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India Helps Crush the Great Reset and `Green New Deal’

India Helps Crush the Great Reset and `Green New Deal’

April 6 (EIRNS) – In a second “No”, India’s Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh said at an IEA meeting on climate change that “net zero” carbon is “pie in the sky” no matter when you pledge it for. At a meeting supposed to be preparatory to the COP26 in Scotland in November, Singh said, “I would call it, and I’m sorry to say this, but it is just pie in the sky. What we hear is that … 2060 is far away and if the people emit at the rate they are emitting the world won’t survive, so what are you going to do in the next five years…. You have 800 million people who don’t have access to electricity. You can’t say that they have to go to net zero. They have the right to develop, they want to build skyscrapers and have a higher standard of living; you can’t stop it.”

China’s minister Zhang Jianhua also spoke at that IEA meeting, but when invited to a formal pre-meeting for COP26 – by the UK, remember, which is its host – China declined the invitation.

John Kerry, in Delhi for the same meeting, “happened to meet” Sergei Lavrov, who was in India on the world’s real business (see separate report). Kerry was perhaps trying to gauge whether Russia would attend Joe Biden’s April 22 “Earth” (or “dearth”) summit. But at the IEA meeting Kerry appeared to be criticizing long-term pledges to net zero carbon, like China’s 2060 pledge. “Avoid the happy talk and recognize that this challenge is global”, Kerry chided.

The real challenge is the power to develop, as Minister Singh made clear. The only power that can meet {that} global challenge is nuclear fission and, as soon as possible, fusion. (See BBC News article here.)

These are blows against the royal family’s “Green Deal” which can be amplified in the United States. Americans do have ‘plentiful” electricity but a steadily increasing share of it doesn’t work. In 2020 the percentage of companies which reported suffering blackout problems {every month} leaped from 20% in 2019 – already very high – to 44% in 2020. The FERC attributed this to the increasing share of “renewable” (interruptible) power sources.

This destroys an economy’s productivity, exactly as described in EIR Special Report and The LaRouche Organization’s mass pamphlet, Great Leap Backward: LaRouche Crushes “Green New Deal” Fraud.

In a sign of political pressure for nuclear rising, President Biden’s “climate advisor” Gina McCarthy told press on April 2 that nuclear energy will be included in the Administration’s so-called Clean Energy Standard, which is intended to be a requirement for electric power utilities and generators.


Transport Sector Associations Warn of Massive Disruption Of International Supply Chains

Sept. 29 (EIRNS) – The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and other industry groups representing 65 million transport workers globally today issued a public letter addressed to the heads of state gathered at the United Nations General Assembly, in which they warned of a “global transport system collapse” if governments do not restore freedom of movement to transport workers and give them priority to receive vaccines. “Global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years’ worth of strain on transport workers take their toll,” the groups wrote. “All transport sectors are also seeing a shortage of workers, and expect more to leave as a result of the poor treatment millions have faced during the pandemic, putting the supply chain under greater threat,” it added.

The other signers include the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

The U.S., like other countries, is already suffering significant shortages and inflation, as a result of the sharp inflation of energy prices, in part due to the Green de-carbonization agenda, along with industrial closings. This is expected to worsen sharply between now and year-end. CBS TV’s Oakland affiliate reported: “Retailers are sounding the alarm on the upcoming holiday shopping season due to serious supply chain issues that are slowing shipments of manufactured goods around the world.” They quote John Drake, VP of Supply Chain Strategy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “There are not the people in place to move the containers and the chassis where they need to go. So you’ve got a lot of stuff piling up at the ports and at the warehouses. When that happens, the harder it is to get the stuff that is ready to move.” The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are particularly backed up.


Dr. Osterholm: Coronavirus a “Category 5 Hurricane Status” Globally

Dr. Osterholm: Coronavirus Has a “Category 5 Hurricane Status” Globally

April 5 (EIRNS)–Speaking on Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press April 4, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, an adviser to President Biden on the COVID-19 pandemic, made the obvious point in terms of the global nature of the coronavirus pandemic and warned that people had better pay attention. Overall, he said, “we’re in a category 5 hurricane status with regard to the rest of the world. We’ll see in the next two weeks the highest number of cases reported globally, since the beginning of the pandemic. As for the United States, we’re just at the beginning of the surge.” Osterholm, who runs the Minnesota-based Center for Infectious Disease and Research Policy (CIDRAP), said he agreed with the remarks made last week by Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to the effect that the situation in the United States was not at all under control–she reported she felt a sense of “impending doom”–adding that Americans weren’t being realistic about the spike in new cases nationwide. Moreover, he warned, that spike was being driven by the COVID variant B.1.1.7, the British strain.

Dr. Osterholm elaborated: “We are the only country in the world right now experiencing this increasing number of cases due to this variant, and at the same time opening up, not closing down. The two basically are going to collide, and we are going to see substantially increased numbers of cases.” He especially warned that the variant is now hitting children much harder than previous strains. “It infects kids very readily.” More broadly, he pointed to reports of surging cases around the country, especially in the Upper Midwest where “they’re just beginning to start the fourth surge.” Look at what happened on April 3 in Michigan where there were a record number of 8,400 cases in one day. “That should have been a wakeup call to everyone.” It’s also the case, he pointed out, that there are more people between the ages of 30 and 50 who are being hospitalized and seen in ICUs

Other states with similar reports of increased cases include Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska and Pennsylvania. Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, head of Ohio’s Health Department, warned that “Ohio remains in a race against a virus that is now more contagious and right back on our heels.”


Ten Nations Most at Risk for Starvation

Ten Nations Most at Risk for Starvation

Apr. 4 (EIRNS)–It was a year ago April 21, when World Food Program Director David Beasley briefed the U.N. Security Council that widespread famines “of Biblical proportions” would take place, unless action was taken. This has come to pass. The 10 countries at the top of the list in Spring 2020, according to the April, 2020 “Global Report on Food Crises,” issued by the WFP were: Yemen, DRC, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Nigeria (Northern) and Haiti.
            Now today, these very same countries remain at the top of the list of 23 nations, listed in the March 23 “Hunger Hotspots” report released by the WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization, as an appeal for emergency action. Here are the particulars for these nations given under the heading, “Number of People in High Acute Food Insecurity in Hotspot Countries:” The number of people is given in millions for each nation: DRC (19.6,)  Afghanistan (16.9,)  Yemen (16.1,) Nigeria 13.0, in 15 states and the Federal capital,) Ethiopia (12.9,) Syria (12.4,)  Venezuela (9.3,) South Sudan (7.2,) Sudan (7.1,) Haiti (4.4.
            The total number in these top 10 nations of those in acute food security is 118.9 million.
The other 13 nations on the same list have a total of 27.8 million people in dire need, bringing the combined number to 147 million. The 13 nations are:  Guatemala, Honduras, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Central African Republic, Niger, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Mali, El Salvador, and Liberia.

            The WFP release on the “Hunger Hotspots” report.


Big Farmer Protests in Paris–‘France, Do You Still Want Your Farmers?’

Big Farmer Protests in Paris — ‘France, Do You Still Want Your Farmers?’

Apr. 4 (EIRNS)–Paris (Nouvelle Solidarité) –”France, do you still want your farmers?”  These were the words used to describe the protest organised on Friday in the Greater Paris region by the French agricultural union FNSEA. Over the last weeks, despite the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions, thousands of farmers and French farm organizations pulled out their tractors, notably in Clermont Ferrand and Lyon, to protest EU policies that put them “in danger of disappearing.”
            In Germany also, farmers were in the streets in mid-March to protest their impossible conditions.
            At the center of the French protest are the latest EU outlines to reform the Common Agricultural Policies (CAP,) a regulated production mechanism established by De Gaulle in 1962 to boost production and food security, which has always been attacked by London, and has been gradually destroyed and diluted.

            With the EU’s “Green New Deal”, the proposed reform of the CAP implies new legislation aimed at taxing the use of nitrogen fertilizer. The new Climate and Resilience Bill, which farmers describe as a “punitive and unfair” nitrogen fee, would “stigmatize” the use of chemical fertilizer without providing any alternatives, said the FNSEA, France’s largest farm union. The union says the new legislation ignored the changes already taking place in farmers’ practices and would reduce farm incomes without giving a “real response” to current climate issues.

            The potential fertilizer fee coupled with the Egalim Law (requiring French producers to themselves collectively negotiate prices with large distributors), which has put agriculture output  prices well below production costs, could be disastrous to farmers and their families. At the same time the CAP reform in its current form requires farmers to make vast efforts to initiate an agro-ecological transition that most of them consider unworkable, and farmers are venting their frustration. A Senate report published on March 17 noted the “immense distress” among French farmers, due in particular to the “low level of agricultural income and the feeling of denigration” of the profession by “constant agri-bashing.”
            For the farmers, the protest is also about sending a message “to our fellow citizens alerting them to the urgency of saving French agriculture” without which “our food autonomy and the preservation of our national quality production” cannot be guaranteed. The farmers called for a CAP “for farms, not firms,” that “has the ambition to have many farmers, in all territories and in all lines of production.”


Biden’s Infrastructure Plan: Paving the Road to Hell

Huge amounts of ink, digital and otherwise, are being wasted in discussion of President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan announced yesterday. But one of the more revealing comments came from the ever-green Washington Post, which insisted that the whole purpose of the plan isn’t infrastructure, but bringing about a paradigm shift.

“President Biden’s infrastructure plan would turbocharge the country’s transition from fossil fuels, using the muscle and vast resources of the federal government to intervene in electricity markets, speed the growth of solar and wind energy, and foster technological breakthroughs in clean power,” the Post wrote. “The linchpin of Biden’s plan… is the creation of a national standard requiring utilities to use a specific amount of solar, wind and other renewable energy to power American homes, businesses and factories. The amount would increase over time, cutting the nation’s use of coal, gas and oil over the next 15 years.”

The Post concluded with excitement: “Biden’s strategy would amount to the most sweeping federal intervention in the electricity sector in generations.”

As that reality sinks in, there will be foot-dragging and more from all sorts of political and business layers in the country. The following response by Brian Wolff, executive vice president for public policy of the Edison Electric Institute, the power sector’s biggest trade association, is indicative:

“Certainly, we will review any proposed clean energy standard closely,” he said, “and we support policies that enable our member electric companies to continue to get the energy they provide as clean as they can as fast as they can, without compromising the affordability and reliability our customers value.”

Not precisely a ringing endorsement.


Now More Urgent Than Ever: Afghanistan Is an Opportunity for a New Epoch for Mankind

~ Schiller Institute Webcast: Saturday, August 21, 12pm EDT ~

PDF of this invitation

Aug. 18 – With nearly all policy-makers and strategic analysts in the trans-Atlantic sector of the world in a clueless state of utter chaos and hysteria over the developments in Afghanistan, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche today convoked an urgent international seminar for this coming Saturday, August 21 to pursue the only available solution to the crisis: peace through development. The seminar will continue the prescient discussion held by the Schiller Institute on July 31, with many of the same panelists, as well as new ones.

Zepp-LaRouche drew a crystal clear picture in a webcast interview yesterday, Afghanistan: Opportunity for a New Epoch.

“First of all, I do not agree with the hysteria of the Western media that this is the end of the world. The first thing that must be stated, is that it ends 40 years of war for the Afghani people, and if people have any sense of what it means to live in such a long war, all the suffering of the civilians, all the terrible things people had to endure, in terms of drone attacks, in terms of anxiety, I think, first of all, it’s very good that the war has ended.

“I think it is, on the contrary, the real chance to integrate Afghanistan into a regional economic development perspective, which is basically defined by the Belt and Road Initiative of China. There is a very clear agreement of Russia and China to cooperate in dealing with this situation. The interest of the Central Asian republics is to make sure there is stability and economic development; and there is the possibility to extend the CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, into Afghanistan, into Central Asia. So, I think it’s a real opportunity, but it does require a complete change in approach.”

Zepp-LaRouche continued: “This is an epochal change… I think that if the European nations and the United States would understand that this is a unique chance, if they cooperate, rather than fight Russia and China and their influence in the region, and if they join hands in the economic development there… then this can become a very positive turning point, not only for Afghanistan, but also for the whole world.”

Zepp-LaRouche made a special appeal to the United States in remarks earlier in the day on Aug. 17: “The United States must go back to the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers and the initial period—such as John Quincy Adams–that the aim of the United States is not to chase foreign monsters, but to build alliances. John Quincy Adams said that the United States should have alliances of perfectly sovereign republics, and this is now the moment to really do that. The idea is to not oppose China linking Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative, but rather see it as an opportunity to cooperate, and stop this geopolitical confrontation which can only lead to catastrophe.

She concluded: “That’s the kind of discussion which we have to catalyze.”

Here is the video archive link of the July 31, 2021 Schiller Institute conference on “Afghanistan: A Turning Point in History after the Failed Regime-Change Era”

Those speakers included:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Founder and President of The Schiller Institute; Pino Arlacchi (Italy), Sociology Professor at the Sassari University, Former Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, and former European Parliament Rapporteur on Afghanistan; H.E. Ambassador Hassan Shoroosh (Afghanistan), Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to Canada; H.E. Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva (Russian Federation), Deputy Permanent Representative at the Mission of The Russian Federation to the UN; Dr. Wang Jin (China), Fellow with The Charhar Institute; Ray McGovern (U.S.), Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA-ret.), Co-Founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); Hassan Daud (Pakistan), CEO, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province Board of Investment; and Hussein Askary (Sweden/Iraq), Southwest Asia Coordinator for the Schiller Institute.


Kerry to Demand India Must Declare a Net-Zero Emissions Target Date

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry will visit India in early April, The Hindu reported. The visit is a run-up to the April 22-23 virtual “Leaders Summit on Climate” hosted by President Joe Biden from the White House. Kerry’s April 1-9 itinerary will also include Abu Dhabi and Dhaka.

The Kerry visit is likely to focus on pressuring India to declare a target year, preferably 2050, for achieving net-zero emissions of greenhouse gas. But there is strong opposition to this within India, including prominent advisers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi such as Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, a Member of PM’s Council on Climate Change and former ambassador to China and the EU. In a recent interview with the Indian news daily, The Hindustan Times, Dasgupta answered a question on what he believes would be the impact on the Indian economy of pursuing net-zero emissions target:

“First, it would require us to immediately scrap all existing coal-based power plants and factories, or alternatively, retrofit them with carbon capture and storage technology. This would entail astronomical costs at a time when the economy is already reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.” He added that it would also quickly derail Modi’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) policy: “It would necessitate an immediate switch-over to imported, existing clean energy technologies at a huge cost, denying our own industry the time required for indigenization or development of affordable indigenous technologies. Let us not forget that the US lodged a complaint against us at the WTO when we took some modest measures to promote domestic manufacture of solar cells and modules.”

“Third, we need to examine the trade-related implications of surrendering our principled position on ‘common and differentiated responsibilities’. The European Union is set to impose levies on carbon-intensive imports, even from developing countries. It would be naive to think that the countries calling on India to adopt a 2050 net-zero target are motivated purely by altruistic concerns unrelated to commercial interests.”

The “common and differentiated responsibilities” clause refers to the argument made for decades by developing countries that any global targets have to be applied in a differentiated way to their countries, since they are also trying to overcome underdevelopment.

The pressure on India is intense. Last February, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) hosted an annual event, the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS), in New Delhi with a focus on the climate crisis, with the presence of high-level representatives from the U.S., the U.K., the EU, the United Nations and other countries. At this virtual Summit, John Kerry did not mince his words: “We all have to adopt the notion of zero emissions.” And his finger pointed towards India when he noted that “90% of the world’s emissions come from somewhere other than our country (US)” and “70% come from somewhere other than China”.

The pressure has been building, especially over the last six months as Biden took over the White House. Some analysts claim that China’s 2060 carbon neutrality pledge has also contributed to the pressure, as has the UK’s diplomatic push to ramp up climate matters ahead of Cop26. Cop26 is the next annual UN climate change conference scheduled to be held in Glasgow, UK, from Nov 1-12. Cop26 president Alok Sharma visited India in February and issued a statement before his departure stating, “I firmly believe that powerful action from India will be a catalyst for change, encouraging others to be more ambitious in their approaches to protecting both people and planet.”

With the heat on, discussions have begun in India on what it can do to withstand the pressure.


Implement LaRouche’s 2010 Rebuilding Program in Haiti Now: The 2021 Earthquake Can Not Be Allowed To Be A Further Descent into Hell!

Had American statesman Lyndon LaRouche’s program to rebuild Haiti been implemented, in response to the devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, which killed between 250,000 and 300,000 people, this impoverished nation would not be suffering the level of death and destruction so far wrought by the August 14 earthquake that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. And the carnage will become much greater as a series of tropical storms hit, which are expected to be rolling in, perhaps one after another. 

As of August 17, reports are that 1,900 people are dead, 10,000 injured, and 37,000 homes have been destroyed. Homes, schools, supermarkets, and roads were leveled in the southern and western parts of the country. People are terrified. They have once again been abandoned by the United States and its international partners, left to perish in extreme poverty, disease, and misery.

Lyndon LaRouche immediately responded to the 2010 earthquake by calling for an emergency reconstruction program for Haiti, to which, he said, the U.S. had a special responsibility. He called on the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to first deploy to rescue and relocate up to 1 million homeless Haitians from Port-au-Prince to higher ground before the rainy season arrived and unleashed a dangerous health and sanitation crisis for these destitute citizens; he then proposed a comprehensive program to focus on building infrastructure—for sanitation, water management, irrigation, earthquake-proof housing, transportation, agriculture, etc.

LaRouche also recommended that the U.S. sign a 25-year treaty with Haiti, “a treaty agreement to reestablish the efficient sovereignty of the nation of Haiti, after the destructive effect of this and preceding difficulties. We make a contract with the government, as a treaty agreement, between the United States and Haiti, to assure the rebuilding of their country, in a form in which it will actually be a functioning country which can survive.” Those proposals are available here.

President Barack Obama rejected LaRouche’s proposals, and instead removed crucial economic and military aid, encouraging what became known as the “Republic of NGOs” — a large unwieldy network of foreign NGOs that had a lot of money to throw around but did nothing of any real substance. 

Years later, in 2017, when China’s Southwest Engineering Municipal Design Research Institute joined with the Haitian firm Bayti Ayiti to propose a $30 billion program to completely rebuild Haiti, with $4.7 billion to rebuild the capital, Port-au-Prince, with sanitation infrastructure, housing, and transportation, the IMF reportedly stepped in—EIR was told at the time—to make sure the proposal went nowhere.

On March 10, 2010, EIR published a 20-page package which detailed the programmatic solutions Haiti required and identified those monetarist political forces committed to keeping in place the Malthusian economic policies that had made Haiti so vulnerable to disaster, and which remain in effect today. That package is available here.


Blinken Sheds Crocodile Tears for Syrians Forced into Poverty by US Sanctions

March 30, 2021 (EIRNS)–The UN Security Council held its monthly meeting on Syria yesterday, focusing heavily on the humanitarian situation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who chaired the virtual meeting, delivered a statement about the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria without once referring to the economic sanctions that the US and its European allies have imposed on the country that have worsened living conditions for millions of Syrians. “While today’s session is focused on the humanitarian crisis in Syria, it’s important to note that the only long-term solution to this suffering is through a political settlement and permanent resolution to the conflict, as outlined in UN Security Council Resolution 2254,” Blinken said, “But even as we work to that solution, we can’t lose sight of the urgent needs of the Syrian people that we’ve heard described so eloquently today. It’s clear that these needs – including having enough to eat and access to essential medicine – are not going to be met by the Assad regime.”

Blinken followed this posturing with the demand that the UNSC authorize the opening of two border crossings in the northeast and northwest into areas of the country that are not under the control of the government. “We have a responsibility to ensure Syrians have access to lifesaving assistance, no matter where they live,” he said. “Given that goal, there was no good reason at the time for the council’s failure to reauthorize these two humanitarian crossings.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin, who delivered the Russian response, minced no words about the roles of the US and Turkish occupying forces in creating the current conditions that prevail in all parts of Syria. “It is paradoxical, yet true — a significant deterioration in the life of the Syrian population has been observed precisely within the past year, when a significant reduction in violence was achieved on the ground,” Vershinin stressed, reported TASS. He also drew attention to the fact that “the most difficult situation is developing in the regions not under the control of Damascus in the northwest, north and northeast of Syria, the responsibility for which, let me reiterate, is with the de-facto occupying countries and local authorities.”

Vershinin accused Western powers of openly discriminating against the areas of the country controlled by Damascus, including with respect to deliveries of humanitarian supplies, the return of refugees, and efforts to control the COVID19 pandemic. “It is done in a bid to undermine Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, due to political motives,” he said.

Then there’s the matter of unilateral US and European sanctions, which are greatly hindering the economic reconstruction of Syria. “The reaction of Washington and Brussels to the call of the UN secretary general to ease and lift unilateral sanctions amid the coronavirus pandemic was, on the contrary, to tighten in an unprecedented way the restrictions adopted bypassing the UN Security Council, including the introduction of the infamous Caesar Act in June 2020,” Vershinin said. “Unfortunately, the honorable representative of the US and other Western colleagues spoke about a lot of things in today’s speeches but for the US and EU sanctions and their dramatic negative effect on ordinary Syrians.”

Vershinin also pointed out the US looting of Syrian oil and wheat. “Reports continue to come in that American convoys are trucking out oil and grain from Syria to Iraq daily. The information [we] receive suggests that 300 oil tank trucks and more than 200 cargo trucks with grain had crossed the Syrian-Iraqi border by March 23 since the beginning of the month,” he said. “It turns out while Syrians are suffering from acute shortage of basic products, including bread and petrol, a wide stream of Syria’s smuggled natural resources is flowing from the Trans-Euphrates region controlled by the US, while the country is simultaneously suffocated with unilateral sanctions which essentially are a form of collective punishment,” he underlined.

Prior to the US and Russian (and other) statements, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock reported that the need for aid has jumped 20% from last year and humanitarian organizations coordinated by the U.N. are seeking an estimated $4.2 billion to reach 12.3 million Syrians inside the country. He said another $5.8 billion is required for support to countries hosting Syrian refugees in the region. “We need more money, not less, if we are to avoid a further deterioration — the consequences of which could be dramatic and widespread,” Lowcock said.

Henrietta Fore, head of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, said Syria’s worst economic crisis is “plunging 90% of the population into poverty, and across the country nearly 90% of children now require humanitarian assistance.”


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