E.I. R.STRATEGIC WEEKLY NEWSLETTER ALERT Volume 33, No. 29, July 18, 2019

E.I.

R.STRATEGIC WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 

ALERT Volume 33, No. 29, July 18, 2019 

On the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, Time to End Irrational Environmentalism The celebration of the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo Moon landing of July 20, 1969 offers the world an excellent occasion to reflect on how very much space travel and research has expanded and continues to expand our knowledge of the universe and its lawfulness. And to realize that it lies in the very nature of man to go out into the universe to discover the origins and history of our own planet, and of the phenomenon we call “life”. This is what the great German-American space pioneer Krafft-Ehricke referred to as “mankind’s extraterres- trial imperative”. When that challenge is taken up, it is cause for great optimism in society. 

What space exploration shows us first and foremost is that the Earth is not a closed system, but part of a vast universe which we are only beginning to learn about. That in itself, refutes the notion of finite resources, which is used by the so-called environmentalist movement to justify calls for zero growth, of even negative growth, and for a drastic reduction of the human population. Their actual agenda is to maintain the power of a select oligarchy. 

Just one example of resources among many, often cited by Lyndon LaRouche, is the abundance of Helium-3 on the Moon, which could be mined and be brought back to Earth to power the second generation of fusion reactors, and supply clean and plentiful energy for all. Already back in 1983, LaRouche au- thored a book titled There are no limits to growth, that refutes from a scientific standpoint, the thesis by the Club of Rome and the oligarchy it served. What those quacks deliberately failed to take into account is the fact that new scientific discoveries made by man redefine what a resource is. 

Their view of man as a burden on the planet and a pollutant has unfortunately become dominant in the trans-Atlantic world, leading to crushing pessimism and irrationality. The youth are particularly vulnerable, as seen in the carefully orchestrated and promoted Fridays for Future demonstrations, and the various predictions that the “world will end” in 12 years, if CO2 emis- sions are not drastically reduced. There is no scientific proof of that, only assertions. 

Helga Zepp-LaRouche points out in a recent article that the current “global warming hysteria” was not the first modern scare campaign based on irrational fears. In 1983 in Germany, there was the story of the imminent disappearance of forests, with the Spiegel calling it an “ecological Hiroshima”. And then 

there was the “ozone hole” which was going to cause the death of the planet, before it was refuted by its author many years later as “too apocalyptic”. 

The real danger is not the catastrophes, Helga Zepp-LaRouche explains, but the ideology of the environmentalists and would- be “protectors” of the climate, which is pushed under the guise of various catastrophes by the financial oligarchy. They intend on the one hand, “to make a lot of profits for investors who invest in ‘sustainable financial products’, and on the other, to keep the population in a state of pessimism that makes them feel small, scared and powerless....” 

“The two, completely opposite images of humanity, ex- pressed in space travel and eco-hysteria, determine whether people are aware of their creativity and are therefore free, or whether they are turned into into fearful bundles of nerves who accept the axioms of the neoliberal oligarchy.” 

See more news of space research below. 

New North Korean Constitution Emphasizes Science over Military Following on the extraordinary summit between Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Trump in the demilitarized zone on June 30, intensive diplomatic initiatives are yielding results. It is as- sumed that working-level negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang will take place later this month. In that light, the US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun met with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon in Berlin on July 11, to discuss further steps to ensure progress during the talks. 

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on July 11 that the United States is considering a step-by-step approach to negociations, under which some of the sanctions against North Korea would be suspended for a 12- to 18-month period, in exchange for the dismantlement of its main nuclear facility. The report was based on “a source close to White House delibera- tions on North Korea.” According to that source, the primary objective of the US side is to build trust with Pyongyang, and do “something historic to ensure the hostile intent of both sides is now firmly in the past.” 

The report was later denied by the State Department spokes- woman. Clearly, if President Trump does intend to end the con- flict, he will need to rein in the neocons in his own Administra- tion, in particular his National Security Adviser John Bolton and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who will certainly attempt to sabotage any such development. 

One important indication of the change in strategic thinking in Pyongyang and the policy of opening up can be found in the country’s revised constitution, the text of which was only published last week. Media coverage of the changes in the West have focused on the designation of the chairman of the State Affairs Commission (SAC), currently Kim Jong Un, as the of- ficial head of state, presenting it as a consolidation of Kim’s dictatorship. 

However, the emphasis it puts on the role of science and technology in developing the nation is groundbreaking, and in line with Kim’s oft-stated intention. “Science technology power is the nation’s most important strategic resource,” the Consti- tution states, according to Yonhap.It also calls for increasing the share of science and technology in economic activities. 

In tandem, it mandates that the nation “expand and develop external economic relations,” which is a broader formulation than in the previous constitution. And it deletes the military- first policy (“songun”) of prioritizing the role of the Army, which was mandated in the preamble of that constitution. 

The US-UK “Special Relationship” on Shaky Ground Despite assurances following President Trump’s recent visit to the United Kingdom that the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K. is as strong as ever, the secret cables written by the British Ambassador, Sir Kim Darroch, to the Foreign Office, and leaked leak in the Daily Mail of July 7, is another nail in the coffin of the arrangement which, in reality, has kept the U.S. subservient to the self-interests of the British Empire. Darroch resigned on July 10, after Trump said the U.S. would no longer work with him, and the likely incoming Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed to come to his defense. 

Coming as the implications of the British role in initiating the Russiagate coup attempt against President Trump are still unfolding, it would be an understatement to say that panic is spreading among imperial geopoliticians in London, about the future of the special relationship. Adding to this, the uncertain- ty regarding Brexit, and the coming departure of the hapless Prime Minister May offer the perfect opportunity for the U.S. to openly proclaim the special relationship is dead. 

While most of the British and U.S. media focused on Dar- roch’s nasty comments about Trump and his administration, the deeper story is that of Darroch’s description of his ef- forts to manipulate Trump, by “flooding the zone” around the President with those parroting the British line. He boasted that through the “cultivation” of the President’s advisers and friends, who will give him answers favorable to British inter- ests, he is now “surrounded by a more hawkish group of advis- ers.” This group includes John Bolton, who has been meeting with Darroch. 

Betraying the British intent to provoke Trump to launch a re- gime change war against Iran, Darroch wrote that even though he believes Trump opposes such a war (cf. SAS 28/19), “Just one more Iranian attack somewhere in the region could trigger yet another Trump U-turn.” The British seizure of an Iranian oil freighter on July 5 and other provocations are designed to serve such a purpose. 

While Boris Johnson did not leap to Darroch’s defense, he later publicly apologized for his failure to uphold British stra- tegic objectives. 

His opponent for PM, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, showed no such hesitation: he praised Darroch for exhibiting “an unswerving devotion to upholding the interests of the Unit- ed Kingdom, in the best tradition of British diplomacy.” 

Hopefully, President Trump has been informed of this, and is aware that the “best tradition” spoken of by Hunt is that of the British undermining U.S. sovereignty, under the guise of the special relationship. 

The British Empire Exposes Itself Globally When a person or an agency is exposed as suspect in a crime, it tends to cover itself and adopt a low profile – in other words, it attempts to deflect suspicions away from it. That is not the case with what we call the “British Empire”. With the increas- ing exposure of the role of British intelligence and the British government in “Russiagate” and in the manipulation of US poli- tics, the Empire has reacted with yet more provocations and manipulations worldwide, in an attempt to salvage its power. Consider just a few cases from the past two weeks: 

Provocation no. 1 against Iran: on July 4, British forces seized an Iranian supertanker off the coast of Gibraltar, with the excuse that it was heading to Syria, thus violating sanc- tions against Damascus. Tehran demanded immediate release of the ship and of the crew, insisting that the oil was not to be delivered to Syria. 

Provocation no. 2 against Iran: on July 11, the British government claimed that an attempt by three Iranian vessels to capture a British oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, had been neutralized by the intervention of a British warship. The Iranian Foreign Minister denied such an episode and accused the British government of seeking to stir up tensions. 

Libya: While a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Libyan civil war reflects the under- standing in Washington and Moscow that a continuation of the conflict will have devastating humanitarian consequences, for- eign agencies are supplying both factions with weapons, money and ammunition. Arab media report that the forces of the Tripoli government were able to recapture Gharyan, south of Tripoli, thanks to a fresh supply of weapons from Turkey. This explains the angered reaction of Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the head of the other faction, who banned Turkish flights over his terri- tory and ordered the capture of six Turkish sailors, who were eventually released. 

At the same time, the Tripoli forces claim to have found U.S.- made missiles in Gharyan, which had originally been sold to France, proving that the Haftar forces receive foreign aid. The French Defense Minister admitted that those missiles belonged to French special troops deployed in Libya. The question of who benefits from the war’s continuation points to the obvious sus- pect: the British Empire and its “Sykes-Picot” assets in North- ern Africa and South West Asia. 

Italy: A “Russiagate” operation has been launched from London against the Lega through Alberto Nardelli, the head of BuzzFeed’s European desk based in London. Nardelli, who also works for the Guardian, wrote about the existence of an audio tape allegedly revealing a deal which the head of the Russia-Lombardy Friendship Association, Lega member Gian- luca Savoini, had concluded with Russian oilmen close to Putin. According to Nardelli, the Lega arranged for ENI to make a major oil purchase from the Russian oilmen at a 4% discount, with the difference going to the Lega to finance the party’s European election campaign. 

Although BuzzFeed has produced no evidence for its allega- tions, a prosecutor in Milan has formally opened an investiga- tion while the media keep up the drumbeat. Clearly, the inten- tion is to undermine the Rome’s efforts to change EU policy on Russia, as stated by Prime Minister Conte during Vladimir Putin’s visit to Rome July 4 (cf. SAS 28/19). 

EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 2 N° 29 / 2019 

Greek Elections: SYRIZA Punished for Implementing EU Memorandum The ruling SYRIZA party was voted out of power in Greece’s national election on July 7, leving the opposition conserva- tive New Democracy party to form the new government. It is no secret, however, that this was above all a “negative” vote against SYRIZA, for having implemented the “memorandum” demanded by Greece’s international creditors, including the Eu- ropean Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which led to crushing austerity. Indeed, under the threat of what it saw as national destruction, the govern- ment had agreed to take on €300 bn in new debt in order to bail out the banks (mostly French, German and British) that had lent billions to Greece during the speculative splurge in the first decade of the Eurozone common currency. 

On July 8, even before the new government had been sworn in, the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers met to send a “clear message” to Athens about its “obligations” to pay back the hundreds of billions due to country’s creditors. Many in Greece are nonetheless hoping that the new government will convince the country’s creditors to reduce the budget surplus demanded, which now stands at an unrealistic 3.5% compared to GDP. But the head of the European Stability Mechanism, Klaus Regling, told journalists at the Eurogroup meeting that the 3.5% target is a “cornerstone of the program,” adding that it’s “very hard to see how debt sustainability can be achieved without that.” 

While no new actions were demanded of Greece at this point, the fourth enhanced surveillance report to be published in Au- tumn will likely include more cuts in pensions, maintaining the impossible 3.5% budget surplus, and the privatization of more government entities. 

The new prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to do whatever the creditors want. His program provides for cutting taxes, implementing reforms and attracting foreign in- vestment, which will lead to an ever greater failure than the previous New Democracy government, which was defeated by SYRIZA and the Independent Greeks in 2015 as punishment for signing on to the memorandum. 

The new Finance Minister is Christos Staikouras, a London- educated economist who trained at the Bank of England, and held the same position in the former New Democracy govern- ment which was not very successful in either saving Greece or carrying all the orders demanded by Greece’s creditors. 

Coming back to the election results themselves, the voter turnout was very low, at just 57%, in particular among young voters. The New Democracy Party got nearly 40% of the votes, which included many right-wing voters who had voted in the previous election for the fascist Golden Dawn, which plunged from being the third largest party to not making it past the 3% margin needed to enter parliament. While SYRIZA lost, at 31.5%, the loss was not dramatic and it is now the second party in the parliament. Many former supporters voted this time for a new party named European Realistic Disobedience Front, led by former Syriza Member of Parliament and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. 

Schiller Institute Rep Presents Development Perspective in Ivory Coast and Angola During the month of June, Sébastien Périmony, an expert on African development of the French Schiller Institute, was in- vited to present the economic and scientific ideas of Lyndon LaRouche at two conferences in Africa. The first, on the “New Silk Roads”, was held in the capital city of the Ivory Coast Yamoussoukro on June 15, organized by the Félix Houphouët- 

Boigny Foundation for Peace Research, the nation’s leading foundation, and the Association for the Preservation and Pro- motions of the Ideas of El Hadj Boubacar Gamby Sakho (ASPP- BGS) in partnership with the city’s Confucius Institute. 

Périmony spoke to the hundreds of young students partici- pating, as well as local government officials, on the theme “The New Silk Roads, Opportunities for Africa, with a Focus on the Ivory Coast”. He presented Lyndon LaRouche’s unique eco- nomic contributions to the science of economics, including: the need for an ever-increasing energy flux density in production processes; the metric of potential relative population density, the use of sovereign currency and credit; the need to increase creativity per capita to increase the productive powers of labor; and why Africa, like China, can leap-frog into the future. 

In Angola, Périmony was a speaker at the June 18-20 An- gola ICT Forum 2019, which featured information and com- munication technologies (ICT) exhibitors from various govern- ment agencies and industrial and telecommunications branches from all over the world. Périmony contributed to the session titled, “Education for the Digital Age,” sharing a panel with the Secretary of State for Technical Education and others. 

The deficit of basic infrastructure in Africa, he said, “is an advantage, in that it allows nations to skip the intermediate stages of development that occurred over centuries in the in- dustrialized countries, to leapfrog directly into the most devel- oped technologies. This is the approach that has been taken by China, deploying high-speed rail and magnetically levitated trains, and fourth-generation nuclear fission technology. Simi- larly, China’s is carrying out challenging missions in space that have never been attempted before.” 

Such an approach to development, Périmony insisted, “re- quires a revolution in education dedicated to fostering a culture of learning in which Africa’s children” resolve to meet the scien- tific and technological challenges of tomorrow. 

A highlight of the second day was the release of the very first satellite produced in Angola, a CanSat or mini-satellite built with the help of students who designed experimental payloads. Explosions of joy, and seemingly endless applause greeted the announcement of its success. Périmony reported that the ex- citement was palpable during Angiotec at the various exhibits dedicated to Angolan space policy. The majority of the visitors were young people, who are convinced that their country needs to develop space technologies to ensure the future. 

A more detailed report on Sébastien Périmony’s interven- tions is available on the Schiller Institute website. 

Vladimir Putin Urges International Cooperation on Fusion Energy, Denounces Obscurantism Although unreported in western media, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a significant plea for the development of fusion energy in opening the Global Manufacturing and In- dustrialization Summit (GMIS) in Yekaterinburg on July 9. He called for a “detailed, meaningful discussion” on what kind of sustainable development can guarantee “better living condi- tions and opportunities for unleashing human potential” into the future for all of humanity. 

He suggested that to secure “cleaner air, water and food, which also means a better quality of life and longevity for bil- lions of people on our planet, we must offer up radically new technologies and more efficient and environmentally-friendly devices.” That means fusion energy, which he explained as a nature-like technology “that reproduces natural processes and systems according to the laws of nature,” and could supply a colossal, inexhaustible and safe source of energy. 

EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3 N° 29 / 2019 

However, he noted, to develop fusion energy requires “broad international cooperation and interaction” between government and business, as well as the combined efforts of researchers worldwide. “If technological development becomes truly glob- al, it will not be split up or reined in by attempts to monopolize progress, limit access to education and put up new obstacles to the free exchange of knowledge and ideas. In that context, he cited the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) as an example of successful cooperation, in which Rus- sia is an active participant. 

In other parts of his speech, Vladimir Putin polemicized against those proposing “obscurantism” and rejection of tech- nology as a solution. He dismissed the “total rejection of nu- clear or hydrocarbon energy” as the kind of “showy, but not effective solutions” that create problems. 

Appeals to give up progress, he said, might mean well-being for a select few, but at the same time, “millions of people will have to settle for what they have today or, it would be more appropriate to say, what they don’t have today: access to clean water, food, education and other basics of civilization.” That can only lead to new conflicts, he added. 

In a classic example of his understatement, he noted that “Of course you can’t forbid anyone from wearing animal fur or living in caves, but it is impossible and pointless to try and stop human progress.” 

Whither Space Exploration in the Next 50 Years? As the 50th anniversary of the first human steps on the Moon approaches, it is somewhat ironical that actual, real progress on exploring and returning to the Moon is being made more in the Asia-Pacific region, than in the United States, where ambitious space programs have been all but put on ice for decades now. But that may change with the spread of the new paradigm, and if Donald Trump sticks to his guns. 

In the meantime, on June 27, China reactivated its rover Yutu 2 on the far side of the Moon for another 2-week exploratory mission -- the seventh of its kind since the Chang’e-4 vehicle landed there in January (cf. SAS 2/19). So far on schedule, the next Chinese lunar mission Chang’e 5, which is to land there toward the end of this year, where it will collect and bring back to Earth samples of the materials on the Moon’s surface. 

China has also announced that it will send a first rover next year to Mars to hunt for signs of life. It will investigate whether the planet can be terraformed to make it habitable for humans, while at the same measuring the atmospheric, topographic, geological and magnetic readings as part of a facility study for future exploration and even colonization of Mars. 

As for India, it plans to launch its Chandrayaan 2 mission soon, after an initial postponement of the July 15th date for technical reasons. If successful, the mission will place a lander on the Moon on Sept. 6 some 600 kilometers away from the South Pole. So far, no soft landing has been made there with any space device. The Pragyan rover will roll out of the Vikram lander carrying a number of scientific instruments to collect information on lunar topography, mineralogy, lunar exosphere and signatures of hydroxyl and water-ice. The 20-kilogram, six-wheeled Pragyan rover is a semi-autonomous robot that is tasked with studying the composition of regolith, the mix- ture of tiny moon rocks and fine dust that blankets the Moon’s surface and contains in abundance Helium-3, a very rare sub- stance on Earth, but one which would make thermonuclear fusion power very efficient. 

In contrast to these ventures, the NASA announcements of 

plans to return a manned mission to the Moon in 2024, have not been backed up by a real technological-industrial mobili- zation on the ground. That makes it rather unlikely that the schedule which President Donald Trump and NASA Director Jim Bridenstine have set, can be kept. The U.S. economy at this point seems light years away from a crash lunar program resembling that which brought an American astronaut to the Moon 50 years ago. 

In Europe, in spite of the project to build a permanent lunar base in cooperation with China, called the “Moon Village”, there is still no serious debate on how to plan, finance and produce the required components of such a base, and to transport them to the Moon. 

German FEF Conference: “Back to the Moon, and Then to Mars!” The Fusion Energy Foundation of Germany held an exciting conference on July 13 in Munich, on the occasion of the Apollo celebrations. FEF chairman Werner Zuse opened the meeting by underscoring the optimism that space science can spark to- day, as an antidote to the pervasive “green paradigm”. He re- called that Lyndon LaRouche had founded the FEF precisely to counter the ideology of the limits to growth, and at the end of the 1970s, Fusion magazine in the US reached a run of nearly 100.000 issues per month. Zuse then read a message to the conference by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who situated the need for space research in the overall idea of the common aims of mankind. 

He was followed by Frank Wukasch, a senior German space scientist, who demonstrated key aspects of the history of space flight up until the Moon landing. After that, Jacqueline Myrrhe, a German space journalist, showed very vividly the success sto- ry of the Chinese space missions up until the landing of Chang’e 4 on the far side of the moon. 

Werner Grandl, an engineer and architect from Austria, de- veloped his own vision of space exploration, and for using not only the Moon, but also asteroids, as a source of raw materials. He also presented a multitude of concepts for developing the Moon, including a modular construction of a base to house up to several thousand people. 

At the conclusion of the meeting, an explosive documentary film initiated by Frank Wukasch was shown. It told the story of a group of dedicated German rocket scientists, including Mr. Wukasch himself, who after the war began to develop rocket technology in Germany on a private basis, out of which the OTRAG company emerged. They managed to get the funds to build up a rocket center in Zaire under very primitive condi- tions, but succeeded with very simple means in actually produc- ing a workable rocket of the size of the V2 from Peenemünde. The group, however, being politically very naive, came under heavy attack from all sides – US, Europe, the Soviets, and fi- nally the whole project was crushed. 

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EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 4 N° 29 / 2019