Amidst talk of a person-to-person summit between Presidents Biden and Putin in early 2022, U.S. officials are unleashing wild charges that Russia may invade Ukraine in January or February. The prospect of a summit was raised during a visit to Moscow by CIA Director William Burns. At the same time, U.S. spokesmen are calling on NATO allies to build up forces on Russia’s borders to “deter” Putin, and the U.S. committed to NATO expansion to include Georgia and Ukraine as members in the near term, at a meeting in Latvia. Who benefits from the schizophrenic quality of U.S. policy, when cooperation from the two nuclear superpowers is more urgent than ever?
Forget Geopolitics, Save Lives With Vaccines, Ibero-American Experts Tell Atlantic Council
May 26 (EIRNS)—On May 24, the Atlantic Council sponsored a webinar “The Race to Vaccinate: Chinese Vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean,” including Guyana’s Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony as its special guest, and a panel of three commentators including Chile’s former ambassador to China, Jorge Heine, epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Bouey of the RAND Corporation, and Ernesto Londoño, the New York Times correspondent in Brazil. Although the Atlantic Council has eagerly participated in the recent media and think tank rug-chewing about China’s vaccines being just a “cynical” political maneuver to increase its influence In Latin America and the Caribbean, moderator Pepe Zhang had to handle the discussion in an even-handed way—unable to directly challenge the reality that China’s vaccines are savings lives in the region, while the U.S. is absent.
That point was driven home in spades in response to one of Zhang’s carefully-constructed questions, about whether China’s “vaccine diplomacy” represents “a new avenue for engagement” in the region. Ambassador Heine quickly dispensed with the narrative coming from Western media and Washington think tanks that China is using its vaccines for political leverage and “domination,” stating that the issue here is timing. Chinese vaccines come “now” to Latin America whereas the U.S. and European countries are hoarding and talking about 2022 or 2023. That’s no good, he said, describing as absurd the discussion in the Western media comparing the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine to China’s Sinopharm, whose efficacy is reportedly 70%. “This is rich country club talk,” he pronounced. The perception of Chinese vaccines in the region is very high, Heine added. Latin America is “ground zero” for COVID cases and deaths, and how the crisis is handled “will be remembered for a very long time,” he warned. So, the U.S. should get going, and start providing vaccines fast.
While initially offering a factual report on the situation in Guyana and the surrounding region, Dr. Anthony made the same point. China had donated large quantities of PPE and lab equipment as well as 20,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine. (Anglo-American media lie that China never donates anything. India donated 800,000 doses. USAID offered a grant, “but no vaccines.” The situation in the region is now critical, he warned, with a surge in cases and deaths in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago. Guyana and the region have also been driven into deep economic crises. The bottom line, he said, is that there aren’t enough vaccines. That is the case across the Caribbean, he underscored, where vaccination rates are extremely low. He pointed out that it’s easier to store Sinopharm vaccines because they don’t require the same cold-chain capacity as Pfizer. President Biden has donated 4,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico and Canada and is offering Southeast Asia more, but, Dr. Anthony added, “we’re in the U.S.’s backyard, and with more vaccines, we can change the situation.”
Even the New York Times correspondent, Ernesto Londoño, noted that while the U.S. warns that dealing with China “comes at a price,” the reality is that China responded to many countries in their “hour of need…they showed up first and scaled a victory,” while the U.S. was hoarding vaccines. And when asked whether there were “geopolitical competition” between China and the U.S. in the region, the RAND Corporation’s Dr. Jennifer Bouey, a Chinese-American epidemiologist who has extensive experience working in China, responded that the current situation could offer an opportunity for the U.S. and China to work together, as they had done in the past, collaborating on SARS, Avian flu, and Ebola to “build a public good.” So, she said, the precedent is there. In concluding, Zhang asked each participant to express a final message, to which Heine said: Get U.S. vaccines to Latin America ASAP; Londoño, in the face of enormous loss, help must come soon; Anthony: get the vaccines in ASAP. Dr. Bouey: U.S., Chinese and Latin American scientists can work together in resolving the crisis.
Harvard Scientist Says Space Exploration Uplifts and Gives Meaning to Humans’ Lives
May 25 (EIRNS)–In an interview with The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech, on Fox News’s “The Ben Domenech podcast,” Harvard professor Avi Loeb, a renowned theoretical physicist, former chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, and author of the book “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligence Life Beyond Earth.” argued that scientific institutions should be taking risks and fund risky research, rather than just promising what they can deliver. “These are the most boring projects,” he said. “If you can tell in advance what you can discover, then it’s not a major advance.” The title of the podcast is “Avi Loeb and the Importance of Inquiry,” in which he discusses an array of subjects.
Loeb argues that Earth’s demise is guaranteed over the long term, so outer space ought to reclaim its fundamental role in the pursuit of academic progress. “Currently, all our eggs are in one basket here on Earth,” he said, “and if any catastrophe happens here it could destroy everything we care about.” Moreover, humans need the inspiration captured by space exploration. “We need something beyond our troubles that lifts us up and gives meaning to our lives,” he said, pointing out that the Apollo program once served that purpose by landing people on the Moon which “changed the psychology of humans.” He also argued that space and religion complement each other: “if you believe in God, then what you want is to appreciate reality to its greatest details. That will give you the wonder and awe that otherwise you would not have.”
WHO Director Denounces “Scandalous” Vaccine Inequity, Warns the Pandemic Is Not Over
May 25 (EIRNS)–Addressing the 74th annual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), on May 24, World Health Organization director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, delivered a stark message. “Make no mistake,” he said. “This will not be the last time the world faces the threat of a pandemic. It’s an evolutionary certainty that there will be another virus with the potential to be more transmittable and more deadly than this one..” Even though global COVID-19 cases have been decreasing for three consecutive weeks, he warned, the world is still in “a fragile situation…. No country is out of the woods. We must be very clear: the pandemic is not over and it will not be over until and unless transmission is controlled in every last country.”
In this context, Dr. Tedros denounced the “scandalous” inequity in vaccine distribution, which, he charged, “is perpetuating the pandemic.” He pointed out that 75% of all the vaccines that have been administered were in only ten wealthy countries. There is “no diplomatic way to say it: a small group of countries that make and buy the majority of the world’s vaccines, control the fate of the rest of the world.” Now, he admonished, it is incumbent on wealthier countries to share their vaccines with the WHO’s COVAX mechanism, which provides vaccines to poorer nations. He also announced a “Drive to December” campaign, in which countries should aim to vaccinate at least 10% of their populations by September, and at least 30% by the end of this year. But, in order to reach the September goal, he said, 250 million more people in low- and middle-income countries have to get vaccinated, “including all health workers and the most at-risk groups as the first priority. Vaccine manufacturing must be scaled up, he argued, and questioned why some companies won’t share their licenses and technologies with those manufacturers who want to help produce vaccines.
“This is crucial to stop severe disease and death, keep our health workers safe and reopen our economies,” Dr. Tedros elaborated. He warned that “those countries that vaccinate children and other low-risk groups now, do so at the expense of health workers and high-risk groups in other countries. That’s the reality.” He noted that while virus variants don’t seem to have undermined current vaccines, variants are “changing constantly,” and that any future ones could “render our tools ineffective and drag us back to square one.”
Cuba Has Vaccinated One Million People With Its COVID Vaccine; Plans to Immunize Entire Adult Population This Year
May 26 (EIRNS)–Cuba has now vaccinated one million people with its Soberana 2 and Abdala COVID vaccines, both of which are in late-stages of Phase 3 trials, and are two of five vaccines being developed. A sixth vaccine, known as Pan-Corona, is being developed with the Chinese, described as a next-generation vaccine which is more effective against various SARS-CoV-2 strains, Telam news agency reported May 22. Both vaccines require 3 doses. Soberana 2 was developed by Cuba’s prestigious Finley Vaccine Institute which in 1989 developed a vaccine for Meningitis-B. BioCubaPharma, Cuba’s state-run biomedical company, developed Abdala, and its president Eduardo Martinez Diaz estimates that all of Cuba’s adult population will have been vaccinated by the end of this year.
Cuba is experiencing a surge in cases, as are many Caribbean and Central American nations. Health Minister Jose Angel Portal estimates that by the end of June, 22.6% of the population will have been vaccinated; 33.5% by the end of July, and 70% by the end of August. Cuba’s regulatory agency is expected to approve emergency use authorization, at least for Soberana 2, in June, at which point the government can begin its mass vaccination program. Those currently being vaccinated are volunteers from high-risk groups, healthcare workers or residents of those regions most severely affected by COVID. This achievement has provoked the ire of the {New York Times} which published a teeth-gnashing article May 12 complaining that the island government is administering “home grown vaccines that have not been shown to work.”
Other developing nations have no such qualms about obtaining Cuban vaccines, which are the product of its state-of-the-art biomedical/biotechnology industry which has been developed over decades. Iran, Argentina, Mexico, Jamaica and Vietnam, among others, are interested in obtaining the vaccine. Today, Argentina’s Health Minister Carla Vizzotti and presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini arrived in Havana, to meet with officials to discuss how the Soberana 2 and Abdala vaccines were developed and whether they can be mass-produced, the daily {Infobae} reported today. The Argentine government is already in negotiations with Cuban officials on purchasing the vaccines, once Phase 3 trials are completed, and is interested in determining whether Argentina can eventually participate in producing them. Because the Soberana 2 vaccine doesn’t require refrigeration, it is especially attractive to developing countries.
Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders has drafted an open letter to virologists, medical professionals and those in the front lines of the battle to save lives, to join in an “international, coordinated and integrated educational campaign to establish a sane approach” to address the continuing threat from COVID 19 and the potential of future pandemics. The politicization of the disease has stoked panic and hysteria, heightening polarization, which has undermined adopting a competent approach to public health. The takedown of the health care system in the industrialized world — typified by privatization and disastrous legislation such as Obama-care — left nations unprepared to deal with a pandemic. Dr. Elders’ statement can be found at the link below; Read it, discuss it, and join us in circulating it. Open Letter to Virologists and Medical Experts Around the World to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic | The Schiller Institute
MILAN, Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—Alessia Ruggeri, chairwoman of UPI Italia, an association of small and medium-sized enterprises, and a renowned trade unionist in Sicily, today endorsed Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s proposed “Operation Ibn Sina” for Afghanistan with a press release which was published today in Il Corriere di Sicilia, a daily read in all of Sicily and is expected to be published in the next days in other Southern Italian papers. {Read the article here.} The press release is entitled “Helga Zepp-LaRouche launches Operation Ibn Sina to save the Afghan people” and reads:
“The Committee for the Republic, through its spokeswoman Alessia Ruggeri, endorsed the Ibn Sina initiative of the Schiller Institute. ’I believe that the world is experiencing a quite sad political, economic and social moment, with the complicity of mainstream media. We have to regain the lucidity and ability to intervene in support of a right cause. The Afghan people are paying the price of international geopolitical strategies which deny their inalienable rights guaranteed by the UN Charter.
“ ‘I therefore accept with great honor the invitation of the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites to be a part of it and give a significant European contribution,’ Alessia Ruggeri concludes, thanking Liliana Gorini, chairwoman of Movisol, an Italian political party inspired by Lyndon LaRouche.
“Also the lawyer Roberto Zappia endorses the appeal in support of the Afghan people, first exploited for the affirmation of the territorial and political hegemony of the world powers and subsequently abandoned to the voracity of the finance and to its cynical ruthless logics.”
The press release goes on to quote Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Operation Ibn Sina from the recent Schiller Institute conference and Dr. Joycelyn Elders on the recent activities of the Committee Coincidence of Opposites, particularly in Africa. {See Dr. Elders’ call, Open Letter to Virologists and Medical Experts.}
Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—From Helga Zepp-LaRouche:
Your Excellency Prime Minister Saleh bin Habtour; Your Excellency Mr. Hisham Sharaf, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yemen, a good friend of the Schiller Institute; Dear Members of the Yemeni BRICS Youth Parliament and its Chairman Mr. Fouad Al-Ghaffari:
Ladies and gentlemen who are gathered in the Capital of Yemen, Sanaa, I send you the most heartfelt greetings from Germany!
We are fully aware of the tremendous strain you are under as a result of the criminal blockade, which, as long as it continues, means that all this talk in the West about a “rules-based-order” is worse than meaningless. Because if they condone, de facto, this blockade, they condone the result—which is the death and suffering of a very large number of [the] Yemeni people! You have been incredibly courageous and inspiring for all members of the Schiller Institute around the world, by not giving up your fight to have a better future for your country and the world!
In these days, the New Silk Road launched by President Xi Jinping will have its 8th anniversary and the role of the BRICS in the world has increased to become a more and more influential element in world history. I am sure that Yemen will be an important part of it in the not-so-distant future, and [that] your organization will have been the decisive element in having accomplished that, and in that way reconnecting the glorious history of Yemen with a hopeful future.
The Schiller Institute has launched “Operation Ibn Sina,” which is to bring modern health systems to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria and as a synonym, to have a renaissance of the period, when your region of the world carried the torch of universal progress for all of mankind.
I also like to [recall] how proud my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, was of your unchanging industriousness for study of his scientific method, and I would like to encourage you to expand it, and make sure that it will have entry into the education system of your country. Yemen will be the birthplace of many geniuses, which will transform humanity into becoming truly human.
The old paradigm, a world divided by geopolitical aggression and the rule of a few over the many, is clearly coming to an end, and the new paradigm of cooperation, and a dialogue of cultures is becoming stronger and stronger. We join with you, and an increasing number of countries and forces in the effort to bring this change about, and give you the solemn promise, that we will always remain your true comrades-in-arms, until you have gained the sovereignty of Yemen, and are truly free.
With great affection, in the name of the entire international Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—Today, leaders of the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Movement joined other international figures in participating in a conference called to celebrate the “First BRICS Day” in the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, under the auspices of Yemeni Prime Minister of Yemen Abdulaziz Saleh bin Habtour. The conference, held at the Emergency Medical College, had been organized by the Yemeni BRICS Youth Parliament and its Chairman and long-time collaborator with the Schiller Institute, Mr. Fouad Al-Ghaffari, to celebrate Yemen’s commitment to securing full independence and development by working with the BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—and playing a key role as part of the New Silk Road initiated by China.
The event took place as the Saudis were continuing a new wave of bombardment targeting the capital, Sanaa. Yet the Yemeni government considered it so important that the Prime Minister, joined by the Ministers of Vocational Education, Foreign Affairs, and Culture, all participated, joined by Yemeni parliamentarians and other national figures. The Yemeni official news agency Saba News has already published a lively wire report on the event, which conveys the deep commitment of Yemen’s leadership to help end today’s dominance of the Western liberal system, freeing nations to develop. The Prime Minister expressed his thanks to the friends in Russia, China, and the other speakers who sent messages of solidarity from Germany, India, France, Iraq, and the United States of America. (The Saba News item is linked here.)
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, was the first of the 11 international guests whose recorded video message was presented, following the opening remarks by the Dean of the Emergency Medical College. She was introduced as the New Silk Road Lady. She was followed by Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, and Chairman of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. Jacques Cheminade was next, representing the Solidarité et Progress, presented as a former French presidential candidate. The Schiller Institute’s Hussein Askary followed with the video presentation on the history of collaboration with the BRICS Youth on the Yemen Reconstruction Plan “Operation Felix” and the LaRouche School of Physical Economics.
There was a high-level Russian representation, with a message from Anatoly Karpov, chess legend and member of Duma. Larisa Zelentsova, the Russian President of the International Alliance of BRICS Strategic Projects (BRICS Alliance) (iabrics.org) sent a video message. A message was also sent by Albert Zhukov, founder of the Golden Chariot Transport Award. Purnima Anand, President of the BRICS International Forum, India, also sent a message.
Two messages were sent from the United States, one by LaRouche movement organizers Marsha and Doug Mallouk, and one by independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, Diane Sare.
These speeches and messages were preceded with a ceremony where PM bin Habtour received the BRICS Youth Award and Transport Golden Chariot award. Minister of Foreign Affairs Hisham Sharaf signed the first copy of the new edition of the Yemeni BRICS “Sustainable Development University Curriculum,” which is a compilation by Fouad Al-Ghaffari of projects and works in economics centered around Lyndon LaRouche’s economic method. A chapter is dedicated to what the authors have characterized as “LaRouche’s Five Keys of Progress” which are a reworking of the “Metrics of Progress” from the EIR Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, 2014.” Another chapter is dedicated to the latter special report. A chapter includes a short version of “Operation Felix” for the reconstruction of Yemen from 2018, completed in 2018 as a joint project of the Schiller Institute, BRICS Yemen, and the Yemeni Investment General Authority.
Many references to Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute’s resolutions and calls regarding Yemen are also in the book. A chapter is dedicated to the Arabic LaRouche School of Physical Economics launched by Askary, with links. The 160-page book in Arabic language has a general outline of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. But on every page the LaRouche Five keys are superimposed on the 15 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Following the statements by the foreign VIPs, Al-Ghaffari made a 15-minute presentation on the history and nature of the Yemen BRICS operations since they were founded in December 2014.
The Minister of Vocational Education also made remarks, and the conference was concluded by a statement by Prime Minister bin Habtour.
First reports from the event are that it was a surprise for everyone, due to the high-level of international representation from intellectual and scientific layers. This is a great victory for the people and leadership of Yemen on behalf of all humanity.
And it is a celebration of seven years of hard work and cooperation with the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Movement, which began when Fouad Al-Ghaffari attended EIR’s release of its Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-bridge,” in Washington, D.C., keynoted by Helga Zepp-LaRouche. After meeting with Marsha and Doug Mallouk, he carried the copy of the report he purchased back to Yemen to start this new organization to teach Yemeni youth as well as policy-makers about the LaRouche economic method, the New Silk Road / Belt and Road Initiative, and the BRICS. A few months later, in March 2015, the war of aggression by Saudi Arabia and the UAE was launched with the aid of the U.S. and Britain. Despite this criminal war and subsequent murderous blockade, the BRICS Youth of Yemen continued their studies and mobilization of government agencies.
Beethoven: Spark of Joy – the lied, “Der Wachtelschlag” (The Quail Song) –
Another fascinating comparison is the various settings of “Der Wachtelschlag” (The Quail Song), based on a widely-known folk song from the 18th century in which the rhythm of the bird’s song constantly reminds the listener to invoke God. Schubert’s setting is the voice of the merry quail, while Beethoven takes the poem far more seriously and from the perspective of the human being who listens to these worshipful injunctions. His storms are more tempestuous, his acclamations of God’s praise grander, and his pleas for God’s aid more urgent. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]
First, Schubert’s song, and then Beethoven’s.
