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Schlanger on Caesar Sanctions Posted by Russian International Affairs Council

April 20, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Color Revolutions, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Media coverage of our activity, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Stop the Sanctions, World war danger updates

Schlanger on Caesar Sanctions Posted by Russian International Affairs Council

April 19: An article by Harley Schlanger, just written for LaRouche publications on Helga’ Zepp-LaRouche’s call to revoke the Caesar Sanctions, and how the U.S. Congress was incited to pass them, has been posted on the RIAC (Russia International Affairs Council) site. In addition, the RIAC tweeted the article to its 9,500 Twitter followers. RIAC is a institution of the Russian Foreign Minister, and is directed by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Here is a link to the Tweet.

Two Former US Surgeons-General Respond to Helga Zepp-LaRouche Afghanistan Initiative

September 22, 2021by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, COVID-19, General, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Two former Surgeon Generals of the United States responded to Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s initiative on Afghanistan.

Dr. David Satcher, who served as surgeon general from 1998 to 2002, had the following to say:

“Dr. William Foege, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1977-1983), in his book, House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox, about the successful effort to eradicate smallpox disease, describes how relationships were prioritized, including assuring that credit for successful interventions was appropriately shared. On the other hand, when we came close to eradicating polio in the last decade of the 20th Century, it was the fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan which prevented our success in eliminating polio in those countries, and thus eradicating it in the world. In other words, we were not willing to allow the immunization of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan to take priority over the killing of people and the winning of the war. But, in fact, nobody won the war in Afghanistan, and we failed to eradicate polio.

“Ultimately, we will eradicate polio, but unfortunately it will be after many lives have been lost and trillions of dollars have been spent.

“We can do better! We can invest in lives rather than deaths! We can bring new thinking into our relationships. We can care about each other and value lives beyond our own and beyond our own culture. We can work to make science work for us and for future generations.

“I am impressed with the idea and the statement. We’re talking about a whole new definition of winning and what it means to win, especially winning together, and supporting the healthy development of children as a priority. What is needed is a new paradigm, relative to what we value and what we are willing to do to bring it about.”

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who served as surgeon general from 1993 to 1994, responded:

“I agree with Dr. David Satcher’s response to Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s statement regarding the needed approach to the dire health and humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan and many other nations around the world. When we speak about the need for basic necessities for life, such as healthcare, food and water, that is the same for people everywhere, regardless of where you are or what type of government you have.

“The COVID pandemic is exasperating the crises in previously food and health-deprived countries. It is clear that the only way this will be defeated is with a modern healthcare system, in every nation. The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites has emphasized the need for comprehensive, not piecemeal solutions. Infrastructure, food, energy, and clean water are crucial, combined with modern hospitals and trained personnel. I have long championed the training and deployment of community health care workers, especially recruited from among the young, to augment the resources of trained medical personnel. These workers would now be invaluable in assisting in this effort. Also, here is where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), a branch of the uniformed services of the U.S. which does not bear arms, and which I and my colleague Dr. Satcher directed, could play an important role.

“Now is the time for us to end confrontation and engage in cooperation to address the basic needs of humanity.”

_____________________________________________________________________________

For more on The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites — founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and Dr. Jocelyn Elders — and the need for a world health platform – see the Founding Statement:

Statement to Form The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites (Coincidentia Oppositorum)

See the most recent statement by Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the need for food and public health in Afghanistan, and a policy of Peace through Development:

Can ‘The West’ Learn? What Afghanistan Needs Now!

Global Health Security Requires Medical Infrastructure in Every Country:

Global Health Security Requires Medical Infrastructure in Every Country—Major Industrial Nations Must Collaborate Now!

Afghanistan’s Drought and Water Crisis Worsening; 2,000 Health Facilities Close

October 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, Finance, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Power & Energy

Afghanistan’s Drought and Water Crisis Are Worsening; 2,000 Health Facilities Close –

Oct. 25, 2021 (EIRNS)–Afghanistan’s collapse in physical economic and agricultural production, the implosion of its health system, as well as the threat to human life, has gotten worse over the last two months. The nationwide drought is intensifying, while the West applies a tourniquet to the flow of necessary funds.

Physical economic conditions never stay in a “metastable state;” they either get better or worse.

In June of this year, then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani officially declared a drought in Afghanistan. This was based on information from several agencies, including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which declared that “80% of Afghanistan is exposed to serious drought”—30% to “severe drought,” and 50% to “serious drought,” comprising 80%—and the remaining 20% part of the country was exposed to “moderate drought.”

Richard Trenchard, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization director for Afghanistan, stated in late September, “This is the worst drought in 35–36 years. Many public institutions which provide a safety net, have ceased to function. Farmers have very little to fall back upon.”

Farming is being destroyed. The UN reported August 25, “Some 40 percent of [Afghanistan’s] crops have been lost to drought in the second massive water shortage in three years—further heightening food insecurity.” The World Food Program already reported that 14 million people in Afghanistan are food insecure, a number that is doubtless rising.

But the shortage of water is affecting not only agriculture, but the whole economy and society, which depends on water. A 2008 report reported “that drinking water supplies reach only 23 percent of Afghanistan’s total population… The country’s total sanitation coverage [is] only 12 percent.”

Two critical infrastructural sectors expose some of the crisis.

Afghanistan has only a combined approximately 100 private and public hospitals for a nation of 40 million people, a meager amount. The nation’s health system is run through a network of 2,200 “health facilities,” about 200 of which appear to be primary health clinics; it is not clear how large the other facilities are. These 2,200 facilities are run through an institution called Sehatmandi which is administered by the World Bank through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. It is funded through the World Bank, the European Union, Canada and Global Financing Facilities.

When the Taliban came to power in the period of August 17–18, these funding institutions cut off money. On September 30, Alexander Matheou, the Asia Pacific director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies stated that “over 2,000 health facilities have closed.” He added that more than 20,000 health workers in the country were no longer working or were working without being paid; more than 7,000 of them are women. “People might agree to work without salaries for a few more weeks,” Matheou stated. “But once medicines run out totally, if you can’t switch on the lights, if you’ve got nothing to offer somebody who comes to your clinic, then they’ll shut the doors.”

Under intense pressure, on September 20, the Global Fund and the United Nations Development Fund signed an agreement to supply $15 million to the 2,200 health facilities. This is a drop in the bucket.

International donors pledged in October $1.2 billion to Afghanistan. But there are three roadblocks: 1) it is not clear how much of the pledged money will be really delivered; 2) it takes sometimes months for the money to get into the system; and 3) above all, the clinics are greatly inadequate, Afghanistan needs hundreds of new advanced hospitals, tens of thousands of skilled doctors and nurses, and so forth.

In the meantime, COVID is looming. Nine of Afghanistan’s 37 COVID hospitals have closed. Afghanistan has put a reported only 2.2 million COVID jabs into people; it has 1.2 million doses of vaccine waiting to be distributed, that haven’t been. They will expire by the end of the year.

This is pure and simple genocide.

As for water, Afghanistan has an annual surface water runoff water volume of 57,000 million cubic meters per year, which comes out to approximately 1,425 cubic meters/year per capita. This is insufficient, but would be a start. However, Afghanistan does not have an adequate water basin catchment system, and precipitation is not evenly distributed geographically.

In 2016, India spent $275 million to complete what is now called the “Afghan-India Friendship Dam” in Herat province on the Hari River. It will irrigate 75,000 hectares of land. But otherwise, new dam construction and broader water management hardly exists.

The U.S. is blocking more than $9 billion in Afghanistan’s central bank that belong to the Afghan people. The World Bank, IMF, and EU are blocking hundreds of millions more. (See the Schiller Institute’s demand for release of the Afghans’ funds at this link.)

These more than $10 billion, were they deposited in a fund under sovereign Afghan control, could be used to build hospitals, administer the COVID-19 vaccine; begin emergency food and water distribution; make down payments on dams and water management projects; build power stations, etc. Immediate building in Afghanistan must start.

Syria Times Covers Helga’s Webcast and Appeal

April 16, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Color Revolutions, General, Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), World war danger updates

Syria Times Covers Helga’s Webcast and Appeal

April 15, 2021 (EIRNS)–The English-language official Syria Times daily today published a detailed news item on Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s call during the weekly webcast. The video is also posted on the Syrian Times page.

The-moral-collapse-of-the-western-system-cries-out-for-a-new-paradigm The article is accompanied by two pictures, one of Helga and the other of Cardinal Zenari. The full text follows:

          “In her weekly dialogue, Helga Zepp-LaRouche made an impassioned appeal to viewers to join with her in addressing the dangerous moral collapse which characterizes virtually every western government, including the United States. This collapse poses a threat to everyone, as the crisis in Ukraine continues to build toward a war between Russia and the forces of the U.S. and NATO. The possibility of a Biden-Putin summit is a positive development, but at the same time it was announced, his foreign policy team was voicing full support for the fanatical extremist wing of domestic forces in Ukraine, which is pushing to cross the “red line” announced years ago by Moscow, that of placing NATO troops on the Russian border of Ukraine.

          “She also emphasized the urgency of lifting the so-called Caesar Sanctions against the people of Syria, citing the appeal of Cardinal Zenari to end the sanctions. There is nothing “humanitarian”, she stated, in starving children and shutting down hospitals and medical care, based on another fraudulent narrative cooked up by U.K.-U.S. regime-change networks. We must insist that every policy maker who does not speak up against this fraud is complicit in every death which occurs in Syria, and in Yemen.”

Zepp-LaRouche: Urgent Call to Stop the Genocide in Syria and Yemen; the Moral Collapse of the West Cries Out for a New Paradigm

April 15, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Color Revolutions, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), World war danger updates

PDF available

April 15 — The Schiller Institute is circulating an urgent response from its founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche to Apostolic Nuncio to Syria Cardinal Mario Zenari, who has alerted the world to the acute humanitarian emergency that has been deliberately imposed upon Syria, in the aftermath of nine years of war, through murderous “sanctions” measures imposed by the U.S. State Department and irresponsibly supported by a number of other governments, most emphatically the British. Action to end the so-called “Caesar Sanctions” imposed upon Syria will not only help halt the mass starvation and poverty now engulfing that nation, but will also benefit the rest of humanity. It is time to pursue, as the Cardinal states, a pathway of Peace through Development, and to reject outright the moral indifference which increasingly threatens to unleash this scale of calamity throughout the planet.

In her weekly Schiller Institute webcast discussion on April 14, Zepp-LaRouche demanded that the world come to the aid of the Syrian people. As Cardinal Zenari has stated, more than 90% of Syrians are below the level of extreme poverty, and many are in danger of losing their lives due to famine. The last decade of war, the unjust sanctions, and the COVID-19 pandemic have created an absolutely intolerable condition of suffering for the Syrian people.

Similar horrors confront Yemen, where the agonizing reality of hunger is conveyed in the powerful documentary, “Hunger Ward,” referred to by the head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, who saw children dying before his very eyes in the hospital, and he was unable to help.

There is nothing “humanitarian” Zepp-LaRouche stated, in starving children and shutting down hospitals and medical care, based on fraudulent narratives cooked up by British and American regime-change advocates, in and out of government. “This must stop and the Caesar Sanctions must be lifted. And all the members of the U.S. Congress who do not lift these sanctions make themselves complicit in every death that occurs in the region.”

Zepp-LaRouche continued: “This has reached the point where either the world wakes up and we start to remedy this, or we will not survive, because of our own moral failure as a human species. I call on you: Work with the Schiller Institute. Work with its Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, which is working to get aid programs and reconstruction. I appeal to you: Get in contact with the Schiller Institute and respond to the call by Cardinal Zenari.”

This appeal is distributed in Portuguese, Arabic, German, Danish, Italian and Spanish, among others.

WFP’s Beasley Promotes
‘Hunger Ward’ Documentary on Malnutrition in Yemen

Cardinal Zenari: “Time is running out,” to end the sanctions against Syria

“The Truth About the Syrian Crisis,” State Senator (former) Richard H. Black

Civilization Itself Is at Stake: Will We Rise to the Challenge?

April 15, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Russia, United States, World war danger updates

Civilization Itself Is at Stake: Will We Rise to the Challenge?

Escalating tensions with Russia, driven by Ukrainian’s suicidal push for NATO membership, U.S. encouragement, and the U.S. military itself, threatens — despite President Biden’s reaching out to President Putin for an in-person summit — to explode into war, nuclear war. A provocative visit of former U.S. government officials to Taiwan adds more fuel to the fire of China’s cross-strait relations. Economic lending into the real economy by U.S. banks withers, even as they are showered with money. Inflation accelerates, and a blowout of the trans-Atlantic financial system is inevitable. Death by starvation stalks the impoverished inhabitants of war-zones Syria and Yemen.

Will these crises culminate in what would become nuclear conflict, a devastation of the human race, or will a new paradigm overthrow the oligarchical structures that drive conflict? What flanks can you create to achieve that happier outcome?

In her weekly Schiller Institute webcast discussion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche responded to the urgent call to the world by Cardinal Mario Zenari in Syria for the world to come to the aid of the Syrian people. More than 90% of Syrians are below the level of extreme poverty, and many are in danger of losing their lives due to famine. (Zenari’s Time is Running Out.) The last decade of war, the unjust sanctions, and the Covid pandemic have created an absolutely intolerable condition of suffering for the Syrian people.

Similar horrors confront Yemen, where the agonizing reality of hunger is conveyed in the powerful documentary {Hunger Ward}, referred to by the head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, who saw children dying before his very eyes in the hospital, and he was unable to help.

In both Syria and Yemen, the results of supposedly “humanitarian interventionist” wars — and there is nothing humanitarian about them! — conducted under the guise of defending the people from murderous governments, are genocidal. Was U.S. military intervention in Syria driven by Assad’s chemical weapon murder of the people there? No, that was not the reason, and the claims about the attacks were not true. As Col. (ret.) Richard Black (USA) has explained, the plan for regime change in Syria was developed ten years before the 2011 destabilization, as part of a policy of regime change in the entire region, comprising Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya.

The narrative about the causes of the war is completely wrong.

But even leaving that aside, start from the current humanitarian situation: “When you have a people about to die, and the world does absolutely nothing, that means the people watching that are {morally unfit to survive.} And I’m crying out to you to help us make a mobilization to get rid of the “Caesar” sanctions and to have the immediate reconstruction of Syria.”

In contrast, the so-called donors’ conference in Brussels raised a few billion dollars, but it was an absolute charade. The funds will {not} go to the Syrian government, but rather to neighboring countries that have taken in refugees, to NGOs, and to opposition groups. But, as Cardinal Zenari says, without a {reconstruction}, there will be no end to the misery. Peace through development is the only way out of the crisis.

And we know how to do this! The Schiller Institute has worked for half a century on plans for the development of Southwest Asia, dating back to Lyndon LaRouche’s 1975 “Oasis Plan” proposal. Since then, the LaRouche movement has developed a plan for Syria (“Project Phoenix“), a plan for Yemen (“Operation Felix“), all in the context of bringing Southwest Asia into a development paradigm of the New Silk Road / Belt and Road Initiative.

Against this potential stands the Caesar sanctions, based on a lie. Photographs supposedly showing victims of torture carried out by the Assad government were used as evidence to push through these brutal sanctions policy. But these photographs were mainly of Syrian soldiers killed by al-Qaeda-linked groups! This is not the first time such fabrications have been presented. Saddam Hussein’s forces were accused of ripping babies out of incubators in Kuwait. This was used to start the 1989 Iraq War. Then we had the “yellow cake” and other supposed evidence of Saddam Hussein’s program to create weapons of mass destruction — again, all lies. Then we had the lies from the White Helmets about the supposed use by Assad of chemical weapons.

Zepp-LaRouche demanded: “This must stop and the Caesar sanctions must be lifted. And all the members of Congress who do not lift these sanctions make themselves complicit in every death that occurs in the region…

“This has reached the point where either the world wakes up and we start to remedy this, or we will not survive, because of our own moral failure as a human species.

“I call on you: work with the Schiller Institute. Work with its Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, which is working to get aid programs and reconstruction.

“I appeal to you: get in contact with the Schiller Institute and respond to the call by Cardinal Zenari, which has not been covered much at all by the Western press, which alone should show the one-sidedness of the media, which we must overcome.”

Will you answer the call? Become a member of the Schiller Institute and work to make its vision a reality.

Happy 93rd Birthday Fred Wills! Sept. 18

September 17, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General, General updates, Our cultural events, Our initiatives (petitions, etc)

Happy 93rd Birthday Fred Wills! —

The collaboration between Fred Wills (former foreign minister of Guyana) to realize a New World Economic System, Helga and Lyndon LaRouche is commemorated in the Schiller Institute’s hosting of the webpage: Shakespeare in Exile,  inaugurated on Lyn’s 99th birthday earlier this month. The webpage hosts Wills’ series of lectures on Shakespeare’s drama with LaRouche’s ICLC cadre.

The Wills lectures highlight, “[T]he common error among most of those who consider themselves historians of one variety or another, is that lacking a well-developed sense of the distinctive nature of the human species, they turn from the subject of man as a species, to appeal like a pimp to  those passions of sense-certainty which inform and excite the temptations of the  credulous. These shortcomers never touch directly that sublime subject which is the  history of man.*”   — Cloret & Bill Ferguson

Some topics you will encounter include: Schiller; Synarchism II; History; and Love of Mankind. Recommended reading is Lyndon LaRouche’s Nov. 30, 2003 piece, The Role of the Sublime In World Politics Today.

Brazil Media Covers the Schiller Institute Statement ‘President Alberto Fernández to China, Ibero-America to Mars’

April 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Media coverage of our activity, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Space updates, Youth Movement

Brazil’s Monitor Mercantil Covers the Schiller Institute Statement ‘President Alberto Fernández to China, Ibero-America to Mars’

April 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—Brazil’s Monitor Mercantil, a political analysis daily widely read in leading circles in that country, yesterday published a short article headlined: “Argentina Will Sign a Belt and Road Partnership with China.” It reads:

“Argentine President Alberto Fernández will visit China in May with a mission which is fundamental for Latin America: he will sign a Memorandum of Understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This is a global infrastructure project involving nearly 150 nations, which breaks out of the merely financial economy sponsored by London and Wall Street, in favor of a high-tech, science-driver approach to development.

“For Latin Americans, it is an opportunity to develop partnerships in the areas of technology and infrastructure. The Chinese have for some time shown an interest in rail projects in the region. What is important for us is to make the investments conditional on transfer of technology and development, so that Latin America doesn’t remain a mere exporter of raw materials, as in colonial times.

“‘Such development is the way—the only way—to stop the drug trade, stop desperate migration, stop the gangs, stop the poverty, and stop the pandemic,’ according to a document issued by the Schiller Institute. The Germany-based group views cooperation between Argentina and Mexico as a lever to attract international support to address the entire region. “Meanwhile, Brazil continues on poor terms with China and is leaving the BRICS aside. It is precisely from 3 of the 5 countries that make up that bloc (Russia, India and China) that the vaccines come that could pull our country out of the health and economic quagmire in which it is sunk.”  The coverage can be found at this link.

Schiller Institute Statement: President Alberto Fernández to China; Ibero-America to Mars!

April 12, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General, General updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Space updates

Schiller Institute Statement: President Alberto Fernández to China; Ibero-America to Mars!

April 10 (EIRNS) — {The Schiller Institute today issued the following statement in Spanish for broad circulation in Ibero-America and Spain. Below is the English-language version.}

The upcoming May 2021 trip to China by Argentine President Alberto Fernández, in which he is scheduled to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China on the Belt and Road Initiative – the global infrastructure project involving nearly 150 nations – presents a unique strategic opportunity.

1) All of Ibero-America can take a giant step towards finally breaking out of the straitjacket of financial looting by the dying London/Wall Street system, and join instead with the Belt and Road, sometimes called the New Silk Road, and its high-tech, science-driver approach to development.

2) An Argentina-Mexico axis can emerge to propose a game-changing policy in the Western Hemisphere: that China and the U.S. shall jointly work on developing the Mexican-Central American region in particular, and also all of Ibero-America, by cooperative efforts around extending the BRI into the region. Such development is the way – the only way – to stop the drug trade, stop desperate migration, stop the gangs, stop the poverty, and stop the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But is it possible?” people will ask skeptically. Can we really end poverty? Well, look at China, where 850 million people were lifted out of poverty in 40 years. If China can do it, why not we?

Can small nations actually hope to master the most advanced science and help develop breakthroughs for all mankind? Well, look at tiny United Arab Emirates, and their historic achievement of sending an orbiter to Mars. If the UAE can do it, why not we?

Can we really get the U.S. and China to cooperate in the development of Mexico and all the Americas, instead of heading towards confrontation and war which only serves the Establishment’s geopolitical interests? Yes – if the U.S. returns to its senses, and to the policies of its greatest sons: Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon LaRouche. The current breakdown crisis of the Western financial system has now made that possibility a necessity – if the U.S. itself is to survive Wall Street’s unavoidable demise.

The key is space, beginning with an international 50-year Moon-Mars exploration and colonization project, powered by fusion power, that the nations of Ibero-America – especially their youth – must participate in.

It just so happens that two of the world’s premier space-launch sites are in the South American continent: Alcântara in Brazil, and Kourou in French Guiana. They are very close to the equator, which is a big advantage for space launches. Additionally, Argentina and Brazil both have very significant aerospace capabilities, which can help be the cornerstones for cooperation with China, the United States, and other space-faring nations such as Russia and India, to develop those space-launch sites in those two locations as centers of scientific and economic development for the entire region.

Argentine President Fernández should be entrusted with a mission on behalf of all of Ibero-America during his upcoming trip to China, especially in light of his developing close working relationship with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which is already benefiting the whole region. In addition to the package of Argentine infrastructure projects that he is already planning to discuss with China’s President Xi Jinping – which importantly includes nuclear energy – Fernández should propose regional great development projects as well, especially in the field of space. Specifically, he should propose establishing two polytechnic institutes, or institutes for space science educational activity: one in Argentina and one in Mexico — perhaps in the city of Querétaro near Mexico City. These two centers will serve as centers of international scientific cooperation, and as poles of educational and technological progress required to bring the entire continent into this kind of high-technology space development. They will be centers of the emerging New Space Silk Road.

The other crucial area for cooperation is developing both the science and the health infrastructure needed to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic – and any new pandemics that might emerge to threaten mankind. Again, Argentina-Mexico cooperation is leading the way, and must be used as a lever to bring in international support to aid the entire region.

The Schiller Institute has long proposed a full set of regional infrastructure projects as part of the World Land-Bridge. We mention some of the key ones here:

1) Build a set of South American bi-oceanic rail corridors connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific (including a northern Brazil-Peru route; a central Brazil-Bolivia-Peru route; and a southern Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay-Uruguay-Chile route). All are viable; all are necessary.

2) Construct a North-South high-speed rail line extending all the way from Tierra del Fuego in the south to the Bering Strait tunnel in the north, traversing South America, the Darien Gap, and the entirety of Central America and Mexico. These would be development corridors of about 100 kms in width, with integrated power, industry, agriculture and communications infrastructure along the way. That would create millions of new productive jobs along the way, which is the sine qua non of defeating poverty and the associated drug trade and migration problems in the region.

3) Establish new centers for the industrialization of raw materials throughout Ibero-America, such as a major steel production center near the Mutún iron mine in Bolivia; aluminum plants near the plentiful bauxite in Jamaica, Guyana and Surinam; and so on. Stop the neo-colonial pattern of looting of raw materials in order to pay the foreign debt (various times over), leaving only poverty and devastation behind.

4) We need nuclear energy, and lots of it, as well as the total technological up-shift associated with this new energy platform – especially as we transition into fusion power. Solar and wind power are a bad joke. Their low energy flux density, their high physical-economic costs, and their intrinsically interruptible nature, mean a return to the technological platform of the Middle Ages, with a corresponding collapse of population to medieval levels. The Green New Deal is nothing but old, unscientific Malthusian depopulation policy, with a fresh coat of (green) paint.

That Malthusian agenda which is planned for the April 22-23 global summit on climate change, scheduled to start on Earth Day, has to be totally rejected – as it is beginning to be by nations such as India, China and others. In fact, Earth Day should simply be cancelled, and replaced by a more human holiday: Mars Day!

President Alberto Fernández’s upcoming trip to China can become the first step in Ibero-America’s participation in mankind’s mission to Mars.

A Call To Release the Funds of the Afghan People

October 12, 2021by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, General, Global Diplomacy, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Sanctions

This call by the Schiller Institute will be distributed internationally Oct. 14 as the IMF and World Bank meet in Washington.

PDF of this statement

Sign the petition

Today and in the coming days, we, informed citizens of the world and patriots of our own nations, stand united, in Washington, Berlin, Lima, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Madrid, Stockholm, Brussels and in many other cities of the world, to expose and denounce a crime.

On August 15, after four decades of foreign interventions, a new government took power in Afghanistan. While having orientations we don’t necessarily approve of, the new government has expressed its willingness to face the immediate humanitarian challenges, eradicate opium production, reconstruct Afghanistan’s health system and build the basic infrastructure required to jump-start trade and development. As clearly understood by Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, Iran and others, it is in the interest of all to allow the new government to stabilize the situation by engaging in normal international relations. But more is required: without a minimal foreign input, Afghanistan will fail in dealing with a deadly food and health crisis that started way before Aug. 14.

Hence, it is outrageous that in the days following the Taliban takeover, the White House announced that all assets of Afghanistan’s central bank held in the U.S. would not be released to the new Afghan government:

  • The U.S. Federal Reserve refuses to release the $9.5 billion of assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, $7 billion of which are held by the New York Fed. About $1.3 billion of these are held in international accounts, with some of it in euros and British pounds, while the rest are held by the Bank for International Settlements based in Switzerland. As a result, Afghanistan can only access 0.1-0.2 % of its total reserves!
  • The International Monetary Fund has suspended all financing for “lack of clarity within the international community” over recognizing the new government. $370 million set to be released on Aug. 23 was withheld and access to the IMF’s reserves in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) assets, which can be converted to government-backed money, have also been blocked.
  • The World Bank (as denounced by a petition of Code Pink) has refused to release some $440 million, notably the funds required to pay Afghan teachers and health workers. Hence, while there is a huge outcry over “women’s rights,” 13,000 female healthcare workers, including doctors, midwives, nurses, vaccinators, and other female staff, are not being paid by the World Bank’s Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF).

On Feb. 29, 2020, the Taliban and the U.S. government signed an agreement. Part III of that agreement stipulates: “The U.S.A. and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan are committed to continue positive relations, including economic cooperation for reconstruction…. The United States will refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan or intervening in its domestic affairs.”

Today, if the United States wants to regain respect and esteem, it has to live up to its own commitments, especially when millions of human lives, both female and male, are at stake, which is the case in Afghanistan as a result of a food and health crisis of apocalyptic dimensions. Two out of five Afghans, many of them children, are facing starvation.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, call on President Joe Biden to act in the spirit of the 2020 Doha agreement, signed by the U.S.A., and lift all unnecessary sanctions against Afghanistan, including the use of malign pretexts to prevent its control over the assets of its own central bank as well as its normal access to the international financial markets. The urgency is now!

Support this call and help to spread it!

Initial signatory:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President, Schiller Institute

Jacques Cheminade, President Solidarité et Progrès, three-time presidential candidate

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