POLITISK ORIENTERING den 28. april 2016
Dit valg: konfrontation eller samarbejde med Rusland og Kina?
Video: 2. del:
Lyd:
Video: 2. del:
Lyd:
23. april 2016 – Uden en ordentlig offentlig debat om en udvikling, der omhandler vort alles liv og menneskehedens fremtidige eksistens, har verden atter for længst befundet sig i en kold krig og en global oprustningsspiral. USA’s og NATO’s forsøg på at gennemføre en unipolær verdensorden, selv om dette for længst er holdt op med at svare til de faktiske magtforhold på denne planet, risikerer at fremkalde nye krige – og i atomvåbnenes tidsalder vil det sige den tredje, og dermed sidste, verdenskrig.
Mens verdens medier fokuserer opmærksomheden på Saudi Arabiens hånd bag angrebene d. 11. september – og al efterfølgende jihad-terror jorden rundt – og præsident Barack Obamas dække over disse forbrydelser, skal de egentlige ophavsmænd til dette massedrabs-program ikke findes i Riyadh eller det Hvide Hus, men i London. Det er aldeles passende og korrekt, at den britiske agent, og nøglefigur i at dække over 11. september Barack Obama, styrer direkte fra Riyadh til London senere i denne uge for, endnu engang, at hylde den britiske Dronning.
Saudi-Arabien har altid været den britiske Krones ejendom, tilbage til Lawrence af Arabiens tid, og den oprindelige generation af Huset Saud og Wahhabi-gejstligheden. Faktisk daterer britisk kontrol over de Persiske Golfemirater sig tilbage til det britiske Østindiske Kompagnis velmagtsdage i det attende og nittende århundrede. Men dette britiskkontrollerede partnerskab med de saudiske kongelige blev sat på langt mere formel og aktiv fod i 1985, da Prins Bandar bin-Sultan, en selverklæret britisk agent, sluttede Al-Yamamah handlen med Margaret Thatcher, og derved etablerede olie-for-våben tuskhandels-systemet, under hvilket hundreder af milliarder af dollars blev afsondret til britiske offshore finansielle fristeder – til finansiering af terrorisme, kup og snigmord jorden over.
Det er denne del af 11. september, der indtil nu har manglet fra den, nu på høje tid, offentlige opstand over hemmeligholdelsen af de 28 sider fra den originale fælles Kongresundersøgelse af 11. september. Hvor fik den saudiske USA-ambassadør prins ”Bandar Bush” pengene fra til at finansiere de to ledende 11. september flykaprere i San Diego? Fra Al Yamamah kontoen i Bank of England, der gik til hans personlige bankkonto i Riggs National Bank i Washington. Det var hans del af Al Yamamah-rovet, minimum $2 milliarder.
Uden beskyttelse fra Londonistan ville der ikke være et Saudisk kongedømme, ingen infrastruktur til jihad-terrorisme, ingen global stof-epidemi og ingen trussel om global udryddelseskrig.
Helt tilbage fra før de faktiske 11. september angreb, som Lyndon LaRouche overværede på live-TV mens han gav et interview til den populære radiovært fra Utah Jack Stockwell, advarede LaRouche om en truende Rigsdagsbrand, iscenesat under Bush-Cheney administrationen for at drive USA hen imod en diktaturstat. I december 2000 havde Executive Intelligence Review formelt begæret, at det amerikanske State Department satte Storbritannien på listen over statssponsorer af terrorisme. Dokumentet angav detaljeret snesevis af formelle klager fra regeringer rundt om i verden imod Londons husly til, og finansiering af, terrorister og voldelige separatister.
Der var rigeligt med lejlighed til at stoppe masse-blodsudgydelserne inklusiv 11. september ved at tage fat på menneskehedens virkelige fjende – det britiske Imperium. Undladelsen af at gøre dette i den nylige fortid har bragt os i det graverende øjeblik af krise, hvor et desperate og bankerot britisk Imperium er parat til at sprænge verden i luften, hellere end at afstå dets magt. Nu er øjeblikket inde til at slå den saudiske terrormaskine, sammen med det britiske Imperium, der i virkeligheden kører showet, ud. Bryd dækket over 11. september, og tag Obama ned sammen med anglo-saudierne. Det er muligvis menneskehedens sidste og bedste chance for overlevelse.
I takt med at presset fortsat vokser på Obama for at frigive de 28 sider om d. 11. september, inklusiv at tidligere senator Bob Graham i denne uge har skrevet en ledende artikel, hvori han undsiger det "aggressive bedrag", som to på hinanden følgende administrationer har forøvet mod det amerikanske folk, begynder vi i aften kl. 8 pm. (eastern time) vores webudsendelse med en særlig video-erklæring fra Lyndon LaRouche personligt. Han hævder en afgørende britisk skyld i komplottet, hvorefter Jeffrey Steinberg indtager podiet for i detaljer at udlægge sine eksklusive undersøgelser i disse britisk-saudiske forbindelser. Jeff Steinberg diskuterer også implikationerne af det nyligt frigivne 47-siders dokument forfattet af undersøgerne i 11. september Kommissionen, i hvilken de forslog en efterforskning af den rolle, som agenturer indenfor den amerikanske regering spillede i at dække over den saudiske rolle i angrebene, men som de blev blokeret i at foretage.
Engelsk udskrift.
As the pressure continues to increase on Obama to release the 28 pages on 9/11, including former Senator Bob Graham authoring an editorial this week in which he denounces the "aggressive deception" which two consecutive administrations have perpetrated against the American people, we begin our webcast tonight at 8 pm eastern witha special video statement from Lyndon LaRouche personally in which he asserts the British culpability in the plot, after which Jeffrey Steinberg takes the podium to lay out in detail his exclusive research into these British-Saudi connections. Jeff Steinberg also discusses the implications of a newly released 47-page document authored by researchers on the 9/11 Commission in which they proposed to investigate the role that agencies within the US government played in covering up for the Saudi role in the attacks, but were blocked from doing so.
'JASTA' Act Passed in 2012, and Obama Signed It — Against Iran
TRANSCRIPT
MATTHEW OGDEN: Good evening, my name is Matthew Ogden, and I would like to welcome all of you to our weekly broadcast here from larouchepac.com. You're watching the Friday evening webcast for April 22nd, 2016. I'm joined in the studio tonight by Jeffrey Steinberg, from Executive Intelligence Review. And the two of us had a meeting with both Lyndon and Helga LaRouche, and I think that the presentation that Jeff gives tonight will be a very significant presentation, elaborating on some remarks that Mr. LaRouche had to say just yesterday on the question of the story behind and beyondthe 28 pages.
Now, as those of you who are watching this broadcast tonight probably know, we are living in a truly momentous period of history. Over the last two weeks, since the "60 Minutes" episode which elaborated the story of the so-called "28 pages," the redacted chapter of the 9/11 Joint Congressional Inquiry report into 9/11, that has been classified by both the Bush and the Obama administrations; since that broadcast, there has been an unrelenting stream of media coverage of this story, in almost all of the major national press in the United States, and also internationally, in Europe and elsewhere. There has also been a relentless attack, directly, on Obama, by name, for his refusal to declassify these 28 pages, despite the promises that he has given to the 9/11 families; and also for his open and explicit opposition to the lawsuit that families have waged against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as the bill that they have introduced into the United States Senate, the Justice Against State Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would allow those victims to sue the state-sponsors of the 9/11 attacks.
Now, as you know, on the LaRouche PAC website, we have been covering this story for years, very closely. We've been following the efforts of Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC), Congressman Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) in the House of Representatives, who have introduced a bill, now over two years ago, House Resolution 14 (H.R.14), which was previously House Resolution 428, calling on Obama to declassify the 28 pages; and they've worked very closely with former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL). Bob Graham was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and was co-chairman of the 9/11 Joint Congressional Inquiry report.
Bob Graham has been very vocal, for years, in calling for the 28 pages to be released. I had the pleasure of interviewing him at an event in Florida in November of 2014, and at that time, he was very clear that if the 28 pages had not been classified and suppressed, you would not be seeing the threat of terrorism that we're facing today from al-Qaeda and from ISIS, both of which have received direct funding from individuals connected with the Saudi regime.
Bob Graham wrote a very clear and very blunt op-ed that was published in the Florida newspaper TCPalm, which was titled, "28 Pages: How Our Government Has Used Deceit To Withhold Truth From the American People." This op-ed was published on Wednesday, to be timed directly in coincidence with President Obama's landing in Riyadh, to hold a joint bilateral summit with King Salman of Saudi Arabia. In this op-ed, Senator Graham is perhaps more explicit than he has ever been. He said, "This was not just a cover-up." The suppression of the 28 pages and other evidence linking the Saudis to 9/11 was the result of what he calls "an aggressive deception." He says, "Your government has purposely used deceit to withhold the truth." The reason for this deceit, he says, "is to protect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from its complicity in the murder of 2,977 Americans. On April 15, the New York Timesreported: 'Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.'" That is obviously a blackmail threat against the United States, and that's what they said publicly; one can only wonder what the Saudis were threatening behind closed doors.
What Senator Graham goes on to say in this op-ed is: "If that is not sufficient to get your blood boiling, read on: [the New York Timeswrites] 'The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill's passage.'"
Now, Senator Graham elaborates that there have been multiple forms of what he calls this "aggressive deceit"; not only the suppression of the 28 pages. He said the 28 pages would disclose the sources of funding for the attack on 9/11; this has been under review for declassification for three years, which was three times the amount of time that it took to research, author and publish, the original Congressional Inquiry report which was 838 pages long! He said, secondly, "The 28 pages are the most iconic, but not the only, evidence to be withheld from the report of the congressional inquiry. The report is pocked by hundreds of specific redactions."
And then he says, thirdly, "Investigations at locales where the hijackers lived and plotted prior to the attacks also have been classified. One of those involves Mohamed Atta, the leader of the hijackers, and two of his henchmen who are alleged to have collaborated with a prominent Saudi family who lived in Sarasota for six years before abruptly departing for Saudi Arabia two weeks before 9/11."
Senator Graham says, "The FBI publicly described its Sarasota investigation as complete, and said it found no connection between the hijackers and the family. Later, responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, the FBI released an investigative report that said the family had 'many connections' to individuals tied to the terrorist attacks. The FBI for two years has aggressively resisted releasing that report," Graham says. [emphasis added] And this is part of a much bigger story, that goes beyond just the 28 pages per se.
Now, Senator Graham concludes that op-ed by saying there are three reasons why the 28 pages must be released: One is justice for the families; two is national security, and he said: The fact that Saudis, and their "blatant attempts to avoid liability as co-conspirators in the crime of 9/11, and the U.S. government's acquiescence by refusing to release information (and opposition to reforming laws that would hold collaborators in murder to account) has been a clear signal to the Kingdom that it is immune from U.S. sanctions. With that impunity," Senator Graham says, "it continues to finance terrorists and fund mosques and schools used to indoctrinate the next generation of terrorists in intolerance and jihad."
And then finally, he said, this is an issue of democracy. "The American government is founded on the consent of the governed. To give that consent, the people must know what the government is doing in its name. Distrust in government is reflected in the speeches of today's presidential candidates" he said. "The public's sometimes angry response is fueled by a sense of betrayal and deceit."
Now, Mr. LaRouche was asked a question from our institutional source this week, this is our regular institutional question, and it's very brief, but it's obviously directly on this subject-matter. The question reads as follows: "Mr. LaRouche, there has been an overwhelming enthusiasm to release the 28 pages lately. What is your advice to the Obama administration, in regards to the 28 pages?"
Now, we produced a short video which includes the audio of Mr. LaRouche's remarks on this subject. We're going to play that video for you now; it's about five minutes in length, and then immediately after that video, I'm going to ask Jeff Steinberg to come to the podium to elaborate some of the points that Mr. LaRouche asserts in this statement.
LYNDON LAROUCHE: [via audio file] I was watching those two planes which were carrying the victims, and carried them to death. I was an eyewitness to the press. We knew that they were being carried, as victims, inside the planes, in the two planes in succession, and obviously the passengers all died.
But that operation, on that occasion, which I witnessed from beginning to end in my first contact with it, defines the actual issue which has to be addressed.
Now of course, I also knew what the background was. The way this thing was set into motion was with the Bush family. Now, the Bush family was actually a key part, of setting this thing into motion; they may not have intended to do that, because they're too stupid to know what they're doing. See, the Bush family was involved in its own little warfare operation, so there was a spillover from the Bush administration as such, into this particular operation. The whole operation was twofold: One, was British-Saudi operation. Now the person who was directing the thing from inside the United States, had been trained by the British system. Bandar was a key figure operating inside the United States. Bandar was directly overseeing the launching of this operation.
And what they were doing, was they were shipping petroleum as a real money-making operation, just with the oil trade, by the British, shared with the Saudis; and this thing was done for harmful purposes in many ways, and was a key part of control of what the United States was doing in petroleum; because the thing was a fraud — a fraud committed by Her Majesty. Her Majesty was guilty: period. Queen Elizabeth was the author of this operation. She was the only person who was qualified to authorize this operation.
The attack on Manhattan was done under the cover of the British system. And the Saudis were a subordinate aspect of the British system as a whole. Her Majesty was the author, of this monster. And the Saudis were simply stooges. The Saudis have been stooges from the beginning of the 20th century. That's the essential story. Everything has to be focused on that: The fact that is was thedeliberate mass murder of American citizens. And not only that, but adirect attack on the United States!
The key thing is that the British and the Saudis are the same thing, since that time. And all these facts are really known, on the record. The Saudis are guilty and the British are guilty, because the Saudis and the British are part of the same agency. What the Saudis do, what the British do, won't be the same thing. The fact is that the Saudi Kingdom is not a real government — it's an empire; it's an imperial institution. It has no formal responsibility to anything except the Kingdom of the Saudis, and the British! They are the same thing!
OGDEN: Now, as you can see displayed on the screen, we have a short advertisement for a much longer feature documentary that was published, actually several years back by LaRouche PAC Television, which was called "Beyond the 28 Pages: 9/11 Ten Years Later,".
Jeffrey Steinberg was interviewed as part of that production, and obviously has been very intimately familiar with many of the facts that are presented in that documentary and which were alluded to by Mr. LaRouche in the statement that you just heard. So I'm going to invite Jeff Steinberg to come to the podium to elaborate this, in a little bit more detail.
JEFFREY STEINBERG: Thank you, Matt. Well I think it's important to recognize that the fundamental point that Mr. LaRouche just made in answering the institutional question for this week, is that the story of 9/11 is incomplete if we simply stop with the now obvious, transparently evident role that high-ranking figures within the Saudi royal family and within the Saudi government played in the 9/11 attacks. Both before the attacks, as the attacks were happening, and in the cover-up that followed. What's crucial to understand is that the Saudis do nothing without full support and approval coming from the highest levels of the British monarchy; all the way up to the Queen herself, and to the Royal Consort, Prince Philip. The fact of the matter is that, going back centuries, back to the time of the heyday of the British East India Company, the entire Persian Gulf region was a British colony, a British Protectorate. For centuries, every one of the so-called nations — really tribal collections — along the Persian Gulf, whether it was Bahrain, or the UAE, or Qatar, or Oman, or Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait; all of those countries existed in name only. All of them had treaty agreements where their foreign and defense policy was run out of London. It was a vital feature for the functioning of the British East India Company to have a way station en route to India and on to China. So, at the beginning of the 20th Century, when people like Lawrence of Arabia forged the establishment of the House of Saud as a marriage between a tribal family and the Wahabi fundamentalist clergy of that area; it's always been a British game, it's always been tightly under the thumb of the British. And that carries through even more so in the present modern period.
Mr. LaRouche mentioned Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who for years was the Saudi ambassador here in the United States; before that, he was the Saudi military attaché in Washington. And he was widely referred to as "Prince Bandar Bush", because of his close relationship with the Bush family — starting with father George HW Bush, and continuing even more so under George W Bush — was notoriously close. But above all else, Prince Bandar was a British agent. He was trained at British military schools; his official, authorized biography was written by one of his school chums from British military school. And in 1985, Bandar negotiated what came to be a critical feature of the Anglo-Saudi arrangement — the Al-Yamamah deal; this was ostensibly a barter arrangement in which the Saudis paid in oil for British military equipment — fighter planes, radar systems, training, supplies, all of that.
And in carefully investigating that program, what we discovered was that the amount of oil that the Saudis delivered to the British in payment for about $40 billion of military hardware, was orders of magnitude greater. The oil for the Saudis was cheap; it was under $5 a barrel to pull it out of the ground and load it onto a supertanker. But once British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell took control over that oil, they sold it on the spot market at phenomenal mark-ups. From 1985 until the scandal first broke in 2007, more than $100 billion in excess funds were accrued after paying for the British military equipment and after generous bribes to many British and Saudi officials. Hundreds of billions of dollars were sequestered in offshore bank accounts; and those funds represented the biggest slush fund in the world for carrying out destabilizations of governments, terrorist activities, and assassinations. Prince Bandar, not being the brightest guy on the planet, openly boasted about this special relationship, and said that while Al-Yamamah was a traditional barter arrangement — oil for weapons — it was in fact something much more. It was a reflection of the marriage of the British and Saudi monarchies; and the fact that these monarchies could operate outside of any parliamentary or Congressional scrutiny; and could carry out black operations anywhere in the world that they chose to do it.
Now, officially, Prince Bandar received a $2 billion commission for arranging the Al-Yamamah deal; and those funds have been traced. They went from accounts of the Bank of England, accounts from the British Ministry of Defense that oversaw the Al-Yamamah arrangement; and they went from there into the bank accounts in Riggs National Bank in Washington DC, the private accounts of Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Among the documentation contained in the 28 pages that Presidents Bush and Obama have kept from the American people, is evidence, paper trails of funds that were sent directly from Bandar's and his wife's personal bank account into the hands of two Saudi intelligence agents who were the handlers of the original two 9/11 hijackers who arrived in the United States at the beginning of the year 2000.
So, the British hand in 9/11 is unmistakable. If those 28 pages were to be opened up, it would not only confirm that the British and the Saudi royal families were together engaged in setting up and financing the 9/11 attacks; but would open up an array of other questions about follow-on terrorist operations that have occurred on a global scale. All told, hundreds of billions of dollars laundered offshore —probably in places like Panama, as well as the Cayman Islands, the Isles of Jersey off the coast of England — have gone into countless operations like the 9/11 attacks themselves.
So, while many people are quite clear on why it is that President George W Bush would order the suppression of the 28 pages, because of his notorious close relationship with Prince Bandar and the Saudis; many people scratch their heads and say, "Well, why would President Obama — particularly after he promised the families that he would declassify the 28 pages; why would President Obama continue with the cover-up?" It's not for Obama a matter of the Saudis; for Obama it goes to the next higher level in this whole story, which is namely, the British. Obama, from the beginning of his political career, has been sponsored by the British. It's not surprising that this week President Obama made a trip to Saudi Arabia; he was there Wednesday and Thursday. He met with King Salman of Saudi Arabia; and on Thursday, he met with all of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. From there, he has now flown on to London, where he will be holding a private audience with the Queen. Obama has been a slavish loyalist of the British Empire, of the British monarchy, since the moment he came into office as President. So, Obama's hand in the cover-up, the shameless continuing cover-up of what happened on 9/11, is all about protecting the British side of this story. Were those 28 pages to be opened up, the minute that one began looking at the role of Prince Bandar, it would become absolutely obvious that there is a major British side to this story.
Now of course, when you talk about the British monarchy, if you roll the clock back just a few years before the September 11, 2001 attacks; remember that there was an intensive investigation over a number of years into the fact that the British monarchy was unquestionably behind the murder of Princess Diana. It was a revenge killing because she represented forces that were completely disgusted with the way that the House of Windsor, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Prince Charles operated. So, you have a British monarchy that has blood on its hands going back a very long time; and most recently with the top-down ordered assassination of Princess Diana. It should come as no surprise that that same British apparatus is up to its eyeballs on global terrorism.
Now in point of fact, in late 2000, Executive Intelligence Review filed a formal request with the US State Department that they consider placing Great Britain on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. People may remember at that time, there was a wave of terrorism going on around the globe. In 1997, you had the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group carry out an attack against a group of Japanese tourists at Luxor; and the Egyptian government at that time, provided detailed evidence that the terror plot had been organized, financed, and controlled by Egyptian terrorist networks that were living in Britain under the protection of the British monarchy.
Several years later, the Russian government filed a series of formal diplomatic demarches because they had evidence that the British government was facilitating the recruitment of Chechen terrorists who would be allowed to travel to Afghanistan from Britain to be trained by al-Qaeda and then safely routed into Chechnya to become part of the separatist terrorist networks that were fighting against the Russian government. There was detailed evidence that was included in that EIR profile; and unfortunately needless to say, the State Department sat on it, did nothing; and so, we had 2001. And we had many subsequent terrorist events that followed from that.
So, the bottom line here, is that now that there is intensive momentum demanding the declassification of those 28 pages, what is really required is a complete, de novo, top-down investigation into the 9/11 actions; and into all of the subsequent terrorist actions that have followed and have been the work of the same Anglo-Saudi apparatus. Once those 28 pages are made public, once the American people — led by the families of those 2,997 people killed by 9/11 — have the chance to thoroughly read through and digest the content of those pages; then the whole can of worms, the whole British-Saudi empire structure has to be brought down. Has to be subject to the kind of rigorous criminal prosecution that is warranted; and that means as well, that both President Bush and President Obama have to be brought to criminal task for their role in both facilitating and covering this up.
As Mr. LaRouche said in his brief comments to colleagues yesterday, that you just saw in that 5-minute video, he was on the scene; he was giving a live interview to Utah radio broadcaster Jack Stockwell. He had the TV on in his study; and he saw in real-time, the planes crashing into the two World Trade Center towers. He was one of the few people — perhaps the only person outside of those who committed the crime — on Earth who understood the full strategic implications of it the moment that the attack occurred. LaRouche had warned at the beginning of 2001, once he saw the character of the Bush/Cheney administration, that this was the kind of regime that would look for the first opportunity to carry out a Reichstag fire in order to go for dictatorship. And he understood that it was the Anglo-Saudi apparatus that represented the capability for carrying out just such a heinous crime with those particular intentions. He made very clear in that real-time interview with Jack Stockwell, that the entire blame was going to immediately be placed on al-Qaeda; but he said to the extent that al-Qaeda had anything to do with it, it's a bit part. It's a minor element of something much bigger that goes much higher; and goes up to the British-Saudi apparatus that we've been discussing here.
So, members of Congress who have read those 28 pages — and by now, there's well over 100 members who have done that; they've all come away with the same conclusion. That these documents must be made public; and furthermore, that they completely alter how you understand the history of the last several decades. So, take that as just a glimmer of an indication of what the implications are. Regardless of what's contained in the 28 pages per se, it's the implications of the findings in those 28 pages; and the can of worms that's opened up that leads all the way up to the British monarchy. And you realize that the fight to get these 28 pages released to the public is a fight for the very survival of mankind going forward from this day. The British Empire today is bankrupt; they're desperate. They're not just desperate to cover up the 28 pages and the whole 9/11 story and the Al-Yamamah story; they're desperate because they're on the edge of losing their power. And they will, if the opportunity presents itself, create the conditions using these kinds of capabilities, to start a world war. So, the stakes are enormous; and the answer is very straightforward. Release the 28 pages; and on the basis of that, re-open from the top down a complete and thorough investigation. Starting with the British and Saudi monarchies and working down from there. We owe it to the families that suffered through 9/11; we owe it to the American people; and we owe it to mankind.
OGDEN: Thank you very much, Jeff. One thing I would just mention in relation with some of what Jeff just went through in detail, is that some of these connections are not unknown to people who are familiar with this investigation. In fact, Senator Bob Graham himself, while denied from including this in his nonfiction book, Intelligence Matters; in his fiction book — which he said himself he had to publish, because it was the only way he could get the truth in written form. In his fiction book, his novel Keys to the Kingdom, Senator Bob Graham includes a lot of references to exactly the kinds of things that Jeff just went through. The role of BAE; the Al-Yamamah deal; the offshore tax havens; the Cayman Islands; the fact that Tony Blair intervened to shut down the investigation into the connection between the British BAE Systems and the Saudis. So, in fact, these are the lines of inquiry that anybody who is serious — and the people who are familiar with this case — wish would be pursued; because they know exactly how big this can of worms really is.
Now, the 28 pages may not have been declassified yet; however, one very important document that was declassified recently — and has only now begun to receive media attention, starting with an exclusive report and analysis by Brian McGlinchey, who is the editor of the very important website 28pages.org. This is a document which was a 47-page draft document which was written by two researchers who were working on the 9/11 Commission; this was the independent blue-ribbon panel their own extensive report into 9/11. But these two researchers, who are named Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson, had both been formerly employed by the Congressional Joint Inquiry Committee. And in this 47-page document, they lay out what was going to be their own working plans for their follow-up research on the spcific lines of research which they had been engaged in during their role in the Congressional investigation. One of the items which they cite in this document — and Jeff will elaborate this more — is the fact that an alleged al-Qaeda operative, a person named Ghassan al-Sharbi who had trained for flight lessons in Arizona prior to 9/11, and who was captured in Pakistan subsequently; was discovered to have buried a cache of documents near to his person at the location where he was hiding, which included al-Sharbi's US pilot certificate which was inside of an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington DC.
Senator Bob Graham, who was not informed of this fact during the time that this investigation was going on, but later learned about it after this declassification; said in response, "That's very interesting. That's a very intriguing and close connection to the Saudi embassy." The second item which is of extraordinary interest in this 47-page research document, are the two questions which these two researchers intended to pursue. The first question was: How aggressively has the US government investigated possible ties between the Saudi government and/or royal family and the September 11 attacks? And number two: To what extent have the US government's efforts to investigate possible between the Saudi government and/or royal family and the September 11 attacks been affected by political, economic, or other considerations?
Now, what's very telling is that when Dana Lesemann attempted to go back and access the 28 pages which she herself was instrumental in researching and writing, first she was denied and blocked access to them; and then when she circumvented those denials, she was fired. She was dismissed from the 9/11 Commission investigation. So, I think that just demonstrates in a very illustrative way just one example of what Bob Graham described as the "aggressive deception" that has been undertaken in this case; that's what he said in the op-ed which I cited at the beginning of this broadcast tonight. He said, "Your government has purposely used deceit to withhold the truth." And that is not the only case.
One thing I would like to Jeff to just elaborate a little bit more on, is the entire story of the Sarasota cell, and the very significant work that investigative journalist Dan Christianson has done of theFlorida Bulldog, in tracking down 80,000 pages of FBI documents that linked Mohammed Atta and other members of the Sarasota cell to people connected with the Saudi royal family and the Saudi government. Documents which the FBI withheld from Bob Graham at the time of the Congressional investigation; did not tell him existed. They impeded that investigation and stonewalled on, until an FOIA lawsuit forced them to at least hand them over to a judge. And the review of those documents still has not been completed.
So, I would like to ask Jeff to come to the podium and elaborate a little bit more on the further implications of this "aggressive deception" — not just a cover-up — that has been committed by the US government in this regard.
STEINBERG: The 28 pages are a critical piece of this story, because that was the final product; it was the work product after a year of investigation by the Joint Congressional Inquiry. And that 28-page chapter that took up the question of foreign support and funding for the 9/11 hijackers, represented the most solid and corroborated evidence that the investigators were able to compile in the face of massive obstruction. It's not just simply that President Bush, when he reviewed the final 800-page report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry, simply ordered the suppression of the 28-page chapter. Every step along the way, during both the period of the investigation by the Joint Congressional Commission and the later 9/11 Commission, was impeded top down from the White House; and particularly from the highest levels of the FBI. This is not mere speculation. In the recent period — just over the course of the last year — many of the documents that were work-products of the Joint Committee and the 9/11 Commission which were classified, have now been reviewed and declassified.
For those of you who don't know some of the inner workings of Washington, there is a board which is located at the National Archive, called the Interagency Security Clearance Appeals Panel — referred to as ISCAP. And they are the final authority; they're kind of a Supreme Court with respect to questions about what documents should be declassified. And they've been in the process of reviewing and declassifying some of the important staff documents of the two investigative bodies. Last July, they declassified about 29 documents that were work-products from the 9/11 Commission; and one in particular written by Dana Lesemann and Jacobson, is very revealing. It was a work-product document; it was classified for the last decades as being "Secret", but what they laid out was their plans for pursuing the investigation over the period of the next several months. What's very clear is that they had many, many more leads on many more officials of the Saudi government — in southern California, in Washington, in Saudi Arabia — who were deeply implicated with the 9/11 hijackers. One section of Document 17, this 47-page paper that was declassified last July, is headlined "A Brief Overview of Possible Saudi Government Connections to the September 11 Attacks"; and it goes through the names of 18 Saudi officials who were in southern California, in Washington, and back in Saudi Arabia, who had direct contact and facilitated the efforts of the hijackers.
Now, the FBI was a continuous obstacle from the top down. During the "60 Minutes" broadcast several weeks ago, Commission Member John Lehman said that the order to block the publication of the 28 pages came directly from Robert Muller, who was the director of the FBI at the time. Now, it happens, and again it's repeated throughout this 47-page working document from the 9/11 Commission staff, that the two 9/11 hijackers, al-Hazmi and al-Midhar, who were living in the San Diego area; for the better part of a year were living in the home of a man who was an FBI informant, who was being paid $3000 a month by the FBI to keep tabs on possible radicals inside the Muslim community — particularly the Saudi-Muslim community in the southern California area. The staff from the 9/11 Commission and earlier the staff from the Joint Congressional Inquiry, repeatedly asked to interview the informant; they were blocked at every turn. The informant was put in the Federal Witness Protection Program under a change of identity; the FBI Special Agents who were the handlers of this informant, were also blocked from being interviewed by the Committee. So, in other words, one branch of the Executive Branch of the Federal government was working overtime to prevent the investigation from going forward.
Now, going all the way back to the days of J Edgar Hoover, it was notorious that the FBI was completely in bed with the British. During World War II, it was an open collaboration between the FBI and the British Special Operations Executive, with their headquarters at Rockefeller Center in New York City. But this relationship continued. Wall Street is an important intermediary between the FBI and the British. And so, the FBI role in the cover-up, both in San Diego and in other parts of the country, is absolutely stunning; and is something that in and of itself must be thoroughly investigated and exposed.
In the case of Sarasota, the FBI conducted an exhaustive investigation into a wealthy Saudi family that were intimately tied through business with the Saudi royals, who were in regular contact with Mohammed Atta and two other of the 9/11 hijackers. They lived in a gated community in the Sarasota, Florida area. Mohammed Atta and the others would frequently visit that home; and two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, that family on very short notice, picked up and left the country. First flew back to London; and from London back on to Saudi Arabia. The FBI compiled 86,000 pages of documentation following up those leads; because the connections between this leading Saudi family and the 9/11 hijackers was unmistakable. Those documents were withheld from the Joint Congressional Inquiry, despite the fact that the FBI was subpoenaed all over the country to turn over any records relevant to the investigation into 9/11.
So, you've got — as Senator Graham said — "willful deception" at the highest levels of government. Now, we know about San Diego; we know about Sarasota. We know also that Herndon and Falls Church, Virginia was another sort of center of activity of some of the hijackers and some of the leading Saudi clerics who were part of the overall structure of support for those 9/11 terrorists. Paterson, New Jersey was another center of this. Senator Graham has said at press conferences on Capitol Hill, that we've barely scratched the surface; because the government — to protect the British and protect the Saudis — have put up a wall of deception. They've blocked lines of inquiry; they've concealed documents; they've committed fraud and perjury. All because the power of the British and the power of the British/Saudi alliance is so dominant over politics in Washington that the FBI, in effect, is sworn to defend that relationship; even if it means that the American people are denied justice.
So, once again in conclusion, there is much more to this story than merely the events of September 11, 2001; as horrific and as dramatic as they were. The 9/11 Families deserve nothing less than the full and complete truth; no matter where it leads. But the problem runs much deeper. If we don't purge this Anglo-Saudi problem, if we don't get to some of the questions that were posed by the 9/11 Commission staffers; such as "Did the FBI intentionally withhold from the Joint Inquiry, information about the informant's relationship with the hijackers; and subsequently attempt to obstruct the Joint Inquiry's investigation of the matter? If the FBI did withhold information and obstruct the Joint Inquiry's investigation, were the FBI's actions indicative of a larger pattern of an FBI non-compliance with Congressional oversight; and what should be done about it?"
So, this is a can of worms that must be opened; and must be systematically investigated. Because our very future may depend on getting to the bottom of this.
OGDEN: And we are truly seeing a very momentous shift around this while Obama is in Riyadh and then flying directly to London. This has become the subject of almost all of the media coverage in the United States. And it's an extraordinary opportunity to pull this thread to unravel this empire. However, this is just yet one of many threads that can and must be pulled. There are other threads: What came out two years ago in the Senator Levin report on HSBC. This has a major aspect of it; and of course, this is becoming relevant again in the Panama Papers. And Helga LaRouche thought it was very significant that Jacques Attali, a prominent French economist, wrote an article this week saying, don't call them the Panama Papers; call them the London Papers. Because what this is really all about is the entire system of British offshore tax havens and Crown Protectorates that create the safe haven for this dark underworld of narco-terrorism, drug money laundering, and terrorism financing. And you can be guaranteed that if you follow the money, some of those threads lead directly back to these offshore tax havens.
So, as we're seeing right now, a lot of the work that has been done over years if not decades by the LaRouche Movement, by Executive Intelligence Review, by associates of Jeff Steinberg. And by Mr. LaRouche going back to his book, Dope, Inc. and also the very important film that he put out at the end of the 1990s, "Storm Over Asia", which described exactly how these irregular warfare operations are run to destabilize countries. And then the appearance he had on the Jack Stockwell show on the day that September 11 was occurring; that is featured in this "9/11 Ten Years Later" feature documentary that we showed little excerpts from, during the statement that you heard from Mr. LaRouche earlier this evening.
So, if you have a chance and you haven't watched it, or you haven't watched it lately; we would encourage you to go back and view that documentary. It's available on larouchepac.com/28pages; it's also available on our youTube channel. And I think you can be ready for much, much more that will be coming from LaRouche PAC TV on this subject and the broader implications of it. So, please stay tuned to larouchepac.com; please subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't already. Please explore all the content that we have published on this subject in the past; and please share it as widely as you can with your friends and your associates.
So, I'd like to thank Jeff Steinberg for joining us here this evening; and I would like to thank you for watching our broadcast. Please stay tuned to larouchepac.com. Thank you and good night.
Med formand Tom Gillesberg
København d. 19. april, 2016 – I går holdt Schiller Instituttet og EIR et seminar med et fremmøde på omkring 60 mennesker. Hovedtalerne var Helga Zepp-LaRouche, grundlægger og international præsident for Schiller Instituttet, og Hussein Askary, arabisk redaktør af EIR, og mellemøstlig koordinator for Schiller Instituttet. Der var desuden en introduktion med klassisk musik, og en tale af Hr. Abbas Rasouli, førstesekretær ved den Islamiske Republik Irans ambassade i Danmark.
Video- og audiofiler på engelsk er nu slået op på: www.schillerinstitut.dk/si/?p=12525
Fremmødet inkluderede diplomater fra mindst syv ambassader, heraf to ambassadører. (fra Sydvestasien, Nordafrika, Asien, Østeuropa og en CIS nation.) Andre VIP’er inkluderede en bankmand, en infrastruktur-ingeniør, ledere af et dansk-arabisk og et dansk-kinesisk selskab, en syrisk aktivist, såvel som mange medlemmer af Schiller Instituttet samt unge og gamle kontakter fra Danmark og mange andre lande.
Litteraturbordet prægedes af stakke af den printede version af rapporten om Landbroen på alle tre sprog – engelsk, kinesisk og arabisk, såvel som dansksproget materiale.
Eftermiddagens begivenhed blev åbnet smukt med to sange, ”Fischerweise” af Schubert, og ”Ritorna Vincitor!” fra Aida af Verdi, fremført af Leena Malkki, svensk sopran, og Dominik Wijzan, polsk pianist. Valget af musikstykket fra Aida var specielt passende til lejligheden, og var ekstremt bevægende. Aida, en etiopisk prinsesse, der holdtes som slave i Egypten, er splittet mellem hendes kærlighed til den egyptiske general, og hendes kærlighed til hendes far, Etiopiens konge, og hendes fædreland. Sangene blev introduceret med et sammendrag af følgende historie: ”Som en del af fejringerne omkring åbningen af Suezkanalen d. 17. november 1869 byggede statholderen i Egypten et nyt operahus i Cairo. Indvielsesforestillingen var Verdis ’Rigoletto.’ I maj 1870 indvilgede Verdi endeligt i at skrive en opera specifikt for Cairo over et egyptisk tema. Aidas premiere i Cairo d. 24. december 1871 blev forudsigeligt en kæmpesucces.” (fra en internet-blog af Mavi Boncuk)
Helga Zepp-LaRouche leverede derefter en magtfuld strategisk briefing, af hvilken en udskrift blev bragt i EIR’s briefing torsdag d. 19. april, 2016. Efterfølgende var der to spørgsmål om hvad der ville ske, hvis nogen af de centraleuropæiske lande, eller ligefrem Danmark, ville forlade NATO, for mere helhjertet at tilslutte sig det nye paradigme; og om vesten er oprigtig i dets kamp mod Islamisk Stat.
Bagefter talte Hussein Askary om Schiller Instituttets, EIR’s og, også, hans personlige mission – at udvide Verdenslandbroen til Sydvestasien og Afrika. Han betonede, at idéen ikke blot er at transportere varer, men at bygge udviklingskorridorer. Han citerede LaRouche’s ide (indgriben i Abu Dhabi med henblik på at bruge olie til fremstilling) om at udnytte Sydvestasiens strategiske position til at forbinde tre kontinenter. Han beskrev, med fokus på Syrien, den mere detaljerede plan fra Schiller Instituttet om økonomiske udvikling af Sydvestasien, der forekommer i den nyligt oversatte arabiske udgave af EIR’s specialrapport. Dernæst fokuserede Hussein på den egyptiske model med at gå til folket, for finansiering af mega-projekter, og behovet for at udvide den økonomiske aktivitet ind i ørkenen.
For det andet, startende med Egypten som en bro mellem Sydvestasien og Afrika, bibragte Hussein lidenskabeligt tilhørerne en vision om fremtidig afrikansk økonomisk udvikling ved at fremtage ambitiøse perspektivplaner, der har ligget klar i skufferne. Dette i kombination med nogle af de projekter, som kineserne aktuelt er ved at bringe til live. Han sluttede med en polemik imod ”vedvarende” økonomisk udvikling, og opfordrede til et lynprogram for at sætte afrikanere i stand til at indtage deres retsmæssige plads i fremtiden. Hans tale vil også blive afskrevet. Del 1 af Husseins tale findes i denne briefing.
Efterfølgende beskrev Hr. Abbas Rasouli Irans tilsagn om deltagelse i den Nye Silkevej og udlagde, at de nord-syd og øst-vest forbindende jernbaneprojekter, der er færdiggjort og de der er planlagt, vil sætte Iran i stand til at forbinde Østasien og Centralasien med Sydvestasien, Afrika og Europa og endvidere forbindelser mod nord.
Spørgsmåls-perioden inkluderede spørgsmål om implementeringen af det afrikanske program, fulgt af et spørgsmål om Marokkos rolle. Svarene fra Hussein samt fra Helga på en henstilling om at beskrive den islamiske renæssances vigtighed for verden, og give et bud på hvordan en verdensomspændende renæssance kan skabes i dag, tjente som en smuk afslutning af seminaret.
Alle, som vi talte med i pausen og efter mødet, var meget begejstrede for seminaret, og vi har megen opfølgning at gøre.
Over en periode på to uger op til seminaret, har vi lavet et stort opsøgende arbejde, og nået ud til nye folk. Vi ringede til næsten alle ambassaderne beliggende i København, mange danske institutioner, og nåede ud til mange folk i Schiller Instituttets netværk, inklusiv unge kontakter. Ydermere intervenerede vi ved forskellige andre seminarer: Demokrati i Tunesien (se briefing d. 8. april); et specielt seminar om Kinas et bælte, én vej; og et seminar om handelsforbindelser mellem Kina og Danmark, hvor vi uddelte invitationer i pauserne. Vi foretog også en tur rundt i relevante universitetsafdelinger, og holdt adskillige private møder på højt niveau. Nu vil vi sørge for, at optagelserne, afskrifterne og oversættelserne kommer ud, for at forøge seminarets effekt maksimalt.
Leena Malkki, sopran fra Sverige
Dominik Wizjan, pianist fra Poland
Fischerweise, af Franz Schubert
Den Fischer fechten Sorgen
Und Gram und Leid nicht an;
Er löst am frühen Morgen
Mit leichtem Sinn den Kahn.
Da lagert rings noch Friede
[Auf Wald und Flur und Bach]1
Er ruft mit seinem Liede
Die gold'ne Sonne wach.
Er singt zu seinem Werke
Aus voller frischer Brust,
Die Arbeit gibt ihm Stärke,
Die Stärke Lebenslust.
Bald wird ein bunt Gewimmel
In allen Tiefen laut
Und plätschert durch den Himmel,
Der sich im Wasser baut.
Doch wer ein Netz will stellen,
Braucht Augen klar und gut,
Muß heiter gleich den Wellen
Und frei sein wie die Flut.
Dort angelt auf der Brücke
Die Hirtin. Schlauer Wicht,
Gib auf nur deine Tücke,
Den Fisch betrügst du nicht.
Engelsk oversættelse:
Fisherman's song
No cares assail the fisherman,
nor grief nor sorrow;
Early in the morning he unties
His boat with a light heart.
It is peaceful all about him
[In woods and meadows and brooks]1;
He rouses with his song
The golden sun.
To his labours he sings
with a full and sanguine heart;
The work gives him strength —
And strength gives life joy.
Soon a colorful throng is
swarming loudly in the depths,
And it splashes through the sky
That lies reflected in the water.
But he who wishes to cast a net
Needs eyes both clear and good;
He must be swift like the waves,
And unfettered like the stream.
There on the bridge the shepherdess
Is fishing. Artful creature,
Enough of your tricks —
You will not deceive the fish.
Ritorna vincitor!… fra Verdis opera Aida
AIDA Ritorna vincitor!… E dal mio labbro
Uscì l'empia parola! — Vincitore
Del padre mio… di lui che impugna l'armi
Per me… per ridonarmi
Una patria, una reggia! e il nome illustre 5
Che qui celar mi è forza — Vincitore
De' miei fratelli… ond'io lo vegga, tinto
Del sangue amato, trionfar nel plauso
Dell'Egizie coorti!… E dietro il carro,
Un Re… mio padre… di catene avvinto!… 10
L'insana parola,
O Numi, sperdete!
Al seno d'un padre
La figlia rendete;
Struggete le squadre 15
Dei nostri oppressor!
Sventurata! che dissi?… e l'amor mio?…
Dunque scordar poss'io
Questo fervido amor che oppressa e schiava
Come raggio di sol qui mi beava? 20
Imprecherò la morte
A Radamès… a lui che amo pur tanto!
Ah! non fu in terra mai
Da più crudeli angosce un core affranto.
I sacri nomi di padre… di amante 25
Nè profferir poss'io, nè ricordar…
Per l'un… per l'altro… confusa… tremante…
Io piangere vorrei… vorrei pregar.
Ma la mia prece in bestemmia si muta…
Delitto è il pianto a me… colpa il sospir… 30
In notte cupa la mente è perduta…
E nell'ansia crudel vorrei morir.
Numi, pietà — del mio soffrir!
Speme non v'ha — pel mio dolor…
Amor fatal — tremendo amor 35
Spezzami il cor — fammi morir! [esce]
Engelsk oversættelse:
Aida:
Thy brow may laurels crown! what! can my lips
Pronounce language so impious! wish him
Victor o'er my father! o'er him who wages war
But that I may be restored to my country,
To my kingdom, to the high station
I now perforce dissemble! wish him conqueror
O'er my brothers! e'en now I see him stained
With their blood so cherished, 'mid the clamorous
Triumph of Egyptian battalions! Behind his chariot
A king, my father comes, his fettered captive!
Ye gods watching o'er me,
Those words deem unspoken!
A father restore me,
His daughter heart-broken;
Oh, scatter their armies,
Forever crush our foe!
What wild words do I utter? of my affection
Have I no recollection?
That sweet love that consoled me, a captive pining,
Like some bright sunny ray on my sad lot shining!
Shall I invoke destruction on the man
For whom with love I languish?
Ah! ne'er yet on this earth lived one
Whose heart was crushed beneath such anguish!
The names so holy of father, of lover,
No more dare I utter or e'en recall,
Abashed and trembling, to Heaven would hover
My prayer for both, for both my tears would fall.
Ah, woe! transformed seemed my prayers to blaspheming,
To suffer is a crime, dark sin to weep,
My senses lost, wrapt in deep night are dreaming,
To my grave would in sorrow I might creep!
Merciful Gods, look from on high!
Pity these tears hopelessly shed,
Love! mystic power, mystic and dread,
Break, break my weak heart, let me now die!
Med formand Tom Gillesberg
Kommer senere på dansk.
Abbas Rasouli, the First Secretary at the Embassy of the Islamic
Republic of Iran in Denmark: Address to {EIR}-Schiller Institute
Seminar “Extend the New Silk Road to the Middle East and Africa”
April 18, 2016
THE SILK ROAD AND THE IRAN FACTOR
ABBAS RASOULI: In 2013 China proposed to build an “economic belt
along the Silk Road,” a trans-Eurasian project spanning from the
Pacific Ocean to the Central Asian countries all the way to
Europe.
The New Silk Road already have momentum. In early 2015 China
announced $62 billion of its foreign exchange reserves will be
made available to the three state-owned policy banks that will
finance the expansion of the new Silk Road.
Beyond Central Asia the economic belt along the Silk Road
can also provide the vehicle for China’s expansion of its trade
relations with both the Middle East and Europe. And here is when
the Iran link comes into the equation.
In February 2016 a freight train from Yiwu in China’s
eastern Zhejiang province arrived in Tehran. The China-Iran “Silk
Road train” is a part of the overland component of China’s One
Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative.
The train used the existing rail links from China through
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan before entering Iran. It took the
train just 14 days to cover the roughly 10,399 km long journey to
Tehran whereas ferrying cargo via the sea from Shanghai, which
lies 300 km north of Yiwu, to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas
takes 45 days in comparison.
It is expected that construction of new high-speed rail
links through Central Asia will enable trains carrying goods to
run further on to European markets. Besides facilitating
Sino-Iran trade, these railway lines will contribute to Iran’s
emergence as an important Eurasian trade hub. Iran will thus be
integrated more into the economies of East and Central Asia as
well as Europe.
Bilateral trade between Iran and China grew from $4 billion
in 2003 to $53 billion in 2013. In January 2016, during the visit
of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Iran, the two sides agreed to
increase trade to $600 billion over the coming decade. So the
operation of this railway link will prove an important factor in
the development of trade between Iran and the countries along
this economic belt.
The important thing about the Iran corridor is that existing
road and rail links between China, Central Asia and Iran only
needs to be modernized whereas some parts or all of the other
corridors have to be constructed from scratch, each with their
own security and geographical challenges.
The Yiwu-Tehran railway is just one of the many projects
that enhance regional connectivity, bringing together China,
Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and West Asia.
India, has also been eyeing overland access via Iran to
Central Asian and European markets too. In this connection the
North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC), a multi-modal trade
transport network that includes sea and rail transport from India
via Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf to as far as the Baltic Sea
via Russia, was initiated by Russia, India and Iran in September
2000 to establish transportation networks among the member states
and to enhance connectivity with the land-locked region of
Central Asia. Among the few routes in this corridor the
Mumbai-Chahbahar or Bandar Abbas (Persian Gulf)-Anzali-Astara
(Iran Caspian Sea)-Astara (Azerbaijan)-Baku-Russia-Kazakhstan is
receiving much attention. With the completion of this route Iran
will emerge as another important transit hub in the Asia-Europe
trade giving India overland access to Europe as well.
Of the 1500 km Bandar Abbas-Bandar-Anzali railway link only
50 km remains to be completed, but the 164 km Anzali-Astara link
is still at negotiation stage. A working group made up of India,
Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia has been formed to look into raising
finance to construct the Anzali-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan)
railway connection. All parties appreciate the urgency of moving
this project forward and as recently as last week, Russia,
Azerbaijan and Iran agreed to speed up the project.
The North-South corridor, when completed, is expected to
significantly reduce the time of cargo transport from India to
Central Asia and Russia. At present, it takes about 40 days to
ship goods from Mumbai in India to Moscow. The new route will be
able to cut this time to 14 days.
The primary objective of the NSTC project is to reduce costs
in terms of time and money over the traditional route currently
being used between Russia, Central Asia, Iran and India. With
improved transport connectivity their respective bilateral trade
volumes are most likely to increase tremendously. According to
various studies the route, once fully operational, will be at
least 30% cheaper and 40% shorter than the current traditional
route.
Though every country is important in any transport chain,
Iran, neighbor with 15 countries, is not only a hub for
distribution to the neighboring countries of about 400 million
but has the added advantage of being a strong economy between
giants at each end of these corridors namely China, India, Russia
and Europe.
Some of the economic advantages of Iran are:
* The 18th largest economy in the world by purchasing power
parity (ppp);
* A diversified economy with a broad industrial base;
* Resource-rich economy;
* Labor-rich economy;
* Young and educated population;
* Large domestic market;
* An increasingly sophisticated infrastructure and human
capital base providing the foundation for an emerging
knowledge-based economy.
* A market of 80 million with easy access to another market
of 400 million.
In a global world where international trade is taking on
greater significance, transport costs and delivery time are two
of the most important factors in the choice of the mode and route
of transporting goods.
The completion and modernization of the North-South and
East-West Transport corridors will cut transport costs and
delivery time thereby enhancing trade between East Asia, South
Asia, Central Asia, Middle East and Europe.
Kommer senere på dansk.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche Addresses Seminar in Copenhagen,
April 18, 2016 [unproofed draft]
We Need a New Paradigm for Humanity
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, thank you very much for this
kind introduction.
Dear Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: I would like to
start my presentation with showing you a point of view which may
be unusual to discuss the strategic situation, but I think it is
quite adequate.
This is a time-lapse video where you can actually have a view
from space. This is the kind of view normally only astronauts,
cosmonauts, taikonauts have. They all come back from their space
travel with the idea that there is only one humanity, and that
our planet, which is very beautiful and blue; however, it is very
small in a very large solar system and an even larger galaxy, not
to mention the billion galaxies out there in our universe.
With that view comes, naturally, the question of the future.
Where should mankind be in 100 years from now, in a 1000 years,
in 10,000 years? Well, you have to exercise your power of
imagination. In 10,000 years, we probably are well beyond having
colonized the Moon, we have completed very successful Mars
missions, we will have a much, much better understanding about
our solar system, our galaxy, and we will have gotten a much
deeper understanding about the principle of our universe.
Just think, that it took 100 years before modern science
could confirm that Einstein's conception about gravitational
waves was correct. Ten thousand years of the past human history
has brought tremendous progress. But just think that this growth
can go on, exponentially. And since there is no limit to the
creativity and perfectibility of the human species, in 10,000
years we can have a wonderful world.
So, let's look from that view, into the future, to the
present, to have the right perspective.
Yesterday, the {New York Times}, in the Sunday edition, had
an article saying "The Race Escalates for the Latest Class of
Nuclear Arms," portraying in detail that the United States, and
Russia, and China are developing new generations of smaller and
less destructive nuclear weapons, which would make them more
useable. They quote in the article James Clapper, the Director of
the National Intelligence of the United States, that the world
has now entered a new Cold War spiral, where, basically, totally
different laws and rules govern, than it used to be the case with
Mutual Assured Destruction.
The previous NATO doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction
proceeded from the assumption that the destructive power of
nuclear weapons is so horrible, because it will lead to the
annihilation of the human race, that nobody in their right mind
would ever use it. And therefore, it was a deterrence that these
weapons would never be used.
This is now no longer valid. What they are now discussing,
openly, on the front page of the {New York Times}, is that what
we, for a very long time, only we and a few of military experts,
have said, namely, that these modernized tactical nuclear
weapons, like the B12-61, in combination with stealth bombers,
with hypersonic missiles, can actually lead to the winning of a
nuclear war.
Ted Postol and Hans Kristensen, very respected military
analysts, have detailed at great lengths, why the idea of a
limited nuclear war is completely ludicrous, and it is the nature
of the difference between thermonuclear weapons and conventional
weapons, that once you enter a nuclear exchange, that it is the
logic of such a war that all weapons will be used, and that will
be the end of mankind. We are closer to that possibility than
most people dare to even consider, because if they would, they
would not remain so passive as they are now.
This is why I want to make emphatically the point–and this
is the purpose of conducting meetings like this seminar and many
other conferences we are engaged in–that we have reached a point
in human history where geopolitics must be superseded with a
completely new paradigm. And that is why I started with the view
from space. We need a new paradigm, basically saying goodbye to
the very idea of geopolitics, which has caused two world wars in
the 20th century. That new paradigm must be completely different
than that which is governing the world today.
We have, right now, rising tensions in the South China Sea.
Policymakers and the neighboring countries are extremely worried
about what will happen in the period between now and the trial in
The Hague. You have the largest maneuver around North and South
Korea right now, where people in the region are extremely worried
that the slightest provocation could lead to an exchange of
nuclear weapons.
You have the NATO expansion up to the Russian border.
Countries like Poland and Lithuania are asking to have these
modernized nuclear weapons located on their territory, even that
makes them prime targets.
The United States is continuing to build the anti-ballistic
missile system which, supposedly, was against Iranian missiles,
but after the P5+1 agreement has been reached, it is obvious this
was always a pretext and the aim was always to take out the
second strike capability of Russia.
Then you have the entire region of Southwest Asia, still
being a terrible destruction and consequence of failed wars.
North Africa is exploding. You have new incidents between NATO
and Russia, all of a sudden in the Baltic Sea, which was, up to
now, a calm region where there are no conflicts, or, there have
been no conflicts.
In the Middle East briefing, discussing President Obama's
trip to Riyadh on the 21st of this month, they say that this trip
will open up a new page of NATO in the relationship to the Middle
East, that what Obama will try to establish is a new relationship
between NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
So, we have a situation where the {New York Times}, also
yesterday, and I'm quoting these papers to say that these are not
some opinions of us, but this is now the public discussion, that
what is really at stake in the South China Sea is not so much the
fight around some uninhabited reefs and cliffs, or some tiny
islands, but it is the American effort to halt China's rise. And
not only China's rise, but that of Asia. China, Asia arising; the
trans-Atlantic region is in decline.
Just now, we are heading towards a new financial crisis, and
all signs are, that we are going into the same kind of crash like
2008. Already since the beginning of this year, $50 billion
corporate defaults were taking place, which is on the same level
like what happened in 2009.
What the United States is trying to assert under this
conditions, where the trans-Atlantic world is in decline or
marching towards collapse, to insist that nevertheless a unipolar
world must be maintained. The problem is, that unipolar world,
effectively, no longer exists. But still, what carries American
policy to the present day, is the Project for the New American
Century, the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine, which is a neocon idea
which says that no country and no group of countries should ever
be allowed to challenge the power position of the United States.
In the age of thermonuclear weapons, the insistence to maintain a
non-tenable world order could very quickly lead to the
annihilation of civilization.
It is a fact: China has made an economic miracle in the last
30 years which is absolutely breathtaking. And it is continuing,
despite all the media rumors about China's economic collapse.
India has by now the largest growth rate in the world; it's above
7%. Many other Asian countries have explicitly formulated the
goal for themselves to be developed countries in a few years. The
Chinese economy right now is rebounding. They just announced that
in the next five years China is going to import $10 trillion
worth of imports. They will invest $600 billion worth of
investments abroad. Every day 10,000 new firms are being created
in China.
So, if you look at the development, especially since
President Xi Jinping announced in September, 2013 in Kazakhstan,
that the New Silk Road, the One Belt One Road, is put on the
agenda. In the Two and a half years since that time, more than
sixty nations have joined with China in this development. They
have created the New Silk Road, the Maritime Silk Road; these
nations have created a whole set of alternative
economic-financial institutions, such as the AIIB, which, despite
massive pressure from the United States not to do so, immediately
was joined by sixty founding members. The New Development Bank
also started just now its functioning. The New Silk Road Fund,
the Maritime Silk Road Fund, the Shanghai Cooperation Bank, and
many more. All of these were created because the IMF and the
World Bank had not invested in the urgently required
infrastructure.
These banks are now engaged in very, very impressive, large
projects. For example: China invested $46 billion in the
China-Pakistan corridor. When President Xi Jinping recently went
to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran, consequently Iran,
fool-heartedly, declared that they are now part of the One Belt
One Road, New Silk Road development. Greece is now talking about
that after China is investing in the Port of Piraeus, that Greece
will be the bridge between China and Europe. The 16+1, that is
the East and Central European countries, just declared that they
absolutely want to participate in China helping to build a fast
train system in these countries. Those projects which the EU has
not bid, China is now building. Part of it is, for example, the
Elbe-Oder-Danube Canal, which will connect the waterways of these
countries. When President Xi recently was in the Czech Republic,
President Zeman announced that the "Golden City" of Prague will
be the gateway between the Silk Road and Europe. Also, Austria
and Switzerland are now fully on board and see the benefits of
their country's joining with the New Silk Road.
When President Xi Jinping at the APEC meeting in October
2014 offered to President Obama to cooperate in all of these
projects in a "win-win" perspective, he not only proposed
economic cooperation, but he put on the agenda a completely new
model of international relations exactly designed to overcome
geopolitics. The new model is supposed to be based on the respect
for sovereignty, non-interference into the internal affairs of
the other country, respect for the different social system the
other country chooses to adopt. It would really be, in a certain
sense, a fulfillment of the principles which are laid out in the
UN Charter anyway.
How was the Western response? Very, very ambiguous. The
United States in spite of this, never really responded to
President Xi's offer. They keep insisting on an unipolar world.
For example, in the TPP, like in the TTIP for Europe, it is said
very, very clearly, the U.S. sets the rules of trade for Asia and
not China. Recently, the American Defense Secretary Ash Carter,
and also NATO commander General Breedlove, declared the enemies
#1 of the United States are, first, Russia, second, China, third,
Iran, fourth North Korea, and only fifth terrorism.
Now that is in spite of the fact that many other statesmen,
such as United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign
Minister Steinmeier, and many others, have recently also stated,
that all crucial problems of the world cannot be solved without
the cooperation of Russia, and China. For example, the P5+1
agreement with Iran, would never have come into being without a
constructive role of {both} Russia and China . Without Putin's
very intelligent intervention in the military situation in Syria,
this situation could not have come to the potential of a
political solution.
Also, apart from the military pressure, there is massive
pressure on the new institutions such as the AIIB and the New
Development Bank, to {not} be outside of the casino economy but
to follow the "international standards."
Now, in these times of the Panama Papers, of the various
LIBOR scandals, of the money laundering of many of these banks,
it is a sort of laughable thing, what should be these
"international standards" of the Western financial system.
Now, let's be realistic. At the IMF/ World Bank meeting
which just concluded in Washington over the weekend, behind the
scenes there was complete panic, but nobody dared to speak about
it openly, behind the scenes people were talking, what former
IMF boss Strauss-Kahn has said repeatedly, publicly, that we are
heading towards the "perfect political storm." That if one of
the too-big-to-fail banks collapses, it will lead to a crisis
much, much worse than 2008.
At the recent Davos Economic Forum, the former chief
economist of the BIS William White said that the world system is
so utterly overindebted, that there are two roads only possible:
Either you have an orderly writeoff of the debt, like in the
religious Jubilee, so that you just say "these debts are not
payable," and you write them off, or it will come to a disorderly
collapse.
Now, the situation is all the more urgent, because unlike
2008 when everyone was talking about the "tools" of the central
bank, like interest rate reduction, rescue packages, bailouts,
all of these tools don't function any more. As a matter of fact,
when the competition for more zero interest rate, or even
negative interest rate, when into high gear in the last month,
when, for example, the Bank of Japan or the central bank of
Norway, or the ECB declared a zero interest rate policy, or even
a negative interest rate policy, it boomeranged! It had the
opposite effect: Rather than leading to more investment, in the
real economy, it led to a deflationary escalation of the
collapse.
When Mario Draghi, the chief of the ECB, recently announced,
"yeah, yeah, we have a discussion about helicopter money." And
Ben Bernanke echoed it and said, "yes, now we need helicopter
money," meaning electronic printing of {endless} amounts of
worthless money, virtual money, they de facto announced that the
trans-Atlantic financial system is absolutely in the last phase.
Because after helicopter money comes only evaporation.
But this is only the most obvious of the crises. Another
one, which is in a different domain, but equally systemic is the
refugee crisis in Europe. Now, I supported Chancellor Merkel
when she initially said, we can manage that, we can give refuge
to these people, and for the first time, I was saying "this
woman is doing the right thing." I know there was a lot of
international criticism, but she acted on the basis of the Geneva
Convention on refugees, but it was the right thing to do. But
the reactions from the other European countries, revealed an
underlying, basic flaw of the EU, a flaw which was not caused by
the refugees, but it was revealed by the first serious challenge,
that in the EU, as it has been conceptualized in the Maastricht
Treaty going up to the Lisbon Treaty, there is no unity, there is
no solidarity; and with the collapse of the Schengen agreement
which allows free travel within the internal borders of the EU,
the closing of the so-called Balkan routes, to prevent refugees
from coming, the basis for the European common currency is also
gone, because without the Schengen agreement, the possibility to
have the euro last is extremely dubious.
Now, with the recent response by the EU to basically have a
deal with Turkey, I mean, this is beyond the bankruptcy of the
whole EU policy if you can top it. At a point when the Russian
UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, presented the UN Security Council
with evidence that the Turkish government, is continuing up to
the present day to supply ISIS with weapons and other logistical
means, to then say, we pay Turkey EU6 billion, for what? To have
them receive refugees; and Amnesty International has already
said, there is no guarantee that these people will be protected,
but rather that Turkey is sending them back to the war zones,
like Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
So, if you look at the pictures of Idomeni, where the
Macedonian police are using tear gas against refugees who are
absolutely desperate; if you look at the fact that Greece is now,
rather than having refugee camps which would somehow process
these unfortunate human beings, they have, on pressure of the EU,
been turned into detention centers. Pope Francis was just in
Lesvos, together with the Greek Patriarch Bartholomew, and this
Patriarch said, the present EU policy on the refugee crisis, is
the completely bankruptcy of Europe. The Doctors Without Borders
left their job in Greece, because they said they cannot be
accomplices to the murderous policy of detention, where the
police decide who is a patient and not doctors. Instead of
protecting the people running away from wars and persecution,
they are now being treated as criminals.
Immediately, days after this disgusting EU-Turkey deal, it
turned out that it's a complete failure, the so-called "European
values," human rights, humanism, well–they're all in the
trashcan, because now the refugees, obviously still fleeing for
their lives, go to Libya trying to get into small boats to Italy.
And just yesterday the news came that another 400 people drowned
in the Mediterranean. And this will keep going on. And it will
haunt the people who are refusing to change their ways.
Now, there is a new element in the situation which may cause
sudden surprises, and that is a program which was presented by
CBS, a week ago Sunday, in the so-called "60 Minutes" program
portraying the coverup, of the U.S. governments from Bush to
Obama, of the famous 28 pages omitted in the publication of the
official Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 by the U.S.
Congress; and as many people have said, and was said in this
program, this pertains to the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11.
Yesterday, {all} the U.S. talk shows, and all the U.S. media,
pointed their finger to the coverup of the Bush administration
and even to the present day of the present government, that there
is a coverup of criminal activity.
Now, the Saudi Arabian government reacted very unnerved, and
this was again reported in the {New York Times}, that they would
sell off $750 billion in U.S. Treasuries, if the U.S. would allow
a bill that would allow Saudi Arabia to be held responsible in
court, for their role in 9/11. Now, that's not exactly a sign of
sovereignty, but of despair. There are several U.S. Senators,
among them Mrs. Gillibrand from New York, who demand that this
whole question of the Saudi Arabian role in 9/11 must be on the
agenda when President Obama goes to Riyadh this week. Which in
any case, may not happen, but it will not be the end of the story
because the genie is now out of the bottle.
OK: How do we respond to these many, many crises? Well,
there is a solution to all of these problems. The trans-Atlantic
should just do exactly what Franklin D. Roosevelt did in 1933, in
reaction to the world financial crisis at the time. Implement
the full banking separation — Glass-Steagall — and the whole
offshore nightmare which is being revealed in the Panama Papers,
and remember, that this firm Mossack Fonseca is only the fourth
largest of such firms, and 11 million documents still need to be
read through, and processed. But we have to go back to the kind
of international credit system, as it existed in the Bretton
Woods system, before Nixon ended the fixed exchange rate in 1971,
opening the gate for floating exchange rates and especially the
creation of offshore money markets for the unlimited creation of
money and other illegal operations as it now is coming out.
Then we need a writeoff of the absolutely unpayable state
debt, which has accumulated and ballooned after the bailouts of
2008 and afterwards. And we have to basically get rid of the
toxic paper of the whole derivatives markets, because they are
the burden which is eating up the chance for the investment in
the real economy.
Then, we need a Marshall Plan Silk Road; and the only reason
I'm talking about a Marshall Plan, despite the fact that China
is {emphatic} that they do not want a Cold War connotation to the
New Silk Road, it gives people in the United States and Europe a
memory, that it is very possible to rebuild war-torn economies,
as it happened in Europe after the Second World War.
Now, with the ceasefire which was negotiated between Foreign
Ministers Kerry and Lavrov, you have now a still-fragile, but you
have the potential for a peace development in Syria, and soon
other countries in the region. But it is extremely urgent, that
the peace dividend of this ceasefire is becoming visible for the
people of the region, immediately. That is, there has to be a
reconstruction and economic buildup, not only of the territory
and the destroyed cities, but the entire region, has to be looked
at as one: From Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, from the North
Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. Because you cannot build
infrastructure by building a bridge in one country. You have to
have a complete plan for the transformation of this region, which
mainly consists of desert.
Now, the idea is to have a comprehensive plan, greening the
deserts, building infrastructure, creating new, fresh water from
desalination of ocean water, of tapping into the water of the
atmosphere through ionization, and various other means. And then
build infrastructure corridors, new cities, and give hope to,
especially, the young people of the region, so they have a reason
not to join the jihad, but to become doctors, to become
engineers, to care for their family and their future.
Now this is not just a program any more, because when
President Xi Jinping visited Iran about two months ago, he put
the Silk Road development on the agenda for this region. So, all
you need to do, is extend the Silk Road, and the first train has
already arrived in Tehran; you have to continue to build that
road, from Iran, to Iraq, to Syria all the way to Egypt. Other
routes should go from Afghanistan, to Pakistan, to India. From
Central Asia to Turkey to Europe, and this obviously can only
work because the problem is so big, that all the neighbors of the
region, Russia, China, India, Iran, Egypt, but also the countries
which are now torn apart by the refugee crisis such as Germany,
Italy, Greece, France, and all other European countries must all
commit themselves to work on such a Silk Road Marshall Plan for
the reconstruction and economic buildup of the Middle
East/Southwest Asia, {and} all of Africa, because the economic
situation is equally dire in that continent.
The United States must be convinced that it is in their best
interest to cooperate in such a development, and stop thinking in
terms of geopolitics. Now, the United States should only be
encouraged to cooperate in the development of these regions, but
the United States needs {urgently} a New Silk Road itself.
Because if you look at the condition, not only of the financial
sector in the United States, but especially the physical economy;
if you look at the social effects of the economic collapse, like
the rising suicide rates, in all age brackets of the {white}
population, and especially rural women in the age between 20 and
40, the suicide rate is quadrupling and even beyond. This is a
sign of a collapsing society.
Now, China has built as of last year, 20,000 km of fast
train systems. Excellent, top-level technology fast-train
systems; it wants to have 50,000 km by I think the year 2025.
How many miles of fast train as the U.S. built? I don't any.
But if the United States would join the New Silk Road and
participate in the economic reconstruction, as Franklin D.
Roosevelt did it with the Tennessee Valley Authority plan, with
the Reconstruction Finance Corp. in the '30s, the United States
could very, very quickly be a prosperous country, and could again
be regarded by the whole world as "a beacon of liberty and a
temple of freedom," which was the idea of America when it was
founded.
So, the whole fate of the whole world will depend if we all
succeed to get the United States to go back to its proud
tradition of a republic, and stop thinking like an empire,
because that cannot be maintained in any case; because all
empires in the whole history of mankind always disintegrated when
they became overstretched and collapsed. There is not one
exception to this idea.
Now, therefore, let's go back to the idea from the
beginning: Let's approach all problems in the present from the
idea, where is the future of mankind? Where should mankind be?
Do we exist, or will we destroy ourselves. And that requires a
change in paradigm, which must be as fundamental and thorough,
like the paradigm shift from the European Middle Ages to the
modern times. And what caused that shift was such great figures
as Nikolaus of Cusa, but also Brunelleschi, Jeanne d'Arc, and
many others; but what they introduced was a rejection of the old
paradigm–scholasticism, Aristotelianism, all the wrong ideas
which led to the destruction of the 14th century, and they
replaced with a completely {new} image of man, man as an {imago
viva Dei}, which was a synonym for the unlimited creative
potential and perfectability of the human being. It led to a new
image of man which created a blossoming of science, of modern
science, of the modern sovereign nation-state; it made possible
the emergence of Classical arts.
And that is what we have to do today: We have to stop
thinking in terms of geopolitics, and we have to focus on the
common aims of mankind. Now, what are these "common aims of
mankind"? It is, first of all scientific cooperation to
eradicate hunger, poverty, to develop more and more cures for
diseases, to increase the longevity of all people. We have to
study much more fundamentally, what is the principle of life?
Why does life exist? How does it function? What, really, is the
deeper lawfulness of our universe? And that must define the
identity of human beings, which is unique to the human species.
And I have an idea of the future, which will be full of joy.
Because we will discover new principles in science and in
classical art, and we will create a new Renaissance. As the
Italian Renaissance superseded the Dark Age of the 14th century,
what we have to do today, is we have to revive the best
traditions of all great nations and cultures of the world; and
make them known to the other one. Have a dialogue of the most
advanced periods of Chinese, of European, Indian, African, other
cultures, and revive–and that is being done in China,
already–the great Confucian tradition, which is in absolute
correspondence with the best neo-Platonic humanist ideas of
Europe. We must revive the great Vedic tradition in India, the
Gupta period; the Indian Renaissance of the late 19th to the 20th
century. We must revive the Abbasid Dynasty of the Arab world;
the Italian Renaissance; the Andalusian Spanish Renaissance, the
Ecole Polytechnique in France, the great German Classical period.
The great Italian method of singing in Verdi tuning and the bel
canto method. And if all of these riches of all the different
countries become the common good of all children of this planet,
and everyone can learn universal history, other cultures as if it
would be their own, I can already see how humanity can make a
jump, and how we can create the most beautiful Renaissance of
human history so far.
I think everybody who is thinking about these questions, has
a deep understanding, that we are at the most important crossroad
in human history. And it is not yet clear which way we will go,
but it is clear to me, that we will {only} come out of this
crisis if we mobilize the subjective emotional quality, which in
the Chinese is called {ren}; and the European equivalent, you
would call {agapë}, love. And we will only solve this problem if
we are able to mobilize a tender, maybe even {passionate} love,
for the human species. [applause]
Kommer senere på dansk.
Hussein Askary Speech in Copenhagen to the Schiller Institute-EIR
Seminar “Extend the World Land-Bridge to Southwest Asia and
Africa,” April 18, 2016
{Hussein Askary had fair number of graphics and charts, which he
used to illustrate his presentation.}
TOM GILLESBERG: The next speaker is somebody very unique
and unusual, Hussein Askary originally comes from Iraq and had
to get out under very nasty circumstances, as many others. But
that became a blessing at least for our organization, because
Hussein, through Norway, ended up to become part of the
international LaRouche organization in 1994, and has since then
been contributing quite fantastically to our international work.
And he is one of the authors of the original {New Silk Road
Becomes the World Land-Bridge} report; but then also made a
decision, that this cannot simply stay in the English language,
or Chinese. This also has to be in the Arabic language. So
Hussein took it upon himself to translate this into the Arabic
language and then also of course, write some extra parts to it,
which is necessary for the present circumstances in Southwest
Asia to have.
This report just came out. It was release on March 17, in
Cairo, in a meeting presided over by the Egyptian Transportation
Minister who then introduced Hussein, and the hope of course is
that this will become something read and studied and acted on in
the whole Arabic world, as well as the rest of the world. So
Hussein?
HUSSEIN ASKARY: You have heard Helga today, giving a very
stern and sobering warning about the state of affairs in the
world, the dangers are very real to the world today. What I am
going to do, and please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not going to
give you a picture of how rosy and nice things are, either in
Southwest Asia, the so-called Middle East, or in Africa, but, as
they say in sports, you have to keep your eye on the ball. What
Helga just said, is that there is a new paradigm in the world,
which can lead to a completely different, and new world order.
And it’s that paradigm, within which myself, the Schiller
Institute, and the people we are talking to, we want to direct
their attention to that new paradigm.
I’m thankful to Leena Malkki for her beautiful singing, and,
especially, the {Aida} aria. It was actually performed at the
opening of the Suez Canal, the second Suez Canal, last year.
The idea of great projects, the idea of great challenges,
like Hela was explaining, this idea of being in space, looking at
the world from space, and, also, the idea of major projects, like
the Suez Canal, like the Three Gorges Dam in China, the New Silk
Road, the effect they have on people, is that they challenge
their imagination, and challenge their creativity, because they
represent major difficulties, major technical problems,
intellectual problems, that have to be solved, before you achieve
these major projects. And that transforms the idea of people. It
also gives people an idea of a creative constructive identity,
and the position of man in the world, on this Earth, and also in
the universe. That is why we try to work on these concepts of the
New Silk Road, the extension of the New Silk Road, to {inspire}
people to think outside of the box, outside of the box of
geopolitics, which Helga was trying to explain. We have to get
out of geopolitics. We have to act {human} again. But that has
practical implications. There are practical problems, and other
issues, and even scientific issues we have to resolve.
So, for those who are not familiar, this is the extension of
the New Silk Road. The New Silk Road has existed as the new
strategic policy of China since 1996, but we want to expand this
into a global collaboration, a blueprint, as Tom said, a concept
for peace and cooperation among nations. We have to connect the
Economic Belt of the Silk Road (the one with the yellow), which
is already being built. As Helga said, the first train arrived
from China to Tehran last month. There are projects going on in
Siberia. So there are trains going from Asia to Europe. There is
no problem with that. We need to extend it into the Southwest
Asia region, the so-called Middle East (I can explain later why I
say Southwest Asia, and not the Middle East), and into Africa,
and of course, into the Americas.
So, you can see that the red lines are where we have the
biggest deficits, the biggest deficits in infrastructure, both
transportation infrastructure, but also in other needs, deficits
in water, and deficits in electricity.
What is different in the Arabic part, which I rewrote
certain parts of it, like the Southwest Asia part, we also added
the Arabian Peninsula, also, to the idea of the connection to the
New Silk Road. This is no longer simply a Silk Road; this is the
World Land-Bridge, which can unite all the continents of the
world.
In 1996, I had the great fortune to work with Helga
Zepp-LaRouche and the team of {EIR} to make the first major study
of the New Silk Road, and it was that one which was adopted by
the Chinese government as the strategic policy of China. It was
also a thick report like this.
This work is being done, mostly in East Asia, Central Asia,
Iran, Turkey, Russia, all these nations are involved, but what is
lacking is the connection to the rest. So it has been 20 years
since that idea emerged, but there was no response from the
countries in the Arab world, for example, or in Africa.
Now, the idea with all these lines is not only about trade.
We want to warn people, that we are not talking about moving
goods from China to Europe. That’s not our concept. That’s a
byproduct. What we mean by the New Silk Road, the World
Land-Bridge, that we need to create development corridors: a
development corridor where you bring power, water, and technology
to areas that are landlocked, that are far from industrial zones,
and, explore the resources, human and natural resources of that
region, to develop new centers of economic activity. Like
landlocked nations, like in Central Asia, or the Great Lakes
region in Africa. That’s the concept. It’s not about trade,
although trade is an important aspect of this.
In 2002, Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, the American economist and
political leader, the husband of Mrs. LaRouche, was in Abu Dhabi,
in a conference about oil, and the role of oil in world politics,
and the future of oil. And there were many ministers of oil
actually from the Arab countries — the gentleman to the right is
the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates — and Mr.
LaRouche shocked everybody, and said that the Arab countries, or
the Gulf countries, have to gradually stop exporting raw oil, and
actually use raw oil and gas as an industrial product, for
petrochemicals, plastics, where every barrel of oil will give
many times its value, rather than burning it as energy. He said
that you should use your position in the world, as a crossroads
of continents. You have to utilize that position as a crossroads
for world trade, but also, the connection between Africa, Asia
and Europe.
So I added these to the Arabic version, because I think that
this is a very unique area in the world, not only that its
strategic location is very unique, no other part of the world has
that; you also have two-thirds of the world’s energy resources,
so-called, oil and gas in that region, but also, most
importantly, you have about 450 million people. Most of them are
young people. And actually, many of them have a good education.
You also have nations with a very ancient history and culture,
and a very historical identity, like Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and
so on, and they also have an idea of themselves as becoming key
players in the world, but we hope that they will become key
players in the world in the economic, scientific and cultural
sense.
The problem is that all these advantages have been turned
into disadvantages. So this region has become a center for global
politics, for global geopolitics, and that is why we see the
conditions we have in the whole Middle East region becoming like
this.
Our idea is, now we have this new situation with the Russian
intervention, the prospect, the possibility of having a peaceful
political solution in Syria, the prospect of uniting many powers
to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda, and so on, both in Iraq and Syria,
and also in Libya. But this should be followed, as Helga said, we
need a Marshall Plan, we need an economic development plan, to
establish peace on a true basis.
The reason I joined the Schiller Institute in 1994, was that
I was in Oslo, and I was working as a translator, and there was a
Palestinian children’s delegation coming with Yasser Arafat; and
I was going around with them, and, at that time, you had the Oslo
peace agreement. A week later, I saw a sign that the Schiller
Institute was having a meeting in Oslo. They had a very
interesting title. They said in the meeting that if you don’t
start with the economic development of the Palestinian people,
the people in Jordan, Syria, Israel, and so on, if you don’t base
the peace process on a solid economic basis, this whole thing
will fail. And the peace process is, of course, dead now, both
because of that, but also because of geopolitics which has
prevented reaching a true peace.
So, therefore, to establish true peace, we need an economic
and scientific program. Helga referred to president Xi Jinping’s
visit to the region in January this year. I consider this as an
historic turning point, actually, because at that point, in late
January, Saudi Arabia and Iran were at the point where there was
a big risk of a direct war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, because
of the beheading of a Shi’a clergy in Saudi Arabia, which led to
demonstrations, the burning of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, and
so on. So the Chinese intervention came at a very crucial point,
where they said, “Look, all these religious conflicts and
problems you have with each other, can lead the whole world into
a disaster. Why don’t we work on our method? We offer you to join
the New Silk Road. We offer economic development, and technology,
and even financing, so we can connect all of your countries which
are in conflict with each other together into this global
process.” And this is very, very important. And nations in the
region have to really grasp that opportunity now, and, instead of
discussing the fate of President Assad, they should discuss what
kinds of economic projects they should work together on.
One of the issues that I didn’t mention, is that, for
example, even as Helga said, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they can
join this, if they stop this other policy, because we also have
one of the largest concentrations of financial power in the Gulf
countries; the so-called sovereign funds of the Gulf Cooperation
Council countries is about $2 trillion. This can be transformed
into credit.
In the report, I propose the establishment of the Arab
Infrastructure Investment Bank. A bank which will be financed by
these rich countries, which would have a capital of $100-200
billion, and that capital will only be earmarked for
infrastructure and development projects.
So every nation has a role in this. And in the report, we
have also added, which is not in the English report, a plan, a
general outline for the reconstruction of Syria, by utilizing
Syria’s position also as a bridge for the Silk Road, both from
Asia, and from Europe, into Africa. We also propose the
construction of a Syrian National Reconstruction Bank, which is
very important. We have a very important chapter in the report
about how nations can internally finance major infrastructure
programs. Because, the big question, which comes all the time
when I am in Arab countries, or in Africa, is, they say “OK. This
sounds good. Who will pay for this? Where will the money come
from?” Actually, you don’t really need money, in that sense. You
can create the money, but you have to know where to use that
money. As Helga said, the central banks in Europe and the United
States are pumping massive amounts of liquidity into the
financial and banking system. But none of that is transformed
into technologies or projects, public projects, or housing
projects, or industrial projects in Europe or anywhere. So money
is being printed, but it is not being used.
But there is a method, which we call the Hamiltonian
national credit system, which every nation can actually
internally generate credit to finance part of its national
development plans, and this is one thing we put in the Syria
plan. Because every time there is a war like in Bosnia, in
Lebanon, and so on, you have donor conferences, where every
nation says that we will give you so much money, 100 million, 50
million, but there is no centralized idea about how to rebuild
the whole country. It all depends on donations, small drops which
come. We want something massive. We want something big. Foreign
governments should contribute to that by exporting technology to
Syria, for example, which Syria cannot afford to build, or afford
to buy, in the current situation.
Also, a part of our plan for Southwest Asia is to fight
against desertification, by managing and creating new water
resources, stopping the expansion of the desert. This is the
Iraqi Green Belt project to stop the effect of sand and dust
storms, which actually is a big problem for many cities in Iraq,
sometimes even reaching into Iran, by building a Green Belt,
planting trees in a large scale, a belt by using both ground
water and water from the rivers. This is a kind of national
program which can unite the people of Iraq for an idea of their
future together. Not Sunni, Shi’a, Kurdish, Turkish, and so on,
and so forth. These are the kinds of projects, real physical
projects, which will challenge people to work together in a
country like Iraq.
Now, I took this Egyptian model, because in Egypt, you have
a very terrible situation, which is the accumulation of 30 years
of destructive economic and financial policies, mostly caused by
former President Mubarak’s and Anwar Sadat’s collaboration with
the IMF and the World Bank. There should be a shift in the way
Egyptians consider their economy. Because Egypt always waits for
the IMF or the World Bank, the EU or the United States to give
some money so that they can start something new. And usually
money does not go to large scale. Europe, the United States, the
UN, the IMF and the World Bank will {never} finance large
infrastructure projects. That’s the policy. Small, small, small
is beautiful. That’s what they say.
But in Egypt, with the new leadership in Egypt, you have the
focus on mega-projects, which is a necessity. If you want to save
Egypt’s economy, Egypt’s entire infrastructure has to be built
from scratch again. There should be new industrial and
agricultural centers, which they are focusing on.
Using high technology, they try to attract the highest
levels of technology, and internal financing. You know, President
el-Sisi, when they wanted to build the Suez Canal, there was no
money, as usual, they said. So what he did was something unique.
He went outside the central bank. He went outside the budget, and
said, “I will go on TV, and I will tell the Egyptian people that
we want to build this canal. It’s crucial for our nation. We want
you to give the money.”
In 2013 I wrote a memorandum for Egypt, an Egyptian Economic
Independence Document, I called it. Actually, inside Egypt, you
can raise more than $100 billion, because there are resources
inside Egypt. People, even today, buy dollars. They take part of
their salary, and buy dollars or gold, and keep it at home, so
that financing disappears from the system. It’s not reinvested in
the system. People keep their money because of the unstable
economic situation.
But if you encourage the Egyptian people with this kind of
national development projects, which will put their kids to work,
unemployed young people, they would come out with the money. And
this is what el-Sisi did. I wrote at the time, that they should
build a National Development Bank, not just one fund for the Suez
Canal, as they did. But as soon as President el-Sisi came on TV
and said, “We want to build this canal, but we don’t have the
money. We want the Egyptian people to pay for it.” So they went
out, and in one week they raised $8 billion. And people were
queuing late into the night; I met a banker last year, who said,
“We had to stay open into the night, because people were queuing
at the banks to buy the bonds!” Egyptians are real patriots. They
love their country, but if they are encouraged by good
leadership.
Of course, the Suez Canal is not giving back what was
supposed to be already from the beginning, because world trade
has collapsed. The level of transit in the Suez Canal has gone
down, not because of Egypt’s policy, but because the world
economy is going down. Global trade has been collapsing. But the
idea is to use the Suez Canal as a development zone. And this is
what I got from people in the Suez Canal Authority — that they
are not only thinking about transport of goods, but they want to
utilize that route to build new industrial zones around the
canal, like we showed in the development corridor idea. And, of
course, Egypt has a very key role, both in the Arab world — it’s
the most important Arab country — and also in Africa.
Now Egypt has one big problem — it’s the demographic
problem. People say that Egypt is overpopulated. That’s not true.
Egypt is not overpopulated. Cairo is overcrowded! Ninety million
people live on only 5% of the land of Egypt; 95% of the land of
Egypt is empty. It’s not used, but it’s not overpopulated. The
United States and Europe have been financing the Egyptian
government with hundreds of millions of dollars for family
planning, so that women will have fewer children. But no projects
were built to expand Egypt’s economic potential to accommodate to
the new generations, so that they can have new agricultural and
urban centers out in the desert!
After I was in Egypt last year, I wrote a report for a major
economic conference in Egypt to attract investment; but these are
the ideas which came out of both the conference, and my
observations about Egypt’s role in the New Silk Road. In Egypt,
people were very negative to the idea of the New Silk Road,
because they said that the transshipment on the Silk Road will
take away trade from the Suez Canal — that shipments will go
from Asia to Europe by land, and we will lose. So there are a lot
of people in Egypt who are actually against the idea. But I was
telling people, “Look. It’s not about trade. If you have economic
development, you will need more Suez Canals to accommodate the
trade. But if the world economy is not growing, there is no
development, there will be no trade. And people will compete on
attracting trade into other areas.”
So the idea is to develop Egypt’s economy, but also
contribute to more development and more trade among nations. And
it’s in utilizing Egypt’s position to connect to Sub-Saharan
Africa, to North Africa, the Middle East, and to the Arabian
Peninsula. Interestingly, after I was in Egypt, last week the
Saudi King was in Egypt, and they decided to build this bridge.
At Sharm el-Sheikh, there is a connection over the Gulf of Aqaba.
I think that the Egyptian President invited the Saudi King to
support the building of this bridge between the Saudi territories
and southern Sinai, which will turn Sinai from an isolated area,
suddenly into becoming the center between two major economies.
There are now big problems in Egypt, because the President
made a terrible mistake by conceding sovereignty over the Tiran
and Sanafir islands to the Saudis. There was a dispute between
the two countries for many years, but President el-Sisi suddenly
declared that they are Saudi islands, and now there is a big
uproar in Egypt. And the mistake was that there was no public
discussion about it. The parliament didn’t have anything to say
about this. So, now there will be a review of the agreement. But
the idea of this project is very important.
Now, for Egypt to get out of that demographic box, is for
Egypt to expand its economic activities into the desert. This is
the development corridor proposed by Dr. Farouk El-Baz, who is a
space scientist, and he is right now an advisor to the President.
And he designed this idea of creating the new valley, the new
Nile Valley, by building railways, roads, and new urban centers.
I added these green zones, because these are actually becoming
new agricultural areas that the Egyptian government wants to
invest in, by creating new farmlands — they are talking about 4
million acres of land, and settling young people into these
regions, and building new agro-industrial centers. But what is
needed is to extend the development corridor, the black line,
into the economic zones.
This is the Africa Pass. One of our Egyptian friends, an
engineer, presented this at our conference in 2012, it’s the same
idea, connecting Egypt to North Africa, to Europe, and into the
Great Lakes region of Africa. Now, the Great Lakes region
countries, like Rwanda, Burundi, the eastern Congo, Uganda, they
have massive problems of economic development, also because they
are very far from the transport corridors of the world. We wrote
a series of reports two years ago about the cost of shipment of a
container. The Danish shipping company A.P. Møller-Mærsk has
statistics that the cost of a shipment of a container from
Singapore to Alexandria is $4,000, to Mombasa in eastern Kenya,
it becomes $5,000; but to the capital of Uganda, it goes to
$8,000, because there are no good roads to ship that container!
Into Rwanda and Burundi it reaches $10,600 per container. So they
cannot bear the cost of shipment of containers that maybe have
technology inside them, and machines, and that is a major problem
for these so-called land-locked countries. So you need to have
new lines of transport which will reduce the cost of the
transport.
Now these are ideas which the African nations, the African
Union, have had for many years. There are many very nice plans,
but the attitude of the rest of the world to Africa, because
Africa, by itself, does not have the technology, at least, to
build these projects, and there has been no willingness in
Europe, or the United States, to finance, or contribute to
building the projects proposed in any of these major reports, to
integrate the infrastructure of Africa and enhance economic
development. Because without infrastructure, you cannot have
economic development.
But some of these lines are now coming on the agenda, thanks
to the intervention of the BRICS nations, and also of China. For
example, the Cairo-Cape Town highway idea, President Jacob Zuma
of South Africa, presented this actually twice at the BRICS
summit in 2013 and 2014, and he said, “This is a crucial, a key
element in the development of Africa. We need to work with the
BRICS nations and China, Russia and India to build these
projects.” There are 400 road and rail projects involved in this.
But this is a big challenge, both in terms of financing, and in
terms of technology.
There is also the possibility of connecting the river
systems of Africa for river transport, like in Europe, the
Main-Rhine-Danube Rivers are an important transport artery, and
development artery. In the same way, you can connect the Nile to
the Great Lakes, to the Zambezi River through a number of canals,
and so-called trans-modal transport systems, where you can ship
from rivers to rail, and back to rivers, to lakes, and so on, in
an easy way.
Filling the gap which the United States and Europe have left
for many, many years, now the Chinese–. Well, in Europe, we
have a very problematic and twisted relationship to poverty, to
poor countries, to underdeveloped countries. Europeans look at
Africa as a burden. It’s a problem. How do we solve this problem?
But the problem is that the whole focus has been on aid,
emergency relief, and so on, and so forth, but that really
doesn’t solve problems. I mean, people talk about genocide. In
Africa, every year there are 4 million children who die. Now,
talk about a war crime. There are 700,000 children before the
age of five who die every year in Africa. So, you cannot solve
these problems with small aid projects here and there. You need
to think big. You need to provide those people with adequate
transport, electricity, water systems, and this cannot be done by
so-called aid programs. In Africa 600 million people don’t have
access to electricity, out of 1 billion.
But you look at the Chinese, when they look at an
underdeveloped country, they see an opportunity. They see
potential. They see a “win-win” strategy — new markets, new
areas of development, and they should intervene in that
situation.
It is the same idea that President Franklin Roosevelt of the
United States had. All of his fights with Churchill were exactly
about this problem. Roosevelt told Churchill in the middle of
World War II, that you British are very stupid, because you suck
the blood of the Africans, and you get pennies, you get nothing,
by sucking their blood. But if you develop Africa, as independent
nations, as modern nations, as we did with the United States,
then you will gain much, much more; if you treat them as humans,
if you develop their infrastructure, schools and hospitals.
And this is exactly what the Chinese are thinking about. Out
of the problem, they see an opportunity. Prime Minister Li
Keqiang was in East Africa, and also Nigeria in May 2014, and
immediately said, “We want to help Africa to connect all the
capitals with railways,” which is a big deficit problem. And they
started from East Africa. And now there are projects being built
from Lamu, a new port, into the land-locked South Sudan, into
Uganda, into Rwanda and Burundi. And China is both financing
major parts of this, but also contributing to building it, to
solve the problems of the land-locked countries and the need for
development.
China recently completed, it’s not running yet, but part of
the railway is running, from Djibouti to Addis Ababa. There is an
old railway, which is not functional, built by the French
colonialists, but now there is a new, electrified railway, which
goes from Djibouti to Addis Ababa.
Two interesting things about this railway are, firstly, that
Ethiopia is always associated with famine and food problems. Some
of these problems still exist. These are on the way to being
solved, but to bring food from the ports to inside the country
usually took two months, because of the lack of infrastructure.
So starving people could not have food in time. Even if the food
existed in the port, coming from around the world to Djibouti, it
was almost impossible to bring the food to the people who needed
it. Now, that food can be shipped in 10 hours, to the capital,
and also to other areas. The other interesting fact about this
railway is that China is not just building the railway, and
financing it, but training and educating engineers and workers to
run these systems.
Now, Ethiopia has a massive infrastructure plan for
connecting all the major cities of Ethiopia, with the railway and
roads. The other thing about the railway is that it is all
electrified. And the Ethiopians will use all these new dams they
are building, to electrify the railway. So they don’t need import
oil, and gas and diesel to run the railway system. They will
domestically provide the energy to run the trains.
So, Ethiopia, I am very sure it will never be associated
anymore with famine and poverty. Ethiopia is a great nation, a
very proud nation. They have massive resources, but these
resources have been dormant, have not been utilized. But now,
with the Chinese intervention, and also India is active there,
these resources will be developed.
This is just a metaphorical picture. This is the
Mombasa-Nairobi railway being built by a Chinese and a Kenyan
worker. In Africa, the propaganda goes that the Chinese never let
the locals work in these projects. They bring their own workers,
they bring their own engineers, their own technology, they build
the thing, and then they leave. It’s not true. They always
involve local workers. They train them, because they cannot run
these systems; the locals will have to run these systems
themselves.
But they are also training the labor force in Uganda. They
are building an Army Corps of Engineers, so that the Army can
play a positive role in the development of the country.
Traditionally, the Army Corps of Engineers played a very
important role, even in advanced countries. So this is part of
the same project.
Another important infrastructure project for Africa is
Transaqua. Lake Chad is drying up, which is a known fact, and 30
million people are affected, because they live as fishermen, or
they have grazing land around the lake in Chad and Nigeria, and
Niger. All these countries are affected. There are 30 million
people around that region, and there will be massive migration
actually from the Lake Chad region. So there is an idea called
Transaqua, which was developed by one of our friends, an Italian
engineer, to bring 5% of the water from the Congo River, or the
tributaries of the Congo River, and build a 2,800 km.-long canal
into the Chari River, and then flow downwards into Lake Chad, to
refill the lake; but also to have a new economic zone, and build
the Mombasa-Lagos highway, which was one of the plans I showed
earlier.
So you can transform that part of Africa, which in people’s
minds is a complete jungle, into a new economic zone, but also to
bring water to the Lake Chad region.
Now, there are some other issues I want to address. One of
the big deficits of course in Africa, is the energy consumption.
And as I said not everybody has that; the average international
level of energy consumption is about 2,800 [kw?] but that’s not
equal. The only two countries which are exception are South
Africa and Libya, before that. So the energy needs in Africa are
{enormous}! I mean Africa has a lot of wealth, but also the
hydropower potential which has never been built. But the
attitude of the Western countries, like the Obama administration,
they have something called “Power Africa Initiative,” that
certain nations in Africa will get energy provided. But they’re
not talking about hydropower, they’re not talking about nuclear
power, they’re not talking about coal or gas or so on. They’re
talking about so-called “renewable” or “sustainable energy.” And
the International Energy Agency has a criteria for access to
energy, which is a modern access to energy is about 100kw-hours
per year per person. And this diagram shows very ironically,
that that amount will be consumed by an American in three days!
But they expect Africans to live with that for a whole year!
Here’s just one more ironical idea: My refrigerator can consume
many times as much as an Ethiopian individual.
These are the criteria for President Obama’s Power Africa
plan, that the plan will eventually help these nations come to
this line, while the real needs are that big now, and they will
be that big in a few years. So, all these ideas to help Africa
from the Obama administration, they’re not adequate! It’s just a
complete bluff. It does not help, if you just look at the
numbers.
And this is also another irony of the Obama administration
policy. These are the sources of energy for the American people,
the American economy, and these are what the Obama administration
{doesn’t} want you to do. So it’s “do as we say, not as we do.”
So the United States produced 37% of its energy from coal, that’s
forbidden for Africa; 30% produced by natural gas, that’s a very
suspicious policy, because there’s the carbon problem; 19%
nuclear — absolutely no nuclear for Africa; 7% hydropower — the
United States is very suspicious of hydropower projects, and so
on and so on. So what is left is solar, so-called geothermal,
and biomass, which the United States produced only 0.1% of its
needs. But that’s recommended for Africa. [laughter]
So anyway, the idea is that if Africa joins the new paradigm
shift, African nations, they have exactly, in African families
and African individuals, they have exactly the same needs as we
have; as we have in Europe or in the United States. There is
absolutely no difference. So they’re trying to convince the
Africans that they should just, maybe, if they’re lucky they
could get a lightbulb at home, so the kids can read, by having a
solar battery. They will not bite!
I mean, if you bring electricity to a village, what people
will do, is not simply have a lightbulb, if you bring electricity
to a village, — and one of our friends made a study in India —
is that people will start to want to use new devices. They have
to have other appliances at home, you need to have a stove, so
women don’t have to many hours and cut trees and come home and
cook with the wood, and suffocate with the smoke. Farmers will
have to have tractors. They will need to have workshops which
use electricity; people will want to have TV sets, computers.
They want to build industrial projects. They will need
refrigeration which is a big problem in Africa, because most of
the food produced in the Sub-Saharan goes wasted because there’s
no refrigeration.
So just to give yourself an illusion that you will provide
every African lightbulb, just forget about it! Because the needs
of those people are so immense, and they will not give up on
their right to have a living standard which is similar to ours.
Why shouldn’t they have it? And this is what — here, in the
ideology in Europe and the United States I know, they should not
have this kind of technology, they should not have this kind of
development in Africa, because that’s not “sustainable.” Which is
not true. It is sustainable, if you provide the tools and the
technology to do that. Actually in Africa, there are more
resources than in Japan or in the United States and Europe, to
sustain industrial development!
So the problem is in the policy. The problem is how they
look at Africa, and how they look at the problem of poverty and
so on. And that has also to change, exactly as we changed with
geopolitics, we have to change our attitude to the problems of
Africa, and have really the right methods to solving them, and
treating African nations as equal to us, and African families as
equal to us, and African individuals as equal to us.
Nobody here will give up their living standard, and live in
the forest — maybe some people who do, there are some Danes and
Norwegians… [laughter] But we want to have education. We want
to have warm housing, we want to have clean water; we want to
have a future for our kids; we want to have trains which go on
time. This is what the Africans want. You know, there’s nothing
different, we’re all one human race!
So, when you design policy and you say, “No, Africans should
have ‘sustainable energy,’ not nuclear power,” then you are
breaking with that idea of a real human family and equality. So
I think I’ll stop here. [applause]
Dias til talen:
Schiller Instituttet og Executive Intelligence Review holdt et seminar mandag den 18. april 2016 på Frederiksberg på engelsk.
Inkl. en diskussion om EIR’s specialrapport Den Nye Silkevej Bliver til Verdenslandbroen
Introduktion:Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark
Musik:
Fischerweise af Schubert
Ritorna Vincitor! fra Aida af Verdi
Leena Malkki, soprano fra Sverige
Dominik Wijzan, pianist fra Poland
Teksterne på originalsprogene med engelsk oversættelse
Video: Introduktion og musik
Talere: Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Instituttets internationale præsident, kendt som “Silkevejsdamen” (via Skype video)
Video: Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Audio: Introduktion, musik og Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Afskrift: Et nyt paradigme for menneskeheden: Afskrift af Helga Zepp-LaRouches tale
Forlæng Verdenslandbroen ind i Mellemøsten og Afrika: Hussein Askary, EIR’s Mellemøstredaktør, som lige har oversat den arabiske version af rapporten.
Den Nye Silkevej og den iranske rolle; Hr. Abbas Rasouli, først sekretær på Irans ambassade i Danmark.
Video: Hussein Askary og Hr. Abbas Rasouli.
Audio: Hussein Askary og Hr. Abbas Rasouli
Afskrift: Forlæng Verdenslandbroen ind i Sydvestasien og Afrika: Afskrift af Hussein Askarys tale
Afskrift: Den Nye Silkevej og Irans rolle: Afskrift af Hr. Abbas Rasoulis tale
Mere om Den Nye Silkevej og Verdenslandbroen på dansk:
Specialrapport: Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Den Nye Silkevej fører til menneskehedens fremtid! Oktober 2014
Den kommende fusionsøkonomi baseret på helium-3. En introduktion til en kommende EIR-rapport om Verdenslandbroen.
BYG VERDENSLANDBROEN FOR VERDENSFRED
Helga Zepp-LaRouche var taler ved et seminar for diplomater, der blev afholdt i Det russiske Kulturcenter i København den 30. januar 2015, med titlen: »Økonomisk udvikling og samarbejde mellem nationer, eller økonomisk kollaps, krig og terror? Den Nye Silkevej bliver til Verdenslandbroen«. Nyhedsorientering febr. 2015.
Tema: Den Islamiske Renæssance var en Dialog mellem Civilisationer, af Hussein Askary
Genopbygningsplan for Syrien: Projekt Fønix: Diskussionspunkter om Syriens genopbygning
Link: Homepage about the EIR report The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge
The English, Arabic and Chinese versions of EIR's report are available from EIR and The Schiller Institute in Denmark.
Prices for the 400-page report:
English: printed 500 kr.; pdf. 300 kr.; Arabic: printed 500 kr.; Chinese: pdf. 300 kr.
Please contact tel. 53 57 00 51 or 35 43 00 33, or si@schillerinstitut.dk
Invitation:
Terror in Europe, and elsewhere. Waves of refugees leaving countries racked by war and economic ruin, from Afghanistan to Africa. Threats of financial crash in the trans-Atlantic region. Dangers of escalating confrontation and war against Russia and China. Is there any hope for the future?
The Schiller Institute and Executive Intelligence Review, led by the ideas and efforts of Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, have been working for decades to create a paradigm shift, away from "geopolitics," to a new era of cooperation between sovereign nations, based on an ambitious infrastructure-driven economic development strategy — a plan for lasting peace through economic development.
In 2013, this New Silk Road and Eurasian Land-Bridge strategy was adopted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who called it the “One Belt, One Road” policy, which now includes agreements with 60 countries. In addition, the economic development alliance among the BRICS countries, and the establishment of new credit institutions, constitute an alternative in the making.
In December 2014, EIR published a ground-breaking special report in English, The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, the sequel to its 1996 report, which elaborates the new set of economic principles needed for world economic development. The Chinese version was issued in 2015.
Now, if there is to be a solution to the heart-wrenching suffering of the people of the Middle East and Africa, and the effects of the crisis in Europe, the New Silk Road must be extended to those regions, on its way to becoming the World Land-Bridge. The recent negotiations led by U.S. Secretary of State Kerry (despite opposition from other factions in the Obama administration), and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, regarding Iran and Syria, have also helped to create the political preconditions for such a new “Marshall Plan” to immediately come into effect.
There are already moves in that direction. An example of “win-win” cooperation was demonstrated during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran, where he confirmed China’s support for real economic development in the region, backed up by $55 billion in loans and investments.
And on March 17, the Arabic version of EIR's report was presented in Cairo by Egyptian Transportation Minister Dr. Saad El Geyoushi, and EIR Arabic desk chief Hussein Askary, who translated the report, at a well-attended launching at the Ministry. An expanded chapter on proposals to rebuild Southwest Asia is included.
The Copenhagen seminar will present the vision of a new paradigm, instead of geopolitics, terror, war and economic collapse. Mustering the creative efforts of populations collaborating to rebuild their nations, is the only way forward.
We hope that you will be able to attend this important seminar, and join in the discussion about how this alternative can be brought about.
Links:
Here are links to information about EIR's March 24, 2016 Frankfurt seminar, co-sponsored by the Ethiopian consulate, including the speeches of Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Hussein Askary.
Report about the Frankfurt seminar
Homepages:
Danish: www.schillerinstitut.dk
English: www.newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com
www.schillerinstitute.org
www.larouchepub.com/eiw
Arabic: www.arabic.larouchepub.com/
Other languages: Click here
Søndag aftens ’60 Minutter’ – eksposé af den saudiske rolle i de originale 11. september angreb og Bush- og Obama-administrationernes dække over de 28 sider, har forårsaget total panik i det Hvide Hus, i Riyadh og i London. Med krav fra både tidligere formand for Repræsentanternes Hus Nancy Pelosi og senator Kristen Gillebrand (D-NY) om, at Obama omgående af-klassificerer de 28 sider, har presset på Obama og det anglo-saudiske apparatur, som han og Bush har beskyttet i de sidste 15 år, nået en tærskel.
Obamas medskyld i at dække over det saudiske monarkis forbrydelser mere end overstiger målet for omgående rigsretssag og afsættelse. ’60 Minutter’–udsendelsen har været parat til at gå i luften i månedsvis, og det faktum, at showet blev sendt ti dage før Obamas planlagte besøg i Saudi Arabien for at mødes med GCC ledere, er en indikation af, at voksende magtfaktorer har erkendt, hvad Lyndon LaRouche erklærede så tidligt som i april 2009: At Obama er et redskab for det britiske monarki og deres saudiske slagtere, og at selve USA’s overlevelse er i fare for hver dag han forbliver i embedet.
’60 Minutter’-dokumentaren inddrog et antal veletablerede nationale sikkerheds-veteraner fra forhenværende flådesekretær John Lehman til tidligere CIA direktør Porter Goss og forhenværende senator Bob Graham, der alle forlangte en øjeblikkelig frigivelse af de 28 sider. Medlem af kongressens fælles undersøgelsesudvalg Tim Roemer pegede på tidligere FBI direktør Robert Mueller, som en af nøglefigurerne bag tilsløringen af den saudiske rolle.
’60 Minutter’-afsløringen gik I luften blot en uge efter frigivelsen af ’Panama-papirerne, ‘ der afslørede det virkeligt beskidte ømme punkt i det britiske imperium: ‘offshore’ penge-centrene, der hvidvasker narko- og andre former for sorte penge samt styrer skatteunddragelse og anden kriminalitet. Som Lyndon LaRouche har gjort det klart igennem årtier, er det britiske imperium et kriminelt oligarki opsat på befolkningsmord. Nu findes der 11 millioner sider med beviser imod det London-centrerede kriminelle og morderiske imperium.
Dette ‘et-to stød’ til hjertet af oligarkiet kommer endvidere på et tidspunkt, hvor briterne er desperate for at starte en verdenskrig imod Rusland og Kina, som en respons på det faktum, at deres system er håbløst og uigenkaldeligt bankerot. Obama er deres ynkelige instrument i denne stræben efter krig, og hans fjernelse fra embedet er på nuværende tidspunkt den eneste ægte løsningsmodel for at undgå krig.
Kampen om de 28 sider er nu nået til et punkt, hvor den kan bringe Obama og hele det rådne anglo-saudiske system til fald. Det er på tide!
Kampagnen for frigivelse af de 28 siger får nu også prominent dækning i Europa, som for eksempel på det velkendte franske sikkerhed- og forsvars website Dedefensa.org, der er baseret i Belgien. Dets omfattende dækning begynder med en rapport om ”60 minutter” exposéen: ”I søndags steg det politiske og folkelige pres for en af-klassificering af de famøse 28 sider fra den oprindelige amerikanske regeringsrapport om 11. september skarpt. Det skete med udsendelsen af et TV-program, for første gang med et stort nationalt publikum – ’60 Minutter’ med CS’s Steven Kroft som vært, et program, der helt og holdent var helliget spørgsmålet om 11. september. Det er en vigtig sejr for en offentligt lanceret bevægelse, udenfor politiske netværk……”
Link til udsendelsen på dansk TV:
Link til “60 minutter” programmet på DR TV
D. 11. april, 2016 – En tværpolitisk række af ledende medlemmer fra de to større undersøgelser af angrebene d. 11. september optrådte i det amerikanske Tv-program ”60 minutter” søndag aften, og opfordrede til frigivelse af hemmelige dokumenter, der viser Saudi Arabiens medvirken i angrebene. Programmet blev udsendt umiddelbart før Barack Obamas sidste præsidentbesøg i Saudi Arabien i næste uge, og samtidig med en presseerklæring fra Kongressens demokratiske leder Nancy Pelosi med opfordring til frigivelse af de hemmelige ”28” sider af Kongressens undersøgelse af 11. september.
Dagsordenen for Obamas “kronings-“visit til hans krigsallierede er nu uden tvivl blevet ”vanskeliggjort.” Det saudiske wahabit-monarkis kongelige ambassade i Washington, der er svækket og ikke så affærdigende som ved tidligere eksponeringer af 11. september, tog øjeblikkeligt afstand fra udsendelsen, der blev betegnet som ”en sammenskrivning af myter og fejlagtige anklager, der allerede er blevet grundigt adresseret, ikke alene af den saudiske regering, men også af 11. september Kommissionen, og de amerikanske domstole.”
I årene siden Obama første gang lovede familierne til ofrene for 11. september at han ville af-klassificere de 28 sider, har han og saudierne gået hånd i hånd i så meget katastrofalt og folkemorderisk krigsførelse – og gør det stadig –, at en afsløring af saudisk ansvar for angrebene d. 11. september ville være en dynamit-anklage, der tillige ville ramme London. Segmentet i ”60 minutter” begyndte med præcist at fastslå, at der er ”dyb mistillid” mellem de krigsallierede, hvoraf en del er opstået på grund af den åbenlyse saudiske støtte til sunni-jihadistgrupper og terrorist-ideologier verden over.
Og til sidst må retfærdigheden dog ske fyldest for ofrene for 11. september. Medlem af Repræsentanternes Hus Nancy Peloci udtalte, at ”Som tidligere højtplaceret demokrat i Husets Efterretningskommité, der undersøgte angrebene d. 11. september, er jeg enig med tidligere senator Bob Graham i, at disse dokumenter skulle af-klassificeres og gøres offentlige.” Graham sagde på CBS-udsendelse, at flykaprerne nødvendigvis må have haft opbakning indenfor USA, og da han blev spurgt, ”Tror De, at der var støtte fra Saudi Arabien?” svarede han, ”i betydelig grad,” og indikerede, at han medregnede den saudiske regering. Medlemmerne af 11. september Kommissionen, pensioneret admiral John Lehman, forhenværende senator Bob Kerrey og U.S. repræsentant Tim Roemer bekræftede alle, at de fleste medlemmer af begge undersøgelser – inklusiv deres ledere – ønsker de 28 sider af-klassificeret af Obama. Og det gør familierne og EIR ikke mindre.
Mest bemærkelsesværdig var Kerrey’s bemærkning. Den saudiske regering har i 14 år påberåbt sig en enkelt sætning i 11. september Kommisionsrapporten om, ”at den ikke fandt bevis for, at ledende saudiske officials stod bag angrebene.” Til trods for den ekstreme og overlagte tvetydighed i ordet ”ledende”, har saudierne offentligt, og ved amerikanske domstole, hævdet, at Kommissionen fritog dem for skyld. Kerrey sagde ligeud til værten på ”60 minutter” Steve Kroft, ”Nej, vi fritog ikke saudierne for skyld”.
Schiller Instituttets konference i torsdags i New York City, “At bygge en Verdenslandbro – og realisere en ægte menneskelig menneskehed”, markerede en succes for Lyndon LaRouches idé. Selvom flere og mere fyldige rapporter vil følge, så kan så meget allerede nu siges med sikkerhed; nærværende rapport reflekterer kun en del af begivenhedsforløbet.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche åbnede konferencen med en omfattende og inspirerende tale med titlen, ”Hinsides geopolitik og polaritet: En fremtid for den menneskelige art”, i hvilken hun blotlagde den umiddelbare trussel om en udslettelseskrig og viste, at alene idéen om Verdenslandbroen, som hun sammen med sin mand udviklede i perioden under Warszawapagtens sammenbrud, kan tilvejebringe en varig garanti for fred. Hun gik videre med at skitsere en dialog mellem civilisationerne, hvor alle civilisationer i verden vil blive repræsenteret ved deres historiske, kulturelle højdepunkter, så som Weimar-klassikken for Tysklands vedkommende og et USA, som det først blev udtænkt til at være af Benjamin Franklin og Alexander Hamilton.
Helga efterfulgtes som taler af den tidligere amerikanske justitsminister Ramsey Clark (1966-67), der sammenvævede sin egen mangeårige erfaring til en redegørelse om den nyere verdenshistorie, og som understregede et alternativ til den krigspolitik, som de fleste amerikanske regeringer efter Kennedy-tiden har ført.
Den næste taler var en aldeles enestående person fra Kina, nemlig landets ledende professor i journalistik og tilligemed leder af meget andet, Li Xiguang. Professor Li har anført en pilgrimsfærd, der har varet i årtier, for Silkevejen – tværs over Centralasien og ned langs hver af de tre nord-syd ruter, og tilbage igen. Ikke færre end 500 af sine studerende har han siden 1990 ført med sig på denne pilgrimsrejse, og han har skrevet et tobindsværk om den Nye Silkevej. Skønt hans mål med Silkevejen ikke er af religiøs karakter – hans mål er de samme som LaRouche-bevægelsens – så modellerer professor Li sig selv efter de store kulturelle, kinesiske helte, buddhistmunkene Xuanzang (602-664) og dennes forgænger Faxian (337-422). Begge foretog vidstrakte og anstrengende rejser langs Silkevejen og bragte den første, reelle viden om meget af verdenscivilisationen, der især omfattede sanskrit-sproget og kulturen, samt originale, buddhistiske skrifter, med tilbage til Kina.
Xuanzang tilbragte intet mindre end 16 år på denne rejse og vendte tilbage med 600 indiske tekster. Efter ønske fra Tangdynastiets kejser, færdiggjorde han i 646 sit 12-binds værk, ”Krøniken om det store Tangdynastis vestlige områder” der er blevet en af hovedkilderne til studiet af Centralasien og Indien i middelalderen, og som danner grundlag for romanen fra det 17. århundrede, ”Rejsen til Vesten”, en af de fire store, klassiske, kinesiske romaner.
Der vil senere komme rapporter fra eftermiddagens session, der satte fokus på rumprogrammet, og som blev indledt af Kesha Rogers med en levende præsentation. Sessionens højdepunkt var en spørgsmål-svar-session over Skype med Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche førte de fleste af spørgsmålene tilbage til kardinalspørgsmålet, nemlig, at forandringer i det fysiske system, og i menneskehedens fremtid, skabes af selve det tænkende menneskelige intellekt; det er der intet dyr, der er i stand til. Menneskeheden organiseres gennem sine egne handlinger af denne art; det er disse, der leder til enten succes eller fiasko. Dette er kendetegnende for den sande videnskabsmands intellekt, som Einstein eksemplificerer. Men denne redegørelse er blot en karakteristik; de faktiske svar bør studeres i detaljer.
Flere end 200 mennesker var mødt frem, kernemedlemmer ikke medregnet. Omkring et dusin fremmede lande fra Europa, Asien og Afrika var repræsenteret, enten ved diplomater, kulturelle forbindelser eller på anden vis. Mange musikere deltog, og mindst fem mennesker fra Brooklyn kirken, hvor vi opførte Messias i påsken. Dette er muligvis den største konference, vi nogensinde har holdt.
Som konklusion skal det siges, at denne konference markerer en sejr for en af Lyndon LaRouches ideer: nemlig Manhattan-projektet, som han præsenterede tilbage i oktober 2014. Og dog blev han dengang, i lighed med Einsteins berømte udtalelse om Kepler i 1930 på 300 års dagen for dennes død, ”ikke støttet af nogen og kun forstået af ganske få”. Lyndon LaRouche, der skabte det Strategiske Forsvarsinitiativ og senere sammen med sin kone skabte den Eurasiske Landbro, har endnu engang skabt en ny og fuldstændig anderledes original idé. En idé, som atter har vist sig at være gyldig.
København d. 6. april, 2016 – Ved et seminar i København i tirsdags, med titlen ’Udfordringer for Tunesiens demokrati’, der blev holdt ved det Danske Institut for Internationale Studier (DIIS), gav Mahmoud Ben Romdhane, minister for sociale affærer i den siddende tunesiske regering og tidligere menneskerettighedsaktivist udtryk for en politik, der hænger sammen med den Nye Silkevej/Verdenslandbro. Til trods for det faktum, at Schiller Instituttet ikke blev opfordret til at stille spørgsmål, sagde ministeren i respons til et spørgsmål fra en kinesisk fotograf om forskelle mellem de tunesiske og den kinesiske økonomier (frit oversat):
Verden er under forandring. I løbet af de næste 20 år vil verdens centrum bevæge sig fra det Atlantiske Ocean til Stillehavet. Kina og Indien, begge nøglenationer, er allerede de største lande. På grund af vores gode relationer med Europa kan vi blive en platform for forbindelser mellem Indien, Kina, Asien, Europa, Afrika og den arabiske verden. Vi skulle begynde at undervise i kinesisk i vore skoler, og jeg er frustreret over, at vi ikke allerede er startet. Vi har haft møder med kinesiske firmaer, og vi diskuterer mange projekter, overvejende om infrastruktur. Kineserne udtrykker deres ønsker, og vi er åbne over for deres forslag. Vi ser frem til muligheden for investeringer og jobskabelse.
Et andet højdepunkt under seminaret var da Houcine Abassi, formand for Tunesiens indflydelsesrige fagforening, UGTT, en af de fire organisationer, der har modtaget Nobelprisen, angreb ”stormagterne”, der står bag terrorismen. Som svar på et spørgsmål om hvorfor økonomien ikke er blevet bedre siden revolutionen for fem år siden sagde han (frit oversat):
Arbejdsløsheden er 15 %, hvilket skaber vrede blandt ungdommen. Det skyldes en fejltagelse af den tidligere regering. Om Gud vil, vil vi finde løsninger. Men vi kræver hjælp fra verden udenom os. Hvad er grunden til, at terroren har ramt vores land? Vi lykkedes med at udvikle en forfatning. Verdens stormagter skabte terroristerne. De mente at de kunne gøre situationen værre. Vi ændrede spillet. De lande, der skabte terroristerne, er nu selv under angreb fra terrorister. Hvad vil det internationale samfund forpligte sig til at gøre? De sydlige middelhavslande vender sig til Europa. Se på de flygtninge, der kommer fra Syrien. Hvis det samme sker i Tunesien, vil der komme millioner af flygtninge til Europa. Europa må arbejde sammen med Tunesien om at forsvare Europa. Det ser vi intet af på nuværende tidspunkt.
Minister Mahmoud Ben Romdhane sagde videre, at revolutionen var en kamp for jobs, værdighed og frihed, men folket har kun fået frihed. Han pegede også på problemet med at leve som nabo til det største våbenlager – i Libyen, hvilket får tuneserne til at øge deres forsvarsbudget, og truslen om terrorisme har påvirket deres økonomi. Dette skal ses i en geopolitisk sammenhæng, sagde Abassi, og påpegede stormagternes rolle. Det er i hele verdens strategiske interesse at forhindre Tunesien i at blive et nyt Libyen.
Seminaret blev også adresseret af en leder fra en industri-sammenslutning, der også har modtaget en Nobelpris; han sagde, at der aldrig kom direkte europæiske investeringer til Tunesien. Tunesien behøver Europa, og nu, efter terrorangrebene i Frankrig og Belgien, er det klart, at vi alle er i samme båd.
Ved den efterfølgende reception blev de to første talere præsenteret for den nyligt trykte arabiske udgave af rapporten om Verdenslandbroen, og de øvrige deltagere blev inviteret til det kommende Schiller Institut-/EIR-seminar om udvidelsen af den Nye Silkevej til Mellemøsten of Afrika.
Med formand Tom Gillesberg
D. 4. april, 2016 – Mandag morgen annoncerede Jacques Cheminade sit kandidatur til at blive fransk præsident i 2017. Det skete i et ti-minutters interview med Guillaume Daret i programmet “De fire Sandheder” på den nationale franske Tv-kanal France 2. Udsendt kl.7:40, i ‘prime time’ var det omtrentlige antal seerantal 1.3 million.
Det følgende er en kort artikel udsendt af France 2 sammen med en video af interviewet: De fire Sandheder – Jacques Cheminade: “Mine idéer skræmmer den franske politiske elite. “I Frankrig har der i 40 år været en politik om finansiel afvikling af landet; det er ikke en politik for vækst, det er en politik for underkastelse til international finansiel kontrol – og således har vi nu social nedskæringspolitik – det er en politik, hvor det politiske harem indgår deres pagt med pengeimperiet. I dag finder 81 % af franskmændene, at dette ikke er betryggende, og 71 % mener, at det franske samfund er uretfærdigt…..Vi befinder os under finansiel besættelse, hvilket vi må kæmpefor at befri os selv fra.”
Idet han kommenterede på resultaterne af de tidligere præsidentvalg (0.28% i 1995 og 0.25 i 2012), sagde Jacques Cheminade, at “han blev behandlet med eliminering for øje.” Mine idéer skræmte dem. Ikke mig: idéen om at man kan stille spørgsmålstegn ved den franske politiske elite – det inkapable oligarki – deres samarbejde med det internationale monetaristiske og finansielle system.” Med sin afsluttende eksamen fra HEC Paris (Højere kommercielt Studium) fra ENA (Den Nationale Administrationsskole) og hans tidligere ansættelse som handelsattaché ved den franske mission i New York forventer han ikke at få vanskeligt ved at samle mindst 500 sponsoraftaler fra valgte officials til godkendelse af hans kandidatur.
”De franske vil denne gang indse, at `vote utile’* vil være en stemme for mig’ i 2017, forsikrede han. “De troede de havde givet en ‘vote utile’ til François Hollande, der ikke levede op til de løfter, han afgav.”
Jacques Cheminade definerer sig selv som “venstre Gaullist,” og hans referencer er “Jaurès, de Gaulle, og Mendès-France.” Han går ind for at forlade euroen på betingelse af, at sigtet ikke er tilbagetrækning til isolationisme; ” ”går ind for at Frankrig skal trække sig ud af EU,” “og er imod legaliseringen af stoffer til rekreativt brug, men samtidig imod at straffe brugerne.”
Nyheden bredte sig øjeblikkeligt overalt i pressen, og blev dækket af Le Figaro, Le Monde, Obs, Huffington Post, Le Parisien, L’Express, Togo News og mange andre nyhedskilder på internettet. Generelt er dækningen mere respektfuld, og angrebet på den franske politiske elites samarbejde med en international fjende, dækkes i de fleste artikler. Men nyhedskilderne prøver at understrege de “små” resultater af tidligere kampagner, men nævner dog Cheminade’s støtte til rumforskning.
Cheminade erklærede sit kandidatur i en fase, hvor Frankrig går ind i en flyvefærdig finansiel, økonomisk og social krise: Præsident François Hollande er helt og holdent miskrediteret, og stiller formentligt ikke op til en anden periode. Hollande måtte droppe sin hårrejsende projekt med at “fratage nationaliteten fra dem, der ville begå terrorhandlinger” – en intrige til at få alle højreorienterede og selv ekstremt venstreorienterede med om bord, hvilken ville have ledt til skabelsen af statsløse individer. Lovforslaget blev endeligt aflivet i Senatet.
D. 31. marts bragte demonstrationer hundredetusinder af fagforeningsmedlemmer og almindelige mennesker ud i gaderne for at få regeringen til at droppe en foreslået arbejdskraftlov, der ville tillade “uberization” [efter Taxaselskabet Uber, red.] af de fleste professioner, og øge ledigheden, der er på dundrende 8 millioner allerede! Cheminades annoncering af sit kandidatur kommer på et tidspunkt, hvor flere og flere grupper endelig modsætter sig regeringens fremsatte lovforslag til reformering af reguleringerne for præsidentvalgene, der skal erstatte ligelig mediedækning med proportional dækning, samt andre foranstaltninger til at gøre det sværere for dem udenfor den eksisterende miskrediterede politiske elite, at stille op som præsident. Solidarité & Progrès var spydspids i kampagnen mod lovforslaget, der nu er blevet undsagt af ikke blot de små partier, men også af de fleste af de større aviser og magasiner.
Jacques Cheminade’s fulde politiske program på hans nyhedswebside:
http://www.jacquescheminade2017.fr
*vote utile betyder at stemme pragmatisk for en kandidat, som vælgeren tror, kan vinde, snarere end på en hvis idéer er ærlige, men om hvem vælgeren tænker, at systemet ikke vil tillade at vinde.
LAROUCHE: Jeg vil sige, at lige nu gennemgår vi – ikke en simpel version af hvad vi tidligere har haft – men vi går ind i en krisesituation, der er meget dybt rodfæstet, ikke bare i USA, men på meget af planeten. Vi er på kanten af truslen om en lancering af krig imod Kina, og implicit også Putin, men Kina i særdeleshed – og truslerne er ved at blive meget alvorlige.
HONG LEI (talsmand for det kinesiske udenrigsministerium): Installationen af THAAD systemet har strakt sig langt ud over forsvarsbehovene i forhold til Nordkorea, og vil direkte skade Kinas strategiske og sikkerhedsmæssige interesser, såvel som den regionale balance.
LAROUCHE: Hvis disse trusler blev ført ud i livet, ville den umiddelbare effekt være generel verdensomspændende termonuklear krig. Det er kendsgerningerne. For hvis Putin blev slået ud, og hvis Kina, efter Obamas direktiver, blev ramt direkte, ville man have den værste generelle krigsførelse på planeten Jorden, der nogensinde er forekommet og som vi nogensinde har erfaret. Det er der vi er.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOV (øverstkommanderende for NATO): Om nødvendigt er vi er parate til at kæmpe og vinde….vores fokus vil ekspandere fra sikkerhed til afskrækkelse, inklusiv forholdsregler, der forøger vort samlede beredskab enormt. Mod øst og nord står vi over for et fornyet og aggressivt Rusland, der fortsat, som vi har været vidne til igennem de sidste to år, søger at udvide dets indflydelse på dets periferi og derudover.
LAROUCHE: Hvis vi ikke griber ind med det samme, og Obama agerer som han lige nu har til hensigt – vil han sætte en generel verdensomspændende termonuklear krig i bevægelse. Hvorvidt det vil lykkes ham at gøre det eller ej, er et andet spørgsmål, men kendsgerningen er, at han har til hensigt at gøre det. Og han sætter militære styrker ind på det -mange militærstyrker.
SERGEI GLAZYEV (Økonom og rådgiver til præsident Putin): Som det altid sker i en verdensøkonomisk orden under forandring, prøver det land, der er ved at taber sit lederskab, at slippe en verdenskrig løs for at få kontrol over periferien …… . State Department og det Hvide Hus fortsætter med at se verden gennem prismet af både den Kolde Krig og britiske konfrontationer med Rusland og Tyskland i det nittende århundrede. Og USA er i gang med at slippe en ny krig løs.
LAROUCHE: For indeværende er planetens transatlantiske samfund en katastrofe. Alt hvad vi havde på forhånd er netop krakket. Vi mister det hele. Så vi har to ting at gøre:
Få Obama ud med det samme. (Med det samme!) Forlad ham, han går efter en termonuklear krig! Så I er nødt til at få ham ud.
Når dette skridt er taget, er I nødt til at tage foranstaltninger til genopbygning, og de foranstaltninger er mulige, de lader sig gennemføre. Der skal foretages en reorganisering af Kongressens politiske struktur og så videre. Og I må gå ud og finde folk, der er villige til at stå frem, som er i stand til at se på de ting vi kunne gøre, eller skulle have gjort. Det vil indebære, at gennemføre et program i lighed med det program, der gennemføres i Kina! Det Kina, som Obama har til hensigt at ødelægge.
Så det vi ønsker at gøre, er simpelthen at tage de samme ting i brug, som vi havde i forbindelse med rumprogrammet, at genoplive rumprogrammet, for vi skal have gjort en masse rumligt opdagelsesarbejde – rumarbejde. Og det vil blive meget vigtigt og meget rigt, og uden at gøre netop det, og uden at bruge det, klarer I det ikke.
Så I har intet alternativ til denne situation. Men hvis et sådant foretagende har det engagement, der skal til, og man er parate til at udfolde det, ville jeg sige: “Pris dem. Vi behøver dem!”
Og bak dem så op.
D. 29. marts 2016 .
På den sidste dag af Xi’s tre dages besøg i den Tjekkiske Republik, annoncerede den tjekkiske præsident Milos Zeman i sin tale til et forum af tjekkiske og kinesiske forretningsledere, sammen med den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinping, at også han havde en ’drøm’, hvilken er realiseringen af Oder-Elben-Donau kanalen, som ville give landet Tjekkiet adgang til havet.
Blandt de 30 handelsaftaler, der blev underskrevet af de to parter, var en af dem en forpligtelse til at gå videre med dette vigtige projekt. De to parter vil investere omkring 1 milliard Euro i fase ét af projektet.
”Dette projekt matcher perfekt med Kinas Ét bælte, én vejs’ initiativ, og strategisk set kunne de 2forbindes med,” sagde Voytech Filip, viceformand for det tjekkiske parlament.
I sine kommentarer til forsamlingen sagde præsident Xi, at Kina og den Tjekkiske Republik sammen skulle ”udforske innovation indenfor økonomi, handel og modeller for forretnings-samarbejde, øge samarbejdet indenfor felter som finans- og internetøkonomi, nye energiformer og turisme, og støtte de to landes virksomhed inden for partnerskabes-udvikling af industri-, videnskabs- og teknologiparker, med henblik på at opfostre nye kilder til økonomisk og handelsmæssig vækst.”
Alt imens den Tjekkiske Republik under tidligere regeringer har kritiseret Kina for dets Tibet politik, og været forstående i forhold til Dalai Lama, har den ny præsident forpligtet sig til at lægge disse ting til side, og arbejde sammen med Kina om økonomiske aftaler. Zeman har også udtrykt støtte til Ruslands besættelse af Krim, og har endvidere opfordret til en afslutning af sanktionspolitikken mod Rusland.
Der er endvidere udstrakt samarbejde på området finansiering. Den Tjekkiske Bank var en af de første til at tilslutte sig den nyligt etablerede, kinesisk sponsorerede Asiatisk Finansiel Samarbejdsforening. Det kinesiske CEFC energiselskab og bankfirmaet Hengfeng vil oprette en fond med 1.1 milliard Euro til at investere i industrielle firmaer i den Tjekkiske Republik sammen med Slovakiets Zeleziarne Podbrezova. Den Tjekkiske Republik er et af de mest industrialiserede af de østeuropæiske lande med en højt uddannet arbejdsstyrke. Som medlem af den Europæiske Union vil produkter fremstillet her også gå direkte ind på EU’s marked. Den Tjekkiske Republik har også spillet en vigtig rolle i 6+1 gruppen af østeuropæiske lande, hvilket navnligt er blevet betydningsfuldt for udviklingen af Bæltet og Vejen.
Forholdet mellem de to lande går tilbage til Sovjettiden, i hvilken den Tjekkiske Republik stadig var ganske venligt indstillet i forhold til Folkerepublikken Kina, selv under den værste periode af den kinesisk-russiske splittelse. ’Den Gode Soldat Svejk’, en berømt antimilitaristisk novelle af den tjekkiste forfatter Jaroslav Hasek, er også meget kendt af det kinesiske publikum.
Med formand Tom Gillesberg
I dag stod den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinping og den tjekkiske præsident Milo Zeman side ved side i Prag, og roste den Tjekkiske Republik som værende den nye port for ’Bæltet og Vejen’ til CEEc (central- og østeuropæiske lande), og dermed til hele Europa. De overværede underskrivningen af økonomiske samarbejdsaftaler og talte om kulturelle udvekslinger og en ny lys fremtid.
Hvad der højt og tydeligt, omend usagt, kom frem, er den stærke kontrast mellem denne vind-vind situation, og så det selvdestruktive spor, som Europa og den Transatlantiske verden ellers er opsat på med det igangværende finansielle nedbrud, nedskæringspolitikken, lidelserne, militariseringen og et potentielt kernevåbensholocaust. Og i dag annoncerede EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker en pseudo ”Silkevejs-plan” for EU, blottet for indhold, og med sølle ressourcer.
Igen, i modsætning til denne døds- og ødelæggelsespolitik, havde den russiske præsident Putin en lang telefonsamtaler med Irans præsident Rouhani, om opfølgende aktioner mod ISIS i regionen, nu da den syriske hær, med russisk luftstøtte, har drevet ISIS ud af Palmyra, og generobret den antikke by. Den syriske hær er begyndt at bevæge sig støt mod øst, imod terroristerne. Russiske eksperter har meldt sig frivilligt til at hjælpe med at genoprette de antikke historiske vidnesbyrd i Palmyra. Billederne af de befriede antikke byer, Palmyra og Aleppo, mobiliserer millioner af mennesker verden over, mennesker, som længes efter at besejre terrorismen totalt, og genoprette håbet.
Realiteten i at dette kan gøres – og at vi befinder os i et verdensomspændende faseskifte – blev i dag understreget af Hussein Askary, arabisk redaktør for EIR. Han iværksatte en oversættelse til arabisk af den nyligt udgivne arabiske version af EIR’s specialrapport Den nye Silkevej bliver til Verdenslandbroen. Askary, der talte ved en telekonference med kolleger fra hele Europa, pegede på eksemplet i denne uge i Yemen, hvor en læsegruppe under krigslignende betingelser er gået i gang med ugentlig læsning af Landbro-rapporten. Dette indikerer et skifte, sagde han. I Yemen mødes folk, der bombarderes af den ’gamle orden’ for at læse materialer om den ’nye orden’!
Askary tilføjede: se hvad vi har opnået. Vi giver ikke folk ’gode’ nyheder, vi skræmmer ikke folk med ’dårlige’ nyheder; vi giver dem ikke gode nyheder for at de skal føle sig bedre tilpas. Vi skaber en ny geometri i verden, med Rusland, Kina og andre. Vi er nødt til at få folk væk fra denne ide, med at den britiske orden har så og så mange penge, så og så megen mediemagt. De tager fejl. Der er en ny dynamik i verden, og vi vil tilvejebringe ideerne for denne dynamik. Vi må formidle til vore støtter, at vi forandrer verden. De burde slukke deres TV, og holde op med at lytte til de kommentatorer, der tog fejl af økonomien, tog fejl med hensyn til Syrien, tog fejl af det hele. Vi må formidle til folk, at vi opererer i en ny geometri.
Askary refererede til den instruktion, som chefen for den finske modstandsbevægelse imod Nazi-besættelsen gav til hans kæmpere; læs Platons dialoger mens I hviler jer, for det vil bestyrke jer i kampen mod fjenden.
Det seneste eksempel på denne, Den nye Silkevejs større tiltrækningskraft i forhold til den geopolitiske konfrontation med Rusland og Kina, har vi netop set i form af den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinpings besøg i den Tjekkiske Republik. Præsidenterne Xi og Zeman undertegnede en omfangsrig liste af aftaler inden for områderne højteknologi, infrastruktur og realøkonomi og fejrede den »Gyldne Stad« Prags rolle som »porten« ind til samarbejdet mellem Kina og Europa.
Netop dette samarbejde er ligeledes nøglen til løsning af flygtningekrisen, der blot har bragt frem for dagens lys, hvilket skrøbeligt fundament, EU er bygget på.
Foto: Prags astronomiske ur er et af de ældste og mest omfattende ure, der nogensinde er bygget. Det blev først installeret i 1410, og senere genopbygget af Mester Hanus i 1490. Den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinpings besøg i den Tjekkiske Republik, med underskrivelse af mange aftaler om samarbejde, fejrede den »Gyldne Stad« Prags rolle som »porten« ind til samarbejdet mellem Kina og Europa.