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CGTN Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Eighth Anniversary of Belt and Road Initiative

November 21, 2021by madeleine in Economic development updates, General, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Helga media coverage or interview, Media coverage of our activity, New Silk Road / BRI updates, World Land-Bridge updates

China’s CGTN conducted two interviews with Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the celebration of eight years of the Belt and Road Initiative, one for with the “Dialogue Weekend” program and the second with “Global Business.” Here are the transcripts:

Dialogue Weekend

LI QIUYUAN: Welcome to this edition of Dialogue Weekend: I’m Li Quiyuan.

In the fall of 2013, while on visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the plan to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, otherwise known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Eight years on, how is the project progressing, and how has it helped all those involved? And what obstacles have been overcome during the construction? To review the last eight years of the BRI, I’m glad to be joined by Prof. John Gong from the University of International Business and Economics; and Miss Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute. Great to see you both.

Why don’t I start with Professor Gong first? Explain to us some context here: Why try to propose this, building this New Silk Road in the very beginning, and also why did the President announce this while travelling abroad? And also, eight years on, eight years into this project, where are we now, as far as its construction?

PROF. JOHN GONG: Hi Qiuyuan, you’re nice to have me here. It’s a long question, but let me first start by saying what the Belt and Road Initiative is not: It is not a geopolitical play, it’s not a geostrategic play, it’s not intended to seek a spread of influence. It’s mostly an economic play. There are several reasons why China started this initiative. I think the broader context is that this is a time when Chinese companies started to expand overseas, started to build a global supply chain, and in this course, Chinese companies quickly started to discover that the markets they’re mostly activating, these are the developing countries, the third world countries, they are handicapped by basic infrastructure for things like railways, port facilities, electricity network, telecom network—all these things are lacking for the Chinese companies to operate properly in these markets. And there’s a mutual benefit in developing these countries’ basic infrastructure. And this is also the time, when there was an access capacity in the basic building materials, mostly useful infrastructure buildouts for things like cement, steel, those things. We’re talking about a time in 2013, 2012.

And I would also mention this is also a time when China’s foreign exchange reserve was at an all-time high, and we would like to see the foreign exchange reserve at close to $4 trillion at the time, mostly sitting in the United States, buying American government’s Treasury bills and bonds.

So all these reasons combined contributed to the very natural evolution to using that money, using that excess capacity, and using the capabilities of Chinese companies of building infrastructure to help those developing countries to develop those projects. And I think this is the broader context: it work for both ways, and it works in particular in a way to benefit the host countries where the Chinese companies are operating, and these infrastructure projects are taking place.

LI: Helga, let me get your take on this: How do you evaluate the progress being made in the past eight years regarding this initiative?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it’s the most impressive infrastructure project in the history of all of mankind. And China for the first time has given the developing countries the chance to overcome poverty and underdevelopment. And if you look at the progress, there is now the China-Laos high-speed rail project, which is fantastic. It will be extended to Thailand, and beyond. And soon, the previously not so developed country, like Laos, will have a high-speed rail system, which Europe and the United States can only dream of!

Then you have the [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] CPEC treaty, the Middle Corridor, all these projects in Central Asia, all these investments in Africa. So I think it has brought in an incredible shift in the strategic situation, by overcoming underdevelopment, for the first time, for all of these countries. So I think, despite all the opposition, I think it’s a great success.

LI: But now after all of China’s investments in Africa, we once again are hearing criticism or accusations of China setting so-called “debt traps” for the countries participating in the BRI. This is the most frequent criticisms we’ve heard about this initiative. Professor Gong, talk to us about it: Beijing has made it clear that this initiative is by no means a debt trap. What has been done by China to support its claim?

GONG: We have to go back to the origin of the so-called “debt trap” theory. I think it originated in India with respect to, in particular, the port project in Sri Lanka. The idea is basically conspiracy theory….

LI: Now, we’ve seen the pandemic COVID-19 causing massive disruptions and damage to economic activities all around the world including the global supply chain, such as thousands of containers sitting on the Los Angeles docks, waiting for truckers and warehouse personnel to transport and deliver goods. It would seem that the world desperately needs an economic boost now, more than ever. But, Helga, do you see the BRI being it, providing great opportunities for corporations, for countries involved? Could they benefit from a smoother and more efficient global trade infrastructure?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, yes. You have already all the countries of Asia, many in Africa, even of Europe—you have Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, the 16+1 East European countries that all are absolutely onboard of the BRI. But I think some of the so-called advanced countries like Germany, they would benefit the most if they would stop thinking in terms of geopolitical prejudices, because, for example, if they would join hands with China right now in the development of Afghanistan, which suffers the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, and urgently needs to be integrated into the Belt and Road Initiative if it wants to ever have stability. So Germany, for example, is very concerned about the refugee crisis, and rather than building a wall around the EU outer borders, which is what the EU is considering right now—like the old Limes in the Roman Empire—I think the European countries, and hopefully also the United States, join hands; and they have a moral obligation because NATO countries were for 20 years in Afghanistan and they left the country in complete shambles. So, to reconstruct Afghanistan—and Haiti, and Syria, and Yemen, and all of these other countries that are in dire condition—if Germany and Europe would help and cooperate with China and the Belt and Road countries to develop Southwest Asia and Africa, there would be no refugee problem.

And I think we need a rethinking of this very, very urgently, because we have a tremendous moment in history. The Western financial system is not in good shape: You have signs of hyperinflation; the supply chain problem, you mentioned. So I think we need a rethinking. And the Schiller Institute is doing a lot of conferences and activities to convince the industrialized countries that it would be in their absolute self-interest to cooperate with the BRI and play a positive role in history.

LI: Helga, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate your perspective.

Professor Gong, a final question on this part to you: Certainly great steps have been made on the BRI over the last eight years, but what lessons can we draw from these experiences? And what challenges has the project faced as it reaches out for wider cooperation?

GONG: Well, let me first supplement your previous question. Helga actually knows my position on this issue. I wrote a paper several years ago, talking about how America can actually benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative. The article’s title is “Make America Great Again—with Chinese Money.”

As a matter of fact, I actually as an opportunity to make a keynote speech at a conference organized by Helga, the Schiller Institute. [Create a New Epoch for Mankind • February 16, 2019, Morristown, NJ]

There could have been greater opportunities between China and the United States to address the infrastructure problems you have just mentioned. You talk about the supply chain hiccups, or these clogs at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, all of these things can be substantially addressed by combining the capabilities of infrastructure buildouts, in China, together with investments in the United States. But unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Now, back to your question about lessons in the past, I think this is a perfect example to show that there are opportunities if China and other countries will just come together and cooperate, and purely think of this from an economic perspective and setting aside all these, you know, these talks about geostrategic, geopolitics lens, not seeing these things through that lens, I think there could be huge opportunities. There are tons of countries out there who indeed benefit from these infrastructure investments. So, I think the biggest lesson is, this is a purely economic play, and there will be mutual benefits deriving from this. And that let’s have both sides going to this in cooperative spirits should generate benefits for both countries.

And as well as the better exchanges, through human to human, people to people exchanges, and also economic benefits as well. So I think that’s the biggest lesson. And United States could have—I emphasize again, could have—benefitted immensely, if we go into this with, as we say, with a cooperative spirit. But unfortunately, it’s not happening.

Global Business

ANCHOR: For more on the Belt and Road Initiative, I want to bring in Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, who’s now in Wiesbaden. Helga, welcome to the program. You know, President Xi Jinping saying the BRI is really about finding the biggest common ground for all, and I think it’s interesting to contrast that with what we hear oftentimes, from the West in terms of only working with like-minded countries. This is about working with all countries, large and small, to find their greatest common denominator.

So, Helga, at a time of such uncertainty, how important do you think is the BRI in terms of growing the economic pie for all?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it is, for sure, the most important strategic initiative on the planet right now. Because you say “uncertainty,” I mean, these uncertainties show for example, in the form of a hyperinflationary tendency: You see the energy prices skyrocketing, food prices, and we may actually head towards a hyperinflationary blowout of the entire system. And at such a moment, to have the Belt and Road Initiative which focusses entirely on the physical side of the economy, can actually become the absolute important savior for the world economy as a whole. So I think the existence of the Belt and Road Initiative is the most important initiative on the planet.

ANCHOR: And Helga, of course, one big topic that we are all talking about these days, from the public sector to the private sector, is how we can collectively tackle climate change. How do you see the Belt and Road Initiative really promoting sustainable and green development, especially for developing economies, who need more help in terms of making that green transition?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you know, in the Glasgow COP26 summit, it became very clear that behind a lot of this climate policy, is also a Malthusian effort to prevent the developing countries from developing, and that has been expressed very clearly by India, Indonesia, Nigeria, which all did not go along with the program of Glasgow.

So I think China, on the other side, is offering especially cooperation in nuclear energy, which has a very high energy flux-density and therefore, is potentially the energy source for more developed economies. So I think the role of China and the BRI countries which all are going in the direction of promoting nuclear energy, also for the developing countries, are representing a very, very important alternative to the Malthusian policies coming from the financial centers in London and Wall Street.

ANCHOR: Hmm. So we have growing the economic pie for all, energy cooperation, green development, and of course, one other extension. Helga, of the BRI, is the Health Silk Road, and this is China aiding Belt and Road partner countries, by sharing medical knowledge about the coronavirus; last year providing medical aid as well, last year and this year. Help I believe will be a critical part of BRI cooperation going forward. How do you see this element of the Initiative developing, post-pandemic?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it is very clear that China right now is helping many African countries to build vaccine production, so they can develop their own vaccine. I have been saying, since the outbreak of this pandemic, that it will only stop if we build a world health system: That means a modern health system in every single country. Because the idea to only take care of the rich countries with vaccines, and modern hospitals, does not work, because then the poor countries are left behind, and then the virus is mutating, and will come back and hit the entire human population.

So I think we have to have a very big emphasis on a modern health system in every single country: Which means modern hospitals—China has proven you can build a modern hospital in two weeks in Wuhan—but the developing countries need encouragement and help. They need energy, they need clean water, in order to do that. I think the most urgent ones right now are Afghanistan, Haiti, Syria and Yemen: These are the countries that need, urgently, international cooperation to build modern health systems, if they are supposed to survive. I have proposed something called “Operation Ibn Sina” which named after the great universal thinker of the Afghanistan region, from around the 10th century. And that could become the spearhead for a health system in every country in the Islamic world, but also for all the developing countries. And that’s the only way how the pandemic will stop, and future pandemics.

ANCHOR: Yes. And speaking about closing gaps all around in terms of the development gap, closing the energy and green development gap, what about the digital connectivity gap? The digital connectivity benefits provided by the BRI down the road can be absolutely huge, in terms of getting especially emerging and developing economies, really into the digital sphere. The pandemic, we’ve seen, has really accelerated digitization. How do you see the BRI boosting digital connectivity, and really helping to narrow the digital divide between developing economies and advanced economies?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the fact that China was able to deal with the pandemic so much better than almost every other country on the planet has to do with the fact that the health sector is largely digitalized, and contact tracing, smart cities integrated—I think that’s future.

The problem is, the West is opposing that because there is a difference: In China the population for the most part trusts the government, and thinks that these measures are being applied for the common good. In Western Europe, for example, or the United States, there is a deep mistrust between the population and the government, and therefore, there is a lot of opposition. But look at Germany, right now, or many European countries: The pandemic is exploding again. And that is, for sure, they are still using photocopy machines, and very archaic means to trace the pandemic. And if Europe would have the kind of digitalization like China we would be in much better shape.

So I think that is clearly the way to go, and hopefully, people start to rethink and correct a lot of prejudices which do not come from facts, but they come—for example, the U.S. Senate just agreed upon a strategic act, which spent several hundred million dollars every year to counter the so-called “influence” of China! If that money would be spent on building hospitals and building real infrastructure for the benefit of the people, the United States image would gain much more than from these kinds of measures!

So again, I can only hope there will be a rethinking and a lot of the prejudices which have been spread should be put into the garbage pile.

ANCHOR: Yeah, instead of spending trillions of dollars on never-ending wars in foreign lands, I think definitely that money, at least for the United States, can be better put towards working with other countries in terms of boosting development around the world. And of course, that’s what the BRI is about, is really focussing and emphasizing cooperation, especially in the world that we live in today, and our future generations will need that cooperation. We must see that through the BRI. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Helga. That’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute.

Brotherhood Over Geopolitics: El Salvador and Honduras Set an Example

May 16, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, El Salvador, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Honduras

Brotherhood Over Geopolitics: El Salvador and Honduras Set an Example –

May 14, 2021 (EIRNS)–Last weekend, seven Honduran Mayors petitioned the president of neighboring El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to send anti-Covid-19 vaccines to their municipalities, because their people are dying. El Salvador has the highest rate of vaccination in Central America (10%), because President Bukele made getting vaccines a priority early, including from China, which donated 150,000 doses on top of two million doses contracted. Honduras, however, has been able to vaccinate 0.56% of its 10 million people, most with only one shot, and whether needed second doses will arrive in time is in still in doubt.

The Honduran mayors were immediately invited to El Salvador to meet with Bukele, the Health Minister and others. Less than two days after their visit, early on Thursday morning, seven, big, blue trucks marked “COVID-19 Vaccine” left San Salvador and headed to Honduras, carrying 34,000 vaccine doses—donated. Salvadoran officials decided that despite their own needs, because they have doses contracted in their pipeline, they should help out their neighbors.

From the moment the convoy of trucks and police escort crossed into Honduras, to when each truck arrived in its designated municipality, crowds were gathered along their route. People cheered, waved the flags of both countries and signs saying “Thank you President Bukele!,” as passing vehicles honked approval. When one truck arrived after dark at its final destination, it was met by people lining the street, waiting to shake the hand of the drivers; visibly moved, the Salvadoran drivers slowed way down to shake as many as they could. In another town, a Honduran doctor videotaped a message of thanks to President Bukele in front of a hospital. One mayor gave a lovely speech hailing this act of friendship as a step towards restoring the single Central American nation which had existed for a short time after Independence.

The Honduran Foreign Ministry tweeted when the decision was announced on May 11:
“The donation of 34,000 vaccines doses announced today in San Salvador shows that it is possible to put health before geopolitics, and that there is no deadlock where there is brotherhood. In the name of Honduras: many thanks to our brothers. We appreciate the support and reciprocity which we have received from El Salvador and other countries to help obtain vaccines which otherwise have been denied to Honduras because of the politicization of the pandemic.” 

Honduras is now taking steps at various levels of government to establish some ties with China. Honduras still maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which–like its protector, the United States–has not made any vaccines available. The Association of Honduran Mayors (AMHON) sent a letter this week to President Bukele in the name of all the country’s 298 municipalities, requesting that El Salvador help them with contacts and procedures so that Honduras can purchase vaccines from China. The Honduran National Congress passed a motion yesterday calling on the Executive Branch to secure anti-COVID vaccines from vaccine-producing nations such as Russia, China, India, Cuba “and even [!] the United States,” specifying that a trade office be established in China, “among other countries,” in order to facilitate this work.

Xi Jinping Addresses Symposium on Belt and Road Initiative

November 21, 2021by madeleine in BRICS updates, China, Economic development updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, World Land-Bridge updates

President Xi Jinping addressed the third construction symposium on the Belt and Road Initiative in Beijing today, on the eighth anniversary of the BRI. Speeches were also given by He Lifeng, director of the NDRC, Chen Quanguo, the head of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and several other economic experts. After listening to the speeches, Xi made his own extensive comments on the importance of the Initiative.

Xi stressed three aspects of the BRI, regarding infrastructure. He spoke of “hard connectivity,” “soft connectivity” as an important support for this, and the “heart to heart” connectivity established by the Initiative in the important people-to-people relationships. “Through the joint construction of the Belt and Road, the level of opening up in various regions in the country has been improved, the areas of opening up to the outside world have been expanded, institutional opening up has been promoted, a wide circle of friends has been built, new ways to promote common development have been explored, and the construction of the country has been realized on the basis of mutual benefit,” Xi said.

While stressing that the general direction of the BRI will continue in an era still focused on peace and development, he also underlined the difficult situation facing the BRI in light of “the major changes unseen in a century” which he said are now “accelerating.”

He said, “The fierce competition brought about by the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is unprecedented…Global issues such as climate change and epidemic prevention and control have an unprecedented impact on human society. The international environment of the Belt and Road Initiative is becoming increasingly complex. We must maintain strategic determination, seize strategic opportunities, coordinate development and security, coordinate domestic and international cooperation and struggle, coordinate reserves and increments, plan with a view of the whole as well as an eye on the details , actively respond to challenges, seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, and move forward courageously.”

He underlined new areas into which the BRI must expand, namely, digital, health, green economy and innovation. “It is necessary to comprehensively consider and plan to build a new development pattern and jointly build the Belt and Road, focus on new areas of strength, and shape new points of integration. It is necessary to speed up the improvement of distinctive, complementary, smooth and safe land passages, optimize the maritime layout, and provide strong support for smooth domestic and international double circulation. It is necessary to strengthen the smooth connection of the industrial chain and supply chain, and promote the diversification of sources. We must build iconic projects of high quality. The people’s livelihood project is an important way to quickly increase the sense of public gain in the joint construction of a country. We must strengthen overall planning and form more grounded and united cooperation results.”

He also underlined the need to proceed forward with an eye on protection against the epidemic and possible security threats. He encouraged all of the provinces to begin consideration of how they can contribute to advancing the BRI.

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.

India Remains the Epicenter of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

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

India Remains the Epicenter of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

May 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—With record-breaking daily deaths, the total official COVID-19 death toll in India surpassed a quarter-million yesterday. The daily new cases continue to hover just under 400,000, with some experts forecasting that daily infections will peak at about a half-million sometime in June. The country now accounts for about half of all new COVID-19 cases and 30% of deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO has also designated the B.1.617 variant as a matter “of global concern,” given how highly transmissible it is. The Pan American Health Organization reported that the Indian variant has shown up in six countries in the Americas.

Numerous experts continue to report that the total infections and total deaths are probably 5-10 times higher in reality than the official numbers indicate. A large portion of the uncounted numbers remain in India’s countryside.

There is a major discussion going on inside India over how much to lock down and for how long. Dr. Balram Bhargava, head of the Indian Council of Medical Research, said in an interview yesterday that lockdown restrictions should remain in place in all districts where the rate of infection is above 10% of those tested, and that they should stay locked down for at least 6-8 weeks. Test-positivity rates above 10% now prevail in 75% of the country’s 718 districts, including major cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, and the tech hub of Bengaluru, according to Reuters’s May 12 report.

“The high positivity districts should remain (shut). If they come to 5% from 10% (positivity rate) we can open them, but that has to happen. That won’t happen in six-eight weeks, clearly,” Bhargava said in an interview. In Delhi, the positivity rate reached around 35% but has now fallen to about 17%, Bhargava said: “If Delhi is opened tomorrow, it will be a disaster.” Bhargava has been calling for a government-ordered lockdown in with a 10% positivity rate or higher since April 15. Prime Minister Narendra Modi preferred to leave the decision for states to decide, perhaps because of his concern that extensive lockdowns could lead to uncontrolled social explosions in the desperate population.

Absent an international joint attack on the root causes of the pandemic—50 years of global physical economic collapse, especially in the health and food areas—India, like most developing nations, is left with only two disastrous choices: don’t lock down and watch the pandemic spread like wildfire; or lock down, and drive millions of poor and unemployed or marginally employed people over the edge.

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.”

Chinese and Argentine Labs to Produce Sinopharm Vaccine in Argentina

May 8, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Argentina, China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare

Chinese and Argentine Labs Sign Deal to Produce Sinopharm Vaccine in Argentina

May 7 (EIRNS)–The Chinese embassy in Argentina together with Health Minister Carla Vizzotti announced May 5 that the Argentina laboratory Sinergium Biotech has signed an agreement with China’s state-run Sinopharm company by which Sinergium will produce the Sinopharm vaccine at its facility in Buenos Aires. The announcement was made following a high-level meeting including Chinese ambassador, Zou Xiaoli, Vizzotti, special presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini, the Argentine ambassador in Beijing, Sabino Vaca Narvaja, and top executives from Sinergium labs and Sinopharm. According to the daily {Dangdai} the same day, the Chinese embassy tweeted that “the pharmaceutical companies of both nations will immediately begin consultations to get production started as soon as possible….As always, the Chinese embassy in Argentina will support the efforts of both countries to combat the pandemic, and will help Sinopharm in its close collaboration [with Argentina], so as to elevate the Chinese-Argentine response to this health emergency.” The plan is for Sinopharm to send the first batch of antigens to Argentina in June, so that Sinergium can begin to produce up to one million doses of the vaccine per week.

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.”

`… Soaring Food Prices and Conflict’ Increases Hunger by a Third in West Africa

April 20, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

`Explosive Mix of Soaring Food Prices and Conflict’ Increases Hunger by a Third in West Africa

April 19 (EIRNS) — The hunger situation in Africa continues to deteriorate, as relief efforts continue to be overwhelmed with new crises, and receive little help in response to their calls. In an April 16 release under the above title, the World Food Program warned that “more than 31 million people in [western Africa] are expected to [become] food insecure and unable to feed themselves during the coming June-August lean season – the period when food is scarce before the next harvest. That number is more than 30 percent higher than last year and is the highest level in the best part of a decade.

“Food prices have increased dramatically across the region. Local staples are up by nearly 40 percent over the 5-year average, and in some areas, prices are up by more than 200 percent. This is caused in part by the economic impact of measures put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus over the past year. People’s incomes have plummeted due to reductions in trade, tourism, informal activities and remittances.”

Chris Nikoi, WFP’s Regional Director for West Africa, explained that, “In West Africa, conflict is already driving hunger and misery. The relentless rise in prices acts as a misery multiplier, driving millions deeper into hunger and desperation. Even when food is available, families simply cannot afford it – and soaring prices are pushing a basic meal beyond the reach of millions of poor families who were already struggling to get by. The needs are immense, and unless we can raise the funds we need we simply won’t be able to keep up. We cannot let 2021 become the year of the ration cut,” he warned. [emphasis added]

This year, almost 10 million children under 5 are acutely malnourished across the region,” the WFP says, “with the Sahel alone accounting for half of that number. This number could rise significantly alongside the projected 30 percent increase in hunger, and the high prices of nutritious foods.”

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