David Dobrodt

Excerpt from a presentation by Harley Schlanger from a LaRouche Organization meeting on January 9, 2021.

“One of the first things I learned from Lyndon LaRouche was a concept that he called the conjunctural perspective, as the basis for his forecasting. That is, how to evaluate a crisis, to act effectively to solve it, but incorporating history, science, economics, politics, social policy. And especially in a period of breakdown, you have to take into consideration all of these facets.”

As there is threatening food shortage and famine in regions of Africa, South Asia, and Ibero-America, there is also a global food price inflation underway, which recalls the severe food price shocks of 2007-08 before the financial crash.

The 15% inflation this year in the price of the average market basket of food in Africa, in a private institution’s survey, was already reported a week ago. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Oct. 8 reported cereals price inflation of 5.1% in September, worldwide, and 13.6% from September 2019. Vegetable oil prices averaged a 6% jump in September, and 14.1% from a year earlier; meat prices averaged a 9.4% increase from September 2019. Some prices had not risen: dairy, for example; and sugar prices were actually falling.

What this means in the United States will be further indicated Oct. 13; prices for food at home (where most Americans are now eating the great majority of the time) had already risen by 4.5% through August. China has had particularly high food inflation: its average pork price is 53% higher than a year ago, and fresh vegetables 11.7% higher for the year, according to the China National Bureau of Statistics. Typically for China, the government is conducting a national “don’t waste food, clean your plate!” campaign involving President Xi Jinping personally, personalities like Jack Ma, and so forth; it denies that China faces a food shortage, having large grains reserves in particular.

Richard A. Black, the Schiller Institute representative at the UN in New York, recently published an article in Executive Intelligence Review, titled, “Science Driver and Culture — Not Money — Ignite Progress,” describing the thrust of China’s newly announced Five Year Plan. Chinese government officials described their choice to make innovations in many fields of hard science into the engine for all economic growth, and simultaneously, to move towards devoting “10% of GDP” on upgrading the culture of their population of 1.4 billion. We interviewed the article’s author.

Cátedra China and the Schiller Institute invite you to an international videoconference discussion.

Register here

Languages: Spanish and English (with simultaneous interpretation)
Via Zoom — RSVP below for the link

The direction of relations between China and the West may well be the decisive issue that determines the future of all mankind – from economics to politics to culture. And yet those relations today are characterized by rising tensions.

Cátedra China and the Schiller Institute are hosting an international videoconference dialogue on this subject, because we firmly believe that the current slide into rivalry and disagreement must be stopped before it is too late. China and the West are part of a “community with a shared future for mankind,” and it is essential to learn about, share, and promote the best in each of our respective cultures. The joint efforts that will come from such a dialogue, and its adoption by leading political figures and governments in the West, are the key to working together to solve the existential crises facing all mankind, including the current COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic crisis.

We invite you to participate in an in-depth dialogue with leading international experts in the field. There will be participants from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the United States, and various countries in Latin America. The event will also be broadcast live over YouTube.

Moderator: Rosa Cervera, President of Cátedra China, architect, professor at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares (Madrid).

Speakers: 

— Yao Fei, Minister Counsellor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to Spain: “China’s View” 

— Michele Geraci, former Italian Undersecretary of State for Economic Development.

— Marcelo Muñoz, Founder and President Emeritus, Cátedra China, Spain: “China and the West: Two Worlds”

— Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder and President, Schiller Institute, Germany: “Confucius and Schiller: the Aesthetic Education of Man”

— Dr. Ángel Álvarez, Dr. Engineer, Cátedra China, Spain: “China’s Weaknesses in ICT in View of the Current Conflict with the U.S.”

— Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité & Progrès, France: “Economic Coexistence to Overcome Geopolitics”

Register here

Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Saturday, January 9, speaking on The LaRouche Organization webcast, described how the orchestrated assault on the Capitol Building in Washington Wednesday, Jan. 6, was another 9/11, intended to justify fascist dictatorship in the United States by the incoming Biden Administration, turning power over to the Central Bankers’ Green Finance destruction of industry and agriculture.

In a beautiful expression of scientific and technological optimism, on Oct. 9 the governments of Argentina and Mexico, through their respective Foreign Ministers, signed a “Declaration on the Constitution of a Regional Mechanism for Cooperation in Space,” ultimately leading to the creation of a regional space agency. Signed by Argentine Foreign Minister Felipe Sola and Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard during a virtual ceremony, the declaration states it intends to create a platform to “invite the rest of the membership of CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States] to become part of this effort.

In attendance were each nation’s diplomats, academics and government officials responsible for the areas of science and technology, including the director of Argentina’s Space Activities Commission (CONAE), the director of Mexico’s Space Agency (AEM), and the dean of Colombia’s National University, Dolly Montoya Castano, who also represents a network of Ibero-American universities.

Following the ceremony, Secretary Ebrard tweeted “we’ve signed the agreement with Argentina to create the Latin American and Caribbean space agency (ALCE). Thanks to Felipe Sola and the government of [President] Alberto Fernandez and the members of CELAC. We’re building the future today with our own technology. Good News!” Ebrard said it wasn’t clear, given the Covid-19 pandemic, that the signing ceremony would occur. But what the pandemic has proven, he said, is that cooperation “is not only desirable, but also the most intelligent and practical way” to proceed, the daily {Infobae} reported him as saying. He celebrated that “we’ve reactivated CELAC” with this initiative, even in the midst of a pandemic!

As described in an Argentine government press release, Felipe Sola stressed that “this is a message to the world: a region that is a bit backward globally, thinking in terms of other regions of the world, makes an effort to change, and to send a different message….This is a step forward in every sense: scientifically, it demonstrates our mutual capability for collaboration; politically, because it’s a message for the rest of the world.”

Diego Hurtado, Argentina’s Secretary of Policy and Planning in Science, Technology and Innovation, explained that for Argentina, the “space sector is one that has been considered strategic now for many decades. We see it as an `industrializing’ industry…understanding that the space sector is a great vector for building capacities for our economic sector.” His country looks forward to sharing its decades of experience in satellite and space activities with the rest of the region, he said. “Our region has an extensive trajectory of scientific cooperation,” he said. But, “we have a pending debt in the technological field in what we would call strategic projects. In this sense, the space sector has an enormous projection for a great number of applications considered to be indispensable to meet the needs of the region.” He particularly emphasized that the process of regional integration “must incorporate the scientific-technological dimension and pay attention to advancing strategic technologies, combining our efforts to multiply the individual abilities of our nations.”

The Declaration calls for creating a regional mechanism for space cooperation, responsible for coordinating activities with the relevant institutions of Ibero-American and Caribbean nations, ensuring it has the necessary ability “to operate as a catalyst for regional efforts, privileging the development of space-related projects, whose results will support the wellbeing and prosperity of the region.” Noting the many scientific and economic benefits that such coordination will yield, the declaration underscores the intention of increasing the number of space projects “by attracting the talent of Latin American and Caribbean youth, and making efficient use of available resources.” Minister Sola thanked Mexico for its collaboration, and expressed the hope that “we can multiply our joint efforts.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador used his daily morning press briefing on Jan. 8 to warn the world that the censorship taking place in the U.S. is a danger for the world, a new “Holy Inquisition” designed to “create a world government with the power to control social networks, a world media power.” The exchange occurred in response to a question from respected journalist Daniel Marmolejo.

A three-minute video excerpt of the exchange, subtitled in English, was played on today’s LaRouche Manhattan Project Meeting, hosted by The LaRouche Organization (TLO).

Daniel Marmolejo: “With the desire to not only be on social networks and in the struggle, but also—since the social networks have owners and we’ve just seen how they create blackouts, and that there is also ‘info-demia,’ and that alternative communicators are also monitored and censored…

President López Obrador: “What you have just correctly identified as a blackout, what they just did a few days ago in the U.S., is a bad sign, it’s a bad omen: that private companies decide to silence, to censor. That is an attack on freedom. So, let’s not be creating a world government with the power to control social networks, a world media power. And also a censorship court, like the Holy Inquisition, but in order to shape public opinion, that is really serious. Of course we have to be thinking about options, alternatives, because yes: I think that what happened a few days ago is a turning point regarding social networks. Then I read the letter of the owner of Facebook, and I thought it was really high-handed, very arrogant, speaking about their rules. And what ever happened to freedom and the right to information? And the role of the legally and legitimately constituted authorities?…

“We should continue creating alternative media, so that it will always be allowed to inform the people, to guarantee the right to information. So that is how I answer your question.”

Germany saw its electricity export surplus shrink by 46.2% in 2020 to 18.9 terawatt hours (TWh), implying that its dependency on imports from neighbors will rise as it switches off more coal and nuclear power stations in the future, official data showed.

On the other hand, less power generation in Europe’s biggest economy, which shares borders with nine countries, implies uncertainties and unreliabilities for the functioning of the European energy supply system, which regulates exports and imports between countries. German exports of power fell by 11.6% to 52.5 TWh last year, from 59.4 TWh in 2019.

Meanwhile, German electricity imports in 2020 increased by 38.8% to 33.6 TWh, from 24.2 TWh in the prior year. Cross-border trade is especially strong with France, where the nuclear power sector secures 70 percent of national needs. This dependency on imports of power from France is going to increase if, under the German nuclear exit, three reactors out of the remaining six are due to close at the end of 2021.