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Honduran Mayors Explain Success in Appeal to El Salvador for Vaccines

May 28, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, El Salvador, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Honduras

Honduran Mayors Explain Their Successful Appeal to Neighboring El Salvador for Vaccines

Honduran Mayors Explain Their Successful Appeal to Neighboring El Salvador for Vaccines

May 27, 2021 (EIRNS) – A group of seven Honduran mayors from the poorest municipalities of that most impoverished of nations, recently requested of the President of neighboring El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, that he help them with anti-COVID vaccines. Bukele has made a point of obtaining at least some vaccines internationally, including from China, with whose government El Salvador signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018. Honduras, on the other hand, remains one of the few nations in the world that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and not with China, and has predictably not gotten any vaccines from the United States either.

President Bukele responded favorably to the request, met with the Honduran mayors, and donated 34,000 vaccines to their municipalities in mid-May. This was especially significant because El Salvador and Honduras have a long history of hostility, with territorial disputes, and even fought a short but bloody war in 1969, today known as the “Soccer War.” Bukele’s gesture in fact falls in the domain of the kind of solutions to problems proposed by the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites. The Schiller Institute’s José Vega interviewed two of the seven mayors about the situation in Honduras and their successful appeal to Salvadoran President Bukele. We present here excerpts from a May 16 conversation with Amable de Jesús Hernández, Mayor of San José Colinas, and a May 24 discussion with David Castro, mayor of Cedros. (A video of the interview with Mayor de Jesús can be found here.)

Mayor Amable de Jesús Hernández:

“I think that only with solidarity, with humanitarian actions, with exchanges and mutual cooperation among countries, peoples, neighbors, families, institutions, among all of us, will we be able to defeat this pandemic. There’s no other way to be able to do it. This has overwhelmed human capabilities, it has exceeded the capabilities of even the most formidable health systems of the world, and it has collapsed them.

“The only way to deal with this is with solidarity. And I think that’s what Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele has done with us, from the poor, C-category municipalities of Honduras. Because it was an act of humanity, of solidarity, of brotherhood, of altruism and comradery, which doubtless strengthens the relationship of our peoples, and it promotes solidarity. There’s no question that this has to be an example for other countries to do the same, to share vaccines, which is what is needed right away to be able to vaccinate the population and defeat this pandemic. It’s the only way…

“Because governments should have an agenda which allows for the development of the people. And as you said, all of the policies of the International Monetary Fund are out to make sure there are no investments in health: the more collapsed the health system in the country is, the better.

“And that’s exactly what the pandemic has laid bare: the humanitarian catastrophe that is reflected in the hundreds of children, men, women, elderly and adults who leave, every single day, on route to the American dream. This is caused precisely by this same model that has been imposed on us.

“So many conditionalities have been imposed on our states, that they’ve pretty much wanted to direct the entire policy of these governments from Washington, or from the offices of the IMF. And logically that has led to the entire institutional collapse that has now sunk those countries in the worst misery…

“We have to globalize solidarity; we have to globalize humanism; we have to globalize brotherhood. This gesture with us by President Bukele created what has to be seen as a gesture to be imitated by many governments in the world, so that we can come out on top of the pandemic.”

Mayor David Castro:

“The vaccine situation has infuriated all of the municipal governments… We’re watching how people have been dying in our municipalities, and we couldn’t bear to sit by and do nothing. We saw the reports that El Salvador is leading the vaccination drive in Latin America. One day I was in my office, and I told my secretary, let’s write an official letter to send it to El Salvador to request a meeting with President Bukele. The government of El Salvador answered us: `We’re going to help you.’

Mayor Castro recounted that the seven mayors were received by President Bukele. “He began by saying the following: Dear mayors, make yourselves at home. I’m not speaking with you as President, but as a mayor, since I was a mayor as well. I’d like to talk as friends… I don’t know why borders exist; borders should be imaginary, but they should never exist in our hearts.”

Mayor Castro told President Bukele that what he was doing was helping to save Honduras, to which Bukele responded: “Look, David, sometimes we plant trees and we don’t know who is going to enjoy their shade. Today we are planting a tree, which is the tree of brotherhood in Central America and hopefully tomorrow that tree will provide shade to all five countries of Central America.”

Asked by the interviewer if his constituents backed his efforts, Castro stated: “Not only my constituents. The entire nation turned out to support us. The whole country. Not just the seven municipalities, but all 290 municipalities… they backed us 100%.”

“The population of Cedros is 28,500; they gave us 4,760 doses. My dream is to vaccinate 50% of the population; that’s about another 14,000 doses. That would be a lesson for all the municipalities, that it can be done…

“Regarding the youth: like El Salvador, we have the problem of the Maras gang, which is a well-known scourge… There are also a lot of migrants who go from our country to the U.S. If we were to help those people directly in their communities, they wouldn’t have to emigrate.”

“China Speed” in the Vaccination Effort

May 28, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare

“China Speed” in the Vaccination Effort

May 27, 2021 (EIRNS) – China has administered over 500 million doses of COVID vaccines as of May 23, according to a report in the May 26 Xinhua headlined “`China speed’ of vaccination highlights determination to beat COVID-19.” The first 100 million doses were administered as of March 27. Xinhua commented:

“Such stepped-up moves have once again demonstrated China’s strong mobilization ability, which has been proven by the country’s response to the virus since the outbreak of the epidemic… China’s vaccination speed has potential to further accelerate.” The article went on to restate the official policy:

“No one is safe until everyone is safe. Human society must ensure that the speed of COVID-19 vaccination is faster than the pace of mutation. The challenge of realizing herd immunity for the world’s most populous country is obvious, but the `China speed’ of vaccination has lit the light at the end of the tunnel. Until a final victory over the virus is secured, China will not stop its efforts to make contributions to the battle against COVID-19.”

Forget Geopolitics: Save Lives With Vaccines, Ibero-American Experts Tell Atlantic Council

May 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, United States

Forget Geopolitics, Save Lives With Vaccines, Ibero-American Experts Tell Atlantic Council

May 26 (EIRNS)—On May 24, the Atlantic Council sponsored a webinar “The Race to Vaccinate: Chinese Vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean,” including Guyana’s Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony as its special guest, and a panel of three commentators including Chile’s former ambassador to China, Jorge Heine, epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Bouey of the RAND Corporation, and Ernesto Londoño, the New York Times correspondent in Brazil. Although the Atlantic Council has eagerly participated in the recent media and think tank rug-chewing about China’s vaccines being just a “cynical” political maneuver to increase its influence In Latin America and the Caribbean, moderator Pepe Zhang had to handle the discussion in an even-handed way—unable to directly challenge the reality that China’s vaccines are savings lives in the region, while the U.S. is absent.

That point was driven home in spades in response to one of Zhang’s carefully-constructed questions, about whether China’s “vaccine diplomacy” represents “a new avenue for engagement” in the region. Ambassador Heine quickly dispensed with the narrative coming from Western media and Washington think tanks that China is using its vaccines for political leverage and “domination,” stating that the issue here is timing. Chinese vaccines come “now” to Latin America whereas the U.S. and European countries are hoarding and talking about 2022 or 2023. That’s no good, he said, describing as absurd the discussion in the Western media comparing the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine to China’s Sinopharm, whose efficacy is reportedly 70%. “This is rich country club talk,” he pronounced. The perception of Chinese vaccines in the region is very high, Heine added. Latin America is “ground zero” for COVID cases and deaths, and how the crisis is handled “will be remembered for a very long time,” he warned. So, the U.S. should get going, and start providing vaccines fast.

While initially offering a factual report on the situation in Guyana and the surrounding region, Dr. Anthony made the same point. China had donated large quantities of PPE and lab equipment as well as 20,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine. (Anglo-American media lie that China never donates anything. India donated 800,000 doses. USAID offered a grant, “but no vaccines.” The situation in the region is now critical, he warned, with a surge in cases and deaths in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago. Guyana and the region have also been driven into deep economic crises. The bottom line, he said, is that there aren’t enough vaccines. That is the case across the Caribbean, he underscored, where vaccination rates are extremely low. He pointed out that it’s easier to store Sinopharm vaccines because they don’t require the same cold-chain capacity as Pfizer. President Biden has donated 4,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico and Canada and is offering Southeast Asia more, but, Dr. Anthony added, “we’re in the U.S.’s backyard, and with more vaccines, we can change the situation.”

Even the New York Times correspondent, Ernesto Londoño, noted that while the U.S. warns that dealing with China “comes at a price,” the reality is that China responded to many countries in their “hour of need…they showed up first and scaled a victory,” while the U.S. was hoarding vaccines. And when asked whether there were “geopolitical competition” between China and the U.S. in the region, the RAND Corporation’s Dr. Jennifer Bouey, a Chinese-American epidemiologist who has extensive experience working in China, responded that the current situation could offer an opportunity for the U.S. and China to work together, as they had done in the past, collaborating on SARS, Avian flu, and Ebola to “build a public good.” So, she said, the precedent is there. In concluding, Zhang asked each participant to express a final message, to which Heine said: Get U.S. vaccines to Latin America ASAP; Londoño, in the face of enormous loss, help must come soon; Anthony: get the vaccines in ASAP. Dr. Bouey: U.S., Chinese and Latin American scientists can work together in resolving the crisis.

Harvard Scientist: Space Exploration Uplifts and Gives Meaning to Humans’ Lives

May 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Space updates

Harvard Scientist Says Space Exploration Uplifts and Gives Meaning to Humans’ Lives

May 25 (EIRNS)–In an interview with The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech, on Fox News’s “The Ben Domenech podcast,” Harvard professor Avi Loeb, a renowned theoretical physicist, former chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, and author of the book “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligence Life Beyond Earth.” argued that scientific institutions should be taking risks and fund risky research, rather than just promising what they can deliver. “These are the most boring projects,” he said. “If you can tell in advance what you can discover, then it’s not a major advance.” The title of the podcast is “Avi Loeb and the Importance of Inquiry,” in which he discusses an array of subjects.

Loeb argues that Earth’s demise is guaranteed over the long term, so outer space ought to reclaim its fundamental role in the pursuit of academic progress. “Currently, all our eggs are in one basket here on Earth,” he said, “and if any catastrophe happens here it could destroy everything we care about.” Moreover, humans need the inspiration captured by space exploration. “We need something beyond our troubles that lifts us up and gives meaning to our lives,” he said, pointing out that the Apollo program once served that purpose by landing people on the Moon which “changed the psychology of humans.” He also argued that space and religion complement each other: “if you believe in God, then what you want is to appreciate reality to its greatest details. That will give you the wonder and awe that otherwise you would not have.”

WHO Dir. Denounces “Scandalous” Vaccine Inequity, Warns the Pandemic Is Not Over

May 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare

WHO Director Denounces “Scandalous” Vaccine Inequity, Warns the Pandemic Is Not Over

May 25 (EIRNS)–Addressing the 74th annual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), on May 24, World Health Organization director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, delivered a stark message. “Make no mistake,” he said. “This will not be the last time the world faces the threat of a pandemic. It’s an evolutionary certainty that there will be another virus with the potential to be more transmittable and more deadly than this one..” Even though global COVID-19 cases have been decreasing for three consecutive weeks, he warned, the world is still in “a fragile situation…. No country is out of the woods. We must be very clear: the pandemic is not over and it will not be over until and unless transmission is controlled in every last country.” 

In this context, Dr. Tedros denounced the “scandalous” inequity in vaccine distribution, which, he charged, “is perpetuating the pandemic.” He pointed out that 75% of all the vaccines that have been administered were in only ten wealthy countries. There is “no diplomatic way to say it: a small group of countries that make and buy the majority of the world’s vaccines, control the fate of the rest of the world.” Now, he admonished, it is incumbent on wealthier countries to share their vaccines with the WHO’s COVAX mechanism, which provides vaccines to poorer nations. He also announced a “Drive to December” campaign, in which countries should aim to vaccinate at least 10% of their populations by September, and at least 30% by the end of this year. But, in order to reach the September goal, he said, 250 million more people in low- and middle-income countries have to get vaccinated, “including all health workers and the most at-risk groups as the first priority. Vaccine manufacturing must be scaled up, he argued, and questioned why some companies won’t share their licenses and technologies with those manufacturers who want to help produce vaccines. 

“This is crucial to stop severe disease and death, keep our health workers safe and reopen our economies,” Dr. Tedros elaborated. He warned that “those countries that vaccinate children and other low-risk groups now, do so at the expense of health workers and high-risk groups in other countries. That’s the reality.” He noted that while virus variants don’t seem to have undermined current vaccines, variants are “changing constantly,” and that any future ones could “render our tools ineffective and drag us back to square one.”

Cuba Vaccinated One Million People With COVID Vaccine; Plans to Immunize Entire Adult Population This Year

May 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Cuba, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Healthcare, Healthcare

Cuba Has Vaccinated One Million People With Its COVID Vaccine; Plans to Immunize Entire Adult Population This Year

May 26 (EIRNS)–Cuba has now vaccinated one million people with its Soberana 2 and Abdala COVID vaccines, both of which are in late-stages of Phase 3 trials, and are two of five vaccines being developed. A sixth vaccine, known as Pan-Corona, is being developed with the Chinese, described as a next-generation vaccine which is more effective against various SARS-CoV-2 strains, Telam news agency reported May 22. Both vaccines require 3 doses. Soberana 2 was developed by Cuba’s prestigious Finley Vaccine Institute which in 1989 developed a vaccine for Meningitis-B. BioCubaPharma, Cuba’s state-run biomedical company, developed Abdala, and its president Eduardo Martinez Diaz estimates that all of Cuba’s adult population will have been vaccinated by the end of this year.

Cuba is experiencing a surge in cases, as are many Caribbean and Central American nations. Health Minister Jose Angel Portal estimates that by the end of June, 22.6% of the population will have been vaccinated; 33.5% by the end of July, and 70% by the end of August. Cuba’s regulatory agency is expected to approve emergency use authorization, at least for Soberana 2, in June, at which point the government can begin its mass vaccination program. Those currently being vaccinated are volunteers from high-risk groups, healthcare workers or residents of those regions most severely affected by COVID. This achievement has provoked the ire of the {New York Times} which published a teeth-gnashing article May 12 complaining that the island government is administering “home grown vaccines that have not been shown to work.”

Other developing nations have no such qualms about obtaining Cuban vaccines, which are the product of its state-of-the-art biomedical/biotechnology industry which has been developed over decades. Iran, Argentina, Mexico, Jamaica and Vietnam, among others, are interested in obtaining the vaccine. Today, Argentina’s Health Minister Carla Vizzotti and presidential adviser Cecilia Nicolini arrived in Havana, to meet with officials to discuss how the Soberana 2 and Abdala vaccines were developed and whether they can be mass-produced, the daily {Infobae} reported today. The Argentine government is already in negotiations with Cuban officials on purchasing the vaccines, once Phase 3 trials are completed, and is interested in determining whether Argentina can eventually participate in producing them. Because the Soberana 2 vaccine doesn’t require refrigeration, it is especially attractive to developing countries.

Italian Endorsements of Schiller Institute’s Operation Ibn Sina

November 29, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Italy, Media coverage of our activity, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

MILAN, Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—Alessia Ruggeri, chairwoman of UPI Italia, an association of small and medium-sized enterprises, and a renowned trade unionist in Sicily, today endorsed Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s proposed “Operation Ibn Sina” for Afghanistan with a press release which was published today in Il Corriere di Sicilia, a daily read in all of Sicily and is expected to be published in the next days in other Southern Italian papers. {Read the article here.} The press release is entitled “Helga Zepp-LaRouche launches Operation Ibn Sina to save the Afghan people” and reads:

“The Committee for the Republic, through its spokeswoman Alessia Ruggeri, endorsed the Ibn Sina initiative of the Schiller Institute. ’I believe that the world is experiencing a quite sad political, economic and social moment, with the complicity of mainstream media. We have to regain the lucidity and ability to intervene in support of a right cause. The Afghan people are paying the price of international geopolitical strategies which deny their inalienable rights guaranteed by the UN Charter.

“ ‘I therefore accept with great honor the invitation of the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites to be a part of it and give a significant European contribution,’ Alessia Ruggeri concludes, thanking Liliana Gorini, chairwoman of Movisol, an Italian political party inspired by Lyndon LaRouche.

“Also the lawyer Roberto Zappia endorses the appeal in support of the Afghan people, first exploited for the affirmation of the territorial and political hegemony of the world powers and subsequently abandoned to the voracity of the finance and to its cynical ruthless logics.”

The press release goes on to quote Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Operation Ibn Sina from the recent Schiller Institute conference and Dr. Joycelyn Elders on the recent activities of the Committee Coincidence of Opposites, particularly in Africa. {See Dr. Elders’ call, Open Letter to Virologists and Medical Experts.}

Messages from the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Movement to Yemen’s “First BRICS Day Conference”

November 28, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, BRICS updates, Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, United States, Yemen

Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—From Helga Zepp-LaRouche:

Your Excellency Prime Minister Saleh bin Habtour; Your Excellency Mr. Hisham Sharaf, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yemen, a good friend of the Schiller Institute; Dear Members of the Yemeni BRICS Youth Parliament and its Chairman Mr. Fouad Al-Ghaffari:

Ladies and gentlemen who are gathered in the Capital of Yemen, Sanaa, I send you the most heartfelt greetings from Germany!

We are fully aware of the tremendous strain you are under as a result of the criminal blockade, which, as long as it continues, means that all this talk in the West about a “rules-based-order” is worse than meaningless. Because if they condone, de facto, this blockade, they condone the result—which is the death and suffering of a very large number of [the] Yemeni people! You have been incredibly courageous and inspiring for all members of the Schiller Institute around the world, by not giving up your fight to have a better future for your country and the world!

In these days, the New Silk Road launched by President Xi Jinping will have its 8th anniversary and the role of the BRICS in the world has increased to become a more and more influential element in world history. I am sure that Yemen will be an important part of it in the not-so-distant future, and [that] your organization will have been the decisive element in having accomplished that, and in that way reconnecting the glorious history of Yemen with a hopeful future.

The Schiller Institute has launched “Operation Ibn Sina,” which is to bring modern health systems to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria and as a synonym, to have a renaissance of the period, when your region of the world carried the torch of universal progress for all of mankind.

I also like to [recall] how proud my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, was of your unchanging industriousness for study of his scientific method, and I would like to encourage you to expand it, and make sure that it will have entry into the education system of your country. Yemen will be the birthplace of many geniuses, which will transform humanity into becoming truly human.

The old paradigm, a world divided by geopolitical aggression and the rule of a few over the many, is clearly coming to an end, and the new paradigm of cooperation, and a dialogue of cultures is becoming stronger and stronger. We join with you, and an increasing number of countries and forces in the effort to bring this change about, and give you the solemn promise, that we will always remain your true comrades-in-arms, until you have gained the sovereignty of Yemen, and are truly free.

With great affection, in the name of the entire international Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Major Breakthrough in Sanaa, Yemen: Defying New Wave of Anglo-Saudi Bombardments!

November 28, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, Yemen

Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—Today, leaders of the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Movement joined other international figures in participating in a conference called to celebrate the “First BRICS Day” in the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, under the auspices of Yemeni Prime Minister of Yemen Abdulaziz Saleh bin Habtour. The conference, held at the Emergency Medical College, had been organized by the Yemeni BRICS Youth Parliament and its Chairman and long-time collaborator with the Schiller Institute, Mr. Fouad Al-Ghaffari, to celebrate Yemen’s commitment to securing full independence and development by working with the BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—and playing a key role as part of the New Silk Road initiated by China.

The event took place as the Saudis were continuing a new wave of bombardment targeting the capital, Sanaa. Yet the Yemeni government considered it so important that the Prime Minister, joined by the Ministers of Vocational Education, Foreign Affairs, and Culture, all participated, joined by Yemeni parliamentarians and other national figures. The Yemeni official news agency Saba News has already published a lively wire report on the event, which conveys the deep commitment of Yemen’s leadership to help end today’s dominance of the Western liberal system, freeing nations to develop. The Prime Minister expressed his thanks to the friends in Russia, China, and the other speakers who sent messages of solidarity from Germany, India, France, Iraq, and the United States of America. (The Saba News item is linked here.)

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, was the first of the 11 international guests whose recorded video message was presented, following the opening remarks by the Dean of the Emergency Medical College. She was introduced as the New Silk Road Lady. She was followed by Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, and Chairman of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. Jacques Cheminade was next, representing the Solidarité et Progress, presented as a former French presidential candidate. The Schiller Institute’s Hussein Askary followed with the video presentation on the history of collaboration with the BRICS Youth on the Yemen Reconstruction Plan “Operation Felix” and the LaRouche School of Physical Economics.

There was a high-level Russian representation, with a message from Anatoly Karpov, chess legend and member of Duma. Larisa Zelentsova, the Russian President of the International Alliance of BRICS Strategic Projects (BRICS Alliance) (iabrics.org) sent a video message. A message was also sent by Albert Zhukov, founder of the Golden Chariot Transport Award. Purnima Anand, President of the BRICS International Forum, India, also sent a message.

Two messages were sent from the United States, one by LaRouche movement organizers Marsha and Doug Mallouk, and one by independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, Diane Sare.

These speeches and messages were preceded with a ceremony where PM bin Habtour received the BRICS Youth Award and Transport Golden Chariot award. Minister of Foreign Affairs Hisham Sharaf signed the first copy of the new edition of the Yemeni BRICS “Sustainable Development University Curriculum,” which is a compilation by Fouad Al-Ghaffari of projects and works in economics centered around Lyndon LaRouche’s economic method. A chapter is dedicated to what the authors have characterized as “LaRouche’s Five Keys of Progress” which are a reworking of the “Metrics of Progress” from the EIR Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, 2014.” Another chapter is dedicated to the latter special report. A chapter includes a short version of “Operation Felix” for the reconstruction of Yemen from 2018, completed in 2018 as a joint project of the Schiller Institute, BRICS Yemen, and the Yemeni Investment General Authority.

Many references to Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute’s resolutions and calls regarding Yemen are also in the book. A chapter is dedicated to the Arabic LaRouche School of Physical Economics launched by Askary, with links. The 160-page book in Arabic language has a general outline of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. But on every page the LaRouche Five keys are superimposed on the 15 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Following the statements by the foreign VIPs, Al-Ghaffari made a 15-minute presentation on the history and nature of the Yemen BRICS operations since they were founded in December 2014.

The Minister of Vocational Education also made remarks, and the conference was concluded by a statement by Prime Minister bin Habtour.

First reports from the event are that it was a surprise for everyone, due to the high-level of international representation from intellectual and scientific layers. This is a great victory for the people and leadership of Yemen on behalf of all humanity.

And it is a celebration of seven years of hard work and cooperation with the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Movement, which began when Fouad Al-Ghaffari attended EIR’s release of its Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-bridge,” in Washington, D.C., keynoted by Helga Zepp-LaRouche. After meeting with Marsha and Doug Mallouk, he carried the copy of the report he purchased back to Yemen to start this new organization to teach Yemeni youth as well as policy-makers about the LaRouche economic method, the New Silk Road / Belt and Road Initiative, and the BRICS. A few months later, in March 2015, the war of aggression by Saudi Arabia and the UAE was launched with the aid of the U.S. and Britain. Despite this criminal war and subsequent murderous blockade, the BRICS Youth of Yemen continued their studies and mobilization of government agencies.

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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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