Yesterday's Real Journalist News - THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2018

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THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2018

• Perfidious Albion Delenda Est
• ‘Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared’; Will He Go Down Next?
• Meyssan: British Government Runs Jihadi Propaganda in Syria
• Russian Ministry Officials Say London Has Driven Itself into a ‘Dead End’ on Skripal Affair
• African Presidents, Labor, and Industry Fight EU Effort To Suck Their Continent into Free Trade
• Foreign Investors Increasingly Eye Russia’s Far East
• Morgan Stanley Strongly Promotes the Belt and Road Initiative
• Duisport Booming as Eurasian Transportation Hub Because of New Silk Road
• China-Japan-South Korea Summit To Take Place in May
• Hyten Confirms U.S. Has No Defense against Russian Hypersonic Weapons
• Acting Administrator Lightfoot: Why There Is an ‘N’ in NASA

EDITORIAL
Perfidious Albion Delenda Est
March 21 (EIRNS)—The British Empire, threatened with its final demise, unleashed a desperate ploy this month, claiming without any evidence that Russia had used a nerve gas to attack Sergei and Yulia Skripal on British soil. London called on its trusted Western allies—and most of all, the United States—to rally behind its evil geopolitical designs, for war on Russia, and likely also China, intent on preserving their imperial division of the world into East and West. After all, the ploy had worked so often in the past. As the Lords so delight in saying: British brains and American brawn can preserve the Empire, even though the age has long passed when Britannia Ruled the Waves.

But the world has changed. Rather than dutifully following the “special relationship” with the Mother Country, President Donald Trump, on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, instead called President Vladimir Putin. The leaders of the U.S. and Russia held a dignified, extensive discussion about the necessity that these two great nations, together with China under the able leadership of Xi Jinping, can and must set about to solve the multiple existential crises facing mankind. Adults, discussing the real world, providing real leadership to a world brought to the brink of thermonuclear holocaust and global economic chaos by the misleadership of the Lords of London and their satrapies in Europe and America.

Together, Presidents Trump, Putin and Xi have already demonstrated that terrorism can be defeated, and that through economic cooperation in the spirit of the New Silk Road, the world economy can bring all peoples into a prosperous and harmonious paradigm of human development.

For once, Perfidious Albion must stand alone, and it is increasingly obvious to the whole world that they have nothing to stand on. For 50 years, Lyndon LaRouche has warned Americans that British geopolitics and monetary policies were driving the U.S. and the world towards economic destruction, while the U.S. carried out colonial wars on behalf of the Empire. The fact that President Trump has dedicated himself to restoring the American System, as championed (essentially alone) by LaRouche over this past half-century, while also declaring that the great powers of Russia, China and the United States must be friends, means that the British Empire is facing is final demise.

This, of course, is the reason that British intelligence launched the Russiagate coup attempt against President Trump. That campaign is collapsing, and its perpetrators are being exposed as traitors, along with the corrupt corporate media, which is apoplectic about Trump’s call to Putin. With Russiagate greatly weakened, President Trump has gained the strength to carry out his original diplomatic intentions, as the world saw on Tuesday, March 20, a day that will be remembered in history. The implementation of American System economic policies, as presented in LaRouche’s Four Laws, is equally urgent, as the impending collapse of the financial bubble can undermine the new paradigm.

It is a time for action. The world now sees the British Empire for what it is, and the alternative in the New Silk Road, creating a shared destiny of progress and cooperation for all nations. Focus every effort on this strategic goal. Allow no diversions. Victory is at hand.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
‘Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared’; Will He Go Down Next?
March 21 (EIRNS)—The above headline, on a March 19 article by Ray McGovern, of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), appropriately captures the mindset of the psychopath former CIA Director John Brennan, whose hysterical attacks on President Donald Trump reflect his own, clearly deep-seated fears, that after the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, he may be House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’s next target and could end up in jail.

On Saturday, March 17, after news of McCabe’s firing was reported, Brennan let out a stream of vituperative tweets aimed at Trump:

“When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America … America will triumph over you.”

As McGovern points out, these threats have more to do with the fact that Brennan is terrified. “His own unauthorized disclosures and leaks probably dwarf in number, importance and sensitivity those of McCabe.” Nunes’s words that “if they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial,” McGovern suggests, must have sent chills down Brennan’s spine.

So, Brennan’s hysteria is reaching a fever pitch. Yesterday, after Trump’s phone call to Russian President Putin congratulating him on his election victory, and suggesting they meet sometime soon, Brennan went berserk, complaining of the President’s “fawning attitude” toward Putin. He told MSNBC, earlier today, “I think the President has shown a lack of understanding of international affairs, as well as a real ignorance of what it takes to be President. He is mean-spirited, he is dishonest, he has shown a lack of integrity, and he has continued to demean the office of the presidency.” In response to the report that Trump had been advised not to congratulate Putin, Brennan ranted, “I believe that there are individuals within the White House, the national security [team] and also within Congress that are looking at Mr. Trump, seeing that he is acting more and more like a cornered animal, and lashing out whatever way he can. And who knows what that cornered animal will do once they see the threat to their survival.”

Seems like Brennan is describing his own behavior, rather than Trump’s.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Meyssan: British Government Runs Jihadi Propaganda in Syria
March 21 (EIRNS)—On March 16, Thierry Meyssan, president and founder of Voltaire Network think tank published a report describing the three main jihadi groups remaining in Eastern Ghouta, that are not Jabhat al Nusra (al-Qaeda)—Jaish al Islam, Faylaq al Rahman, and Ahrar al Sham—including a capsule history of each group and their ideologies which is broadly coherent with what is already publicly known about them. This alone would be of interest, but Meyssan concludes with something of far greater strategic significance. He states that all three groups have highly polished propaganda operations, as can be seen through their websites and social media accounts. “All of this communication material is manufactured by the United Kingdom,” he writes, by an outfit called the Research, Information and Communications Unit, or RICU. “Starting from the chemical weapons case in the summer of 2013, the RICU financed an external company to assist the communication of combatants in Syria (and subsequently those of Yemen). It was initially Regester Larkin, then Innovative Communications & Strategies (InCoStrat). Both companies are headed by an MI6 officer, Colonel Paul Tilley.” RICU, which is a joint operation of the Foreign Office and the Home Office, was headed, for a time, by one Jonathan Allen, now the U.K.’s deputy UN ambassador. “He is currently leading the Security Council against Russia and Syria,” Meyssan concludes.

According to his official biography posted by the U.K. government, Allen founded the RICU in 2007 and headed it until 2012, when he took up the post of U.K. ambassador to Bulgaria which he held until 2015, when he returned to the FCO as Director, National Security and concurrently as Acting Director General, Defence and Intelligence until April 2017 when he moved to New York. Allen’s successor as the head of RICU was one Richard Chalk, who came to RICU from the PR firm Bell Pottinger.

Further research shows RICU to be a shadowy propaganda unit. What coverage is available on it mostly focuses on its “counter-radicalization” program called “Prevent” which ostensibly is aimed at convincing British Muslims not to join extremist groups like ISIS. According to a 2016 article in the Guardian, their methods are highly deceptive, in that they hire big PR firms, their favorite being one called Breakthrough Media Network Ltd., to run public information programs that hide the fact that the origin of the information that they spread is a government agency. RICU describes itself as engaged in “strategic communications” which “aims to effect behavioural and attitudinal change” says one RICU document seen by the Guardian.

Meyssan appears to be one of very few investigators who connect RICU to the jihadi groups in Syria. One March 14, 2017 article, in a location called the Dawn News which links back to a May 26, 2016 French video report by Meyssan (with a Spanish-language transcript), reporting that the Foreign Office has put InCoStrat in charge of communication and propaganda for both the White Helmets and the jihadi groups. “Both the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the White Helmets are aligned with the goals set by an organism created by the British government to supervise all of the propaganda and communication against Syria,” that organism being RICU, Dawn Newsreports.

Russian Ministry Officials Say London Has Driven Itself into a ‘Dead End’ on Skripal Affair
March 21 (EIRNS)—Today, Vladimir Yermakov, head of the Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov, Commander of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops, gave an extensive and hard-hitting briefing at the Foreign Ministry on the Skripal case, and London’s unfounded accusations against Russia, to all foreign ambassadors in Moscow. According to reports in both Sputnik and TASS, all European Union ambassadors, attended the briefing. Britain’s Embassy was absent. Maria Olson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy told TASS that Ambassador Jon Huntsman would not be attending the briefing, but that a “working-level participant” would attend instead.

Coinciding with this briefing is the report from Moscow’s Ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, that as a result of the British hysteria against Russia, Russian citizens living and working in the U.K. are being harassed and attacked, and fear for their safety and that of their children.

In their remarks, Yermakov and Kirillov raised pointed questions about London’s irrational behavior, its making accusations but providing no evidence, and ignoring the clearly-defined protocols established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), for bilateral consultations in such cases. Russia, Yermakov said, doesn’t owe anything to anyone, and surely can’t be held responsible for the “acts of idleness of the British authorities on their own territory,” TASS reported. In fact, he said, London is getting increasingly nervous, as “they’ve driven themselves into a dead end; but in the end, they will have to answer the growing number of questions” about this whole affair.

Yermakov affirmed that “either the British authorities are unable to protect from a terrorist attack on their territory or they staged the attack themselves…. If the subject of the investigation has not been determined for sure, and all facts are being intentionally covered up, while the real evidence may have already disappeared, since this has happened in the U.K. more than once, then it is not clear what issue the U.K. side has.”

While he recalled that on Sept. 27, 2017 the OPCW confirmed that Russia had completed destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile, General Kirillov pointed out that the United States has not yet destroyed its own arsenal of chemical weapons. General Kirillov also said that the U.K. has presented no evidence that the nerve agent allegedly used to poison Skripal was made in Russia, and furthermore, that in 1962, the U.K. obtained a patent for the production of organophosophorus VX nerve agent, and the Porton Down laboratory in London, only a few kilometers from Salisbury where Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious, was one of the key British centers conducting research into chemical warfare agents.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
African Presidents, Labor, and Industry Fight EU Effort To Suck Their Continent into Free Trade
March 21 (EIRNS)—The European Union’s attempts to lure the African Union into a big new free trade agreement, which about 25 African governments are to discuss and sign during a summit in the Kigali, Rwanda starting today, have failed to pull Nigeria, into the scheme. Citing strong opposition to the agreement coming from industry as well as labor in his country, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari canceled his trip to Kigali, declaring that more discussion and thorough study of the proposals for free trade were required.

Two years ago, Buhari told the European Parliament that the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), by which Europe pushes to have African countries lifting their customs duties on EU products by 80%, would ruin agriculture and industry in his country and prevent Nigeria from industrializing, because it is not yet strong enough to withstand competition from outside. His view is shared by the Presidents of Tanzania and Uganda.

Sani Yan Daki, deputy director general of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), told Germany’s Deutsche Welle news service: “Nigeria is still a developing economy. The infrastructure critical to manufacturing is not really there in Nigeria today…. Who is going to buy Nigerian products? Nobody is going to buy them. Industries in Nigeria will collapse.”

Economist Augustus Niwagaba from Uganda’s Makarere University also pointed out that “it is important to first understand the impact of opening the borders in order to avoid killing manufacturing.” Niwagaba does not accept the free traders’ argument that subsidizing the national industry will prevent it from becoming competitive on an African or global scale—quite the contrary would obtain with protective measures.

For Daki, a main problem for Nigeria is its lack of electrical power which keeps the country from developing its industries and thus becoming competitive in the continental market.

Foreign Investors Increasingly Eye Russia’s Far East
March 21 (EIRNS)— The strategic wealth of Russia’s Far East has been known for years. The total resources of oil in this region thousands of miles away from Moscow and St. Petersburg are estimated at 10-14 billion tons and gas deposits at approximately 14-15 trillion cubic meters (almost one-third of the overall confirmed natural gas resources in the territory of Russia).

Energy commodities represent the main export item of the Russian Far East (70.3%). The latest available data for 2015 indicate the importance of three main countries as trade partners of the region: Japan, China and South Korea, which account for 80% of trade. The EU share amounts to approximately 10%. However, the area has remained mostly unexplored. Its vast size and harsh climate, in which temperatures can drop below @ms40@dgC and rise above 30@dgC, and its sparse population, with the region’s vast distance from the nation’s capital, made the task even more difficult.

A bit of good news for Moscow is that the foreign investors have begun to take interest about the region, which has accounted for about a quarter of all foreign investment into sanctions-hit Russia in the last four to five years; most of that has gone into to manufacturing and transport, as opposed to natural resources, according to a new government report, Asia Times reported today.

“A recent internal report by the Ministry for the Development of the Far East hints that the situation may finally be starting to change. The government strategy of creating multiple special economic zones offering localized tax-breaks, eased visa and customs processes, and other initiatives, has helped the Far East attract 3.7 trillion rubles ($64.8 billion) in foreign investment across 1,200 projects in the last four and a half years, the ministry says in its report,” Asia Times wrote.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Morgan Stanley Strongly Promotes the Belt and Road Initiative
March 21 (EIRNS)—A research report by Morgan Stanley on March 14, titled “Inside China’s Plan To Create a Modern Silk Road,” says that the China has built huge infrastructure projects, but, “the country’s Belt and Road Initiative dwarfs them all, in what many contend is the largest undertaking in the country’s modern history. The initiative will accelerate China’s transformation into a high-income economy and cement its position as a global economic superpower.”

They report that the project has started modestly, but “Morgan Stanley Research believes it will accelerate in 2018. Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley’s Chief China Economist, says “our view [is] that China’s investment in B&R [Belt and Road] countries will increase by 14% annually over the next two years, and the total investment amount could double to $1.2-1.3 trillion by 2027. In the near term, this massive uptick in investment and construction activity bodes well for Chinese companies and countries with an economic link to the China. Long term, the initiative could accelerate China’s transformation into a high-income economy and cement the country’s position as a global economic power.”

Regarding the estimate by the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) of a $21 trillion gap between the infrastructure needs of Belt and Road countries and the available financial support, Morgan Stanley concludes that “Financing and investment via the initiative could fill these needs, giving B&R countries an economic boost. While the participating B&R countries may benefit, China has the potential to notch the biggest win. First, the initiative promotes more strategic outbound investment by China in railways, roads, ports and power plants.”

The Belt and Road Initiative “could help China manufacturers move up the value chain,” while also increasing the use of Chinese currency, “in line with the country’s efforts to internationalize the renminbi (RMB). In some Belt and Road countries, it is already happening. For example, in the past three years, Malaysia’s RMB use grew by 551%, Russia’s by 56% and Thailand’s by 50%.”

Duisport Booming as Eurasian Transportation Hub Because of New Silk Road
March 21 (EIRNS)—What started as a single railway connection from Duisburg, Germany, to one Chinese city, Yiwu, seven years ago, is now an array of connections between the two countries. “Duisburg is the only European port to offer multiple transcontinental train connections to China,” said Peter Plewa, member of the executive board of Duisport, the major inland port of Duisburg. “It now facilitates connections to numerous destinations in China, including Chongqing, Wuhan, Yiwu, Suzhou and Shenyang.” Plewa is also scheduled as a speaker at the Rail Freight New Silk Road conference in Wroclaw, Poland, March 20-22.

The number of “Yuxinou” trains departing in both directions is increasing every year. Whereas the port facilitated 17 journeys on the China Railway Express in 2011, this number jumped to 815 in 2015 and accumulated to 3,271 in 2017, indicating a growth of over 400% since the start of the regular service. As Plewa explained a train departing from Duisburg reaches the western Chinese border of Khoros in 11 days. To enter through the border town of Erenhot, three days should be added to the journey, while the east coast is reached via the gateway of Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia, in 16 days.

The revived interest in the China Railway Express has given Duisport the opportunity to develop the city as a hub, Plewa explains. “Duisburg is the largest inland port worldwide. Our strength is location and our connection to other European countries.”

Apart from a large combined transport network overland, it has many short sea connections to the rest of Europe. Within a radius of 150 km it connects to the Netherlands and Belgium. Within a 600 km radius, it can add Denmark, Czech Republic, Austria, France and the U.K. The Port of Duisburg handles 130 million tons of goods per year, equaling 4 million TEU. In total, it facilitates the arrival and departure of 25,000 trains per year, Plewa outlined.

China-Japan-South Korea Summit To Take Place in May
March 21 (EIRNS)—Despite incessant insinuations from the Western media and pundits, China, Japan and South Korea are planning to hold a summit in early May. Kyodo news agency, citing several unnamed diplomatic sources, said that it could possibly be held on May 8-9. The importance of this summit is not only immense for East Asia, where these three economically dynamic nations are located, but also for Asia as a whole, and beyond. An agreed cooperation among the three for development of economically underdeveloped nations, would push the prospect for a long-term peace worldwide. The last such three-way summit was held in November 2015 in Seoul.

The meeting will be chaired by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and they are expected to discuss steps to boost cooperation in the fields of economy, environment and culture, reported the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun on March 20.

Mainichi Shimbun reports that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi may visit Japan in April to lay the groundwork for the trilateral summit, citing diplomatic sources. At a press conference in Beijing this week, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said he is planning to visit Japan in the first half of this year for the trilateral summit. Li will be the first Chinese premier to visit Japan since Wen Jiabao in May 2011.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Hyten Confirms U.S. Has No Defense against Russian Hypersonic Weapons
March 21 (EIRNS)—Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, admitted yesterday that the U.S. military has no defense against the kinds of hypersonic weapons that Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled on March 1, in his nationally televised Address to the Federal Assembly. The only response the U.S. would be capable of is retaliation, but that assumes that Russia would launch a first strike, which is not its policy. “The first, most important message I want to deliver today is that the forces under my command are fully ready to deter our adversaries and respond decisively, should deterrence ever fail. We are ready for all threats. No one should doubt this,” Hyten said in his opening statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, reported Military.com. But when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) asked him if he could defend against the hypersonic and the other types of weapons that Putin announced, Hyten said: “We have a very difficult—well, our defense is our deterrent capability. We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat.”

Hyten also argued strenuously in favor of the low-yield nuclear options called for in last month’s Nuclear Posture Review, claiming that they are a necessary response to Moscow’s alleged “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine of nuclear first use during a conventional conflict. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) pushed back, however, saying that were the U.S. to employ a low-yield nuclear weapon in response to the Russian use of a low-yield nuclear weapon on the battlefield, there is no reason to think that it wouldn’t escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange.

Acting Administrator Lightfoot: Why There Is an ‘N’ in NASA
March 21 (EIRNS)—Speaking yesterday to the Huntsville, Alabama chapter of the National Space Club, Acting Administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Robert Lightfoot discussed the fundamental reasons why we have a national space program. Lightfoot answered the questions: “Is NASA necessary? Why don’t you just turn it over to the commercial guys?”

“For me,” he said, “it boils down to the ‘N’ in NASA, which is ‘National.’ We have a national capability and a national challenge.”

Lightfoot, who has had a nearly 30-year career at NASA, discussed what only a national space program could do. “We’re actually a pretty significant part of this country’s foreign policy,” he said. “We have agreements with 120 countries through NASA.” Although he didn’t specify, none is more important at this moment than our working relationship with Russia in space.

NASA is also a “part of the aerospace and industrial base, along with our friends in the [Defense Department],” which is important for national security and national economic security. “The other thing that’s important for us is addressing societal challenges,” by applying space technologies on Earth. “We help people with what we do,” he stated simply.

“The other piece that’s important is inspiration and leadership.” And “NASA is a demonstration of what this nation can do.”

At the same time that Lightfoot was explaining the singular importance of a national space exploration program, 61 Members of the House sent a letter to the Senate leadership, urging them to vote on the nomination of Rep. Jim Bridenstine to be NASA Administrator. His nomination has been in limbo since September, because there are not enough Senate votes for approval. Bridenstine is opposed largely because he is not qualified and because he is a polarizing political figure. He is also an enthusiastic proponent of “turning” the national space policy “over to the commercial guys.”

If, indeed, there is a vote and Bridenstine’s nomination is defeated, the Administration would have to come up with a second (hopefully qualified) nominee whom the Congress could support.