E.I.R.STRATEGIC ALERT
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Volume 35, No. 47, November 25, 2021
Despite the Malthusians, Ensuring Food and Health Security Worldwide Can Be Done! The failure of the COP26 conference to ram through the British Empire’s Green Reset policy -- principally due to the resistance of developing countries such as India, Nigeria, In donesia, China and also Russia -- has bought the world a little time. But only a little.
The entire trans-Atlantic sector remains in the throes of a systemic breakdown crisis as the physical economy continues to plummet. Hyperinflation is now hitting food as well as en ergy supplies with increases of 30% per year and more. The COVID-19 pandemic is rampaging out of control, to the point that even in countries such as Germany and Austria, the sinis ter policy of “triage” is openly evoked (cf. below).
The main cause of these crises is the West’s intentional failure to invest in the real economy and the common good over the past decades, while ensuring obscene profits in the trillions for speculators, investment bankers and the multina
tional cartels and corporations that control food, health and energy supplies.
The good news is that since that policy is intentional, it can be reversed. The means to do so were discussed and present ed at the Schiller Institute’s international conference of Nov. 13-14, titled ““All Moral Resources of Humanity Have To Be Called Up” (cf. https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2021/11/21/ and SAS 46/21).
UN World Food Program Director David Beasley has repeat edly stated that his organization needs about $6.6 billion to save 42 million people from the threat of death by starvation, and has polemically called upon the growing number of bil lionaires in the world to come up with that amount.
In response to a cynical reply from Elon Musk, the WFP re cently presented charts on how much money is needed, where and for what food aid. Similar details could be mapped out for tackling other basic emergencies, such as water, power, disaster defense, as well as medical and public healthcare, not to mention long-term infrastructure.
In terms of the food supply, a catastrophic production col lapse is looming in terms of volumes of output of basic food staples, requiring emergency action.
Again, this is due, in addition to the wars and geopolitical conflicts, to price inflation, shortages of fertilizer and seeds,
and the cumulative impact from the lack of reliable water and other infrastructure.
On the healthcare front, the Schiller Institute’s call for set ting up a modern health system in all countries is the approach that’s needed. Nothing less will work, as the current spread of COVID-19 should have made clear to everyone by now. The lack of medical supplies and personnel in Afghanistan, Haiti, and Yemen is particularly dire, and the imposition of economic sanctions in such conditions (and the freezing of Afghanistan’s assets abroad) is simply criminal.
At a virtual forum on humanitarian aid for Afghanistan held on Nov. 17, Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp LaRouche presented her proposal for an “Operation Ibn Sina” for that war-torn country (cf. SAS 44, 46/21). Ensur ing adequate food and a decent health system for the Af ghans, she has argued, is not only a humanitarian question, but also a moral imperative, given the role of the United States and Europe in destroying the country and using it as a geopolitical tool.
Moreover, a modern health system would provide the basis for a complete economic transformation of the country, since clean water, electricity, sanitation, decent housing, are just as much a part of healthcare as medicine, hospitals, trained me
dical personnel and decent food.
Inflation and the “Tapering Wars”
How to address the explosion of inflation is purportedly the subject of a policy fight ongoing internationally. While the one side calls for “tapering” measures, i.e., reducing the liquidity in the market, the other side insists on a continuation of the expansionary monetary policy in order to avoid a financial col
lapse. Both remedies are poisonous.
In Europe, outgoing Bundesbank President Jens Weide mann is calling for monetary tightening to try and contain the dramatic rise in prices. “We should not ignore the risk a too high inflation”, he told the European Banking Congress in Frankfurt, adding that “monetary policy should not follow the current course for too long”.
In the United States, James Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, is telling Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that he should “taper” faster, in oth er words he should slow down the rate of inflationary quanti-
tative easing: “It makes sense to try to move a little bit more hawkishly here and try to manage the inflation risk”, Bul lard said in an interview last week on Bloomberg Television. (Hawkishly, in central bank jargon, means raising interest rates to fight inflation.) Similarly, Goldman Sachs is predicting (i.e., it favors) two interest rate increases next year, nearly a
year earlier than the firm’s previous projections. In contrast, Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Fed eral Reserve Bank, as cites by AP on Nov. 18, thinks “the Fed should continue its current pace of tapering through June, and then, assuming the pandemic steadily loosens its grip on the economy, wait to get a clearer sense of whether inflation will fade.”
The President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde was on the same line. Speaking at the European Par liament on Nov. 15, she admitted that her judgment on infla tion had been wrong, and that “it will take longer to decline than originally thought”.
Just as she was speaking, the ECB balance sheet had reached the record figure of 8.38 trillion euros. As NTV put it, the ECB under Lagarde has pumped €171 billion monthly into the financial system – which makes 5.7 billion every day! That is nearly the entire amount the World Food Program insists would be required to solve the food emergency worldwide...
Eight Years Later, the Stunning Success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative
It was in September, 2013, that Chinese President Xi Jinping first announced the launching of the global connectivity plan now known as the Belt and Road Initiative, which has since become the largest and most impressive infrastructure proj
ect ever undertaken.
As of today, China has signed more than 200 cooperation documents for jointly building the Belt and Road with 140 countries and 32 international organizations, involving the construction of roads, railways, port facilities, energy produc
tion, and more.
Most importantly, the initiative offers the poorest countries, most notably in Africa, the opportunity to finally overcome their under-development and lift their populations out of ex
treme poverty, as China has in fact accomplished. At a Belt and Road construction seminar held on Nov. 19, Xi Jinping summarized the major achievements of the past eight years and stressed the mutual benefits of “win-win coopera tion” for all those involved.
He laid out the three main aspects of the initiative: its “hard connectivity” such as high-speed rail and major dam and port projects; its “soft connectivity” such as fiber optic lines, artifi cial intelligence, the Digital BRI, and satellite communication; and the “heart-to-heart connectivity”, or people-to-people relations, including the creation of dozens of educational proj ects in participating countries.
The Chinese President also responded indirectly to those in the trans-Atlantic who attack the BRI as an insidious attempt to extend China’s “sphere of influence” throughout the world to the detriment of the West. It has received such broad sup
port, he said, in developing countries in particular, because it is an initiative for economic cooperation, rather than a geopo litical alliance or military league, and it is an open and inclusive process rather than an exclusive bloc or a “China club.”
”It does not differentiate countries by ideology nor play the zero-sum game. As long as countries are willing to join, they are welcome,” Xi said. That offer has been repeatedly extend ed both to the United States and the European Union, which have so far refused it.
In any case, between 2013, when the BRI was announced, and 2020, China’s total trade with BRI countries reached $9.2 trillion. Chinese investment in BRI countries totaled $136 billion, creating 200,000 local jobs, while BRI coun
tries invested some $60 billion in China. The China-Europe rail connections have continued and even expanded in spite of the restrictions due to COVID.
Just to mention a few of the most recent projects that are completed or reaching completion, they include the high speed rail link from China to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, the first Metro line in Hanoi, the Karot Hydropower Project in Pakistan, and the shield-bored tunnel project of Malaysia’s Light Rail Transit Line 3.
Zepp-LaRouche in Chinese Media:
The Role of the BRI in the Current World Crisis On the occasion of the eighth anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave two inter views to CGTN-TV, one on Global Business, and the other on the Dialogue Weekend program. Mme LaRouche has been long known in China and internationally as the “Silk Road Lady,” for her advocacy of that concept going back to the 1990s.
In both interviews, she stressed the urgency for Western nations to rethink their policies, and give up geopolitics and neo-colonialism, which have brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, worsening famine and persisting pandemic. This policy, by keeping developing nations in poverty, has led to countless conflicts and produced mass migrations.
As she pointed out to Dialogue Weekend, Europe is very concerned about the refugee crisis right now, which has again exploded on the Belarus-Poland border. But rather than con sidering building a wall on the EU borders to try and keep people out, they, together with the United States of course, have “a moral obligation” to reconstruct countries that have been destroyed and ravaged by Western policies and wars, including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
“If Germany and the European Union were to cooperate with China and the Belt and Road countries to develop South West Asia and Africa, there would be no refugee problem”, she pointed out.
In her CGTN Global Business interview, Helga Zepp-La Rouche drew attention in to the fact that the principle un derlying what China calls its “Health Silk Road,” is the same at that behind the Schiller Institute’s campaign for nations to collaborate in building a world health system (cf. above). Such a system requires not only medical and healthcare facilities and staff, but also adequate food, water and power supplies, as well as basic infrastructure.
Asked by CGTN presenter Michael Wang about her opinion of the BRI at a time of uncertainties in the world, Helga Zepp LaRouche replied: “I think it is, for sure, the most important strategic initiative on the planet right now.”
There are indeed many uncertainties, “for example in the form of a hyperinflationary tendency: You see the energy
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT 2 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n°47 / 2021
prices skyrocketing, food prices, and we may actually head towards a hyperinflationary blowout of the entire system. And at such a moment, the Belt and Road Initiative -- which focuses entirely on the physical side of the economy -- can actually become the absolute important savior for the world economy as a whole.”
The Case of Germany: a pre-programmed failure in the fight against the pandemic All of Europe has now entered the fourth wave of the COVID 19 pandemic, but the situation in Germany is particularly striking.
Driven by panic rather than a reasonable strategy, German authorities see no other way to drastically reduce the alarm ing rise in infection rates than to impose more restrictions on public life – with the perspective of imposing day curfews for the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, if need be, in addition to some night-time curfews already planned.
Hospitals are warning of their work overload, having suf fered a net loss of personnel and intensive care units over the past 12 months in the range of several thousand ICU beds. Health Minister Jens Spahn had promised one year ago that 13,000 new units would be purchased, but they never ma terialized.
Just a few days ago, Spahn created an uproar by pro posing that patients go to in other European countries to be treated if not enough medical facilities can be found for them in Germany!
The shortage of beds and personnel is the result of some 20 years of incompetence, ignorance and austerity-dictated ap proaches. The lack of nursing staff is now at 220,000, most dating from before the pandemic. The situation is sure to worsen greatly as 500,000 nurses will have retired by 2030. A crash program is thus urgent, with the recruitment and full training of several hundred thousand well-paid staff mem bers. That in addition to all the other investments required in the medical sector for equipment, hospitals, as well as preven tion. In sum, budget austerity is the enemy of a well-thought out health system.
Germany used to be a model in such affairs. But today’s policymakers are of the view that “we’ll just have to live with the virus” for the time being.
Looking back at almost two years of the pandemic, it is evident that the decision to transfer coordination of the mea sures from EU member states to the European Commission was a huge mistake, which delayed the start of mass-test ing and vaccination by several months as Brussels sank into squabbling over who would pay, and how much. It was also a mistake for so many politicians and experts to argue that administering vaccinations was a viable alternative to creating more ICU units.
Even in monetary terms, the cost of the pandemic far out weighs the amount of money that may have been “saved” by non investment in vital areas.
The “very dramatic Christmas season” that the director of the Robert Koch Institute Lothar Wieler warned of, due to the laissez-faire attitude of policymakers, is most certain now, as the measures being taken to contain and substantially reduce the very high infection rates of over 50,000 daily are coming too late.
It is to be hoped (but not expected) that the incoming Ger man government will do a better job than the current one.
From Bolloré to Bannon: Behind the Sudden Rise of Eric Zemmour in France
With the next French Presidential elections just five months away, it was generally believed, until last September, that the second and final round would be a stand-off between current President Emmanuel Macron and the far right-wing contend
er Marine Le Pen (who has since dropped most of her attacks on the EU and has called for NATO to become an international gendarme to fight Islamic fundamentalism). However, since then, an unprecedented media campaign has put the spotlight on “outsider” Eric Zemmour, a Le Figaro columnist, author and inflammatory political commentator, who exploits the growing sense of economic and social insecurity in France. But he is also promoted by powerful factions in both the French establishment and the Anglo-American oligarchy.
Although he has not officially announced his candidacy, Zemmour’s popularity nearly doubled in less than one month, going from 7% to 13% , and at some points beyond to over take Marine Le Pen. His rise is envied by British conservatives, such as those at The New Statesman, which recently published an article titled “Eric Zemmour is eating Marine Le Pen alive”. “Efforts to cancel and demonize Zemmour are plainly failing”, it stated, noting that his new book sold 200,000 copies in one week.
From the United States, former investment banker and right-wing populist Steve Bannon wans to publish in English Zemmour’s books (promoting Islamophobic views). He told Le Parisien (Nov. 13) that if “you look to Trump, Bolsonaro or Salvini, they are all men of action. Zemmour adds an intel
lectual to the debate. (…) In Spring 2022, the world will have it’s eyes concentrated on the great debate in France, which will be the debate between globalization and sovereignism.” It will have a direct impact, he believes, on the entire world, and more specifically on the November mid-term elections in the United States. With that political calculation in mind, Bannon announced in Le Parisien that he would launch, as of January 2022, a French version of his podcast, The War Room.
And in France itself, the “intellectual” Islamaphobic author is promoted by billionaire Vincent Bolloré, the main shareholder of the giant media group Vivendi. According to a long feature article published on Nov. 16 by two senior investigative jour
nalists of Le Monde, behind the sudden rise of Eric Zemmour, one find the “desire for revenge” of Bolloré, whose “anger has been brewing for several months.” He believes, they write, that Emmanuel Macron backed Bernard Arnault, the power
ful boss of world luxury leader LVMH, to take control of the Lagardère media group that Bolloré hoped to acquire. Zemmour, “with whom he talks on the phone every day, and whose identity and anti-Islam obsessions colonize the de bate,” has become Bolloré’s nuclear option. After he opened his TV channel CNews to Zemmour, the number of viewers tripled. The article further states that Bolloré intends to cre ate a think-tank devoted to “the defense of French identity,” and opposed to “wokism”, with its “neo-feminism and the questioning of the ‘traditional male”. He has “begun to be lieve in the famous ‘war of civilizations’, which Eric Zemmour speaks about.”
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT n°47 / 2021 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3
A Message to Young People
on Climate Change: “Wake Up!”
The following 7-point statement was issued by CLINTEL Group President Guus Berkhout under the title “Dear Youngsters at COP26, Please Wake Up” and was presented by him personally at the Schiller Institute online conference on Nov. 14 (cf. SAS 46/21 and https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2021/11/21/ as well as SAS 41/21)).
1. Please, don’t act like a parrot. Be critical against the many false prophets, who are trying to take advantage of you and set you up against the impressive progress your parents and grandparents have realized. Bear in mind that the information these prophets tell you is one-sided and misleading.
2. Deepen your knowledge on the facts of our climate. By doing so, you will discover that there is no evidence that points to a climate crisis. Yes, climate change exists and it is of all times. But don’t worry, the current global warming is gentle (only ca. 0.14° C per decade) and it has already made many, many positive contributions to the quality of life.
3. Do you know that the difference between the mean an nual temperature in cold Finland and warm Singapore is more than 20° C. Yet, both these countries are most successful. Mankind is very clever in adapting to very different climates! Declaring current global warming of 0.14° C per decade a ca tastrophe is totally out of proportion. Think about that, while you are protesting.
4. Did your teachers ever tell you that CO2 is a blessing for everything that lives on our planet? Far from being pollution, CO2 is the molecule of life, providing food for plants. Without plants there would be very little animal life and no human life at all. Think about that as well, while you are protesting.
5. Don’t confuse climate change with environmental pollu tion! They are two completely different phenomena. Climate change is largely caused by the primordial natural forces and environmental pollution is largely caused by human behavior. Climate change requires clever adaptation measures and envi ronmental pollution asks for clever clean production technolo gies.
6. Please, don’t waste your life by solving a problem that does not exist. Instead, put all your talents and energy in developing a productive sustainable economy. Only then can you realize enough financial means to increase the standard of living beyond the basic needs. When you go back to the unproductive past and make yourself poor, you are no longer in control of your future!
7. History shows that living on planet Earth requires ad aptation all the time. If you continue to advance science and technology, you generate new capabilities to adapt to climate change, to protect our natural environment, to conquer the universe and to take care of one another. This is the formula for creating a better world.
Finally, Dear Youngsters,
For all of you who have been poisoned by fear of what is to come, forget the dodgy preachers of doom and gloom at COP26; they ruin your future by destroying everything your parents and grandparents have built.
Moves to Integrate Afghanistan into BRI Railway Projects in Central Asia
While the food and healthcare crises on the ground in Afghan istan remain critical, neighboring countries are taking decisive
steps to integrate the country into regional transportation projects, and thus provide the as-yet missing link between Central Asia and South Asia.
A crucial project is the part of the Trans Asian railway net work connecting Uzbekistan to Pakistan, via Afghanistan. The line would continue to the Pakistani city of Peshawar, where it would hook up with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which extends down to the new Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.
Earlier this year, prior to the Taliban takeover Afghanistan, the World Bank considered loaning up to $4.5 billion for the project, according to the Uzbek government, and there was also an agreement among Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Paki
stan, as well as the United States, to support the building of the railway.
While Washington continues to stall on recognizing the Tali ban government, Uzbekistan and Pakistan call for constructive engagement with Kabul to avert a disastrous humanitarian crisis. In an op-ed for InDepthNews (Nov.16) former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar, reported on progress made dur ing the recent visit of Uzbekistan’s National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. Viktor Makhmudov, to Islamabad, where he met his Pakistani counterpart as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan. In addition to agreements to expand cooperation against ter rorism, transnational crime, and drug trafficking, promoting regional connectivity, especially the railway project, was high on the agenda.
On Nov. 10, Pakistan’s Minister for Railways Azam Khan Swati had expressed confidence that the rail link would be confirmed soon, telling the Senate that it was like a “jugular vein” for Pakistan, and that its “technical and financial feasibil
ity is in its final phase”.
Another crucial link for the Central Asia region is Beijing’s long-standing project to build a railway line connecting China with Uzbekistan that passes through Kyrgyzstan.
On Nov. 8, Prime Minister Zhaparov of Kyrgyzstan an nounced that the government has reached an agreement with the Uzbeki government on all outstanding issues regarding the railway project and expects to do the same with the Chi nese in the near term. In the framework of the BRI, Beijing would like to extend that rail line onward to Turkmenistan and Iran.
While China has called for the railway to be standard gauge and not broad gauge (still used in the former Soviet Union), M.K. Bhadrakumar suggests that a dual track technology could be used. China and Russia have used this technology on the recently completed 2.2 km Tongjiang-Nizhnelenin
skoye railway bridge across the Amur River. If trials of the technology are successful, it would be extended all the way through Russia.
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EIR STRATEGIC ALERT 4 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n°47 / 2021
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