Mary Jane Freeman |

Chinese Scientists Discover Genes to Make Rice More Heat-Resistant

June 20, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, China, Economic development updates, General updates

Chinese Scientists Discover Genes to Make Rice More Heat-Resistant —

June 19 (EIRNS)–According to a study published in the journal Science on June 16, researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have discovered two genes in rice that can make the staple crop more heat-resistant, providing a new way to breed highly thermotolerant crops, reported CGTN News today.

The scientists discovered a mechanism by which the rice’s cell membrane senses external heat-stress signals before communicating with chloroplasts – the organelles in which photosynthesis occurs.

Chloroplasts are tiny bean-shaped membranes (1–2 μm (1 μm = 0.001 mm) thick and 5–7 μm in diameter), which in turn contain even smaller structures (thylakoids), which are shaped like discs and stacked like hamburgers within the chloroplasts. This is the workhorse of the plant where photosynthesis takes place.

Too much heat can damage these membranes, and if over a long duration can cause a crop to fail.

CGTN reported, “The researchers identified a locus with two genes: Thermo-tolerance 3.1 (TT3.1) and Thermo-tolerance 3.2 (TT3.2). They interact in concert to enhance rice thermotolerance and reduce grain-yield losses caused by heat stress.

The researchers found that accumulated TT3.2 triggers chloroplast damage regarding heat stress, but, in that scenario, TT3.1 can serve as a remedy.

Upon heat stress, TT3.1, a potential thermosensor, will remove the cell membrane from the cell to degrade the mature TT3.2 proteins, according to the study.

“The study elucidates a fresh molecular mechanism that links plant cell membranes with the chloroplast in responding to heating signals,” said the paper’s co-corresponding author Lin Hongxuan with the Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology.

Then, the researchers used hybridization to translate the TT3 locus of African rice into Asian species.

The field test has shown that the new species is more heat tolerant. It can withstand heat at 38 degrees Celsius without crop failure, while the output of normal species would be reduced above 35 degrees Celsius, said the researchers.

The newly-found gene might also be used in other plants, including wheat, maize, beans, and vegetables, to cultivate heat-tolerant strains, according to the researchers.”

Italian Gen. Tricarico: “Biden Does Not Want Peace”

April 17, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in General updates, Geopolitics updates, Italy, Ukraine, World war danger updates

April 16 (EIRNS) – Gen. Leonardo Tricarico, former chief of staff of the Italian Air Force, former deputy commander of the multinational force in the Balkan war (1999) and currently chairman of the think-tank Fondazione ICSA (Intelligence Culture and Strategic Analysis), said the U.S.-UK-NATO axis is working against peace in Ukraine.

“The word ‘negotiation’ has never been pronounced either by U.S. President Biden nor by NATO secretary general Stoltenberg, nor by Secretary of State Blinken, nor by UK Prime minister Johnson. This is very serious, because the first efforts to reach an agreement have occurred in a quite improbable way. I know what I am saying: Biden does not want peace,” Tricarico said in an interview with La7 national TV.

“A serious effort for a major structuring of negotiations has never been made by anyone and especially by the U.S.A. and the UK. If we review all public and non-public statements by the characters I mentioned, we will never find words such as ‘negotiation’ or ‘ceasefire’. Evidently, they do not want peace. If Biden does not want peace, nobody else wants it, because Stoltenberg is the direct resonance room for Biden and the British are even more aggressive and imperative than the Americans. This is the situation; it is useless to dance around it: Biden wants Putin in the dust.” (The full interview is found here.)

China Releases the Most Detailed Geological Map of the Moon

June 9, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in China, Cultural renaissance updates, General updates, Space updates

June 8, 2022 (EIRNS)–China has released the most detailed geological map of the Moon, a project which has been the lifelong goal of geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan, the inspiration for, and the chief designer of, the Chinese Chang’e program. Decades before China made the decision to launch a manned space program with an eye on the Moon, Ouyang was gathering data from previous lunar missions of both the U.S. and Russia.

The map is on a scale of 1:2,500.000. Based on the data of China’s Chang’e Project, and making full use of other international lunar exploration data and research results, through the study of the “strata,” morphology, composition, structure and geological age of the lunar surface, a new lunar geological chronology is being proposed.”

“The newly compiled map,” CCTV notes, “updates the Moon’s geological chronology based on a better understanding of the history of the lunar surface which has been categorized into three epochs and six periods. That trio of epochs have been classified as the early stage, dominated by internal geological activities, the middle stage which features both internal and external geological forces, and the late stage which has mainly external forces such as asteroid strikes shaping the Moon’s surface.”

On the 100th Anniversary of the Rapallo Treaty, April 16

April 14, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in General, Germany, History

On the 100th Anniversary of the Rapallo Treaty, April 16 —

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Rapallo Treaty April 16, Alexander Hartmann, Editor of the weekly Neue Solidaritaet released this statement (computer translated from the German,) instructive for resolving today’s crisis, by presenting the principle of the common interest among nations for mutual economic development.

Apr. 14, 2022 (EIRNS)–100 years ago, on April 16, 1922, Germany, represented by Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, and the Russian Soviet Federative Republic, represented by Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, concluded the Treaty of Rapallo, in which they agreed to resume diplomatic and economic relations according to the principle of most-favored-nation treatment.
            At that time, Germany’s economic livelihood, with the help of the Treaty of Versailles, was to be “destroyed,” in order to keep the Anglo-American financial system alive with the help of reparations payments imposed on Germany. Like Russia today, Russia and Germany were economically “isolated” at that time. Both sides tried to escape this isolation through economic cooperation.
            Similarly, there were efforts from German industry at that time, led by the industrialist Otto Wolff, to cooperate with the young Chinese republic then led by Sun Yat-Sen, especially in the construction of a Chinese railroad network as conceived by Sun Yat-Sen in his writing {The International Development of China}.
            The opportunity for a peaceful way out of the crisis was missed in 1922. Walter Rathenau was assassinated, only two months after the conclusion of the Rapallo Treaty. The attempt to pay Germany’s reparation debts with the help of the money presses, failed in 1923, with the infamous hyperinflation. The German population became impoverished and thus became the plaything of extremist forces. The same forces that had already imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany, now helped install fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, Spain and France, paving the way for World War II, which cost the lives of between 60 and 100 million people worldwide, depending on estimates. Economic policies amounted to imposing austerity on the population, while at the same time, beginning the buildup of arms for World War II.
            Of course, the situation today, in many respects, is quite different. The attempt to isolate Russia, today, is doomed to failure because of its close cooperation with China. In fact, outside the EU, only seven countries participate in the sanctions against Russia, and it is rather the West that is increasingly isolating itself.
            But there are quite a few, fatal parallels from which we urgently need to draw lessons and consequences if history is not to repeat itself. The money-printing policies of recent years (especially since 2019) have prepared the ground for hyperinflation, which is now beginning to

sweep over the world in a huge wave after the Russia sanctions have given financial speculators a way into commodity speculation. As in 1922, the economic perspective as championed by Brussels and Washington -– today, not as a Versailles diktat, but under the pretext of combating climate change–amounts to drastically lowering the standard of living of its own people. And today, rearmament is even initiated even before popular protest has brought extremist governments to power. These protests are not likely to be long in coming, given the impending energy price hikes, only this time they are threatening not just Germany, but all countries that will be hit by the consequences of this policy.
            In fact, Rapallo shows us the way out of the crisis: that of international cooperation. This approach is already being pursued, by Russia and China, in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative, in which more than 100 nations are already participating. So it would be very easy to seize the 2022 opportunity by the scruff of the neck and join this initiative.
            Instead of artificially creating new Iron Curtains that block our way out of the crisis, we should break with the policy of murderous and suicidal sanctions that can only lead to economic and probably military doom. We should subject the speculators’ bogus assets, based on financial claims that are only apparently “kept alive” by printing money, to a well-deserved insolvency procedure, and create a credit system that enables global economic construction; and we should turn together to solving the world’s common problems, thus creating the basis for lasting peace.
            If we do that, we will have learned the right lessons from Rapallo.

Poland Urges Citizens to Gather Firewood, Due To Coal Shortage

June 9, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Environmentalism updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Green New Deal, Sanctions

June 8 (EIRNS) – If it weren’t so tragic, this would sound like a bad Polish joke: After banning all imports of Russian coal, Poland is now suffering such a severe energy shortage combined with soaring prices, that the government has “authorized” citizens to forage for firewood in the forests.

RT reported: “It is always possible, with the consent of foresters, to collect branches for fuel,” Deputy Minister of Climate and Energy Edward Siarka was quoted by Next Gazeta as saying on Monday. However, desperate citizens will first have to be trained in such medieval technologies: “Those wishing to gather wood must first undergo training and obtain permission from the local forestry unit. The report went on to clarify that people can only take branches already lying on the ground, and cannot cut down trees.”

New UN Report Calls for Urgent Aid to 20 ‘Hunger Hotpots’

June 9, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Green New Deal, Sanctions

June 8, 2022 (EIRNS)–The UN report “Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP Early Warnings on Acute Food Insecurity June to September 2022 Outlook” was issued June 6, sounding the alarm on the scale of the world hunger crisis today. The joint authors of this periodical report are the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Among the 20 nations listed as in need for “urgent aid,” the WFP press release on the report stated that “Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen remain at ‘highest alert’ as hotspots with catastrophic conditions, and Afghanistan and Somalia are new entries to this worrisome category since the last hotspots report in January 2022. These six countries all have parts of the population facing the IPC (5-point scale of severity of hunger–ed.) phase 5 `Catastrophe’… with up to 750,000 people facing starvation and death. 400,000 of these are in Ethiopia’s Tigray region….The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, the Sahel, the Sudan and Syria remain ‘of very high concern,’ with deteriorating critical conditions.”

The report gives country-specific information on the food requirements to save millions of lives.

EIR Preprint of “The LaRouche Plan for a New International Economic Architecture” Now Available

April 6, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Economic development studies, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Studies & contributions, Ukraine

Apr. 5, 2022 (EIRNS)–“The LaRouche Plan for a New International Economic Architecture,” which was prepared for the up-coming April 9 Schiller Institute conference, is now prominently featured at the top of larouchepub.com for easy download. This preprint is fully illustrated with charts, maps, and pictures. Read it and circulate it to your networks and your elected officials to demand action now for development.

It is directly accessible at via this link.

“Stop the Danger of Nuclear War!”

June 8, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), World war danger updates

Schiller Institute Call for Ibero-American Presidents to

Deliver Message To Biden at Americas Summit:

June 3 (EIRNS)—Led by the LaRouche Citizens Movement of Mexico and friends in Argentina, Schiller Institute activists from many Ibero-American countries have sent their Presidents and other officials an “Open Letter from Ibero-America to Mr. Biden” on the eve of the beleaguered Summit of the Americas next week, signed by a select number of citizens from the region. Its message: “End Your Strategy of Using Ukraine to Destroy Russia. Stop the Danger of Nuclear War!”

The letter reads:

“The Summit of the Americas, which will take place June 6-10 this year, should submit a blunt resolution from the Presidents of Ibero-America to U.S. President Joe Biden:

End your strategy of using Ukraine to destroy Russia.
Stop NATO’s extension and expansion towards the Pacific (Global NATO), since if that is not done, we are heading towards a frontal war against China, which at this point in human history would be truly insane, and would drive us towards general thermonuclear war.

That is why the international community should call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, sanctions to be lifted against Russia, and an international conference to be convoked on a New Security and Economic Development Architecture for all nations, which takes into account the demands of the Russian government for security on its borders, as the Schiller Institute proposes in its recent call.

President Biden: the economic and financial sanctions against Russia are having a boomerang effect on the world economy. We are already in worldwide stagflation and it will get worse if an economic and financial war is opened against China. Decoupling the financial system and economies of the Trans-Atlantic axis plus Japan, Australia and South Korea, from the economies of Russia and China would trigger a general economic and social collapse much worse than the collapse of Europe and Asia during the 14th century bubonic plague. That alone could mean the disappearance of the global civilization which we inherited from the great 15th and 16th century European Renaissance.

Moreover, the entire world faces a general debt crisis stemming from the $1.9 quadrillion speculative bubble, which is the underlying cause of the hyperinflationary process aggravated by illegal sanctions.

You know the solution to this economic breakdown: You told CNN on December 15, 2016, that the biggest mistake in your political career was your vote in 1999 in favor of the cancellation of Franklin Roosevelt’s Glass-Steagall Law by President Clinton and the Congress.

Now is the time to reinstate it!

Franklin Roosevelt’s economic system must be restored worldwide. Glass-Steagall must be reestablished across the planet along with a policy of economic relations and good will with Russia and China, so that, together with India, these four superpowers can rid themselves of their common enemy: the dark forces of the financier speculator interests opposed to human progress —the Neanderthal embers of McCarthyism and the Cold War— and found an economic system capable of eliminating poverty throughout the world. This is the path to reestablish the economic power of the United States and the whole Ibero-American region.

Likewise, a comprehensive economic and social plan to finally address the consequences of the conflicts and wars in Asia and Africa should be formulated as part of, and complementary to, China’s strategic Silk Road plan.

With all due respect for the people of the United States, they would be wise to accept that the world today can no longer be unipolar. There are other powers whose place in the new concert of nations should be recognized under the 21st century concept of multipolarity.

The 21st century must become the century in which humanity ends hunger and the brutality of war, allowing us to overcome the barbaric state in which we still find ourselves and become truly human. That is the legacy which the 17th century Treaties of Westphalia left us, a glorious moment for humanity, which established the basis of the modern Nation-State, the concept of the Common Good, in addition to perceiving that the good of other nations signifies also doing the good for each one of our nations, and finally understanding that the security of our nations cannot be at the cost of the security and submission of others.

For more information, email preguntas@larouchepub.com

Putin Calls for Comprehensive Strategy to Develop a ‘Greater Eurasian Partnership’

May 28, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia

May 26 (EIRNS)— “It is time to draft a comprehensive strategy for developing large-scale Eurasian partnership,” conceived as a “civilizational project” which can secure stability and prosperity from one end to the other of this continent, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to the plenary session of the Eurasian Economic Forum today. He pointed to the expressed interest of BRICS members such as China and India, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, and others, in creating a Greater Eurasian Partnership with the EAEU.

Putin dismissed any idea that Eurasian integration is a reaction to Western sanctions. Rather, it arose from the recognition years ago that the center of world economic development is shifting towards the Asia-Pacific region, he said. It offers a broader vision:

“Greater Eurasia is a big civilizational project. The main idea is to create a common space for equitable cooperation for regional organizations. The Greater Eurasian Partnership is designed to change the political and economic architecture and guarantee stability and prosperity on the entire continent – naturally, taking account of the diverse development models, cultures and traditions of all nations.”

He acknowledged, naturally, the attempts to cut off Russia, and its Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) partners, from advanced Western technologies and the world economic system. Western sanctions are intensifying global crises, creating chaos and economic upheavals, and ruining the economies of those imposing them (and stealing other’s reserves), but they are “unrealistic… There are many countries that want to and will pursue an independent policy and their number is growing. No world policeman will be able to stop this global process. There will not be enough power for this and the desire to do so will evaporate due to a host of domestic problems in those countries. I hope they will eventually realize that this policy has no prospects whatsoever,” Putin said. Western countries’ belief that they can “delete from the world economy, politics, culture and sports,” anyone who has their own point of view and is ready to defend it, “is nonsense.”

Russia, for example, is not merely focused on import substitution, or worried about those who will insist on importing their luxury Mercedes S 600’s. “For the country, … engineering centers, scientific centers that are the basis of its development are what is important. This is what we should think about, and what she would work on both within the Eurasian Economic Union and in a broad sense with our partners – those who want to work with us.”

Putin reported that the EAEU “roadmap for industrialization” has over 180 projects with a total investment of over $300 billion and a program for agricultural development, with more than 170 projects worth $16 billion. Already, 75% of the trade between EAEU member states is done in national currencies, and work is ongoing to interlink national payment systems and bank cards. Dialogue on “transitioning from SWIFT to direct correspondent contacts between the banks of the friendly countries” should be expedited, and cooperation with key lending and financial centers in the Asia-Pacific Region strengthened, he urged, amongst other ideas.

Glazyev at EAEU Meeting on ‘Eurasianism’ and a ‘New World Economic Order’

May 28, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, New financial order updates, Russia, World Land-Bridge updates

Glazyev at EAEU Meeting on ‘Eurasianism’ and a ‘New World Economic Order’—

May 26, 2022 (EIRNS)–The economy today is becoming more and more humanitarian. This was stated today, May 26, during the thematic session “Eurasianism as an Idea to Unite People. A Look into the Future” of the Eurasian Economic Forum 2022, by EEC Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev. According to him, the new technological mode is different from the previous one, as the leading areas of the economy are health care, education, science, culture and art. The meeting is in Kyrgyzstan.

“The economy today is becoming more and more humanitarian. We must admit that issues of humanitarian cooperation and culture are not given enough attention in our Eurasian construction. We are passionate about building a customs union, discussing customs tariffs, customs and technical regulation, and forming a common labor market. And at the same time, we constantly face problems of people’s correct perception of the idea of Eurasianism,” explained Glazyev.

The Minister believes that it is difficult to achieve economic success without a common understanding of where the “Five” countries of the EAEU are moving in humanitarian directions. “The classics of Eurasianism foresaw the difficulties of reintegration of our space, saw the threat of nationalism and Nazism, which today, unfortunately, we are also facing,” Glazyev added.

Despite the difficulties now the union countries, according to the minister, are building partnerships with the brotherly CIS countries, building preferential trade regimes with India, creating free trade zones with Serbia and Iran, signed a large-scale agreement with China. “This is how the work is done to form a new world economic order,” Glazyev said.

Page 12 of 54First...«111213 »...Last

Mary Jane Freeman

Recent posts