Mary Jane Freeman |

Did Geopolitics Sink Portugal’s Sines Port Expansion Project for Now?

Did Geopolitics Sink Portugal’s Sines Port Expansion Project for Now?

May 5, 2021 (EIRNS)—At the close of the April 6 deadline for submitting bids to construct a new, huge container terminal at Portugal’s Sines Port, not a single bid had been entered. Port authorities blamed the fiasco on the drop in world shipping from the pandemic, and are talking of launching another offer with more “flexible” conditions when “market conditions” are better. The chairman of the port’s board of directors José Luís Cacho assured that the port expansion will happen, calling the possibility of a two-year delay “almost irrelevant.”

Most likely more than pandemic effects were involved. Portugal and China have been working for several years to use the planned “Vasco de Gama” terminal at Sines’s excellent deep-water port, just south of Lisbon on the Atlantic coast, as a key Belt and Road Initiative hub, connecting the westernmost point of the Eurasian rail network with the Maritime Silk Road in the Atlantic, thereby facilitating trading connections with the Americas and the Western coast of Africa. The Schiller Institute supported the plan as key for developing the Americas, and Portugal pinned its own industrial expansion on the project, envisioning proudly a return to its historic role as a leading center of maritime development. In late 2018, Portugal signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China on the Belt and Road, becoming one of the few countries in Europe willing to counter pressure from Washington and the EU.

The Anglo-American nexus moved in. The U.S. Embassy organized multiple visits of U.S. gas companies promising big investments to build up Sines’s LNG facilities. The Portuguese government welcomed investments from all serious bidders, but in September 2020, U.S. Amb. George Glass told the Portuguese daily Expresso that Portugal is inevitably “part of the European battlefield between the United States and China,” and Portugal now had to choose between its American “friends and allies” and its “economic partner” China. Among other threats, Glass stated that if Portugal awarded the Sines terminal contract to China, the U.S. would pull out of its LNG investments there.

Keeping the pressure on, former British diplomat John Dobson published an op ed in the Sunday Guardian of India on Dec. 5, 2020, picked up in Portugal, stating that the fight over Sines was an “economic flashpoint” between China and the U.S., similar to the military flashpoint building up in the South China Sea. “So will it be America’s huge LNG terminal, or China’s huge container port?,” he wrote. “Whoever is the winner, the geopolitical consequences will be massively significant.”

Some Countries: No Vaccines … and a Lack of Electricity or Refrigeration

May 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Healthcare, Healthcare

Some Countries with No Vaccines … and a Lack of Electricity or Refrigeration–

May 9 (EIRNS)—According to the World Health Organization, as of this week, Chad, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Eritrea, Tanzania and Haiti have not even received vaccines for their medical personnel. AP explains: “Delays and shortages of vaccine supplies are driving African countries to slip further behind the rest of the world in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout…” While the Farcha hospital in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, has 13 ventilators, along with oxygen from Doctors Without Borders and KN95 masks from the Chinese, none of the medical personnel have been vaccinated. Already, nine health care workers at the hospital have been infected, including cardiologist Dr. Mahamat Yaya Kichine, who explained: “I think that if there is a possibility to make a vaccine available, it will really ease us in our work.”

A key bottleneck in Chad, and elsewhere, is the lack of sufficient cold storage facilities. For example, Haiti is scheduled to receive 756,000 AstraZeneca doses via COVAX, but problems with basics such as electricity and refrigeration have delayed their arrival.

UN Official Warns of Economic Collapse and Food Insecurity in Afghanistan

October 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, World war danger updates

Oct. 30 (EIRNS)–In New York, UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths told The Associated Press in an interview that the G20 leaders should worry about Afghanistan because its economy is collapsing and half the population risks not having enough food to eat as the snows have already started to fall. Half the Afghan children under age five are at risk of acute malnutrition and there is an outbreak of measles in every single province which is “a red light” and “the canary in the mine” for what’s happening in society, he said.

Griffiths warned that food insecurity leads to malnutrition, then disease and death, and “absent corrective action” the world will be seeing deaths in Afghanistan. He said the World Food Program is feeding 4 million people in Afghanistan now, but the U.N. predicts that because of the dire winter conditions and the economic collapse it is going to have to provide food to triple that number — 12 million Afghans — “and that’s massive.”

“So, the message that I would give to the leaders of the G 20 is worry about economic collapse in Afghanistan, because economic collapse in Afghanistan will, of course, have an exponential effect on the region,” he said. “And the specific issue that I would ask them to focus on first, is the issue of getting cash into the economy in Afghanistan — not into the hands of the Taliban — into the hands of the people whose access to their own bank accounts is not frozen.”

Schiller Institute Internet Dialogue — ‘Need Creative Genius of the World to Bear on Haiti and Afghanistan’

September 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, Power & Energy, Space updates, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, World Land-Bridge updates

Sept. 25 (EIRNS)—Today the Schiller Institute held an international webinar titled, “Reconstructing Haiti—America’s Way Out of the ‘Global Britain’ Trap.” The two-and-a-half-hour discussion featured elements of a proposed development outline for Haiti, as well as immediate emergency action required, and brought together experts, with ties to Haiti, in engineering, medicine and development policy. Today’s deliberations stand in stark contrast to the events of the week, which included the U.S. forced deportation of thousands of displaced Haitians from the Texas-Mexico border, back to Haiti, to disaster conditions from the August earthquake and before.

The six panelists were Richard Freeman, co-author of “The Schiller Institute Plan To Develop Haiti,” which EIR will publish this week for its Oct. 1 issue; Eric Walcott, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Institute of Caribbean Studies; Firmin Backer, co-founder and President of the Haiti Renewal Alliance; Joel DeJean, engineer and Texas activist with The LaRouche Organization; Dr. Walter Faggett, MD, based in Washington, D.C., where he is former Chief Medical Officer of the District of Columbia, and currently Co-Chairman of the Health Council of D.C.’s Ward 8, and an international leader with the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites; and moderator Dennis Speed of the Schiller Institute.

Freeman presented both the dimensions of both the extreme underdevelopment forced for decades on Haiti, and also the essentials of a development program for that nation, in the context of development of all the Island of Hispaniola, and the Caribbean. He presented a map of proposed rail, nuclear power sites, safe water systems and other vital infrastructure. He showed maps of proposals that Chinese firms had made in recent years, but which fell into abeyance.

Firmin Backer pointed out that the USAID has spent $5.1 billion in Haiti over the 11 years since the 2010 earthquake, but what is there to show for it? Now, with the latest earthquake on Aug. 14, we can’t even get aid into the stricken zones, because there is no airport nor port in southern Haiti to serve the stricken people. We should reassess how wrongly the U.S. funding was spent. Firmin reported how Haiti was given some debt cancellation by the IMF years back, but then disallowed from seeking foreign credit!

Eric Walcott was adamant, “We need the creative genius of the world to bear on Haiti and Afghanistan.” He said, “leverage the diaspora” to develop Haiti. There are more Haitian medics in New York and Miami than all of Haiti. He stressed that Haiti is not poor; the conditions are what is poor. But the population has pride, talent and resourcefulness. Walcott made a special point about elections in Haiti. He said, “Elections are a process,” not an event. He has experience. From 1998 to 2000, Walcott served as the lead observer for the OAS, for elections in Haiti.

Joel DeJean, an American of Haitian lineage, was forceful about the need to aim for the highest level in that nation, for example, leapfrog from charcoal to nuclear power. He advised, “give China the opportunity” to deploy the very latest nuclear technology in Haiti—the pebble-bed gas cooled modular reactor. We “don’t need more nuclear submarines, we need nuclear technology!” He called for the establishment of a development bank in Haiti, and other specifics.

Dr. Faggett summed up at many points, with the widest viewpoint and encouragement of action. He served in the U.S. military’s “Caribbean Peace-Keeping Force,” and was emphatic about taking action not only in Haiti, but worldwide. He referenced President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saying that “you can tell a lot about people, by how they take care of the health of their people.” He reported that, at present, aid workers in Haiti, are having to shelter in place, because of the terrible conditions.

But, he said, we should mobilize. Have “vaccine diplomacy,” and work to build a health platform in Haiti, and a health care delivery system the world over. He is “excited about realizing Helga’s mission,” referring to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, who issued a call in June 2020, for a world health security platform. At that time, she and Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General, formed the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites.

UAE: 2022 Planned Moon Landing

April 19, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Space updates

UAE Takes Another Cosmic Step: 2022 Planned Moon Landing

April 18 (EIRNS)–On April 14, mission team members announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Japanese space company {ispace} will collaborate to land the UAE’s robotic Rashid moon-rover on the surface of the Moon in 2022, via the HAKUTO-R lander.

This will be the first Moon landing for the Arab world and for Japan. Only three nations so far have landed on the Moon – the former Soviet Union, the United States, and China.

Like the naming of the Hope Orbiter, the name of this 22-lb. moon-rover is important: the name Rashid in Arabic means (loosely translated, “rightly guided”), and Rāshid is one of the 99 names of God in the Qur’an. It will land near the equator on the near side of the Moon, but the exact landing site has not yet been announced.

According to space.com, “The little four-wheeled rover will study its surroundings for at least one lunar day, or about 14 Earth days, using a high-resolution camera, a thermal imager, a microscopic imager and a Langmuir probe. This latter instrument could help scientists better understand the electrically charged environment at the lunar surface, which is apparently caused by the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing constantly from the sun.”

“The Emirates Lunar Mission represents a milestone in the UAE’s space sector, as the mission will contribute towards providing valuable data and information relating to the moon that will serve the global scientific community as well as test capabilities that would be crucial for manned missions to Mars,” Adnan AlRais, senior director of the [Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre] MBRSC’s Remote Sensing Department.

“We are honored that MBRSC has entrusted ispace’s lunar payload transportation service to play a key role in carrying out this historic moment for the UAE,” ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement.

ispace is planning to launch its second lunar mission, which will also include a rover deployment, in 2023. Both of those flights are expected to lift off aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.

CLINTEL Challenges IPCC Conclusions to Its Chairman

October 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Green New Deal

Oct. 28, 2021 (EIRNS) — Fresh from challenging the Schachtian axioms of the COP26 conference in a joint statement with the Schiller Institute, CLINTEL (the Climate Intelligence group, consisting of nearly 100 scientists, engineers, and professionals disputing the apocalyptic nature of climate change) has pointed out the numerous discrepancies between the IPCC’s full report and its Summary for Policy Makers (SPM). These are sufficient to challenge the conclusions and proposed actions to be taken, nominally based on the AR6, “The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report,” but actually based on the Summary for Policy Makers, drawn up by working group 1 [WG1]), which, CLINTEL alleges and demonstrates, misrepresents the latest objective climate science in six key areas.

Attention: Dr Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC, c/o WMO, 7bis Ave de la Paix, CP2800, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland.
Critique of the AR6 WG1 Summary for Policymakers (SPM):

Dear Dr. Lee,
We have now carried out an interim review of the AR6 WG1 Summary for Policymakers (SPM) and believe that it misrepresents the latest objective climate science in six key areas:

1. It is not “unequivocal” that human influence alone has warmed the planet; the observed modest warming of ~1°C since 1850-1900 has occurred through some as yet unresolved combination of anthropogenic and natural influences.

2. The new “hockey-stick” graph (Fig SPM.1), when analysed in detail, is a concoction of disparate indicators from various time periods over the last 2,000 years, which together fail to recognise the intervening well-established temperature variability, for example of the Roman and Medieval Warming periods and of the Little Ice Age.

3. The incidence of so-called “extreme weather” events is erroneously misrepresented in the SPM compared to the more accurate depictions in the draft main report, which latter identify no statistically-significant trends in many categories over time.

4. Developments in the cryosphere are also misrepresented in the SPM, particularly noting that there is virtually no trend in Arctic sea ice in the last 15 years.

5. Likewise, developments in the ocean are erroneously misrepresented in the SPM; in particular, the likely modest GMSL [global mean sea level] rise to 2100 does not point to any “climate crisis.”

6. The CMIP6 [Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase] climate models are even more sensitive than the already overly-sensitive CMIP5 models of AR5, and ignore peer-reviewed scientific evidence of low climate sensitivity. The models lead to invalid conclusions on ECS [climate sensitivity estimates] and “carbon budgets”; the likely global temperature increase to 2100 does not indicate a “climate crisis.”

These concerns are summarised in the table overleaf and are then analyzed in more detail in the pages that follow. Our more detailed analysis will follow in due course.

We regrettably conclude that the SPM is erroneously pointing to a “climate crisis” that does not exist in reality. The SPM is inappropriately being used to justify drastic social, economic and human changes through severe mitigation, while prudent adaptation to whatever modest climate change occurs in the decades ahead would be much more appropriate. Given the magnitude of proposed policy implications, the SPM has to be of the highest scientific standards and demonstrate impeccable scientific integrity within the IPCC.

You may recall that, in 2010, the InterAcademy Council carried out an independent review of the IPCC procedures at the request of the then UN Secretary-General and IPCC Chairman. Among its recommendations were that reviewers’ comments be adequately considered by the authors and that genuine controversies be adequately reflected in IPCC reports. The AR6 SPM inspires little confidence that these recommendations have been put into effect.

We conclude that the AR6 WG1 SPM regrettably does not offer an objective scientific basis on which to base policy discussions at COP26. It also fails to highlight the positive impacts of slightly increased CO2 levels and warming on agriculture, forestry and human life on earth.

Yours sincerely,
Guus Berkhout, President of CLINTEL (https://clintel.org),
Jim O’Brien, Chair of the ICSF (www.ICSF.ie).

NASA Nominee: US, China Should Work Together in Space

April 19, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Space updates

U.S. Should Work With China in Space, Says Nominee for Number Two NASA Spot

Apr. 18 (EIRNS)–The President intends to nominate former astronaut Pamela Melroy to the second spot in the space agency, Deputy Administrator, the White House announced on April 16. Melroy, who was on Biden’s transition team for NASA, was the second woman to command a Space Shuttle mission. Since leaving NASA, Melroy has held various leadership positions, in industry and government, in DARPA and the FAA.

Before the election, Melroy told Politico that regardless of all the differences we have with China, “trying to exclude them I think is a failing strategy,” “It’s very important that we engage.

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

April 19, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Daily Beethoven — Sparks of Joy, General updates, Music updates

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy – Piano trio, variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” theme

“Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” (I am Kakadu the tailor) was the name of a popular tune from Wenzel Muller’s opera “Die Schwestern von Prag (The Sisters from Prague). Beethoven composed these variations during his early years in Vienna, then sent them to the publisher after the opera was revived in 1814, with the note, “one of my earlier compositions, though it is not among the reprehensible ones”.
Enjoy this delightful performance by the ATOS Trio. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]

Zakharova Warns of Pitfalls of Western ‘Sanctions War’

May 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Color Revolutions, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, Stop the Sanctions, United States, World war danger updates

May 4, 2021 (EIRNS)–“Diplomacy is being replaced by sanctions,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned in an interview with RT Television yesterday, and this is “undermining mutual trust and darkening the prospects for normalizing relations” between Russia and the collective West.

“The vicious practice of imposing unilateral political and economic restrictions, especially the extraterritorial application of such measures, is an infringement on the sovereignty of states and interference in their internal affairs aimed at keeping, at any cost, their [imposers’–ed.] dominant position in the global economy and international politics, which they are gradually losing,” she charged.

She discussed various measures which Russia is taking to defend itself: consolidating its national financial system, searching for new international partners, diversifying foreign economic ties while developing advanced, competitive domestic industries which lay the basis for substituting domestic products for what was previously imported. New legal mechanisms are being worked on, and legislation “providing for measures to counter new potential unilateral steps by the United States and other countries” is being drafted.

RT asked several questions about ways Russia might protect itself from restrictions on its access to Western financial systems. Zakharova noted that cutting Russia off from the SWIFT system for international settlement of payments “is so far considered a hypothetical scenario.” That said, work is underway on reducing Russia’s dependence on the dollar, a discussion that has been underway for at least a decade, she noted. She referenced that the 2007-2008 crisis “called into doubt the sustainability of the world currency system based on the supremacy of one national monetary unit.”

Zakharova made clear that such discussions are not taking place just in Russia, as finding ways to secure “the independence and sustainability of the financial system to external threat is increasingly becoming a priority for any state.” Russia will not be driven by the “hostile foreign policy” of others to shut out the outside world; it is discussing measures that can be taken with regional neighbors, the BRICS, and others.

Once again, Zakharova, as other high-ranking Russian officials have consistently been doing, proposed that Western nations change course, and come to the table to reach agreements which defend everyone’s interests: “We have repeatedly made it clear that we did not start this sanctions war, but we are ready, at any point, to do our part in order to end this pointless confrontation, in which there will not be and cannot be any winners…. We strongly support a broad international discussion of ways to counteract the illegitimate unilateral measures. We are confident that a systematic dialogue should help reduce the business community’s concerns regarding the uncertainty and instability in global affairs, which are provoked by the West’s one-sided and inconsistent policy.” The RT coverage can be found here.

The Foreign Ministry carries the transcript of the interview on its website.

Economist Writes ‘the Most Dangerous Place on Earth’: Taiwan

May 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Color Revolutions, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, World war danger updates

May 4, 2021 (EIRNS)--In its May 1 cover article, the Economist wrote with satisfaction about the dangerous strategic condition created with respect to Taiwan. The outgoing head of the Pacific Command, Adm. Phil Davidson, had told Congress in March that he worried about China attacking Taiwan as soon as 2027. The {Economist} notes the unique position of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which leads the world in the production of advanced semiconductor chips, with technologies and production processes years ahead of those of either the U.S. or China. The British rag also exults in recent changes from what had been the status quo of the ambiguous state of U.S. support for a one-China policy while in effect guaranteeing Taiwanese independence. With a growing independence movement in Taiwan, strengthened by reporting on Hong Kong, will China remain at bay?

“Nobody in America can really know what Mr. Xi intends today, let alone what he or his successor may want in the future…. Mr. Xi’s appetite for risk may sharpen, especially if he wants unification with Taiwan to crown his legacy.” To prevent this, the Economist calls for action: “America requires weapons to deter China from launching an amphibious invasion…. China must be discouraged from trying to change Taiwan’s status by force even as it is reassured that America will not support a dash for formal independence by Taiwan.” Rather than achieving an actual resolution of the dispute, through a true detente and discussion, the British magazine suggests an effort to “sustain ambiguity,” maintaining the state of conflict while acknowledging that “The risk of a superpower arms race is high.” The full article is here.

Page 26 of 54First...«252627 »...Last

Mary Jane Freeman

Recent posts