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Tri-Alpha Energy Claims Plasma Breakthrough, Stabilizes With Higher Temperature

April 13, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General, General updates, Power & Energy

Tri-Alpha Energy Claims Plasma Breakthrough, Stabilizes With Higher Temperature

April 12 (EIRNS) – Many privately-funded fusion power experimenters are making noted progress in the absence of much government support to U.S. fusion R&D; one of them said in an April 8 release that it had been able to produce stable plasma at temperatures over 50 million degrees. As techcrunch.com reported, the company “sees commercialization by 2030” as a result. This is an experimental reversed-field fusion device operated by Tri-Alpha Energy, also called TAE Technologies.
            Leaving the commercialization claim aside, this report is of something highly unusual in the history of fusion research: A superhot plasma which becomes more stable, easier to confine, at higher energies and temperatures. To quote from techcrunch.com: “`This is an incredibly rewarding milestone and an apt tribute to the vision of my late mentor, Norman Rostoker,’ said TAE’s current chief executive officer, Michl Binderbauer, in a statement announcing the company’s achievement. `Norman and I wrote a paper in the 1990s theorizing that a certain plasma dominated by highly energetic particles [perhaps a hydrogen-boron plasma—ed.] should become increasingly better confined and stable as temperatures increase. We have now been able to demonstrate this plasma behavior with overwhelming evidence. It is a powerful validation of our work over the last three decades, and a very critical milestone for TAE that proves the laws of physics are on our side.”
            “Self-stabilizing plasmas” were goals that the Fusion Energy Foundation, during the 1970s and 1980s, consistently described and urged fusion researchers to be striving for. {The article is linked here.}

Hungary To Become Regional Logistics Hub, as Rail Project Proceeds

October 19, 2021by madeleine in Economic development updates, New Silk Road / BRI updates, World Land-Bridge updates

At a stone-laying ceremony in Kiskunhalas for the Hungarian section of the modernization of Budapest-Belgrade railway on Oct. 15, the Hungary Minister of Innovation and Technology László Palkovics said: “Railways will clearly be in the focus of Hungary’s transport development efforts in the next 10-15 years, with the upgrade and capacity expansion of the Budapest-Belgrade line as one of the priority investments.” Palkovics attended the ceremony, as did Serbia’s Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Tomislav Momirovic, and Chinese Ambassador to Hungary Qi Dayu, and via video, Ning Jizhe, Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Palkovics elaborated that with the renovation of the Budapest-Belgrade railway, Hungary will offer the fastest transport route for Chinese goods between Central and Southeast Europe, extending from Budapest to Belgrade, into Skopje, North Macedonia, and extending to Athens. He also thanked the Chinese people for their help in supplying medical and other equipment to Hungary, as it was hit by COVID-19.

Xinhua reported today: “For his part, Ning said that the railway project will promote the connectivity between Hungary and Serbia and other European countries, help the two countries build a regional transport and logistics hub, give a strong boost to European infrastructure and economic growth along the route, and enhance the well-being of the European people.

“The project is also of great significance for the connection of the Belt and Road Initiative to European development strategies and the deepening of mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Europe, Ning added. ‘It could be said that the railway is beneficial to our three countries, to Central and Eastern European countries, and to the entire Europe,’ he said.”

Kiskunhalas, Hungary is about 20 miles north of the Serbian border, and is 122 miles from Belgrade. During July 2021, Hungary celebrated the 175th anniversary of the Hungarian Railways. A short clip of the ceremony was posted by “Built by China”

World Bank, IMF Plot `Debt for Green’ Restructuring

April 13, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Green New Deal

World Bank, IMF Plot `Debt for Green’ Restructuring

April 12 (EIRNS)–A report issued by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on March 25 announced that, as part of the “recovery” from the pandemic, the debt of the world’s poorest countries would now be used as a lever to force furtherance of the Great Reset genocide dictate from the City of London. “This paper discusses World Bank and IMF support for addressing fiscal and debt distress in [the world’s poorest] countries, with emphasis on strong continued concessional [low-interest–ed.] flows for green, resilient, and inclusive development,” reads the introduction, the translated message being, “The only way you will get further assistance, is if you agree to kill your population `to save the planet’.”
            As part of this discussion, the report concluded that the G20 should agree to extend their DSSI (Debt Service Suspension Initiative) through to the end of the year, but with one proviso: The G20 had to “publicly commit that this is the last extension of the DSSI,” thus forcing the 49 DSSI-eligible countries to confront their continued (financial) existence head on. As of April 7– two weeks from the IMF/WB dictate– the G20 had complied, both by extending the DSSI (Debt Service Suspension Initiative), {and} by stating that it will be terminated at the end of the year.
            This action — of issuing new, non-productive debt to already over-burdened poor nations — is one which is potentially hyper-inflationary, but otherwise perfectly conforms to the terms of the Great Reset. Recognizing this, the IMF/World Bank acknowledge the need for “a holistic approach to the challenge of containing debt vulnerabilities” specifically calling for “direct private sector funding especially non-debt flows,” along with budget austerity on the part of recipient countries. “Emphasis can be given to green priorities and private sector solutions, including green stimulus packages with significant multiplier effects,” they say, as well as revenue-generating “solutions” such as carbon taxes (to kill coal and oil-fired power and heating)..
            The report indicates that in October 2020 these institutions’ “Development Community” issued a “mandate to address debt challenges in low-income countries and to do so in a way that supports green, resilient, and inclusive development and poverty reduction” (otherwise known as GRID). That “mandate” had been prompted by an open letter, they say, “[from] the Ministers of the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Spain, Germany and Sweden,” who wrote: “We ask the World Bank and IMF to deliver on a coherent approach to debt restructuring. We need to make sure we do not lose sight of green and inclusive reforms because of limited fiscal space and a looming debt crisis.” 

Schiller Institute Statement: President Alberto Fernández to China; Ibero-America to Mars!

April 12, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Cultural renaissance updates, General, General updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Space updates

Schiller Institute Statement: President Alberto Fernández to China; Ibero-America to Mars!

April 10 (EIRNS) — {The Schiller Institute today issued the following statement in Spanish for broad circulation in Ibero-America and Spain. Below is the English-language version.}

The upcoming May 2021 trip to China by Argentine President Alberto Fernández, in which he is scheduled to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China on the Belt and Road Initiative – the global infrastructure project involving nearly 150 nations – presents a unique strategic opportunity.

1) All of Ibero-America can take a giant step towards finally breaking out of the straitjacket of financial looting by the dying London/Wall Street system, and join instead with the Belt and Road, sometimes called the New Silk Road, and its high-tech, science-driver approach to development.

2) An Argentina-Mexico axis can emerge to propose a game-changing policy in the Western Hemisphere: that China and the U.S. shall jointly work on developing the Mexican-Central American region in particular, and also all of Ibero-America, by cooperative efforts around extending the BRI into the region. Such development is the way – the only way – to stop the drug trade, stop desperate migration, stop the gangs, stop the poverty, and stop the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But is it possible?” people will ask skeptically. Can we really end poverty? Well, look at China, where 850 million people were lifted out of poverty in 40 years. If China can do it, why not we?

Can small nations actually hope to master the most advanced science and help develop breakthroughs for all mankind? Well, look at tiny United Arab Emirates, and their historic achievement of sending an orbiter to Mars. If the UAE can do it, why not we?

Can we really get the U.S. and China to cooperate in the development of Mexico and all the Americas, instead of heading towards confrontation and war which only serves the Establishment’s geopolitical interests? Yes – if the U.S. returns to its senses, and to the policies of its greatest sons: Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon LaRouche. The current breakdown crisis of the Western financial system has now made that possibility a necessity – if the U.S. itself is to survive Wall Street’s unavoidable demise.

The key is space, beginning with an international 50-year Moon-Mars exploration and colonization project, powered by fusion power, that the nations of Ibero-America – especially their youth – must participate in.

It just so happens that two of the world’s premier space-launch sites are in the South American continent: Alcântara in Brazil, and Kourou in French Guiana. They are very close to the equator, which is a big advantage for space launches. Additionally, Argentina and Brazil both have very significant aerospace capabilities, which can help be the cornerstones for cooperation with China, the United States, and other space-faring nations such as Russia and India, to develop those space-launch sites in those two locations as centers of scientific and economic development for the entire region.

Argentine President Fernández should be entrusted with a mission on behalf of all of Ibero-America during his upcoming trip to China, especially in light of his developing close working relationship with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which is already benefiting the whole region. In addition to the package of Argentine infrastructure projects that he is already planning to discuss with China’s President Xi Jinping – which importantly includes nuclear energy – Fernández should propose regional great development projects as well, especially in the field of space. Specifically, he should propose establishing two polytechnic institutes, or institutes for space science educational activity: one in Argentina and one in Mexico — perhaps in the city of Querétaro near Mexico City. These two centers will serve as centers of international scientific cooperation, and as poles of educational and technological progress required to bring the entire continent into this kind of high-technology space development. They will be centers of the emerging New Space Silk Road.

The other crucial area for cooperation is developing both the science and the health infrastructure needed to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic – and any new pandemics that might emerge to threaten mankind. Again, Argentina-Mexico cooperation is leading the way, and must be used as a lever to bring in international support to aid the entire region.

The Schiller Institute has long proposed a full set of regional infrastructure projects as part of the World Land-Bridge. We mention some of the key ones here:

1) Build a set of South American bi-oceanic rail corridors connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific (including a northern Brazil-Peru route; a central Brazil-Bolivia-Peru route; and a southern Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay-Uruguay-Chile route). All are viable; all are necessary.

2) Construct a North-South high-speed rail line extending all the way from Tierra del Fuego in the south to the Bering Strait tunnel in the north, traversing South America, the Darien Gap, and the entirety of Central America and Mexico. These would be development corridors of about 100 kms in width, with integrated power, industry, agriculture and communications infrastructure along the way. That would create millions of new productive jobs along the way, which is the sine qua non of defeating poverty and the associated drug trade and migration problems in the region.

3) Establish new centers for the industrialization of raw materials throughout Ibero-America, such as a major steel production center near the Mutún iron mine in Bolivia; aluminum plants near the plentiful bauxite in Jamaica, Guyana and Surinam; and so on. Stop the neo-colonial pattern of looting of raw materials in order to pay the foreign debt (various times over), leaving only poverty and devastation behind.

4) We need nuclear energy, and lots of it, as well as the total technological up-shift associated with this new energy platform – especially as we transition into fusion power. Solar and wind power are a bad joke. Their low energy flux density, their high physical-economic costs, and their intrinsically interruptible nature, mean a return to the technological platform of the Middle Ages, with a corresponding collapse of population to medieval levels. The Green New Deal is nothing but old, unscientific Malthusian depopulation policy, with a fresh coat of (green) paint.

That Malthusian agenda which is planned for the April 22-23 global summit on climate change, scheduled to start on Earth Day, has to be totally rejected – as it is beginning to be by nations such as India, China and others. In fact, Earth Day should simply be cancelled, and replaced by a more human holiday: Mars Day!

President Alberto Fernández’s upcoming trip to China can become the first step in Ibero-America’s participation in mankind’s mission to Mars.

Brazil COVID Strain Comes to the U.S.

April 12, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Brazil, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Healthcare

Brazil COVID Strain Comes to the U.S.

April 10 (EIRNS) — For anyone stupid enough to think that President Jair Bolsonaro is Brazil’s problem and not ours, the CDC reported yesterday that the more infectious Brazilian strain of the coronavirus is now the second most common variant in the US, after the Kent one. The CDC has identified 434 cases of the Brazilian strain, mostly in Massachusetts, Illinois and Florida. But, as the Daily Mail noted in its coverage, the CDC’s “count is inevitably an underestimate as cases of the variant can only be confirmed with laborious genome sequencing.”

There are a number of concerns about Brazil’s P-1 strain. One is that it appears to be able to re-infect people who already had other strains. Another is that it is infecting a disproportionately large number of younger Brazilians. “The variant is dominant in Brazil, where hospital systems are buckling amid record-breaking daily death tolls,” the Daily Mail accurately reported. “The South American nation is now a global concern, because scientists view it as a breeding ground for more variants.”

China to Donate Vaccines, Medical Aid To Afghanistan; Stresses Need for Regional Cooperation and Coordination

September 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Afghanistan, China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Healthcare

China to Donate Vaccines, Medical Aid To Afghanistan; Stresses Need for Regional Cooperation and Coordination—

Sept. 9, 2021 (EIRNS)–Yesterday’s mini-summit among China, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, called to discuss how to address the challenges posed by the Afghan situation, announced a humanitarian aid package of $31 million, including food, water, three million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and other medical supplies. The meeting was chaired by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who had just completed a tour of Afghanistan’s neighbors 10 days earlier. The three million COVID vaccine doses reportedly represent only a first batch, with more to come. Xinhua reports that State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced that China is prepared to offer more anti-epidemic and emergency materials to Afghanistan under the China-South Asian Countries Emergency Supplies Reserve.

Today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian offered more details on yesterday’s meeting, stressing that it is the first attempt by Afghanistan’s neighbors “to work closely in response to the evolving situation in the country,” and to specifically establish “a coordination and cooperation mechanism.” He explained that this mechanism should be able to work smoothly with other existing multilateral mechanisms on Afghanistan “and can complement each other and form synergy. All participating parties support the continued operation of this unique mechanism so that countries can share policy propositions, coordinate positions, and jointly address challenges through this platform. The hope to host the second conference has already been expressed,” he reported. 

WHO Aid Shipments Arriving in Afghanistan

September 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Agriculture, Economic development updates, General updates, Healthcare, Healthcare, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites

WHO Aid Shipments Arriving in Afghanistan—

Sept. 9, 2021 (EIRNS)–On Monday, Sept. 6, a World Food Program plane carrying WHO essential medicines and supplies landed in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. This was the first of three such planned cargo deliveries. The WFP’s executive director retweeted the WHO information that the 53-metric-ton shipment contained 780 medical kits, and 50 kits to treat severe acute malnutrition in children. WHO teams were on the ground, ready to swiftly deliver the supplies to health facilities most in need. The WHO tweeted photographs of the plane and cargo.

On Monday, Al Jazeera’s Charlotte Bellis said, from Kabul, that aid agencies, including the Red Cross, Red Crescent, Doctors without Borders, and the AHO, say they are running out of food and medicine. “WHO has said that 90 percent of their clinics will close imminently.” She said that WHO had 2,300 health clinics spread across the country, operating last year, treating millions of people.

The Four Days when Countries Woke Up to India’s Fight against COVID-19

April 27, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, United States

The Four Days when Countries Woke Up to India’s Fight against COVID-19

Apr. 26 (EIRNS)–On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, announced that China was in touch with India about emergency oxygen and other supplies. By Sunday, 800 oxygen concentrators were sent, and 10,000 more were to come within a week. (It was only months ago that China and India exchanged fire at their border, with all the consequent inflamed comments.) And over the next few days, China’s English language Global Times has made much of the lack of help from India’s erstwhile ally, the United States.

Saudi Arabia rapidly mobilized 80 metric tons of liquid oxygen. Both the UAE and Singapore are working out high-capacity oxygen-carrying tankers. Russia is sending planes with aid this week, including oxygen generators and concentrators, along with therapeutics. On Saturday, Pakistan committed for ventilators, PPE and digital x-ray machines. The UK, on Sunday, sent oxygen concentrators and ventilators On Sunday, France and Germany promised oxygen in days. On Monday, Australia joined in. The EU executive announced that they are “already coordinating with EU countries that are ready to provide urgently needed oxygen and medicine rapidly” — though it is not clear what the EU executive might mean by “rapidly.”

On Sunday afternoon, President Biden did tweet that “we are determined to help India…” in tandem with National Security Director Jake Sullivan’s announcement that the long-requested removal of the ban on raw materials (such as specialized filters, cell culture media and bioreactor bags) would be lifted and that PPE would be sent. There was no word on the tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine — sitting in storage, unused, and not even approved for use in the United States.

Portuguese Leaders Declare Vaccines a Public Good, Demand EU Invoke Emergency Powers

April 12, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in COVID-19, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Healthcare

Portuguese Leaders Declare Vaccines a Public Good, Demand EU Invoke Emergency Powers

April 10 (EIRNS)—Ninety leading citizens of Portugal issued a public appeal on April 8 for the European Union to invoke emergency powers to override market interests, and order that COVID-19 vaccine production be undertaken in any appropriate plant available, even if not owned by the vaccine patent holders.

The pandemic has brought “catastrophe” to the world, and “vaccines, an indispensable instrument in the global battle against the pandemic, have become a public interest good. As such they cannot be subject to the supply and demand laws of the market,” they declare.

Europe has around 80 vaccine plants, which, according to the vaccineseurope website run by various vaccine producers, produced 76% of the vaccines on the world market in 2019, they point out. “The lack of vaccines seen today in Portugal and Europe, which subordinates European citizens to the vaccine producers, is incomprehensible. The arguments put forward by the European Commission regarding the nature of contracts, existing production capacity, and prices agreed on are not acceptable.”

The call takes on added force given that Portugal is currently the rotating President of the European Union. Nor is the call’s initiator, Jose Aranda da Silva, a lightweight, having served as the first head of Infarmed, Portugal’s national medicine and health products authority (1993-2000), and co-founded the European Medicines Agency (EMA) itself. The other signers include other former high-ranking health officials, former and current European and national parliamentarians, numerous professors, medical professionals, trade unionists, journalists, a Bishop, an admiral and an Air Force general, and others. And the initiative has been covered widely in Portugal’s main media.

Nearly three million people have died of COVID-19, the call states. The European Commission must “override financial and industrial interests… In cases classified as `catastrophic,’ European and national legislation allows Member-states to invoke `public interest grounds’ and `the overriding importance of public health or national defense,’ to adopt measures compelling vaccine production in locations which are not those of the patent-holders.”

The manifesto here references an earlier call by the Director-General of the World Health Organization for all instruments to be used, including technology transfer and lifting industrial property rights, to secure vaccines.

“In the face of the catastrophe which we are living through, in the face of the tragic lack of European response, the citizens call for measures capable of protecting the health of populations to be taken immediately. These measures require transparent sharing of information, the use of the legislation provided for situations of catastrophe, and a mobilization of productive resources and capabilities.”

The manifesto will be circulated internationally, and presented to the United Nations and World Health Organization, Dr. Aranda da Silva told Portugal’s Lusa press agency on April 8. He elaborated:

Science rose to the challenge of the pandemic, with funding by governments, but “when the vaccines entered the market, the commercial game began, instead of their being treated as a public good. When there is a war, there is a total mobilization. And in this war we are not using adequate weapons.” He was emphatic: this is “not an ideological question. It is a pragmatic question. If everyone is not vaccinated by the summer, we are going to have another wave and a great economic and social crisis.”

Fusion: Successful Test in Superconducting Magnetic Confinement by ENI

September 10, 2021by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Power & Energy

Fusion: Successful Test in Superconducting Magnetic Confinement by ENI—

Sept. 8, 2021 (EIRNS) — Italian energy company ENI announced a successful test in fusion magnetic confinement through high-temperature superconducting technology. The test was accomplished by CFS (Commonwealth Fusion Systems), a spin-off company of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, established in 2018, of which ENI is a shareholder.
            A statement on ENI’s webpage says that “CFS has successfully completed the test aiming to demonstrate the operation of the innovative magnet for plasma fusion confinement, for the first time made with HTS (High Temperature Superconductor) technology.
            “The test concerned the superconducting technologies and it showed the possibility of maintaining the magnet in the superconducting regime with a high stability of all the fundamental parameters for its use in a fusion power plant. The innovation will contribute to a significant reduction in plant costs, ignition and maintenance energy of the fusion process and in the general system complexity, nearing the time and reducing the effort to build a demonstration plant that will produce more energy than that required to maintain the fusion process (net energy production plant). This will subsequently allow constructing and conveniently deploying power plants throughout the world, connecting them to the electricity grid without expensive custom-made generation and transport infrastructures.
            “On the basis of this important achievement, CFS confirms its roadmap and intends to build the first experimental device with net energy production named SPARC by 2025, followed by the first demonstration plant, known as ARC , that could start feeding energy into the grid over the next decade, according to schedule.
            “SPARC will be built by assembling a total of 18 identical HTS magnet coils (similar to the one tested), in a toroidal configuration (a doughnut shape named “tokamak”) to generate a magnetic field with the strength and stability necessary to contain a plasma of hydrogen isotopes at temperatures of around 100 million degrees, at which the fusion of atomic nuclei can occur with the release of a very high quantity of energy.”

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