E.I.R.STRATEGIC WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
ALERT Volume 34, No. 27, July 2, 2020
Schiller Institute Conference: How to Launch a World Recovery In a day-long conference featuring some two dozen present- ers and discussants, the Schiller Institute on June 27 examined the urgent issues that the leaders of the world’s major powers need to address in the framework of an emergency summit process. The most pressing among them: the need to create a global health system to adequately fight the current pandemic and those to come; to ensure adequate food and agricultural supplies to all nations and peoples, freed from the control of the major cartels; to launch a worldwide economic develop- ment program in the spirit of win-win cooperation, and in so doing to judo the drive toward conflict and war. The confer- ence was titled, “Will Humanity Prosper, or Perish? The Future Demands a Four-Power Summit Now.” Those four powers are Russia, China, India, and the United States.
The founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, set the tone in opening her keynote speech by warning: “Unless we, in the very short term, implement a New Bretton Woods system, exactly as Franklin D. Roosevelt had intended it, the current orientation of the world towards ever more conflicts, both domestically in many states of the world, but also on a strategic level, threatens to escalate into a great new world war, a Third World War, which because of the existence of thermonuclear weapons would mean the an- nihilation of the human species.”
In the panels that followed, current and former government officials from Russia, the United States, China and Japan, joined political and community leaders to debate the actions needed to enable humanity to prosper (cf. below).
Infrastructure Is Key to Healthy Development In the first panel, China’s Executive Director at the IMF, Dr. Jin Zhongxia, proposed that all the multi-lateral lending banks such as the World Bank should greatly increase their lending now, (including to the United States), in order to build infra- structure such as hospitals, high-speed railroads, etc., and to assist national governments with credit. Former Japanese Finance Ministry and IMF official Daisuke Kotegawa stressed that Japan aims for infrastructure-building for industrializa- tion in developing countries, and can cooperate on this with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Boris Meshchanov, Counselor at the Russian UN Mission in New York, spoke of the need for
“construction of new physical infrastructure” and said that in Africa, Russia wants to help in doubling electrical power capac- ity quickly (this would mean building more than 150,000 MW of new capacity). He also stressed that Russia wants to expand its food exports, already being a leading grain exporter.
Two other presentations focused on healthcare issues. Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former Surgeon-General of the United States (1993-94), proposed a kind of medical youth corps to enlist young Americans in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of public health infrastructure in the developing sector, and in some “advanced” nations as well. This would involve training in medical care and public health principles and practices, and could target the need for extensive new public health infrastructure and staffing in Africa, she said. Perhaps a “medical Peace Corps” would apply, since the young people would definitely be training to go to work internationally.
The Deputy Director of the Research Institute of World De- velopment of the China Development Research Center, China, Ding Yifan, presented a “Chinese Perspective on a Post-COVID Paradigm”. He made a plea for international cooperation and unity to overcome the epidemic, and proposed that the various “stimulus packages” now being implemented provide not only immediate assistance to those hit by the crisis, but also funds for investment in infrastructure.
Mr. Ding was followed by the former Mayor of Muscatine, Iowa, DeWayne Hopkins, who reported on the cultural coop- eration that has developed between his town and China, fol- lowing the first visit of Xi Jinping to that farm belt area in 2012.
The Inalienable Right to Food and Healthcare The second panel focused on the proposal for creating “1.5 billion new, productive jobs worldwide”. It was keynoted by Jacques Cheminade, President of the French party Solidarité & Progrès, who began by stating that two basic human rights to be defended are the right to be well fed and to be in good health, to be able to “contribute to the common good and future of our societies.” Unfortunately, under the current fi- nancial dictatorship of Wall Street and the City of London, tens of millions of people are threatened with hunger and disease, while the farmers who want to produce are being stifled and pushed into bankruptcy.
Cheminade was followed by Diogène Senny, the founder of
gnseconomics.com/2020/02/10/the-stages-of-the-collapse/. If current policy trends continue, the best-case scenario, in his view, is an “economic calamity”, while the worst-case scenario is “economic apocalypse”.
In describing the phases of the economic collapse that start- ed with the freezing of the repo market last September, Prof. Malinen goes through the central bank response of liquidity pumping and debt monetization and says this might temporar- ily keep the banking system afloat, but won’t prevent a string of corporate bankruptcies, led by CLO and zombie corpora- tions defaults.
If that, in turn, leads to bank runs and to a banking crisis, we will experience global deflation, the collapse of global li- quidity and a “spectacular” crash of stock markets. As a result, Malinen spells outs, joblessness and poverty are likely to “ex- plode”, while government tax revenues “collapse as incomes retreat and capital gains evaporate.” National deficits will reach all-time highs as a result of soaring government spending, and central banks will be forced to accelerate the debt monetiza- tion programs.
And then, “Governments will try to save critically-important banks, which will require large-scale funding many countries— such as those in the Eurozone—cannot afford and will not be able to finance in paralyzed capital markets. This economic reality makes depositor bail-ins the only, if politically-unpalat- able, option (emphasis added). Confronted by new and harsh fiscal realities, pensions and other social security programs are likely to face serious cutbacks, by desperate governments. An economic calamity sets in.”
But it could get much worse, the Finnish professor shows, in particular if the Coronavirus mutates and spreads worldwide, leading to draconian lockdowns and a complete breakdown of supply-chains. “These ghastly factors, combined with soaring unemployment, business failures and market turmoil would topple the global banking sector. Bank losses would be likely be so great that though depositor bail-ins would be enacted, they would be insufficient to keep banks from failing. The Eu- ropean banking sector would collapse completely, followed by an implosion of the global financial order. Global commerce would evaporate. The world would succumb into utter eco- nomic annihilation.”
“This would be a scenario of an ‘economic apocalypse.’ We could witness never-before-seen unemployment, wide-spread poverty and riots with some weaker countries succumbing into state of anarchy.
“Unfortunately, things could get even worse, if the central bankers would enact the final step in their monetary destruc- tion -scheme: the helicopter drops. They would bring an end to the monetary system as we currently know it.”
Solutions? Professor Malinen has only a hint of one, calling for sustaining “the essential functions of the banking sector” especially in Europe and “if unsound banks and ‘zombie’ cor- porations are allowed to go under or are wound-down me- thodically, it will clear much of the malinvestment from the economy, creating the foundation for a strong and sustained recovery.” A re-introduction of Glass-Steagall would achieve exactly that.
COVID-19 Pandemic by No Means under Control The number of cases of COVID-19 in the world hit the 10 million mark this past weekend, with the total number of con- firmed deaths reaching half a million. And the pandemic has by
the Pan-African League, who denounced the “geopolitics of hunger and poverty”, in Africa, stressing the need for food sovereignty in all nations. From Argentina, Walter Formento, the Director of the Center for Political and Economic Research, went through the successful economic development in South America, before the introduction of the neoliberal, monetarist model. From the small Carribean country of Trinidad and To- bago, Dr. Kirk Meighoo, announced that his party is develop- ing a platform of 150,000 new productive jobs for that nation of 1.3 million, so that it will become a country of “producers, not just receivers.”
Robert Baker, farming expert of the U.S. Schiller Institute, denounced the game of playing off of one group against the other—farmers and city people, nation against nation – while the financiers‘ cartel system “harvests money” from all. He was followed by U.S. farm leader, Mike Callicrate of the Or- ganization for Competitive Markets, who emphasized that the entire structure of current food production characterized by huge multinational cartels dominating processing and distribu- tion, must be broken up both to allow much more food pro- duction, and to return farming to prosperity and create many more high-technology farmers around the world.
The final panel of the day was devoted to building a youth movement worldwide to carry out the debate and actions on the issues discussed over the course of the day. After an open- ing presentation by Daniel Burke of the U.S. Schiller Institute, it featured interventions by young people from Tanzania, Ye- men, Morocco, Mexico, Columbia, Peru and France.
The sense of urgency and determination conveyed during the webinar had been summed up by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her speech: “When millions of people are threatened with star- vation, as the World Food Program warns, why can’t farmers double food production and be paid a parity price that guaran- tees their existence, including with regard to the expected in- crease in the world’s population to over nine billion by 2050? Can we not consider ourselves as one single human species, and help to build mankind’s common ‘construction sites’ with the same solidarity that the entire Chinese population helped the people in Wuhan and the province of Hubei?
Is it not high time that we stopped wasting trillions on mili- tary build-ups, when we could use those resources to over- come hunger, disease and poverty, and to develop the creative potential of the current and future generations? I think it is time for us, as mankind, faced with an unprecedented disaster, to take the qualitative step of making the 21st century the first truly human century!”
Without Urgent Recovery Action, the World Economy Will Descend in the Maelstrom The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just issued a re- port updating its own April forecast of a 3% decline in world GDP, to now predict that the collapse will be as high as 4.9%. France, Italy and Spain are forecast to have drops of over 12%, followed by the UK with over 10% and Germany and the U.S. with or close to 8%, Russia with over 7% and Japan with almost 6%. Only China is forecast to grow, but only 1%.
The new forecast assumes countries will not re-impose com- prehensive lockdowns, even if the pandemic flares up again. What it would look like if they do, was described by economist Tuomas Malinen, founder of the Helsinki-based NGS Economics think tank. Readers who thought this newsletter is too often a prophet of doom, are advised to read Malinen’s article https://
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 2 N°27 / 2020
complexes, but also to the shutdown of traditional municipal slaughterhouses, that were unable to fulfill all the bureaucratic requirements, forcing producers to turn to the large industrial groups like Tönnies.
Now, under the European Commission’s new “Farm 2 Fork” strategy, the additional restrictions imposed on farmers in the EU, if implemented, will make it impossible for them to con- tinue raising animals and producing meat (cf. SAS 23/20). But then again, the aim of the Greens is to greatly reduce meat consumption, if not, for the most radical, to eliminate it alto- gether...
President Putin’s Call for P5 Summit Supported by Helga Zepp-LaRouche In a statement issued on June 20, titled “Putin’s Discussion of World War II Can Prevent World War III”, Helga Zepp-La- Rouche takes up the essay that Russian President Putin wrote on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the defeat of fas- cism, which was published in English in the American foreign policy review The National Interest https://nationalinterest. org/feature/vladimir-putin-real-lessons-75th-anniversary- world-war-ii-162982. (cf. SAS 26/20).
Vladimir Putin’s essay on the causes of the Second World War II, which is substantiated by historical archive documents, is a “must read for all political leaders today,” Zepp-LaRouche writes. He has called on all the relevant governments in the world to release all the still classified documents on the pre- war period and the war itself and to launch, on that basis, an international debate on the historical truth behind that great tragedy. This initiative is identified by the founder of the Schil- ler Institute as “a brilliant flank, that may possibly prevent the world from sleepwalking once again into a new world war.”
Zepp-LaRouche briefly reviews, in her statement, the major international geopolitical maneuvers at the time that led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi war machine, with support from western financial circles, to the elimination of the German re- sistance and then to the carnage of war.
She points to the parallels to the situation today. “The plan at that time, which was to let Germany and the Soviet Union bleed each other white, is now the plan to encircle Russia and China, and to bring about regime changes against the govern- ments of both of them, and it includes the ongoing ‘Maidan’ against President Trump, who waged his 2016 presidential campaign with the pledge to establish a good relationship with Russia, and who was building, at the beginning of his term, a good relationship with China.”
President Putin concludes his essay with a call for the sum- mit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council which he has proposed since January, and to which the other four heads of state have agreed. Helga Zepp-LaRouche con- tinues: “This summit, he says, should frankly discuss, among other things, issues of preserving peace and in particular, of overcoming the economic crisis which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
How severe the impact of the pandemic will be, he points out, depends decisively on the ability of these countries to work together, as real partners, in an open and coordinated manner, and to revive those high humanist ideals and values for which their fathers and grandfathers were fighting shoul- der to shoulder.
“Such a summit must be supported by all peace-loving na- tions and people, because only the combination of the United
no means peaked yet. The United States has by now nearly one quarter of the world total in both categories, and the daily av- erage of new cases is again rising sharply, after a slight dip. As Dr. Michael Osterholm and others have warned, the increase is not a reflection of more testing, but of a dangerous spread. WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out on June 24 that these figures are a “sober reminder that even as we continue research into vaccines and therapeutics, we have an urgent responsibility to do everything we can with the tools we have now to suppress transmission and save lives.”
Central and South America have experienced a 25% to 30% rise in the number of cases just over the last ten days, ac- cording to WHO Emergencies Director Michael Ryan. That was confirmed by the Regional Director of the WHO for the Ameri- cas, Carissa Etienne, who reported on June 24 that nearly half of all COVID-19 cases globally are in the Americas. Brazil has now surpassed the 1 million infections, joining the United States as the only other country in the world with cases in the seven digits.
As for Africa, John Nkengasong, chief of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warns that the outbreak on the continent is “picking up speed very quickly,” with a steep increase in cases and deaths as more countries loosen lock-downs.
In Europe too, an upsurge is feared as the populations head to the beaches and vacation resorts, where the safety restrictions are increasingly flaunted. A sober reminder of the danger comes from Germany, where a major industrial meat company has been shut down (cf. below).
EU’s Agricultural Policy Favors Spread of Covid-19 in Meat Industry The Coronavirus has ripped the mask off many of the failures of the globalized, neoliberal economic system embraced by the European Union, as we have reported. Among them, the plight of family farmers and the lack of food security, to which can now added the horrendous working conditions in the slaugh- ter and meat industry that favor the spread of disease. In the United States, the Coronavirus has already brought slaughter- houses to a halt weeks ago.
Now in Germany, in a slaughterhouse of the largest pork processing company, Tönnies Holding, more than 1,500 work- ers have tested positive for Coronavirus and all 6,500 workers were quarantined as of last week. Already in May, new infec- tions, although far fewer in number, had emerged in other smaller meat-processing companies, but effective measures were not taken throughout the sector. The massive outbreak at Tönnies has now put a spotlight on the exploitation of the workforce. A great deal of the slaughterhouse work is done by seasonal workers from Eastern Europe, who are employed via subcontractors, at almost slave-labor wages, and live crowded together in residences with sub-standard hygienic and safety conditions.
An article on the independent website German Foreign Policy had already documented on May 12 the abominable conditions of Eastern European slaughterhouse workers in Germany
The situation which has developed over the past years is largely a result of the European Union’s agricultural policy, which has degenerated into an appendix of the Commission’s radical “green” agenda. The extreme clauses on protecting “an- imal rights” have led not only to the elimination of traditional hog-growing on family farms in favor of newly-created huge
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3 N°27 / 2020
claims to set up Exclusive Economic Zones in the eastern Medi- terranean, and his threats to weaponize the refugee issue. The only solution to this crisis lies in the United States and Russia working in tandem not simply to pressure Turkey, but to re- solve all the outstanding conflicts in the eastern Mediterra- nean, to normalize relations with Iran and its Arab neighbors, end the Yemen conflict and put the Palestinian-Israeli peace process back on track, while launching the reconstruction of the entire region.
Syria and Yemen: Two Attempts at “Regime Change by Hunger” If there are any two exhibits to show why the regime of per- manent warfare and accompanying sanctions must be brought to an end, they are Syria and Yemen. UN officials, humanitar- ian and economic experts have been warning that both coun- tries are on the edge of utter disasters.
For Syria, Joseph Daher, who teaches at Lausanne Univer- sity in Switzerland, told Carnegie’s Diwan blog June 24, that the Caesar Act (implemented by the United States) and gen- eral sanctions “could lead to the deepening impoverishment of some sections of the population and represent a further obstacle to economic recovery.”
In particular the sanctions targeting any entity working on supporting the production or import of oil and gas in Syria “will create even greater shortages of these resources and increase their price. This will have dire consequences for ordinary Syr- ians as well as increase production costs for manufacturing and agriculture, both highly dependent on oil and gas”
As for Yemen, in a June 26 report, UNICEF warns that 19 million people will lose access to healthcare unless the agency receives $54.5 million by the end of August. “If we do not re- ceive urgent funding for our WASH [Water, Sanitation and Hy- giene], health and nutrition programs, it will be catastrophic for children in Yemen. Children will be pushed to the brink of starvation and many will die. COVID-19 could spread further as families lose access to clean water,”
UNICEF spokeswoman Sara Beysolow Nyanti told the U.A.E. daily, The National that without the funds for its programs, 5 million children under the age of five will not be immunized against killer diseases and 23,500 children with severe acute malnutrition will be at increased risk of dying.
One promising perspective for Yemen is that youth groups there are studying the Schiller Institute proposals for the World Land-Bridge. The Vice President of the Education Committee in the BRICS Youth Parliament, Areej Atef , was one of the participants in the youth panel of the June 27 Schiller Institute webinar (cf. above).E.I.R. STRATEGIC ALERT www.eir.de Published by: E.I.R.GmbH, Bahnstr. 4, 65205 Wiesbaden Tel.: 0611/73650, Fax: 0611/9740935, Email: info@eir.com Verantwortl. f. d. Inhalt: Dean Andromidas, Claudio Celani Subscription: EUR 3000/ ISSN 0936-7527 © E.I.R. GmbH Alle Rechte vorbehalten, auch die des Nachdrucks von Auszügen, derphotomechanischen Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung, Printed in Germany
States, Russia and China can implement the needed reorgani- zation of the hopelessly bankrupt financial system through a new Bretton Woods credit system, and hopefully, the desolate state of the world will convince France and Great Britain that they have to give up their colonial and imperial traditions.”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s statement can be read in full at https://larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2020/20200624-helga-la- rouche-statement-on-putin-article.html
Egypt’s Al Sisi Warns World Powers: Stop Turkey’s New War in Libya! Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, speaking at a military base near the border to Libya on June 20, warned that Egypt would intervene militarily in Libya, if there is a direct threat to his country’s security. As an act of self defense, he said, such an intervention would be legitimate under the UN charter and would be approved of by the Libyan House of Representatives in Tobruk.
Al Sisi is responding to the moves in Libya by Turkish Presi- dent Erdogan, who supports the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), in the civil war opposing it to the Libyan National Army under the command of General Khalifa Haftar, which holds the east of the country (Cyrenaica), and to the House of Representatives. The latter side is supported by the Egyptian authorities.
Erdogan has been providing weapons, fighters and mili- tary aid to the GNA. Now, it is widely reported that he is also flying in jihadi militias from Syria in order to position them in Sirte, and have them launch terrorist attacks from there against Egypt. The coastal city of Sirte is still under the control of Haftar, but the GNA military forces have advanced to the outskirts.
Al Sisi has warned forces loyal to the GNA, not to proceed beyond that city, and has called at the same time for a cease- fire. He delivered the same message in a round of phone calls with the presidents of the United States, Russia and France, the German Chancellor and the Italian Prime Minister.
Ever since Al Sisi kept his promise that he would build build a new Suez Canal within one year in 2014, people have taken his word very seriously. His warning over Libya was therefore followed by a flurry of diplomatic activity aimed at forestalling an Egyptian intervention.
On June 22, US Ambassador to Libya Richard Norland, and the commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), Gen. Stephen Townsend, traveled to Zuwara, in western Libya, to meet with Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, where they strongly encouraged him to support a ceasefire, and warned that a con- tinued conflict would lead to a return of Al Qaida and Daesh terrorism.
At a press conference in Paris on June 22, French Presi- dent Emanuel Macron issued a warning to Turkey, by saying, “I have already had the opportunity to say very clearly to Presi- dent Erdogan, I consider that Turkey is playing a dangerous game in Libya today and going against all of its commitments made at the Berlin conference.”
Meanwhile, Erdogan has been playing off the US and Rus- sia, while protecting anti-Russian and anti-Syrian terrorists in northern Syria, despite agreements he had made with the Rus- sians. At the same time he is antagonizing, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt as well as the European Union, with his extravagant
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 4 N°27 / 2020
