terrible catastrophe from this hyperinflationary explosion, then the only measure is to do what my husband has proposed since a long time: Namely, to have an emergency conference on the level of heads of states to declare the present system to be bankrupt, and to go for a reorganization, and create a new system in the tradition of Roosevelt's old Bretton Woods.

          So, that is the only solution, and then you have to have a ban on speculation.  I think speculation on raw materials, and especially food, but also basic raw materials like energy, like gas, like oil, they should not be allowed!  Why should something be allowed which only fills the pockets of a few speculators, but which is, as a consequence, killing people?  I think it is up to the governments to make laws--and as I already said earlier, there was a very important hearing in the American Senate which started to take up this question.  So I think this all now going to be on the table, sooner or later, and you will see dramatic changes.

          Q:  Right. Interesting point, Mrs. LaRouche.  We're going for a commercial break, and then we'll come back, and read some of your text messages, open the phone lines, and then take concluding remarks from Mrs. LaRouche.  Of course, somebody wants to know how to join your campaign, and when we come back from commercial break, we'll answer this...

          Mrs. LaRouche, somebody wants to know:  How do I join your campaign, if I want to?  Is there a specific website address, and if I'm in Ghana, how do I join your campaign?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:  Well, first of all, you can contact us on the internet.  You can either join the American Schiller Institute www.schillerinstitute.com or you can join the German one, www.schiller-institut.de; we have a Danish one, we have a Swedish one.  Actually the Schiller Institute exists in, I would say, almost 60 countries around the world in different forms.  We have conferences, we have all kinds of political activities, all kinds of campaigns.  You can sign my call for doubling the food production, you can help us to sponsor conferences in your countries.  I mean, there's a whole bunch of things:  Write us an email, get in contact with us!  Spread the idea, take my call, print it out, and distribute it to the parliamentarians of your country.  Collect signatures from trade unionists; bring it to the attention of agriculture professors at universities, organize students, get young people to discuss this. 

          I mean, this is very important:  We have a worldwide youth movement, the LaRouche Youth Movement which exists, actually on five continents.  These are young people which follow the ideas especially of my husband, and we basically think this is a question of just us elderly people--I don't know how old you are! [laughs]  But it's the question of the youth!  The youth have to live the next 50, 70, 80 years, and it is their right to decide too, you know, what kind of a world do they want to live in?  Do they want to live in the kind of world which Bush and Cheney have created by calling for 100 years of war against terrorism?  No, I don't think young people want to live in a 100 years of war.  I think young people have a right to decide themselves, what should be the economic policies, how should the countries be organized.      So get young people to joint.  Make student meetings, have discussions, download from the internet from our websites these articles which have lots of background. 

          Q:  Okay, and the website address once again, is:  www.schillerinstitute.com?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   The English one it's written institute with an "e," dot.com [www.schillerinstitute.com]; in German it's without an "e," [www.schiller-institut.de].  But then, you have www.larouchepac.com, and  www.larouchepub.com -- "pub" for "publications."  And that way, you can contact us, and we'll answer you for sure...

          Q:  Let me quickly open the phone lines... and there's a text message here.  "A question for Mrs. LaRouche: The CO2 regulations being pushed down on the developing countries makes development very difficult.  But isn't these so-called global warming measures just another neo-colonial scheme, to prevent development for developing countries?"  This one is from Benjamin in Denmark.  What's your take on that, Mrs. LaRouche, on this CO2?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:  Yes, I think absolutely, it is a neo-colonial scheme.  Because, global warming--I mean, there are climate changes, absolutely, but they are taking place as long as our planet exists:  You have ice ages, you have warming periods, you have small ice ages, you have small warming periods.  And these changes depend on the constellation of the Earth to the Sun, of the angle of the Earth's axis to the Sun, of different rays, of the position of our Solar System in the larger Milky Way galaxy, and these are cycles which are 100,000 years, 40,000 years, 20,000 years long.  And they're repeating all the time.  So there have periods where you could grow vineyards in northern Ireland, there have periods where there were giraffes in the Sahara which was a blooming countryside at that time. 

          So all these changes really have nothing to do with man's activity.  And as a matter of fact if you take the CO2 effect on the global weather changes--I always use the image of a huge elephant, which is the cyclical stellar causes for climate change--and then you have a tiny little fly sitting on the head of the elephant, and that is the CO2 emissions coming from man. 

          So it's a swindle.  And then, if you know, for example, that Al Gore is actually the CEO of two hedge funds, speculating in CO2 emissions, then you have a first glance at what is really at stake.

          Q:  Interesting.  A text message, Mrs. LaRouche, from Simon in Botswana, says, "What does Mrs. LaRouche think of bio-regionalism.  What she says is not much different from the worst aspects of globalization.  Massive structures, nuclear destruction of small, fragile eco-systems."  Your response?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   I could not hear you--bio-energy, did you say?

          Q:  "Bio-regionalism."

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Oh, bio-regionalism.  Well, I think that obviously, the way to protect the environment is by using modern technology.  And obviously, we want to be very careful about protecting what needs to be protected:  But you know, there is a fundamental difference between human beings and animals.  The human being is different from all other species by his and her ability to come up with new scientific, universal principles, which then, if they are adequate, and they are valid, are called scientific progress.  And if you apply the scientific progress in the production, then this leads to an increase in the living standard of the population, and the longevity of the people. 

          Now, that is actually a law of the universe.  Because you have to have increasing rates of energy-flux density in the production process, because whenever you halt, then sooner or later, you come to the limits of that particular level.  And then you have the absolute necessity to come up with an invention which increases the productivity and which increases the power of man in nature. 

          Now, if man would have stayed at the same level, then already may 20,000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago, when the population potential of the Earth was maybe 5 million people, there would have come a collapse of the whole development.  But because man was then able to develop agriculture, then he was able to develop the use of fossil fuels, of the steam engine, and now we are reaching even higher energy-densities with the potential of nuclear energy, and soon, hopefully, fusion energy.  And then we can move to not only using waste to retransport it into new raw materials, but we can create new isotopes, and actually move into completely different regime of the production.  And I think we are really at the beginning of a development of humankind.

          Q:  Thank you very much, Mrs. LaRouche.  A text message here from [inaudible] says, "Indeed, all Africa, should today mourn and honor Kwame Nkrumah.  What he sought to do to unite Africa socio-politically and economically years ago, is what the Eurasians are trying to do today.  Africa should concentrate on intra-trade." And, okay--you didn't place your name in there.

          But another text message says, "The press's grasp of global issues and their impact of the economy is so poor that the President's ministers are taking advantage of this ignorance."  Okay, thanks for your text message.

          The text line is closed for now, because our time is almost up, we're about wrapping up on the program.  Let me quickly, probably on lighter note, Mrs. LaRouche--away from the topic a bit:  Our understanding is that there's this political energy in the U.S.  Of course, we know your husband is a well-known American economist and former Democratic Presidential candidate. 

          What can you tell us about the upcoming American elections, knowing that your husband was once a Democratic President candidate?  There's this "Barack-mania" all over the place, we've been through.  But what can you tell us about the upcoming American elections?

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Well, it is not over.  There was actually in the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton won 18 million votes, that is more votes than any other Presidential candidate {ever} got in a primary.  Obama got more delegates, and therefore, yesterday, because of massive pressure by an actually corrupt Democratic Party leadership around Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, basically created a situation where Hillary suspended her campaign--but she did not release her delegates.  So, since between now and the convention, at the end of August, the financial crisis will get much, much worse, and Hillary Clinton was the only one to address the economy, and the interests if the lower 80% of the population, therefore, I would not at all call this primary process, or this election process as being decided. 

          Especially, because today, a big shock occurred, namely, that Obama, who already made a very bad move two weeks ago, when he was in a webcast organized by the daughter of Murdoch in London, and he stressed that he would even make the "special relationship" between Great Britain and the United States, better than it as during Bush, and even give Great Britain "the lead" sometimes.  Now, that already was a bad sign: But yesterday, he made a terrible thing--he addressed the AIPAC conference, and there he basically said that he would recognize Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel; that he would not take the military option against Iran off the table; and he made a whole bunch of other terrible statements, calling the Palestinians terrorists, and similar things. 

          So I think there is a big shock.  The Palestinian leaders denounced the speech; leaders in America, in the Democratic Party are {completely} shocked, because obviously, Obama is trying to be now right of McCain!  Because, these are issues on which McCain would not go so far.  So Obama is obviously going totally out of control.

          Q:  Okay--I'm sorry, unfortunately, Mrs. LaRouche, but let me thank you, and our sponsor...  Let me thank my producer Roland Roqua Steven for this.  And before we go, let me come back to Mrs. LaRouche and ask for her concluding remarks in 60 seconds.

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:  Well, I think we are at a very important historical moment.  And everybody who is listening to this program and finds and element of truth in what I said, especially about the absolute need to have a just new world economic order, and to really change the economic policies for the developing countries and really put real development on the agenda, they should join with us.  Because the LaRouche movement and the Schiller Institute, we are linked with all the progressive forces around the world, who agree that the spirit of the Non-Aligned Movement--and you mentioned President Nkrumah, which I think is really the spirit we have to go back to.  And I think the 30 years of globalization were an error:  We have to go away from that, and we have to put real development back on the agenda and put man in the center of all our endeavors.  And then I think there is nothing we can not fix on this planet.  So, please join us!

          Q:  Thank you.  Thank you, very much, Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche.... And again, thanks to Michelle Rasmussen:  Michelle, you are the reason why we are having this program.  Michelle Rasmussen of Schiller Institute and from Copenhagen, Denmark, whose leaflet she gave to my producer in Copenhagen Business School.  She's the reason why we're doing this show.  And thanks for that.

          And also, thanks to George Hollis, in the United States, facilitating the telephone connectivity to Germany from the U.S.A.  And, thank you very much to our technicians....  Many thanks to the Schiller Institute, and again, many thanks to you, Mrs. LaRouche for joining us.

          ZEPP-LAROUCHE:   Yes, it was nice to be with you.