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Second “Dialogue on Climate” Webinar in Italy

The second “Dialogue on Climate” webinar took place in Italy yesterday, with professors Franco Battaglia and Franco Prodi as speakers. Prof. Battaglia is a teacher of physics and chemistry at the Modena University, while prof. Prodi, brother of Italy’s former Prime minister Romano, is teacher of Physics of the Atmosphere at the University of Bologna. 

Prof. Battaglia demonstrated in a conclusive way that all forecasts of the IPCC have been wrong. “Nobody can deny that human activity has produced CO2, but this is not the cause of climate change”, he said. We are in the end phase of a mini-glacial era, and global warming has already occurred in the past, when there was no anthropogenic CO2 production. 

Solar and wind energy will never be able to replace other energy sources, which today represent 80% of the energy mix. The insanity of renewables can be shown in Italy, where ca. 100 billion euro have been invested for photovoltaic parks that produce 2.6 GW of power, whereas one nuclear power plant would produce 3 Gw and would cost one tenth of it! Battaglia revealed that when he was advisor to Environment minister Altero Matteoli, the latter asked him whether he should sign the Kyoto protocol. Don’t sign it, Battaglia told him. Nobel prize winner Carlo Rubbia also told me so, Matteoli confessed – but eventually signed the Protocol. 

Prof. Prodi went into a long and detailed explanation on how the formation of clouds affects the climate. This is a complex and articulated system, but the IPCC focuses only on some aspects, neglecting some very influential factors. 

During the Q&A period, former minister Carlo Giovanardi asked why scientists who argue against the IPCC are excluded from the public debate. 

Prof. Alberto Prestininzi, who moderated the event, answered that “there is a direction. When economic leaders get together…. if the EU decides that one trillion Euro should go to decarbonization”. Prof. Renato Ricci, honorary chairman of the Italian Physics Society, commented that it is “big finance” behind the so-called climate emergency. 

Claudio Celani from EIR intervened in support of prof. Ricci explaining that the climate emergency is a pretext to create a new financial bubble in the attempt to save the bankrupt financial system. The origin of climate activism and environmentalism is neo malthusianism, and answering Sen. Giovanardi, Celani said that politicians have a responsibility for having accepted a decades-long slide into the current regime. 

Celani’s remarks were backed by prof. Mario Giaccio, an economist, who said that he agrees about neo malthusianism and went into a description on how liquidity has moved into energy assets, creating the bubble. However, he concluded with the pessimistic remark that you cannot do anything against it because they are too strong! 

Prof. Prodi intervened saying that he has been ostracized by media because of his “negationist” views, and the situation in the scientific community is “more rotten than you think”, almost as rotten as in the financial system. 

There will be a “Climate Dialogues” Webinar every other week between now and October.

The science of climate change is not settled, and much of what is presented is not based on science at all. Leading scientists with the integrity and courage to buck dangerous “popular” dogma will discuss so-called manmade climate change, and the most-advanced science including the galactic science of astronomical-scale oscillations at the upcoming Schiller Institute/ICLC conference. The suicidal trend in some European countries to stick with anti-nuclear attitudes will also be discussed.

For the Common Good of all People, not the Rules Benefiting the Few!

International Schiller Institute/ICLC online conference, June 26/ 27, 2021

RSVP today →


Poles Enter Intense Cooperation with Huawei

As China’s CGTN TV network reports, at the Mobile World Congress 2019, held in Barcelona, Spain last week, Poland’s infrastructure network service provider Hawe Telekom and China’s Huawei announced in-depth cooperation in the development of competence of the Polish company in the field of 5G technology. The announcement is important, as other European countries hesitate to, or even hostile about working with Huawei, because of the allegations that the company spied for the Chinese state.

Hawe and Huawei stated in Barcelona that Poland has a strategic location for the Silk Road of Information as it contains a segment of the shortest route from Frankfurt to China via Russia. Hawe networks will play a vital part in the fiber connection along the Silk Road.

Hawe has more than 6,000 km worth of optical fibers deployed across Poland and has expanded to key switching nodes in Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, and Finland. 


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy

Beethoven, Franz Schubert: musical dialogue and the C-minor series.

No investigation of the C-minor dialogue among composers can be complete without the astonishing C-minor sonata by Franz Schubert, whose birthday we recognized on January 31. Schubert, a native of Vienna, was 15 years Beethoven’s junior, although he died just one year after Beethoven at the age of 31. In fact, he was one of the pallbearers at Beethoven’s funeral. His C-minor sonata, D958, is often performed together with Beethoven’s 32 Variations on an Original Theme, WoO 80 also in C minor, with which it has obvious affinities.  Notes by Margaret Scialdone.

Beethoven’s variations are performed by Sookkyung Cho: 

and Schubert’s sonata by Sergey Kuznetsov: 


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy

Beethoven and the C-minor dialogue.

We return to Beethoven with two of his best-known sonatas in C-minor: the Pathétique and the Opus 111. Listen for the development of the theme that Bach put forward in his Musical Offering!

Sonata Pathétique (1st movement) played by Dubravka Tomsic:

Opus 111 (1st movement) played by Alfred Brendel:


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy

Beethoven, Mozart, Bach: A Musical Dialogue.

We continue the investigation of the C-minor dialogue with Bach’s Ricercar à 6 and Mozart’s sonata K.457. When the elderly J.S. Bach visited his son who was court musician for Frederick II, the king presented the elder Bach with a difficult theme, and challenged him to improvise a three-part and then a six-part fugue. Bach created the 3-part fugue on the spot, but declined the 6-part pending further study. Two months later, Bach sent the king the two-volume “Musical Offering” in which the theme is subjected to every possible permutation in the form of ten  different canons, two ricercars, and a trio sonata! 
After studying the Musical Offering, Mozart composed his C-minor sonata and later the Fantasy (which we heard yesterday) in which he demonstrated the principles used in composing the sonata. 
In the next days, we’ll see how this theme was developed by Beethoven and Schubert. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]

We hear the Ricercar a 6 played by Daniel Martyn Lewis.

The Mozart sonata is performed here by Micah McLaurin.


Sputnik Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on INF Crisis

Sputnik International published an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, identified as head of the Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) party, warning that if Europe hosts new U.S. missiles it will sign a “suicide pact,” and that the solution to strategic tensions is to expose the real authors of Russiagate. The interview was published in the English (International) and Portuguese-Brazilian editions of Sputnik and picked up by a newswire in Indonesia. The dispatch was headlined: “Europe to Sign Own ‘Suicide Pact’ If Hosts New U.S. Missiles — German Politician.”

“Europe’s possible agreement to host U.S. intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles will be tantamount to signing a ‘suicide pact’ in light of Russia’s declared resolve to target these potential security threats, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the leader of Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party, told Sputnik.

“`If Europe were to accept the installation of new U.S. missiles on its territory in this strategic environment, it would sign a suicide pact,’ Zepp-LaRouche said.

“According to the politician, amid somewhat war-mongering  rhetoric in the West, Putin `just reintroduced a reality principle and clarity’ with his warnings.

“‘Despite President [Donald] Trump’s stated intention to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia, including that he may have one idea of replacing the INF treaty with a new agreement, Putin has to take into account the contrary intention of the neocons in the Trump administration and the British ‘minister of war,’ Gavin Williamson, who threatens to use ‘hard power’ and also claims that the ‘boundaries between peace and war are becoming blurred,’ she clarified, making a reference to Williamson’s 2019 Munich Security Conference speech. [sic—Williamson’s speech was on Feb. 11 at the Royal United Services Institute—ed.]

“Meanwhile, Europe’s ‘fundamental self-interest,’ Zepp-LaRouche believed, lay in removing sanctions on Russia and re-establishing good relations with Moscow by creating ‘an economic zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the basis of integrating the Belt and Road Initiative, the Eurasian Economic Union and the EU.’

“She went on to note that such cooperation would create ‘a new security architecture’ that should become the basis on which Europe builds its cooperation with the United States.

“When asked to suggest ways to overcome the rifts in the global security environment between Russia and the West, Zepp-LaRouche opined that once the ‘real authors’ of ‘Russiagate’ — the scandal around Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which Russia strongly denies — were revealed, ‘most of the strategic tensions would evaporate.'”


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy

Beethoven, Mozart, Bach: A musical dialogue.

Any discussion of musical masters in dialogue must acknowledge the towering figure of Johann Sebastian Bach. The C-minor series we are about to explore had as its genesis Bach’s  Musical Offering  – a set of pieces based on a theme proposed to him in 1747 by Frederick II, King of Prussia. Today we will hear the three-voice “Ricercar” from Bach’s Musical Offering, followed by Mozart’s Fantasy K.475, composed as a prelude to his Sonata K.457 (we will visit the Sonata tomorrow). [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]

Here, Bach’s “Ricercar à 3” is beautifully performed by Ji-Hyang Gwak:

And now listen to Mozart’s treatment of the theme in the Fantasy K.475, performed here by Mitsuko Uchida:

Those who are interested can find an in-depth analysis of Mozart’s compositional breakthrough in this article by John Sigerson of the Schiller Institute: https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_97-01/984_sub_moral_appen_PDFs/chapter-5.PDF


The Belt and Road Comes to a Neighborhood Near You

Here follow brief summaries of some of the discussions known to have taken place around the world just in the last two-three days on how to develop the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to benefit each participant:

Myanmar: State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi chaired the first meeting of her government’s steering committee to coordinate implementation of the agreement signed last September between China and Myanmar for a “China-Myanmar Economic Corridor” stretching 1,700 km between the two countries from Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province, to Myanmar’s major economic centers, as part of the BRI. Since that time, the two countries have been discussing what projects should be prioritized along that route. Aung San Suu Kyi cautioned the meeting that the government has “to make sure that the selected projects are in conformity with national plans, policies and domestic procedures,” but, she emphasized, “being a country located at a strategic position for the BRI, Myanmar needs to participate in the initiative.”  The 25-member steering committee, which includes cabinet ministers, heads of regions, and other officials, will attend the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing this April, according to The Irrawaddy media group.

Malaysia: Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed announced that he will lead his nation’s delegation to that April Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng likewise emphasized at the Malaysia-China Business Council’s Chinese New Year luncheon that “the good relations between Malaysia and China will be continued and strengthened,” adding that Malaysia will continue to support the BRI.

New Zealand’s Minister of Economic Development David Parker will attend the April Belt and Road Forum, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced, and Parker plans to take a trade mission with him when he goes. Ardern said conversations were ongoing with China about joint infrastructure projects. This decision brushes aside earlier criticisms of the BRI, which had been voiced by Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

Lebanon’s role in the BRI was discussed when China’s Ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Feb. 18, after the formation of his new government after winning a strong vote of confidence. China is willing to work together with Lebanon to consolidate political mutual trust and strengthen policy coordination within the framework of the BRI, Ambassador Wang told the Prime Minister, Xinhua reported. Hariri thanked China for its assistance to Lebanon in the political, economic, military and humanitarian fields, and said he looks forward to “more achievements in our cooperation with China on many levels.”

Iran’s role in the BRI was discussed when Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing today. “The initiative is of special significance to both Iran and China,” Zarif told Wang, Xinhua reported. That discussion came within their broader discussion of the difficult situation Iran faces today. Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported that Wang told Zarif that Beijing values Iran’s role in regional affairs and looks forward to a seeing that role expand further. He counselled that in the middle of a region and world undergoing major changes, Iran and China can maintain strategic strength, with the understanding that both China and Iran are countries with thousands of years of civilization and tradition. Notably, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will also visit Beijing for high-level meetings within a few days.

Spain’s public TV2 (RTVE) broadcast a 52-minute program on prime- time Sunday night (Feb. 17) on “The Iron Dragon”: the Yiwu-Madrid rail route of the New Silk Road. Notably, French and Swiss public TV networks were involved in producing the program, which told the story of Yiwu-Madrid through the eyes of 60 people who work on the railway in the eight countries through which it crosses, ranging from machinists to cargo inspectors, international trade experts, and businessmen.


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy

Mozart, Beethoven: A musical dialogue.

Notes by Margaret Scialdone. Beethoven ‘s use of  thematic material from Mozart was not limited to opera. Note the development of the opening theme of Mozart’s C-minor Piano Concerto, K491, in Beethoven’s C-minor Piano Concerto, Opus 37. (We’ll be looking more at the C-minor key in the coming days.)

First, Mozart’s piano concerto #24, played by Rudolf Buchbinder with the Vienna Philharmonic:

Compare to Beethoven’s third piano concerto, played here by Seong-Jin Cho with the WDR Symphony Orchestra:


Beethoven: Sparks of Joy

Mozart, Beethoven: A musical dialogue

Notes by Margaret Scialdone, In 1798, Beethoven turned again to Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute”, this time composing twelve variations on Papageno’s aria, “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen” in which the ridiculous bird-catcher expresses his desperation for a mate. The translation of the words to the Ein Madchen oder Weibchen are:


A maiden or a little wife Is what Papageno wants! Oh, such a sweet dove Would be bliss for me.
Then I’d eat and drink with relish, Then I’d feel like a prince, Enjoy life in my wisdom, And be as if in Elysium.
Ah, can I find no-one among the lovely girls who likes me? Let just one come to my aid, Or I’ll truly die of grief.
If none will offer me love, Then the fire must consume me! But just one kiss, And I’ll be better again.

Mozart’s “Ein Madchen” (performer unidentified)

Beethoven’s’ 12 variations, performed by Mstislav Rostropovich, Vasso Devetzi.


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