H.G. Wells' `Mein Kampf'
Sir Cedric Cesspool's Empire
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
April 28, 2008
Mankind's most influential fools are divided into two general types. One type is represented by those Academics and their imitators who pride themselves on their use of deduction. However, the most dangerous fools of modern history, such as Britain's H.G. Wells, for example, belong to the set of those rarer, impassioned, influential, and more clever sophisticates, who rely on a malicious quality of insight. Both varieties, the pedantic and the sophisticated alike, are essentially sophists. These sophists are distinguished from one another as sub-types by the way in which sophistry uses them. Sophists of the type of H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell, typify the more exotic, the truly satanic mental states lurking behind the promotion of what is identified currently as that ``Lisbon Treaty,'' which is the present form of design for a new Tower of Babel, a Satanic form of the world empire called ``globalization.''...
U.S. Economic/Financial News
May 2 (EIRNS)—There has been a stunning drop in ability of lower-income Americans to participate in the U.S. labor force at all, during the seven and a half years of the Cheney-Bush Presidency. This has masked unemployment rates for youth and African American workers, which probably rival the 40-50% unemployment rates in Bush's Iraq. Official figures for black unemployment in most major U.S. cities now range from 10-20%; but that is only the percentage of those who are still looking for work. Ten million black Americans of working age are out of the labor force.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a Buffalo forum on black unemployment that "the figures take my breath away"—and proposed bigger and better job-training programs.
But with April's job growth flat, according to today's U.S. Labor Department report, the total job creation claimed for the Cheney-Bush Presidency—forget productive, well-paid jobs, this means any jobs—will fall to about 3.5 million, over 87 months. That's 40,000 jobs a month, compared to the steady demographic increase in the potential U.S. labor force of about 150,000 month, for seven and a half years.
What did this do to the labor force? The Department reported the participation in the U.S. labor force by some lower-income groups shows "breathtaking" drops, of up to 10% or more over the 87 months of Cheney and Bush. Examples: White teenagers in the labor force have dropped from 55.2% to 42.7%; black teenagers, from an already low 40.9% down to 28.7%; workers in their 20s, from 65.3% down to 61.6%; and among all black Americans, participation in the labor force has sunk from 66.1% to 59.9%. These are huge falls, in a figure in which, usually, a drop of even a few tenths of a percent over time, shows significant economic dislocation.
Schumer heard that of the 7 million African American males who did not finish high school, only 28% have a job. That "took his breath away." But Schumer, like other Congressional Democrats, took a pass on introducing the Economic Recovery Act proposed by Lyndon LaRouche in 2006—which would have created millions of jobs building new economic infrastructure—or on supporting the companion Americorps Infrastructure bill in the 2006 Congress, which would have recruited inner-city and rural young workers into these infrastructure projects.
May 2 (EIRNS)—The Federal Reserve today announced a further expansion of its support of the bankrupt U.S. banking system. It will expand the amount it lends to depository institutions under its bi-weekly Term Auction Facility auctions by 50%, to $75 billion, raising the total amount available under the TAF program to $150 billion. This is the fifth increase in the TAF limits since the program was established in December 2007, with a $20 million per auction, $40 billion total limit. The Fed has also increased the existing reciprocal currency agreements with the European Central Bank (ECB) and Swiss National Bank (SNB) for the second time, to $50 billion for the ECB and $12 billion for the SNB, from the initial amounts established in December of $20 billion and $4 billion, respectively, and extended these agreements through Jan. 30, 2009. The Fed also relaxed the collateral standards for a portion of its Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) to include AAA/Aaa-rated asset-backed securities. The TSLF, established in March, makes loans to the primary dealers, a group of 20 investment banks.
Taking into account the total of repo loans, TAF loans, discount window loans, loans to securities dealers, and seasonal credit loans, the Fed had $442 billion in loans outstanding on April 30. The weekly average of loans outstanding has climbed steadily, from some $83 billion in December, to $99 billion in January, $111 billion in February, $191 billion in March, and $413 billion in April, as the Fed pours ever more money down the rathole.
April 28 (EIRNS)—With the "blue collar workers"—or, what Lyndon LaRouche calls "the lower 80%" income-level families in America—now the defining issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign after the Pennsylvania primary, there is a renewed attack on Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan for the collapse of the financial system.
An April 28 article in the German-language Austrian magazine Profil hits Greenspan hard, in an interview with economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. According to a press release issued prior to publication, Stiglitz says, "This man [Greenspan] has unfortunately made a lot of mistakes. His first one was to support all the tax cuts which were introduced under Bush—they didn't stimulate the economy very much.... This task was then transferred more towards monetary policy, though then [Greenspan] created a flood of credits with low interest rates."
Stiglitz said he "reproaches" the Bush Administration for the economic carnage, which was also caused by the costs of the war in Iraq. But the most damaging is the policy of the weak dollar, which "will continue to hit the European economy hard, because it will make it much harder to export."
Stiglitz says that there is no way for Europe to "decouple" from the dollar or the United States.
While Stiglitz went after Greenspan in November 2007 for the same policies he mentions in the Profil interview, with the situation now much, much worse, Greenspan could be pushed off his pedestal, if not off a cliff.
Informed U.S. political sources tell EIR that the Stiglitz attacks on Greenspan will be getting wide circulation during the election campaign.
Global Economic News
May 2 (EIRNS)—The last two efforts by the Philippines to buy rice on the world market failed, with far less rice available than the 500,000 tons requested, and at prices far beyond its means. The next tender is planned for May 5, for 675,000 tons, but already Vietnam and Thailand, the two largest rice exporters, have announced they are not likely to participate. "It's very likely that we won't go," said the general secretary of the Vietnam Food Association, noting that there is a hold on all exports due to the internal rice panic and price spike—although the immediate panic has subsided.
Thailand's Commerce Ministry said that the Philippines government will not guarantee the contracts, so Thailand will not participate.
The Philippines government has doubled the number of food distribution sites run by the National Food Administration, but sources on the ground tell EIR that people line up before dawn, and the rice is gone by 8:00 A.M. The subsidized rice at the outlets is half the market price, but of poorer quality.
May 2 (EIRNS)—After months, if not years, of paralysis over the burgeoning food crisis, which may escalate into food riots, Manila has now signed an agreement with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to get help to grow enough rice to feed its own people within three years. IRRI president Robert Ziegler said the institute would "join forces" with the Department of Agriculture and the Philippine Rice Research Institute to ramp up Philippine rice production.
The Philippines is one of the world's largest rice importers. The agreement encompasses irrigation, high-yield hybrid varieties, credit support, technical advice for farmers, and construction of storage facilities to address the country's 5%-plus yield losses through spoilage, according to Agence France Presse.
Ziegler said the agreement would help steer Manila "towards self-sufficiency." Manila says it now imports about 10% of its domestic rice requirement. Philippines Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said collaboration with IRRI would cover all 4 million hectares (9.88 million acres) of farmland planted with rice.
Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank, reeling from a global food crisis that has led to stinging criticism of its international governors for failing to see it coming, was scheduled to hold its annual meeting this weekend.
April 29 (EIRNS)—Inflation is cutting deeply into income growth in both city and countryside in China. Keeping the real economy growing, and improving the overall living standard of the population, is the biggest challenge that China's leaders face, especially because of the poverty of the 900 million rural population. While rural incomes rose 9%—with inflation discounted—in the first quarter of 2008, as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported March 24, this amounted to an overall per-capita average income of less than 1,500 yuan, about $215 in this period. The NBS report, based on 68,000 rural households all over China, said that while, overall, farmers' cash incomes rose 18.5%, deducting rising price factors cut the increase in half, to 9.1%. This increase is 3% lower than a year ago. Farmers' income from wages working in local small industries, from money sent back from family members who have joined the mass exodus to the cities, is also up close to 17%, but per capita is only 608 yuan, less than $87.
Chinese urban residents are better off, but inflation took an even bigger bite than in the countryside. Disposable income per capita was up 11.5% in the first quarter—until inflation is taken into account. Inflation slashed the rise to just 3.4%, the lowest since 1997. This 3.4% income increase was 13.2% lower than the rate of increase a year ago, the NBS reported. Per-capita average urban income was 4,386 yuan (about $625). In 1997, high inflation had forced urban income growth down to just 1.2%.
A senior NBS official said that China's 4.8% inflation target is going to be "very hard to hit" this year. Speaking at a seminar in Shanghai, Peng Zhilong, director general of the department of national accounts at the NBS, said that the 4.8% figure "is an aspiration, and the figures for the first quarter suggest this target will be very hard to hit," the official Shanghai Securities News reported today. China will have big trouble containing inflation due to five factors, Peng said: the rapid economic growth; financial inflows, including "hot money"; rising wages; central interest rate increases, which had raised companies' costs; and rising asset prices. All this, along with the world situation, would make an economic slowdown inevitable in China this year, Peng said.
Costs of oil and other imports are in hyperinflation, a Bangkok Post analyst reported today. China had to pay 90% more for oil imports in the first quarter, although the volume of imports was just up 14.9%. For iron ore, costs were almost 50% higher, but volume was just 10.5% more.
April 28 (EIRNS)—An EIR source in Germany reported that not only rapeseed, but increasingly also wheat and other grains, are being turned into biofuels. Many farmers no longer make the effort of harvesting, and delivering the grain to the mills, where they would then get paid a ridiculously small sum of 10 euros for each 200 pounds delivered. Instead, they keep the grain and dump it, along with other stuffs, into biofuel production, where they are paid more. The same goes for apples, which "earn" farmers 25 cents per tray—a price so low, it doesn't pay to produce, not even to make juice from the apples. Therefore, apples are dumped into biofuels, as well.
All of this is going on without anyone gathering statistics about it, but it is an increasing pattern. The farmer source said that the policy that is forcing farmers to act against their own interests in producing food, is so evil that it cannot just be incompetence of the bureaucrats, but that there must be a purpose behind it, and that is the destruction of agriculture in Europe.
May 2 (EIRNS)—Addressing the Group of 77 countries in Antigua, former Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson issued a grim warning to the world leaders about the violence that has begun due to food shortages. Patterson warned of the potential for further upheavals if a solution is not found. "It poses some very real and immediate consequences. If you think we are immune from riots, which could escalate into revolutions, please think again," he told the meeting.
"Even in the developed world, we are seeing a financial and monetary crisis of unprecedented proportions which is sending more than ripples—indeed shockwaves through the entire international community."
United States News Digest
SACRAMENTO, April 30 (EIRNS)—California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a well-known liar and degenerate, has been playing games with the figures his office has been circulating on the state's budget deficit. The only thing which is clear from these reports, is that the deficit is continuing to grow. With the release date for his revised budget set for May 14, he has been disseminating conflicting figures. When a reporter for the Sacramento Bee called him on it yesterday, his office could only say, "We don't have a hard number right now."
The latest figure given out by his office is that the deficit for fiscal year 2008-09, which begins on July 1, will be a staggering $20.2 billion (out of a state spending plan of $101 billion). When pressed, an aide said that this shortfall is above the $7 billion in spending cuts already imposed through mid-year spending changes made at the beginning of this year!
Does this mean that the state deficit is actually approaching $28 billion? Political insiders are reporting that there exists an "Armageddon option," in which the George Shultz-run Schwarzenegger is demanding cuts significantly above the 10% across-the-board cuts he has already insisted are necessary. Further, revenues continue to fall, as corporate profits are declining, foreclosures soar, and job cuts are increasing, in both the public and private sector.
In his State of the State address in January, Schwarzenegger said that he will be "fiscally responsible," even though he knows that his brand of so-called fiscal responsibility means people will die as a result of his austerity measures. When will California Democrats—and non-psycho Republicans—finally step forward, and demand the removal of Schwarzenegger, for the most gross incompetence in the history of the state?
April 27 (EIRNS)—Demonstrating once again why its approval by the American population rivals that of the hated President Bush, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously April 25 to grant British intelligence agent Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar the Congressional Gold Medal. This is the same award granted to the Nazi-loving Dalai Lama last year, in the run-up to the violent revolt in Tibet March, unleashed by the Dalai Lama's controllers.
The Dalai Lama was historically controlled by the Britain's top Tibet profiler Hugh Richardson, who, as British consul in Tibet from 1936-50, ran the effort to defend "traditional Tibetan culture" (feudal slave society) and to drive China out of its sovereign territory. Upon returning to London, when the Chinese re-asserted sovereignty in 1950, Richardson trained a new generation of colonial agents, including Michael Aris, who became the British agent over the Himalayan nations, and married Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi was then sent back into Myanmar to be the "axe-handle" (as the Myanmar government calls her) for the British axe, to break up Myanmar.
The British colonial supporters in the U.S. Congress are showing their colors again.
May 4 (EIRNS)—NASA is facing a decimation of its workforce, which is the human capital that is required for any Moon/Mars mission. This, thanks to the criminal policy of the Bush Administration, to retire the Space Shuttle fleet in 2010, without providing enough funding to fly its replacement, until five years after that. The five-year hiatus in the U.S. being able to launch people into space has been attacked by the Congress, and by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.
The human infrastructure in the manned space program, concentrated at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, is under threat. In early April, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight told Congress that more than 8,000 contractor jobs in the space program could be lost. The Kennedy Center could be facing cuts of 80%. The Michoud Assembly plant in New Orleans, which built stages of the Saturn V Moon rocket, the fuel tank for the Shuttle, and will build stages for a new launch vehicle, could lose as many as 1,300 of its 1,900 jobs.
Last year, Congressional supporters led a failed attempt to increase NASA's FY08 budget, to shorten the five-year gap between the end of the Shuttle, and the start of the Orion spacecraft. On April 29, a bipartisan group of 30 Representatives, sent a letter to House leaders, urging at least a $1 billion increase in NASA's FY09 budget. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), on the Appropriations Committee, is pushing for the increase, with colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.).
As the 1960s Apollo program wound down, to be replaced by the counterculture and Malthusian pessimism, the impact on NASA's scientific leadership and highly skilled workforce was dramatic. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. Rates of divorce, suicide, and alcoholism in communities near the Kennedy Space Center shot up, as whole towns were abandoned. NASA administrator Mike Griffin has warned that without adequate support for the next steps in space exploration, the most priceless resource in the space program will be lost, again—its people.
April 30 (EIRNS)—Dr. Sig Hecker, the unofficial "inspector" of the North Korean nuclear program, publicly repudiated the view of the Cheneyacs in Washington. Hecker, the former head of the Los Alamos National Labs, a center for the development of the U.S. nuclear weapons, has visited North Korea five times since 2004, and the Yongbyon nuclear facility three times, including this past February. In a presentation at John Hopkins SAIS today, Hecker reported in very strong terms that the North Koreans have been open to revealing their nuclear facilities, and have gone a long way to dismantling those facilities, as specified in the series of agreements worked out in the Six Party talks. He noted that the U.S. has been far less forthcoming in living up to its part of the deals.
James Lilly, former U.S. ambassador to China and a fanatic opponent of the diplomatic agreements worked out by Ambassador Chris Hill in the Six Party talks (which Vice President Dick Cheney tried to sabotage at every turn), challenged Hecker, ranting about the North Korean regime's use of "all nefarious means to raise money for their nuclear program," their "pathological fear of outside forces," and their "damn the torpedos" approach to proceeding with nuclear weapons. Hecker responded forcefully: "I do not consider what they are doing to be 'damn the torpedos,' not even close. If they were 'damn the torpedos' they would not be shutting down their facilities, making it close to impossible to revive it."
Ibero-American News Digest
April 28 (EIRNS)—Prince Philip's Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has placed key people in charge of water and fishing in the Federal government of Mexico, from which that Anglo-Dutch genocidal hit squad hopes to block implementation of the tri-state Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO), whose construction U.S. statesman Lyndon LaRouche has identified as critical to the economic and political security of Mexico and the United States.
One WWF agent is José Luis Luege Tamargo, director of Mexico's Federal water agency, CONAGUA. When Luege Tamayo visited the state of Sonora April 22-23, he was pressed on where the Federal government stands on building the PLHINO. He replied that nothing would be done until a "profound" environmental impact study had been carried out on the PLHINO's alteration of river flows.
Before he was named head of CONAGUA in December 2006, Luege Tamargo served as President Vicente Fox's Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (2005-06), coordinating that ministry's actions closely with the WWF. That included pushing "ecotourism" as the only "sustainable" economic activity acceptable to these oligarchs, and championing the WWF's project to restrict human activity in and around the Gulf of California—along whose eastern coast the PLHINO would run.
The WWF also seized control of the Ministry of Agriculture's National Fishing Institute (INAPESCA) in December 2006, when WWF-Mexico official Miguél Angel Cisneros Mata was named to head the institute. Not surprisingly, in March 2008, Cisneros signed an agreement for the WWF and INAPESCA to officially collaborate on research into, and "sustainable" management and conservation of, Mexico's natural resources. Specified as a priority target under this accord, is the Gulf of California. Cisneros ran the WWF's project to restrict fishing in the Gulf before being named INAPESCA head, and now it appears he intends to eliminate fishing altogether. He told California's San Diego Union Tribune (Jan. 29, 2007) that "the biggest challenge is changing the fishermens' practices.... It would be difficult for them to stop fishing from one year to the next. It has to be a gradual process."
April 29 (EIRNS)—The food crisis is so severe, that Mexican politicians who have been dutifully playing the globalization game, are changing their tune, and speaking out against handing human lives over to "the markets."
Under the title of "Food, the Forgotten Priority," Beatriz Paredes, president of the PRI party, warned in El Universal April 28, that the strategy of recent years, of leaving food to the "laws" of supply and demand, and buying food wherever it was cheapest, has done "incalculable harm to Mexico's agricultural productive base." Now, with global food prices soaring, the State must step in with "massive purchases" and timely distribution of food, and adopt the necessary public policies—unspecified—to foster national production for strategic stockpiles of the basic foods in the Mexican diet. "It is time to rectify," she admits.
The National Peasant Federation (CNC), run by the PRI party, is slamming the Calderón government, whose cabinet ministers are repeating, "Don't worry; no problem," while the price of the basic monthly market basket has risen 42% since December 2006, and malnutrition, anemia, and obesity multiply, as people turn to junk food to survive. The CNC, with the ANEC food producers' sales association, and the Rural Legislators bloc in Congress, are demanding that the government immediately move to create a strategic food reserve, give incentives to agriculture, and curb the use of grains for biofuels.
April 30 (EIRNS)—Brazilian President Lula da Silva has insanely decided to wage an international campaign in defense of biofuels, calling it a "war" that "has only just begun," and that he intends to win.
In the midst of a horrific world food crisis, in which biofuels have been attacked as a "crime against humanity," the Brazilian President is taking his suicidal stand at every forum that will invite him, to insist that biofuels are "not the enemy." In an April 29 speech, he accused the developed nations of hypocrisy, by maintaining protectionist tariffs, "to keep the rich richer and the poor, poorer." He insisted that the World Trade Organization's Doha Round must succeed in lifting all such tariffs, so that poor countries can export food and biofuels to those markets. "Stop your hypocrisy and start buying biofuels!" he bellowed.
Brazil has signed agreements with African countries, such as Ghana and Mozambique, for biofuels development, but when Lula visited the region last week to attend the UNCTAD conference, he discovered that people are more interested in eating! Daniel Abaco Mario, of the General Union of Cooperatives of Nampula (Mozambique), told the Safras wire service, "They want to do business with us, but we first want to deal with our food security and sovereignty. That is our priority." Amade Suca of the Action Aid NGO added that this sentiment can be applied to all of Africa. "Right now, production of biofuels isn't the priority. It's food."
Western European News Digest
May 1 (EIRNS)—Padraigh Walshe, the head of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), has attacked pro-WTO (World Trade Organization) EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, for leaving Irish Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan "empty handed," after their meeting in Brussels April 19. This ups the stakes, with consequences throughout Europe, as the IFA has promised to vote "no" on the Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland on June 12, if Mandelson, the EU negotiator with the WTO, continues his sell-out of agriculture.
The IFA, which mobilized 10,000 farmers onto the streets of Dublin several weeks ago, helping to catalyze a European farmers revolt which is now centered on dairy farmers, stated in their April 30 press release against Mandelson: "Mr. Walshe said Minister Coughlan failed to secure any commitments from the Trade Commissioner, which was probably not surprising given his ruthless determination to destroy Europe's farm family structure. Mandelson has never disguised his real agenda, which is to make Brazil and South America the dominant food suppliers to European consumers and the destruction of Europe's food industry in the process."
After the meeting, Mandelson emphasized how much Ireland could benefit from the "services sector." For the record: Dublin is a center for those famous asset-backed securities (ABS) bank conduits, employs thousands in the back-office processing centers for the trades of London-centered hedge funds, and is a call center in competition with Bangalore, India. (Some wags just might also remember Mandelson's escapades with Brazilian transvestites in a Rio nightclub, another kind of "service sector" he seems to know something about.)
April 26 (EIRNS)—Italian President Giorgio Napolitano will officially give the start April 28 to the construction of a tunnel between Austria and Italy, as part of the "Corridor 1" Trans-European Network. The project should be completed in 2020, at an estimated cost of Eu6 billion, partly financed by the European Union with Eu593 million, and the rest split evenly between the two countries.
The Brenner Base Tunnel project (BBT) is the heart of the 2,200-km high-speed rail corridor from Berlin to Palermo, via Munich, Verona, and Bologna (Corridor 1) and it includes a 56-km-long tunnel. In addition to significantly lower gradients, the BBT will also reduce total line length by about 20 km, bringing the current two-hour travel time between Innsbrück and Bolzano down to 50 minutes. Other benefits will include reduction of freight traffic on the A22 highway. The Italian state railway company Ferrovie dello Stato estimates about 400 trains per day running inside the tunnel (320 of them freight trains), traveling at speeds of up to 220 kmh.
As Corriere della Sera reports today, one of the leading environmentalist organizations, Legambiente, supports the project.
April 30 (EIRNS)—Several hundred dairy farmers engaged in protest actions at 46 locations in the eastern German state of Saxe-Anhalt, yesterday, handing out butter and milk for free to the population, in protest against attempts by dairies to dump producer prices below 30 cents per liter of milk.
Protests by dairy farmers are also reported from Spain and other countries of the European Union. Spanish dairy farmers held a protest rally in Santiago de Compostela, today, with three farmer associations announcing a boycott against dairies, should their pricing policies not improve. As in the German case, dairies in Spain are trying to justify their cuts in prices paid to producers, with the alleged "overproduction" and "milk market glut" myths, which are also propagated by the EU Commission, with the intent to cut subsidies to farmers.
PARIS, May 1 (EIRNS)—Today, once again, several hundred Chinese demonstrated in front of the French supermarket Carrefour in three major Chinese cities. The demonstrations were held in opposition to France's position on Tibet. The pressure seems to be having some impact, since French agent-provocateur Robert Menard, and his NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), declared that they will cancel a planned demonstration tomorrow in Hong Kong. RSF suddenly declared that Beijing gave signs of opening up to dialogue, and that "concrete acts in favor of human rights" are in the making.
Since 2001, the George Soros-financed RSF has claimed its target was to "screw up the Olympics." Robert Menard went to Greece and Japan to disrupt the passing of the Olympic torch there. It appears that somebody in Paris told them to shut up, or else.
April 30 (EIRNS)—The Council of Ministers of the European Union yesterday approved the EU Commission draft to eliminate 425,000 acres of vineyards in the next three years, through a system of "incentives." The aim is to eliminate surpluses and "non-competitive" farms. The EU reform includes the permission to use sugar, the use of imported musts (the fresh juice from the wine grapes), and a simplification of labels.
The reform has been opposed by major wine-producing countries, including France and Italy, but it was nevertheless approved. Critics warn that destroying "non-competitive" vineyards, means to eliminate diversity, leading to a few, "globalized" types. Also, the simplification of labels mandates the indication of the vineyard, but eliminates the production site, favoring large producers.
May 1 (EIRNS)—Three bombs exploded in the Spanish Basque region today. The separatist ETA took responsibility. No casualties were reported. One bomb hit the parking lot of the local office of Spain's Ministry of Labor in the town of Arrigorriaga and caused extensive damage, a Basque regional police spokesman told CNN. The other two bombs exploded half an hour later, near a Basque regional government labor institute in the large city of San Sebastian.
Those two bombs were preceded by warning calls in the name of the ETA, giving police time to cordon off the area. They caused little damage.
These bombings followed ETA bombings on April 20, of a recreation center of the ruling Socialist Party in the Basque town of Elgoibar. They caused no injuries. Days earlier, seven Basque police officers were slightly hurt when a bomb exploded on the outskirts to the largest Basque city, Bilbao.
The latest bombings came just hours after a Spanish judge on April 30 jailed the mayor of Mondragon, Inocencia Galparsoro, on charges of collaborating with ETA, after she refused to condemn the killing of an ex-councilman.
Russia and the CIS News Digest
May 2 (EIRNS)—One week before the inauguration of Russia's new President, Dmitri Medvedev, economist Sergei Glazyev gave an interview to the nationalist weekly Zavtra, titled "Ten Steps To Rein In the Crisis." In the opening exchange, deputy editor Alexander Nagorny noted that Glazyev "and a number of well-known economists in our country and the world, including [Lyndon] LaRouche," had long said that a crash of the "global financial pyramid" was inevitable. Glazyev replied with the observation that Russia has already lost $30 billion due to holding its national reserves in the sinking dollar, and added, "If the leaders of the Central Bank and the government had listened to the recommendations from the parliamentary hearings, which we held seven years ago, those losses could have been avoided."
The hearings to which Glazyev referred were convened by him in June 2001 as chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, on the subject of "Measures To Protect the National Economy Under Conditions of Global Financial Crisis." The lead-off witness was U.S. economist LaRouche. (EIR, July 6 and 20, 2001.)
Glazyev is currently director of the National Development Institute of the Academy of Sciences, and head of the Customs Union of the Eurasian Security Community. In Zavtra, he analyzed the inflationary money-pumping policies of the Federal Reserve. "This process is accelerating," he said, "like a snow avalanche. It began in 1971, when the U.S. leadership stopped exchanging dollars for gold, thus destroying the world financial relations that had existed until that time." He also identified the looting of Russia and the CIS through "shock therapy" in the 1990s as what had kept the "dollar financial pyramid" going into the 21st Century. But now, he said, "the possibilities for political blackmail of Russia have been exhausted."
Glazyev's ten steps feature the notion of making the ruble into a "world currency", through its promotion within the CIS and Eurasia at large, as well as an immediate shift to the denomination of trade with major partners in currencies other than the dollar. At the same time, he incorporates critical measures, such as "activation of the work of state development institutions, to extend credit for long-term investments into promising areas of economic growth." Glazyev concluded by saying that, based on these measures, "the Russian leadership could initiate the transition to a new global financial architecture."
May 2 (EIRNS)—Russian Security Council acting head Valentin Sobolev held four days of talks in Tehran at the end of April, centered on nuclear energy cooperation and the package of proposals Iran has announced it will send to the "5+1" group (permanent UN Security Council members and Germany) that meets on Iran's nuclear program. Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov attended a meeting of those six countries in London, held in conjunction with May 1-2 ministerial meetings of the Temporary Coordinating Committee on Palestinian affairs, and the Quartet dealing with Middle East peace (U.S.A., Russia, UN, and EU).
The Russian-Iranian contacts, in particular, come under what Lyndon LaRouche termed an asymmetric response by major Eurasian powers, against the British drive for war across the continent.
In Moscow, Iranian Ambassador Golamreza Ansari met April 29 with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak, at Iran's initiative, for a conversation the Russian Foreign Ministry described as centering on the Iranian nuclear program. Kislyak holds the portfolio for several strategic issues, including missile defense systems.
April 29 (EIRNS)—The Russian Foreign Ministry issued four statements today on the escalation of tensions around Abkhazia, the autonomous region of Georgia that has been policed by Russian peacekeepers since a 1994 truce in its civil war. In the setting of British and U.S. attempts to get Georgia into NATO as soon as possible, Georgian President Michael Saakashvili's campaign to restore authority over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another autonomous region that rejects central Georgian leadership, has become a flashpoint for armed conflict on Russia's southern border.
Among several armed incidents in April came the downing of an unmanned Georgian reconnaissance plane over Abkhazia on April 20. Saakashvili accused Russia of firing the missile. On April 16, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was extending consular and other special services to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Another April 29 Foreign Ministry statement denied that this was a step towards Russian "annexation," and justified Putin's action as aimed to protect people who are hostages of inter-ethnic conflicts.
The Foreign Ministry also stated that the latest escalation of tension "dictates the necessity" of increasing the number of Russian military personnel in the Abkhazia peacekeeping force, while remaining below the ceiling set by the UN mandate of 1994. Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze denounced the Russian moves, saying that it will "utterly destabilize this region."
May 1 (EIRNS)—Citizens of Belarus heard today that the United States had ordered their embassy and consulates in the U.S.A. closed, breaking diplomatic relations altogether, as was reported by the Associated Press and other news outlets from unnamed sources. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said later that this has not happened, but that the United States is "considering the full range of options in terms of our respective diplomatic presences."
Lyndon LaRouche observed that the showdown with Belarus is of greater strategic weight even than the tense situation around Abkhazia on the Georgia-Russia border, because of the country's geographical position in east central Europe. The government of President Alexander Lukashenka is positioned as an obstacle to the drive to expand NATO eastward, besides having resisted the whole package of monetarist economic destruction, foisted on the former Soviet bloc since 1991.
LaRouche noted that the Belarusian government has made known that it feels double-crossed by the United States. In December 2007, Ambassador Mikhail Khvostov accused the U.S.A. of violating the memorandum signed by Belarus, the U.S.A., Russia, and Great Britain in 1994, under which Belarus gave up its nuclear weapons and signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear power. This entailed, Khvostov said, "a written obligation by the United States to Belarus to refrain from economic coercion, designed to subordinate to the United States' own interest the exercise by Belarus of the rights inherent in its sovereignty, and thus to secure advantages of any kind." This means, Khvostov went on, that the United States "has given a written commitment to Belarus under international treaty not to impose economic sanctions of any kind on Belarus for political reasons."
The diplomatic row dates from November 2007, when the United States slapped economic sanctions on the petroleum products export firm Belnaftakhim, as punishment for alleged human rights violations and the arrest of opposition demonstrators after last year's elections. Belarus's two large oil refineries, inherited from the Soviet period, are the guts of its industrial economy and its ability to earn export revenue; also affected were financial institutions that process Belnaftakhim sales to other countries. Through a series of retaliatory expulsions of diplomats, the countries' two ambassadors have been recalled, and staffing at the embassies is down to a handful.
Southwest Asia News Digest
April 28 (EIRNS)—A stunning series of diplomatic actions, in particular by Russia and Turkey, are taking place against the British Empire's war plans in Southwest Asia. On April 28, Lyndon LaRouche described this pattern, which extends from Southwest Asia to the Pacific, as the Russians engaging in asymmetrical strategic warfare against the Europeans, especially the British. LaRouche said that most people would take the simplistic view that the Russian moves are directed against war-monger Dick Cheney, but, "it is not against the Bush Administration, as such; it is not against [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates; it against the European Union. Asymmetric warfare does not follow what is 'obvious.'"
On the Russia front, Valentin Sobolev, the Secretary General of the Russian National Security Council, arrived in Tehran on April 27, with a large delegation to carry out talks on Iran's nuclear program, and other major areas of cooperation. Sobolev met Golyam Reza Agazadeh, who is both Vice President of the country and head of the Iranian Nuclear Energy Organization, for talks on bilateral nuclear energy cooperation.
At a press conference afterwards, Agazadeh called the talks "very constructive and positive," and touched on the "completion of the Bushehr power plant," which "will be commissioned within the agreed-upon time framework." The latest question mark over the Bushehr project came last month, when Azerbaijan suddenly detained insulation materials for the plant's turbines, during transshipment from Russia to Iran. Tehran and Moscow have undertaken vigorous diplomatic efforts to smooth out this wrinkle, which Russian sources call "political."
Sobolev also met his Iranian counterpart, Said Jalili, and the two discussed the North-South Transport Corridor, energy cooperation, and military-technical cooperation, according to Russian media sources. Sobolev said, "Our talks are peaceful in nature and not directed against any countries whatsoever." After their initial meeting, Jalili told reporters that there would be a second round of talks, and possibly a third. He said that Russia and Iran are two important nations, and that their cooperation in the region "can become an important step in ensuring peace, stability, and security, both in the region and worldwide."
During this visit, Jalili also indicated that Iran was preparing for presentation "in the near future," a proposal which will concern "the solution of global peace problems. These will be multi-vectored initiatives, concerning, in particular, questions of policy and security." The package will also include initiatives related to nuclear non-proliferation. This "grand bargain" would be presented by Russia to the other 5+1 nations (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), to counter the recently escalated, London-ordered Cheney preparations for a war against Iran and Syria, before the Bush administration leaves office in January 2009.
On the Syria-Israel peace front, Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan was in Damascus, over the weekend, negotiating for a potential peace treaty between Syria and Israel, that would include the return of the Golan Heights to Syria, and Syrian guarantees of security along Israel's northern borders.
Erdogan will be sending his foreign policy advisor, who holds the dossier for Turkish mediation between Israel and Syria, to Israel to brief Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on his talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Unnamed sources close Olmert's office told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz that Israel is prepared to act on the fact that the U.S. has said it would not oppose talks, and explore the possibility to hold talks even while Bush is still in the White House.
"Talks are being conducted to sort out the issue," the source said. "The goal of Turkey's activity is to allow talks to start. That's how we view it. So far no real negotiations are taking place." While Olmert has called for direct and discreet talks to begin immediately, without arbiters or preconditions, Assad wants open talks arbitrated by the U.S. and a statement from Israel that it is prepared to give up the Golan Heights. Erdogan is seeking a compromise to bridge these two positions. The source told Ha'aretz, "Erdogan has decided to go all the way on the issue of Israel and Syria."
May 2 (EIRNS)—Investigators from Israel's National Fraud Office questioned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this morning for 90 minutes. According to Yideot Ahronot, the case is separate from the previous three known cases of alleged corruption that are under investigation. This one, Yediot claims, involves an unnamed "American businessman living in Israel," who is cooperating with the police. No other details were given. This has led to calls for him to step aside while investigations are taking place.
As of May 5, the Likud war party was polling the Knesset to see if there are enough votes to bring down the Olmert government. Unfortunately, several Labor Party junior members are supporting this effort.
The moves against Olmert come as "collaboration" between British MI6 and the Israeli Mossad heat up over a plan to overturn the U.S. intelligence community's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. Israeli sources told the Sunday Times of London that Israel has new information that will show Iran does have a nuclear weapons program, and that Israel expects the NIE to be overturned in the near future.
April 30 (EIRNS)—Syrian foreign policy expert, Dr. Samir Taqi, told al-Manar Television of Lebanon that Israel should drop its demands that Syria cut ties to Iran and Hezbollah as a condition for a peace agreement. This has been part of the Israeli rhetoric every time it mentions peace talks with Syria.
"It would be naive to think Syria will neglect or abandon its strategic alliances that do not stem from the Arab-Israeli conflict, Taqi told al-Manar TV. On April 26, Taqi told al-Jazeera that Syria was interested in moving ahead with peace talks, even while the Bush administration remains in power. He said now was the time to prepare for the pre-negotiation phase, to declare intentions and points of view, until the countries can reach a point at which the U.S. could participate.
Taqi is considered a very important insider in Damascus, having been an advisor to Hafez Assad, and currently holds the title of advisor to the Syrian prime minister. He is head of the Center of Oriental Studies in Damascus, and has been playing a key role in the Turkish mediation between Israel and Syria; he has the trust of the Turks and collaborates with Ahmet Davutoglu, a close advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan.
May 2 (EIRNS)—A visit to Syria is "important," and "is dear to us," stated Gen. Michel Aoun (ret.), president of the Free Patriotic Tendency (CPL), one of the two main opposition forces to the pro-Cheney government of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon and the March 14 coalition forces of Saad Hariri. This was General Aoun's response to the warm invitation extended to him by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his interview with the Qatari paper Al-Watan April 27. Aoun added that he hoped the "circumstances would permit such a visit with the shortest possible delay."
Aoun underlined once again that the opposition—his own CPL movement and the Hezbollah of Hassan Nasrallah—is not responsible for blocking the Presidential election. "There is a plot against Lebanon whose aim is to dismember the country," he declared, adding, "It is those in power and those who support them from abroad who are responsible for the political vacuum" and not the opposition.
On May 2, Lebanon's main French-language paper, L'Orient le Jour, reported Aoun's comments vis-à-vis Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the Maronite Patriarch, who asked the parliamentary deputies, especially Christians, to attend the parliamentary session for the election of a President before obtaining the conditions which the opposition is demanding. Said Aoun, "my conscience is clear, because I didn't contribute to the fall of the democratic system in Lebanon.... I will not participate in elections which do not ensure us active participation in the future government or ... guarantee an electoral law ensuring a good representation of the Lebanese."
May 3 (EIRNS)—The Bush Administration presented its hoked-up allegations of nuclear cooperation between Syria and North Korea at a conference on nuclear non-proliferation held in Geneva.
Syrian Ambassador Faysal Al Hamoui utterly dismissed this, telling the conference that, "U.S. allegations about the reactor were manufactured in order to create further crises in the Middle East.... We call upon member states to exercise caution and not to follow ... the vein of an administration which can only be described as madness."
In response to France, which supported the U.S., Al Hamoui said that France lacks credibility: "France played a major and pivotal role in building the Israeli nuclear program and continues to supply Israel with nuclear technology, which is a clear infringement of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty]."
Asia News Digest
April 30 (EIRNS)—The Eurasian nations that Lyndon LaRouche called the "Survivors' Club" at the end of the 1990s, because of their efforts not go down with the sinking Anglo-Dutch empire ship, are carrying on intense diplomacy. Chinese President Hu Jintao will start a five-day visit to Japan on May 6, the first by a Chinese President in ten years. Russia-Iran discussions are one highlight (see Russia/CIS Digest). Russia's President-elect Dmitri Medvedev confirmed in an interview with Argumenty i fakty weekly, that his first foreign visits will be to Kazakstan and China. Medvedev is also likely to go to India before the end of the year.
Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda met Russian President Vladimir Putin April 26 near Moscow, with trade, energy development, and the upcoming G-8 talks in Japan on the agenda. "In the past two or three years, we have managed to change our relations qualitatively," Putin said. Fukuda also met with Medvedev.
China and Japan have had several high-level exchanges to prepare Hu's visit in this 30th anniversary year since the China-Japan Peace and Friendship Treaty, concluded five years after Japan recognized the Peoples Republic in 1972. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi went to Japan April 17, just as a delegation from the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party was in Beijing. The last high-level Chinese visit to Japan was Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's "ice-thawing" visit in 2006, after the provocative Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi left office. Fukuda returned the visit in late 2007. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone also went to China, meeting with Hu Jintao April 29. Nakasone, attending the third Northeast Trilateral Forum in Beijing, said that China, Japan, and South Korea must spare no efforts to pursue peace and friendship, and called for a three-nation summit. Also at the meeting were former Chinese vice premier Qian Qichen and former South Korean premier Lee Hong Koo.
China-Taiwan cross-Strait relations are also moving forward, after the historic meeting between Hu and Taiwan vice-president-elect Vincent Siew April 12, the highest-level cross-Strait meeting since 1949. Hu received a delegation led by Lien Chan, honorary head of the Taiwan KMT (Kuomintang), April 28. Hu first met Lien three years ago, at the first official summit between the CPC and the KMT in 60 years.
May 2 (EIRNS)—Afghan President Hamid Karzai was shot at by a rooftop sniper on April 27, while attending a military parade commemorating the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack. Gunfire and explosions erupted after Karzai had taken the stage following an inspection of troops. Karzai and scores of cabinet members, ambassadors, and U.S. military commanders slammed to the floor or were whisked out by security, and were unharmed, officials said. Nonetheless, three people died, including an Afghan member of parliament, and a dozen others were wounded. Karzai appeared on television within an hour, to say: "The enemy of Afghanistan, the enemy of the security and development of Afghanistan, tried to disrupt the celebration and tried to create fear."
Although the sniper attack was probably set up from inside the security forces, there is little doubt that the Taliban, which does not want to decimate itself confronting well-trained and well-armed U.S. and NATO troops, is spreading the fear of irregular warfare throughout Afghanistan. Recently, U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill told the media that the Afghans fear the lack of security more than ever before.
According to one source, armed terrorists, who were earlier ensconced in Pakistan's tribal areas, are moving to northern Afghanistan, threatening the relative peace that prevails there. The source claims the terrorists are neither Pushtun Taliban nor Pakistani Taliban, but most likely the "foreigners"—Arabs from Arabia, Maghreb Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, Uighurs, and others. One reason why these terrorists are moving northwestward would be the recent Russia-NATO agreement for NATO to ship some of its supplies to Afghanistan across Russian territory. But Russia lacks a border with Afghanistan, and Moscow has not succeeded so far in pinning down permission from some combination of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakstan to allow passage of the supplies. The source report claims that these terrorists want to deter the "stan" nations from agreeing to the Russian request. Thus, it is expected that, in the near future, these terrorists will make their presence felt along Afghanistan's borders with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
April 29 (EIRNS)—Speaking at a conference at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), India's Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath said, that while the challenge to India, and also to many other nations, is growth, "our 8 or 9% growth is showing up on the radar screens in different ways. When it shows up on our radar screens in different ways, the management of growth becomes a big challenge. When we say this, we talk of India's IT skills and these great figures, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that India has 300 million people living on less than $1 per day. How do we make growth reach them? How do we make it touch their lives? That is our challenge."
He pointed out that India is young, in that 50% of its population is around 25 years old. "So when today we meet in a looming global economic outlook that is gloomy, the question is, how does India respond to this? That is another challenge. Of course we are not an externally driven or export-driven economy, we are a domestic market-driven economy. We are an economy today in global trying times in food, where global food prices are going up...."
May 1 (EIRNS)—China and India are not responsible for the world grain crisis, China's Vice Agricultural Minister Niu Dun told a visiting delegation of the European People's Party and European Democrats, the European Parliament wing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU. Last week, Merkel blamed Chinese consumption for pushing up German milk prices—despite the reality that German dairy exports to China are very small, and are falling anyway.
"Population growth and higher living standards in China and India were not the roots of the global crisis," Niu Dun said. "Instead, developed countries should bear the main responsibility."
The European delegation, the biggest group in the European Parliament, was led by chairman Joseph Daul. It is European countries and the United States which have consumed so much grain and other crops for biofuels, which has both damaged the environment and hit grain production, Niu said. Grain production was already under pressure from the high energy prices. On top of this, massive capital flows from developed countries to grain futures markets had driven up prices, Niu also told the Europeans, according to an Agriculture Ministry release. The developed nations should cut biofuel production and increase grain aid to food-poor regions, Niu said.
Africa News Digest
May 3 (EIRNS)—South African President Thabo Mbeki's efforts to contain the attempt to knock the Zimbabwe government of President Robert Mugabe out of power, by deploying the opposition faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai, has burst out into the open. Mbeki was designated by the Southern Africa Development Commission (SADC) to be the mediator between Mugabe and the opposition.
According to City Press of news24.com in South Africa, "Mbeki told a delegation of African church leaders that his mediation efforts were being hampered because MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was a puppet of the West."
In response, Tsvangirai's faction of the opposition MDC yesterday accused Mbeki of having held secret meetings four years ago with members of the MDC party and the ruling Zanu-PF, in an attempt to create a government of national unity that would have excluded Tsvangirai.
According to City Press, the MDC said Mbeki had wanted to form a government of national unity five years ago, in which Zanu-PFs Emmerson Mnangagwa, one of Mugabe's closest allies, would become President, with Mugabe's blessing, and Welshman Ncube of the MDC, would be the prime minister. The plan reportedly collapsed when Tsvangirai found out about it in 2003, and the MDC later split into two camps.
The MDC-Tsvangirai faction, according to City Press, this week informed Mbeki of its decision to cut all ties with him, and accused him of, among other things of being part of the Zanu-PF strategy committee overseeing the resistance against Western and international interference in the conflict between government and opposition in Zimbabwe.
Strive Masiyiwa, an anti-government Zimbabwean who is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, is working to reunite the two MDC factions so they would be the dominant party in Parliament after the runoff elections.
May 2 (EIRNS)—The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) made the official announcement of the election results today. The ZEC announced that opposition leader and British pawn, Morgan Tsvangirai, got 47.8% and President Robert Mugabe got 43.2%. There was a four-week delay between the election and the announcement, due to a demand by Mugabe for a recount. So, although the British and their lackeys had been charging that the purpose of the delay was to allow Mugabe to steal the vote, the final results, according to the ZEC, were in line with expectations. After the elections, no observers—not even the British—maintained that Tsvangirai had won over 50%, the amount necessary to avoid a runoff. And, the ZEC carried out its mission in a week's less time than it took before Supreme Court Justice Scalia appointed George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 U.S. Presidential election.
The Zimbabwe Independent said today that Tsvangirai will contest the runoff, despite his statements to the contrary, because of a deal worked out between the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC, and a split-off faction of the party. An agreement has been hammered out to get the two groups to combine, so that ZANU-PF would be relegated to being in the opposition in Parliament. Before this agreement, there was only a two-seat difference between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's MDC. This agreement called for Tsvangirai to participate in the runoff if he didn't win outright.
It is noteworthy that the agreement between the two MDC factions was facilitated by an exiled Zimbabwe tycoon, Strive Masiyiwa, who is now based in South Africa. He is often referred to as the "Bill Gates of Africa," because he has accumulated a fortune as the pointman for setting up cellphone networks in several African countries. Strive is a Trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, of which Judith Rodin is president—the same Judith Rodin who appeared in mid-January on the podium in Los Angeles with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where their Mussolini-like fascist corporatist "infrastructure" policy was laid out.
May 1 (EIRNS)—The World Bank is dangling money in the face of starving Zimbabweans, but won't give them anything unless they capitulate to the economic policies of the City of London. Michael Baxter, World Bank director for the region, who returned from an evaluation mission to Zimbabwe, said the population was in a crisis situation, and that the Bank was ready to organize and extend aid on an emergency basis, once the government gets serious, as reported by Reuters April 30. A Bank spokesman today made the point clearer, in a comment to EIR: "We can't do anything until there is a representative government," meaning a government that will go along with British imperial policy.
April 30 (EIRNS)—The British-led efforts by the U.K., the United States, France, and Belgium, and others, to push through a resolution at the UN Security Council to condemn Zimbabwe, call for sending an envoy or fact-finding mission there, and possibly declare an arms embargo against the country, fell flat on its face yesterday evening at a meeting of the Council at UN headquarters in New York. The South African-chaired session opposed the idea, and South Africa was supported by Russia, China, Vietnam, and Libya. These nations did not consider the internal situation in Zimbabwe to be a threat to world peace and security, the criterion for such a resolution.
Today, the New York Times and Washington Post had editorials attacking Mugabe, and singling out South African President Thabo Mbeki for blame for not going along with the witchhunt. Before the UNSC meeting, a senior South African foreign ministry official as good as suggested that Britain had brought the issue to the Security Council "in a deliberate attempt to embarrass South Africa during its April Presidency of the body," according to an allAfrica.com release today. The British Foreign Office later denied the charge.
April 28 (EIRNS)—The U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, is playing the role of publicly implementing British policy, designed to create the conditions for an ethnic civil war, which would rip Kenya apart.
After protracted violence in Kenya earlier this year, following the Dec. 27 election, the position of Prime Minister was created for opposition leader Raila Odinga, who was finally named to that post on April 13. Ranneberger recently announced a $500,000 commitment to support the development of the Prime Minister's office, according to the Kenyan daily The Standard, yesterday. Ranneberger said, "the role of the Prime Minister is going to be critical. We will work very closely with the Prime Minister in coordinating and supervising the Government" of President Mwai Kibaki, who is from a different, but also large ethnic group, from that of Odinga. "We recognize that critical role, and that is why we are ready to give money to strengthen the office," said Ranneberger.
Ranneberger also provocatively announced that the United States had invited Odinga to Washington "at a mutually convenient date." Ranneberger said Odinga was being invited because of the importance Washington attaches to his role as the one "constitutionally required to supervise and coordinate the activities of government."
Kenyan sources have reported to EIR that two separate executive bodies based on ethnicity can't exist in a country, without tearing it apart.
May 5 (EIRNS)—Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade said on Senegal national radio yesterday, that the UN FAO "is a waste of money and should be scrapped." He said that the FAO is inefficient, and has contributed to the recent worldwide increase of food prices. He said that other organizations do the FAO's work much better, and called the Rome-based FAO, created in 1945, a "bottomless pit of money largely spent on its own functioning with very little effective operations on the ground."
He called instead for the FAO, headed by Senegalese technocrat Jacques Diouf, to be incorporated into a newer UN agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, to create a global agriculture-support body, which he said, should be located in Africa. He noted that in the past he had wanted the FAO to move from Rome to Africa, which is the most in need of food. Just last week, a UN conference had put forth an emergency food plan, but Wade was not impressed by it. In Nigeria, bakers are planning a national strike due to high flour and sugar costs.
He wants to replace traditional food aid handouts with "innovative investment in agriculture in Africa" in the form of specialist funding and assistance, giving farmers seeds, fertilizers, equipment, irrigation, and expert training, so food can be produced locally, instead of being received from donors. Wade is an outspoken critic of the "huge swindle" of traditional international food aid, which he says spends more money funding the activities of high-powered technocrats than saving the world's poor.
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