Den 8. juni (EIRNS) — I faretruende provokerende bemærkninger udtalte NATO’s vicegeneralsekretær, Camille Grand, i går, at NATO absolut ikke vil give Rusland garantier for, at der ikke vil blive placeret atomvåben i Sverige og Finland – sidstnævnte deler en 1.300 km lang grænse med Rusland og har ansøgt om at blive medlem af NATO. “Hvert land er frit stillet på det nukleare område med hensyn til at placere eller ikke placere sådanne våben. Vi taler ikke om at opstille nogle principielle begrænsninger for alliancens mulige handlinger”, sagde den ansvarlige for NATO til den schweiziske tv-station RTS i et interview, der blev offentliggjort den 7. juni.

Grand, en fransk diplomat, der kom til NATO efter en længere periode som direktør for den rabiat anglofile strategiske tænketank Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), tilføjede: “Hvert NATO-medlemsland træffer suverænt afgørelse om dette spørgsmål. Og nu er der ikke noget sådant spørgsmål. Men jeg mener ikke, at det i den nuværende situation er nødvendigt at give Rusland nogen garantier med hensyn til vores militære position i regionen.”

Han udelod heller ikke Ukraine fra ligningen, og erklærede at landets optagelse i NATO ikke er på dagsordenen på nuværende tidspunkt, men når konflikten vil være løst, vil Kyiv “selv kunne beslutte, hvordan de ønsker at placere sig i den europæiske sikkerhedsarkitektur.”

Rusland har i næsten 30 år gjort det klart, at NATO’s ekspansion op til landets grænser, især hvis denne fremrykning omfatter atomvåben, er et {casus belli}.

Fra videokonferencen den 25. maj 2022.

Jeg vil lige bruge et par minutter på at tale om den danske situation, idet jeg afløser Tom Gillesberg, der er formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark.

Schiller Instituttet i Danmark siger helt klart, at folk skal stemme NEJ ved folkeafstemningen, som skal afholdes den 1. juni. Folkeafstemningen drejer sig om en situation, hvor fem partier i den danske regering i forbindelse med Ukraine-krigen stemte for at få en folkeafstemning, som en del af et nationalt forsvarskompromis, herunder Socialistisk Folkeparti, som i første omgang havde sørget for fravalgene. Det var tilbage i 1992, hvor den danske befolkning først havde stemt NEJ til Maastricht-traktaten. Derefter kom forhandlingerne, der førte til Edinburgh-aftalen, frem til fire undtagelsesbestemmelser. Derefter stemte befolkningen JA til at acceptere Maastricht-traktaten.

En af undtagelserne var, at Danmark ikke ville deltage i de fælles europæiske EU-militære aktiviteter. Vi mener, at befolkningen skal stemme NEJ. Det ville være en måde, ikke blot at forhindre Danmark i at øge sine militære aktiviteter med EU, men også at sætte en stopper for en militariseringsproces, der især siden 2001 har været i gang. Personligt er jeg amerikansk statsborger, og for nylig er jeg også blevet dansk statsborger. Og jeg vil sige, at Danmark, mit nye hjemland, i stedet for bare at følge med i USA’s politik, mit oprindelsesland, at Danmark i stedet burde arbejde for at ændre USA’s politik.

Lyndon LaRouche opfordrede for mange år siden til en fire-magts-aftale. Hvis USA, Rusland, Kina, Indien og Rusland samarbejder om at etablere et nyt retfærdigt økonomisk verdenssystem, et nyt kreditsystem, kunne dette har været grundlaget for konfliktløsning gennem økonomisk udviklingssamarbejde. Som Li Xing sagde, er det bedste alternativ til krig at få iværksat et økonomisk samarbejde. [Dermed kunne den nuværende konflikt have været undgået.]

Siden 2001 har Danmark deltaget i alle de krige, som USA, tilskyndet af briterne, har indledt, fra Afghanistan under statsminister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, og det var især under statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, som senere blev NATO’s generalsekretær, at militariseringen blev optrappet. Danmark deltog i krigene i Irak, og så havde vi Libyen. Vi var med i de andre krige, der kom bagefter.

Nu er Danmark i forhandlinger med USA om etablering af en bilateral forsvarsaftale, som formentlig vil omfatte permanent udstationering af amerikanske tropper på dansk jord, hvilket vil sige, at udenlandske tropper for første gang i fredstid vil blive permanent udstationeret her.

Der var et spørgsmål til de fem partier, der kom med dette nationale forsvarskompromis, fra en journalist til de to højrepartier, Det Konservative Folkeparti og Venstre, om, hvad de ville sige, hvis USA ville bede om at forhandle om opstilling af atomvåben i Danmark. Og deres svar var: “Jamen, det må vi da tale om.” Det er også en total kursændring i forhold til den tidligere danske politik.

Den anden ting er, at det ikke er nok at stemme NEJ ved folkeafstemningen. Det vil ikke løse problemerne. Men det vil være en måde at dæmme op for denne trinvise militarisering.

For det, Schiller Instituttet siger, er, at nøglen til en mere fredelig verden ikke er at øge militariseringen, men at etablere en ny arkitektur for sikkerhed og økonomisk udvikling, hvor man kan undgå krigsudbrud. Som Jan Øberg påpegede, kan man have konflikter, men hvordan sikrer vi, at de ikke fører til krig? Hvordan kan vi løse disse konflikter på en fredelig måde?

Det er her, at idéen om fremgangsmåden med den Westfalske Fred dukker op. Jeg vil snarest stille et spørgsmål til Helga for at få mere at vide om det.

Danmark har også haft en anden tradition. Et af vores slogans her har været, at i stedet for krigsførelse skal vi bygge broer. Der er en dansk tradition for økonomisk udvikling, partnerskab med lande om vandudvikling, om brobygning og om energiudvikling. Det er det, vi skal fremhæve.

In English:
I will just take a few minutes to speak about the Danish situation, standing in for Tom Gillesburg, the chairman of the Schiller Institute in Denmark.
The Schiller Institute in Denmark is definitely saying that people should vote NO in the referendum, which is to be held on June 1st. The referendum concerns a situation where after the Ukraine war, five parties in the Danish government voted to have a referendum as part of a National Defense Compromise, including the Socialist People’s Party, which had organized the opt-outs in the beginning. Back in 1992, where the Danish population had first voted NO to the Maastricht Treaty. Then,  the negotiations that led to the Edinburgh agreement came up with four opt-outs. Then, the population voted YES to accept the Maastricht Treaty.

One of the opt-outs was that Denmark would not participate in the joint European EU military activities. We think that people should vote NO. This would be a way, not only to prevent Denmark from increasing its military activity with the EU, but would also put a stop to a process of militarization that has been going on, especially since 2001. Personally, I’m an American citizen, and recently, I also became a Danish citizen. And I would say that Denmark, my adopted countr, ought to, instead of just following along with the policies of the United States, my native country, that Denmark should, instead, work to change the policies of the United States.

Lyndon LaRouch, many years ago, called for a four power agreement. If the United States, Russia, China and India would cooperate to establish a new just world economic system, a new credit system, this could be the basis of conflict resolution through economic development cooperation. As the Li Xing was saying, the best alternative to war is to get economic cooperation going.

Since 2001, Denmark has participated in every war that the United States, goaded on by the British, have launched, from Afghanistan under Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, and it the militarization was especially escalated under Prime Minist Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who later became the NATO’s general secretary. Denmark participated in the the wars in Iraq, and then we had Libya. We had the other wars that came after that.

And now Denmark is in negotiations with the United States for setting up a bilateral defense treaty, which will probably include permanent stationing of United States troops on Danish soil, which would be that foreign troops would be permanently stationed here for the first time in peacetime.

There was a question to the five parties that came up with this National Defense Compromise from a reporter to the two right parties, the the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party (Venstre), about what they would they say if the United States would ask for negotiating about stationing of nuclear weapons in Denmark. And their answer was, “Well, we’ll have to talk about it.” This is also a total reversal of the previous Danish policy.

The other thing is that it’s not enough to vote NO in the referendum. That will not solve the problems. But it will be a way of of stemming the tide of this step by step by step militarization.

Because, what the Schiller Institute is saying, is that the key to a more peaceful world is not increasing the militarization, but it is establishing a new security and economic development architecture, where you can avoid the outbreak of war. As Jan was saying, you can have conflicts, but how do we make sure that it doesn’t lead to war? How can we solve these conflicts in a peaceful way?

And that is where the idea of the Peace of Westphalia approach comes in. I will soon ask a question to Helga to explain more about that.

And Denmark has also had a different tradition. One of our slogans here has been, instead of war fighting, bridge building. There is aa Danish tradition for economic development, partnership with countries about water development, about building bridges, about energy development. And this is what we need to be emphasizing.

So, I would like to introduce, then, the question period, by asking the question to Helga. This is from Sarah on YouTube, who would like to ask Helga “What is a foreseeable path to reaching a position to propose the peace of Westphalia? Is war the only way? How much can transparency work towards reaching this goal?” To sum it up. What is the idea of the Peace of Westphalia? How can these principles of peace building be used today? And how can we actually implement this?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche:
The answer will come soon.

Næstformand Michelle Rasmussen fortalte, hvorfor vi tog initiativ til at holde videokonferencen den 25. maj 2022 og om organiseringsprocessen. 

Michelle Rasmussens indlæg begynder 57 min. inde i videoen.

Bagefter er der spørgsmål og svar fra Michelle og medpanelist Richard A. Black, Schiller Instituttets repræsentant i FN, som talte om den første Euræsiske Økonomiske Forum i Kyrgyzstan den 26. maj 2022. Der var også spørgsmål om kultur og om at komponere klassisk musik.

Se konferencen her:
Vi behøver en ny sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitekturfor alle nationer,
ikke en styrkelse af geopolitiske blokke;
NEJ ved den danske folkeafstemning den 1. juni om afskaffelse af EU’s forsvarsforbehold
NEJ til Sveriges og Finlands optagelse i NATO.

Præsentation på Schiller Instituttets seminar “Vi har brug for en ny sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur, ikke for en styrkelse af de geopolitiske blokke” den 25. maj 2022.

På vegne af Schiller Instituttet i Sverige, som er medvært for dette seminar, vil jeg gerne byde alle velkommen og især takke de talere, der er kommet før mig, for deres fremragende præsentationer.

Jeg vil forsøge at besvare spørgsmålet: “Hvorfor bør Sverige og Finland ikke tilslutte sig Nato?”

Faktisk var ansøgningerne om at blive medlem af Nato unødvendige, uforsvarlige og vanvittige. De var unødvendige ansøgninger, fordi der ikke var nogen trussel mod Sverige eller Finland. Rusland havde travlt på andre fronter, og der var ingen hensigt om at angribe vores lande.

De var uforsvarlige, fordi de øger truslerne mod Rusland i strid med OSCE-traktaten, især princippet om inklusiv sikkerhed, som betyder, at man ikke må øge sin egen sikkerhed på bekostning af andres sikkerhed i henhold til traktaten, og det er faktisk også i overensstemmelse med FN-traktaten. Det var også uforsvarligt, fordi vi nu har etableret en konfrontations linje i Nordeuropa. Under Den kolde Krig var der tidligere en meget stærk konfrontationslinje på kontinentet med store hære, der stod over for hinanden i Tyskland m.m.. Nu vil vi få den samme konfrontationslinje i Nord, hvilket gør det til et ustabilt område. Hele Østersøen vil blive blokeret med en amerikansk politik kaldet 2A/AD, “Area Denial”-politikken, som nu diskuteres i det svenske Krigsvidenskabelige Akademi.

Ansøgningerne var vanvittige, for det vi har nu er en absolut, enorm nuklear provokation, muligvis en omvendt Cuba-krise med Sverige og Finland placeret så tæt på Rusland og især deres baser for atomubåde i Arktis. Allerede nu er det tilladt for B-52 strategiske bombefly at flyve ind i svensk luftrum i henhold til værtslands-aftalen med Nato. Jeg vil gerne dele dette billede fra den 18. februar
der viser en amerikansk B-52 Stratofortress fra Bomber Task Force, som eskorteres af svenske kampfly over Sverige. Ved denne lejlighed var der ikke kun én B-52, men to. Hver af dem kan bære 12 Tomahawk-missiler, der kan have atomare sprænghoveder. Det betyder, at disse B-52, der flyver fra Storbritannien ind i svensk luftrum, fra svensk territorium på få minutter kan tilintetgøre 24 russiske byer. Det var en enorm provokation. Det var faktisk på samme tidspunkt, som den ukrainske hær øgede beskydningen af Donbass med tredive gange.

Som Jan Öberg havde mistanke om, var det et planlagt angreb for at få Sverige ind i Nato. Det var som et bagholdsangreb. Den svenske tidligere forsvarsminister Sven Tolgfors har i en bog (2016) skrevet, at man kunne forvente, at en sikkerhedskrise ville kunne ændre den svenske Nato-politik. I en sikkerhedskrise skal vi være forberedt på at gøre det rigtig hurtigt.

Vi kan også se, hvordan det er kommet i stand. Bare få uger med frygt og hysteri ændrede Finland og Sverige sig. Dette pludselige skift er stadig et chok for især den svenske befolkning. Det, der var sandt for to måneder siden, er nu forkert. For to måneder siden sagde statsminister Magdalena Andersson: “Et svensk Nato-medlemskab ville destabilisere regionen”. Nu skulle svenskerne omprogrammeres af presset fra massemedierne.

Som svenskerne har for vane, at være “de bedste i klassen”, der mestrer den type “gruppetænkning”, som Jan Öberg ligeledes nævnte. Nu forventes det, at Sverige vil være “den bedste i klassen” til krig mod Rusland og Kina. Vi befinder os i en enorm identitetskrise blandt svenskerne og især blandt de socialdemokratiske vælgere.

Tyrkiets modstand mod at tillade medlemskab for de nye ansøgere er et eksempel på den manglende suverænitet i Nato. USA skal nu “løse” problemet. Hvor er den så højt besungne frihed og suverænitet, som Nato skal forsvare, blevet af? Svenskerne er chokerede over at se, hvordan Tyrkiet behandles nu, hvor USA formodes at lægge pres på deres beslutning.

Faktisk forsvarer Tyrkiet nu den svenske og finske suverænitet mere end vores regeringer. Forhåbentlig vil flere NATO-medlemslande tilslutte sig Tyrkiet. Det vil i det mindste give os mere tid her til at stoppe dette vanvid. Ved at blokere vores Nato-ansøgning forsvarer Tyrkiet hele Nato og verden mod en omfattende atomvåbenkrise. Tyrkiet er faktisk den voksne person i rummet ved at organisere fredsforhandlingerne mellem Rusland og Ukraine, hvilket Sverige og Finland burde have koncentreret deres diplomatiske indsats om i stedet for at tilslutte sig Nato!

Men Sverige og Finland bør tage sine skæbner i egne hænder. Vi skal genetablere vores tidligere fælles mission for fred og økonomisk udvikling. Vi bør deltage i etableringen af en ny arkitektur for sikkerhed og udvikling for alle nationer, som erstatter geopolitik og storfinansens plyndring af vores nationer. Nato har kørt os over. Sammen med andre nationer i verden kan vi nu gøre Nato forældet og begrave det.

Det første skridt for Sverige og Finland bør være at slå sig sammen med Italiens premierminister, Mario Draghi, som netop har fremsat et fredsforslag for Ukraine. Denne form for internationalt samarbejde kunne også få Tyrkiet til at presse på for at få fred i stedet for krig.

For det andet er vi nødt til at inddrage den økonomiske dimension, fordi det kan være afgørende for hele Sveriges og Finlands beslutning om ikke at blive medlem af Nato. Hele Europa er nødt til at imødegå sanktionernes økonomiske chok. Det er en neoliberal chokterapi på steroider, der kaster befolkningerne direkte ud i elendighed. Sanktionerne er [ikke til for at hjælpe Ukraine, men er] en ondsindet plyndring for at frigøre de finansielle gældsbobler på ryggen af befolkningen, industrien og middelklassen, hvilket gør millioner af mennesker i Vesten fattige og medfører massiv sult i udviklingslandene.

Faktisk vil den udplyndring i krigstiden, som de vil foretage ved at aflaste den finansielle boble, være meget større end den udplyndring, som det militærindustrielle kompleks foretager, og lige så uproduktiv.

Det vi har, er de fire love, som Lyndon LaRouche har foreslået for at standse denne chokterapi. Vi bør stoppe centralbankernes pengetrykning for at redde det svigtende finanssystem. Vi bør indføre en Glass/Steagall-bankopdeling for at kunne nægte at betale for spekulationsboblerne. Med en adskillelse af bankerne vil vi være i stand til at genetablere bankerne som banker for produktiv kredit. Derefter kan vi oprette en nationalbank for udvikling, der udsteder produktive kreditter.

Helga har allerede peget på denne politik. Jeg vil gerne fremhæve den igen, fordi den kunne være det absolutte centrum for modstanden mod krigspolitikken og Nato-ansøgningerne. Det, vi har brug for nu, er forordninger til at håndtere nødsituationer med hensyn til fødevarer, energi og elektricitet. Vi plejede at have et reguleret elektricitetssystem her i Sverige med en meget billig og sikker strømforsyning. Det kan vi vende tilbage til. Vi kan vende tilbage til regler for fødevareforsyningen, for landbruget og industrien, der er forbundet med fødevareproduktionen, og for energien, faktisk for hele økonomien.

Det vigtige er princippet om, at mennesket kommer først, at beskytte produktionen og boligerne. I denne krise vil mange mennesker miste deres job, fordi virksomheder vil gå konkurs. Mange mennesker vil miste deres hus, fordi de vil få problemer med at betale deres renter i en galopperende inflation. Det, vi har brug for, er en fastfrysning af huslejer og gældsbetalinger. Det er nødvendigt for at beskytte befolkningen og produktionen. Vi er nødt til at investere i den mest avancerede teknologi med høj energitæthed for at øge produktiviteten. Dette er at bekæmpe inflationen på den rigtige måde.

Vi har nu en situation i Sverige, hvor halvdelen af den svenske befolkning er vred over det svenske etablissementets og regeringens forræderi. Der afholdes et valg den 11. september. Der bør ske store forandringer her, som må og kan blokere for Nato-medlemskabet og modstå krigsfremstødet mod Rusland og Kina!

Vi har denne mulighed nu for at udnytte den opstandelse i befolkningen, der skyldes den økonomiske krise, til at stoppe ansøgningen om Nato-medlemskab. Så dette er vores store chance nu.

Vi bør stræbe efter at arbejde for dette, og Sverige og Finland bør stræbe efter ikke at være bedst i Nato-klassen for krig og økonomisk plyndring, men bedst i klassen for fred og udvikling!

Tak! Det var det, jeg ønskede at sige.

English:

Presentation to the seminar ”We Need a New Security & Development Architecture, Not a Strengthening of Geopolitical Blocs”. (https://youtu.be/G5Xkq-xfFgQ?t=8779 )

Thank you,

On behalf of the Schiller Institute in Sweden, being the co-host of this seminar, I would like to welcome everyone and especially thank the speakers ahead of me for their excellent presentations.

I will try to answer the question: “Why Sweden and Finland should not join Nato?”

Actually, the applications to join Nato were unnecessary, reckless and insane. They were applications unnecessary because there was no threat to Sweden or Finland. Russia was busy on other fronts and there was no intention to attack our countries.

They were reckless because they are increasing the threats to Russia in violation of OSCE treaty, especially the principle of inclusive security which means that you are not allowed to increase your security at the cost of other´s security according to the treaty, actually this is also according to the UN treaty. It was also reckless, because we now have established a line of confrontation in the North of Europe. There used to be in the Cold War a very strong confrontation line on the Continent with big armies standing against each other in Germany and so on. Now we will have the same confrontation line in the North making it an area of instability. The whole Baltic Sea will be blocked with an American policy called 2A/AD, the “Area Denial”-policy, which is now discussed in the Swedish Royal Academy of War Sciencies.

The applications were insane because what we have now is an absolute, immense nuclear provocation possibly a Cuban missile crisis in reverse with Sweden and Finland positioned so close to Russia and especially their bases for the nuclear submarines in the Arctic. Already now B-52 strategic bombers are allowed into Swedish airspace according to the Host Nation Agreement with Nato. I would like to share this picture from February 18th

showing U.S. a B-52 Stratofortress from the Bomber Task Force being escorted by Swedish fighter planes over Sweden. On this occasion there was not only one B-52, but two. Each one of them can carry 12 Tomahawk missiles that could have nuclear war heads. It means, that these B-52 flying from Great Britain into Swedish airspace could, from Swedish territory within minutes, extinguish 24 Russian cities. It was a huge provocation. It was actually the same time, as the increase of the shelling by thirty times in Donbass by the Ukrainian army.

As Jan Öberg suspected, it was a planned attack to bring Sweden into Nato. It was like an ambush. The Swedish former Minister of Defense, Sven Tolgfors, has written in a book (2016) that a security crisis could be expected to shift the Swedish Nato policy. In a security crisis we must be prepared to make it really swift.

We can also see how it came about. Just in few weeks out fear and hysteria Finland and Sweden shifted. This sudden shift is still a shock to especially the Swedish people. What was true two months ago, is now false. Two months ago, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said: “A Swedish Nato membership would destabilize the region”. Now the Swedes are supposed to be reprogrammed by the mass media pressure.

As the habit of the Swedes are to be “the best in the class” as master the type of “Group think”, which Jan Öberg also mentioned. Now it is expected that Sweden will be “the best in the class” for war against Russia and China. We are in a huge identity crisis among Swedes and especially among the social democratic voters.

Turkey`s opposition to allow membership to the new applicants, sets an example of the lack of sovereignty in Nato. The US is now supposed to “fix” the problem. Where is the so much heralded freedom and sovereignty, which Nato is supposed to defend? The Swedes are shocked to see the treatment of Turkey now, when the US is supposed to put pressure on their decision.

Actually, Turkey is now defending the Swedish and Finnish sovereignty more than our governments. Hopefully, more Nato member nations will join Turkey. It will at least give us more time here to stop this insanity. By blocking our Nato-application, Turkey is defending all of Nato and the world against a huge nuclear weapons crisis. Turkey is actually the grown up in the room, in its organizing the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, something Sweden and Finland should have concentrated its diplomatic efforts on, instead of joining Nato!

However, Sweden and Finland should take our destiny in our own hands. We must reestablish our former common mission for peace and economic development. We should take part in the establishing a new architecture for security and development for all nations, replacing geopolitics and the robbery by high finance against our nations. Nato has run us over. Together with other nations in the world, now we can make Nato obsolete and bury it.

The first step for Sweden and Finland should be to team up with Italy´s Prime Minster, Mario Draghi, who has just put forward a peace proposal for Ukraine. This kind of international cooperation could also pull in Turkey to put pressure for peace instead of war.

Secondly, we need to bring in the economic dimension because this could decide the whole process of Sweden and Finland not to join Nato. All of Europe need to counter the sanction economic shock wawe. It is a neoliberal shock therapy on steroids, throwing the peoples directly into misery. The sanctions are [not there to help Ukraine but are] an evil looting to unload the financial debt bubbles on to the back of the population, industry, middle class making millions in the West poor, bringing massive starvation to developing nations.

Actually, the war-time looting they will do, by unloading the financial bubble, will be much bigger than the looting being done by the Military Industrial Complex, and as unproductive.

What we have, are the Four laws proposed by Lyndon LaRouche to halt this shock therapy. We should stop the Central Bank money printing for bailing out the failing financial system. We should implement a Glass Steagall bank separation to be able to refuse paying the speculation bubbles. With bank separation we will be able to reestablish banks as banks for productive credit. Then we can establish a National bank for development, issuing productive credit.

Helga pointed already to this policy. I want to point to it again because this could be the absolute center of the resistance to the war policy and the Nato applications. What we need now are regulations to address emergencies of food, energy, electricity. We used to have a regulated electricity system here in Sweden with a very low cost and secure power supply. We can go back to that. We can go back to regulations for the supply of food, for farming and the industry hat is connected to the food production and for the energy, actually for the whole economy.

What is important is the people first principle, to protect production, protect housing. In this crisis many people will lose their jobs because businesses will go out of business. Many people will lose their houses because they will have difficulties to pay their interest in a run-away inflation. What we need, are the freezing of rents and debt payments. This is necessary to protect the people and the production. We need to invest in the most advanced technology with high energy density to increase productivity. This is to fight inflation the real way.

We have a situation now in Sweden where half the Swedish population are angry over the betrayal by their establishment and government. There is an election coming on September 11. There should be huge changes here that can and must block the Nato membership and resist the war drive against Russia and China!

We have this opportunity now to use the uproar in the population because of the economic crisis, to stop the Nato membership application. So this is our big chance now.

We should strive to work for this and Sweden and Finland should strive for not being best in the Nato class for war and financial looting, but the best in class for peace and development!

Thank you! That is what I wanted to say.

Jan Øberg, ph.d., er freds- og fremtidsforsker og kunstfotograf,
Direktør, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, Sverige, https://transnational.live

Jan Øberg kan kontaktes her: oberg@transnational.org

Interviewet er på engelsk p.g.a. international deling.

Lydfil: 

Afskrift: 1. del om Ukraine-Rusland-U.S.-NATO krisen:

Michelle Rasmussen: Hello. Today is February 21st, 2022. I am Michele Rasmussen, the vice president of the Schiller Institute in Denmark. And I’m very happy that peace researcher Jan Oberg agreed to this interview. Jan Oberg was born in Denmark and lives in Sweden. He has a PhD in sociology and has been a visiting professor in peace and conflict studies in Japan, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, part time over the years. Jan Oberg has written thousands of pages of published articles and several books. He is the co-founder and director of the Independent TFF, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research in Lund, Sweden since 1985, and has been nominated over several years for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Our interview today will have three parts. The danger of war between Russia and Ukraine, which could lead to war between the United States and NATO and Russia, and how to stop it.

Secondly, your criticism of Denmark starting negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement, which could mean permanent stationing of U.S. soldiers and armaments on Danish soil.

And thirdly, your criticism of a major report which alleged that China is committing genocide in Xinjiang province.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some in the West said would start last Wednesday has not occurred. But as we speak, tensions are still very high. You wrote an article, Jan Oberg, on January 19th, called Ukraine The West has paved the road to war with lies, specifying three lies concerning the Ukraine crisis. Let’s take them one by one.

You defined lie number one: “The Western leaders never promised Mikhail Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, not to expand NATO eastwards. They also did not state that they would take serious Soviet or Russian security interests around its borders, and, therefore, each of the former Warsaw Pact countries has a right to join NATO, if they decide to freely.” Can you please explain more to our viewers about this lie?

Jan Oberg: Yes, and thank you very much for your very kind and long and detailed introduction of me. I would just say about that point that I’m amazed that this is now a kind of repeated truth in Western media, that Gorbachev was not given such promises. And it rests with a few words taken out of a longer article written years ago by a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who says that Gorbachev did not say so. That article was published by Brookings Institution. Now the truth is, and there’s a difference between truth and non truths, and we have to make that more and more clear when we deal with the West at the moment. The truth is, if you go to the National Security Archives in the U.S., if I remember correctly, the George Washington University that is well documented, their own formulation is that there are cascades of documentation. However, this was not written down in a treaty, or signed by the Western leaders, who one after the other came to Gorbachev’s dacha outside Moscow or visited him in Kremlin, and therefore some people would say it’s not valid. Now that is not true in politics. If we can’t rely on what was said and what was written down by people personally in their notebooks, etc.

George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, James Baker, you can almost mention any important Western leader were unanimous in saying to Gorbachev, we understand that the Warsaw Pact has gone, the Soviet Union has gone, and therefore, we are not going to take advantage of your weakness. James Baker’s formulation, according to all these sources, is we’re not going to expand nature one inch. And that was said in 89, 90. That is 30 years ago. And Gorbachev, because of those assurances also accepted, which he’s been blamed very much for since then, the reunification of Germany. Some sources say that was a kind of deal made that if Germany should be united, which it was very quickly after, it should be a neutral country. But the interpretation in the West was it could remain a member of NATO, but would then include what was at that time the German Democratic Republic, GDR [East Germany] into one Germany. You can go to Gorbachev’s Foundation home page and you will find several interviews, videos, whatever, in which he says these things, and you can go to the Danish leading expert in this, Jens Jørgen Nielsen, who has also written that he personally interviewed Gorbachev, in which Gorbachev, with sadness in his eyes, said that he was cheated, or that these promises were broken, whatever the formulation is.

And I fail to understand why this being one of the most important reasons behind the present crisis, namely Russia’s putting down its foot, saying “You can’t continue this expansion up to the border, with your troops and your long-range missiles, up to the border of Russia. And we will not accept Ukraine [as a member of NATO]. You have gotten ten former Warsaw Pact countries which are now members of NATO, NATO has 30 members. We are here with a military budget, which is eight percent of NATO’s, and you keep up with this expansion. We are not accepting that expansion to include Ukraine.

Now, this is so fundamental that, of course, it has to be denied by those who are hardliners, or hawks, or cannot live without enemies, or want a new Cold War, which we already have, in my view, and have had for some years. But that’s a long story. The way the West, and the U.S. in particular — but NATO’s secretary general’s behavior is outrageous to me, because it’s built on omission of one of the most important historical facts of modern Europe.

Michelle Rasmussen: Yes. In your article, you actually quote from the head of NATO, the general secretary of NATO, back in 1990, one year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Manfred Wörner, where you say that in these documents released by the U.S. National Security Archive, that you just referred to, “Manfred Wörner gave a well-regarded speech in Brussels in May 1990, in which he argued ‘The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. The Soviet Union will have an important role to play in the construction of such a system.’ And the next year, in the middle of 1991, according to a memorandum from the Russian delegation who met with Wörner. He responded to the Russians by saying that he personally and the NATO council, were both against expansion “13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view,” and “Wörner said that he would speak against Poland’s and Romania’s membership in NATO to those countries leaders, as he had already done with leaders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And he emphasized that we should not allow the isolation of USSR from the European community,” and this was even while the U.S.S.R. was still alive. So it must have been even more the case after the U.S.S.R. collapsed, and Russia emerged.

Jan Oberg: Well, if I may put in a little point here, you see, with that quotation of a former NATO secretary general, compare that with the present secretary general of NATO. Wörner was a man of intellect. The leaders around him at the time in Europe were too. I mean, those were the days when you had people like Willy Brandt in Germany and östpolitik [East policy], and you had Olof Palme in Sweden with common security thinking. We cannot in the West be sure, feel safe and secure in the West, if it’s against Russia. Which does not mean at all to give into everything Russia does, but just says we cannot be safe if the others don’t feel safe from us. And that was an intellectualism. That was an empathy, not a necessarily a sympathy, but it was an empathy for those over there, that we have to take into account, when we act. Today that intellectualism is gone completely.

And it is very interesting, as you point out, that 13 out of 16 NATO countries, at that time, were at that level, but in came in 1990 Bill Clinton. And he basically said, well, he didn’t state it. He acted as though he had stated it, I don’t care about those promises, and then he started expanding NATO. And the first office of NATO was set up in Kiev in 1994. That was the year when he did that. And that was a year when I sat in Tbilisi, Georgia, and interviewed the U.S. representative there, who, through a two-hour long conversation, basically talked about Georgia as “our country.”

So, you know, it’s sad to say it’s human to make mistakes, but to be so anti-intellectual, so anti-empathetic, so imbued with your own thinking and worldview, you’re not able to take the other side into account, is much more dangerous than it was at that time, because the leaders we have in the western world today are not up to it. They were earlier, but these are not.

Michelle Rasmussen: Lie number two that you pointed out, “The Ukraine conflict started by Putin’s out-of-the-blue aggression on Ukraine and then annexation of Crimea.” What’s the rest of the story here?

Jan Oberg: Well, it’s not the rest, it’s the beginning of the story. You see, people who write about these things, and it’s particularly those who are Western media and Western politicians and foreign ministers, et cetera, they say that it all started with this out-of-the-blue invasion in the Donbass, and then the taking, annexing or aggression on, or whatever the word is, Crimea. Well, they all forget, very conveniently, and very deliberately — I mean, this is not a longer time ago than people who write about it today would know — that there was a clearly western assisted, if not orchestrated, coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. After, I won’t go into that long story, after some negotiations about an economic agreement between Ukraine and the EU, in which the president then jumped off, allegedly under pressure from Putin, or whatever, but there were a series of violent events in Kiev.

And it’s well known from one of those who were there, and participated, namely the assistant secretary of State for European Affairs, Mrs. Nuland, and she’s given a speech in the U.S. where, if I remember correctly, she says that the US has pumped $5 billion into Ukraine over the years, to support democracy and human rights, et cetera, and training courses for young NGOs, et cetera. And it’s obvious that that operation, that ousting of the president, he had to flee to Russia, and the taking over, partly by neo-Nazis and fascists who were present and who probably did the beginning of the shooting and the killing of people, that all this had to do with the promise that was given to Ukraine years before that it would be integrated into the Euro-Atlantic framework. And then it was kind of stopping and saying, we don’t want that anyhow. We will negotiate something else, and we will look into what Putin has to offer, etc.

But that that, in Putin’s mind, in Russia’s mind, meant that NATO would be the future of Ukraine. And Russia had, still has, a huge military base in Crimea, which it had a lease on for, at the time, I think it was 30 plus years, meaning should Ukraine, which was clearly signalled by the western NATO member’s leadership, enter and become a full member of Ukraine, then he would look at a Russian base, either being lost or you would have a Russian military naval base in a NATO country.

Now I’m not saying that that was a smart move. I’m not saying it was a legal move, but it’s very difficult for the western world to blame Russia for annexing Crimea. If you look at the opinion polls and the votes for that, if you will, voting ourselves back to Russia — you know, the whole thing was Russia until 1954, when Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine, and he was from Ukraine himself. And so this happened three weeks before. And I’m amazed that it should not again be intellectually possible for people who witnessed this — The other thing we talked about with 30 years ago. There might be some young fools who would not read history books.

But what I’m talking about was something that happened in 2014, and there’s no excuse for not mentioning that there’s a connection between that coup d’état, and the influence of the West in Ukraine in a very substantial way, and what happened in Donbas and Crimea.

So I’m just saying, if I put it on a more general level, if we look at today’s ability to understand, describe, analyze issues as conflicts, we are heading for zero understanding. There is nobody in the press, and nobody in politics who are able, intellectually, to see these things as conflicts, that is, as a problem standing between two or more parties that has to be analyzed. And conflict resolution is about finding solutions that the parties we have defined as parties, and there certainly are many more than two in this very complex conflict, can live with in the future. What we are down to in banalization is that there is no conflict. There’s only one party, Russia, that does everything bad and evil and terrible, while we are sitting in the receiving end, being the good guys who’ve done nothing wrong in history. Who could never rethink what we did or say, we’re sorry, or change our policies, because we are right. There’s only one problem. That’s them. We’re down now to the level in which these things, also the last three months, the accusations about Russia invading Ukraine, has nothing to do with conflict analysis. It is purely focusing on one party, and one party, by definition, is not a conflict.

We are not party to a relationship anymore, and that makes a huge difference, again, from the leaders and the way of thinking and the intellectual approach that existed 20-30 years ago. And one reason for all of this is, of course, that the West is on his way down. Secondly, and they feel threatened by anything that happens around the world. And secondly, when you have been number one in a system for a long time, you become lazy. You don’t study. You don’t have as good education as you should have. You bring up people to high levels who have not read books, because we can get away with everything. We are so strong militarily. And when that happens, you know, it’s a slippery slope and you are actually on board the Titanic.

This is not a defense of everything Russia does. What I’m trying to say is there is a partner over there, by the way they call us partners in the West. We call them anything else but partners. We don’t even see them. We don’t listen to their interests. We didn’t listen to Putin when he spoke at the Munich conference in 2007 and said, ‘You have cheated us.’ And of course, when Gorbachev, 90 years old, says, you have cheated us, he’s not even quoted in the Western world, because there’s no space anymore for other views than our own. You know, this autism that is now classical in the Western security policy elite is damn dangerous.

Michelle Rasmussen: I want to just ask you shortly about the third lie, and then we’ll get into what you see as the solution. The third lie you, you pointed out, was that “NATO always has an open door to new members. It never tries to invite or drag them in does not seek expansion. It just happens because Eastern European countries since 1989 to 1990 have wanted to join without any pressure from NATO’s side, and this also applies to Ukraine.” And in this section, you also document that Putin actually asked for Russia to join NATO. Can you shortly, please explain your most important point about this third lie?

Jan Oberg: Yeah, well, it’s already there since you quoted my text, but the fascinating thing is that you have not had a referendum in any of these new member states. The fascinating thing is, in 2014, when this whole NATO membership came to its first conflictual situation in the case of Ukraine, there was not a majority, according to any opinion poll in Ukraine. There was not a majority. And I would say it’s not a matter of 51%. If a country is going to join NATO, it should be at least 75 or 80% of the people saying yes to that. Third, and it’s not something I’ve invented, it is NATO’s former secretary general Robertson, who has told the story. I think it was first released in the Guardian, but it’s also in a long podcast from a place I don’t remember, which the Guardian quotes. He says that he was asked by Putin whether, or at what time, or whatever the formulation was, NATO would accept Russia as a member.

This probably goes back to what you had already quoted Wörner, the NATO secretary general for having said, namely that a new security structure in Europe would, by necessity, have some kind of involvement, in a direct sense, of Russia, because Russia is also Europe.

And that was what Gorbachev had as an idea that the new [common] European home, something like a security structure where we could deal with our conflicts or differences or misunderstandings, and we could still be friends in the larger Europe.

And that was why I argued at the time thirty years ago that with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the only reasonable thing was to close down NATO. And instead, as I said with Clinton and onwards, the whole interpretation was we have won. The Western system, the neoliberal democratic NATO system has won. We have nothing to learn from that. There’s nothing to change now. We just expand even more.

And the first thing NATO did, as you know, was a completely illegal. Also, according to its own charter, the invasion, involvement and bombing in Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia was not a member. Had never been a member of NATO, and NATO’s only mission is paragraph five, which says that we are one for all and all for one. We are going to support some member, if the member is attacked. Now, it had nothing to do in Yugoslavia. That happened in 1991 and onwards, all the nineties. And you remember the bombings and 72 two days of bombings in Kosovo and Serbia. And it’s nothing to do — and there was no UN mandate for it. But it was a triumphalist interpretation. We can now get away with everything, anything we want. We can do it because there’s no Russia to take into account. Russia could not do anything about it. China could not do anything about it at the time.

And so, you get into hubris and an inability to see your own limitations, and that is what we are coming up to now. We are seeing the boomerang coming back to NATO, the western world for these things. And then, of course, some idiots will sit somewhere and say, Jan Oberg is pro-Russia. No, I’m trying to stick to what I happen to remember happened at the time. I’m old enough to remember what was said to Gorbachev in those days when the Wall came down and all these things changed fundamentally.

I was not optimistic that NATO would adapt to that situation, but there was hope at that time. There’s no hope today for this, because if you could change, you would have changed long ago. So the prediction I make is the United States empire, NATO, will fall apart at some point. The question is how, how dangerous, and how violent that process will be, because it’s not able to conduct reforms or change itself fundamentally into something else, such as a common security organization for Europe.

Michelle Rasmussen: Well, I actually wanted to ask you now about the solutions, because you’ve been a peace researcher for many decades. What what would it take to peacefully resolve the immediate crisis? And secondly, how can we create the basis for peaceful world in the future? You mentioned the idea that you had 30 years ago for dismembering NATO and the founder and international chairman of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has now called for establishing a new security architecture, which would take the interests of all countries, including Russia, into account. So how could we solve the immediate crisis? If there were the political will, what would have to change among the parties? And secondly, what needs to be done in terms of long term peaceful cooperation?

Jan Oberg: Well, first of all, the question you are raising is a little bit like the seventh doctor who is trying to operate on a patient who is bleeding to death and then saying, “What should we do now?” What I have suggested over 30 years is something that should have been done to avoid the situation today, and nobody listened, as is clear, because you don’t listen to researchers anymore who say something else that state-financed researchers do. So it’s not an easy question you are raising, of course. I would say, of course, in the immediate situation, the Minsk agreements, which have not been upheld, particularly by Ukraine in establishing some kind of autonomy for the Donbass area. Now that is something we could work with, autonomous solutions. We could work with confederations, we could work with cantonization, if you will. Lots of what happened, and happens, in the eastern republics of Ukraine. It reminds me of a country I know very well, and partly educated in and worked in during the dissolution, namely Yugoslavia. So much so that it resembles Granica. Ukraine and Granica in Croatia, both mean border areas. Granica means border, and there’s so much that could have been a transfered of knowledge and wisdom and lessons learned, had we had a United Nations mission in that part. A peacekeeping mission, a monitoring mission. UN police and U.N. civil affairs in the Donbas region.

If I remember correctly, Putin is the only one who suggested that at some point. I don’t think he presented it as a big proposal to the world, but in an interview he said that was something he could think of. I wrote in 2014, why on earth has nobody even suggested that the United Nations, the world’s most competent organization in handling conflicts, and, if you will, put a lid on the military affairs, for instance, by disarming the parties on all sides, which they did in eastern and western Slovonia, in Croatia. Why has that not been suggested? Because the western world has driven the United Nations out to the periphery of international politics..

I’ve said Minsk. I’ve said the UN. I’ve said some kind of internal reforms in Ukraine. I have said, and I would insist on it, NATO must stop its expansion. NATO cannot take the risk, on behalf of Europe, and the world, to say we insist on continuing with giving weapons to, and finally making Ukraine a NATO member. You can ask Kissinger, you can ask Brzezinski, you can take the most, if you will, right wing hawkish politicians in the West. They’ve all said neutrality like Finland or Switzerland, or something like that, is the only viable option.

And is that to be pro-Russian? No, that needs to be pro-Western. Because I am just looking like so many others, fortunately, have done at the Cuban Missile Crisis. What would the United States — how would it have reacted, if Russia had a huge military alliance and tried to get Canada or Mexico to become members with long-range weapons standing a few kilometers from the U.S. border?

Do you think the US would have said, “Oh, they were all freely deciding to, so we think it’s OK.” Look at what they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They could not accept weapon stations in Cuba.

So, one of the things you have to ask yourself about is there one rule and one set of interests for the Western world that does not apply to other actors? If you want to avoid Russia invading Ukraine, which all this nonsense is about repeatedly now for two or three months. Look into a new status where the East and the West and Ukraine, all of it, can sit down and discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

President Zelensky has said it quite nicely, I must say. If you don’t want us to become members of NATO, and he says that to the West, because he feels that it has taken a long time for the West to act, and he last said that at the Munich Security Conference, I think yesterday or two days ago, by the way, interestingly a man whose country is going to be invaded any moment, leaves the country and goes to a conference to speak which he could have done on Zoom.

I mean, the whole thing doesn’t make sense, like it didn’t make sense, was it on the 18th or 17th when all the West said that they’re going to invade Ukraine, and the Russian defense minister was sitting in Damascus and Putin was receiving Bolsonaro. I mean, don’t they have intelligence anymore in NATO and Washington?

So long story short, sit down and give Ukraine the guarantees and non-aggression pact with both sides or all sides, clearly limited non-nuclear defensive defense measures along the borders, or whatever, integration in whatever eastern and Western economic organizations.

And I would be happy to see them as part of the Belt and Road Initiative with economic opportunities. There is so much Ukraine could do if it could get out of the role of being a victim, and squeezed between the two sides all the time. And that can only be done if you elevate the issue to a higher level, in which Ukraine’s different peoples and different parts and parties are allowed to speak up about what future they want to have in their very specific situation that Ukraine is in. It is not any country in in Europe. It’s a poor country. It’s a country that has a specific history. It’s a country which is very complex, complex ethnically, language wise, historically, etc.

And that’s why I started out saying confederation. I said something like a Switzerland model, something like Cantonization, or whatever, but for Christ’s sake, give that country and its people a security, a good feeling that nobody’s going to encroach upon you..

And that is to me, the the schwerpunkt [main emphasis], the absolutely essential, that is to give the Ukraine people a feeling of security and safety and stability and peace so that they can develop. I find it very interesting that President Zelensky, in this very long interview to the international press a couple of weeks ago, say I’m paraphrasing it. But he says “I’m tired of all these people who say that we are going to be invaded because it destroys our economy. People are leaving. No business is coming in, right?”

Who are we to do this damage to Ukraine and then want it to become a member of NATO? You know, the whole thing is recklessly irresponsible, in my view, particularly with a view of Ukraine and its peoples and their needs.

So I would put that in focus, and then put in a huge UN peacekeeping mission and continue and expand the excellent OSCE mission. Put the international communit, good hearted, neutral people down there and diffuse those who have only one eyesight, only one view of all this. They are the dangerous people.

Michelle Rasmussen: And what about the more long-term idea of a new security architecture in general?

Jan Oberg: Oh, I would build a kind of, I wouldn’t say copy of, but I would I would build something inspired by the United Nations Security Council. All Europe, representatives for all countries, including NGOs, and not just government representatives. I would have an early warning mechanism where the moment there is something like a conflict coming up, we would have reporters and we would have investigations we would look into, not conflict prevention.

My goodness, people don’t read books. There’s nothing about conflict prevention. We should prevent violence. We should prevent violent conflict, but preventing conflicts is nonsense, life is getting richer. There’s not a family, there’s not a school, there’s not a workplace, there’s not a political party, there’s not a parliament in which there are no conflicts. Conflict is what life is made of. Conflict is terribly important because it makes us change and reflect. I’m all for conflicts, and I’m one hundred and ten percent against violence. But people will say “Conflict prevention is something we should work, on and educate people in.” Nonsense from people who never read books, as I said.

So I would look for something like common security. The good old Palme Commission from the eighties, which built on defensive defense. The idea that we all have a right, according to Article 51, in the UN Charter. Everybody has a right to self-defense.

But we do not have a right to missiles that can go 4,000 km or 8,000 kilometres and kill millions of people far away. Get rid of nuclear weapons and all these things. It has nothing to do with defensiveness and common security, and I say that wherever I go and whoever I speak to. Get rid of nuclear weapons and offensive long range weapons.

The only legitimate weapons there are in this world are defensive ones, and they are defined by two things. Short distance, ability to go only over a short distance, such as helicopters instead of fighter airplanes or missiles.

And second, limited destructive capacity because they’re going to be used on your own territory in case somebody encroaches or invades you. But nobody wants to have nuclear weapons or totally super destructive weapons on their own territory because they don’t want them to be used to there. So just ask yourself, what would you like in Country X, Y and Z to be defended with? And that’s a definition of a defensive weapons. If we all had only defensive military structures, there would be very few wars, but they would also not be a military-industrial-media-academic complex that earns the money on this.

The whole thing here that the big elephant in the room we are talking about is, well, there are two of them, is NATO expansion, which we should never have done this way. And secondly, it’s the interest of the military-industrial-media-academic complex, as I call it, that earns a hell of a lot of money on people’s suffering, and millions of people who, at this moment while we speak, are living in fear and despair because of what they see in the media is going to happen. None of what we see at this moment was necessary. It’s all made up by elites who have an interest in these kinds of things happening or the threat of the Cold War. And even if we avoid a big war now, and I hope, I don’t pray to anything, but I hope very much that we do, thanks to some people’s wisdom, and it’s going to be very cold in Europe in the future after this.

Look at the demonization that the West has done again against Russia, and to a certain extent, of Ukraine. This is not psychologically something that will be repaired in two weeks.

Michelle Rasmussen: Yeah, and also, as you mentioned at the beginning, it has also something to do with the unwillingness in part of certain of the Western elites to accept that we do not have an Anglo-American unipolar world, but that there are other countries that need to be listened to and respected.

Jan Oberg: Yeah, and you might add, what the West gets out of this is that Russia and China will get closer and closer. You are already seeing the common declaration. We will have friendship eternally. And that’s between two countries who up to the sixties at some point were very strong enemies. And the same will go with Iran, and there would be other countries like Serbia which are turning away from the West. We’re going to sit and be isolating ourselves because, one, we cannot bully the world anymore, as we could before in the West. And secondly, nobody wants to be bullied anymore. We have to live in a world in which there are different systems. This Christian missionary idea that everybody must become like us. We opened up to China because then we hope they would become liberal democracies with many parties, and the parliament is awfully naïve. And time is over for that kind of thinking.

Michelle Rasmussen: I want to go into the other two subjects. Firstly, the question of the negotiations between Denmark and the United States in the context of the political, military and media statements of recent years alleging that Russia has aggressive intentions against Europe and the U.S. the Danish Social Democratic government announced on February 10th that a year ago, the U.S. requested negotiations on a Defense Cooperation Agreement, and that Denmark was now ready to start these negotiations. The government announced that it could mean permanent stationing of U.S. troops and armaments on Danish soil. And if so, this would be against the decades-long policy of the Danish government not to allow foreign troops or armaments permanently stationed in Denmark. And you wrote an article two days later criticizing these negotiations. Why are you against this?

Jan Oberg: I’m against it because it’s a break of 70 years of sensible policies. We do not accept foreign weapons and we do not accept foreign troops, and we do not accept nuclear weapons stationed on Danish soil. I sat, for ten years, all throughout the 1980s, in the Danish Governments Commission for Security and Disarmament as an expert. Nobody in the 80s would have mentioned anything like this. I guess the whole thing is something that had begun to go mad around 20 years ago, when Denmark engaged and became a bomber nation for the first time in Yugoslavia. And then Afghanistan and Iraq, and it means that you cannot say no. This is an offer you can’t refuse. You can’t refuse it, among other things, it’s my interpretation, because you remember the story where President Trump suggested that he or the U.S. could buy Greenland, and the prime minister Mette Frederiksen said, ‘Well, that is not something to be discussed. The question is absurd,’ after which he got very angry. He got personally very angry, and he said, ‘It’s not a matter of speaking to me. You’re speaking to the United States of America.’ And I think this offer to begin negotiations must have come relatively shortly after that, as ‘This offer is not something you should call absurd once again.’ I’ve no evidence for that. But if these negotiations started more than a year ago, we are back in the Trump administration.

And secondly, what kind of democracy is that? We do not know what that letter in which the Americans asked to have negotiations about this, when it was written and what the content of it was. But what we hear is that a little more than a year ago, we began some negotiations about this whole thing, that is behind the back of the parliament, and behind the back of the people, and then is presented more or less as a fait accompli. There will be an agreement. The question is only nitty-gritty, what will be in it.

In terms of substance, there is no doubt that any place where there would be American facilities based in sites, so whenever you’d call it, weapon stored will be the first targets in a war, seen as such in a war, under the best circumstances, seen by Russia. Russia’s first targets will be to eliminate the Americans everywhere they can in Europe, because those are the strongest and most dangerous forces.

Secondly, it is not true that there is a no to nuclear weapons in other senses than Denmark will keep up the principle that we will not have them stationed permanently. But with such an agreement where the Air Force, Navy and soldiers, military, shall more frequently work with, come in to visit, etc., there’s no doubt that there will be more nuclear weapons coming into, for instance, on American vessels than before, because the cooperation would be closer and closer.

Jan Oberg: And there the only thing the Danish government will do is, since they know that the “neither confirm nor deny policy” of the U.S., they would not even ask the question. If they are asked by journalists, they would say, “Well, we take for granted that the Americans honor or understand and respect that we will not have nuclear weapons on Danish territory, sea territory, or whatever. Now the Americans are violating that in Japan even. So, this is this is nonsense. There would be more nuclear weapons. I’m not saying they would go off or anything like that. I’m just saying there would be more undermining of Danish principles.

And then the whole thing, of course, has to do with the fact that Denmark is placing itself — and that was something the present government under Mette Frederiksen’s leadership did before this was made public — is to put 110 percent of your eggs in the U.S. basket. This is the most foolish thing you can do, given the world change. The best thing a small country can do is to uphold international law and the UN. Denmark doesn’t. It speaks like the U.S. for an international rules-based order, which is the opposite of, or very far away from the international law.

And secondly, in a world where you are going to want multipolarity, a stronger Asia, stronger Africa, another Russia from the one we have known the last 30 years, etc., and a United States that is, on all indicators except the military, declining and will fall as the world leader. This is, in my view, be careful with my words, the most foolish thing you can do at the moment, if you are a leader of Denmark, or if you leading the Danish security politics. You should be open — I wrote an article about that in a small Danish book some six or seven years ago, and said “Walk on two legs.” Remain friendly with the United States and NATO, and all that, but develop your other leg, so you can walk on two legs in the next 20, 30, 40 years. But there’s nobody that thinks so long term in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and there’s nobody who thinks independently anymore in research institutes or ministries. It’s basically adapting to everything we think, or are told by Washington we should do. And that’s not foreign policy to me. There’s nothing to do with it.

Jan Oberg: A good foreign policy is one where you have a good capacity to analyze the world, do scenarios, discuss which way to go, pros and contras, and different types of futures, and then make this decision in your parliament based on a public discussion. That was what we did early, 60s, 70s and 80s. And then also when you become a bomber nation, when you become a militaristic one, when active foreign policy means nothing but militarily active, then, of course, you are getting closer and closer and closer down into the into the darkness of the hole, where suddenly you fall so deeply you cannot see the daylight, where the hole is. I think it’s very sad. I find it tragic. I find it very dangerous. I find that Denmark will be a much less free country in the future by doing these kinds of things. And, don’t look at the basis of this agreement as an isolated thing. It comes with all the things we’ve done, all the wars Denmark has participated in. Sorry, I said we, I don’t feel Danish anymore, so I should say Denmark or the Danes. And finally, I have a problem with democratically elected leaders who seem to be more loyal to a foreign government, than with their own people’s needs.

China and Xinjiang

Michelle Rasmussen: The last question is that, you just mentioned the lack of independence of analysis, and there’s not only an enemy image being painted against Russia, but also against China, with allegations of central government genocide against the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province as a major point of contention. And on March 8th, 2021, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington published a report The Uyghur Genocide, an examination of China’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Montreal, and the next month, April 27, last year, you and two others issued a report which criticized this report. What is the basis of your criticism and what do you think should be done to lessen tension with China?

And also as a wrap-up question in the end, if you wanted to say anything else about what has to be done to make a change from looking at Russia and China as the autocratic enemies of the West, and to, instead, shift to a world in which there is cooperation between the major powers, which would give us the possibility of concentrating on such great task as economic development of the poorer parts of the world?

Jan Oberg: Well, of course, that’s something we could speak another hour about, but what we did in our in our tiny think tank here, which, by the way, is totally independent and people-financed and all volunteer. That’s why we can say and do what we think should be said and done and not politically in anybody’s hands or pockets, is that those reports, including the Newlines Institute’s report, does not hold water, would not pass as a paper for a master’s degree in social science or political science. We say that if you look into not only that report, but several other reports and researchers who were contributing to this genocide discussion, if you look into their work, they are very often related to the military-industrial-media-academic complex. And they are paid for, have formerly had positions somewhere else in that system, or are known for having hawkish views on China, Russia and everybody else outside the western sphere.

So when we began to look into this, we also began to see a trend. And that’s why we published shortly after a 150 page report about the new Cold War on China, and Xinjiang is part of a much larger orchestrated — and I’m not a conspiracy theorist. It’s all documented, in contrast to media and other research reports. It’s documented. You can see where we get our knowledge from, and on which basis we draw conclusions.

Whereas now, significantly, for Western scholarship and media, they don’t deal with, are not interested in sources. I’ll come back to that. It’s part of a much larger, only tell negative stories about China. Don’t be interested in China’s new social model. Don’t be interested in how they, in 30 to 40 years did what nobody else in humankind has ever done. Uplifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and creating a society that I can see the difference from, because I visited China in 1983, and I know what it looked like back then when they had just opened up, so to speak.

And what we are saying is not that we know what happened and happens in Xinjiang, because we’ve not been there and we are not a human rights organization. We are conflict resolution and peace proposal making policy think tank. But what we do say is, if you cannot come up with better arguments and more decent documentation, then probably you are not honest. If there’s nothing more you can show us to prove that there’s a genocide going on at Xinjiang, you should perhaps do your homework before you make these assertions and accusations.

That’s what we are saying, and we are also saying that it is peculiar that the last thing Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, did in his office, I think on the 19th of January last year, was to say I hereby declare that Xinjiang is a genocide, and the State Department has still not published as much as one A4 page with the documentation.

So, I feel sad on a completely different level, and that is, Western scholarship is disappearing in this field. And those who may really have different views, analyses and question what we hear or uphold a plurality of viewpoints and interpretations of the world, we’re not listened to. I mean, I’m listening to elsewhere, but I’m not listened to in Western media, although I have forty five years of experience in these things and I’ve traveled quite a lot and worked in quite a lot of conflict and war zones. I can live with that, but I think it’s a pity for the Western world that we are now so far down the drain, that good scholarship is not what politics built on anymore. If it, I think it was at a point in time.

So what is also striking to me is, very quickly, the uniformity of the press. They have all written the day that the Newsline report that you referred to, was published, it was all over the place, including front pages of the leading Western newspapers, including the Danish Broadcasting’s website, etc., all saying the same thing, quoting the same bits of parts from it.

The uniformity of this is just mind boggling. How come that nobody said, “Hey, what is this Newlines Institute, by the way, that nobody had heard about before? Who are these people behind it? Who are the authors?” Anybody can sit on their chair and do quite a lot of research, which was impossible to do 20 years ago. If you are curious, if you are asked to be curious, if you are permitted to be curious, and do research in the media, in the editorial office where you are sitting, then you would find out lots of this here is B.S. Sorry to say so, intellectually, it’s B.S.

And so I made a little pastime, I wrote a very diplomatic letter to people at CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc. Danish and Norwegian, and Swedish media, those who write this opinion journalism about Xinjiang, and a couple of other things, and I sent the all our report, which is online, so it’s just a link, and I said kindly read this one, and I look forward to hearing from you. I’ve done this in about 50 or 60 cases, individually dug up their email addresses, et cetera. There is not one who has responded with anything. The strategy when you lie, or when you deceive, or when you have a political man, is don’t go into any dialogue with somebody who knows more or it’s critical of what you do.

That’s very sad. Our TFF Pressinfo goes to 20 people in BBC. They know everything we write about Ukraine, about China, about Xinjiang, et cetera. Not one has ever called.

These are the kinds of things that make me scared as an intellectual. One thing is what happens out in the world. That’s bad enough. But when I begin to find out how this is going on, how it is manipulated internally in editorial offices, close to foreign ministries, etc. or defense ministries is then I say, we are approaching the Pravda moment. The Pravda moment is not the present Pravda [newspaper], but the Pravda that went down with the Soviet Union. When I visited Russia, the Soviet Union at a time for conferences, et cetera, and I found out that very few people believed anything they saw in the media. Now, to me, it’s a question of whether the Western media, so-called free media want to save themselves or they want to become totally irrelevant, because at some point, as someone once said, you cannot lie all the time to all of the people, you may get away with lying to some, to some people, for some of the time.

Michelle Rasmussen: President Lincoln

Jan Oberg: Yeah. So the long story short is this is not good. This deceives people. And of course, some people, at some point, people will be very upset about that. They have been lied to. And also don’t make this reference anymore to free and state media. Viewers may like to hear that may not like it, but should know it, the US has just passed a law — They have three laws against China — How to intervene in all kinds of Chinese things, such as, for instance, trying to influence who will become the successor to Dalai Lama, and things like that. They are not finished at all about how to influence Taiwan, and all that, things they have nothing to do with, and which they decided between Nixon and Zhou Enlai that America accepted the One-China policy and would not mix themselves into Taiwanese issues. But that is another broken promise. These media are state media in the U.S. If you take Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, they are those, particularly the latter, who have disseminated most of these Xinjiang genocide stories, which then bounce back to BBC, etc. These are state media. As an agency for that in in Washington, it’s financed by millions of dollars, of course, and it has the mandate to make American foreign policy more understood, and promote U.S. foreign policy goals and views. Anybody can go to a website and see this. Again, I’m back to this, everybody can do what I’ve done. And that law that has just been passed says the U.S. sets aside 15 hundred million dollars, that’s one point five billion dollars in the next five years, to support education, training courses, whatever, for media people to write negative stories about China, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative. Now I look forward to Politiken [Danish newspaper] or Dagens Nyheter [Swedish newspaper] or whatever newspapers in the allied countries who would say, “This comes from a state U.S. media” when it does.

And so, my my view is there is a reason for calling it the military-industrial-media-academic complex, because it’s one cluster of elites who are now running the deception, but also the wars that are built on deception. And that is very sad where, instead, we should cooperate. I would not even say we should morally cooperate. I would say we have no choice on this Earth but to cooperate, because if we have a new Cold War between China and the West, we cannot solve humanity’s problems, whether it’s the climate issue, environmental issues, it’s poverty, it’s justice, income differences or cleavages, or modern technological problems or whatever. You take all these things, they are, by definition, global. And if we have one former empire, soon former empire, that does nothing but disseminate negative energy, criticize, demonize, running cold wars, basically isolating itself and going down.

We lack America to do good things. I’ve never been anti-American, I want to say that very clearly. I’ve never, ever been anti-American. I’m anti empire and militarism. And we need the United States, with its creativity, with its possibilities, with what it already has given the world, to also contribute constructively to a better world, together with the Russians, together with Europe, together with Africa, together with everybody else, and China, and stop this idea that we can only work with those who are like us, because if that’s what you want to do, you will have fewer and fewer to work with.

The world is going towards diversity. And we have other cultures coming up who have other ways of doing things, and we may like it or not. But the beauty of conflict resolution and peace is to do it with those who are different from you. It is not to make peace with those who already love, or are already completely identical with. This whole thing is, unfortunately, a conflict and peace illiteracy that has now completely overtaken the western world. Whereas I see people thinking about peace. I hear people mentioning the word peace. I do not hear Western politicians or media anymore mention the word peace. And when that word is not, and the discussion and the discourse has disappeared about peace, we are very far out.

Combine that with lack of intellectualism and an analytical capacity, and you will end up in militarism and war. You cannot forget these things, and then avoid a war. So in my view, there are other reasons than Russia, if you will, that we’re in a dangerous situation, and that the danger has to do with the West operating, itself, at the moment. Nobody in the world is threatening the United States or the West. If it goes down, it’s all of its own making. And I think that’s an important thing to say in these days when we always blame somebody else for our problems. That is not the truth.

Michelle Rasmussen: Thank you so much, Jan.

Politisk orientering med formand Tom Gillesberg

Med formand Tom Gillesberg

Lyd:

Resumé:

COVID-19:

Dronningen viser, i lighed med Mette Fredriksen, lederskab under coronakrisen.

Danskerne forstod alvoren.

Flokimmunitet er blevet taget af bordet.

Nu kan der åbnes op, men hvor meget?

Vi behøver massiv testning for at have overblik. Det har endnu fundet sted. Vi skal også teste for antistoffer. Vi må kende fjenden og nedkæmpe COVID-19.

Europa er delt mellem de, der startede for sent, og de, der startede hurtigt.

Åbn ikke for hurtigt:

Test-test-test

Forsk-forsk-forsk

Behold social distancering

Økonomisk krise:

Corona var tuen, der fik læsset til at vælte.

Lyndon LaRouche advarede, men man vil ikke lytte.

USA: Total nedsmeltning af økonomien.

Hvad med huslejer og boliglån?

Nu redder USA’s centralbank Federal Reserve finansverden og bankerne — ikke den fysiske økonomi. De køber alt, inkl. junkbonds.

Løsningen er Lyndon LaRouche fire økonomiske love + bekæmpelse af COVID-19.

Under 2008-krisen forslog Lyndon LaRouche Homeowners and Bank Protection Act. (kun sparekasse-type banker)

Trump må blive en Roosevelt. Er det muligt? Vi mobiliserer.

Vi må samarbejde med Kina for at yde massiv hjælp imod COVID-19 til de fattige lande.

COVID-19 kan ikke vindes medmindre fattigdom bekæmpes.

Bælte og Vej-Initiativet må igang igen for at opbygge infrastruktur.

Europa må på banen.

Vi har brug for et paradigmeskifte:

Fra malthusianisme til LaRouches fysisk-økonomi.

Nu har vi chancen for at skabe en ny retfærdig økonomisk verdensorden, som sætter menneskene først.

Videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt.

Den største renæssance i historien.

Vær med.

Tilmeld dig vores internationale internet-konference den 25.-26. april, som begynder lørdag den 25. april kl. 16. 

Mette Fredriksen og den danske regering har udvist forbilledligt lederskab i håndtering af den nuværende sundhedskrise og fik Danmark hurtigt lukket ned, da det var klart, at der forekom udbredt smittespredning i Danmark. Den danske befolkning har reageret godt på lederskabet og det ser ud til, at vi har formået at sænke smittespredningen fra omkring 2,8 nye smittede per smittet til omkring 2,0. Det lyder af lidt, men det er ufatteligt godt gået og har købt os ekstra tid. Med en smitterate på 2,8 vil antallet af nye smittede på 6 uger være 1350 gange større. 1.000 smittede bliver altså til 1,35 mio. Med en smitterate reduceret til 2,0 vil antallet af nye smittede efter 6 uger være 128 større. 1.000 smittede bliver altså i stedet til 128.000 nye smittede over de 6 uger. Dermed har vi købt kritisk tid til at undgå, at vi får katastrofale tilstande, som dem vi har set i sundhedsvæsenet i Italien her i Danmark.

Dette var det erklærede mål for nedlukningen af Danmark, så det ser ud til at blive succesfuldt, men det rejser et ligeså stort problem: Hvornår kan vi genåbne Danmark uden at se en eksplosiv udvikling i antallet smittede af COVID-19?

Studiet fra Imperial College i London (Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand), der blandt andet fik den britiske regering til at lukke Storbritanien ned og overbeviste den amerikanske regering om alvoren i COVID-19-epidemien, kommer frem til, at en nedlukning er nødvendig for at undgå en katastrofe, men slår samtidigt fast, at man må forvente en kraftig opblomstring af epidemien, så snart man går tilbage til det normale liv, og smittespredningen dermed bliver større. Rapporten konkluderer, at det er sandsynligt, at man det meste af tiden frem til udviklingen af en eventuel vaccine, som man forventer kommer på banen om tidligst 12-18 måneder, eller til at så stor en del af befolkningen har været smittet (ca. 60 %) til at give en flokimmunitet i befolkningen, må fastholde en nedlukning af samfundet med blot enkelte åbne perioder ind imellem, hvor man så lukker ned igen, når epidemien begynder at vokse for kraftigt.

En sådan hel eller delvis nedlukning af Danmark i op til 12-18 måneder vil være katastrofal for det danske samfund og den danske økonomi. Derfor må vi introducere andre redskaber, der kan give os nye fordele i kampen mod COVID-19 end blot af satse på udviklingen af flokimmunitet eller udviklingen af en vaccine om 12-18 måneder. Et sådant redskab, der har vist sig effektivt andre steder, er en aggressiv opsporing og isolering af COVID-19-smittede, som bl.a. i Kina og Sydkorea har gjort at man har kunnet holde epidemien i skak. Vi vil selvfølgelig ikke kopiere deres metoder til fulde, da vores samfund fungerer anderledes, men benytte erfaringerne og indsætte dem i en dansk sammenhæng. Samtidig er et ekstra vigtigt redskab på trapperne, der om få dage vil gøre det muligt, at finde ud af, om en person har været smittet med COVID-19. Det kan give os flere fordele både med at bekæmpe smitten her, og holde Danmark åbent mest muligt – uden at risikere et sammenbrud af det danske sundhedsvæsen og unødigt mange døde blandt den danske befolkning – og samtidigt hjælpe i den globale kamp imod COVID-19.

Vi skal bruge det pusterum, som vi har fået gennem den effektive nedlukning af Danmark, til hurtigst muligt af få et så komplet overblik over udbredelsen af smitten her i landet og få identificeret og isoleret flest muligt COVID-19 smittede. Vi skal have gang i den form for effektiv smittesporing, der ophørte, da man lukkede Danmark ned og sundhedsstyrelsen erklærede, at inddæmning nu var umulig. Alt, hvad vi ved, om hvem, der er er smittet eller har været smittet og om, hvordan og hvornår de blev smittet, er nemlig guld værd i bekæmpelsen af epidemien. Og i at sikre, at vi kan holde Danmark mest muligt åbent.

Det største problem med COVID-19 er nemlig, at den spreder sig vældigt effektivt fra menneske til menneske og at mange smittede, ikke udviser kraftige symptomer eller bliver meget syge, men alligevel kan bringe sygdommen videre “under radaren”. Som når det gælder isbjerge, så ser man kun en meget lille del af det egentlige problem. Det betyder, at sygdommen sandsynligvis kom til Danmark langt inden, at vi fik den såkaldt første smittede (TV2-medarbejderen) den 27. februar.

I løbet af de seneste dage har man fundet ud af, hvordan vi hurtigere og lettere kan teste sekret fra mulige smittede for COVID-19. Inden for de næste dage, vil vi også kunne teste blodprøver for anti-stoffer til COVID-19, og dermed kunne fastlægge, om en person har været smittet med COVID-19. At vide, at man har haft COVID-19 og har overlevet, er en god information at have, da man i så fald (medmindre vi ser nye mutationer af COVID-19) ikke længere kan blive smittet og heller ikke risikerer at kunne smitte andre. Men det er også en vigtig information at have for at kunne fastlægge, hvor og hvornår den enkelte blev smittet. Det giver overblik over, hvordan epidemien har udviklet sig og hvordan den fremadrettet vil udvikle sig. Vi skal så vidt som muligt have et billede over samtlige smittekæder i Danmark. Det kræver massiv testning og en kortlægning af COVID-19’s liv og virke i Danmark.

Operation “Fjern virus fra skindpelsen”

Vi skal have kortlagt COVID-19 i Danmark, så vi kan holde epidemien stangen, og det kræver (udover den indsats, der ydes på de danske hospitaler) en massiv testindsats fremadrettet:

1. Alle, der udviser selv svage symptomer på COVID-19, skal omgående testes og i tilfælde af COVID-19-smitte sættes i hjemmekarantæne indtil 48 timer efter, at de betragtes som symtomfri og raske. Forløbet afsluttes med en yderligere blodprøve, der viser, at de har nok anti-stoffer imod COVID-19 til, at de ikke længere at kan huse sygdommen. Mens sygdommen står på skal patienten indsende daglige rapporter til sundhedsmyndighederne over, hvordan man har det, sygdommens udvikling, symptomer etc. Dette er vigtigt, ikke blot for at overvåge den enkelte patient og i tide kunne yde nødvendig hjælp til behandling af sygdommen, men også for at få et langt bedre overblik over sygdomsforløbet og dens symptomer til fremtid smittesporing og sygdomsbekæmpelse. Alle familiemedlemmer og andre tætte kontakter skal testes (både for COVID-19 og evt. også for anti-stoffer) og på lignende vis selvovervåges, for at sikre, at de ikke også er smittede. Dette fortsætter i en karantæneperiode, som afsluttes med yderlig en test. Der laves samtidig klassisk smittesporing for at finde alle mulige smittekontakter den/de syge har haft, dels for at finde personen/personer de er blevet smittet af, men også de personer, som de muligvis har smittet. Hjemmekarantæne og daglig indrapportering kræves af dem, som vurderes at være mulige smittede.
2. Alle, der mener, at de eventuelt har været smittet, skal så hurtigt som muligt testes for anti-stoffer imod COVID-19, for at finde ud af, om de har haft sygdommen. Hvis disse tests i dag sendes ud af landet, som en del af det internationale forskningssamarbejde, skal dette arbejde så vidt, det er muligt, hjemtages for en hurtige informationsstrøm (mens vi selvfølgelig samtidig fortsat vidensdeler med vore forskningspartnere). Finder vi personer, der har været smittede med COVID-19, så starter smittesporing for at finde ud af, hvor og hvornår de blev smittet, og hvem de eventuelt selv har smittet. Selv om dette i mange tilfælde involverer personer, der ikke længere er smittede, så er det vigtig information for at etablere smittekæder og finde mange af de smittekæder, der indtil nu er gået under radaren. Det vil også hjælpe i arbejdet med at fastlægge forskellige typer af COVID-19, forskellige smittemønstre, symptomer og evt. også senere differentieret behandling.
3. Der forskes flittigt i udvikling af behandlingsmetoder, mange gange med brug af allerede godkendte lægemidler eller en kombination af dem, til at lindre og evt. også forkorte sygdomsforløbet hos indlagte patienter. Der skal forberedes en hurtig implementering af nye modaliteter i takt med at der er lovende resultater fra forskningen.

At lave dette arbejde med testning og smittesporing er ganske omfattende, men vil i stor udstrækning ikke overlappe med de ressourcer, der kræves i kampen imod COVID-19 på hospitalerne. Det er andre ressourcer, der skal mobiliseres fra samfundet, borgere og virksomheder for at sikre, at vi så hurtigt som muligt kan lukke Danmark op og holde Danmark åbent mest muligt indtil COVID-19 er besejret. Samtidigt vil det bibringe vigtige data om COVID-19, der hjælper ikke blot Danmark, men hele verden i kampen imod COVID-19.

Ressourcer, der skal bringes i spil for at kunne håndtere denne indsats, inklusive 50-100.000 testninger per dag, involverer bl.a.:

1) Der skal oprettes en lang række teststeder (bl.a. drive-in-teststeder), hvor folk kan få taget sekret fra de nedre luftveje til COVID-19-test. Dette skal fungere med personale, der ikke må tages fra den normale behandlingsindsats på hospitalerne. Eventuelt med personer, der allerede har haft COVID-19.

2) Der skal oprettes kapacitet til at behandle 50-100.000 COVID-19 prøver om dagen. Kapaciteten kan findes på eksisterende laboratorier på universiteter og lignende, men også, hvis de bliver spurgt, på danske virksomheder, som nok gerne vil bidrage med testkapacitet, som Novo Nordisk har valgt at gøre det. Vi har mange medicinalvirksomheder i Danmark, og de fleste vil ikke takke nej, hvis de bliver bedt om at hjælpe til. Det forberedes selvfølgelig at kunne tage og behandle endnu flere tests, hvis det skulle blive nødvendigt.

3) Der oprettes et lignende beredskab til at tage blodprøver for at konstatere anti-stoffer imod COVID-19, hvis det nuværende system ikke er i stand til at håndtere den øgede volumen. Der oprettes flere enheder til hurtigt at omsætte blodprøver for anti-stoffer til COVID-19 til brugbare testresultater.

4) Der skal oprettes en del enheder til smittekortlægning og smittesporing. Samtidig skal der være enheder til at håndtere alle de data, som man får ind fra testresultater, daglige tilbagemeldinger fra COVID-19-smittede, folk i karantæne etc. Det vil være langt større mængder af data, end man har været vant til, og det kræver evt. en oprustning på databehandlingssiden. Danske virksomheder med ekspertviden på området vil sandsynligvis med glæde bistå med at udvikle de nødvendige digitale værktøjer i ekspresfart, hvis de bliver bedt om det.

5) Med hensyn til hjælpemidler til testindsatsen og værnemidler til personalet på alle COVID-19-områder, der evt. er mangel på i dag, osv. så vil de af dem, som man ikke kan anskaffe hurtigt på markedet til rimelige priser, sandsynligvis kunne fremskaffes fra, eller produceres af danske virksomheder, hvis man blot beder dem om det. Lokaliser evt. flaskehalse og find ud af, hvem i Danmark, der vil kunne hjælpe. Hvis man spørger om hjælp, så vil man blive positivt overrasket over, hvor mange, der blot venter på at kunne hjælpe til.

Udover at være en uvurderlig hjælp i at inddæmme COVID-19 så meget som muligt, så vil brugen af udbredt testning og smittesporing give os de nødvendige redskaber til at forstå og håndtere sundhedskrisen langt bedre. Vi vil gennem det langt bedre overblik over COVID-19 og dens aktiviteter bedre kunne forhindre en kraftig opblomstring af epidemien på et senere tidspunkt, og gennem den tætte overvågning vide, hvornår vi eventuelt må lukke dele af Danmark ned igen, for at få kontrollen over COVID-19 tilbage.

Alle disse tiltage er ikke gratis, men den samlede indsatspakke er billigere end blot en enkelt dags nedlukning af Danmark. Samtidig kan man også håbe, at de store mængder indsamlede data gør os i stand til bedre at forstå COVID-19, og dermed kunne bekæmpe COVID-19 langt mere effektivt både i Danmark og globalt indtil vi forhåbentligt snart kan endegyldigt besejre COVID-19 og få vores normale samfundsfunktioner tilbage.

For Schiller Instituttets forslag til de nødvendige økonomiske og finansielle tiltag i forbindelsen med COVID-19 se andre artikler og videoer på vores hjemmeside.

Med formand Tom Gillesberg.

Lyd:

6. februar 2020 – I går blev et seminar med titlen ”Hvad er det næste skridt for Kina og Europa?” afholdt af det Danske Institut for Internationale Studier (DIIS). Talerne var fra DIIS (”Danmarks Kina-udfordring”); det tyske Mercator Institut for Kina-studier (”Søgen efter Europas Kina-strategi”); det tyske Globale Offentlige Politiske Institut (”Tyskland og Huawei-debatten”) angående 5G; og det britiske Internationale Institut for Strategiske Studier (”Kina, EU’s forsvar og sikkerhed, og nyopstående teknologier”). Seminarets hovedindhold handlede om Kinas (angivelige) trussel mod Europa, og de europæiske politikeres modvilje mod at udfordre dette af frygt for at miste deres handel med kineserne.

I løbet af spørgerunden intervenerede en repræsentant for Schiller Instituttet. Efter at have tilkendegivet hvor hun kom fra, sagde hun, at talerne havde modstillet økonomisk samarbejde på den ene side, og geopolitik og strategiske interesser på den anden, men vi har en anden forestilling. Efter mordet på den iranske general opfordrede Schiller Instituttets leder til et omgående topmøde mellem Xi Jinping, Trump og Putin, hvorefter Putin havde udvidet dette til at inkludere Storbritannien og Frankrig for at forhindre en geopolitisk konfrontation. Økonomisk udvikling må være en del af dette, inklusive mere europæisk samarbejde med Bælte- og Vejinitiativet samt økonomisk udvikling i Mellemøsten og Afrika. Hvad med økonomisk udvikling som en måde at mindske strategiske konflikter på, og dermed skabe en håbefuld fremtid gennem økonomisk samarbejde?

Taleren fra MERICS, som har spillet en negativ rolle i Kina-debatten i Tyskland, indledte sine bemærkninger med at sige, at hun gerne ville vide mere om Schiller Instituttets arbejde om og med Kina. Men selvom handelsrelationer vil fortsætte, hvilket vi ønsker, så begyndte vi i 2016 at se de geopolitiske konsekvenser af Kinas investeringer i Europa, da Grækenland og Ungarn udvandede EU’s kritiske erklæring om Kinas opførsel i det Sydkinesiske Hav, fordi de ikke ønskede at ophidse Kina; og visse Bælte- og Vejprojekter her havde ikke overholdt EU’s spilleregler.

Seminaret blev sendt live, og en video kan ses på: https://www.diis.dk/node/15207, så flere personer end dem tilstede i lokalet har hørt udvekslingen. Schiller Instituttets spørgsmål begynder efter 2 timer og 35 minutter.

Schiller Instituttets danske nyhedsbrev, som indeholder Helga Zepp-LaRouches opfordring til topmødet, blev uddelt, og en række kontakter blev etableret.

31. januar 2020 — Vi har lige erfaret, at det kinesiske nyhedsagentur Xinhua skrev om vores koncert “En Musikalsk Dialog mellem Kulturer”, som fandt sted den 29. november 2019. Koncerten blev arrangeret af Schiller Instituttet, Russisk-Dansk Dialog, Det Russiske Hus og Det Kinesiske Kulturcenter i København.

Her er et link til koncertsiden med videooptagelsen og programmet: EN MUSIKALSK DIALOG MELLEM KULTURER den 29. november 2019

Her er billeder og Google-oversættelser af dækning på:

1. Xinhuas hjemmesiden
2. MSN’s kinesiske hjemmeside
3. www.dzwww.com fra Shandong, Konfutses hjemby.

I bunden findes den kinesiske tekst.

1. Xinhuanet:

 

Med formand Tom Gillesberg

Lyd:

Dokumentation:

I stedet for klimaovertro:
H.C. Ørsteds videnskabelige metode
fra arkivet i anledning af 200 år for Ørsteds opdagelse af elektromagnetisme

Lydfil:

Magnettog over Kattegat: Tom Gillesberg på Radio 4
Den 20. januar 2020 kontaktede programmet 4- toget på den nye nationale radiostation Radio4 Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark og tidligere kandidat til Folketinget, og interviewede ham i 18 minutter om at opføre en magnettoglinje på tværs af Kattegat (en del af Toms slogan til Folketinget i 2007 var »Efter finanskrakket – magnettog over Kattegat«). Dette skete dagen efter, at regeringen besluttede at videreføre en forundersøgelse af bygningen af en kommende Kattegatbro, men i modsætning til den forrige regering, inkludere en togforbindelse.

Tom Gillesberg havde mulighed for at diskutere mange ting, deriblandt: Kina og Japan udvikler nye magnettog; Den Nye Silkevej; fordelen ved at gå til et højere teknologisk niveau; at tænke ud fra fremtidens teknologier og ikke reparere tidligere teknologier; at broen kunne betale sig selv ved at øge produktiviteten i den samlede økonomi; at han kunne forudsige det økonomiske nedsmeltning i 2008, fordi han lyttede til Lyndon LaRouche; behovet for videnskabelig og teknologisk fremskridt, inklusive fusionsenergi, i stedet for at blive et friluftsmuseum med forældede teknologier som træflis og vindmøller. Efterfølgende sagde en af værterne, »Jeg håber, at DSB lyttede med. Det var oplysning, om noget.«

Her er interviewet på 4-Togets podcast. Interviewet er fra tidspunktet 6:21 til 25:11:

Her er vores optagelse mens vi lyttede til interviewet:



Interviewet med Tom Gillesberg er også tilgængeligt på www.radio4.dk/programmer/ . Kik efter program 4-togets podcast side den 20. januar 2020 time 2, tidspunktet 6:21 til 25:11.

Fra Transport og Boligministeriet pressemeddelelse den 19. januar 2020:

Billedet fra Transportministeriet.

Regeringen vil fortsat undersøge en fast forbindelse over Kattegat

Regeringen har besluttet at videreføre den igangværende forundersøgelse af en fast forbindelse over Kattegat, som blandt andet ser på mulighederne for en kombineret vej- og jernbaneforbindelse. Transportministeren offentliggør i dag delkommissorierne for de videre undersøgelser.

19. januar 2020

Regeringen ser store perspektiver i en fast Kattegatforbindelse, som vil kunne binde Øst- og Vestdanmark tættere sammen og forkorte rejsetiden mellem landets to største byer med op til halvanden time for både bilister og togrejsende. Regeringen har derfor videreført forundersøgelsen af projektet på finansloven, ligesom regeringen i dag offentliggør delkommissorierne for undersøgelserne.

Regeringen er optaget af, at vi med forundersøgelsen får belyst de klima- og miljømæssige aspekter ved at anlægge en fast Kattegatforbindelse.

– Det er afgørende, at vi undersøger en kombineret vej- og jernbaneforbindelse og ikke bare en ren vejforbindelse, som den forhenværende minister oprindeligt ønskede, siger transportminister Benny Engelbrecht ….

Resten af pressemeddelelsen kan læses her.

Med formand Tom Gillesberg

Lyd:

Indhold:

4 uger til hard Brexit

Grøn fascisme

G7 i Frankrig: Ingen løsning på finanskrisen

Iran: muligt gennembrud?

Italien: Von der Leyens kup

Hong Kong: destablisering af Kina

Grønland: militarisering af arktis, eller samarbejde om økonomi og forskning?

Jackson Hole centralbanker møde: Elektronisk valuta i stedet for dollar? Paradigmeskifte, hvor centralbankerne trykker de penge markedet behøver?

Klimahysteri: “hockey stick”-model ophavsmanden tabte en retsag

Rumkapløb igang

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Indhold:
Et nyt kapitel for menneskeheden:
Principper for en holdbar fremtid, af Helga Zepp-LaRouche

————————————

Links til yderligere dokumentation refereret til i nyhedsbrevet:

Hæfte: We commit to the Moon-Mars mission: the true spark for changing the culture, LaRouchePAC 2019:

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Lyndon LaRouche:

1. Video: The Woman on Mars, 1988

Part 1:

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Part 2:

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Krafft Ehricke:

1. Forskellige artikler på Schiller Instituttets hjemmeside
2. In celebration of Krafft Ehricke’s 100th birthday, 2017

John F. Kennedy:

1. Video: JFK’s full speech about space at Rice University.

Harrison Schmidt:

1. Mining the Moon, 2005
2. Will the United States join the Helium-3 fusion revolution?, 2014

af Tom Gillesberg

Denne danske resumé (nedenfor) er et redigeret sammendrag af en artikel »Vitus Bering and the Rediscovery of America« (nedenfor), der blev skrevet som et bidrag til et festskrift for Lyndon LaRouche i anledning af hans 85 års fødselsdag den 8. september 2007.

Med bygningen af en magnettogforbindelse mellem København og Århus over Kattegat, som den første del af et dansk magnettognet, bryder vi med opfattelsen om Danmark som et lille land, der blot kan følge i de større landes fodspor. I stedet er det os, der går foran og gør et afgørende teknologisk kvantespring muligt. Med bygningen af et dansk magnettognet revolutionerer vi ikke blot den danske økonomi, i og med at hele Danmark bliver til et sammenhængende lokalområde, men vi sætter også en ny standard, som vil betyde magnettog i hele Europa. Med det russiske initiativ til at bygge en tunnelforbindelse under Beringstrædet, vil vi med tiden kunne tage magnettoget hele vejen fra Aalborg til Los Angeles.

Det er et af historiens smukke sammenfald, at Danmark har fået mulighed for at spille denne historiske rolle netop nu, for derigennem går vi faktisk i fodsporene af den berømte danske skibsfører og opdagelsesrejsende Vitus Bering, der gennem sit modige lederskab ud i det ukendte genopdagede Amerika og lagde navn til Beringstrædet…. Læs mere:

Dansk resumé: Klik her.

English, full article: Click her.

Lederen i bloggen Dagens Arena den 24. oktober af Daniel Mathiesen har overskriften “Beskyt samfundet imod bankerne!” Han skrev: “Vi er nødt til at forstå, at strukturelle reformer er nødvendige i det finansielle system for at beskytte samfundets velfærd. Den højeste prioritet bør være en ‘firewall’ mellem kommercielle banker og investeringsbanker – en såkaldt bankseparation. Dette kombineret med skarpere regler for kapitalkrav, hvilket ville beskytte både långivere og arbejdere.” Dagens Arena er en vigtig blog relateret til Sveriges socialdemokratiske parti.

Den 29. oktober 2018 (EIRNS) – Der vil blive afholdt to konferencer om Den Nye Silkevej i forbindelse med åbningen af regulære ‘feeder’-transporter (af containere, red.) både i Haparanda i Sverige og Narvik i Norge til udgangspunktet for Den finske Silkevej, Kouvola. Der påbegyndtes regelmæssig togdrift til Yiwu, Kina, i november 2017 til og fra Kouvola, som er et jernbane-knudepunkt tæt på den finsk-russiske grænse i det sydlige Finland. Det almindelige jernbanesystem kan allerede bringe gods fra Sverige og Norge til Kouvola på Den Nye Silkevej. Nu bliver disse transporter organiseret som en regelmæssig transportservice fra Haparanda i Sverige, på grænsen til Finland og fra den norske Atlanterhavshavn i Narvik.

Der vil blive afholdt en konference, “Logistik Nord 2018”, den 7.-8. november i Luleå, og den vil være næsten helt dedikeret til Den Nye Silkevej. En lignende konference afholdes i Narvik d. 21.-22. november.

D.1. oktober 2018 (EIRNS) – Den 28. september blev den nystiftede ‘Belt & Road Initiative Executive Group’ for Sverige (BRIX) lanceret under det prominente ‘Kina-Sverige Business Forum’, der blev afholdt i Grand Hotel i den svenske hovedstad Stockholm. I år fokuserede Business Forum på Bælte og Vej-Initiativet.

Ordstyrer Hussein Askary åbnede arrangementet ved at citere det kinesiske ordsprog: “Hvis du vil være rig, så byg først en vej.” Som formand for BRIX, bød Ulf Sandmark velkommen til de over hundrede deltagere, og forklarede formålene for BRIX. Ambassadør for Folkerepublikken Kina, Mr. Gui Congyou gav en entusiastisk åbningstale til forummet, og bød oprettelsen af BRIX velkommen.

Myndighederne og medierne i Sverige har hidtil været uvidende om Bælte & Vej-Initiativet. B & R Business Forum leverede den nødvendige indsigt for at ændre på dette. BRIX, foreningen der blev lanceret på dette forum, vil fremme en åben dialog og større bevidsthed om Bælte & Vej-Initiativet (BVI) og dets fordele for Sverige.

Et vigtigt punkt vedrørende BVI er, at det ikke kun handler om forbindelser til Kina, men er et initiativ til at fremme global sammenhængskraft. Alle nationer i verden inviteres til at deltage i BVI på deres egne vilkår. Den første taler, Stephen Brawer, næstformand for BRIX, pegede på et verdenskort, hvor alle kontinenter vil blive forbundet i fremtiden, selv med forbindelser ud til Australien. Han pegede på Forum for Kina-Afrika samarbejde (FOCAC) i Beijing d. 3.-4. september, hvor 53 afrikanske nationer koblede sig på BVI for at opfylde den Afrikanske Unions Agenda 2063 for et verdensomspændende moderne infrastrukturnetværk, der vil gøre en ende på fattigdommen på kontinentet.

BVI bør ikke kun ses som et “praktisk” transportsystem for handel, understregede Kitty Smyth i den efterfølgende præsentation. Fru Smyth, en britisk strategi- og PR-seniorrådgiver for kinesisk-europæiske forretningsforbindelser, understregede, at BVI, siden det blev lanceret af præsident Xi Jinping i 2013, også har en filosofisk dimension med at fremme harmoni: “At fremme en ny type af internationale forbindelser” og “at skabe partnerskaber med dialog uden konfrontation, og venskab snarere end alliance.” Hun rådede Sverige til at etablere faste kontorer, der er i stand til at udvikle det langsigtede Bælte og Vej-samarbejde med Kina, præcist som Storbritannien også har gjort, med et kontor for BVI-banken AIIB, et regionalt samarbejde kaldet ‘Northern Powerhouse’, den parlamentariske gruppe og regeringens faste udsending til BVI.

De typiske misforståelser om BVI i svenske virksomhedskredse blev dissekeret af Ali Faramandeh, formand for CSBC. BVI er meget, meget mere end kinesisk produktion af svenske varer. Den nye Silkevej er heller ikke noget, som befinder sig langt borte, som mange i det nordlige hjørne af Europa ellers tror. Blandt de 70 medlemsstater i BVI, er der også naboer i Europa, som allerede er ved at opbygge deres del af det globale forbindelses-netværk, projekter, hvor svenske virksomheder kan deltage med det samme.

At arbejde sammen med Kina er udfordrende for den gamle verden, forklarede Ying Wu – en tidligere ingeniørstuderende i Stockholm, som nu er direktør for SinceUs – i den afsluttende præsentation på forummet. Hun trak mange indsigtsfulde og humoristiske eksempler på problemer frem, som hun er stødt på i forbindelse med at hjælpe svenske forretningsklienter med at komme ind og udvide sig på det kinesiske marked med 437 millioner shoppere på e-handel. Hun præsenterede et ”skoleeksempel” med det svenske varemærke Airnum, som hun har hjulpet med at udvikle sig fra et ukendt ‘brand’ til det bedst sælgende mærke i løbet af et år.

Det er vigtigt at gøre disse muligheder for små og mellemstore virksomheder (SMV’er) velkendte som bedste praksis; for at fremme forståelsen i Sverige af betydningen af BVI, og de muligheder som det åbner for innovative virksomheder i mange lande verden over.

Den nye sammenslutning, BRIX, udspringer af succesen med seminaret om BVI d. 30. maj, arrangeret af Schiller Instituttet sammen med CSBC, ambassadørerne i Kina og Pakistan, såvel som Chargé d’affaires i Sydafrika. Efter succesen med dette seminar, besluttede arrangørerne og nogle af deltagerne, herunder svenske iværksættere, at danne en aktionsgruppe til fremme af BVI i Sverige. Flere rapporter og informationer er på vej.

Successful Belt and Road Seminar in Stockholm

On Wednesday morning, May 30th, 2018, the Schiller Institute hosted a seminar together with China’s Chamber of Commerce in Sweden,  China Eastern Airlines, supported by: Embassy of China in Sweden,  China Cultural Center and in cooperation with: China Sweden  Business Council. 

It was very successful with the Chinese Ambassador speaking,  together with the Ambassador of Pakistan, and the Chargé  d´Affaires from South Africa as well as with Stephen Brawer,  Hussein Askary and other prominent speakers. Jason Ross opened  and moderated the seminar which was attended by 83 participants  from embassies, industry, institutions including from the Foreign  Ministry. Media were represented by Chinese media and a  journalist from the largest Swedish tabloid. A number Schiller  Institute contacts participated. The title of the seminar was  “The Significance of China’s Belt and Road Initiative for World  Economic Development.” 

After the Chinese Ambassador, Stephen Brawer made a  presentation including a strong attack against geopolitics and  “the modern form of the British Empire.” The topic of his speech  was: “The Strategic Significance of the BRI: Overcoming  Geopolitics.” As the seminar also had diplomats from Pakistan and  South Africa it was made clear that the Belt & Road is not only  about China but a global perspective. 

Hussein Askary opened up the second panel with a speech  about “The Potentially Transformative Impact of the Belt and Road  on Sweden, Europe and Third Parties.” He presented the work of  the Schiller Institute to promote the New Silk Road since the  early 1990s up to now. He was followed by managers of various  companies from China and Sweden. The Deputy General Manager of  Bank of China Stockholm Branch presented the impact of the B&R  policies on today´s economy. Two Swedish consultants presented  ways and means to develop business, esp. production and  infrastructure between China and Sweden. Also the head of China  Eastern Airlines, who sponsored the seminar, presented his  expanding airline network between Europe and China/Asia. 

In the first question period Ulf Sandmark called for Sweden  to join the Belt & Road bringing up the model of Swedish Chinese  industrial cooperation experience from the Volvo Cars success  story, calling for extending this model of Swedish-Chinese  innovative industrial cooperation to the BRI projects in Africa. 

The seminar was a breakthrough from two standpoints. First  that the Chinese deliberately are taking the gloves off by  inviting the Schiller Institute to speak clearly about the  British role of geopolitics as the ideology behind the hysterical  attacks against the B&R from the Swedish establishment. Secondly  the seminar was a breakthrough for the Schiller Institute in  Sweden reaching out to very productive networks as well as  establishment institutions who were present at the seminar. 

Audience members were very open about saying they learnt  something new about the B&R, which so far for most people, and  especially institutions, has  been misunderstood as some limited  trade policy with China. The global, economic, cultural and  scientific perspective in the new paradigm of B&R had been  lacking in their understanding so far. Bringing in Africa in the  focus, as the continent with an expected more than 2 billion  population 2050 and as the coming motor of world economic growth,  helped very much to widen the perspective of the audience. 

Stephen Brawer´s speech: “The Strategic Significance of the  BRI: Overcoming Geopolitics” started off with the World  Land-Bridge map followed by a picture of Helga Zepp-LaRouche at  B&R Forum in Beijing May 2017. He quoted President Xi Jinping at  Boao Forum, April 2018: In a world aspiring for peace and  development, the cold-war and zero-sum mentality looks even more  out of place. … To promote common prosperity and development in  today’s world, we have no choice but to pursue greater  connectivity and integrated development.” Contrasting that,  Brawer presented the Halford Mackinder´s Heartland theory.  Bringing geopolitics into today with the example of Zbigniew  Brzezinski who used Mackinder´s map in his book from 1997. As an  example for Sweden Brawer pointed to another neutral European  nation, Austria, who has taken a clear stand against geopolitics  and joined the B&R. Touching upon the philosophical East-West  dialogue Brawer pointed to the deep influence of Confucius on the  founder of the American republic: Benjamin Franklin. After a  quote from President Xi Jinping speech at the UN, January 2017  “Towards a Community of Shared Future for Mankind,” Brawer ended  with the quotes from Krafft Ericke from the book the  {Extraterrestrial imperative: From Closed to Open World}, 1971,  about the limitless development potential of space. 

In his speech the Pakistani Ambassador praised the  development corridor China is building in Pakistan from the  Chinese border to the Indian Ocean port of Gwadar. It will open  up the landlocked neighbor countries in Central Asia and also  provide a shortcut into China for the Maritime Silk Road, he  explained. 

The Chargé d´Affairs of South Africa rose to the occasion as  a member of BRICS and took a global perspective and not just  African. He brought up the whole historical colonial past by  referring to the Bandung conference defining the relations  between Asia and Africa. 

In the Q&A of first panel the ambassadors and Brawer  answered questions, where many of the points were sharpened. 

This seminar came at a time where a massive mobilization in  the media and think tank sector against the BRI, describing China  as a new hegemon in the world. An unprecedented number of seminar  have been and will be held around these days on the theme, and a  new state-backed think tank, New Silk Road Observatory, will be  established on June 4th, amid a lot of fanfare. The Schiller  Institute Seminar is the only one with a positive and  constructive tone. In answering questions, the Chinese Ambassador  told the audience to ask the Schiller Institute if they had  questions about the BRI, because they have the best knowledge of  it. The effect on the audience was just that, as many persons  said they wanted to invite the Schiller Institute for followups.

26. marts, 2018 – Nord-Syd-dimensionen af jernbanen fra det Arktiske Hav (Ishavet), Helsinki-Tallinn-tunnellen og Rail Baltica i områderne, der støder op til Rusland, har sendt nogle geopolitikere ud i et spin, hvor de foretrækker at se dette som en måde at isolere Rusland på og, i stedet for at gå igennem Rusland for at komme til Kina, da at gå uden om, både mod nord og syd. En artikel, »Poland And
Sweden Are Building a `Baltic Ring’«, (Polen og Sverige bygger en ‘Baltisk Ring’), skrevet af den Moskva-baserede, amerikanske geopolitiker Andrew Korybko den 23. marts, nævner endda Polens og Sveriges historie som 16. og 17. hundredetallets europæiske magter, for en genopståen som en antirussisk, nordisk blok.

Det er helt hen i vejret, eftersom den Nordlige Sejlrute hovedsageligt er et russisk projekt, i samarbejde med andre nationer. Desuden løber den Nye Silkevej til det Baltiske Hav (Østersøen) for det meste igennem Rusland fra Kina. Godstog ankommer regelmæssigt til den østlige, finske jernbaneby Kouvola, til den lettiske hovestad Riga, og fra Chongqing, Kina, ankommer Soltoget til den litauiske havn Klaipeda. Når Belkomur-genvejen fra den Transsibiriske Jernbane snart bliver forlænget til Arkhangelsk, vil det også skabe en korridor til centrum af Finland.

Men hovedårsagen til, at Rusland ikke kan udelukkes af området omkring det Baltiske Hav, er, at det ikke vil være muligt at isolere den økonomiske virkning af områdets store by – Skt. Petersborg, Rusland, med et indbyggertal på 5,3 mio. Når tunnellen forbinder Helsinki og Tallinn, vil de to hovedstæder, sammen med Skt. Petersborg, danne det største byområde i Nordeuropa omkring den Finske Bugt.

Den enorme infrastrukturudvikling i området omkring det Baltiske Hav vil styrke det Nye Paradigme snarere end en eller anden forældet geopolitik.

Foto: Engang i fremtiden vil en ekspresrejse fra Helsinki, Finland, til Tallinn, Estland, blot tage 30 min. via en tunnel under havet. Billede fra forundersøgelserne til byggeriet.

København, 1. marts, 2018 – I forbindelse med det første europæiske Big Science Forum 2018 i København den 27.-28. feb., fik EIR’s kontor i København mulighed for at få flere betydningsfulde interviews om forskellige facetter af ITER’s tokamak fusionsenergi-projekt (ITER: International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), der er under opførelse i Frankrig. ITER-samarbejdet omfatter EU, USA, Rusland, Kina, Indien, Korea og Japan – hvilket svarer til mere end halvdelen af verdens befolkning.

ITER’s mål er at bygge en eksperimental reaktor, der kan opnå Q=10, dvs., at selve reaktoren vil producere ti gange så meget energi som output, i forhold til input-energien, i 2025 (eksklusiv energiforbrug uden for reaktoren), selv om det ikke vil blive forbundet til elektricitetsnettet. Det er det næste skridt i demonstrations-kraftværket, eller DEMO. En vigtig ting, som ITER-tokamakken vil blive brugt til, er at studere en »brændende plasma« – selve plasmas egen evne til at være med til at opvarme reaktionen i tillæg til udefrakommende varmekilder.

Tre af EIR’s interviews er på engelsk: med kommunikationsdirektøren for Fusion for Energy, EU’s gren af projektet; med dr. Luo Delong, generaldirektør for ITER, Kina; og så med en fransk industriel højteknologileverandør af ITER-komponenter.

Big Science Business Forum 2018 var et stort initiativ, som Danmarks Uddannelses- og Forskningsministerium har taget, med det formål at skabe det, LaRouche har kaldt en »videnskabelig drivkraft«; dvs., den videnskabelige forsknings evne til at skabe økonomisk vækst i den overordnede økonomi. Forummet samlede for første gang folk fra hele Europa. Under denne konference blev det muligt for de syv Big Science-institutioner, såsom Fusion for Energy, den Europæiske Rumorganisation (ESA), CERN-acceleratoren, et par andre neutron- og røntgen-acceleratorer, det Europæiske Molekylærbiologiske Laboratorium, det Sydeuropæiske Observatorium, mindre, tilknyttede institutioner i Europa og de high-tech-industrier, som i øjeblikket leverer, eller har potentiale til at kunne levere, komponenter eller ideer, at mødes og udveksle ideer om deres fremtidige investeringsplaner og indgå konkrete aftaler med industrien. Alle var overraskede, da flere end 1.000 mennesker tilmeldte sig arrangementet.

Flere af talerne, der repræsenterede de syv store forskningsinstitutioner, understregede, at menneskelig nysgerrighed, fascination, inspiration og motivering var afgørende for at forfølge stor videnskab og bekræftede således LaRouches centrale idé om, at menneskelig kreativitet er udgangspunktet for videnskab, teknologi, økonomi og vores civilisation som helhed.

Den danske forsknings- og uddannelsesminister Søren Pind indledte sin tale med at sige, at denne konference var »et kig ind i fremtiden«. Portugals Carlos Moedas, EU-kommissær for forskning, videnskab og innovation, sagde, at de tilstedeværende også måtte være politiske – og tale for politikere og vælgere om, hvorfor, det er vigtigt at investere i ’Stor Videnskab’ (Big Science). Som et negativt eksempel nævnte han eksemplet om en accelerator, der skulle have været bygget i Houston, USA, men som fik sit budget beskåret af USA’s Kongres. Fordi den nødvendige politiske vilje ikke eksisterede i USA, blev ekspertisen centreret omkring Europa.

En anden interessant, politisk pointe, som blev rejst af flere af talerne på konferencen, var betydningen af at fortsætte det videnskabelige samarbejde med lande som Rusland, på trods af politiske spændinger.

Ud over de engelsksprogede interviews lavede EIR fire korte, dansksprogede interviews med Big Science Denmark og tre high-tech industrileverandører om den effekt, Big Science har haft på at øge deres teknologiske niveau.

EIR-Danmarks YouTube-kanals Big Science interviews er udlagt på det danske Schiller Instituts website: http://schillerinstitut.dk/si/?p=23977

Efterfølgende vil nogle af talerne på Big Science Business Forum 2018’s plenarmøde også blive udlagt samme sted.

Foto: EIR’s korrespondent i København Michelle Rasmussen interviewer dr. Luo Delong, generaldirektør for ITER, Kina.   

English:

EIR Interviews European and Chinese Fusion Energy Spokesmen in
Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN, March 1 (EIRNS) — In connection with the first
European-wide Big Science Business Forum 2018 in Copenhagen on
Feb. 27-28, {EIR}’s Copenhagen bureau was able to get several
important interviews on different facets of the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) tokamak fusion energy
project, under construction in southern France. The ITER
cooperation includes the EU, U.S., Russia, China, India, Korea
and Japan — more than half of the world’s population.
ITER’s goal is to build an experimental reactor which will
achieve Q=10, that is, that the reactor itself will produce 10
times the output of energy input in 2025 (not including energy
use outside of the reactor), though it will not be connected to
the electricity grid. That is the next step in the demonstration
power plant, or DEMO. One important thing the ITER tokamak will
be used for, is to study a “burning plasma,” — the ability of
the plasma itself to help heat the reaction, in addition to
outside heat sources.
Three of the {EIR} interviews are in English: with the
communications director for Fusion for Energy, the EU arm of the
project; with Dr. Luo Delong, the director general for ITER
China; and also with a very high-technology French industrial
supplier of ITER components.
Big Science Business Forum 2018 was a great initiative taken
by the Danish Ministry for Science and Education, to create what
LaRouche has called a “science-driver,” the ability of scientific
research to generate economic growth in the general economy. It
gathered people, for the first time, on a European-wide basis.
During this conference, the seven Big Science institutions, such
as Fusion for Energy, the European Space Agency, the CERN
accelerator, a couple of other neutron and x-ray accelerators,
the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, the European Southern
Observatory, smaller affiliated institutions in Europe, and the
high-tech industries which either currently, or potentially,
supply components or ideas, were able to meet to exchange ideas
about their future investment plans, and make concrete agreements
with industry. Everyone was surprised when over 1,000 people
registered for the event.
Several of the speakers representing the seven big science institutions underlined that human curiosity, fascination, inspiration and motivation were essential for the pursuit of big science, confirming LaRouche’s central idea that human creativity is the starting point for science, technology, economy and our civilization as a whole.
Danish Minister for Science and Education Søren Pind
prefaced his speech by saying that this conference was a “peek
into the future.” Portugal’s Carlos Moedas, EU Commissioner for
Research, Science and Innovation, said that the people in the
room also had to be political — to address politicians and
voters on why it is important to invest in Big Science. As a
negative example, he used the example of an accelerator that was
supposed to have been built in Houston, but which had its funding
cut by the U.S. Congress. Because the necessary political will
did not exist in the United States, the expertise became centered
in Europe.
Another interesting political point brought up by several
speakers during the conference was the importance of continuing
the scientific cooperation with countries such as Russia, despite
the political tensions.
In addition to the English-language interviews, {EIR}
conducted four short Danish-language interviews with Big Science
Denmark, and three high-tech industrial suppliers, about the
effect Big Science has had on raising their technological levels.
All of the EIRDanmark YouTube channel’s Big Science
interviews are also posted to the website of the Schiller
Institute in Denmark: http://schillerinstitut.dk/si/?p=23977
Some speeches during the Big Science Business Forum 2018’s
plenary session will also be posted there.

EIR (Executive Intelligence Review, Michelle Rasmussen) lavede følgende interviews den 27. februar 2018:

In English:
På engelsk

Fusion for Energy, Stavros Chatzipanagiotou

Fusion and China, ITER China, Luo Delong

Fusion and Industry, CNIM, Jean-Claude Cercassi, French ITER component supplier

På dansk
In Danish:

Big Science Danmark og tre firmaer

Nogle taler fra Plenary Session I:

Fusion for Energy
Richard Cobben, Head of ITER’s Delivery Department

Tom Gillesberg: »Velkommen til vores første offentlige møde – i Danmark, vel at mærke – efter valget fandt sted. Vi kan jo begynde med at nyde synet af vore plakater her bagved, for de er desværre nu alle blevet taget ned; de hænger ikke længere i lygtepælene; København og de andre byer, hvor vi stillede op, er blevet lidt mere kedelige igen. Men vi kan begynde med at sige tak til alle dem, der stemte på os. Og jeg tror, jeg kan garantere, og de kan føle sig lidt som nogle små profeter, for de var i stand til at se det, som de fleste tilsyneladende ikke var i stand til at se; nemlig, at der er en ny, ustoppelig forandring i gang i verden, der også kommer til at svømme hen over Danmark, bare vent og se.

Nogle af os var privilegerede og fik en ekstra smag på det, i form af den konference, Schiller Instituttet netop har afholdt i Frankfurt, Tyskland, hvor vi havde en lang række talere – det vil jeg komme tilbage til – som faktisk befandt sig mere eller mindre inde i denne proces med at udbrede Bælte & Vej Initiativet til Asien, til Afrika; gøre det her til det Nye Paradigme, der regerer her på kloden…«

Hør hele Toms fremlæggelse:

https://soundcloud.com/si_dk/schiller-instituttets-konference-i-tyskland-realiser-menneskehedens-drom-med-den-nye-silkevej

13. nov., 2017 – Med flere end 40 containere afgik et fragttog med destination Xi’an, Kina, fra Kouvola i det sydøstlige Finland den 10. nov. Det vil tage 17 dage at køre de 9.000 km over det eurasiske kontinent, hvor toget blandt andre lande vil passere igennem Rusland og Kasakhstan, før det når sin slutdestination i det nordvestlige Kina.

Varerne pakket i containerne er alle fremstillet i Finland og rangerer fra maskineri, tømmer, arbejdstøj og skibskomponenter, iflg. Jari Grönlund, driftschef for selskabet Unytrade. Unytrade, der blev stiftet i sommer, servicerer specielt den nyåbnede rute, sagde Grönlund, der mener, at den eneste jernbanerute, som forbinder de nordiske lande og Kina, vil åbne en ny kanal for at bringe flere nordiske produkter til nationer langs med ruten.

Olli-Pekka Hilmola, logistikprofessor ved Lappeenranta Teknologiske Universitet, sagde til den finske statskanal Yle, at en fast togforbindelse fra Kouvola til Kina ville være vigtigt for den finske økonomi. Li Zhao, assistent til generaldirektøren for Xi’an International Inland Port Investment & Development Group, forklarede, at varer ville blive videretransporteret til diverse markeder i Kina fra terminussen i Xi’an.

Ifølge planen vil i alt fem tog køre mellem Kouvola og Xi’an frem til årets slutning. Samtidig vil et tog afgå fra Xi’an til Kouvola hver uge. Li sagde, at turene kunne øges, hvis handelen går glat; forhåbentlig vil et tog med varer blive afsendt hver dag i en snarlig fremtid.

Foto: 10. nov., 2017: Fragttoget under en ceremoni for lancering af jernbaneruten i Kouvola, Finland.(Xinhua)