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Andrei Kortunov Warns Afghanistan Is on “Life Support;” No Time for Delay!

September 16, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Sanctions, World Food Program

Sept. 14, 2021 (EIRNS)—In an interview with TASS published Sept. 13, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council Andrey Kortunov warned that, due to both U.S. and UN sanctions, Afghanistan faces the threat of famine. The country is now “on life support,” he said, because it depends entirely on assistance from international development institutes, the UN, the EU, and the U.S. In fact, David Beasley, director of the World Food Program, reported during yesterday’s UN conference in Geneva on aid to Afghanistan that 40% of its GDP comes from foreign aid, and 75% of its public spending from international funding. Kortunov admonished that, if the Taliban coming to power means there will be more sanctions placed on the country, it could jeopardize food deliveries. He told TASS that it will take an estimated $1 billion a month, minimally, to maintain basic social institutions and avoid hunger in certain regions—that is, $12 billion yearly.

Kortunov also highlighted the issue of who will control distribution of humanitarian and food assistance to Afghanistan. Take the case of Syria, he said, where the West claims that President Bashar al-Assad can’t be trusted to handle this task, so it’s left in the hands of international agencies and aid groups. “It is not to be ruled out that the same position will be taken in respect of the Taliban,” Kortunov said, explaining it would lead to a situation where the international community “will be ready to provide food assistance but on the condition that unimpeded access will be granted to the areas in need,” and the Taliban excluded from any decision-making as to whom aid should be delivered. In the Syrian case, Western arguments are simply a pretext for curtailing Syrian sovereignty under the guise of “humanitarian” protection. How this plays out in Afghanistan—a more complex situation—remains to be seen. The TASS article can be found here.

Lyle Goldstein Asks “Uncomfortable Question:” Why Is the U.S. Threatening Nuclear Russia on So Many Fronts?

April 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Russia, United States, World war danger updates

Lyle Goldstein Asks an “Uncomfortable Question:” Why Is the U.S. Threatening Nuclear Russia on So Many Fronts?

April 28 (EIRNS)–U.S. Naval War College analyst Lyle J. Goldstein again today sounded an alarm over the insanity of the United States treating fellow nuclear powers China and Russia as adversaries. Under the title, “Parsing Putin’s Red Lines,” Goldstein warns in an article posted on the American Committee for U.S.- Russia Accord blog, that people have failed to register the full import of Vladimir Putin’s warning last week to the United States and others not to cross Russia’s red lines, and specifically Putin’s own emphasis on the fact that Russia “will determine ourselves where these red lines are according to the circumstances of each situation.”

Goldstein wrote in his personal capacity, as a qualified military strategist:

“When it comes to fully bulked up nuclear powers like China and particularly Russia, the issue is absolutely grave, since we are talking about countries that can `end’ the U.S., perhaps in a matter of hours, even if we have the solace that we would take our adversary down in flames with us….

“Americans should ask the uncomfortable question: why do the U.S. and its allies appear to be encroaching upon so many different Russian red lines in so many `situations’ simultaneously? Indeed, Russian interests are now directly engaged against U.S. interests, or those of our allies, in a zero-sum pattern on a vast front stretching from the Arctic, to the Baltic, through Belarus to the Donbass and Crimea, and all the way down to the Caucasus and beyond.

“A common sense notion of peace, and indeed survival, for the 21st century must incorporate limits and crucially the principles of realism and restraint. We should not be touching the red lines of other major, nuclear armed powers on a daily basis. The fact that Western strategists seek to probe Russia’s red lines in Eastern Europe is itself a powerful indictment of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War….

“We must learn to live amicably with Russia or risk a continuing succession of showdowns on the pattern of the Cuban Missile Crisis– this time on Russia’s doorstep, with a Kremlin that has an infinitely more capable nuclear arsenal when compared to the early 1960s. In that unfortunate case, we may again be taught some lessons about red lines.”

Rosatom Launches `Atoms for Humanity’

April 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Power & Energy, Russia

April 28 (EIRNS) — According to Nuclear Engineering International, this “global nuclear awareness” initiative by Rosatom will be launched April 30. The theme is that modern nuclear technology is clean and reliable, but is much more than green electricity. It is a versatile tool to solve the most urgent challenges.

“Rosatom believes that it is high time to put a human at the center of nuclear debate. The Atoms for Humanity is a unique collection of stories capturing ordinary people from all over the world sharing how nuclear transforms their lives and helps fulfil dreams, both big and small,” the agency said in a release.

The project launch event, “Why Humanity Needs Nuclear”, will take place on 30 April. Kirsty Gogan, an internationally sought-after expert with over 15 years in advising the government on climate and energy, will host the discussion. Other speakers include Rosatom and World Nuclear Association executives, environmental experts, and “heroes of Atoms for Humanity documentaries”.

Putin Speaks With Modi, As Planeloads of Russian Aid Begin

April 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, India, Russia

April 28 (EIRNS)—President Vladimir Putin personally informed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today that Russia will send equipment urgently-needed to care for Indians infected with COVID-19 to India, starting with flights today by the Russian Emergencies Ministry delivering over 22 tons of equipment, including 20 oxygen production units, 75 lung ventilators, 150 medical monitors and 200,000 packs of medicine. The two leaders spoke by telephone, with Putin assuring Modi of his support in this difficult period, and Modi “warmly thank[ing] the President of Russia for the assistance provided, which is largely high-tech and is in great demand in the country,” the Kremlin reported. They also discussed that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has also now been registered in India, and both are satisfied that the Russian Direct Investment Fund had reached an agreement with Indian companies to produce 850 million doses of Sputnik V, production of which is to begin in May.

Mexican, Russian Foreign Ministers Sign Far-Reaching Agreements In Moscow Meeting

April 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Mexico, Russia

April 28 (EIRNS)—In a ceremony today at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and his counterpart Sergey Lavrov signed a series of comprehensive agreements, not only relating to Mexico’s plan to produce the Sputnik V vaccine at its state-run Birmex lab, but also to far-reaching cooperation in a number of fields, including economics and trade, aerospace, culture and science and technology. As both ministers stressed, the relationship between the two countries is growing stronger. At their joint press conference, Lavrov reported, “we have decided to intensify our political contacts,” including signing a plan for Ministerial Consultations spanning 2021-2024. Ebrard underscored, according to a communique from Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, that Mexico and Russia are “entering a phase in our relationship which is very close, and the pandemic has opened the door for us to broaden and deepen that relationship.” Lavrov pointed out that Presidents Putin and López Obrador speak by phone “regularly,” and hope to meet in person once the epidemiological situation permits. The official communique is published on Mexico’s government website. 

Mexico is the only country in North America which has approved emergency use authorization for Sputnik V and one million Mexicans have already been vaccinated with it. The plan agreed to now is that Mexico’s state-run Birmex laboratories will do the final bottling and packaging of Sputnik V, beginning in May or June. Aside from meeting with Lavrov today, Ebrard also held meetings with officials of the Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF—Russia’s sovereign wealth fund) and with the Gamaleya Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which produces the vaccine. The daily Economista reported Ebrard’s remarks that Birmex is already working with the RDIF to arrange for “filling and bottling in Mexico,” and then down the road, perhaps there can be “full production (combined) of Sputnik V, or Sputnik No. 2, or `Sputnik Light.’” Sputnik Light is a one-dose vaccine in which Mexico is particularly interested, as its use would help accelerate its national vaccination program and avoid some of the logistical problems associated with a two-dose vaccine.

Other agreements included a commitment to resume, perhaps by June, meetings of the Intergovernmental Russian-Mexican Joint Commission on Economic, Trade, Scientific and Technological Cooperation and Maritime Navigation. They also signed an agreement on aerospace cooperation, for the peaceful exploration of outer space, and on establishing in Mexico City a Russian Center of Science and Culture. Lavrov and Ebrard discussed plans to ensure that a large Mexican business delegation attends the June summit of the St. Petersburg Forum, and they stressed that their governments agreed on a global agenda which includes respect for the UN-centered international order, respect for international law and multilateralism, reject interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, and reject coups as a means to effect regime change. The official report on the meeting is here. 

Tri-Alpha Energy Claims Plasma Breakthrough, Stabilizes With Higher Temperature

April 13, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General, General updates, Power & Energy

Tri-Alpha Energy Claims Plasma Breakthrough, Stabilizes With Higher Temperature

April 12 (EIRNS) – Many privately-funded fusion power experimenters are making noted progress in the absence of much government support to U.S. fusion R&D; one of them said in an April 8 release that it had been able to produce stable plasma at temperatures over 50 million degrees. As techcrunch.com reported, the company “sees commercialization by 2030” as a result. This is an experimental reversed-field fusion device operated by Tri-Alpha Energy, also called TAE Technologies.
            Leaving the commercialization claim aside, this report is of something highly unusual in the history of fusion research: A superhot plasma which becomes more stable, easier to confine, at higher energies and temperatures. To quote from techcrunch.com: “`This is an incredibly rewarding milestone and an apt tribute to the vision of my late mentor, Norman Rostoker,’ said TAE’s current chief executive officer, Michl Binderbauer, in a statement announcing the company’s achievement. `Norman and I wrote a paper in the 1990s theorizing that a certain plasma dominated by highly energetic particles [perhaps a hydrogen-boron plasma—ed.] should become increasingly better confined and stable as temperatures increase. We have now been able to demonstrate this plasma behavior with overwhelming evidence. It is a powerful validation of our work over the last three decades, and a very critical milestone for TAE that proves the laws of physics are on our side.”
            “Self-stabilizing plasmas” were goals that the Fusion Energy Foundation, during the 1970s and 1980s, consistently described and urged fusion researchers to be striving for. {The article is linked here.}

World Bank, IMF Plot `Debt for Green’ Restructuring

April 13, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Green New Deal

World Bank, IMF Plot `Debt for Green’ Restructuring

April 12 (EIRNS)–A report issued by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on March 25 announced that, as part of the “recovery” from the pandemic, the debt of the world’s poorest countries would now be used as a lever to force furtherance of the Great Reset genocide dictate from the City of London. “This paper discusses World Bank and IMF support for addressing fiscal and debt distress in [the world’s poorest] countries, with emphasis on strong continued concessional [low-interest–ed.] flows for green, resilient, and inclusive development,” reads the introduction, the translated message being, “The only way you will get further assistance, is if you agree to kill your population `to save the planet’.”
            As part of this discussion, the report concluded that the G20 should agree to extend their DSSI (Debt Service Suspension Initiative) through to the end of the year, but with one proviso: The G20 had to “publicly commit that this is the last extension of the DSSI,” thus forcing the 49 DSSI-eligible countries to confront their continued (financial) existence head on. As of April 7– two weeks from the IMF/WB dictate– the G20 had complied, both by extending the DSSI (Debt Service Suspension Initiative), {and} by stating that it will be terminated at the end of the year.
            This action — of issuing new, non-productive debt to already over-burdened poor nations — is one which is potentially hyper-inflationary, but otherwise perfectly conforms to the terms of the Great Reset. Recognizing this, the IMF/World Bank acknowledge the need for “a holistic approach to the challenge of containing debt vulnerabilities” specifically calling for “direct private sector funding especially non-debt flows,” along with budget austerity on the part of recipient countries. “Emphasis can be given to green priorities and private sector solutions, including green stimulus packages with significant multiplier effects,” they say, as well as revenue-generating “solutions” such as carbon taxes (to kill coal and oil-fired power and heating)..
            The report indicates that in October 2020 these institutions’ “Development Community” issued a “mandate to address debt challenges in low-income countries and to do so in a way that supports green, resilient, and inclusive development and poverty reduction” (otherwise known as GRID). That “mandate” had been prompted by an open letter, they say, “[from] the Ministers of the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Spain, Germany and Sweden,” who wrote: “We ask the World Bank and IMF to deliver on a coherent approach to debt restructuring. We need to make sure we do not lose sight of green and inclusive reforms because of limited fiscal space and a looming debt crisis.” 

Greetings to the Commemoration of the Victims of Terrorism at the Teardrop Memorial

September 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Russia, United States

The end of the military campaign by the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan signifies the “end of an era,” as President Biden has stated, an era of so-called humanitarian interventionist wars. If one looks at the outcome of these wars of 20 years, it is devastating. More than a million lives were lost, more than 8 trillion dollars were spent, up to 70 million people were turned into refugees. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, were devastated. More than 70 percent of the people in Afghanistan, 90 percent in Syria and even more in Yemen are living now below the extreme poverty line. In all of these countries there is now a gigantic humanitarian crisis, threatening death to many more millions of human beings.

The first priority must be to save the lives of the people in the countries which were the targets of the „endless wars,“ and the international community is called upon to join hands in bringing real economic development to the entire region, starting with the creation of a modern health system in every single country, which in the time of this pandemic and the danger of future pandemics is the precondition to defeat this curse of humanity. That requires clean water, which is scarce in Afghanistan—a nation hit by droughts—and it requires electricity, of which Afghanistan only produces 600 MW in the entire country, the equivalent of one medium- to- large plant in the U.S. 18 million people are food insecure and 4 million are in danger of starvation in the coming winter.

President Biden is being criticized for the withdrawal of troops, but he did the right thing, and his promise of the “end of the era of the endless wars” also must mean the end of the freezing of financial means for Afghanistan; it must mean the end of the Caesar Sanctions for Syria; and the end of any sanctions during the time of the pandemic. It is the time for joining hands, especially, again, between the U.S. and Russia, as there were several periods in the history of both nations, were such a collaboration existed for the good of all humanity.

Let us therefore use the coincidence of the end of 20 years of war and the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 for the solemn commitment to regard terrorism, hunger, and underdevelopment as the enemies of mankind, and not each other. Let us replace the era of geopolitics with an era of achieving the common aims of mankind.  It is not an idle hope that the human species, as the only one that has proven through its existence that creativity is that quality which can transcend all seeming limitations, will soon leave conflict, aggression, and war behind it, and that we become truly human. Let us be inspired by the lofty ideal of man as it is expressed in the great art of the composers, poets, painters, architects, and sculptors, such as the creator of this Teardrop Memorial, around which we gather today.

These last 20 years are hopefully the final chapter in the adolescence of humanity, to be followed by adulthood—in which people and nations relate to one another based on the creative potential of the other, thus bringing out in them the best they can be. To learn to think that way requires an elevated state of mind in all of us, to think from above, from that higher One of humanity which shows the way to a future, in which all nations and all people will create peace on earth and colonize the stars together.

— Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

April 28, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Cultural renaissance updates, Daily Beethoven — Sparks of Joy, General, General updates, Music updates

Beethoven: Spark of Joy — Tribute to the incomparable Christa Ludwig on her passing

To honor the memory of the great mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, who passed away April 26th, we hear today her legendary performance in the title role of Beethoven’s opera,  Fidelio. She sings the recitative, “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?” followed by the aria, “Komm, Hoffnung!”

Monster! Where are you rushing?
What will you do in your wild rage?
Does the call of sympathy,
The voice of humanity,
Move nothing in your savage heart?
But just as like stormy seas
Anger and hatred surge in your soul,
There appears to me a rainbow,
That rests bright on the dark clouds,
That watches so quietly,
So peacefully below,
That mirrors old times,
And newly calmed my blood flows.

Come, Hope, let the last star
Not fade for the weary,
Illuminate my goal, be it ever so far,
Love will reach it.
I follow an inner drive,
I waver not,
I am strengthened by my duty
Of true wedded love.
Oh you, for whom I bore everything,
Could I only be at your side,
Where evil has you chained,
And bring you sweet comfort!
I follow an inner drive,
I waver not,
I am strengthened by my duty
Of true wedded love.

Ms. Ludwig was also a signer of the Schiller Institute’s 1988 call for the Verdi tuning to be restored bringing the pitch back to A = 432 cycles per second. [Message by Margaret Scialdone and Mary Jane Freeman.]

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy!

April 13, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Daily Beethoven — Sparks of Joy, General, General updates, Music updates

Beethoven: Sparks of Joy — his beautiful song, An die ferne Geliebte to contemplate the future.

Alois Jeitteles was a young physician who was also making a name for himself as a poet when he wrote the six poems which Beethoven wove into the beautiful “An die ferne Geliebte” (To the distant Beloved). It is a true Liederkreis (song cycle), thoroughly composed so that the songs are inseparable from one another. 
This performance by John Sigerson and Margaret Greenspan was part of an international conference of the Schiller Institute that took place in April of 2020. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]

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