Global Diplomacy

Russia Denounces Sanctions on Syria as “Collective Punishment”

July 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Color Revolutions, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Russia, World war danger updates

Russia Denounces Sanctions on Syria as “Collective Punishment” —

July 9 (EIRNS)–In a press conference following the Astana format meeting on Syria yesterday, held in Kazakhstan, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev denounced what he called the “collective punishment” of the Syrian people through Western sanctions. “We believe the consultations that we have held here in Nur-Sultan give hope that our call on the international community [will make it possible] to move the focus from efforts to stabilize the situation in Syria in military terms to humanitarian issues and activities aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people,” he pointed out. “And definitely, the deplorable practice of collective punishment for the Syrian people has to end,” Lavrentyev added.

Humanitarian aid needs to be delivered through the country’s legitimate authorities, and in this regard, Russia calls for the establishment of a mechanism to deliver humanitarian aid to all parts of Syria via Damascus, he said.

About 24 hours after Lavrentyev’s remarks, the UN Security Council passed a compromise resolution, today, on extending the UN mandate for cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid supplies from Turkey to Syria’s Idlib province. The new resolution extends the mandate for six months until Jan. 10, 2022, with an automatic extension for another six months until July 10, 2022, subject to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issuing a report on the “transparency” of the aid operation and progress on delivering aid across conflict lines within Syria as Russia wanted. The resolution also welcomes “all efforts and initiatives to broaden the humanitarian activities in Syria, including water, sanitation, health, education, and shelter” as well as early recovery projects.

COVID-19: Vaccine Access for All

March 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

China Announces Plans To Produce 3.5 Billion Vaccine Doses in 2021

March 4, 2021 (EIRNS)–A major expansion of COVID-19 vaccine production is underway in China, now surpassing 3.5 billion doses in 2021. Further, China has decided to vaccinate 560 million of its citizens by June 30, an average of about five million/day. The U.S. is just now arriving at the capacity for 2.5 million/day, on its way to a 3-4 million/day level.

At a major meeting of the Chinese Center for Disease Control on Tuesday, decisions were made to escalate vaccinations on a vast scale. Up to now, China has targeted 52.5 million vaccinations, concentrating upon those who are most exposed to people and products coming into the country at airports, train stations, and harbors, and upon those exposed internally, such as health workers. Their testing and tracking methods have pre-empted a need to rapidly vaccinate. However, they have decided that it would undermine the efforts of neighbors, such as India, who are going for herd immunity levels of vaccination, if China were unvaccinated when their neighbors had achieved their goal. Social responsibility dictates that China should not be the weak link at that point. Health authorities were sent around the country after the Tuesday meeting, to organize the vaccinations of 560 million people by June 30 and another 330 million by the end of the year.

The 3.5 billion vaccine doses will come from Sinovac Biotech, which, according to CEO Yin Weidong, is expanding to a two-billion-dose/year capacity; CansinoBIO, which is building a new factory in Shanghai and plans on 500 million doses in 2021; and Sinopharm, which guarantees at least one billion doses in 2021. Previously, India has led the world, with a production schedule of 2.25 billion COVID-19 vaccines in 2021.

U.S.-China: A Shared Humanity

March 5, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, New financial order updates, United States, World Land-Bridge updates

U.S.-China State Legislators Meet for 5th Forum; Amb. Cui Lauds Cooperation

March 4, 2021 (EIRNS)–The 5th China-U.S. Sub-national Legislatures Cooperation Forum met online on March 2. Attending were state legislators from the states of Alabama, Hawaii, California, Delaware, Iowa, Michigan, and Tennessee. On the Chinese side were leaders of the standing committees of provincial or municipal people’s congresses of Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Hubei, Guangdong and Yunnan. The forum was the outcome of President Xi’s state visit to the United States in 2015.

During the course of the Forum, the two sides had extensive discussions on the theme of “Win-win Cooperation for a New Chapter.” The U.S. legislators’ organization participating in the meeting is the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, whose president is Stephen Lakis.

China’s Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai addressed the group. He underlined that this was the first such event since the change of administrations, and he emphasized the importance of U.S.-China cooperation, particularly in a year in which the world is still in a major fight against COVID-19. Cui referred to the call that the two presidents had made in February as the possible beginning of an improved relationship between the two countries.
“A China-U.S. relationship based on coordination, cooperation, and stability is both in the fundamental interests of the two peoples, and meets the shared aspiration of the international community,” he said. “The two countries need to work together under the principle of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation, focusing on cooperation and managing differences, to promote the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations, to bring more tangible benefits to the two peoples, and contribute to peace and development of humanity.”

Mexico Seeks Energy Security

March 4, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, Finance, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Mexico, United States

Mexico Stands Firm: Texas Shows We Are Right To Put Energy Security Before Profit

March 3 (EIRNS)—In the middle of the Texas energy crisis, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked leaders of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to brief the nation on how that crisis proves that his policy to restore national energy self-sufficiency and a national electricity grid regulated by the government, fed by all energy sources, emphatically including fossil fuels, is urgent, and its opponents are dead wrong.

The climate mafia has launched war against AMLO’s “vision of energy sovereignty” and mandate for fossil fuels to be used before subsidized and unreliable wind and solar. “No other G20 country has such abnormal or retrograde energy policies as this government. It’s not going to advance us toward our climate goals,” one leading climate activist told the London Guardian in mid-February. International energy “investors” are preparing lawsuits against AMLO’s new Electricity Law to drive out the speculators, which was passed by the Chamber of Deputies last week and is expected to pass the Senate shortly. Rating agencies are preparing to lower Mexico’s credit rating, if it becomes law.

The CFE team, led by its chairman, Manuel Bartlett, who has been outspoken against the wind and solar energy frauds, detailed how the selling off of Mexico’s public sector electricity generation and distribution to a bunch of unregulated international speculators under the previous two administrations were the cause of the blackouts in Mexico when the cold wave hit, as happened in Texas. The officials pointed to the absurdity that Mexico, an oil producer with plenty of its own natural gas, now found itself with 64% of its national electricity powered by natural gas imported from Texas. Mexico was knocked out when the cold wave hit because the pipelines from Texas froze, and after that Texas stopped all export of natural gas because its wind and solar “renewables” failed, they
reported.

The CFE managed to cover 75% of the gap from the loss of natural gas imports by activating 11 hydroelectric plants, coal plants fed by mines which the López Obrador government had recently reopened, diesel supplied by the state oil company PEMEX at low prices, existing reserves of natural gas and purchase of some shiploads of the latter—at the wildly-high speculative prices on the international markets. Officials stressed that they could only do these things because under the energy sovereignty policy, thermoelectric plants which were under-utilized, nonetheless were maintained, against just such an emergency.

López Obrador then drew the lessons out: What just happened in Texas makes clear that it is not possible to give equal treatment to private foreign companies, he stated. The state needs to control the energy production and national electricity grid as an integrated whole. Under the previous governments, the energy sector was being taken apart, sold off in pieces, and looted. “It is important to recognize that these two public companies [Pemex and the CFE] do not have profit as their purpose, but to guarantee electricity service, and at fair prices, also, because we are going to continue fulfilling our commitment to not increase electricity prices, even with the speculation and increases in gas prices which are occurring in Texas and the United States.”

U.S.-China Diplomacy: Needs to Aim for Unity

March 4, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, New Silk Road / BRI updates, United States, World Land-Bridge updates, World war danger updates

China to Biden Team: It Is ‘Evil’ To Try and Prevent Any
People’s Right To Pursue a Better Life.

March 3 (EIRNS)—China’s Global Times responded strongly to a report issued March 1 by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which accused China of undermining U.S. national interests through coercive and unfair trade practices and promised to use all available tools to pursue “strengthened enforcement” of China’s existing trade obligations. In other words, as the Global Times yesterday took due note, “the Biden administration has repeatedly said it is reviewing the previous administration’s China policy, but recent messages emanating from Washington suggest that the new administration is keeping the hardline stance against China. The Trump administration’s strategic goal of containing China will be inherited, and only the means of dealing with China may be adjusted.”

It is “understandable” and even “reasonable” that Washington would seek to maintain its leading position in technologies, and to protect its intellectual property rights, the editors of this official daily correctly assert. China does not protest U.S. policies towards China which aim at promoting U.S. development and increasing U.S. strength, but containment smacks of the “barbaric geopolitical games” of the 19th and early 20th century.

“We are in the 21st century…. Be they Americans, Chinese, Latin Americans or Africans, all people have the right to pursue a better life…. [P]olicies targeted at preventing China’s continuous development and even pushing China’s economy backward are evil. They pose a direct harm to the interests of the 1.4 billion Chinese people, depriving the natural right of the Chinese people to seek a better life….

“Restricting China from the perspective of intellectual property rights protection is different from jeopardizing China’s scientific and technological research and development capabilities. The former is part of the intellectual property rights protection regime, while the latter is an evil result of the geopolitical mentality.

“China has 1.4 billion people, more than the West combined, and much more than the population of the major Western countries combined. China’s development is the grandest project of the global human rights cause, and China’s development needs a relatively friendly international environment, including fair conditions for trade and technology exchanges…. It is malicious to take tough measures to suppress the ability of developing countries, and to tell large countries like China that ‘you deserve to be poor’….

“This kind of malicious policy cannot be followed up in a broad and lasting way in the 21st century. We hope the U.S. ruling team can see clearly the general trend, stop talking about human rights when it is trying to deprive the sacred rights of 1.4 billion Chinese people…. At last, we have to say that such evil is doomed to failure in the 21st century.”

{Source: “Policies Containing China’s Development Malicious: Global Times Editorial” https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1217096.shtml }

Yemen: Crime Against Humanity – Change It!

March 3, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, World war danger updates

Yemen Donors Conference Raises Even Less Money for Yemen Humanitarian Relief than Was Provided Last Year

March 2, 2021 (EIRNS)—The UN donors conference which convened yesterday to raise funds for relief efforts in Yemen, cosponsored by Sweden and Switzerland, failed to raise even half of the $3.85 billion that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appealed for. Pledges amounted to a total of $1.7 billion, even less than the $1.9 billion that was donated in 2020. Guterres called for countries to “consider again what they can do to help stave off the worst famine the world has seen in decades.” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who is on a week-long visit to Yemen, also called the outcome of the conference “disappointing,” warning that the lack of funding would cause huge cuts to Yemen aid. “The shortfall in humanitarian aid will be measured in lives lost,” he said.

The Saudis pledged $430 million; the U.S. promised $191 million, reportedly a decrease of $35 million from last year. The reduction in aid is attributed to the pandemic, corruption allegations, and concerns the aid might not be reaching its intended recipients in territories controlled by the rebels.

The Houthi leadership dismissed the conference, saying that such donor meetings only aid the aggressor countries and not the people of Yemen. “Conferences help aggressor states to identify themselves as obliging, not hostile or aggressor states which must end the siege and aggression,” said Houthi spokesman Mohammad Abdul-Salam, reported Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. He stressed in a twitter posting that stopping the aggression and lifting the blockade is the biggest help Yemen can ever receive. “The best services that the Saudi-led coalition provides to Yemen are nothing but daily airstrikes, brutal siege, the blockade of oil products and the closure of Sana’a International Airport, and the human consequences thereof.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche interviewed on CGTN’s Asia Today

July 4, 2021by madeleine in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, World Land-Bridge updates, World war danger updates

Helga Zepp-LaRouche was interviewed by Zhong Shi today, the host of the “Asia Today” program on CGTN, as part of its lead coverage on the crisis in Afghanistan.

Zhong Shi: I want to now also bring in Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the president and founder of the Schiller Institute, a German-based political and economic think tank. Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche, welcome to the program. It’s a pleasure to have you on today.

The Pentagon says returning Bagram base to Afghan security forces was a key milestone in U.S. military withdrawal. Now, the question is, what type of milestone will this be for Afghanistan? How will this affect the country’s ability to fight against the Taliban?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I think it’s a very serious situation. There is the danger of civil war, not only between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban, but according to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who yesterday pointed to the fact that there are now ISIS forces massing in the north of Afghanistan. I think the danger is that the war will continue, this time with Afghans killing Afghans, so I think it does require some other approach. Something completely different than just withdrawing and leaving the place as it is.

Zhong: The world is now watching the situation unfold in Afghanistan. We know the Taliban certainly has been sweeping into districts as foreign troops go home. When the United States watches what is happening right now in Afghanistan, how would you characterize Joe Biden’s policy towards Afghanistan after U.S. forces leave? He certainly has promised continued support.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, I’m not so sure. Obviously, this is a quagmire. Twenty years of war and lost lives and lost money for nothing. I think that the withdrawal from Afghanistan has similar reasons like the United States reducing logistics in other parts of the Persian Gulf. It’s in part, in my view, this focus on the Pacific, on Russia, on China. So per se, it’s not an Afghanistan policy, but it’s more a policy led by geostrategic considerations. I think this is a path to disaster as well.

Look, Afghanistan in the last year, the opium production increased by 45%. Afghanistan produces 85% of the world’s opium production. If you just leave that, the Taliban will for sure increase that production as a way of financing their military operations. The deaths will be in the streets of the United States and Europe, of the many addicts. In Afghanistan, there are 3.5 million drug addicts, but that just shows that you need to have a completely different approach to solve this problem.

Militarily, Afghanistan cannot be won. That was proven by the Soviet Union trying to win for 10 years, now the United States and NATO for 20 years. I think it’s high time to rethink, that one needs to have a completely different approach than the continuation of the same.

Zhong: As you say, it would be 20 years of a war for nothing, if Afghanistan quickly descended back into chaos; into where it was before the war. Some fear that this is more likely to become a reality once foreign troops are gone. What do you think are the chances that this will happen? That Afghanistan will dive deeper into a civil war?

Zepp-LaRouche: As I said, if nothing is being done, it will be a nightmare. There will be more terrorism, which will spread not only in the region, but beyond. I think there must be a change in the approach. The only way there would be any hope to stabilize the situation is if you bring real economic development to Afghanistan, but also to the entire region, of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, all these countries which have been destroyed by the endless wars. This could be taken as one region, and one should understand that both the problem of terrorism, but also the problem of drugs, is one which should concern all the countries—the United States, Russia, China, Iran, India. They should all work together for an economic development perspective. One could extend the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road. The previous president, Karzai, saw that he sees the only hope for Afghanistan would be development. And the new name for peace is development, also in Afghanistan. So, my wish would be that this could become a subject of a UN Security Council special conference. President Putin has demanded, in any case, that the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council should meet. That would be one of the urgent items; how to prevent Afghanistan becoming a source of terrorism, drug trafficking, and just a nightmare for everybody. And how can you stop thinking in terms of geopolitical confrontation, and concentrate on the common aims of mankind? I think Afghanistan is one of these absolute crossroads—it is a crossroad—but also a crossroad in the history of mankind.

Zhong: This is more of a pressing issue by the day. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, we appreciate your analysis today; thank you so much for taking the opportunity to talk to us.

Beasley Calls on Branson, Musk, and Bezos for $6 Billion To End Starvation

June 30, 2021by madeleine in Agriculture, General, General updates, Healthcare, World Food Program

Over the weekend, World Food Program Director David Beasley sent out a tweet, reiterating his frequent call on billionaires to step up to meet the $6 billion more needed this year to roll back hunger and prevent starvation. But this time he named names. He included in his tweet the June 26 CNN video story, “Bezos vs. Branson: Billionaires Battle Over Being First in Space.” Beasley tweeted June 26:
“Hey, Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, so excited to see you compete on who gets to space first! BUT, I would love to see you TEAM up together to save the 41 million people who are about to starve this year on Earth! It only takes $6 billion. We can solve this quickly!”

The financial worth of these three, according to Global Citizen: Branson, $6.3 billion; Musk, $165.9 billion; and Bezos $192.6 billion.

China Brings Its Space Vision to Hong Kong

June 25, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Space updates

China Brings Its Space Vision to Hong Kong

June 24, 2021 (EIRNS)–A half-dozen leaders of the Chinese space program, including 88-year- old Qi Faren, the father of the Shenzhou program, descended on Hong Kong on June 23 to spend several days visiting Hong Kong universities and secondary schools to present the opportunities space has to offer to young Hong Kongers. This is the first major visit of a Chinese delegation to Hong Kong since the outbreak of COVID, and the effect was very powerful. Everywhere there were packed rooms. Most moving was the two-hour presentation by Qi Faren, who entered the Chinese defense establishment in 1957. Speaking without notes or a PowerPoint for two hours, and with times and dates engraved in his brain, he outlined China’s vision for space, from the historical experience of space in Chinese astronomy and poetry to the present period with the building of a Chinese space station. Qi talked about the spirit of the “two bombs and one star” program, the early attempt in incredibly difficult economic circumstances, for China to begin to again become a world power by building an atomic bomb in 1964, a hydrogen bomb in 1967, and launching China’s first satellite in 1970.

Qi, together with many of the elders in the space community, like Sun Jiadong, Ouyang Ziyuan, and others, had come out of this early program. And what was it that motivated them? Qi asked. It was “love of the motherland.” Qi explained that he was born in Dalian in 1933 and Dalian, like Taiwan and Korea, were all occupied by Japan at that time. “When I was young, I was bullied by Japanese kids, I gathered in the playground every day when I was in elementary school, bowed to Tokyo three times, and then practiced the bayonet. “If the War of Resistance Against Japan does not win,” he told himself, ” I will have to be in the Imperial Army, and China will be lost. But with the victory of liberation, I can now ‘Glimpse the Great Aerospace Era’,” Qi said. [the name of the Hong Kong foray].

He said the younger generation has no experience of this history, so patriotism must be promoted through education. He said that the noblest love, the greatest love, is patriotism. This provides the energy for overcoming difficulties for reaching your greatest potential. “In peacetime, everyone is patriotic as long as they do their job well. Everyone can do this, and the country can be strong. The dream of being a powerful country needs to be implemented in our business and our jobs,” he said. Qi’s lecture was met with applause that lasted a long time in the huge venue. The talk was also live-streamed on several sites, including a WeChat site which had 5,000 viewers.

Hu Hao, the designer of the third stage of China’s space program, gave a thorough presentation of the technology of the space program, noting that many people were needed to further develop China’s work in space. He was peppered with questions, including, how does one become an astronaut, what will we find in space, what kind of science experiments will be undertaken, etc. Hu also talked about mining on the Moon and the importance of Helium-3 for a future fusion energy program.

At the end of the week there will be a major exhibition at the Hong Kong Convention Center with space paraphernalia and Moon rocks.

Wang Yi Chairs Meet of Belt & Road Countries in the Asia Pacific Region

June 25, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, New Silk Road / BRI updates, World Land-Bridge updates

Wang Yi Chairs Meeting of Belt and Road Countries in the Asia Pacific Region

June 24, 2021 (EIRNS)–On June 23, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted a high-level video conference on international cooperation in the Belt and Road Asia-Pacific region. The theme of the conference was “Strengthening Anti-epidemic Cooperation and Promoting Economic Recovery.” The participants included Colombian President Duque and deputy prime ministers, foreign ministers, and other political leaders from 29 other countries, as well as the UN Deputy Secretary-General and UN ESCAP Secretary-General Ali Shahba.

President Xi sent a letter to the participants, in which he underlined the successes of the BRI and the importance of its work in dealing with the COVID epidemic. He said that China was creating a new development paradigm which, through the interconnectivity of the BRI, would help create more market opportunities, investment opportunities, and growth opportunities for BRI partners.

Minister Wang underlined the many successes of the Belt and Road in bringing development to the Asia-Pacific region. He noted that 140 partners have signed BRI cooperation documents with China. Cumulative trade between China and its BRI partners has exceeded 9.2 trillion U.S. dollars, and the cumulative direct investment of Chinese companies in countries along the route has exceeded 130 billion U.S. dollars. “The ‘Belt and Road’ has truly become the world’s widest and largest international cooperation platform,” Wang said. He also noted that there were no political conditions or ideological bias attached to Belt and Road membership, making a clear distinction between BRI and the Biden/G7 “Build Back Better World” boondoggle.

The meeting reached agreement on a 6-point program. The Members positively praised the progress of BRI cooperation; called on the international community to work together to overcome the problems engendered by the pandemic; called for greater cooperation in the development of vaccines and making them available to the world as a whole; placed “green development” in a prominent position in BRI infrastructure development; supported greater cross-border movement of goods and people and the promotion of trade and investment liberalization; accelerated the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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