March 30, 2021 (EIRNS)–The UN Security Council held its monthly meeting on Syria yesterday, focusing heavily on the humanitarian situation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who chaired the virtual meeting, delivered a statement about the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria without once referring to the economic sanctions that the US and its European allies have imposed on the country that have worsened living conditions for millions of Syrians. “While today’s session is focused on the humanitarian crisis in Syria, it’s important to note that the only long-term solution to this suffering is through a political settlement and permanent resolution to the conflict, as outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 2254,” Blinken said, “But even as we work to that solution, we can’t lose sight of the urgent needs of the Syrian people that we’ve heard described so eloquently today. It’s clear that these needs – including having enough to eat and access to essential medicine – are not going to be met by the Assad regime.”
Blinken followed this posturing with the demand that the UNSC authorize the opening of two border crossings in the northeast and northwest into areas of the country that are not under the control of the government. “We have a responsibility to ensure Syrians have access to lifesaving assistance, no matter where they live,” he said. “Given that goal, there was no good reason at the time for the council’s failure to reauthorize these two humanitarian crossings.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin, who delivered the Russian response, minced no words about the roles of the US and Turkish occupying forces in creating the current conditions that prevail in all parts of Syria. “It is paradoxical, yet true — a significant deterioration in the life of the Syrian population has been observed precisely within the past year, when a significant reduction in violence was achieved on the ground,” Vershinin stressed, reported TASS. He also drew attention to the fact that “the most difficult situation is developing in the regions not under the control of Damascus in the northwest, north and northeast of Syria, the responsibility for which, let me reiterate, is with the de-facto occupying countries and local authorities.”
Vershinin accused Western powers of openly discriminating against the areas of the country controlled by Damascus, including with respect to deliveries of humanitarian supplies, the return of refugees, and efforts to control the COVID19 pandemic. “It is done in a bid to undermine Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, due to political motives,” he said.
Then there’s the matter of unilateral US and European sanctions, which are greatly hindering the economic reconstruction of Syria. “The reaction of Washington and Brussels to the call of the UN secretary general to ease and lift unilateral sanctions amid the coronavirus pandemic was, on the contrary, to tighten in an unprecedented way the restrictions adopted bypassing the UN Security Council, including the introduction of the infamous Caesar Act in June 2020,” Vershinin said. “Unfortunately, the honorable representative of the US and other Western colleagues spoke about a lot of things in today’s speeches but for the US and EU sanctions and their dramatic negative effect on ordinary Syrians.”
Vershinin also pointed out the US looting of Syrian oil and wheat. “Reports continue to come in that American convoys are trucking out oil and grain from Syria to Iraq daily. The information [we] receive suggests that 300 oil tank trucks and more than 200 cargo trucks with grain had crossed the Syrian-Iraqi border by March 23 since the beginning of the month,” he said. “It turns out while Syrians are suffering from acute shortage of basic products, including bread and petrol, a wide stream of Syria’s smuggled natural resources is flowing from the Trans-Euphrates region controlled by the US, while the country is simultaneously suffocated with unilateral sanctions which essentially are a form of collective punishment,” he underlined.
Prior to the US and Russian (and other) statements, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock reported that the need for aid has jumped 20% from last year and humanitarian organizations coordinated by the U.N. are seeking an estimated $4.2 billion to reach 12.3 million Syrians inside the country. He said another $5.8 billion is required for support to countries hosting Syrian refugees in the region. “We need more money, not less, if we are to avoid a further deterioration — the consequences of which could be dramatic and widespread,” Lowcock said.
Henrietta Fore, head of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, said Syria’s worst economic crisis is “plunging 90% of the population into poverty, and across the country nearly 90% of children now require humanitarian assistance.”
March 30, 2021 –During the Q & A session of Panel 4: “The Challenge of Famine and Pandemics — The Coincidence of Opposites or Mass Extinction?” at the the recent Schiller Institute conference, there was an extensive discussion of triage and the treatment of poor and non-white patients, which have been exacerbated under conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Shirley Evers-Manly, who had described the mounting cases of mistreatment and triage taking place in hospitals and elsewhere in the US against poor and minority patients during this pandemic, subsequently referenced the following video made by a black medical doctor, Dr. Susan Moore, in an Indiana hospital. Suffering from Covid-19, Dr. Moore describes how she was denied medicine, and told to go home despite being severely ill — even that she was to be sent home at night. Dr. Moore makes a passionate appeal, not simply for herself but for all those who “don’t know how to fight for themselves.” Dr. Moore died a few days after making this video. Twitter coverage and video.
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March 29 (EIRNS)–The Syrian official English-language daily Syria Times published a short review of what it considers the main points of former Virginia state Senator Richard Black’s speech at the Schiller Institute international conference on March 21. The daily then links to the video of the speech. I have asked them to link to the Schiller Institute conference page. The coverage can be found here.
Mar. 29 (EIRNS)–The lunar initiative was made by Moon in a speech March 25 at the country’s Naro Space Center. He also stressed the push to give more support to commercial space enterprises, but distinguished between their contributions in space services, such as launch vehicles, the importance of building a space industry, versus the long-term government exploration programs.
“We will actively push for challenging space exploration projects that build on the foundation achieved by developing a Korean launch vehicle,” Moon said. “By 2030, we will achieve our dream of landing on the Moon by using our own launch vehicle. The technological prowess, experience and confidence that will be gained from exploring the Moon, the first step in space exploration, will provide a solid foundation for space development.” This stress on an indigenous rocket is a result of an engine failure during a satellite launch, on a rocket with a Russian stage, which led to years of recriminations.
Last month, the government pledged to spend 615 billion won ($553.1 million) on the space program this year. Given South Korea’s industrial capability it would seem that putting more resources into the space program could accelerate the lunar program.
At the end of a fifty-year period of the deliberate dismantling of the western world’s physical economy, by a criminal cabal of oligarchs and their flunkeys, now is the perfect time to “finally” learn economics. Lyndon LaRouche was defamed and persecuted during that period, not for any crimes he committed, but because he never gave up his commitment to create a new Renaissance, to mobilize people from every nation to defeat that cabal. Join us on August 14, at 9 AM EDT, to learn what made LaRouche a heroic figure in the battle to overcome the oligarchy, and defeat their efforts to bestialize mankind, to preserve their self-proclaimed elite status.
Event details: https://www.larouchelegacyfoundation.org/news/august-15
Mar. 29 (EIRNS)–For two months, the Biden administration COVID-19 vaccine policy has been to grab as many vaccines as possible and turn away any and all requests for help. Then in March, various statements, either from President Biden or his White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, made clear that America would consider requests after every American is taken care of. It’s been left unclear whether that’s every adult who would roll up their sleeve (around 200 million) or, literally, every American (330 million) or somewhere in between. However, this last week has seen several articles beginning to question the ugly and counterproductive stance. One can pretend that viruses don’t mutate and create new strains that will outflank one’s vaccines, but it is a silly conceit.
One of them, for example, an Axios’s article by Dave Lawler, used vaccine production figures from Airfinity, and compared production vs. export of vaccines: the United States produced 27% of the world’s vaccines and exported 0% of their production; China, 33% and 62% of that exported. (With this week’s plan to ship 4 million doses to Mexico and Canada, the U.S. climbs to about 1.5%.) India and Russia also had significant export figures. Biden’s prime tool has been to invoke the Defense Production Act to keep our ammunition away from allies and foe alike. One European diplomat expressed surprise that there was so little domestic opposition to Biden’s ‘Americans first’ approach. Krishna Udayakumar, director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, summed it up: “The question really is, what is the threshold that’s going to satisfy the administration enough to allow the exporting of those doses?”
Beethoven: Sparks of Joy – Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15
Beethoven’s five piano concerti were written between 1793 and 1809. The first two were quite experimental, intending to fill the palpable void in Vienna for this genre of composition left by the death of Mozart in 1791. By the third concerto in C minor, Beethoven was fully the master of the form.
Beethoven also personally premiered each concerto, composing the cadenzas for each one himself, making the case for his preeminent virtuosity as a pianist, with the exception of the 5th by which time his loss of hearing had become acute.
Here is Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15, with Fabio Luisi conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden and pianist Margarita Höhenrieder. [Notes John Scialdone.]
The IPCC report released this week was intended to panic government officials and populations into embracing the insanity of decarbonization. Instead, it demonstrates the panic of the imperial Malthusian supporters of the fabricated theory behind “man-made climate change”, as resistance is building to their increasingly hysterical warnings. From Australia, Germany and India, and even from Great Britain, the birthplace of Malthusianism, leading officials are rejecting the narrative from the latest IPCC report.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche was one of the guests on CGTN’s “Dialogue” program’s coverage of the situation in Xinjiang. She focused on the tremendous development of China that he she had seen over the years, and the background to Xinjiang destabilization in Brzezinski’s creating terrorism in the U.S. war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Also appearing on the show was Sultan Hali, speaker at the recent Schiller Institute conference.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Mario Zenari, the representative of the Vatican in Syria since the beginning of the Syria war, issued an appeal for international support to reconstruct the country, as time is running out. “Peace, I repeat, will not come to Syria without reconstruction and without economic recovery,” Zenari said March 23. “But how long will Syrians have to wait? Time is running out. Many of the people have lost hope. Urgent and radical solutions are needed.”
Zenari said that the “present political deadlock” between the parties in the Syrian conflict must be overcome through “mutual and reciprocal [steps], step by step from the Syrian government and the opposition and key international players.” He further stated, “While the peace process is in this moment in a complete deadlock, poverty, on the contrary, is moving forward fast.”
Zenari was speaking via Zoom from Damascus at a virtual event organized by the Catholic charity Caritas Internationalis.
Zenari said about 90% of the population of Syria is living below the poverty line, which according to UN figures is “the highest percentage in the world.” He cited the Lebanese financial crisis, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, internal corruption, and foreign sanctions have all contributed to the deepening poverty in Syria caused by 10 years of war.
“The Syrian pound has lost much of its value against the U.S. dollar. The price of food has significantly increased. At the bakeries, people queue to try to get limited subsidized bread that is available. The same scene for petrol all around the country. … The people call this difficult time an ‘economic war,’ worse than that of previous years,” he said.
The World Bank estimates that the country has suffered at least $197 billion worth of infrastructure damage during the war.
Pope Francis marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Syrian war by praying for an end to the war and a renewed commitment from the international community for rebuilding efforts, at the end of his Sunday Angelus on March 14. Zenari first arrived in Syria as apostolic nuncio in 2008, and in 2016 Pope Francis made him a cardinal as a sign of the Pope’s closeness to Syria, Cardinal Pietro Parolin told Catholic News Agency (CNA) at the time.
Here we review a proposal for the reconstruction of Syria called Project Phoenix, focusing on how Syria, which enjoys an ideal position at the crossroads of three continents, can benefit from connecting to the New Silk Road and the emerging World Land-Bridge. This video was produced for the June 25-26, 2016 Schiller Institute conference in Berlin, Germany, “Common Future for Mankind, and a Renaissance of the Classical Cultures”