Afghanistan

Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche Calls for Urgent Support Action For Afghanistan—“Operation Ibn Sina”

October 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Russia

Oct. 30 (EIRNS)–Schiller Institute founder and President, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in a discussion on Afghanistan Oct. 29 on Islamabad TV, said that she is promoting the Schiller Institute’s proposed solution to Afghanistan, in terms she calls, “Operation Ibn Sina.” Zepp-LaRouche participated on the program from Germany, and has indicated that she will be filling out this “Ibn Sina” initiative very soon.

She stressed at the outset that we are “at a watershed” time, in which the United States and other nations now holding back, must instead work closely with the Afghan government, which is the Taliban. Release the Afghan government’s funds, support stabilization and a future. The alternative is chaos, more opium production, mass death and terrorism.

The TV broadcast was PTV World, hosted by Omar Khalid Butt, on his Views on News program, whose additional guests for the 42 minute discussion were Dr. Andrej Kortunov, Chairman of RIAC (Russian International Affairs Council) in Moscow, and Dr. Farah Naz, foreign affairs expert in Pakistan.

Zepp-LaRouche explained her proposal, in her closing remarks, addressing the significance of Ibn Sina. “He was a doctor, who probably was born in what is today Afghanistan, and he was the most famous doctor until the 17th century, who wrote books which were studied in all of Europe.

“So he’s a hero in the history of Afghanistan., and right now there is a huge health crisis—COVID-19. More than 2000 hospitals have closed down…

“The international community—everybody who wants to be part of the solution, [must] help to build up a modern health system in Afghanistan, as the first step to stabilizing the situation, [therefore] give that the name, Ibn Sina.

“He can rally all the different ethnic groups inside Afghanistan, because he’s a figure of the national history, a hero; and he gives pride, and also hope, for a good future in Afghanistan.

“And building a modern health system can be the first step, because to build a modern system, you need energy, water and infrastructure…”

Deadly Great Game

Butt began his program by asking the guests to address all aspects of the significance of the crisis situation in Afghanistan, including “the geopolitical and strategic.” In opening the discussion, he showed the video clip of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov issuing a call at a Tehran conference (by video) earlier this week, that Afghanistan’s neighboring countries “not allow a military presence of U.S. and NATO forces which plan to move there after leaving Afghan territory.”

Zepp-LaRouche denounced such a prospect as a continuation of the British Great Game, which is unacceptable. Dr. Naz put forward that chaos can well be “the larger goal” of Western circles, which see the rising of China as a threat to be stopped, and are perpetrating vast harm in the Afghanistan region “by design.” Zepp-LaRouche described the West as “in a real collapse phase,” and should shift, instead, to working with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In the immediate term, massive aid must be supplied to Afghanistan to prevent genocide.

The same day at the Pakistan TV colloquy, the latest grim report on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan was summarized by UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Aid, Martin Griffiths, in an AP interview. He said, “The needs are skyrocketing.” The Winter snows have started. The World Food Program, which had already been supplying daily food, not just supplemental aid, to four million people, is now facing this number rising to 12 million people. These are people completely dependent on receiving all their daily food, or they will die. In addition, another 12 million need supplemental food.

Dr. Kortunov led off his remarks with three fundamental points: supply the food, act on the medical needs, COVID-19 in particular, and get fuel to people. Later in the dialogue, he forcefully made the additional point that, with the right policies and follow through, we could expect to see Afghanistan, this beautiful mountainous nation, be “the Switzerland” of Central Asia. There are the soils, the water, the location, the resources, the youth and all the other assets.

The full PTV World broadcast can be reviewed here.

Afghanistan IG Blasts State & Defense Departments for Restricting Information on Afghanistan

October 31, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, General updates, Geopolitics updates, United States, World war danger updates

Oct. 30 (EIRNS)–John Sopko, the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), blasted the State and Defense departments for their lack of cooperation with his office in remarks prepared for the Military Reporters & Editors Association Annual Conference yesterday. “U.S. agencies have not made honest reporting easy for SIGAR” or for the news media in reporting on the war in Afghanistan, he said. Sopko described efforts, some very recent, by the two departments to restrict the information available to the public in SIGAR’s reports, among them the fact that SIGAR has to put some information for its quarterly reports into classified annexes, all of which, he argued, should be declassified.

The State Department claims that its requests to restrict information is to protect Afghans who worked with the U.S. occupation but, Sopko said, “State was never able to describe any specific threats to individuals that were supposedly contained in our reports, nor did State ever explain how removing our reports now could possibly protect anyone since many were years old and already extensively disseminated worldwide.”

Sopko reported that he recently received a letter from the State Department asking that 2,400 items on the SIGAR website, attached to the letter in spreadsheet form, be redacted. “[I]t quickly became clear to us that State had little, if any, criteria for determining whether the information actually endangered anyone – and I think you will agree with me that some of the requests were bizarre to say the least.” Among them was a request that SIGAR redact the name of Ashraf Ghani from its reports. “While I’m sure the former President may wish to be excised from the annals of history, I don’t believe he faces any threats simply from being referenced by SIGAR,” Sopko said. He added that SIGAR’s own risk assessment found all but four of State’s 2,400 redaction requests to be without merit.

Sopko argued that the main reason why few people understand why the U.S./NATO-created Afghan government fell so quickly in August is because of the information that the State and Defense departments have withheld from release. This includes information compiled on the performance of the Afghan security forces since 2015. “This information almost certainly would have benefited Congress and the public in assessing whether progress was being made in Afghanistan and, more importantly, whether we should have ended our efforts there earlier,” Sopko said. “Yet SIGAR was forced to relegate this information into classified appendices, making it much more difficult for Members of Congress to access the information, and completely eliminating public and press access to and discussion of that information.”

The documents now known as the Afghanistan Papers were originally produced in Sopko’s office and they showed, among other things, that the private assessments of U.S. officials often contradicted their public statements on the “progress” the U.S. was making in Afghanistan.

SIGAR also released its latest quarterly report, yesterday, in which it found that more than $100 billion went down the drain when the government collapsed on August 15. The United States provided $89 billion in training and equipping the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and more than $17 billion “in on-budget assistance” to the Afghan government, according to the report. The net result of all of this expenditure is now zero as the government it was meant to support no longer exists.

Iran-Kyrgyzstan Rail Corridor Discussed

September 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, China, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Kyrgyzstan, New Silk Road / BRI updates, Uzbekistan, World Land-Bridge updates

Sept. 25 (EIRNS)–During a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week in New York, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Kazakbaev congratulated Amir-Abdollahian on his appointment as Iran’s top diplomat, and proposed a direct flight between Bishkek and Tehran. Kazakbaev also expressed willingness to use the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas’s capacity for transit cooperation.

The Kyrgyz Foreign Minister said his country’s internal conditions are better than ever for the presence of Iranian economic activists, calling for the two countries to work together on cooperation within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union. He also said Kyrgyzstan is ready to cooperate in the construction of a railway corridor between the two countries.

The Iranian government has already proposed some time ago to Central Asians, the value of making effective use of Iranian ports and the development of the Uzbek-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman transport corridor. This could connect to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway line being built, as well as to the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Iran corridor. A part of this latter project, there are connections for the Afghan cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat with the Iranian port of Chabahar.

UN Official Warns of Economic Collapse and Food Insecurity in Afghanistan

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

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

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

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

Afghanistan Is at “the Precipice;” More Than Half of Its People Now Face Famine

October 28, 2021by madeleine in Afghanistan, General, Healthcare, Healthcare, World Food Program

The latest “Food Security” report on Afghanistan released yesterday by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) raises the alarm that Afghanistan is becoming the largest humanitarian crisis in the world—beyond even the horror of the famines in Yemen, Ethiopia, Syria, and South Sudan. The facts, maps, and descriptions included in that report make clear that mass death has begun, and that the U.S.-led Western financial sanctions are playing a major role in this catastrophe. This is genocide.

The number of Afghanistan’s people suffering “acute food insecurity” has risen, even after this season’s harvest, from 14 million to 18.8 million people—47% of the nation’s population. That’s a 37% increase since the last assessment carried out by these agencies in April. The FAO and WFP now project that, come the November to March winter months, at least 22.8 million people—more than half (55%) of Afghanistan’s people—will be starving to death. Be clear: “acute food insecurity” is not chronic hunger; it is defined as “when a person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.”

“Economic decline” stemming from the imposition of international financial sanctions is identified right up front as a “key driver” of this catastrophe, along with conflict and drought. “In the wake of Afghanistan’s political transition and the consequent freezing of US$ 9.5 billion in national assets, the economy plummeted,” the report acknowledges. “The banking system suffered severe disruption, and the national currency lost 12.5 percent of value, leading to high unemployment and food prices.”

In large part because of the sanctions, “for the first time, urban residents are suffering from food insecurity at similar rates to rural communities…. Across cities, towns and villages, virtually no family can afford sufficient food, according to recent WFP surveys,” the World Food Program reported in a press release. “Rampant unemployment and a liquidity crisis are putting all major urban centers in danger of slipping into a Phase 4 emergency level of food insecurity, including formerly middle class populations,” the report finds.

“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises—if not the worst—and food security has all but collapsed,” WFP executive director David Beasley warned in releasing this report. “This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance, and unless the economy can be resuscitated…. Hunger is rising and children are dying … the international community must come together to address this crisis, which is fast spinning out of control.”

The WFP press release cites one of the authors of the report, Jean-Martin Bauer, on how one million Afghan children, right now, are in danger of dying of hunger. Bauer asserted that “no one wants to see Afghan children die as a result of, you know, politics, essentially.”

Prove him right; join the Schiller Institute’s international campaign to end the financial strangulation of Afghanistan, and sign and circulate its “Call to Release the funds of the Afghan people.”

Wang Yi, Afghan Govt. Meeting Agrees To Set Up Joint Working Committees

October 28, 2021by madeleine in Afghanistan, China, General, Global Diplomacy

Both China and Afghanistan appear to view the two days of meetings between Afghan Acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Doha yesterday and today, as productive and friendly.

Going into the talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin yesterday noted the importance of the talks, the first at this level since their meetings in July before the Taliban assumption of power. “The Afghan people are seeing a historic opportunity to independently take control of their country’s future,” at the same time that they face “many difficulties and challenges, where there is an urgent need for external support,” the spokesman emphasized. “Against such a backdrop, the Chinese side and the Afghan Taliban authorities have agreed to meet in Doha.”

Global Times reports that Wang Yi spoke of China’s concerns (EITM terrorism, the need for inclusive government, for avoiding chaos, and for having good relations with neighbors, etc.), but also expressed China’s support for Afghanistan’s development:

“Wang urged the US and the West to lift sanctions on the country. He also called upon all parties to engage with the Afghan Taliban in a rational and pragmatic manner to help Afghanistan embark on a path of healthy development,” Global Times reported.

“Wang said that Afghanistan is now at a critical stage of transforming from chaos to governance, and is facing a historic opportunity to achieve reconciliation and advance national reconstruction. But challenges still lay ahead, including the humanitarian crises, economic chaos and terrorist threats, which require more understanding and support from the international community.”

Global Times reported that Baradar had briefed Wang on the current situation in Afghanistan, and told him “that the Afghan Taliban attaches great importance to China’s security concerns, and will resolutely honor its promise and never allow any forces to use the Afghan territory to harm China.”

Afghanistan’s Tolo News, citing government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, reports that Beijing had promised to provide $5 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and that the two governments had agreed to set up three committees. “The first committee is working on political and diplomatic relations; the second will focus on creating relations and understanding between the two countries; and the third committee is working on economic projects,” Mujahid reported.

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.

Pakistan’s PTV World Features Helga Zepp-LaRouche

September 21, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, China, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Pakistan, Russia, United States, World war danger updates

Sep. 20 (EIRNS)–On Pakistan’s “PTV World” broadcast, Faisal Rehman hosted Helga Zepp-LaRouche of the Schiller Institute and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Italy, Jauhar Saleem. Rehman began by welcoming “Our guest, Ms. Helga!” with an opening question as whether the world had entered into a clash of civilizations. Zepp-LaRouche answered that she had read Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, and, first, it must be said that he knew very little about the civilizations that he wrote about.

Further, the world is not about “geopolitics but geo-economics” — employing the distinction recently made by Pakistani President Imran Khan. AUKUS is not the spirit of the time. The AUKUS attempt may even provoke something like de Gaulle’s response to NATO, as in 1958. This move has destroyed trust in Biden. He had just said, in pulling troops out of Afghanistan, that this was the end of an era; the end of useless wars. Was he serious? Or was it just to concentrate forces against China? This is not good for Biden, as trust in his word is undermined.

Rather, the New Silk Road is the pathway – and the Schiller Institute, by the way, has been on this pathway since 1991. So, does Australia want to be an aircraft carrier for this new military alliance? Or does it want an economic future for its own people? The situation is that there is a decaying neo-liberal system, and it has been refusing to respond to offers from China and Russia.

After a question and some discussion with Ambassador Saleem, Rehman turned back to Zepp-LaRouche, and asked: How would the U.S. and China, given the present conflicting positions, move ahead? Zepp-LaRouche set out that, objectively, neither China nor Russia represent a threat. There have been many offers on demilitarization from Putin — including to Germany, when he spoke, in German, to the Bundestag. And China has lifted 850 million of their people out of poverty. The BRI is not a threat. They are offering to developing countries to conquer poverty.

We need to take a step back. It is a nuclear-armed world, and there is the threat of war by accident, war by miscalculation. China’s Global Times clearly warned that China will fight and win certain conflicts, such as Taiwan. Therefore, we must stop geopolitics. In Afghanistan, David Beasley from the World Food Program made clear that 90% are hungry. Afghanistan’s Health Minister Majrood explained that 90% have recently been denied health care. The recent move to use the Extended Troika (of China, Pakistan, Russia and the United States) involves reaching out and collaborating to develop Afghanistan. It can be integrated into the BRI — and there is the offer to Europe and the US to join in. Pino Arlacchi, e.g, was able to conclude an agreement in 2000 with the Taliban on opium production.

There are presently two billion people in the world without access to clean water. We need a modern health sector in every country. Not doing so simply means that there will be more mutations, new variants and the defeat of the last round of vaccines. Clearly, this crisis requires a new paradigm. Afghanistan can be the new building block. The human species is the only one endowed with creative reason. We can find cures for a pandemic, for overcoming poverty, even colonizing Mars. You know, in February, the United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all had Mars missions at the same time. It is time to become an adult species.

Schiller Institute Leaders Zepp-LaRouche and Askary Join Pakistan-Based Online Forum for Afghanistan Development

September 20, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, Pakistan, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

Sept. 16 (EIRNS)—The Asian Institute of Eco-Civilization Research and Development, a Pakistan-based think tank, held an online seminar today to launch its “Kandahar Dialogue.” The event, titled “Afghanistan in Search of Peace and Prosperity,” brought together some half-dozen speakers, including Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute; Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council; and Hussein Askary, Southwest Asia Coordinator for the Schiller Institute. It was moderated by Pakistani political economist Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, who had addressed the Schiller Institute’s international conference on “World at a Crossroad: Two Months into the New U.S. Administration,” on March 20-21. His March 21 remarks were on “CPEC, Connectivity, and Future Prospects.”

Afghanistan’s neighbors, Pakistan emphatically included, are eager to create conditions for stability, development, and predictability, to create a welcoming environment for long-term development. EIR magazine will make further reports available in the near future.

Page 4 of 7First...«345 »...Last