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From Volume 37, Issue 42 of EIR Online, Published Oct. 29, 2010

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LPAC Videos Complete LaRouches' Vision of Eurasian Land-Bridge
by Nancy Spannaus

Oct. 23—Starting in 1941, before the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid out his vision for the world, which he was determined would emerge after the defeat of the Nazi threat. In the Atlantic Charter, imposed by FDR on Churchill at their meeting in Argentia, Canada in August, the prospect of a world of sovereign nation-states, freed of material want and oppression by empire, and collaborating to aid each other, was laid out in broad outlines, which FDR himself intended to pursue through the post-war United Nations Organization. Tragically, he did not survive to force that vision through.

FDR's drive to create such a world, unified in its common efforts to develop the potentials of all peoples of all nations, built on the shoulders of a succession of American patriots, and of great humanists before them. Most notable is the work of German philosopher, scientist, and legal scholar Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz more than two centuries before, in the early 18th Century. Leibniz reached out, particularly through the intelligentsia, to the leading political powers of his day—including Russia's Peter the Great and the Chinese ruling dynasty, among others—in an attempt to create the basis for global collaboration on science and development....

In-Depth articles from EIR, Vol. 37, No. 42
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This Week's Cover

Economics

  • Only the LaRouche Plan Will Stop Mortgage Fraud
    Virtually everything that has been done in recent years in the mortgage markets, from the issuance of the original mortgages to the attempts to railroad through fraudulent foreclosures, has been designed to help create, and then protect, multi-trillions of dollars of fictitious values for the imperial speculators.

National

International

Interviews

  • Summer Shields
    LaRouche Democratic Congressional candiate Summer Shields is challenging the hated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in California's 8th C.D., by campaigning for great projects to create mankind's future, from the San Francisco Bay, to Lake Chad in Africa.

Science & Technology

This Week's News

U.S. Economic/Financial News

Poverty and Homelessness Hit U.S. Children Hard

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—On Sept. 28, the Census Bureau released the results of its 2009 American Community Survey which found, among other things, that the overall poverty rate in the United States rose from 13.3% to 14.3, between 2008 and 2009, or an increase of about 3.5 million people. Now it's even worse. Local particulars provide horror stories, especially regarding conditions of poverty and homelessness among children, showing the social disintegration of whole communities as a result of the economic collapse.

Washington, D.C.: Public schools have started serving dinner to an estimated 10,000 students, because the high poverty rate among African-American children means that many don't eat at home. According to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate among D.C. African-American children is now 43%, up significantly from the 31% reported in 2007. Many children are in the custody of the school system from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and principals and teachers are telling officials that not only were many children hungry for the last few hours of the day, but some of them weren't eating much at home.

Nebraska: On Oct. 4, public schools reported 2,210 homeless students last year, 458 more than the year before, an increase of 26%, according to the Department of Education. Omaha schools reported 661 homeless students, an increase of more than 20% in one year. The homeless coordinator for Lincoln public schools estimates that about 5% of the total student population is homeless, or about 1,300 children.

*Utah: State officials report that there were nearly 12,000 homeless children in schools in January 2010. This is 2% of the total enrollment of about 529,000, but it is a 50% increase over the 8,016 counted in 2008.

Wisconsin: Rock County was home to the Janesville GM Assembly plant that closed in 2008, directly costing 2,600 jobs. Two-thirds of the district's students qualify for free or reduced-prices lunches, and have needed donated clothes, shoes, and classroom supplies. Some can't afford bus fare to get to school.

According to the Census Bureau, 16.7% of children were listed as living in poverty in the state, and Rock County had the second highest rate in the state, at 20.2%, exceeded only by Milwaukee County, where 29.9 percent were officially in poverty.

Fed President Admits Hyperinflation Is a Done Deal

Oct. 23 (EIRNS)—St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard let it be known, this week, that if the Federal Reserve decides to "ease monetary conditions," he would favor the Fed buying Treasury notes in $100 billion increments, without any upper limit on the total spent. This statement was followed by a Reuters interview with the St. Louis Fed's director of research, Christopher Waller, yesterday, in which Waller indicated that such an inflationary policy has already been decided on for the Fed's Nov. 2-3 meeting, and the only questions that remained are how much, and how to implement it.

"The likelihood we do something is probably pretty high," Waller said. He indicated that the approach under discussion is that the Fed would buy $250 billion in Treasury securities from one meeting to the next, which is said to be the equivalent of a .25% drop in the interest rate. The total of such purchases over the next year could be $1.5 trillion, but there is that elephant in the room: Fed officials are worried that purchases in that range make it look like the central bank is printing money to pay for the U.S. budget deficit. "That scares people," Waller said.

Time Magazine Warns of Bernanke's and Obama's Hyperinflation: "Will the Federal Reserve Cause a Civil War?"

Oct. 20 (EIRNS)—Some people obviously realize the horror of the policies Obama and Bernanke are carrying out. In an ominous sign of the times, an article posted on Time magazine's business blog by Time senior writer Stephen Gandel, poses the question of whether the Federal Reserve will actually destroy the nation.

Gandel says that the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Nov. 3 could be the most important meeting in Fed history, and he points to a warning on the ZeroHedge.com website that Bernanke's (and Obama's) hyperinflationary scheme could lead to armed conflict within the U.S. The ZeroHedge posting in question, by Tyler Durden, reports that Bank of America economist David Rosenberg believes that the Fed's "quantitative easing" (QE2) strategy "positions U.S. society one step closer to civil war if not worse."

Gandel says that ZeroHedge justifies its predictions of violence as follows: "In a very real sense, Bernanke is throwing Granny and Grandpa down the stairs—on purpose. He is literally threatening those at the lower end of the economic strata, along with all who are retired, with starvation and death, and in a just nation where the rule of law controlled, instead of being abused by the kleptocrats, he would be facing charges of Seditious Conspiracy, as his policies will inevitably lead to the destruction of our republic."

Global Economic News

Built on Hot Air, Spain's Solar Bubble Has Burst

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—In 2007, after three years in power, Spain's socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero succeeded in getting a "feed-in tariff" for solar-power producers passed, which paid solar plantation entrepreneurs an exorbitant EU40 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh) for electricity—about 10 times the going rate—and guaranteed that rate for a full 25 years. At that point, Spain had virtually no solar industry, but the idea was that "green jobs" would follow on the government investment.

And, lured by the free money, they did. Within the year, Zapatero's tariff had drawn over 55,000 "producers," a huge portion of whom were purely speculators. Spain, which had until then imported its solar panels, that year opened its own manufacturing plant, Isofoton, based in Madrid. That same year saw the high point of Spain's wind generation—also built on subsidies—with the country producing its own turbines, through wind-power giant Iberdrola.

However, with the government guarantee, Zapatero's Spain was on the hook for $126 billion in guaranteed subsidies, some 40 years into the future, hardly a "sustainable" business model.

The year 2007 turned out to be the high-water mark for Spanish solar "industry." Forced by budget realities, and with the additional weight of speculators, Zapatero cut the subsidy for new solar installations the next year, 2008. With subsidies cut, a chain reaction of cancelled orders, collapsing profit margins, and cancelled IPOs quickly followed. In June of this year, the government announced "plans" to cut the subsidies for all solar installations by "almost 40%," a virtual death sentence for the industry.

The rise and fall of the Spanish solar industry is documented today by Bloomberg, with explicit warnings for the U.S., Germany, and China. While the Bloomberg News story blames the downfall of the "plan" on the influx of speculators, which is, in part, true, the larger truth is the wholly "uneconomical" use of solar radiation, as it presents itself on the planet's surface. The time has come to acknowledge that nature has a much better way of utilizing sunlight, through chlorophyll, which is where the color green actually comes from.

China Starts Research on 'Super-Speed' Rail

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—China has begun research and development on a new "super-speed" railway technology, an official with China's Ministry of Railways (MOR) said today. The new technology will increase the average speed of trains to over 310 mph, said MOR chief engineer He Huawu, at a conference held in central China's Wuhan City.

Meanwhile, the 250-310 mph high-speed railway technology is in its final phase of development, and the 235 mph trains are already coming off production lines, he added.

To go beyond the "super-speed" railroad technology, maglev is required. China's maglev route connecting the Shanghai Airport with the city has been in operation from before the opening of the greatly successful Shanghai Expo. Total attendance for the Expo, which closes Oct. 30, should top 70 million people. While comparatively few of the attendees have experienced the maglev, a significant proportion of the world's elite have made it to Shanghai for the Expo and have ridden the next generation of guided transportation.

United States News Digest

Hey, Tea Party! Where's the Outrage? Where's Glass-Steagall?

Oct. 18 (EIRNS)—Despite the desire of some political "leaders," demands for "Glass-Steagall, Now!" are increasing in the blogosphere, in the print media, and on widely read websites. Among recent examples, a letter in the Albany Union in New York's state capital on Oct. 18 underscores the deadly reality that without the LaRouche movement's guidance, the Tea Partyers will be turned into fascist mobs mindlessly demanding cuts in catfood expenditures.

Starting his letter headed, "Stop Influence of Wall Street," writer Jack Cassidy notes "...The Tea Party and Tea Party-friendly Republicans have been misguided in what they think are the problems.... The lack of banking regulation can be traced to the lobbying that led to the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a bank regulation law. That turned the investment houses into a house of cards making money by gambling with collateralized debt and credit default swaps rather than investing in jobs in America. To this day, the Tea Party and Tea Party-friendly Republicans have been resisting all attempts to pull the plug that would drain the swamp and restore regulation to Wall Street. The lobbyists are the alligators who have been influencing Congress (and the administration), while sending a false message to the Tea Parties that regulation (by 'big government') is the problem. Ironically, the alligators are fed by taxpayer dollars via the bank bailouts. To permanently drain the swamp we need to not only restore Glass-Steagall but also eliminate the influence of Wall Street money on our government with a constitutional amendment."

The demand that the Tea Partyers wake up and fight for Glass-Steagall was echoed in a posting on Huffington Post, "America's Challenge: Stealing from the Poor," by Final Audit: A Trail of Greed and Revenge novelist Jim Worth: "...Similarly the taxpayer will eat it from the failure of FinReg to return to Glass-Steagall type protection allowing predatory banksters to continue their questionable practices and line their pockets. Congressional patsies failed the American people, missing opportunities to fairly realign and correct the excesses of big financial and health-care institutions. Where is the outrage? Where are the Tea Partyers on this important issue?"

House Dems Resist Austerity Commission Attack on Social Security

Oct. 21 (EIRNS)—More than half of the House Democratic caucus wrote to President Obama on Oct. 18, notifying him that they will oppose any recommendations from his Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka Catfood Commission) that privatizes or cuts Social Security. The large, 136-member bloc, led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), wrote that they would oppose any cut to Social Security benefits, any increase of the retirement age, and any effort to privatize Social Security.

"If any of the commission's recommendations cut or diminish Social Security in any way, we will stand firmly against them," they wrote. "We urge you to join us in protecting and strengthening Social Security rather than letting it fall victim to a misguided attempt to reduce budget deficits on the backs of working families.... Cutting Social Security benefits beyond the already scheduled increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67 would create even more needless hardship for millions of vulnerable Americans," they wrote. "This is especially true in the face of an economic downturn that has wiped out trillions of dollars that Americans were relying on for their retirement security and the increased dismantlement of the private and public pension systems."

Bankruptcies Soar Among Older Americans

Oct. 24 (EIRNS)—The number of elderly who are filing for bankruptcy is soaring, indicating sensuously what Lyndon LaRouche has warned of as the breakdown of the social integument of America. According to a recent study by University of Michigan Prof. John Pottow, the 55- to 64-year-old age group, has sharply increased as a percentage of all bankruptcy filings, rising from 6.1% in 1991, to 7.2% in 2001, and then exploding to 15.3% in 2007. Likewise, the 65 years and older age group has increased as a percentage of all bankruptcy filers, from 2.1% in 1991, to 7.0% today.

This shift has occurred during a personal bankruptcy explosion, as the total absolute number of those filing for bankruptcy from every age group has risen.

Moreover, in a result shattering common perception, it is the elderly, not the young, who have the higher credit card debt. According to Pottow, the average elderly bankruptcy filer's combined credit card debt was $26,213, nearly twice that of the younger filer. In general, older people have to cover growing medical expenses, which neither private medical insurance nor Medicare adequately cover. If Obama's Nazi attacks on Social Security and Medicare are allowed to continue, wiping out the meager income and medical base of many elderly, there will be nothing to stop tens of millions of elderly from plunging into Hell.

Obama Depression Dismantling Education

Oct. 24 (EIRNS)—America's educational system is being dissolved, as the ongoing systemic world economic breakdown collapse forces states and counties to make drastic education cuts. In January, the head of the National Education Association said that as many as 200,000 teachers would be fired during fiscal year 2011. Meanwhile, President Obama is implementing his "Race to the Top" program, which has reduced education to the days of segregation of the 1950s, and emphasized "standardized tests." Many governors and legislators making the cuts say they have no other choice: not so, if they adopt the LaRouche Plan.

In Washington, D.C., where recently deposed School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, the nationwide leader for Obama's "Race to the Top," further destroyed the school system, the spending per student has been slashed from $14,594 in fiscal year 2008, to just $9,000 in fiscal year 2011, a drop of 38%. More than 150 D.C. teachers have been fired, and spending for educational material and other essentials has been slashed.

Throughout the greater Washington, D.C., area, the same condition holds: the Arlington, Virginia school system, for example, reduced its spending per student by $3,200, or 16% from year 2009 to fiscal year 2011; Maryland's Prince George's County cut its spending per student by 8%.

Issa Takes Impeachment Off the Table

Oct. 22 (EIRNS)—Rep. Darryl Issa (R-Calif.) told Bloomberg in an interview reported by The Hill today, that if Republicans win control of the House in the Nov. 2 elections, there is "not a chance at this point" that they will try to impeach President Obama.

If the Republicans win control of the House, Issa would be the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. As ranking minority member on that Committee, Issa wrote to the Justice Department in the Spring, demanding an investigation into the Obama Administration's offers of jobs to Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and Colorado, since the offers amounted to bribes, if they would drop their campaigns challenging incumbent Democratic Senators.

Now Issa says that Republicans will not try to bring impeachment charges simply because they disagree with the President: "Not a chance at this point. I don't see it happening.... Look, disagreeing with the President, the President using his authority, maybe even misusing it, that's not what impeachments are for," Issa replied to a question on impeaching Obama on Bloomberg's "Political Capital," which aired the weekend of Oct. 23-24.

In a recent campaign appearance, Issa had declared that he would "staff up" the House Oversight Committee for increased investigations of matters such as the bribes offered to candidates Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) and Andrew Romanoff (D-Colo.). Now, he says that offers of Federal jobs to dissuade someone from running for office against sitting Congressmen are illegal, but other Presidents have done it, too. Thus, Issa has done an about-face publicly, and taken impeachment off the table.

Ibero-American News Digest

LaRouche: Mobilize U.S. Military to Prevent Genocide in Haiti

Oct. 25 (EIRNS)—Responding to reports that the cholera epidemic which broke out in the northwestern part of Haiti in mid-October had appeared in the capital of Port-au-Prince, Lyndon LaRouche stated today that, "it is still not too late to save hundreds of thousands of lives in Haiti." The Obama Administration, he said, "must immediately offer to return the U.S. military to Haiti, to coordinate emergency provision of clean water supplies, and then carry out the mission of mass relocation out of the disease-breeding hellholes to which at least 1.5 million Haitians have been consigned by our negligence. There is little doubt that the Haitian government would accept such an offer to save their nation."

LaRouche was referring to the hideous "temporary" camps in which 1.5 million displaced have been living for ten months since the Jan. 12 earthquake. Bereft of the most basic sanitation services, clean drinking water, and medical care, these camps are unfit for human beings, but perfect sites for rapid transmission of the deadly 01 strain of cholera now spreading in the country.

It is confirmed that the outbreak originated in the contaminated waters of the Artibonite River, in the northwestern Artibonite District which is the epicenter of the epidemic. To date, 3,115 are reported infected and 253 dead. But Dr. Jon Andrus, Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), told a press briefing in Washington, D.C. today, that the official number of cholera cases being reported in Haiti "underrepresents the true numbers." This is because many people who are infected are asymptomatic, and can carry the bacteria and transmit it to others for up to two weeks. Cholera, he added, is "well established" in the country, and "it's clear to us that this won't go away for several years."

Three days after the Oct. 20 outbreak in the Artibonite, five cases were diagnosed in the capital. Immediately, some foreign NGOs and medical authorities argued that these couldn't possibly represent a new location of infection, because the victims had contracted the disease in the Artibonite and then traveled to the capital. Dr. Ariel Henry, chief of staff of Haiti's Health Ministry, countered these reports that Port-au-Prince will somehow escape being hit. "I have no doubt that [cholera] will arrive in Port-au-Prince, because people are moving a lot. It will arrive during this next week, probably," he predicted. PAHO's Dr. Michel Thieren also warned against reading too much into the "slight improvement in the fatality rate" over the past 36 hours. "The epidemic has not spread yet, but it is still increasing roughly at the same rate in the Artibonite area."

On Oct. 23, LaRouche recalled that, "I warned that this Administration's policy towards Haiti would lead precisely towards this sort of outbreak, and it has now done that.... While we move to invoke the 25th Amendment to get [Obama] out, we should simultaneously demand the offer of a military deployment that will save lives. With the Haitians facing a disease that can kill within hours once it strikes, our humanity demands no less."

British-run Darién Gap a Haven for FARC Narcoterrorists

Oct. 20 (EIRNS)—It may turn out that the 60 miles of swampy "impenetrable" jungle, in a region with the third-highest average annual rainfall on the planet (about 9,000 mm, or 350 in.), is the least of the problems to be "tamed" in the Darién Gap.

As the just-published LPAC-TV video, "Taming the Darién Gap," explains, the Darién National Park on the Panamanian side of the border with Colombia is used "by the narcoterrorist cocaine cartel, the FARC, to hide out, traffic drugs, and commit their vicious murders and kidnappings freely."

On Oct. 4, the Colombia military and police launched "Operation Darién," in which they attacked a FARC camp in Jurado, Chocó, on the Pacific coast of Colombia about 1 kilometer from the Panama border. Using Super Tucano planes and 15 helicopters, followed by 180 commandos moving in to seize the area, the attack killed three top leaders of the FARC's 57th Front which operates in the area, who went by the noms de guerre, "Ignacio," "Silver," and "Nader."

"Ignacio" was a 25-year veteran of the FARC, responsible for its drug-trafficking activities in the area, according to Colombian authorities, "sending more than 36 tons of cocaine from the Darién region to Central America and the United States." The cocaine, with a street value of over $1 billion, was used to purchase weapons for the FARC cartel's activities throughout the country. "Silver" was in charge of the financial side of the operations.

The FARC operated freely on both sides of the border, in what opponents of the Darién Gap infrastructure project always lyingly characterize as "impenetrable" jungle. In fact, the Panamanian side of the border with Colombia is 90% taken over by the Darién National Park, created in 1980, and enshrined as a "Biosphere Reserve" in 1982 by the British Monarchy's World Wildlife Fund, among others.

The FARC's 57th Front was very active in exactly this park area. "Ignacio" was on Panama's "Most Wanted" list, with a $300,000 reward on his head.

In 1986, the WWF-allied United Nations Environment Program officially stated that the greatest "threat" to its Darién National Park was that, "Funds have been released by the U.S. Congress for completion of the Pan-American Highway through the site."

Argentina Reopens Its Uranium-Enrichment Plant in Rio Negro

Oct. 25 (EIRNS)—Today, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner presided over the ceremony to officially reopen the Pilcaniyeu uranium-enrichment plant located in the Patagonian province of Rio Negro. During her speech, she emphasized that she was returning to Argentines, rights which "never should have been given up ... the right to control strategic nuclear resources which had been abandoned in the 1990s."

The plant originally began operating in 1983, under the supervision of the Rio Negro state nuclear technology company INVAP, in coordination with the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEA). It was shut down by the Bush-allied Carlos Menem government in the 1990s, acting at the behest of British-run political factions in Washington, to punish Argentina for being so "uppity" as to develop this advanced technology.

At that time, Argentina was the only country in Ibero-America possessing this capability. Current President Fernández de Kirchner, and her predecessor and husband, Néstor Kirchner, have made the revival of the nuclear industry a top priority, to ensure the country has a reliable energy supply.

In reopening the plant, President Fernández said that this event is a milestone which defines "an absolutely different country which places an emphasis on science and technology." It is a source "of great pride for all Argentines," she said.

Initially, the Pilcaniyeu plant will produce 20%-enriched uranium only to fuel its research reactors, but will increase production to eventually fuel Argentina's fourth, 1,500 MW reactor, Atucha III, to be built over the next three to four yeas.

Environmental groups in the area have been mobilized since last May, charging that the plant will contaminate the air and water of the surrounding region, which they want to preserve as a "non-nuclear municipality."

Western European News Digest

Stuttgart Pro-Railway Project Camp Building

Oct. 23 (EIRNS)—Building on a continuously expanding supporter base on the Internet and in discussion blogs on the media, the number of those who are taking to the streets to voice support for the Stuttgart 21 railway project keeps growing. Today, the rally in Stuttgart, of about 30,000 protesters against the project, will be matched by a pro-rally of about 10,000. A pro-rally of 150 also took place in the city of Aalen, near Stuttgart yesterday.

Twenty-one mayors in the greater Stuttgart region have also signed a statement, circulated by the European LaRouche Youth Movement, in defense of the project. "We hold that Stuttgart 21 and the Stuttgart-Ulm railway project offer a unique chance for development for the state [Baden-Württemberg], the region and for each individual municipality," the declaration says.

Meanwhile, the first round of "mediation" talks between the pro and con camps was also held yesterday, with Winfried Kretschmann, chairman of the Green Party's group in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, She interpreted the talks as a "clear sign" that not only in Stuttgart but throughout the nation, "it will no longer be possible to carry through on big projects like Stuttgart 21 in the future, as in the past."

Gotthard Base Tunnel Celebrates Breakthrough: 'This Tunnel Is the Future!'

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—On Oct. 15, workers completed the ceremonial drilling of the last five feet of the 35-mile-long (57 km) Gotthard Base Tunnel beneath the Alps in Switzerland, now the longest tunnel in the world. Celebrations were held both under and above ground, in the Swiss village of Sedrun, attended by 200 dignitaries as well as the miners—with fireworks, flags, and champagne underground. An additional special gala celebration was held to fete all the 2,000-plus tunnel workers. The scene featured white table linens, plenty of champagne, hardhats, and flags from more than a dozen home countries of the miners, including Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Turkey, as well as Switzerland.

Miners spoke up both at the tunnel ceremony, and the party. Hubert Baer, the tunnel foreman, from Austria, said—as the giant drilling machine bore through the last rock, "This is the most wonderful moment in my 36 years of tunnel building." He said, "It's a wonderful feeling. It's an honor to have participated in the construction of the longest rail tunnel in the world." He stood alongside miners from Portugal and Turkey.

European television networks broadcast the celebrations and comments live from the scene. Dirk Schwarz, a German tunneler said, "This is a moment charged with emotion, very moving. It's been very impressive. It's a unique project."

German electrician Dieter Meyer told the Associated Press, that Germans should reconsider their opposition to new rail projects. "This tunnel is the future," he said.

Metal Workers Protest in Italy

Oct. 16 (EIRNS)—A large metal workers' demonstration took place today in Rome. Seven trains and 700 buses brought workers from throughout Italy. Police estimate there were about 80,000 demonstrators, but organizers say there were "several hundred thousand." In contrast with France, however, the Italian trade union movement is split. The demonstration was organized by the most radical metal workers union, FIOM, whereas the two other large unions, FIM and UILM, opposed the demonstration.

Sunday's demonstration was held in reaction to automaker Fiat's decision to break the national contract as a condition of continuing to keep production in Italy, specifically in the southern Italian city Pomigliano d'Arco, near Naples. Fiat has a two-faced agenda: On one side, it promises investments in Italy to keep some production sites; on the other side, it is moving some production to Serbia. The CISL and UIL unions have signed a new contract with Fiat, whereas CGIL has not.

Huge Cuts in British National Health Service

Oct. 18 (EIRNS)—While the Conservative government claims that it will not cut the National Health Service (NHS) budget, the reality is quite different. No cuts also means no increases to the budget. With a real inflation rate of close to 5%, rapidly pushing up costs, an aging population, and a "mini-baby boom," the individual health trusts are each making massive cuts that amount to a total health budget cut of 6%. In fact, according to a report in today's Independent, nearly 15,000 jobs have been cut in the last nine months. Dozens of hospitals have shut wards, removed beds, or are planning to do so. Others have announced plans to cut back on services they offer.

Health aid agencies which have received aid from the health budget are preparing for major shortfalls and cuts in the money they receive from the government. While the government claims that the NHS will receive additional funds over the next three years, the various health trusts that make up the NHS system have been told to make cuts up to £20 billion over the same period, which cuts represent 6% of the NHS budget.

Dr. Peter Carter, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing said that, despite the government's promises, "we are seeing on the ground thousands of job cuts, vacancies frozen, staff down banded, and services closed. While the government claims it will increase by 1.5% the money allocated for drugs, the price of drugs in increasing by 10% annually.

German Greens Pick Up Where Social Dems Lose

Oct. 21 (EIRNS)—The Social Democrats (SPD) being on the seemingly unstoppable decline, with recent opinion polls placing them already behind the Greens in ratings, the Green Party also wants to take power in the municipal parliament of the German capital, in the elections in September 2011. The SPD's candidate, incumbent Mayor Klaus Wowereit, is most likely to be challenged by Renate Künast, a national leader of Greens, and a former agricultural minister in the SPD-Green national government before 2005. Indeed, the Greens in Berlin may outdo the SPD, in terms of votes. But these scenarios will definitely be challenged and ruined by the BueSo, with a program for the reindustrialization of Berlin that will appeal to reasonable voters who oppose the red-green ecologism.

Russia and the CIS News Digest

Pirates of the Caribbean Detail New Privatization in Russia

Oct. 21 (EIRNS)—Reflecting the ongoing poisoning of Russian policy by British free-trade doctrines and the people who implement them—the "Pirates of the Caribbean" clique of financial interests operating in Russia, while registered in British-run offshore zones—the Russian government has released more details of the privatization binge announced by Sub-Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin in August.

Following a closed-doors meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov yesterday revealed more on the biggest planned privatization since the 1990s, intended to raise up to 1.8 trillion rubles ($60 billion) by 2015. Total or partial stakes in up to 900 companies are to be sold, including 15% of the state-owned oil company Rosneft and, in 2013-15, up to 25% of Russian Railways (earlier said by the Economics Ministry to have been off the list).

Kudrin has said that up to $30 billion raised in 2011-12 would go chiefly for budget-balancing purposes—because, since 2008, Russia has already spent nearly all of its previous oil and gas export-derived Stabilization Fund earnings on the rescue of teetering banks and large companies—and to fill budget holes. As of yesterday's meeting, the time frame has been extended by two years and the money-raising target doubled.

"They'll have trouble selling it," Lyndon LaRouche said at the time of Kudrin's announcement in August, adding that the approach of trying to attract foreign streams of money, stemmed from the "British Intelligence penetration of Russia." Since then, Kudrin has been named Finance Minister of the Year by Euromoney magazine.

Shuvalov said the government may sell part of its 51.2% stake in Aeroflot-Russian Airline. He said Russia was prepared to privatize Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, but needed time to integrate all three Moscow airports into one hub, which he admitted could not be achieved through privatization. A 100% stake in the United Grain Company and 50% minus one share in the state-owned shipping company Sovkomflot, will be offered during the next three years.

"We're sending investors a clear signal for the next three years, and we're prepared to discuss the sale of even larger stakes," Shuvalov was quoted in Russian media. Smaller pieces of the Federal Grid Company (electricity), RusHydro, Rostelecom, and Rosagrolizing (agricultural leasing operations) are on the list. Shuvalov confirmed that stakes in the state-owned banks Sberbank, VTB, and Rosselkhozbank (the agriculture bank) will be for sale, including up to 50% minus one share of Sberbank, the state savings bank, which has the country's largest deposit and loan base. He said the government might yield control of VTB.

While Shuvalov made these announcements in Moscow, 1990s privatization orchestrator Anatoli Chubais, the former "young reformer" deputy premier who now heads the Rosnano nanotechnologies venture, arrived in San Francisco to entice U.S. "venture capital" into an increasingly privatized Russia.

LaRouchePAC organizers had a vocal and visible presence outside the Russian-American Business Council meeting addressed by Chubais and fellow oligarch Victor Vekselberg (head of the Bahamas-registered Renova Group, as well as Medvedev's Skolkovo "modernization" project), with a large banner saying "Free Russia from the Pirates of the Caribbean" in Russian.

Russian-German Maglev Plan Comes under Attack in Poland

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—Ongoing talks between Russian Railways and German officials on building a magnetically levitated train line between Berlin and Moscow are advanced enough to have come under attack in the Polish Parliament by members of Jaroslaw Kaczynski's opposition Law and Justice Party (PiS). Many in the PiS remain staunchly opposed to the warming of Russian-Polish relations, led by Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk, after the plane crash last April near Smolensk in which President Lech Kaczynski, the PiS leader's brother, died, along with 95 others.

The Polish daily Nasz Dziennik yesterday reported that Artur Gorski, a PiS Member of Parliament, has submitted a parliamentary question, aimed against construction of a maglev line between Germany and Russia, across Poland. Gorski demands that Prime Minister Tusk "present the government's position" on plans to build it. Calling the project "an unprecedented undertaking," if it happens, Gorski says that such a line "would connect an EU member country with a state which is not part of the EU organization, while cutting across Poland."

Gorski says that Russian Railways CEO Vladimir Yakunin touched on the plan for a maglev line between Moscow and Berlin, through Minsk and Warsaw, in a Sept. 20 speech in Berlin. Yakunin reportedly referred to the possibility that Russia's Gazprom might co-finance the project. In his parliamentary question, Gorski notes that the issue had been raised during the July 13-15 Petersburg Dialogue session in Yekaterinburg, attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin. In his view, this means that "Germany and Russia are serious about doing this."

The article includes various spurious arguments from Polish sources against maglev trains as being "too expensive," and against this particular scheme as being geopolitically motivated and disadvantageous to Poland, because the maglev line would allegedly be "extraterritorial," i.e., crossing Poland but not stopping, just as Gazprom arranges some of its pipelines. Nonetheless, Nasz Dziennik quoted Prof. Ryba of the Catholic University in Lublin, saying that Poland could "earn transit fees, and the Tusk government has the ability to go for this if they want to, since Poland is a transit nation."

The article also quoted a spokesman for the Polish national railway company, Polskie Linie Kolejowe (PKP), who said PKP would not rule out taking part in the project. "Major investments like building a transcontinental rail trunk require international agreements on the route, and a system for financing the construction. I would not exclude the participation of PKP in the investment process," PKP press secretary Krzysztof Lancucki said.

Russia Offers to Build Floating Nuclear Plant for Indonesia

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—While discussions are ongoing with Russia to build a conventional nuclear power plant in Indonesia, that country is also a good candidate for a floating nuclear plant, because it as a "country of many islands," said Russian State Duma official Igor Igoshin, Pravda reports today. The first floating nuclear plant, the Akademik Lomonosov with two 25MW reactors, is scheduled to be deployed in Russia's Kamchatka Region in 2012. Pravda reports that if the floating plant were used for desalination, it could produce 240,000 cubic meters of freshwater a day.

Kadyrov Accuses London Over Attack on Chechen Parliament

Oct. 20 (EIRNS)—Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov, a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has accused London of harboring Chechen separatist mastermind Akhmed Zakayev, who was behind the terrorist attack on the Chechen Parliament and on the Ministry of Agriculture building on Oct. 19 that killed six people. Zakayev was given asylum by Britain in 2003 and lives in London.

"The authorities in London and Warsaw are harboring criminals. Why do they shield bandits who have shed blood where there is western democracy? Where is the justice? Let them send their representatives and we will prove Zakayev's guilt. Sooner or later Zakayev, Gakayev, Umarov, Vadalov and other criminals will get what they deserve. We will get our hands on them," Kadyrov said in a press release after the attack.

Under the direction of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, and pressure brought by the British Intelligence-founded Amnesty International and George Soros's Human Rights Watch, many anti-Russia Chechens are now being settled in the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland. Last month, a World Chechen Congress was held in Warsaw, with Zakayev in attendance.

Britain's deployment of Chechens against Russia operates at very many levels. While Zakayev represents Chechen nationalism and Amnesty International attacks Moscow for human rights violations against the Chechens in Chechnya, Britain also runs the Chechen jihadi groups through a number of Islamic terrorist groups that function from Britain. The most important of these is the Saudi-funded Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT). Many HuT members are well-trained Chechens who migrated to Jordan more than a hundred years ago.

Lyndon LaRouche's March 29 statement on the Moscow subway bombings attributed to Chechen radicals, titled "Look to British Intelligence behind the Moscow Bombings," was widely circulated and currently appears on close to 1,500 web pages in Russian translation.

Ivanov Warns Of 'Catastrophic' Consequences Of Obama Drug Policy

Oct. 23 (EIRNS)—Russia's top anti-narcotics official, Victor Ivanov, gave an interview to Foreign Policy magazine yesterday, in which he lambasted the Obama Administration's failure to shut down the Afghan opium trade, and warned that if California legalizes marijuana in the upcoming ballot referendum, it will have "catastrophic" consequences. Ivanov was in the United States last week for his sixth meeting with his U.S. counterpart, White House anti-drug director Gil Kerlikowske. Before his Washington meetings, Ivanov traveled to Los Angeles to oppose the marijuana legalization ballot initiative.

Next week's issue of EIR Online will report in depth on Ivanov's intervention.

Southwest Asia News Digest

LaRouche To Prince Turki: What About Sykes-Picot?

Oct. 23 (EIRNS)—Speaking at the annual meeting of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations in Washington, D.C. yesterday, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki bin-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence and former ambassador to London and Washington, denounced U.S. policy towards the Middle East, focusing on the Obama Administration's kowtowing to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prince's remarks stunned the audience by their bluntness, and their harsh criticism of Washington's failure to deliver on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis, and failure to back the Arab-Israeli peace initiative of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

Prince Turki also accused the Obama Administration of violently infringing upon Pakistan's sovereignty, with drone attacks on sites inside the country; and he implied that the United States was virtually backing Hezbollah, by refusing to force Israel to remove its troops from Lebanese territory, thus justifying the continuation of the armed resistance in the south of the country.

While much of what Prince Turki charged about the Obama Administration's duplicity and failures was true, Lyndon LaRouche warned that Prince Turki was "notably silent about the British role." LaRouche asked: "What would the Prince say about British dirty dealings in the region? What about Sykes-Picot, and the Saudi role in that longstanding British geopolitical manipulation of the entire region?"

"Far too often," LaRouche explained, "the Saudis have acted as puppets of London in their Sykes-Picot colonial pursuits. The flaw in Prince Turki's criticism of the American failures in the Middle East is his coverup of the Saudi partners in London, who created this mess in the first place, and who perpetuate it to this day, through projects like the secret 'al-Yamamah' slush fund for promoting wars and conflicts throughout Southwest, South and Central Asia. It would not be an exaggeration," LaRouche concluded, "to say that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is itself a product of the Sykes-Picot treachery of London and Paris, which often deployed explicitly against traditional American foreign policy objectives. If you look at the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations towards the region, you see very clearly that these are British policies, imposed through British controls over two successive U.S. presidencies."

As head of Saudi intelligence, and later Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Prince Turki was in the epicenter of the Anglo-Saudi manueverings. "He cannot," LaRouche observed, "claim ignorance about this British perfidy."

NAWAPA Video in Arabic Posted To LaRouche Arabic-Language Website

Oct. 23 (EIRNS)—The LaRouche Arabic website and EIR have posted the first NAWAPA tour video produced by the LaRouchePAC's Basement Team, dubbed in Arabic: http://arabic.larouchepub.com/2010/10/23/428/

This comes in the context of a campaign by Lyndon LaRouche's Arab associates to destroy the Desertec insanity sweeping the Arab world. The Arabic website of the LaRouche movement and EIR issued a statement on Oct. 7 by Hussein Askary calling for "killing Desertec," the solar power mega-swindle, describing it as a "satanic/Malthusian" ploy and a "danger to the minds of coming generations, the economy and sovereignty of nations in the Arab countries and Europe," and as "an economic as well as scientific fraud."

The statement stressed: "There is no more effective way to commit genocide against large numbers of people than to deprive them of modern technology to build infrastructure, power production, modern agriculture, and health care." As the fight waged by LaRouche in the U.S. makes it clear what the steps are for recovery, the possibilities for Africa and Asia are known to but a minority of the Arab-speaking population.

This video will be followed by the "NAWAPA Sisters," i.e., the Eurasian case study, Possibilities for Africa, the Darién Gap, and a feature interview with Hussein Askary on the Oasis Plan, the prospect for peace in the Middle East, to be posted very soon.

Obama Lied to Brazil on Iran Uranium Deal

Oct. 25 (EIRNS)—EIR InDepth covers the charges made by former U.S. National Security Council official Flynt Leverett, that President Obama's April 2010 letter to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, stating U.S. willingness to back a uranium-swap agreement with Iran, was never intended seriously. When an agreement on the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) was actually reached among Iran, Turkey, and Brazil, the Administration repudiated it. Here are excerpts from Obama's letter:

"I agree with you that the TRR is an opportunity to pave the way for a broader dialogue in dealing with the more fundamental concerns of the international community," regarding Iran.

"For us, Iran's agreement to transfer 1,200 kg of Iran's low enriched uranium (LEU) out of the country would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran's LEU stockpile. I want to underscore that this element is of fundamental importance for the United States...."

Obama lied that since October 2009, Iran had completely refused to swap the LEU on the territory of any country other than itself, or even discuss it:

"There is a potentially important compromise that has already been offered," writes Obama. "Last November, the IAEA conveyed to Iran our offer to allow Iran to ship its 1,200 kg of LEU to a third country specifically Turkey at the outset of the process to be held 'in escrow' as a guarantee during the fuel production process that Iran would get back its uranium if we failed to deliver the fuel. Iran has never pursued the 'escrow' compromise....

"That is why I question whether Iran is prepared to engage Brazil in good faith, and why I cautioned you during our meeting. To begin a constructive diplomatic process, Iran has to convey to the IAEA a constructive commitment to engagement through official channels—something it has failed to do."

Iran formally notified the IAEA of the agreement on May 14, but Obama summarily rejected the offer.

Asia News Digest

Obama's Going to India on PR Mission

Oct. 21 (EIRNS)—A concerted effort has been launched in Washington to make something out of the Nov. 16-18 visit of President Obama to India. In a report, "Natural Allies: A Blueprint for the Future of US-India Relations," the Center for New American Society, a Washington-based think tank, called for "a bold leap forward" in ties between the two nations. Authored by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns, among others, the report suggests that progress in forging partnership is "falling short of its promise."

The report asserts that India's "rise to global power is in America's interest," and that Washington should not only seek a closer relationship with Delhi, "but actively assist its further emergence as a great power." Both countries have a "vital interest" in maintaining a stable balance of power in Asia, according to the report. "Neither seeks containment of China, but the likelihood of a peaceful Chinese rise increases if it ascends in a region where the great democratic powers are also strong," it said. The report put special emphasis on what it called "an expanded U.S.-India military partnership" and expressed disappointment that "bureaucratic inertia in both countries" has hampered growth in the defense sector.

In Washington, on Oct. 20, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters: "We have made no secret of the fact that we've told Pakistan clearly that we believe that the existential threat to Pakistan is not India; the existential threat to Pakistan involves extremism within its own borders."

What we are observing is a pathetic effort by the Obama Administration to woo India by trying to distance itself from Pakistan.

Key International Links in Eurasian Land-Bridge

Oct. 18 (EIRNS)—Essential "missing links" in the Eurasian Land-Bridge of railroad connections are now being worked out by China, Turkey, Iran, Russia, Armenia, and Myanmar, and—if the world dumps the current bankrupt financial system—transport on the world's biggest landmass could be revolutionized in the coming years.

One project with greatest potential, would be the extension of the Chinese railroad in Tibet. Construction has already begun to extend the existing line to Lhasa, Tibet's capital, to its second city, Xigaze, nearer the border of Nepal and the Chumbi Valley, the easiest access to Tibet from the Indian subcontinent. Another extension is being planned to the town of Nyingchi, close to the "Great Bend" in the Yarlung-Tsangpo Brahmaputra River, where it drops 2,500 meters in the deepest canyon in the world, as the river spills over the edge of the Tibetan plateau into India and Bangladesh.

Chinese authorities are working on plans for a hydroelectric project at this site, which could generate an incredible 38,000 MW of power—equivalent to 8% of the entire U.S. power generation. This project could be an enormous resource not only for China, but also South and Southeast Asia. This project will not be built overnight, but the railroad will be an essential first step to making it possible. PNEs could be used to open tunnels in the canyon wall for the hydropower project.

There is more potential in West Asia. Turkey is now almost finished constructing a 76 km railway tunnel under the Bosphorus, which will allow two-minute transport between the European continent and West Asia, at Istanbul. The country is planning several transport projects at the cost of $100 billion, to be finished by 2023, the centennial of the Republic of Turkey. Plans include building the second longest bridge in the world, 1,700 meters, over the Gulf of Izmit on the Mamara Sea. Turkey will also double its national rail network, including by building a 7,000 km double-tracked high-speed (400 km/hr) system from Edirne on the Bulgarian border to Kars, on the eastern border with Armenia. China will invest some $30 billion in this system, as was agreed when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Turkey Oct. 7-8, and Russia also wants to invest in Turkish transport infrastructure, Zaman reported.

More rail projects are being worked on in West Asia. Iran's rail line to its eastern city of Zahedan has been finished, for the first time in history linking the Indian Subcontinent to the rest of Eurasia, since Zahedan connects to Quetta, Pakistan. Iranian First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi announced Sept. 27 that Iran's rail system will soon be connected to that of Turkey, China, and Europe, IRNA reported. "In the near future, contracts will be signed with four different countries so as to link our country with them via railroads," Rahimi said. An agreement to build a railroad from Iran to Armenia, with possible participation by Russian Railways, has already been signed. China and Iran are also working out a rail project to connect Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

On the eastern front, more rail connections are being planned to connect Southwest China to Southeast Asia, now its second-largest trading partner. Myanmar, which has a very limited rail system dating back to the British Empire, is now planning a railroad to connect the deep-sea port, Kyaukphyu, to Kunming, China. The railroad will bring Myanmar's Mandalay and Magway into the modern economy.

Xinhua: Only U.S. Policy Poses Danger of a 'Currency War'

Oct. 16 (EIRNS)—Rejecting the claims that China is "manipulating" its currency for trade advantages, an editorial by the Xinhua news agency yesterday notes that the real cause of the problem was the U.S. money-printing operation.

"Firstly, the United States is facing a sluggish economic recovery and high unemployment, and the economy has been a major issue of the Nov. 2 midterm elections," Xinhua wrote. "Many U.S. politicians have the impulse to use the RMB [renminbi] exchange rate issue as a scapegoat for the weakness of U.S. economy. They highlighted the question of the yuan's exchange rate and intensified the dispute, making the RMB seem the eye of the storm."

But, Xinhua noted, "The root cause is the Federal Reserve's massive printing of money in response to the financial crisis. The Fed adopted expansionary fiscal and monetary policies and infused massive liquidity into the market, which caused depreciation of its currency. The result is that other related countries, such as those in South Korea, Brazil and Singapore, will face pressure to appreciate their own currencies versus the U.S. dollar, posing challenges to their export and financial security," Xinhua wrote.

South Korea, Turkey To Sign Nuclear Deal at G-20

Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—On his return from a four-country tour of East Europe and Turkey, Korean Minister of Knowledge and Economy Choi Kyong-hwan announced, "We made unexpected headway with the negotiation with Turkey, and are now anticipating to make an IGA [intergovernmental] agreement, including the prices, during the G-20 Seoul Summit." He added that although approval from the National Assembly should come first, breaking the deadlocked negotiation was the biggest fruit of this visit.

The two reactors are to be built in the Sinope area of north Turkey on the Black Sea, and are to be worth an estimated $10 billion in contracts.

The Minister indicated that Japan, which has recently significantly upgraded its nuclear export efforts, including increased cooperation between government and industry, is a major competitor for the deal. "Japan went to Turkey willing to wage all-out war with joined forces of both private sectors and the public sectors. We have decided to leave our negotiators stationed at Turkey until the agreement is sealed."

There are still important details to be arranged regarding the financing and operation of the plant, but the Korea Times comments, "That the IGA has been mentioned by the Minister himself in the middle of the working-level negotiation means there are substantive results between the two governments."

Cambodian Railroad Link Shows Signs of Life

Oct. 22 (EIRNS)—The first freight train to travel between the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and Touk Meas near the Vietnamese border, arrived at its destination today, opening a line which had been shut down in 2009. Rail travel had been largely at a standstill in Cambodia since the U.S.-backed coup in the country decades ago, followed by the killing fields of dictator Pol Pot. The construction of the line had been farmed out to an Australian company, Toll Holdings, with financing from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and from Malaysia.

The new line fills an important gap in the envisioned rail connection between Singapore and Kunming. "We are on the cusp of a contiguous Iron Silk Road stretching from Singapore to Scotland," said Kunio Senga, Director General of ADB's Southeast Asia Department. "This possibility has been talked about for decades, but today the dream has finally taken a big step toward becoming reality." Cambodia and Vietnam have signed an agreement to link their railroads, with plans to build a line between Phnom Penh and Hanoi.

Africa News Digest

WWF Calls Lake Chad, Sudan Sudd Off-Limits for Human Development

PARIS, Oct. 19 (EIRNS)—Large parts of the Lake Chad basin, a world priority for upgrading through the proposed Transaqua Project of moving water from the Congo River to refill the disappearing Lake Chad, are listed as untouchable for development by Prince Philip's World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The specific designation is that there are wetland habitats for bird life in the Lake Chad basin that must remain off-limits to human projects, under the protocol that was devised at a meeting in 1971 of 18 nations at Ramsar, Iran, held by the environmentalist/genocide lobby.

The agreement is titled the "Convention on Wetlands of International Importance," specifying that each country must designate on its own territory, certain sites to be locked up in the "Ramsar List," now managed by a secretariat run out of the offices of the IUCN in Gland, Switzerland. In 1999, a "strategic framework" was designed "to develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservation of global biological diversity and for sustaining human life through the ecological and hydrological functions they perform."

Chad itself has inscribed Lake Chad (1.7 ha) and the Logone floodplains (3.0 ha) on the list, and Niger did the same (340,423 ha). Cameroon has its part of the lake (12,500 ha) on the list, together with some 600,000 ha of the Waza Lagone Floodplain (one of the rivers feeding into Lake Chad).

In addition, critical parts of the Sudd in southern Sudan, are on the Ramsar list. This vast marshy area, created by the White Nile, could be "polderized"—transformed into useful farmland—by completing construction of the Jonglei Canal. But fully 5.7 million hectares of the swamp are listed as a "Ramsar Site" to be frozen for eternity.

As of September, 160 nations have signed the Ramsar List convention, and there are 1,898 sites on the list. This represents a total surface area of over 186 million hectares (more than five times the area of Germany!).

The WWF and its cohorts use environmental issues worldwide to prevent economic development, by asserting that human needs are not primary, and that 'saving the environment' is somehow contradictory to improving human development.

Chad Website Covers Transaqua Presentation to Schiller Institute Conference

PARIS, Oct. 22 (EIRNS)—The Chadian website Nouvel Essor yesterday posted an item from the LaRouche-affiliated Solidarity and Progress (Solidarité & Progrès) website, with most of Marcello Vichi's presentation to the Sept. 25 Schiller Institute conference, "Rebuilding the World Economy—NAWAPA, the Bering Strait, and the Eurasian Land-Bridge," in Berlin. In his written presentation, which was read on his behalf, Vichi, the author of the Transaqua study and former director of the company which developed it, advocated the enormous Transaqua infrastructure project, to transport surplus water from the world's second largest river, by volume, the Congo River, to replenish Lake Chad.

In the introduction, the website asks: "While France claims one more time to want to fight for food security in the world, and the ritual of summits and strategic conferences gobbles up almost as much money as the food aid ... nothing is said about the great projects that could radically resolve the problem. What will France do at the World Forum To Save Lake Chad, being held in N'Djamena on Oct. 29-31? Will it preach anti-progress environmentalism or will it defend the Transaqua project to refill it with water?" The posting can be seen at http://nouvelessor.over-blog.com/ article-lac-tchad-mort-douce-ou-grands-projets-59383523.html

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