E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

  E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Volume 34, No. 44, October 29, 2020

Save the Dates : The Challenges to Be Met

in the Wake of the U.S. Elections

On the weekend of Nov. 21-22, the Schiller Institute will hold

an international conference online, with a special emphasis on

the program that Europe needs to adopt in the aftermath of

the presidential and legislative elections in the United States,

and the potential, but also the dangers, that opens. The fol-

lowing is a brief announcement from the Schiller Institute on

the event.

“This conference, coming three weeks after the U.S. elec-

tion, is the time to redefine how the urgent challenges fac-

ing humanity can and must be confronted. We must face

the absolutely urgent need to combat the growing famine

of “biblical dimensions”--as described by David Beasley, the

former Governor of South Carolina and Executive Director

of the World Food Program--to save 30 million people from

starvation. We must unite to build a world health system,

meaning modern health systems in every country on this

planet. And we need to finally overcome the underdevelop-

ment of the so-called Third World to eliminate the causes of

this catastrophe.

“Human history has reached a decisive branching point:

The only way to avert our own self-extinction in a new world

war, is to finally overcome geopolitical confrontation and

establish a new paradigm of cooperation, especially among

the nuclear powers, for a new international economic and

security architecture. We need a new economic platform, us-

ing the economic principles made clear by Lyndon LaRouche,

which provides the pathway to solutions through the realiza-

tion of thermonuclear fusion and international cooperation

in space.

“It is also clear, that the human community will only find

the moral resources to make the necessary changes if we

create a new renaissance of classical culture and establish a

dialogue of these cultures, by bringing out the best that the

human species has produced so far, as the basis for a new

and better era of mankind.”

You can register for the conference at: https://schiller-

institute.nationbuilder.com/conference_20201121. Regis-

tration is required to be able to participate in the discussion

and to have access to the translations in French, German

and Spanish.

COVID Pandemic: WHO Warns

of “Very Tough Months to Come” in Europe

The Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated bluntly on Oct. 23: “We

are at a critical juncture in the COVID-19 pandemic, particu-

larly in the Northern hemisphere. The next few months are

going to be very tough and some countries are on a danger-

ous track.” There has been an exponential jump in infections

in a number of countries, he pointed out, “and that is now

leading to hospitals and intensive care units running close or

above capacity -- and we’re still only in October.”

Indeed, in Europe, the number of daily COVID-19 con-

firmed cases was up to 200,000 on Oct. 22, which was more

than double the daily rate of just ten days before that and

the highest since the beginning of the pandemic. The total

number of confirmed cases in Europe (according to a Reuters

tally on that date) is now over 7.8 million, with 247,000

deaths. Last week saw France go over the mark of one mil-

lion recorded cases since the start of the pandemic, becoming

the second country in Western Europe after Spain to reach

that number.

Ireland became the first European country to re-impose a

national lockdown on Oct. 22, although somewhat less strict

than in the spring. The Czech republic, which has the highest

infection rate in Europe, is also considering a lockdown. In

Italy, France, Germany and other countries, night-time cur-

fews have been implemented as well as stricter restrictions

on mask-wearing.

Meanwhile, the pandemic is spreading basically every-

where. And governments have failed to mobilize over the

past months to build up the necessary healthcare infrastruc-

ture and train all the medical personnel needed. There is a se-

vere lack of tests available and of people to administer them.

In that respect, the response of the Chinese authorities in

Qingdao was exemplary (cf. SAS 43/20).

Fortunately, on an international level. progress has been

made in developing vaccines against COVID-19, with some

42 now in the clinical evaluation stage. In the United States,

vaccinations to top priority groups could begin before the

end of the year. But the issue there has unfortunately become

highly politicized, with Democratic Vice Presidential candi-

date Kamala Harris announcing during a recent debate that

EIR STRATEGIC ALERT 2 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n°44 / 2020

she would not accept a vaccine recommended by President

Trump! On the other hand, one outspoken critic of Donald

Trump’s response to the pandemic, Dr. Robert Wachter, the

chair of Medicine at University of California San Francisco,

had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that the Administration’s vac-

cine mobilization was “nearly flawless”. The possibility of hav-

ing one or more vaccines within less than one year, he said, is

“staggeringly impressive and would only have happened with

strong and effective federal action.”

U.S. Election: Ever More

From Russia with Love Fantasy

What is ultimately at stake in the upcoming U.S. elections is

the question of war or peace in the world, of cooperation or

confrontation. Joe Biden and the Democratic machine behind

him have made clear their intention to continue the “endless

wars” and regime change operations, which were enthusi-

astically continued and/or expanded under the Obama-Biden

presidency. President Trump has repeatedly attempted to end

that policy, but has been stopped not only by the “deep state”

apparatus, but by the warhawks and neocons in his own ad-

ministration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and

Defense Secretary Mike Esper. A victory in the Nov. 3 election

could give him the popular support needed to finally put it

through.

A main argument of Trump’s opponents against him from

the beginning has been to accuse him of being manipulated by

Russia (“Putin’s puppet” to quote Hillary Clinton). As surrealis-

tic as that might appear to anyone with knowledge of Russia’s

power and weight in the world, the attacks have resurfaced in

the final weeks of the campaign in connection with the story of

Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s relationship with a Ukrai-

nian gas company when he was Vice President. Following initial

publication of the information in the New York Post, the same

corrupt intelligence community networks which were behind

the Russiagate fraud jumped to Biden’s aid.

To sum it up, incriminating emails found on a discarded

laptop of Hunter Biden demonstrate that Joe Biden lied when

he protested that he had nothing to do with his son’s dealings

with Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, which was paying him

$83,000 per month to be a member of its board. One of the

emails is from an adviser to the Board of Burisma, Vadym

Pozharskyi, thanking Hunter for arranging a meeting with

his father during a visit to Washington. Another email from

the same official asks Hunter for “advice on how you could

use your influence”, as the son of the Vice President, on the

company’s behalf.

The meeting allegedly occurred months before Biden issued

an ultimatum to the Ukrainian government, demanding that a

state prosecutor who was investigating Burisma be fired, or a

$1 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. would be canceled. As

Biden later bragged publicly, just hours after he made a tele-

phone call to President Poroshenko, the prosecutor Shokin

was in fact fired.

Following the censorship of the NYP story by Twitter and

Facebook (cf. below), no major mainstream U.S. media source

published the story, even after several former business part-

ners of Hunter confirmed the veracity of the emails.

But the story nonetheless went viral, prompting a group

of more than 50 intelligence officers who had served in the

Obama administration, led by the ringleaders of Russiagate,

John Brennan, the former CIA Director, and former Director

of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, to blame Russia

for the emails retrieved from the laptop, although admitting

“we do not have evidence of Russian involvement”.

Responding to this, the current DNI John Ratcliffe stated in

an interview that the Intelligence Community “doesn’t believe

that...no intelligence supports that....It’s simply not true.” He

was subsequently denounced by the Brennan/Clapper gang,

which accused him of using intelligence for political purposes!

But isn’t that exactly what Brennan, Clapper, et.al., have done

consistently, and continue to do from their current positions

as senior analysts for MSNBC and CNN respectively.

Censorship at Facebook Handled

by Former Biden Advisor on Ukraine

When the New York Post published the story of the Biden’s

corruption, which was gleaned from Hunter Biden’s discarded

laptop, the “integrity units” of Facebook and Twitter moved

to cut off the story before it could spread. Claiming that

it was “unverified,” they succeeded in stifling its circulation,

leading to a sharp denunciation by a former National Security

Agency technical expert and whistle blower, Kirk Wiebe, who

spoke out at a LaRouchePAC Press Availability on October 20.

Wiebe said, “The unprecedented censorship of the President,

his press secretary, members of Congress, and the fourth

largest newspaper in the U.S. was an in-your-face declara-

tion of intent by the Washington and Silicon Valley elites that

they intend to attempt to steal this election and defeat Donald

Trump, taking the Constitution of the United States out with

them.”

The censorship derives from the “self-policing” policy which

has been tightened by social media giants, in response to

demands that they not allow the posting of “unconfirmed”

stories and “conspiracy theories”, which might affect the elec-

tion. That might sound reasonable, until one recalls that these

same conglomerates and major media posted and published

volumes of “unconfirmed” stories from “anonymous” sources

against Donald Trump. And they never offered corrections or

apologies when the entire Russiagate affair was proven to be

outright “Fake News”.

In the case of Hunter Biden’s laptop, the person responsible

for Facebook’s censorship decisions is Anna Makanju, who

holds the position of “Content Regulation Manager”. Before

joining Zuckerberg’s empire, she had worked for then Vice

President Joe Biden, serving as a “Special Adviser for Europe

and Eurasia”. Her specialty in that position was Ukraine! And

before that, she had worked for UN Ambassador Samantha

Power, who was notorious for her vile invectives against Rus-

sia, and her promotion of the doctrine of the “Responsibility

to Protect” (i.e., regime change operations against “undemo-

cratic” nations). Samantha Power, in turn, was an outspoken

defender of the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, for which

Joe Biden served as Obama’s “point man.”

A Dialogue of Civilizations Needed

Between China and Europe

The urgent issue of how the countries of Europe and the

United States should relate to China in this moment of cri-

sis, and the cultural and philosophical basis for such relations,

EIR STRATEGIC ALERT n° / 2020 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3

was the subject of a four-hour video-conference on Oct. 21

sponsored by the Schiller Institute and Spain’s Cátedra China

think tank. Speakers included Yao Fei, Minister Counsellor of

the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to Spain; Mar-

celo Muñoz, Founder and President Emeritus, Cátedra China,

Spain; Michele Geraci, former Italian Undersecretary of State

for Economic Development; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder

and President, Schiller Institute, Germany; Ángel Álvarez, Dr.

Engineer, Cátedra China, Spain; and Jacques Cheminade, the

President of Solidarité & Progrès, France.

The speakers are all fervent supporters of cooperation with

China in all areas. Their intervention was most timely, faced

with the growing pressure in Europe to follow the lead of

the United States and engage in trade wars and senseless

economic competitions. More fundamentally, as Helga Zepp-

LaRouche pointed out in a later assessment of the proceed-

ings, the discussion emphasized the need to deepen the un-

derstanding in the West of Chinese history and culture. That

would dissipate many of the fears now rampant here, she

said. These are two very different civilizations, that can very

well complement and enrich each other.

The speech by Marcelo Munoz was most instructive in that

regard. He showed China’s rich civilization going back over

5,000 years, and its Confucian-based system for the past

2,300 years. Until the 15th Century, it was the world leader

in technology, with countless inventions given to the world.

In that light, it is quite natural for China to come back and

resume a role on the stage of history. The videos of the con-

ference are available at schillerinstitute.com.

Europe and China Have Both Benefited

Greatly from Win-Win Cooperation

In his speech to the above-mentioned conference in Madrid,

the Minister Counsellor of the Chinese embassy in Madrid,

Yao Fei, gave an overview of the tremendous benefits for

both China and the West of their growing economic and trade

relations over the past two decades.

Concerning more specifically Europe, Mr. Yao gave some

interesting figures, which we quote.

“From the beginning of the 21st Century, the EU has been,

for several consecutive years, China’s number one trading

partner. Between 2001 and 2018, EU exports to China grew

by 14.7% annually, supporting around 4 million jobs within

the EU. For European companies, the Chinese market has

consolidated as the most profitable one globally. EU statistics

show that, in the first seven months of the current year, trade

between China and the EU showed a year-on-year growth of

2.6%, which situates China as the European Union’s number

one trading partner, for the first time surpassing the United

States. This has not been an easy achievement, given the

scourge of COVID-19.

“Moreover, Chinese investments in Europe have created

176,000 local jobs. Negotiations for an investment agree-

ment between China and Europe are underway, and are ex-

pected to be concluded by year’s end. This agreement will

improve and update China-EU economic and trade relations,

and will bring more opportunities and benefits for both par-

ties.” Beyond these aspects, Mr. Yao brought up the mutually-

beneficial cooperation in the areas of culture, education, tour-

ism and sports.

He also polemicized against those leaders who present Chi-

na as a dangerous rival, out to impose its model on the rest of

the world. In conclusion, he noted that it is normal that China

differs from the West “in history, culture, traditions and politi-

cal and economic systems”.

However, it should be assumed that “these differences

are not an obstacle to both parties jointly taking on global

challenges to achieve their greatest development. I am con-

vinced that as long as China and the West walk on the path

of strengthening their cooperation, humanity’s future will be

a better one.”

EU Fails To Address Real Solution

for the Sahel: Transaqua

On Oct. 20, a few days after World Food Program director

David Beasley launched an alarm over the hunger and humani-

tarian crisis in the Sahel (cf. SAS 43/20), a donors conference

organized by Denmark, Germany, the EU and the UN took

place in Copenhagen, which pledged 1.7 billion dollars for

emergency aid. Although this is welcome support in the short

term, the conference failed to address the root of the problem

and to adopt long-term solutions.

The hunger crisis in the Sahel region threatens the life of

13 million people, including 1.5 million displaced people and 5

million children, according to the UN. Yet, a solution is readily

available: the Transaqua project to transfer water from the

Congo Basin to Lake Chad. Transaqua is a system of reser-

voirs and canals intersecting the tributaries of the Congo river,

that would transport enough water per gravity to revitalize

Lake Chad and reverse its desertification. However, both the

EU and Germany, the two main sponsors of the event, op-

pose it.

Briefed about the warnings issued by the World Food Pro-

gram and the UN, Transaqua designer Marcello Vichi said that

the horrendous situation in the Sahel “is not a new situation.

We had forecast this 30 years ago, when the disaster began.”

When Beasley describes famine and war-dictated mass migra-

tions and starvation, Vichi went on, and calls for both relief

measures and infrastructure development, he is providing ar-

guments in favor of Transaqua, the one infrastructure project

that could change the situation not only around Lake Chad,

but in the entire Sahel region, providing water, electricity and

between 5 and 7 million hectares of farmland.

While Transaqua is promoted by countries in the region,

led by Nigeria, the opposition is fueled by former European

colonialist powers, which still have political control over some

governments in the region. Notably the government of Can-

ada, on behalf of the British Commonwealth and of French

government institutions, has recently funded a paper that

claims that Transaqua is an imperialist scheme pushed by the

government of Italy, China and the Schiller Institute.

(That paper was competently rebutted by an Oct. 18 post-

ing by P.D. Lawton: “Green Power, Political Pessimism and

Opposition to the Development of the African Interior with

Transaqua”.)

The German government itself, which just announced an

additional grant of 15 million euros to the Regional Stabiliza-

tion Fund for the Lake Chad region, has gone on the record

declaring its opposition to Transaqua (cf. SAS 6/20).

One sobering thought: Had Transaqua been adopted when

EIR STRATEGIC ALERT 4 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n° 44 / 2020

it was proposed, we would not have famine and wars in

the Sahel today. The forces and governments that oppose

Transaqua have millions of deaths by starvation on their con-

sciousness today.

Bolivia’s MAS Defeats Coup Party

in Presidential Elections

The Oct. 19 presidential elections in Bolivia gave a landslide

victory to Luis Arce, former Finance Minister and presidential

candidate of the MAS party, who received 55.10% of the

vote against 28.8% for neoliberal Carlos Mesa of the Citizen

Conscience party. His victory is an important strategic blow

to the Anglo-American establishment that had orchestrated

the overthrow of then President Evo Morales, the founder

of the MAS, in November of last year, with help from a fac-

tion of the armed forces and the blessing of Mike Pompeo’s

State Department, on the phony charge he had committed

vote fraud.

Thanks to Mexico, Morales escaped with his life, and end-

ed up in Argentina where he was granted refugee status. In

his place, the British geopolitical crowd imposed neoliberal

religious fanatic Jeanine Añez, who, as the Covid-19 pan-

demic took hold, wreaked economic and social havoc in the

country, while impoverishing a largely indigenous population

“employed” in the informal economy, reversing Morales’s

successful economic policies and engaging in corruption so

blatant that she was forced to reshuffle her cabinet several

times to dump implicated ministers. Her law enforcement

apparatus framed and jailed former members of Morales’s

government while the police and military were deployed to

brutally repress any popular dissent.

Contrary to predictions of violence and widespread fraud,

though, the election took place in an environment of rela-

tive calm, with a voter turnout of 88.4% . Bolivian sources

have told EIR that that the economic devastation caused by

Añez’s government had produced such popular rage, that

any attempt to carry out fraud would have unleashed a vio-

lent social explosion with unpredictable consequences. The

Washington and London geopolitical party was apparently

not willing to risk that, given the crisis conditions existing

in the broader region. The State Department sent instead a

tight-lipped message of congratulations to Arce and his run-

ning mate, former foreign minister David Choquehuanca, for

having won in a “credible” electoral process.

How Arce addresses Bolivia’s devastating crisis remains to

be seen. As finance minister for 11 years, he worked with

Morales to achieve Bolivia’s “economic miracle” -- national-

izing and industrializing natural resources, cutting the pov-

erty rate almost in half, and achieving unprecedented growth

rates. But the key to this success was Morales’s decision to

work with Russia and China -- Bolivia has even joined the Belt

and Road Initiative -- and to make science the central feature

of government policy (promoting the development of nuclear

energy, aerospace and satellite technologies), and expanding

scientific education for youth.

This is also the path Argentine President Alberto Fernández

has chosen, cooperating with Russia and China in scientific

and economic endeavors, and planning a visit to China in early

November. The hope is that Arce will do the same. In his mes-

sage congratulating Arce for his victory, Russian President

Vladimir Putin has already proposed “constructive bilateral

cooperation” and the strengthening of bilateral relations.

China Completes Crucial Test

of Nuclear High Temperature Reactor

Cold functional tests at the first reactor of China’s demon-

stration high-temperature gas-cooled reactor plant (HTR-

PM) in Shidaowan were successfully completed on Oct. 20,

two weeks after they began. The success crowns eight years

of intensive work on the HTR technology carried out there.

“Cold testing” means that the coolant and other high-pres-

sure systems are verified to be in working order, although

no energy is being created by a nuclear process. Tests on

the second reactor at the demonstration plant have already

begun. When completed, the twin reactors will drive a sin-

gle 210-Mwe turbine. Moreover, 18 more HTR-PM units are

proposed for the same site in Shidaowan.

The approach to HTR development taken by China Nation-

al Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) features two genuine Chinese

innovations: 1) compressed air and a small amount of helium

gas was used as a coolant for the tests, rather than the wa-

ter that is otherwise used in such tests; 2) electromagnetic

bearings developed at Tsinghua University were used in the

helium fan. These bearings use magnets to “levitate” the fan’s

rotor, which weighs some four tons. As the rotor operates

without any contact with other parts, its operation is wear-

free and there is no need for a lubricating oil system. The uni-

versity said that this marks the first use of electromagnetic

bearings in a nuclear reactor application.

Beyond the HTR-PM, China proposes a scaled-up version

called HTR-PM600, which will have one large turbine (650

Mwe) driven by some six HTR-PM reactor units. Feasibility

studies on HTR-PM600 deployment are underway in four

provinces. It is believed that the 600 MWe units can be more

easily integrated into industrial and urban areas, than the

larger, now usual, power plants of more than 1,000 Mwe.

The breakthroughs in HTR technology in China are in sharp

contrast to the technological backwardness that prevails in

Europe, mainly for ideological reasons cloaked in “green”

rhetoric. After all, the high temperature reactor design was

originally developed in Germany in the 1980s. A prototype

had even been built at the Jülich research center, based on

the design of its inventor Prof. Rudolf Schulten, and it oper-

ated with no problem for three years before being abruptly

shut down in 1989.

Whereas research work on the pebble-bed fuel system of

the HTR is still ongoing at the universities of Aachen and

Dresden, the Jülich research was shut down entirely. None-

theless, serious work on the HTR was continued in China,

Korea and South Africa from the early1990s on.

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