Oct. 18 (EIRNS)–A Dominican friend of the Schiller Institute who has been discussing the plan for reconstruction and development of Haiti, made a number of specific proposals on emergency measures he feels should be taken right away, in the context of the broader strategic program to transform the nation. While he took issue with the Institute’s proposal to solve Haiti’s vast energy deficit with nuclear energy, and only addressed the security situation in a general way, his proposals overall are serious and excellent. He emphasizes the Dominican Republic’s crucial role in developing Haiti and the whole island of Hispaniola. He writes:
“I want to make a couple of comments regarding the program to develop and save Haiti as well as my own country, because we are inextricably linked to the same consequences as this is one island and neither of our nations can relocate ourselves. I think that the program should be divided into two main parts:
1) A comprehensive emergency program to mitigate hunger, disease, uncertainty and the dissolution of the country. This would include:
–massive and sustained distribution of cooked, canned or fresh foods—cooked on the spot on stoves on trucks (many of these are already used in my country in disaster zones).
— set up mobile clinics on trucks that can reach poor neighborhoods in the cities or countryside;
—set up mobile schools, transported by truck, for basic education that can be located in rented locales;
—provide facilities, funding, tractors, consulting, etc., to small farmers who produce food, as well as to cattle ranchers and poultry farmers who raise cattle, pigs, chickens and eggs either at home or on farms;
–provide specialized machinery and personnel to build basic access routes, indispensable neighborhood roads or trunk routes, and small bridges
–provide large quantities of construction material to build low-cost houses, preferably prefabricated, and furnish them with household goods;
–build mobile government offices that would be used primarily for dealing with civil matters;
— identify sources of water to be made potable through chemical processes and osmotic filtration (in which I am a specialist).
–provide large quantities of clothing, shoes, sheets, mattresses, folding beds, mosquito netting and insect repellent;
–massive distribution of vitamins, minerals, painkillers, medicines to treat parasites and diarrhea, mobile laboratories for basic analyses of fluids, and dental clinics;
2) A strategic program like [the Schiller Institute’s Haiti program,] with which I fundamentally agree. We have to see how a mechanism for directing the process can be created without interference—so that everything can be monitored and be above board, because the whole [Haitian] government is illegitimate, and no one knows for sure what its plans are nor to whom it really answers. As I mentioned, the Dominican Republic can play a crucial role in the carrying out of any plan, as we’ve already done this [before] without international aid.
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.
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.
Brazil COVID Strain Comes to the U.S.
April 10 (EIRNS) — For anyone stupid enough to think that President Jair Bolsonaro is Brazil’s problem and not ours, the CDC reported yesterday that the more infectious Brazilian strain of the coronavirus is now the second most common variant in the US, after the Kent one. The CDC has identified 434 cases of the Brazilian strain, mostly in Massachusetts, Illinois and Florida. But, as the Daily Mail noted in its coverage, the CDC’s “count is inevitably an underestimate as cases of the variant can only be confirmed with laborious genome sequencing.”
There are a number of concerns about Brazil’s P-1 strain. One is that it appears to be able to re-infect people who already had other strains. Another is that it is infecting a disproportionately large number of younger Brazilians. “The variant is dominant in Brazil, where hospital systems are buckling amid record-breaking daily death tolls,” the Daily Mail accurately reported. “The South American nation is now a global concern, because scientists view it as a breeding ground for more variants.”
China to Donate Vaccines, Medical Aid To Afghanistan; Stresses Need for Regional Cooperation and Coordination—
Sept. 9, 2021 (EIRNS)–Yesterday’s mini-summit among China, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, called to discuss how to address the challenges posed by the Afghan situation, announced a humanitarian aid package of $31 million, including food, water, three million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and other medical supplies. The meeting was chaired by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who had just completed a tour of Afghanistan’s neighbors 10 days earlier. The three million COVID vaccine doses reportedly represent only a first batch, with more to come. Xinhua reports that State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced that China is prepared to offer more anti-epidemic and emergency materials to Afghanistan under the China-South Asian Countries Emergency Supplies Reserve.
Today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian offered more details on yesterday’s meeting, stressing that it is the first attempt by Afghanistan’s neighbors “to work closely in response to the evolving situation in the country,” and to specifically establish “a coordination and cooperation mechanism.” He explained that this mechanism should be able to work smoothly with other existing multilateral mechanisms on Afghanistan “and can complement each other and form synergy. All participating parties support the continued operation of this unique mechanism so that countries can share policy propositions, coordinate positions, and jointly address challenges through this platform. The hope to host the second conference has already been expressed,” he reported.
WHO Aid Shipments Arriving in Afghanistan—
Sept. 9, 2021 (EIRNS)–On Monday, Sept. 6, a World Food Program plane carrying WHO essential medicines and supplies landed in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. This was the first of three such planned cargo deliveries. The WFP’s executive director retweeted the WHO information that the 53-metric-ton shipment contained 780 medical kits, and 50 kits to treat severe acute malnutrition in children. WHO teams were on the ground, ready to swiftly deliver the supplies to health facilities most in need. The WHO tweeted photographs of the plane and cargo.
On Monday, Al Jazeera’s Charlotte Bellis said, from Kabul, that aid agencies, including the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Doctors without Borders, and the AHO, say they are running out of food and medicine. “WHO has said that 90 percent of their clinics will close imminently.” She said that WHO had 2,300 health clinics spread across the country, operating last year, treating millions of people.
The Four Days when Countries Woke Up to India’s Fight against COVID-19
Apr. 26 (EIRNS)–On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, announced that China was in touch with India about emergency oxygen and other supplies. By Sunday, 800 oxygen concentrators were sent, and 10,000 more were to come within a week. (It was only months ago that China and India exchanged fire at their border, with all the consequent inflamed comments.) And over the next few days, China’s English language Global Times has made much of the lack of help from India’s erstwhile ally, the United States.
Saudi Arabia rapidly mobilized 80 metric tons of liquid oxygen. Both the UAE and Singapore are working out high-capacity oxygen-carrying tankers. Russia is sending planes with aid this week, including oxygen generators and concentrators, along with therapeutics. On Saturday, Pakistan committed for ventilators, PPE and digital x-ray machines. The UK, on Sunday, sent oxygen concentrators and ventilators On Sunday, France and Germany promised oxygen in days. On Monday, Australia joined in. The EU executive announced that they are “already coordinating with EU countries that are ready to provide urgently needed oxygen and medicine rapidly” — though it is not clear what the EU executive might mean by “rapidly.”
On Sunday afternoon, President Biden did tweet that “we are determined to help India…” in tandem with National Security Director Jake Sullivan’s announcement that the long-requested removal of the ban on raw materials (such as specialized filters, cell culture media and bioreactor bags) would be lifted and that PPE would be sent. There was no word on the tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine — sitting in storage, unused, and not even approved for use in the United States.
Portuguese Leaders Declare Vaccines a Public Good, Demand EU Invoke Emergency Powers
April 10 (EIRNS)—Ninety leading citizens of Portugal issued a public appeal on April 8 for the European Union to invoke emergency powers to override market interests, and order that COVID-19 vaccine production be undertaken in any appropriate plant available, even if not owned by the vaccine patent holders.
The pandemic has brought “catastrophe” to the world, and “vaccines, an indispensable instrument in the global battle against the pandemic, have become a public interest good. As such they cannot be subject to the supply and demand laws of the market,” they declare.
Europe has around 80 vaccine plants, which, according to the vaccineseurope website run by various vaccine producers, produced 76% of the vaccines on the world market in 2019, they point out. “The lack of vaccines seen today in Portugal and Europe, which subordinates European citizens to the vaccine producers, is incomprehensible. The arguments put forward by the European Commission regarding the nature of contracts, existing production capacity, and prices agreed on are not acceptable.”
The call takes on added force given that Portugal is currently the rotating President of the European Union. Nor is the call’s initiator, Jose Aranda da Silva, a lightweight, having served as the first head of Infarmed, Portugal’s national medicine and health products authority (1993-2000), and co-founded the European Medicines Agency (EMA) itself. The other signers include other former high-ranking health officials, former and current European and national parliamentarians, numerous professors, medical professionals, trade unionists, journalists, a Bishop, an admiral and an Air Force general, and others. And the initiative has been covered widely in Portugal’s main media.
Nearly three million people have died of COVID-19, the call states. The European Commission must “override financial and industrial interests… In cases classified as `catastrophic,’ European and national legislation allows Member-states to invoke `public interest grounds’ and `the overriding importance of public health or national defense,’ to adopt measures compelling vaccine production in locations which are not those of the patent-holders.”
The manifesto here references an earlier call by the Director-General of the World Health Organization for all instruments to be used, including technology transfer and lifting industrial property rights, to secure vaccines.
“In the face of the catastrophe which we are living through, in the face of the tragic lack of European response, the citizens call for measures capable of protecting the health of populations to be taken immediately. These measures require transparent sharing of information, the use of the legislation provided for situations of catastrophe, and a mobilization of productive resources and capabilities.”
The manifesto will be circulated internationally, and presented to the United Nations and World Health Organization, Dr. Aranda da Silva told Portugal’s Lusa press agency on April 8. He elaborated:
Science rose to the challenge of the pandemic, with funding by governments, but “when the vaccines entered the market, the commercial game began, instead of their being treated as a public good. When there is a war, there is a total mobilization. And in this war we are not using adequate weapons.” He was emphatic: this is “not an ideological question. It is a pragmatic question. If everyone is not vaccinated by the summer, we are going to have another wave and a great economic and social crisis.”
Statement from the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites: Mozambique Project—Medical Supplies, Food Aid & Seeds for the Future
April 11 (Schiller Institute)
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
—Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963
The Schiller Institute’s Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, initiated by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General, has launched an effort bringing together people of good will, of various backgrounds including youth, social activists, religious figures, farmers, medical personnel, miltary logistic experts and others, concerned, not just about themselves, but the crises facing all humanity. The Committee has emphasized reviving the non-violent direct action tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The idea is to demonstrate in a pilot project—beginning in Mozambique—that we can mitigate tragic circumstances, and inspire the large-scale response needed.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) Director David Beasley warns that famine now threatens the lives of 270 million people. It is essential that governments work together to: 1) implement full-scale emergency relief programs; 2) establish modern healthcare systems in every nation, including full-set infrastructure and trained staff; and 3) defend and expand family farm-scale agriculture everywhere.
Our initial effort focuses on delivery of medical supplies, food, and seeds to Mozambique, in southeastern Africa. With a population of 31 million, it is one of the poorest, and youngest (17 years is the median age) nations in the world. Terrorist attacks in the northern province of Cabo Delgado have displaced more than 670,000 people. There is chronic malnutrition, with over half of the children malnourished. There is widespread damage from recent cyclones. Crowded shelters and homes lack the most basic necessities, like soap, contributing to cholera, malaria and COVID-19. The disruption to spring harvesting and replanting is severe.
At the same time farmers in the world’s highest output food-belts—France, Germany, India—are in the streets with their tractors, protesting low prices, and new agro-dictates that will ruin them and cause world food shortages.
The objective of the Committee is to get a delivery of food and medical supplies into Mozambique as rapidly as possible, at the same time publicizing in the U.S. and internationally, the necessity for a global mobilization by governments and institutions for health security for all. Several farm leaders and military experts are joining with us to publicize and support this mission.
The Committee is working in conjunction with the Golden State Medical Association (GSMA), the California branch of the National Medical Association (NMA), to facilitate this project, due to their previous impactful humanitarian experiences in Mozambique. GSMA, along with NMA’s Council on International Affairs, have conducted several earlier missions to Mozambique and know the situation well. Contacts have already been established with government and medical personnel on the ground in Mozambique by GSMA, who can ensure safe and efficient delivery of goods to designated people in need.
The Committee intends to supply food (corn-soy meal, dried fish, etc.), seeds, water purification tablets, medical supplies (PPE, pharmaceuticals, etc.), procured both in the U.S., and directly in Africa to minimize transport costs. Funds and donations-in-kind are now being collected by the Committee and are tax-deductible.
For more information, please contact: Lynne Speed, Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites lynnespeed@schillerinstitute.org
Pandemic Gains the Upper Hand in India; Biden Looks the Other Way
April 25 (EIRNS) – India has reported over 300,000 new COVID infections per day for the last four days – a world record. That means that {one million} people are getting infected every three days in this nation of 1.3 billion. Chinese medical authorities are estimating that the daily rate could rise to 500,000 by June, and that the real numbers are likely much higher than recorded as many homeless people infected with the virus have not been included. The country now has recorded a total of 16.6 million cases, including 189,544 deaths. Worse still, the new strain reportedly directly attacks the lungs and typically causes significant damage before it is even detected.
While much of the international media remains focused on the sheer horror of the collapse of the Indian health system, the deadly lack of oxygen, and the open-air improvised crematoria, the true scandal is that the United States, and other western nations, are not only standing by, but have actually turned their backs on India and are – so far – refusing to send desperately needed vaccines and other medical supplies to India.
Delhi medical and government authorities have been pleading with the US to supply it with Astra Zeneca jabs that have been stockpiled by the Biden administration, as well as the raw materials needed to manufacture COVID vaccines in India. India’s former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal told Sputnik: “The attitude of the Joe Biden administration is very self-centered and selfish. India has been very generous in exporting and donating vaccines to other countries during the COVID pandemic,” said Sibal, who was previously a deputy chief of India’s Embassy in the US.
“The US, on the other hand, wants to create a stockpile to buffer itself against the next wave. Millions are being affected in India due to the virus and the US is effectively ignoring the plight of Indians”, complained Sibal. “The US is sitting on 350 million doses of COVID vaccine which India could use urgently”, he stated.
The raw materials required to manufacture COVID vaccines include bio-reactor bags, cell culture media, and filters, among others. The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing facility, this week tweeted out an appeal to President Biden urging him to lift the ban on the export of raw materials. The SII claims that its vaccine production has been cut by almost 50 percent due to a shortage of raw materials.
To date, the best the Biden administration has been able to do is send empty words to India: “Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific Covid-19 outbreak,” Secretary of State Tony Blinken tweeted. “We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India’s health care heroes.”
