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Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Hussein Askary Appear on PakistanTV

December 18, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, New Silk Road / BRI updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Pakistan, World Land-Bridge updates

Dec. 17 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Hussein Askary appeared on Pakistani PTV World today, commenting live on the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) dedicated to Afghanistan. {A transcript of Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and Askary’s remarks will be posted soon.}

In her intervention, Zepp-LaRouche praised Pakistan for hosting the OIC conference on Afghanistan, given the failure of the West to take responsibility for the enormous risk to life of millions of people in Afghanistan. The withholding of Afghanistan’s funds by Western banks is shameful. She promoted Operation Ibn Sina as a path forward in creating a health and development path forward for Afghanistan, and hoped that the OIC would incorporate it into its proposals.

The American-NATO defeat by the Taliban was a humiliating experience, but this does not end the responsibility to the well-being of the people of Afghanistan. The given reason for withholding funding is the Taliban’s mistreatment of women and children, but creating the conditions for mass starvation is essentially genocide, and this is what the economic blockade does. Withholding funds may also cause Afghanistan to turn to drug production, which the Taliban opposes. She appealed to the entire world to choose the side of humanity over barbarism.

Responding to another question about the discussion of Afghanistan and the OIC meeting in the West, Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the potential of the human impulse to do good could overcome geopolitics. As an example, she cited the coordination between India and Pakistan of Indian supplies going to Afghanistan via Pakistan. Another example is the collaboration of the Central Asian Republics with Russia and China. If the United States could be induced to make a positive contribution, this would be of absolute world historical importance in shifting the world paradigm: “I think the whole destiny of mankind is concentrated like a laser in what happens in Afghanistan.” It must become an issue of the whole world. Is humanity fit to survive? “In one sense, I think the fate of Afghanistan and the fate of humanity are more closely connected than most people can imagine.”

Askary praised Pakistan’s efforts to support the people of Afghanistan, both to release the billions of dollars held by American and European financial institutions and to end sanctions. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Qureshi has made commendable efforts to these ends. The release of funds is essential, but more is required. The crisis in Afghanistan was not caused by the Taliban, but by twenty years of failures of Western military action. The current situation in Afghanistan will cause the rise of terrorism and of immigration, outcomes that Western nations supposedly oppose. The geopolitical game must be ended, replaced by the new paradigm exemplified by the Belt and Road Initiative. The immediate crisis must be addressed, but the way must be paved to the long-term solution provided by infrastructure, including health infrastructure. The Schiller Institute’s Operation Ibn Sina is a proposal that allows for international cooperation across the geopolitical divide to provide for the common well-being of the people of the world. This is the opportunity presented by the current crisis, an opportunity that must be fought for.

Askary explained that Afghanistan had fallen off the media in Scandinavia as well. Although there are many Nordic organizations pushing for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, this receives scant coverage. But with the push among institutions to oppose China and Russia, there is little room to support useful efforts.

He emphasized that Muslim nations have been pitted against each other by British geopolitics, as happened in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. But, the age of geopolitics has ended with the failure in Afghanistan and a new paradigm beckons, based on economic cooperation. Muslim nations should join this new paradigm. He also spoke to the importance of India taking its rightful position as an Asian nation rather than an Atlanticist one, working with Pakistan and other neighbors of Afghanistan like China.

He closed by stressing that although narratives may appear to have a certain power, it is reality that ultimately has the upper hand. {The link to watch it is here.}

As UN Offers Grim Report on World Hunger, 120 NGOs and Charities Call On World Leaders to Act Now

December 4, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Healthcare, World Food Program

Dec. 3 (EIRNS)–On Dec. 2 , the UN’s Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released its Global Humanitarian Overview 2022, which offers a dire picture of world famine and urgent financing needs for humanitarian aid–now far below the $7 billion requested by World Food Program director David Beasley. Coinciding with this, from London, a group of 120 NGOs and charities of varying sizes, issued a letter to world leaders from London, under the group name “Action Against Hunger,” also urging that immediate action be taken to ameliorate the “famine risk that is soaring globally,” and about which the UN warned over six months ago.

” We,” the letter states, “a group of 120 NGOs from around the world – are at a loss that since then the crisis has only worsened. There has been a 370% rise in people experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger since April and now a staggering 45 million people are at extreme risk – on the brink of famine. These numbers do not tell the whole story. Behind them are people suffering immensely from a crisis that we can prevent. What will it take for this situation to change?” The letter cites warnings by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of huge funding deficits, rising rates of hunger and malnutrition, escalating conflict and humanitarian crises, underscoring that conflict impedes humanitarian access, using starvation as a means of warfare. It calls on world leaders to fully fund a $41 billion humanitarian hunger response to end famine globally and address emergencies that fuel hunger– the COVID pandemic, conflict and climate change. {The letter is available here.}

The OCHA report reiterates warnings made by David Beasley, that 274 million people could be in need of humanitarian aid next year–up from 235 million in 2020 and 168 million in 2019. There are 45 million people across 43 countries now at risk of famine and $7 billion needed to avert disaster. “Food insecurity”–starvation–is cited as the major cause for humanitarian need. Since before the COVID pandemic began, the number of people at risk for famine has risen by 60%, the report adds.

Project Ibn Sina: Restore Afghanistan’s Ancient Greatness

November 26, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

 Nov. 21 (EIRNS)–This is the edited transcript of the speech delivered by Mrs. LaRouche, the founder of the international Schiller Institutes, on November 17 to the online conference, “Humanitarian Roundtable for Afghanistan,” sponsored by the Council on Global Relations (CGR) located in Metro Washington D.C. The conference was convened by the CGR to address “the need for urgent assistance and a shift in narrative,” and to “make a difference in the lives of 39 million Afghan people facing a collapsed economy in the heart of a brutal winter coming out of 40 years of war.”

Hello to all of you.
I just want to state emphatically that the money that is being withheld by the U.S. Treasury—but also Commerzbank, Bundesbank, and the Bank for International Settlements—this money belongs to the Afghan people. I think that this is what we have to face, given the situation that was pointed out by both Dr. Beasley [of the UN World Food Program] and Dr. Tedros from the World Health Organization, that 97% of the people are in danger of being food insecure. And food insecure is just another word for starving to death.

Then you have a health crisis—95% of the people have no access to healthcare. And that is happening in a condition of famine and of the COVID crisis. So, to withhold that money for any more days means you’re risking the lives of people. So, I think the first step must be an absolute demand that the money which rightfully belongs to the Afghan people must be released without condition. I think this idea of giving it piecemeal and making conditions and so forth, that just will contribute to chaos. It will force the Taliban to resort to opium production, which they do not want to do. I think I mentioned in a previous discussion that Pino Arlacchi, the UN special representative in the fight against drugs in 2000, had an agreement with the Taliban, in which they agreed to stop all opium production.

The increase of the opium production occurred during the NATO presence—especially this year, opium production went up by nine percent in the period before the Taliban took over. Then the price shot up to the sky, because there was an expectation that Taliban would not continue the opium production. The price went up because of potential scarcity. So, the people who are withholding the money from the Taliban are pushing the opium trade! That should be stated very, very clearly.

Secondly, if you’re now not supporting a government that you may not like politically—but it’s there—and if you don’t support them being successful, you are encouraging the opposition. And what is the opposition? It has been largely terrorist groups, and you know that terrorism will spread, not only in Afghanistan but throughout the region. The big question is that maybe that is the intention, as a geopolitical force against the countries in the region, especially Russia and China.

So, the people who are withholding the money—and I want to be very, very clear, because there is no point in talking about nice things if that is not settled first—the people who are withholding the money are doing it completely illegally. And I think they should be held accountable. Any death which occurs from here on will be the guilt of the people withholding the money. And I think that has to be stated first.

I think if we can agree on that, then I’m willing to talk about a better vision. Psychologically, I can understand that it is very difficult for the NATO countries and their armies, after having lost a war having been in the country for 20 years. I talked to some people who were there, and I understand that this is a trauma. They did not expect it, and they are having a very hard time switching to another mental attitude. But that has to occur if Afghanistan is to be saved.

I have thought a lot about what can be done to give hope to a country that has gone through hell for the last 40 years. And really through hell for the last several 100 years—going back to the Great Game, to Brzezinski and his Islamic card that started this whole present disaster. People in Afghanistan have lived through trauma, and they need something to put the country back together with a beautiful vision. This region of the world was once known as the land of the 1,000 cities. Admittedly, this was on the order of 3,000 years ago, but there was once a period in which this region was one of the cradles of mankind. I think to be grounded in one’s own great tradition is a very important stepping-stone for building a positive future.

Then, naturally, there are many poets one could mention. The fact is that there is a health crisis right now of biblical dimensions, a pandemic which is unprecedented in terms of the potential of where it may go. So, my idea is: It has to start with the modern health system. Afghanistan needs modern hospitals. They can be built in two weeks. The Chinese proved in Wuhan that you can build a modern hospital of 1,000 beds in two weeks. Then you need doctors, modern, educated doctors, nurses, health workers. A lot of the diaspora Afghanis are doctors. They are in the United States, they are in Europe. They can be mobilized to come back and help to build a modern health system. And that modern health system can be the beginning of an economic transformation. If you are going to have a modern health system, you need water, you need electricity, you need other infrastructure. But that building of a modern health system can become the engine of hope and the engine of economic reconstruction. This, however, needs to have a beautiful vision, an idea of what that means.

Many years ago, I studied the works of Avicenna, or Ibn Sina as he is called in the Arab world. He was one of the great universal thinkers. He lived from 980 A.D. to 1038 A.D. He was not only an extraordinary thinker; he developed philosophical conceptions which had influence way beyond the Arab world, and to the Mediterranean, and to European thinkers. But especially it is known that he was an extraordinary physician. He wrote several medical books, and a canon on medicine which was the standard work in Europe until the 17th Century, and in some cases even the 19th Century. He developed an idea of the anatomy of the body, the nerve system, the psychology. He knew about new diseases like breast cancer. He developed the connection between muscles and nerves. He wrote a whole book about modern medicines based on herbs and other such things. But he is famously known to have been one of the great sons of Afghanistan.

He was probably born in Bactria. There are also some people who say, no, he was born in Bukhara, or maybe in Persia. It does not matter. His father was for sure born in Bactria, and he is for sure a son of the region.

He is an example of how somebody coming from Afghanistan can be a contributor to universal history, by moving mankind forward, by developing a whole new, modern medical science. So, I’m suggesting that the effort to save Afghanistan be called Operation Ibn Sina, because it somehow captures both the proud tradition and also a vision that Afghanistan again can be a pearl of the nations of the world. Afghanistan will be contributing something to other nations. You need to give people who have gone through such hell a vision of a beautiful future.

I think that would capture the imagination of a lot of the people, both inside Afghanistan and out. The danger is terrorism and drugs, and you want to have an image which presents a completely different future, one based on the intellectual tradition which made this country a great country in the past, and it means that it will again be a great country in the future.

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Mark Carney: Africa Will Get Rich with Carbon Offsets by Rejecting Development

May 19, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Green New Deal

Mark Carney: Africa Will Get Rich with Carbon Offsets by Rejecting Development

May 18, 2021 (EIRNS)–Speaking at “The Road to COP26: Opportunities, Challenges and the African Transition to Net-Zero” on April 22, Mark Carney spelled out his plan for mass death in Africa and the occupation of Africa by Green police — the modern version of colonial occupiers.

From Carney’s answers to a question about Africa getting funds from “carbon offsets,” he said that the “carbon offset market” will be set up by the end of the year. Africa will get rich, he said, by providing these offsets to western companies who want to buy “offsets” for their carbon emissions. Carney said he was impressed by the “incredible service that is provided by the existing national capital in Africa, and the opportunity from emissions reduction, and to grow that through reforestation.”

What does the madman mean? By not developing its resources, and by not cutting down any trees — in fact, reforesting existing agricultural lands — Africa will be paid huge sums in “carbon offsets.” So, by not developing, they will get money for “development,” remaining forever without modern infrastructure, industry, or agriculture.

Carney: “90% of demand from carbon offsets will come from advanced economies, and 90% of supply will come from the developing economies, including Africa. This is a market which could scale rapidly to $100 billion per annum.”

Of course, the “advanced economies” could not trust the ‘wogs’ to live up to their promises, so a new kind of colonial overlords will be required. Says Carney: “Of course, there must be integrity around the offsets, and a degree of permanence of these offsets, with verification and monitoring of that permanence. This is a private market, so the offsets will be bought by private companies, like Microsoft. They are not going to make these commitments unless they know that in Rwanda or other places in Africa these offsets are permanent.”

Who, one may ask, will have the responsibility to “verify and monitor” that no African country breaks it’s business-contract to not develop its resources or clear forests to build factories, farms, or new cities? The Green colonial masters will be more than willing to perform that important task.

Bolivian President Arce: Only a Global Solution Can Defeat COVID Pandemic

May 17, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, Bolivia, China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Russia, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

May 16 (EIRNS)–Speaking May 13 at an international forum organized by his foreign ministry, Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora emphasized to his audience that the only way to defeat the coronavirus pandemic is through a global program, which, as his government has been emphasizing, must address the issue of vaccine inequity. For example, he said, Bolivia has purchased vaccines, but isn’t getting enough doses delivered because “production is circumscribed to specific countries,” or because some countries have restricted exports of vaccines for different reasons. “We’re not criticizing this,” he said, “but let’s be clear that we’re headed straight for disaster, because this is happening even to countries that have the ability to pay for vaccines…. Since the pandemic is a global evil, the solution must be global, and to get out of this, we all have to act; otherwise, no one will be safe….It’s as if there were an apartheid in which the weakest [countries] are being condemned and killed,” EFE news service reported him as saying May 13.

The Foreign Ministry forum, entitled “Waiving Patents and Considerations on Intellectual Property in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” was focused, as the title indicates, on calling for suspending vaccine patents and intellectual property to ensure transfer of technology so that developing nations can produce vaccines. Officials from the UN Development Program, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and diplomats from South America and India, among others, attended. This is a campaign that Bolivia began two months ago and has vowed to take to every international forum and multilateral organization for debate. It should be seen as a useful adjunct to the urgent proposal of the Schiller Institute and the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites to build a global healthcare system and new economic order to competently address the pandemic. A foreign ministry press release estimates that the majority of vaccines produced in 2021 will be insufficient to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population, due to vaccine hoarding by the industrialized nations, and thus vaccinations of poorer nations’ populations aren’t likely to be completed before 2023.

Domestically, Arce has launched a campaign to inoculate all eligible Bolivians as soon as possible and is working closely with Russia and China to obtain vaccines. By the end of next week, Bolivia will have received 500,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccine and one million doses of China’s Sinopharm and is making arrangements to obtain Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines as well. On the occasion of the most recent Sputnik V arrival on May 15, in the company of Russian ambassador Mikhail Ledenev, he remarked that “we have to step on the accelerator…these vaccines are the doses of hope for many people…thanks to the diplomacy among nations, above all with Russia and China, Bolivians will continue with the vaccination campaign,” the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI) reported him saying. Pointing to the difficult situation the world is facing because of new waves of COVID, he warned, “if our nations don’t take action and ensure an equitable distribution of doses, we’ll see many more waves, placing humanity at ever greater risk.”

Global Health Security Requires Medical Infrastructure in Every Country—Major Industrial Nations Must Collaborate Now!

May 15, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Power & Energy, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

PDF

May 14 (EIRNS)–The following statement was released today by the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, for the Global Health Summit in Rome, May 21, 2021, and for general circulation.

The only way that the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic can be stopped, is by re-thinking the solution. We must have modern health care systems in every country. This means infrastructure for public health, and for medical care delivery at modern standards, to all populations. One model for this is the U.S. Hill-Burton Act (“Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946,”) whose principle was to state how many hospital beds per 1,000 residents must be in each locality (at that time, 4.5), and deploy accordingly to build them, including modern equipment and staff.

Look at instances of our ability to do this today. The 1,000-bed Huoshenshan hospital was built in 12 days in Wuhan in 2020. In the U.S., multiple field hospitals were built in record time last Spring by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We must do this simultaneously around the world.

This means that all countries must work together to accomplish this. We must put aside tensions and conflicts for the time being.

There are new strains of the SARS CoV2 that are showing up, that are more aggressive, and more transmissible. These can make vaccines obsolete. “Many of these variants show enhanced transmission and, in some studies, enhanced disease,” was the report in April by Dr. Dan Barouch, an immunologist at Harvard Medical School, who helped develop the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. He said that the variants, “also have the property of being able to partially evade antibodies, and therefore raise the specter as to whether they may reduce vaccine efficacy.” We are in a race against time.

Thus, our response to the pandemic seen in these terms is a question of existential importance to the human species. It requires the cooperation of all major industrialized nations. A new paradigm of coordination among the United States, China, Russia and others is central.

In this spirit, a grouping was formed in June, 2020, called the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, to further such international collaboration on large-scale response to the crisis. Co-initiated by Helga Zepp LaRouche, founder and President of the Schiller Institute, and Joycelyn Elders, M.D., former U.S. Surgeon General, the Committee acts on the principle of the “coincidence of opposites” put forward by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), which pursues acting on the common good, and deters pitting sub-groups against each other.

The Committee has two pilot projects underway, embodying this principle concretely, in order to promote major government and institutional action. In Washington, D.C. in Ward 8, a team—involving youth leaders–is working to reach full COVID-19 vaccination rates, and initiate ongoing public health measures in the largely poor community. In Africa, a Committee shipment will arrive soon in Mozambique of combined medical, health, water, food and seed supplies, to make the point that both emergency and overall development measures are urgent at all points of need on the globe.

Health security is possible anywhere, only by provision everywhere of sufficient public health infrastructure and medical treatment capacity. This, in turn, depends directly on expanding water, power and food, which is associated with building up industrial capacity, as well as providing for adequate transportation, housing and other basics. Of necessity, collaboration among nations to deal with these tasks means deliberating on how to provide credit, and otherwise deal with the unstable, unjust financial system. Guidelines for a new paradigm for economic development were presented in a report “The LaRouche Plan to Reopen the U.S. Economy; The World Needs 1.5 Billion New, Productive Jobs,” (May 29, 2020, EIR, Vol. 47, No. 22)

Global Health Infrastructure

The following are summary elements of what is required for health security. For details, see, “LaRouche’s ‘Apollo Mission’ to Defeat the Global Pandemic: Build a World Health System Now!” from April, 2020, by the Schiller Institute.

Hospital systems. There is currently a huge deficit of hospital beds. Today’s world total of 18. 6 million beds needs to be nearly doubled to some 35 million, along with staff and equipment. This calculation is based on the metric set in the post-WW II U.S. “Hill Burton Act,’ for 4.5 beds per 1,000 residents in the community, in order to provide treatment for both routine and surge circumstances. After the U.S. approached this 4.5 beds per 1,000 standard in 1980, the level then dropped back to 2.8 today, due to privatization and deregulation of U.S. health care. The ratio is 0.7 for the nations in the category of “Heavily Indebted Poor Countries.” For example, South Asia is 0.7. Nigeria has 0.5 beds per 1,000, which has one fifth of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa.

A mobilization is necessary for building strategically located military-style field hospitals, in conjunction with vaccination campaigns, while at the same time, moving to launch longer-term construction of durable hospitals, continuing the crash mobilization mode. E.G. In Ghana, there is the national plan for multiple 100-bed hospitals. Depending on the number of beds in each new hospital, the world faces a need for 35,000 new facilities, especially in Africa, Ibero-America and Asia.

Health corps. Vast numbers of doctors, nurses, public health and related staff—technicians, pharmacists, veterinarians, dieticians, administrators, etc. are required worldwide. Meeting this need demands the spectrum of training, ranging from many more teaching hospitals, to thousands of youth training programs for invaluable community health service, beginning with today’s pandemic emergency. 
Water and sanitation. One fully-equipped hospital bed requires plumbing for at least 110-120 gallons of water a day. Every nation must have adequate water and sewerage. Today more than two billion people lack access to safe water, sanitation or both. The deployment of temporary sanitation facilities (which could be mass-produced and then distributed) will be a stop-gap measure, while durable improvements in infrastructure are constructed. Building largescale water management systems, for example, comprehensive river basin development in Africa and South America, along with littoral desalination—nuclear powered, as soon as possible—will end the extremes of drought and flooding, and provide millions of skilled jobs in the process.

Electricity. Modern medical treatment, including inoculation, is not possible without reliable, ample electricity, which of course is essential at large facilities. A large, modern hospital can use, roughly 19 million kilowatt hours per year of electricity for its many power requirements, including scanning and data devices, refrigeration, oxygen provision, ventilation, as well as lighting, cooking and cooling.

Science and technology. There must be an expansion of both basic research and development of technologies against diseases, including those affecting animals and plantlife. This is best done by collaboration among R and D institutions throughout the world. We must advance our understanding of viruses, such that in the near future we can do more than react to each new outbreak. In the immediate term, full collaboration on mass inoculation, and on anti-viral treatment regimens are essential to save lives.

“Food is medicine.” David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Program reported May 7 that nine million people died from starvation in 2020, more than the official death toll of 3.24 million from COVID-19. “Food is the best vaccine against chaos,” he stressed, early in the pandemic. It is urgent to provide the $5 billion requested by the WFP for extra 2021 food relief, over and above current levels of aid. There are over 270 million people in acute need of food, and another 600 million with food insecurity. Ten nations are in terrible famine—with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other African nations in the lead, as well as Yemen, Syria, Haiti and other locations. In addition, interventions must be made to support independent family farming in many of the most highly productive agriculture regions in Europe, North America, Australia and South America, whose output is vital, but where the family farmer is being driven out of operation by the transnational food monopolies. Modern agriculture must be rapidly developed in Africa and elsewhere. The goal is to double food production, to ensure nutrition and health for all.

The Global Health Summit is the responsible representation of the world population in this moment of a crisis of Biblical dimensions. This meeting must not end without a decision to start a process of worldwide international cooperation for a crash program to build a modern health system in every single country on the planet, including the necessary infrastructure to sustain that system.

Mexico’s Amb. to UN Denounces World’s “Indifference” to the “Specter of Hunger” Haunting the Planet

April 21, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Mexico, World war danger updates

Mexico’s Ambassador to UN Denounces the World’s “Indifference” to the “Specter of Hunger” Which Haunts the Planet

April 20, 2021 (EIRNS) – Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s Ambassador to the United Nations, published an op-ed in the April 19 edition of El Universal under the headline “The Specter of Hunger Haunts the Planet,” in which he denounces the “indifference” of most people to this gravest of problems, which he suggests should be considered a crime against humanity.

Blaming the rise of hunger on wars, the pandemic, and climate change, De la Fuente cites the president of the World Food Program, David Beasley, to the effect that “if you don’t feed people, you will be feeding conflicts.” He notes that the “specter of hunger is again haunting the planet in at least 30 countries,” and adds: “It is obvious that far greater resources are needed than are available, but so long as we don’t admit that hunger is the main motive for the disorderly and irregular migration which occurs in our region, from south to north, I greatly fear that the containment measures that may be adopted will continue to be insufficient…”

De la Fuente adds: “I don’t know what is more alarming: the magnitude of the suffering which hunger causes in the world today, or the indifference with which those of us who don’t go hungry react to it… [Hunger] is something that is happening in real time in many places. If deliberately denying people access to food constitutes a crime against humanity, the simple idea of children dying of hunger anywhere should, at the least, weigh heavily on our conscience. The numbers available in the reports I have mentioned lead me to conclude that no, we are not dealing with a specter. We are dealing with an implacable reality.”

Beasley: 9 Million Died of Starvation in 2020; This Year Could Reach 30 Million

May 14, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, World Food Program

Beasley Describes, 9 Million Died of Starvation in 2020 and This Year Could Reach 30 Million –

May 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Program, in a speech May 7 in his home state of South Carolina, warned that the number of people who could die of starvation in 2021 could be 20 to 30 million. He reported that 9 million perished last year from lack of food, in contrast to the 3.24 million official 2020 world death toll from COVID-19, which, of course, is a vast undercount. His point was to call for intervention with food relief, but also to stress that the armed conflicts should stop.

Beasley spoke in his home county of Darlington, at the Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church in Lydia, which was founded in 1789.

He said, as reported by SCNow daily, “What happened in the past four years? Man-made conflict. And I say that in a gender way. It’s not woman-made. It’s man-made. It’s literally man-made conflict.” He singled out Syria, Yemen, and South Sudan for special attention as examples of dire emergency.

He also pointed to the ripple effects from the pandemic lockdowns. “Now, because of COVID, the economic ripple effect, particularly when Western society shuts down its economy or at least turns the engines down, the economic ripple effect into low-income, middle-income, developing nations is catastrophic. And so, the number is now 270 million people literally marching to the brink of starvation.”

On the well-known warning by Beasley, that we are facing a famine catastrophe of “Biblical dimensions,” he chose to recount the backstory to that phrase, which he used in April 2020, in briefing the UN Security Council. As he has often repeated, it was Tony Blair, who urged Beasley to go to the UNSC, when Blair heard Beasley’s strong language.

WFP’s Beasley Signed a MoU with Venezuela: Addresses Soaring Hunger

April 21, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, Venezuela, World Food Program

WFP President Beasley Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Venezuelan Government To Address Soaring Hunger

April 20, 2021 (EIRNS) – The World Food Program will begin supplying school lunches to 185,000 impoverished pre-school and special-needs students in Venezuela this year, with the goal of providing daily meals to 1.5 million children by the end of 2023. That was the accord reached in a memorandum of understanding that the WFP signed this week with President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, during a trip to that country by WFP president David Beasley.

Hunger and starvation are not problems happening only “over there” in Africa or Syria. They are here – right on America’s doorstep, in Central and South America, including Venezuela.

Hunger in Venezuela has been skyrocketing in recent years, thanks largely to the killer sanctions imposed on that country by Washington (Republicans and Democrats alike). The WFP conducted a field study which estimated that, in 2019, 32% of the population suffered food insecurity and required assistance. Of those, 2.3 million were facing “severe food insecurity.” It is much worse today.

The hunger is due not so much to food shortages as such, but to the out-of-control inflation and forced devaluations, which are a result of financial warfare and denying Venezuela the ability to sell its plentiful oil exports in the dollar-dominated markets. The bolivar today trades at 1.069 {million} to the dollar; in December 2019 it stood at 55,00 to the dollar.

Internal food and other prices are set mainly in dollars, such that “the average wage which the majority of workers receive is less than five dollars per month, while chicken costs $2.40 dollars per kilo,” according to AP. An economic think tank linked to Venezuelan trade unions reported last December that a family of five with two adults earning the minimum wage did not have “even enough to purchase one breakfast a month.”

Beasley also traveled to Guatemala and Honduras in Central America, and reported that hunger had quadrupled in the past two years in that region, which now has 8 million people going hungry. Of those, 1.7 million are in the “emergency” category, meaning they required urgent food assistance to survive. He tweeted from Guatemala:

“15% of the people @WFP surveyed in Central America say they’re making plans to migrate in 2021—that’s 6 MILLION people! BUT, they also say if they have food security & livelihoods, they want to stay home!! Otherwise, they will do what we would all do to take care of our children.”

New World Food Program Emergency Appeal: 45 Million People on Verge of Starvation; $7 Bil Aid Required – or “Hell on Earth”

November 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Haiti, Healthcare, World Food Program, Yemen

Nov. 8 (EIRNS)–The World Food Program has issued an emergency statement in the last 24 hours, reporting on the rise to 45 million people of those who are on the brink of starvation worldwide. This is an increase of 3 million from only a few weeks ago. The 45 million people are in 43 nations, and the recent increase is from Haiti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Burundi and Kenya. Compare this 45 million number to 27 million, who were in this dire condition in 2019, which already was an intolerable number. Then came the pandemic, and now the hyperinflationary breakdown.

The WFP has raised its appeal for funds to cover the crisis up to $7 billion from $6.6. billion…” WFP Executive Director David Beasley explained that, “As the cost of humanitarian assistance rises exponentially, we need more funds to reach families across the globe who have already exhausted their capacity to cope with extreme hunger.”

Beasley stressed in the report, “Fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertilizer is more expensive, and all of this feeds into new crises like the one unfolding now in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria.”

Beasley was in Afghanistan over the weekend, on a fact-finding mission, where the WFP is ramping up its operations for aid to nearly 23 million people there. He told BBC yesterday, “It is as bad as you possibly can imagine, …In fact, we’re now looking at the worst humanitarian crisis on Earth. Ninety-five percent of the people don’t have enough food, and now we’re looking at 23 million people marching towards starvation,” he added. “The next six months are going to be catastrophic. It is going to be hell on Earth.”

He said, “To the world leaders, to the billionaires: imagine that this was your little girl or your little boy, or your grandchild about to starve to death. You would do everything you possibly could, and when there’s $400 trillion worth of wealth on the earth today, … shame on us that we let a single child die of hunger. Shame on us. I don’t care where that child is.”

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