Top Left Link Buttons
  • English
  • German

Activity of the Schiller Institute

Category Archives

CGTN Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Eighth Anniversary of Belt and Road Initiative

November 21, 2021by madeleine in Economic development updates, General, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Helga media coverage or interview, Media coverage of our activity, New Silk Road / BRI updates, World Land-Bridge updates

China’s CGTN conducted two interviews with Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the celebration of eight years of the Belt and Road Initiative, one for with the “Dialogue Weekend” program and the second with “Global Business.” Here are the transcripts:

Dialogue Weekend

LI QIUYUAN: Welcome to this edition of Dialogue Weekend: I’m Li Quiyuan.

In the fall of 2013, while on visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the plan to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, otherwise known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Eight years on, how is the project progressing, and how has it helped all those involved? And what obstacles have been overcome during the construction? To review the last eight years of the BRI, I’m glad to be joined by Prof. John Gong from the University of International Business and Economics; and Miss Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute. Great to see you both.

Why don’t I start with Professor Gong first? Explain to us some context here: Why try to propose this, building this New Silk Road in the very beginning, and also why did the President announce this while travelling abroad? And also, eight years on, eight years into this project, where are we now, as far as its construction?

PROF. JOHN GONG: Hi Qiuyuan, you’re nice to have me here. It’s a long question, but let me first start by saying what the Belt and Road Initiative is not: It is not a geopolitical play, it’s not a geostrategic play, it’s not intended to seek a spread of influence. It’s mostly an economic play. There are several reasons why China started this initiative. I think the broader context is that this is a time when Chinese companies started to expand overseas, started to build a global supply chain, and in this course, Chinese companies quickly started to discover that the markets they’re mostly activating, these are the developing countries, the third world countries, they are handicapped by basic infrastructure for things like railways, port facilities, electricity network, telecom network—all these things are lacking for the Chinese companies to operate properly in these markets. And there’s a mutual benefit in developing these countries’ basic infrastructure. And this is also the time, when there was an access capacity in the basic building materials, mostly useful infrastructure buildouts for things like cement, steel, those things. We’re talking about a time in 2013, 2012.

And I would also mention this is also a time when China’s foreign exchange reserve was at an all-time high, and we would like to see the foreign exchange reserve at close to $4 trillion at the time, mostly sitting in the United States, buying American government’s Treasury bills and bonds.

So all these reasons combined contributed to the very natural evolution to using that money, using that excess capacity, and using the capabilities of Chinese companies of building infrastructure to help those developing countries to develop those projects. And I think this is the broader context: it work for both ways, and it works in particular in a way to benefit the host countries where the Chinese companies are operating, and these infrastructure projects are taking place.

LI: Helga, let me get your take on this: How do you evaluate the progress being made in the past eight years regarding this initiative?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it’s the most impressive infrastructure project in the history of all of mankind. And China for the first time has given the developing countries the chance to overcome poverty and underdevelopment. And if you look at the progress, there is now the China-Laos high-speed rail project, which is fantastic. It will be extended to Thailand, and beyond. And soon, the previously not so developed country, like Laos, will have a high-speed rail system, which Europe and the United States can only dream of!

Then you have the [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] CPEC treaty, the Middle Corridor, all these projects in Central Asia, all these investments in Africa. So I think it has brought in an incredible shift in the strategic situation, by overcoming underdevelopment, for the first time, for all of these countries. So I think, despite all the opposition, I think it’s a great success.

LI: But now after all of China’s investments in Africa, we once again are hearing criticism or accusations of China setting so-called “debt traps” for the countries participating in the BRI. This is the most frequent criticisms we’ve heard about this initiative. Professor Gong, talk to us about it: Beijing has made it clear that this initiative is by no means a debt trap. What has been done by China to support its claim?

GONG: We have to go back to the origin of the so-called “debt trap” theory. I think it originated in India with respect to, in particular, the port project in Sri Lanka. The idea is basically conspiracy theory….

LI: Now, we’ve seen the pandemic COVID-19 causing massive disruptions and damage to economic activities all around the world including the global supply chain, such as thousands of containers sitting on the Los Angeles docks, waiting for truckers and warehouse personnel to transport and deliver goods. It would seem that the world desperately needs an economic boost now, more than ever. But, Helga, do you see the BRI being it, providing great opportunities for corporations, for countries involved? Could they benefit from a smoother and more efficient global trade infrastructure?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, yes. You have already all the countries of Asia, many in Africa, even of Europe—you have Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, the 16+1 East European countries that all are absolutely onboard of the BRI. But I think some of the so-called advanced countries like Germany, they would benefit the most if they would stop thinking in terms of geopolitical prejudices, because, for example, if they would join hands with China right now in the development of Afghanistan, which suffers the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, and urgently needs to be integrated into the Belt and Road Initiative if it wants to ever have stability. So Germany, for example, is very concerned about the refugee crisis, and rather than building a wall around the EU outer borders, which is what the EU is considering right now—like the old Limes in the Roman Empire—I think the European countries, and hopefully also the United States, join hands; and they have a moral obligation because NATO countries were for 20 years in Afghanistan and they left the country in complete shambles. So, to reconstruct Afghanistan—and Haiti, and Syria, and Yemen, and all of these other countries that are in dire condition—if Germany and Europe would help and cooperate with China and the Belt and Road countries to develop Southwest Asia and Africa, there would be no refugee problem.

And I think we need a rethinking of this very, very urgently, because we have a tremendous moment in history. The Western financial system is not in good shape: You have signs of hyperinflation; the supply chain problem, you mentioned. So I think we need a rethinking. And the Schiller Institute is doing a lot of conferences and activities to convince the industrialized countries that it would be in their absolute self-interest to cooperate with the BRI and play a positive role in history.

LI: Helga, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate your perspective.

Professor Gong, a final question on this part to you: Certainly great steps have been made on the BRI over the last eight years, but what lessons can we draw from these experiences? And what challenges has the project faced as it reaches out for wider cooperation?

GONG: Well, let me first supplement your previous question. Helga actually knows my position on this issue. I wrote a paper several years ago, talking about how America can actually benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative. The article’s title is “Make America Great Again—with Chinese Money.”

As a matter of fact, I actually as an opportunity to make a keynote speech at a conference organized by Helga, the Schiller Institute. [Create a New Epoch for Mankind • February 16, 2019, Morristown, NJ]

There could have been greater opportunities between China and the United States to address the infrastructure problems you have just mentioned. You talk about the supply chain hiccups, or these clogs at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, all of these things can be substantially addressed by combining the capabilities of infrastructure buildouts, in China, together with investments in the United States. But unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Now, back to your question about lessons in the past, I think this is a perfect example to show that there are opportunities if China and other countries will just come together and cooperate, and purely think of this from an economic perspective and setting aside all these, you know, these talks about geostrategic, geopolitics lens, not seeing these things through that lens, I think there could be huge opportunities. There are tons of countries out there who indeed benefit from these infrastructure investments. So, I think the biggest lesson is, this is a purely economic play, and there will be mutual benefits deriving from this. And that let’s have both sides going to this in cooperative spirits should generate benefits for both countries.

And as well as the better exchanges, through human to human, people to people exchanges, and also economic benefits as well. So I think that’s the biggest lesson. And United States could have—I emphasize again, could have—benefitted immensely, if we go into this with, as we say, with a cooperative spirit. But unfortunately, it’s not happening.

Global Business

ANCHOR: For more on the Belt and Road Initiative, I want to bring in Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, who’s now in Wiesbaden. Helga, welcome to the program. You know, President Xi Jinping saying the BRI is really about finding the biggest common ground for all, and I think it’s interesting to contrast that with what we hear oftentimes, from the West in terms of only working with like-minded countries. This is about working with all countries, large and small, to find their greatest common denominator.

So, Helga, at a time of such uncertainty, how important do you think is the BRI in terms of growing the economic pie for all?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it is, for sure, the most important strategic initiative on the planet right now. Because you say “uncertainty,” I mean, these uncertainties show for example, in the form of a hyperinflationary tendency: You see the energy prices skyrocketing, food prices, and we may actually head towards a hyperinflationary blowout of the entire system. And at such a moment, to have the Belt and Road Initiative which focusses entirely on the physical side of the economy, can actually become the absolute important savior for the world economy as a whole. So I think the existence of the Belt and Road Initiative is the most important initiative on the planet.

ANCHOR: And Helga, of course, one big topic that we are all talking about these days, from the public sector to the private sector, is how we can collectively tackle climate change. How do you see the Belt and Road Initiative really promoting sustainable and green development, especially for developing economies, who need more help in terms of making that green transition?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you know, in the Glasgow COP26 summit, it became very clear that behind a lot of this climate policy, is also a Malthusian effort to prevent the developing countries from developing, and that has been expressed very clearly by India, Indonesia, Nigeria, which all did not go along with the program of Glasgow.

So I think China, on the other side, is offering especially cooperation in nuclear energy, which has a very high energy flux-density and therefore, is potentially the energy source for more developed economies. So I think the role of China and the BRI countries which all are going in the direction of promoting nuclear energy, also for the developing countries, are representing a very, very important alternative to the Malthusian policies coming from the financial centers in London and Wall Street.

ANCHOR: Hmm. So we have growing the economic pie for all, energy cooperation, green development, and of course, one other extension. Helga, of the BRI, is the Health Silk Road, and this is China aiding Belt and Road partner countries, by sharing medical knowledge about the coronavirus; last year providing medical aid as well, last year and this year. Help I believe will be a critical part of BRI cooperation going forward. How do you see this element of the Initiative developing, post-pandemic?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it is very clear that China right now is helping many African countries to build vaccine production, so they can develop their own vaccine. I have been saying, since the outbreak of this pandemic, that it will only stop if we build a world health system: That means a modern health system in every single country. Because the idea to only take care of the rich countries with vaccines, and modern hospitals, does not work, because then the poor countries are left behind, and then the virus is mutating, and will come back and hit the entire human population.

So I think we have to have a very big emphasis on a modern health system in every single country: Which means modern hospitals—China has proven you can build a modern hospital in two weeks in Wuhan—but the developing countries need encouragement and help. They need energy, they need clean water, in order to do that. I think the most urgent ones right now are Afghanistan, Haiti, Syria and Yemen: These are the countries that need, urgently, international cooperation to build modern health systems, if they are supposed to survive. I have proposed something called “Operation Ibn Sina” which named after the great universal thinker of the Afghanistan region, from around the 10th century. And that could become the spearhead for a health system in every country in the Islamic world, but also for all the developing countries. And that’s the only way how the pandemic will stop, and future pandemics.

ANCHOR: Yes. And speaking about closing gaps all around in terms of the development gap, closing the energy and green development gap, what about the digital connectivity gap? The digital connectivity benefits provided by the BRI down the road can be absolutely huge, in terms of getting especially emerging and developing economies, really into the digital sphere. The pandemic, we’ve seen, has really accelerated digitization. How do you see the BRI boosting digital connectivity, and really helping to narrow the digital divide between developing economies and advanced economies?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the fact that China was able to deal with the pandemic so much better than almost every other country on the planet has to do with the fact that the health sector is largely digitalized, and contact tracing, smart cities integrated—I think that’s future.

The problem is, the West is opposing that because there is a difference: In China the population for the most part trusts the government, and thinks that these measures are being applied for the common good. In Western Europe, for example, or the United States, there is a deep mistrust between the population and the government, and therefore, there is a lot of opposition. But look at Germany, right now, or many European countries: The pandemic is exploding again. And that is, for sure, they are still using photocopy machines, and very archaic means to trace the pandemic. And if Europe would have the kind of digitalization like China we would be in much better shape.

So I think that is clearly the way to go, and hopefully, people start to rethink and correct a lot of prejudices which do not come from facts, but they come—for example, the U.S. Senate just agreed upon a strategic act, which spent several hundred million dollars every year to counter the so-called “influence” of China! If that money would be spent on building hospitals and building real infrastructure for the benefit of the people, the United States image would gain much more than from these kinds of measures!

So again, I can only hope there will be a rethinking and a lot of the prejudices which have been spread should be put into the garbage pile.

ANCHOR: Yeah, instead of spending trillions of dollars on never-ending wars in foreign lands, I think definitely that money, at least for the United States, can be better put towards working with other countries in terms of boosting development around the world. And of course, that’s what the BRI is about, is really focussing and emphasizing cooperation, especially in the world that we live in today, and our future generations will need that cooperation. We must see that through the BRI. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Helga. That’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute.

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

May 15, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Power & Energy, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

PDF

May 14 (EIRNS)–The following statement was released today by the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, for the Global Health Summit in Rome, May 21, 2021, and for general circulation.

The only way that the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic can be stopped, is by re-thinking the solution. We must have modern health care systems in every country. This means infrastructure for public health, and for medical care delivery at modern standards, to all populations. One model for this is the U.S. Hill-Burton Act (“Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946,”) whose principle was to state how many hospital beds per 1,000 residents must be in each locality (at that time, 4.5), and deploy accordingly to build them, including modern equipment and staff.

Look at instances of our ability to do this today. The 1,000-bed Huoshenshan hospital was built in 12 days in Wuhan in 2020. In the U.S., multiple field hospitals were built in record time last Spring by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We must do this simultaneously around the world.

This means that all countries must work together to accomplish this. We must put aside tensions and conflicts for the time being.

There are new strains of the SARS CoV2 that are showing up, that are more aggressive, and more transmissible. These can make vaccines obsolete. “Many of these variants show enhanced transmission and, in some studies, enhanced disease,” was the report in April by Dr. Dan Barouch, an immunologist at Harvard Medical School, who helped develop the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. He said that the variants, “also have the property of being able to partially evade antibodies, and therefore raise the specter as to whether they may reduce vaccine efficacy.” We are in a race against time.

Thus, our response to the pandemic seen in these terms is a question of existential importance to the human species. It requires the cooperation of all major industrialized nations. A new paradigm of coordination among the United States, China, Russia and others is central.

In this spirit, a grouping was formed in June, 2020, called the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, to further such international collaboration on large-scale response to the crisis. Co-initiated by Helga Zepp LaRouche, founder and President of the Schiller Institute, and Joycelyn Elders, M.D., former U.S. Surgeon General, the Committee acts on the principle of the “coincidence of opposites” put forward by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), which pursues acting on the common good, and deters pitting sub-groups against each other.

The Committee has two pilot projects underway, embodying this principle concretely, in order to promote major government and institutional action. In Washington, D.C. in Ward 8, a team—involving youth leaders–is working to reach full COVID-19 vaccination rates, and initiate ongoing public health measures in the largely poor community. In Africa, a Committee shipment will arrive soon in Mozambique of combined medical, health, water, food and seed supplies, to make the point that both emergency and overall development measures are urgent at all points of need on the globe.

Health security is possible anywhere, only by provision everywhere of sufficient public health infrastructure and medical treatment capacity. This, in turn, depends directly on expanding water, power and food, which is associated with building up industrial capacity, as well as providing for adequate transportation, housing and other basics. Of necessity, collaboration among nations to deal with these tasks means deliberating on how to provide credit, and otherwise deal with the unstable, unjust financial system. Guidelines for a new paradigm for economic development were presented in a report “The LaRouche Plan to Reopen the U.S. Economy; The World Needs 1.5 Billion New, Productive Jobs,” (May 29, 2020, EIR, Vol. 47, No. 22)

Global Health Infrastructure

The following are summary elements of what is required for health security. For details, see, “LaRouche’s ‘Apollo Mission’ to Defeat the Global Pandemic: Build a World Health System Now!” from April, 2020, by the Schiller Institute.

Hospital systems. There is currently a huge deficit of hospital beds. Today’s world total of 18. 6 million beds needs to be nearly doubled to some 35 million, along with staff and equipment. This calculation is based on the metric set in the post-WW II U.S. “Hill Burton Act,’ for 4.5 beds per 1,000 residents in the community, in order to provide treatment for both routine and surge circumstances. After the U.S. approached this 4.5 beds per 1,000 standard in 1980, the level then dropped back to 2.8 today, due to privatization and deregulation of U.S. health care. The ratio is 0.7 for the nations in the category of “Heavily Indebted Poor Countries.” For example, South Asia is 0.7. Nigeria has 0.5 beds per 1,000, which has one fifth of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa.

A mobilization is necessary for building strategically located military-style field hospitals, in conjunction with vaccination campaigns, while at the same time, moving to launch longer-term construction of durable hospitals, continuing the crash mobilization mode. E.G. In Ghana, there is the national plan for multiple 100-bed hospitals. Depending on the number of beds in each new hospital, the world faces a need for 35,000 new facilities, especially in Africa, Ibero-America and Asia.

Health corps. Vast numbers of doctors, nurses, public health and related staff—technicians, pharmacists, veterinarians, dieticians, administrators, etc. are required worldwide. Meeting this need demands the spectrum of training, ranging from many more teaching hospitals, to thousands of youth training programs for invaluable community health service, beginning with today’s pandemic emergency. 
Water and sanitation. One fully-equipped hospital bed requires plumbing for at least 110-120 gallons of water a day. Every nation must have adequate water and sewerage. Today more than two billion people lack access to safe water, sanitation or both. The deployment of temporary sanitation facilities (which could be mass-produced and then distributed) will be a stop-gap measure, while durable improvements in infrastructure are constructed. Building largescale water management systems, for example, comprehensive river basin development in Africa and South America, along with littoral desalination—nuclear powered, as soon as possible—will end the extremes of drought and flooding, and provide millions of skilled jobs in the process.

Electricity. Modern medical treatment, including inoculation, is not possible without reliable, ample electricity, which of course is essential at large facilities. A large, modern hospital can use, roughly 19 million kilowatt hours per year of electricity for its many power requirements, including scanning and data devices, refrigeration, oxygen provision, ventilation, as well as lighting, cooking and cooling.

Science and technology. There must be an expansion of both basic research and development of technologies against diseases, including those affecting animals and plantlife. This is best done by collaboration among R and D institutions throughout the world. We must advance our understanding of viruses, such that in the near future we can do more than react to each new outbreak. In the immediate term, full collaboration on mass inoculation, and on anti-viral treatment regimens are essential to save lives.

“Food is medicine.” David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Program reported May 7 that nine million people died from starvation in 2020, more than the official death toll of 3.24 million from COVID-19. “Food is the best vaccine against chaos,” he stressed, early in the pandemic. It is urgent to provide the $5 billion requested by the WFP for extra 2021 food relief, over and above current levels of aid. There are over 270 million people in acute need of food, and another 600 million with food insecurity. Ten nations are in terrible famine—with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other African nations in the lead, as well as Yemen, Syria, Haiti and other locations. In addition, interventions must be made to support independent family farming in many of the most highly productive agriculture regions in Europe, North America, Australia and South America, whose output is vital, but where the family farmer is being driven out of operation by the transnational food monopolies. Modern agriculture must be rapidly developed in Africa and elsewhere. The goal is to double food production, to ensure nutrition and health for all.

The Global Health Summit is the responsible representation of the world population in this moment of a crisis of Biblical dimensions. This meeting must not end without a decision to start a process of worldwide international cooperation for a crash program to build a modern health system in every single country on the planet, including the necessary infrastructure to sustain that system.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Interviewed by Daniel Estulin

November 11, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, Our conferences

Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche was interviewed by investigative journalist and author Daniel Estulin, the full 45-minute version of which was posted today here: https://vimeo.com/642101361. What follows is a transcription of the opening exchange.

Daniel Estulin: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us. This is Daniel Estulin and welcome to DanielEstulin.TV. Today we have an amazing guest. It’s an honor, an absolute honor—I’m a huge fan—to have her with us, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon LaRouche’s wife, a founder of the Schiller Institute and one of the foremost experts in the world on Nicholas of Cusa. Helga, thank you so much for joining us. Good afternoon.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Estulin: Thank you. I want to start off asking you about your “Wake-Up Call” you just issued. Why the urgency and why now?

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, because I think the world is sitting on a powder keg. If you watch, for example, the tension rising between the United States and China, in particular, but also between the United States and Russia, it’s very clear that the war danger is very acute and very few people are actually warning of it, but the majority of the population has no idea. And people are concerned about energy prices, about not finding an apartment, about all kinds of issues which all have their merit. But most people overlook the fact that we are in a systemic collapse.

Out of that systemic collapse, which goes along with the hyperinflationary blowout of the system, which goes along with the new energy hoax, you know, the gas price hoax—these gas prices could go down immediately if there would be the political will to do so. All of this is the reflection of a systemic collapse. Obviously the overwhelming dynamic is the Great Reset shifting the trillions Green New Deal, trying to direct all investments into green technologies. That is basically based on an image of Man, which regards human beings as parasites, as CO₂ footprints, as just a burden to Mother Nature. And I wanted to counterpose that with an image of Man which, in my view, is in cohesion both with the image of Plato, the image of Christianity, of Judaism, of Islam and real science. Because I think that the human being is differentiated from animals in all other living beings by the power of creative reason. And that creative reason enables Man to again and again make discoveries of physical principles, which you call scientific progress. And when you apply that scientific progress in the production process through technologies, it leads to an increase of the living standard, increase of longevity, increase of population potential. And I think that that particular image of Man as a creative human being is in cohesion with the lawfulness of the universe.

So what I wanted to accomplish—together with Guus Berkhout—we wanted to accomplish is, to, on the one side, basically say all these many concerns should be seen in a larger context. That we are in danger of sleepwalking into a new catastrophe, and counterpose that with the most beautiful conception of the image of Man, which comes from the humanist tradition of European civilization going back to classical Greek, the Italian Renaissance, to Friedrich Schiller, from whom the Schiller Institute is named. And I thought it was important to reduce the very complex world picture to these two fundamental points: the existential danger in which we are, but also the optimism which comes from realizing what human beings are.

Syria Times Publishes Interview With Helga Zepp-LaRouche

May 8, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Color Revolutions, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, World war danger updates

Syria Times Publishes Interview With Helga Zepp-LaRouche

May 7 (EIRNS)–The Syria Times on May 7th published an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche with a very nice picture of a smiling Helga.  In replies to three main questions, she was able to explain her reasons for founding the Schiller Institute and the role it had been playing to develop programs for a just, new world economic order and to promote a worldwide renaissance of classical culture based on a dialogue of civilizations. In that context, the Institute has developed policies for various parts of the world, including Southwest Asia. She underlined her husband’s original “Oasis Plan” and the more recent “Phoenix Plan” for rebuilding Syria. She also attacked U.S. Middle East policy since the Bush Administration. She highlighted the upcoming conference on Saturday which would also have a presentation by Dr.. Bouthaini Shaaban from Syria, an adviser to President Assad. The full coverage is here.

Amidst Haitian-Dominican Tensions, Schiller Institute Plan for Haiti Cracks Open Debate of ‘What Is to Be Done’

November 3, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Haiti

Nov. 2, 2021 (EIRNS)—As the security situation in Haiti worsens, with armed gangs continuing to prevent fuel distribution, and kidnapping and killing citizens from all walks of life, tensions between the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic have reached a dangerous high. Yesterday, Dominican President Luis Abinader issued an urgent tweet calling on the international community to respond to the Haitian security crisis, naming the U.S., Canada, France, and the EU in particular, for failing to respond to cries for help. Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez also tweeted that the President has repeatedly called for the international community to organize summits to discuss the crisis in Haiti and map out a response, to no avail. No one has responded, the daily Listin Diario, reported him saying today. Haiti’s Foreign Minister, Claude Joseph, meanwhile responded to both Abinader’s and Alvarez’s tweets by calling on both countries to work together to deal with insecurity that affects them both, pointing to a recent State Department alert that also warned of growing crime and insecurity in the Dominican Republic. He urged Americans to exercise caution should they travel to Haiti’s neighbor on the island of Hispaniola. 

Tensions are intensifying, however. While 12,000 Dominican soldiers are deployed at the border with Haiti, President Abinader announced Nov. 1 that he will take a tougher stance on Haitians entering the country illegally, on enforcing existing laws, preventing women more than six months pregnant from entering the country. He threatened to deport thousands of undocumented Haitians who work in construction and agriculture. There is a good deal of fear mongering from the Dominican side that Haitian gangs may try to invade the country, leading the former head of the Army, Jorge Radhames Zorrilla, and the organization of retired Generals and Admirals to offer their services to help “defend national sovereignty.” 

It is noteworthy that in the midst of this tense situation, the Schiller Institute’s Plan for the Development of Haiti, whose English-, Spanish-, and French-language editions have circulated widely throughout Ibero-America and the Caribbean, including in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, has set off something of a firestorm in the Twittersphere, changing the terms of the conversation. After Pope Francis issued a tweet Oct. 31 (@Pontifex_es) calling on people to pray for Haiti and urging the international community not to abandon it, and a Schiller Institute organizer responded that the mission established by Lyndon LaRouche after the 2010 earthquake “can and must be carried out, including with China, to lift Haiti out of its overwhelming poverty and convert it to an economic development model for the Western Hemisphere and the world,” and included the link to the Spanish-language version of the Haiti program. 

This set off a series of other tweets from people of many different countries around the region, as far south as Argentina, including elected officials, lawyers, church officials, and academics, all commenting or making proposals on how to proceed, taking off from the Schiller organizer’s remarks. This included attacking the U.S. for its years of military invasions and imposing neoliberalism on Haiti. The Argentine respondent noted that the Schiller proposal “is a good one,” but added that Haiti’s location unfortunately “makes it politically conditioned by the U.S.” One LaRouche organizer pointed out to one tweeter that the program for Haiti is in fact a comprehensive program that can be applied to any country of the region, taking into account national differences, but starting from the standpoint that what’s needed is a “new paradigm of international relations.” 

Conference: The Moral Collapse of the Trans-Atlantic World Cries Out for a New Paradigm

May 7, 2021by David Dobrodt in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Our conferences, Stop the Sanctions

International Schiller Institute/ICLC online conference May 8, 2021

SCHILLER INSTITUTE PRESS RELEASE

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute Founder and Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Advisor to the Syrian Presidency, Lead Off May 8 International Conference

Read the press release

Panel 1 — Saturday, May 8, 9 AM EDT
The March of Folly: Can Mankind Still Extinguish the Now-Lit Fuse of Thermonuclear War?

1. Keynote Speech: Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder and Chairman, Schiller Institute: “Is Mankind the Immortal Species or More Stupid than Animals?”

2. Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Advisor to the Syrian Presidency: “Restore International Law: Respect Syria’s Perfect Sovereignty”

3. Col. Richard H. Black (US), former State Senator (Virginia), former head of the US Army’s Criminal Law Division, US Pentagon: “The Immorality of Sanctions: The Case of Syria”

4. Dr. Hans Koechler (Austria), University Professor of Philosophy, Vienna; President, International Progress Organization: “Unilateral Economic Sanctions: “Immorality and Arrogance of Great Powers”

5. Professor Dr. Wilfried Schreiber (Germany), Senior Research Fellow, World Trends Institute for International Politics, Potsdam, Germany: “Global Governance – An Answer from China and Russia”

6. Minister-Counsellor Sayed Mujtaba Ahmadi, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Afghanistan, Canada: “A Perspective for the Economic Development of Afghanistan in the Setting of the New Silk Road”

7. Prof. Eric Denece (France), Director, French Center for Intelligence Research: “Reflections for a New Foreign Policy”

8. Daisuke Kotegawa (Japan), former Ministry of Finance official, former Director for Japan at the IMF: “The Obama Sanctions Sabotaged Japan-Russia Development”

9. Caleb Maupin (US), Journalist and Political Analyst; Founder, Center for Political Innovation: “Sanctions Against Syria, Conflict with China: Who Benefits?”

Panel 2: Saturday, May 8, 1 pm EDT
The Method of the Coincidence of Opposites: Only A United Worldwide Health Effort, Without Sanctions, Can Reverse A Worldwide Pandemic

1. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President, The Schiller Institute: Introduction

2. Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon General of the United States: “Join or Die: Why A World Health Platform Protects Each of Us”

3. Dr. Khadijah Lang (US), Chairman, National Medical Association (NMA) Council on International Affairs; President, Golden State Medical Association, and Marcia Baker (US), Editorial Board, Executive Intelligence Review: “Report on Mozambique Pilot Aid Project—Toward World-Scale Mobilization”

4. Luis Vasquez (Peru), The Schiller Institute: ”Do Not Forget: The Global Concentration Camp Oven Is Now Nuclear”

5. Dr. Walter Faggett (US), Former Chief Medical Officer, Washington D.C. Dept of Health, co-chair DC Ward 8 Health Council, and Ms.Genita Finley (US), 2nd year Medical Student, designer Mississippi Delta Medical Extension School Program

6. Augustinus Berkhout (Netherlands), Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, Delft University of Technology, Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences: ”Greetings to the Schiller Conference”

7. Rainer Seidl (Germany) Land Creates Connection (Land schafft Verbindung, LsV), video excerpt of an interview in Munich, February 7, 2021; and Alf Schmidt (Germany), independent farmer, video excerpt of an interview in Berlin, March 23, 2021: “German Farm Protest Leaders: ‘Green Deal‘ Cuts Farmers, Food & People!”

8. Pastor Robert Smith (US), Pastor of New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan; Chairman Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention, USA INC.: “‘Physician, Heal Thy Self’: Saving a Nation in Crisis Through Love”

9. Antonio Sanchez (Venezuela/Chile), Int’l. LaRouche Youth Movement: “They Knew or Should Have Known: the Cases of Venezuela and Chile”

Schiller Institute Brings Haiti Development Plan to Spanish-Speaking Audience

November 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, Dominican Republic, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Haiti, New financial order updates, Our economic development events, Power & Energy

Schiller Institute Brings Haiti Development Plan to Spanish-Speaking Audience –

Nov. 7 (EIRNS) – Some 40 people from nine countries in the Americas participated in a Spanish-language international dialogue on “The Schiller Institute Plan for the Development of Haiti” held Nov. 6 via Zoom video conference. The opening presentations were made by EIR’s Dennis Small and Plan co-author Cynthia Rush, followed by remarks from three respondents: Domingo Reyes (Dominican Republic, economist); Billy Anders Estimé (Haiti, co-founder of Café Diplo Haiti); and Caonabo Suárez (Dominican Republic, water expert). All three respondents emphasized the importance of the Schiller Institute’s global approach to solving the Haiti problem, denounced attempts to pit Haitians and Dominicans against each other, and urged the widest possible circulation of the Schiller Institute Plan (now available in English, Spanish, and French versions).  The dialogue lasted almost three hours, and is now posted on the EIR Espanol YouTube channel https://youtu.be/q8S7W8TB2ZQ . The countries represented were Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the U.S.

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.

Syria Times Reports Dr. Shaaban Attacking British at Schiller Event

May 11, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Color Revolutions, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, Our conferences, Syria, Syria, World war danger updates

May 10 (EIRNS) – Schiller Institute Southwest Asia representative Hussein Askary reported to EIR that Syrian media is publishing a news item today in which it is made obvious that Syrian government spokesperson Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban used the Schiller Institute conference as a platform to single out the British as instrumental in the propaganda and psychological war against Syria. Dr. Shaaban usually directs her criticism for the military and economy devastation visited upon Syria, at the United States and Saudi Arabia; seldom at Britain. This link is for the English version of the circulating story in Syria Times. The Arabic version was published in several Arabic newspapers and websites, Askary reports.

CGTN Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on “Western Perspectives On China’s Whole-process People’s Democracy”

November 4, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, China, Economic development updates, General updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity

Nov. 3 (EIRNS) – CGTN yesterday published a six-minute video excerpt, with accompanying text, of an interview with international Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. The following is a copy-edited version of that CGTN transcript.

Editor’s note: The concept of “whole-process people’s democracy” was first put forward about two years ago during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to a civic center in Shanghai. Since then, some Western media outlets have been attacking it for being hollow and misleading. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, shares her thoughts on the concept. The opinions expressed in the video are her own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

CGTN: Why does the Western media keep attacking the “whole-process people’s democracy”?

Zepp-LaRouche: My understanding of this “whole-process people’s democracy” is that it is an inner party democratic process whereby you identify, on the basis of meritocracy, which are the most qualified people for the job and who are the [best] servants to the common good. And I think there is an empirical proof that this method is truthful, because China was able to lift 850 million people out of extreme poverty. That is the greatest contribution to history I know of. But to lift so many people out of poverty and also to offer that to the developing countries is exactly what is the crime in the view of the Western people who attack China on this point, because China has overcome extreme poverty in its own country, and it is now helping developing countries to do likewise. This is exactly the same mindset which was the mindset of Malthus since the time of the British East India Company which, as you know, was behind the Opium Wars against China.

It is not because of what they say. It is because the Chinese model has upset the whole world order. Because you have offered for the first time to the developing countries the possibility to overcome poverty and underdevelopment, and they wanted to keep the colonial order. I think this is really the bottom line of the accusations against China. I’ve been in China many times, and my impression was always that the spirit of the people is extremely positive [and] optimistic [about] the future. Therefore, the CPC must be doing something very right. If you ask people in the West, most people are pessimistic about the future. So, I think that expresses, in my view, more truthfulness than any of the propagandistic lines in the mainstream media.

CGTN: How do you see Chinese democracy and Western democracy?

Zepp-LaRouche: Democracy sounds very nice, but in many cases, it is a label, and you had better look what is the content of the bottle on which the label is pasted. Because nowadays the different parties are mostly lobbying for different interests. I would like to read you another quote from George Washington’s “Farewell Address” as president of the United States in 1796, where he warned of the evil spirit of party in general.

He said, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”

I think that is what we are seeing right now in the West. In many countries, you don’t have real democracy, but you have [the] form of despotism like in the United States. The polarization between the Republicans and the Democrats has torn the country completely apart. In Germany, where you have now the effort to form a new coalition, the voters will not get as government what he or she voted for, because they form coalitions as they want.

There were periods, however, where the Western democracy did function. This was the case in the beginning of the American Revolution, and it was the case with the Fifth Republic of Charles de Gaulle. But unfortunately, we, in the West, have moved very far away from these more noble conceptions, so we are more in the system of despotism which George Washington warned about.

CGTN: Can China and the West maintain good and stable relations?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think that there are indeed different models of democracy, according to the specific tradition and culture. It is very possible for these different systems to cooperate. However, this will only function, if they are united by a higher one [that] must be in the interest of all of mankind. I think the model closest to that is what President Xi Jinping has proposed – a community with a shared future, because that includes this idea of humanity as a whole. There is in the West an idea which is very similar, or actually identical, and that is the philosophical idea of a thinker from the 15th century, Nicholas of Cusa, the coincidence of opposites, which is the idea that since human beings are the only species capable of creative reason, that we always can think the higher one, a level of unity where all the differences disappear. So I think we need to enter a dialogue why this concept of the coincidence of opposites and President Xi Jinping’s idea of [a community with a shared future] are one and the same idea. And once we agree on that, I think cooperation will be very easy.

Page 10 of 27First...91011...Last