Ibero-American News Digest

Mexican Conference: 'NAWAPA-PLHINO: A New Concept of Infrastructure'

Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Shining a beacon of optimism into an otherwise desperate situation, the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) of Mexico held a successful day-long conference in the Mexican Congress's principal public auditorium today, on the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) and the Northwest Hydraulic Project (PLHINO), and LaRouche's policy solution to the crisis facing humanity.

Over 180 guests, including high school and university students, professors, Congressional aides, engineers, and other professionals participated. The third panel heard from Sen. Alfonso Elías Serrano and Cong. Rogelio Díaz Brown, both of whom strongly restated their commitment to the PLHINO project, as part of an overall economic policy of returning Mexico to the path of development and sovereignty.

Opening the conference, LYM organizer Lourdes Montes addressed the need to provide a future fit for human beings to a generation of Mexican youth dubbed the ni-ni (neither-nor) generation, because they are neither in school, nor have a job. In her keynote which followed, Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche (via telephone hookup from Germany) called for an alliance of nation-builders who love their nations so, that they develop the programs which make possible the livelihood of the present generation and of generations to come.

Serrano, who had been the PRI party's candidate for governor of Sonora in the 2009 elections, running his campaign on a platform of implementing the PLHINO, gave a 30-minute presentation in which he said that the PLHINO was a project of national significance that is needed to change the overall economic direction of the country, with an eye to the future that must be created. He said that the Calderón government should certainly be pressured to support it, but more important is to educate the population to bring about the necessary changes.

Díaz Brown, who is also from Sonora, spoke for ten minutes, congratulated the LYM for its organizing and educational work, and also emphasized the significance of the PLHINO to help define an economic mission for the nation. He said that, with all due respect, the environmentalists have a different view of things, but they are wrong.

Other speakers included Meghan Rouillard and Sky Shields of LaRouche's Basement scientific team, who spoke by videoconference connection from Leesburg, Va. on the global and extraterrestrial implications of the NAWAPA project; Mexican engineer Manuel Frias, who has developed detailed specifications updating the original PLHINO project; engineer Rafael Basurto of the Union of Nuclear Industry Workers (SUTIN), and LYM organizer Manuel Romero, who presented the role of great projects such as the PLHINO in forging actual national security, using slides to present the history of the LaRouche movement's organizing for the PLHINO and NAWAPA.

Haiti: Obama's Genocidal Neglect Is Leading to Holocaust

Nov. 15 (EIRNS)—With the death toll from cholera crossing the 1,000 mark (1,034 known dead as of Nov. 14) within weeks of the outbreak, the epidemic has now spread to every department (province) of Haiti, with medical sources predicting "hundreds of thousands" of infected. The fatality rate is running at over 6%, and the rate of severe cases between 30 and 40%, far higher than the "typical" outbreak because of the putrid conditions, extreme poverty, and that the disease has not been in Haiti for 40 years. Dr. Stefano Zannini of Doctors Without Borders, told BBC that the focus is on Port-au-Prince, "but from the north and northwest we are hearing of a catastrophic situation with bodies in the streets."

Medical facilities and personnel are overwhelmed, Haitians are panicking, and there is no U.S. military or other government relief effort even staging in the area of the stricken nation. This is the situation eight months after President Obama refused even to consider several feasible plans for relocation of Haitian earthquake survivors, and Lyndon LaRouche warned that Obama's neglect would bring mass death from disease to Haiti.

Dr. Ian G. Rawson, managing director of Haiti's Hopital Albert Schweitzer, speaking from Haiti on Nov. 12 in an international conference call for media, was asked by EIR if Haiti had requested that the U.S. government repeat its 1994 airlift of anti-cholera supplies into the Rwandan refugee camps in Goma, Zaire where a 24 hour/day airlift of 20 million salt rehydration tablets was done under President Bill Clinton, and waste-water purification equipment airlifted as well?

The speakers were aware of no U.S. plans to airlift aid. In fact, there are currently no U.S. ships in Haiti, the USS Iwo Jima, which has substantial medical capacity, having been deployed away from Haiti on Nov. 9. Only NGOs and private corporations are bringing in aid, with a USAID team, and a CDC team on the ground to give advice.

Thomas Tighe, the CEO of Direct Relief International, answered EIR: "The resources of the U.S. government far exceed any other resources. We go through private channels because that's our model. I have to hope that all people in a position to help step up."

Cholera is preventable and treatable. It is not expensive to treat cholera: oral rehydration tablets cost pennies. Bleach, buckets, soap, sanitizers are all cheap materials. But Haiti produces none of these, and a national distribution network has never existed.

The UN is asking for $163.9 million in aid over the next year to combat it. This is absurd when $5-6 billion was supposedly already pledged to help Haiti recover, of which very little has arrived.

And the spread of cholera to the neighboring Dominican Republic, inevitable under current no-action policies, has now begun.