Marcia Merry Baker

According to the latest available reports, talks between Russia and the United States, and Russia and NATO will begin before mid-January, on the texts of the two draft agreements on security guarantees presented by Russia to the U.S. and NATO on Dec. 15. January 12 in Geneva is under consideration for the NATO-Russia talks, and before that, possibly January 10, for the bilateral U.S.-Russia meeting. This is critical diplomacy, which Russia has initiated. But also critical to stopping the countdown to World War III is the activation of citizens everywhere against the policy of brinksmanship and encroachment against Russia and China.A barrage of warnings has come from Russia in the past 36 hours. President Vladimir Putin told Rossiya-1 TV on Dec. 26, that the talks dare not have a “destructive agenda” in which the United States and NATO, “will indulge in endless talk about the necessity of negotiations, but will do nothing but pump a neighboring country with state-of-the-art weapons systems and build up threats to Russia, and we will have to do something with these threats.” Putin explicated the meaning of the “red line” which he has set. He said, “I want everyone both in our country and abroad, our partners to clearly understand: the matter is not in a line we don’t want anyone to cross. The matter is that we have nowhere to step back.” He stressed, “They have driven us to such a line, excuse my language, that we have nowhere to move.” He pointed to the risks of new missile systems deployed at a distance of four to five minutes’ flight to Moscow. “Well, where are you going to go now? They have simply driven us to the state when we must say: stop!” Putin went on, that this is the reason Russia’s initiative on security guarantees was made public for all nations to see. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke sternly on Dec. 26, saying that January “is when it will become clear whether the Americans are ready to give a substantive response, or they will opt for protracting the process and for seeking to initiate a policy of years-long talks.” We need “an urgent, concrete solution….” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said today, in an interview published today in the Russian Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn (Foreign Policy) journal, among other points, that, “when we say that NATO facilities and all kinds of activities which are provocative for Russia need to be rolled back to the positions that existed in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed, we are not bluffing.” Reviewing these remarks and other developments today, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche stressed that our job is to make sure that a large portion of people in every country possible, understands what is going on. We are in a countdown of extreme danger, with no “wiggle room” left. We are “close to a point of no return.” The Schiller Institute posted a rush memorandum, “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III?” on Christmas Eve, for circulation during the holiday period. This is currently being updated as an even more comprehensive dossier of the actual chronology of what created the dangerous strategic showdown with Russia. Zepp-LaRouche stressed the need to make known the extreme danger, and also that there are solutions. The best anti-war policy involves working together on common, urgent tasks, and that means a modern health system in every nation. Look at the Afghanistan emergency in that way. Afghanistan “is a branching point.” Either there will be the necessary interventions to save lives and save the nation, or it will be an “unmitigated disaster … that marks a decay into barbarism.” We will lose all of our humanity, knowing what is coming and not doing anything about it. Acting on this, and on other humanitarian crises, as well as on the war danger, is one and the same task, as the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites addresses. The situation is grave. The Russian leaders are speaking out in unmistakable terms. If we co-mobilize with a growing number of people, we can bring about MAS—mutually assured survival.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today held his annual in-depth press conference, during which he made the point emphatically that the two proposals he presented last week to the United States and to NATO, for the purpose of discussion and agreement on spelling out terms of security, are not optional. He said evenly of the U.S. reaction, “We have so far seen a positive reaction. U.S. partners told us that they are ready to begin this discussion, these talks, at the very start of next year.” But he pointed out that NATO had “cheated” Russia, with eastward expansion, and Russia needs immediate security guarantees.Putin said that there have been “five waves” of NATO movement of forces eastward toward Russian borders. This forward deployment is now at a threatening phase, and must be de-escalated and contained. Imagine, he said, if foreign forces placed missiles in Canada and Mexico. That is how it is now against Russia, with NATO in Poland and Romania. The reality of President Putin’s point—with the presence of British and U.S. personnel and weapons in Ukraine, and many other deployments, is evident to anyone, “with eyes to see.” The Schiller Institute will soon issue a concise history of the military and economic moves against Russia by the U.S., UK and NATO, and make the record irrefutably clear. This is to further the mobilization for sanity to prevail against what otherwise will be inevitable war—perhaps triggered “by accident.” People everywhere are called upon to exert leadership for the urgent, common good of peace and economic development. The same need for leadership initiative is presented by the urgent situation in Afghanistan, for which there are important updates. On Dec. 22, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted up Resolution 2615, which opens the way for humanitarian aid to get around the raft of sanctions maintained by the U.S., UK, and the principal UNSC Resolution 2255 (from 2015,) and to flow into Afghanistan to avert mass death. At present, 95% of the population are in worsening poverty, 23 million of 38 million are marching toward starvation, and 9 million are in famine, as reported by the World Food Program’s David Beasley. The new measure exempts from sanctions, humanitarian aid (medicine, food, fuel, clothing, logistics and staff, remittances, cash transfers for necessities—where a market exists to purchase them), and so on, for one year. Donation announcements are coming forth from other nations, among them, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia. Today, the World Health Organization announced aid for a key hospital in Kandahar city, capital of Kandahar Province, in southern Afghanistan. The WHO tweeted, “Mirwais Regional Hospital in war-affected Kandahar Province has received 13 types of life-saving equipment to treat patients of mass casualty events in the region…. Who stands with the people of Afghanistan. Currently the world’s largest humanitarian emergency, Afghanistan is contending not only with COVID-19, but also acute watery diarrhea (AWK), dengue, measles, polio and malaria.” None of this aid reaches the scale required, nor does it involve concerted action among the major powers, which is sorely needed. Nevertheless, both the aid, and the UNSC unanimous vote yesterday, count a great deal right now, in terms of forward motion. On Monday, the UNSC turned down the prior draft version of the Resolution, when China and Russia voted against it, because the measure called for case-by-case judgment of each aid initiative on whether it could have a waiver from the sanctions. This would be an unworkable accommodation to sanctions that should not be there in the first place. A new text was drafted, which passed on Wednesday. Moreover, the U.S. Treasury Department then issued a statement yesterday, confirming that it will honor and apply the new UNSC measure (with provisional language), which gives some assurance that aid and related commercial activity (e.g., shipping of grain, water chemicals, etc.) can go on without U.S. retaliation. The Treasury unit, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is an economic hit squad, issued guidelines on how they will follow the UN Resolution. This adds some confidence, since otherwise, the word of the U.S. is no longer trusted. The moral necessity for action to save Afghanistan was strongly set at the Dec. 19 extraordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, overriding several internal contradictions. The follow-on developments include a meeting earlier this week between Uzbek leaders and Afghan acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, in which the tri-country rail project connecting Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan was discussed. It is notable that the OIC Council of Ministers has welcomed Uzbekistan’s offer that the city of Termez would become a new hub for transport of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. The breakthrough required, is for the $9.5 billion in Afghan funds to be released from wrongful withholding by U.S. and European authorities and go towards stabilizing national functioning and development by Afghan institutions. The “Operation Ibn Sina” called for by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, lays out the road map for what must be done to construct a modern health system and build up the infrastructure platform to sustain it. The new 4-minute video issued by the Schiller Institute makes the point clearly, and adds to the worldwide campaign. It is titled, “Will You Allow Genocide Against the People in Afghanistan? Unfreeze the Funds.” This Christmas and holiday period is exactly the right time to get active; be a force for the good!

On Sunday, the Council of Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation met in extraordinary session in Pakistan, and agreed upon resolutions for coordinated humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and measures for economic functioning. Follow-up mechanisms were specified to implement the decisions of the OIC. Attending the meeting were 70 delegates, representing member countries, guest nations, international financial and UN aid agencies. The OIC, with 57 member nations, is the largest such world body after the United Nations. But even so, what determines what will happen for the Afghanistan people and nation, the greater region, and world situation, requires a shift in approach to abandon deadly geopolitics, and launch concerted positive action among major powers.This was stressed on Friday, the opening day of the three-day OIC meetings in Islamabad, by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, appearing in a discussion on Pakistan’s national television PTV, which covered the OIC proceedings intensively. She said, “In a certain sense, to get all the forces internationally together to help Afghanistan is, in my view, one of the absolute, important historical missions. In a certain, I think the whole destiny of mankind is in a laser, concentrated on what happens in Afghanistan. So I would really hope that all the participating and affected countries would double and multiply their efforts to make saving Afghanistan an issue of the whole world, because right now it is. And I think all channels must be used: media, United Nations, conferences. There must be a drumbeat, a drumbeat of awakening the conscience of the world, because I think this is sort of a judgment of our ability as a human species: Are we morally fit to survive or not?” What is happening this evening is that pledges are starting from OIC nations, on what donations they will commit, for purposes of urgent relief operations. From preliminary reports, the framework that is to administer ongoing aid includes several features. A resolution was adopted unanimously that the OIC will set up a Humanitarian Trust Fund and a Food Security Program. The OIC meeting requested that the existing Islamic Organization for Food Security (IOFS) work with this new Food Security Program for Afghanistan, including using IOFS reserves, when warranted. The Humanitarian Trust Fund is to come into operation during the First Quarter of 2022, under the auspices of the Islamic Development Bank. In Kabul, the existing OIC Mission is to be reinforced with more logistical, financial and staff resources to enable it to coordinate operations with global agencies and partnerships. These include the obvious UN agencies, from UNICEF, to the World Food Program, and other organizations. A priority will be working with the World Health Organization for vaccines and medical supplies. There will be support for the Afghan refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, and for the internally displaced within Afghanistan. An estimated 665,000 people have been displaced just between January and September 2021, over and above the 2.9 million already dislocated within their nation. In brief, 60% of the population of 38 million people face crisis levels of hunger, and lack of necessities for life. The conference welcomed the offer by Uzbekistan to create, with UN efforts, a regional logistics hub in Termez city, to handle the shipment of humanitarian material into Afghanistan. The OIC meeting approved the designation of Ambassador Tarig Ali Bakhit Salah, Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian, Cultural and Family Affairs at the OIC Secretariat, to be OIC Special Envoy to Afghanistan for the OIC Secretary General, to coordinate efforts, and provide reports to the OIC. The Humanitarian Trust Fund is to be up and running within the first quarter of 2022. It is reported by APP (AP Pakistan,) that there was an urgent appeal made for large-scale projects in the multi-nation region, to serve reconstruction and development. In general, this should include energy, transportation and communication projects. Two mentioned were the TAPI Pipeline, and the TAP (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan) electricity transmission line. Participants in the deliberation drew attention to the importance of the 15th Summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization, which met on Nov. 28, 2021, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The second area of OIC action, alongside the humanitarian, food-aid and anti-pandemic work, concerns creating the banking, credit and related conditions to serve a re-established functioning economy, and for reconstruction. The Council of Foreign Ministers decided, according to the report by APP, that exploratory talks “to unlock the financial and banking channels to resume liquidity and flow of financial and humanitarian assistance” should commence under the direction of the OIC General Secretariat, and the Islamic Development Bank. APP added that, participants discussed “exploring realistic pathways towards unfreezing Afghanistan’s financial assets.” Here is where the outright clash comes in with the networks in London, Washington D.C. and co-conspirators, which insist on wrongfully withholding $9.5 billion in Afghanistan state assets, sorely needed for government and economic functions. An especially ugly, duplicitous public relations campaign is going on in the United States, where two open statements were issued this past week, crying crocodile tears, asserting that some of the $9.5 billion should be unfrozen, and used to “directly help the Afghan people,” but only if allocated directly through non-Kabul government, non-Taliban, UN or other agencies. One letter was from former military figures, in connection with the infamous Atlantic Council, and the other letter was from a group of 39 Congressmen, either ignorant, gullible, corrupt, or all three. No nation exists without functioning institutions. There is no independence without economic sovereignty. Withholding the funds, or arrogating decision-making over their use means destroying a nation. This will do the job by genocide, that 20 years of military presence and non-development didn’t do in Afghanistan. This is a moral test for the West. What needs to be done with the funds, and in general in Afghanistan is presented in the newly-released EIR interview with Dr. Shah Mehrabi, for 20 years on the Board of Governors of the Da Afghanistan Bank, the central bank of Afghanistan. Our role is indispensable in getting out such policy interventions, along with getting out the truth on the scale of the emergency in Afghanistan, which is being blacked out severely in the Trans-Atlantic media. The Zepp-LaRouche call for Operation Ibn Sina to bring a modern healthcare platform to the country is a call for world action. Shining the light on Afghanistan and mobilizing for what must be done, spreads understanding of the necessity to end the grip of the imperialist foreign policy and globalist financial system everywhere, now in breakdown, and threatening nuclear war. Helga Zepp-LaRouche ended her remarks on PTV Dec. 17 by summarizing, “So in one sense, I think the fate of Afghanistan and the fate of humanity are much more closely connected than most people can imagine.”

Today in Islamabad, representatives of most of the 57 member nations of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation were gathered for the pre-meeting to the extraordinary meeting of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers on the Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan, which will be held tomorrow. In a statement to today’s opening session of senior officials, the OIC Assistant Secretary General of Humanitarian Affairs, Ambassador Tarig Ali Bakhit Salah, stressed, as reported on the OIC website, “that after decades of war, suffering and insecurity, the people of Afghanistan need relief and peace. ‘It is crucial for the international community to take swift action to ensure that the people of Afghanistan have unimpeded access to life-saving assistance, and that humanitarian support is scaled up. The OIC humanitarian office in Kabul will assume its responsibility in coordination with the various international agencies in delivering the required assistance to the millions of people in need,’ said Ambassador Tarig.”The registered participants at this weekend’s sessions number 437, and many non-OIC delegations are present, including guest nations, UN and other international agencies. The Afghanistan Taliban government delegation arrived today from Kabul, headed by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. He met today with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. On Dec. 17, the opening day of the OIC events, David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Program, gave a stern interview to the U.S. National Public Radio, describing the Afghanistan situation. Speaking from the WFP headquarters in Rome, he said, “I was just in Kabul … out of 42 million people, 23 million are marching towards starvation. I mean, they’re in serious trouble … 95% don’t have enough food to eat. [Out of the 23 million] about 9 million are on famine’s door as we speak. It is Hell on Earth. And now the winter months are here.” He spoke of mothers "having to choose, ‘if I have any money at all, do I buy cooking fuel or heating fuel? Do I freeze my child to death, or do I starve my child to death?’ That’s what they’re facing now…. “What we’re looking at now is a 40% loss of wheat production because of droughts and then COVID economic deterioration. Then on top of all that is the lack of [financial] liquidity because the international community has frozen all the assets that the country normally would have….” The situation within Afghanistan cries out for concerted action, and the scope of what needs to be done—not only here, but throughout Central and Southwestern Asia, has been presented by Schiller Institute, in four different guest TV appearances on Pakistan national television PTV, in its gavel-to-gavel coverage of the OIC events over the past 24 hours. Yesterday, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche powerfully reiterated her call for Operation Ibn Sina in Afghanistan, named after the great Islamic thinker and physician. Also yesterday, Hussein Askary, Southwest Asia Coordinator for the Schiller Institute presented what stretching the Belt and Road Initiative throughout the region will mean. Today, Harley Schlanger, speaking from Germany for the Schiller Institute, spoke on a PTV panel, which opened with a short documentary on Afghanistan, including the report from David Beasley. Schlanger commended Pakistan for its leading role to organize relief action, and the OIC for its efforts, then he called for three steps: 1) unfreezing the Afghanistan government funds; 2) mobilizing emergency aid; and 3) launching a long-term commitment for full economic development. He pointed out that, after spending trillions of dollars for a war, which caused this crisis, the U.S. and Europe must make a major effort to provide food and medical supplies, using the logistical capacity of the war machine to airlift necessary material. Karel Vereycken, speaking from Paris, with the Solidarity & Progress Party, participated in PTV’s next segment, this one an hour-long panel discussion. He drew attention to the potential significance of the meeting of the “Extended Troika”—the United States, Russia, China and Pakistan—to take place on Dec. 20, following the Dec. 19 OIC meeting. The Schiller Institute is collaborating with individuals and efforts internationally for the needed action in Afghanistan, and for a decisive end to foreign relations based on the neo-British Empire model of perpetual confrontation, and economic subjugation, now pushed in the name “climate emergency,” “rules-based order,” and “democracy.” There are videos in preparation for mass social media use, and other initiatives in rush preparation. Today, an EIR interview with Dr. Shah Mohammad Mehrabi, on the governing board of the Central Bank of Afghanistan (Da Afghanistan Bank), was posted in video and text, in which he addresses in depth what is needed for economic functioning in Afghanistan. The interview is titled, “U.S. Policy Is ‘Suffocating the Afghan People.’” (It will appear in EIR’s issue dated Dec. 24, 2021). In Washington, D.C. this coming week, a group of Congressmen is planning to announce their initiative for the U.S. to unfreeze the $9.5 billion of Afghanistan government funds, wrongfully withheld by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury, on U.S. orders. It is also of note, that the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, co-founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, in late summer/fall of 2020, has issued a press release this weekend, on its 2021 aid initiative to Mozambique, in the spirit of demanding collaboration among the major powers, for both emergency action to save lives, and for full-scale development everywhere, beginning with modern health care systems.

The importance of the Schiller Institute’s emergency Dec. 4 web conference “Omicron: Urgent Need for World Health System” is underscored by the continuing flow of reports of Omicron’s wide presence, even as its exact features are still under study. New cases are reported ranging from the boroughs of New York City, to Hawaii to Australia and points in between. The World Health Organization met today, and issued an advisory to redouble the defensive measures already prescribed to diminish transmission of other well-known variants of SARS-CoV-2. The occurrence of such a variant as Omicron was predictable, and was predicted early in 2021 by virologists, if no concerted world action were taken.The needed action to combat the virus has been outlined repeatedly since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and collaborators, most recently in the Nov. 23 international call by Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon-General, directed to enlist medical experts to help provide leadership. There must be multinational collaboration for emergency measures to save lives—vaccination, treatment, humanitarian aid, and at the same time, steps for launching in-depth construction of infrastructure for health systems in all nations, to end the conditions fostering pandemics. This is a new paradigm, which demands new economic and financial measures to carry it through. The LaRouche Four Laws, involving Glass-Steagall banking reorganization, plentiful and directed credit, and science drivers, are a core part of the mobilization required. The entire “Green” agenda is to stop such a mass regroupment of humanity. The feasibility of this new paradigm is dramatically shown today, in the opening of the beautiful Kunming-to-Vientiane railway, from southwest China to the capital of Laos. This 1,035 km span was a technological feat, and along with that, it is a key part in the Pan-Asian railway, which will connect mainland Asia, through Indochina, all the way through the Indonesian archipelago. A large ratio of the total track runs on bridges and through tunnels in the mountainous tropics. It has the longest bridge in the world, which at one point is 54 stories high. Not only does fencing protect wildlife, but overpasses are built for elephant migration. China’s President Xi Jinping today addressed the opening ceremony by video, stressing that Laos is no longer a landlocked country, but now will be a land-linked hub for the entire region. The technological success and purpose of this grand new rail line demonstrate that the feats involved in establishing hospital systems for every nation, and the infrastructure platforms to support them—power, water, transport, and staff—are not insurmountable tasks, any more than the rail line was. What is required is to defeat what’s standing in the way—the dead financial system, now blowing out in hyperinflation and breakdown, and to put in place the new system prioritizing human beings, nations and development. The ugly and very dangerous geopolitical side of the dead imperial networks was hyperactive throughout this past week, through three sets of multinational meetings. The shrill denunciations of China and Russia barely stopped at calling for war. NATO foreign ministers met in Riga, Latvia Nov. 30-Dec. 1; the OSCE met Dec. 1-2 in Stockholm; and the U.S.-EU Dialogue on China met in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 2-3. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg outdid themselves to call for NATO to stand ready against likely “Russian aggression.” Co-hosts of the U.S.-EU Dialogue on China, U.S.Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Secretary-General of the EU’s European External Action Service Staffano Sannino denounced China for many imputed infractions, such as bullying Lithuania and mistreating Uyghurs. Speaking today at a Brookings Institution event on the Indo-Pacific, the pair praised the new U.S.-EU Dialogue on Security and Defense, which will meet in early 2022, and was announced by Blinken and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell. Moreover, Sherman and Sannino said that the respective initiatives of Biden’s B3W (Build Back Better World) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s Global Gateway are “complementary,” and will compete against China’s Belt and Road Initiative. What did they offer to show for this? Nothing. Sherman could only assert that together, they will exert “collective strength” because they will work in partnership with India and the Quad. Even Victoria Nuland, now the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, got into the act. She addressed the Kiev Security Forum by video on Dec. 1, which happened to be on the second day of the NATO confab. Famous for her direct role in violent regime change of the Ukraine government in February 2014, Nuland said to Kiev: “All of the NATO allies were in solidarity with Ukraine today, and making clear that we are resolute in supporting your independence, and we are also resolute in sending the message to Moscow that if it moves again to internally destabilize Ukraine or use its forces to enter the country that it will be met with high impact economic measures the likes of which we have not used before from all of us,” To cap things off, new sanctions were announced yesterday against Belarus targets, by the U.S., Britain, Canada and the EU, which congratulated each other for doing so. Above all this din, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Blinken on the sidelines of the OSCE conference, said very sternly that Russia is preparing proposals for how NATO must limit its expansion toward Russia. This is a follow-on to President Vladimir Putin’s Nov. 18 explicit statement that this must be done, given when he addressed a meeting of his foreign service officials. This is the context in which multinational collaboration against the pandemic and famine is, at the same time, action to stop the geopolitical madness, now promoting confrontation to the point of war. Be sure to attend and make use of the Dec. 4 emergency Schiller Institute conference and ongoing mobilization.

A shipment of 50,000 tons of wheat and life-saving medicines is currently making its way from India to Afghanistan, across Pakistan. On Nov. 22, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan personally announced approval for the transit, which otherwise is prohibited, because in recent times, only exports from Afghanistan to India could cross Pakistan, but not the other way around, due to the enmity between India and Pakistan. Now, for a common humanitarian project, India and Pakistan have set their enmity aside.This is just one instance, not grand, but it is in the direction—the spirit—of Operation Ibn Sina, called for by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche in October. She calls for a multi-nation, all-out response to the Afghanistan dire situation, by providing emergency aid, and infrastructure-building, with healthcare capacity in the forefront, and an immediate return of the financial assets to the nation of Afghanistan. This is in the interest of all throughout the region, and worldwide. This perspective is urgent for the 38 million in Afghanistan, 95% of whom are without reliable food, as well as lacking water, shelter, fuel and power. The same driving spirit is needed to address the world hyperinflationary breakdown and pandemic, as well as to provide relief for all places of extreme need, including Haiti, Yemen, Syria, Libya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere. Institutionally, this spirit is expressed in a new white paper released today by China, on the eve of the Nov. 29-30 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which meets every three years, and will be held this year in Dakar, Senegal, as well as online. President Xi Jinping will address the Forum by video Nov. 29. Today’s document is titled, “China and Africa in the New Era: A Partnership of Equals.” The hallmark of the report’s message is how the Belt and Road Initiative serves the mutual benefit of Africa and China, and all participating nations. The need for major multinational collaboration against the pandemic could not be more conspicuous than in the latest turn of events on the pandemic virus. Today, a new SARS-CoV-2 variant has been designated a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization, which dubbed it Omicron. First identified in recent weeks in South Africa, which has proficiency in genetic mapping, the virus has since shown to have been present in many places in Africa, and has travelled outside Africa, showing up in Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium. Among features of concern about Omicron, are mutations of its protein spikes which may allow it “to escape,” as the epidemiologists say, the current vaccines. These and other traits are still under scrutiny. The first reaction in the trans-Atlantic countries today was to “pull up the drawbridge, and fill up the moat” to fend off Omicron by banning travel to eight designated African countries. Whatever justifiable role travel bans and lockdowns may have, what is needed overall is what was spelled out Nov. 23 by former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders in her call “Open Letter to Virologists and Medical Experts Around the World to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic.” However, the pathological commitment to geopolitics is still blinding the trans-Atlantic to reality of all kinds, and what must be done. Worse, it hardens people to not give a damn. Look at the latest of what is called the “migrant crisis”—in the Americas and in Europe, which is really a terrible expression of the breakdown of the West. The recent decades of multiple R2P wars and forced austerity have inevitably uprooted millions of people, now roaming in desperation to find some place on Earth to be able to live and work in peace. Look at the English Channel. On one day this month, 1,000 people tried to cross from France to land in Britain. On Wednesday, Nov. 24, this week, 27 people died when their boat capsized, and meanwhile, the same day France interdicted 671 people, preventing them from attempting the crossing. So far this year, 25,000 have sought asylum in the U.K., after crossing the English Channel, and thousands more have entered by other means. On Sunday, Nov. 28, there is to be an emergency meeting of certain European officials. But now a feud is in play between Britain and France. After Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron yesterday, with proposals including that France should take back Channel-crossers, then today, Macron disinvited British Home Minister Priti Patel from the Sunday meeting. Macron denounced the Johnson letter. No one is addressing the causes of the collapse and desperation. This brings us again to the need for activation of people, wherever their location, to exert leadership for the policies that will end this quickening hell. Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke of this in her Nov. 24 strategic weekly Schiller Institute webcast. After reporting on the latest dismal government-formation process in Germany, with very bad policies, she made the general point: “I can only say, people have to wake up and start to fight for a different policy. And that can only be peaceful cooperation with Russia and China, the development of the developing countries—Africa, Southwest Asia, together with the Belt and Road Initiative of China. So the alternatives are there, but we need a population which is really becoming active….”

Today the Schiller Institute posted a 7-point call, issued by Guus Berkhout, President of the CLINTEL Group, which he presented November 14th, 2021 at the Schiller Institute conference, “All Moral Resources of Humanity Have To Be Called Up: Mankind Must Be the Immortal Species!” Below is the full text, which appears under the headline, “Message to the Young People at COP26: Dear Youngsters, Please Wake Up!” Please, don’t act like a parrot. Be critical against the many false prophets, who are trying to take advantage of you and set you up against the impressive progress your parents and grandparents have realized. Bear in mind that the information these prophets tell you is one-sided and misleading. Deepen your knowledge on the facts of our climate. By doing so, you will discover that there is no evidence that points to a climate crisis. Yes, climate change exists and it is of all times. But don’t worry, the current global warming is gentle (only ca. 0.14° C per decade) and it has already made many, many positive contributions to the quality of life. Do you know that the difference between the mean annual temperature in cold Finland and warm Singapore is more than 20° C. Yet, both these countries are most successful. Mankind is very clever in adapting to very different climates! Declaring current global warming of 0.14° C per decade a catastrophe is totally out of proportion. Think about that, while you are protesting. Did your teachers ever tell you that CO₂ is a blessing for everything that lives on our planet? Far from being pollution, CO₂ is the molecule of life, providing food for plants. Without plants there would be very little animal life and no human life at all. Think about that as well, while you are protesting. Don’t confuse climate change with environmental pollution! They are two completely different phenomena. Climate change is largely caused by the primordial natural forces and environmental pollution is largely caused by human behavior. Climate change requires clever adaptation measures and environmental pollution asks for clever clean production technologies. Please, don’t waste your life by solving a problem that does not exist. Instead, put all your talents and energy in developing a productive sustainable economy. Only then can you realize enough financial means to increase the standard of living beyond the basic needs. When you go back to the unproductive past and make yourself poor, you are no longer in control of your future! History shows that living on planet Earth requires adaptation all the time. If you continue to advance science and technology, you generate new capabilities to adapt to climate change, to protect our natural environment, to conquer the universe and to take care of one another. This is the formula for creating a better world. FINALLY, DEAR YOUNGSTERS, For all of you who have been poisoned by fear of what is to come, forget the dodgy preachers of doom and gloom at COP26; they ruin your future by destroying everything your parents and grandparents have built.

This fall marks the eighth anniversary of the announcement by China’s President Xi Jinping, of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), when he announced the Silk Road Economic Belt in Kazakhstan Sept. 7, 2013 and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in a speech before the Parliament of Indonesia on Oct. 2, 2013. President Xi today addressed a symposium on the project, discussing in detail its many achievements and continuing intent, functioning as the modern-day Silk Road, for the common good of all.Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, and long known in China and internationally as the “Silk Road Lady,” for her advocacy of the concept, gave three interviews today, on the occasion of the BRI anniversary. She appeared on CGTN TV, in two interviews, one on Global Business, and another on the Dialogue Weekend program; and she was interviewed on her weekly Schiller Institute webcast, titled, “Most of the World Is Hungry for Change.” (See transcripts in this briefing.) Beginning in the early 1990s, she and her husband Lyndon LaRouche, promoted the idea of the “World Land-Bridge,” of development corridors. The latest books they issued on this were two volumes (2014 and 2018) of The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, along with Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa (2017). These presented details, region by region, for world economic development. In each interview today, she stressed the urgency for Western nations to rethink, and give up geopolitics and neo-colonialism, which have brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, worsening famine and persisting pandemic. Nations have been deliberately kept in poverty. These conditions, and induced strife, have produced mass migrations. She said on her webcast: “[W]e have to have a rethinking: Germany, the United States, other European countries should stop this geopolitical confrontation and say, ‘we have a pandemic, we have mass famine, we have a refugee crisis of biblical dimensions, and we must join hands and build the infrastructure, hospitals, schools, industry, agriculture, in all of these countries….’ So let’s just build infrastructure! Let’s build up Africa! This is the natural thing, and the Chinese are doing the natural things and we should stop bickering about it, because we should take a moral lesson from the Chinese in this respect.” President Xi Jinping reported that as of August 2021, some 170 nations had, in various ways, cooperated with the BRI. Now today, in terms of combatting the pandemic, 110 of these nations have received some of the 1.7 billion doses of vaccine. Zepp-LaRouche drew attention in her CGTN Global Business interview to the fact that the same principle is involved in what China calls its “Health Silk Road,” and what the Schiller Institute is campaigning for, in calling on nations to collaborate in building a world health system. This means facilities, staff, water, power, food, infrastructure. We have a moment of special opportunity now. A week ago in Glasgow, COP26 ended as FLOP26. It was a failure for its organizers—the gaggle of royals, banksters, billionaires and the like, who want nations to agree to commit suicide, in order “to save the planet.” A critical number spoke out against this in Glasgow, and their view was again restated yesterday in Abuja, Nigeria, by Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama. He said simply, while standing alongside visiting U.S. Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken at their joint press conference that Nigeria is “a gas-producing country … and we’re looking to gas to help to address our energy needs.” So, he called on Blinken to do something to stop the international financial institutions from refusing to lend funding for fossil fuels development. Nigeria has the right to use its resources and develop. Now it is the time for all humanity to step forward and take the lead. Zepp-LaRouche replied to CGTN reporter Michael Wang’s question about her opinion of the BRI at a time of uncertainties in the world: “I think it is, for sure, the most important strategic initiative on the planet right now. Because you say ‘uncertainty,’ I mean, these uncertainties show, for example, in the form of a hyperinflationary tendency: You see the energy prices skyrocketing, food prices, and we may actually head towards a hyperinflationary blowout of the entire system. And at such a moment, to have the Belt and Road Initiative which focusses entirely on the physical side of the economy, can actually become the absolute important savior for the world economy as a whole. So I think the existence of the Belt and Road Initiative is the most important initiative on the planet.”

The multiple crises we face, from the economic breakdown to the death toll and dangers from geopolitics, require collaboration among peoples and nations on solutions; in particular, on ending toleration of “climate emergency,” green destruction. On Oct. 6, the call for this went out as a joint statement from the respective leaders of the European-based CLINTEL, and the Schiller Institute, titled, “A Wake Up Call: The Danger for Mankind Is Not the Climate, but Toleration of a Devious Policy that Uses Climate to Destroy Us!” As co-author Helga Zepp LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, stressed yesterday, we want people to endorse, confer and initiate action, in order to get nations to cooperate on dealing with the current, acute emergencies.The multiple crises we face, from the economic breakdown to the death toll and dangers from geopolitics, require collaboration among peoples and nations on solutions; in particular, on ending toleration of “climate emergency,” green destruction. On Oct. 6, the call for this went out as a joint statement from the respective leaders of the European-based CLINTEL, and the Schiller Institute, titled, “A Wake Up Call: The Danger for Mankind Is Not the Climate, but Toleration of a Devious Policy that Uses Climate to Destroy Us!” As co-author Helga Zepp LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, stressed yesterday, we want people to endorse, confer and initiate action, in order to get nations to cooperate on dealing with the current, acute emergencies.

Collaborators of the international Schiller Institute staged rallies and public street events today in many nations, in a “Day of Action” demanding that the U.S. release the funds belonging to the people of Afghanistan, which have been frozen in the U.S. Treasury, while the Afghan people face starvation. The rallies also got out the message: “A Wake Up Call: The Danger for Mankind Is Not the Climate, but Toleration of a Devious Policy that Uses Climate To Destroy Us!” which is the title of the statement released Oct. 12 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Dr. Guus Berkhout, the initiator of the CLINTEL, an organization of international scientists who refute the fake science on carbon and climate change. These documents were distributed at key sites in places from Colombia, to Germany. They included New York City; Houston, Texas; Montreal, Canada; Mexico City; Paris; Berlin; and Wiesbaden. In Washington, D.C., dozens of the international delegations in town for the annual IMF and World Bank sessions received the statements. In the Midwest, activists with the LaRouche Organization hit the campus of the University of Michigan.It is a test of conscience to take the urgently needed action in Afghanistan: muster and deliver the large-scale emergency aid—food, fuel, winter materiel, etc.; start the longer-term infrastructure building as fast as possible; and immediately, release the $9 billion in assets wrongfully being withheld by U.S. authorities, which belong to the people of Afghanistan, and are needed in restarting daily life. This is the only moral, the only reasonable approach. The same power of reason is the only sane response to the rapidly deteriorating economic crises in the Trans-Atlantic and related economies. Look at two examples of the most recent headline situations: In Europe, the same electricity and gas hyperinflation and shortages which were expressed most dramatically weeks ago in Britain, are now spreading across the continent. This week, a German energy retailer declared bankruptcy. In the Czech Republic, an energy company suddenly cut off its 90,000 customers, telling them to seek alternatives with a state company. The situation clearly calls for collaboration across Europe to freeze spot markets, stop speculation, work out contracts to keep supplies moving, make the needed logistics arrangements, and get moving on stopping the green transition to unreliable, so-called renewables. Instead, EU authorities met yesterday, and came up with an energy Tool Box, with no tools. They simply OK’d some stop-gap measures, as, for example in Spain, for governments to aid households and companies facing unpayable energy bills; and they made a vague commitment to one day having an EU-wide energy market. In the United States, the delays in goods production, spare parts, shipping, and related functions are worsening by the minute, with rising energy prices part of the mix that otherwise includes decades of lack of transport and other infrastructure. In agriculture, threats to the Fall harvest, crop shipment, and storage, come from lack of spare parts for machinery, and rising fuel costs. The situation clearly calls for interim emergency measures, sector by sector, to keep vital production and services going, from healthcare delivery, to food processing; while stopping speculation cold, reorganizing banking and credit, and preparing for full-scale economic rebuilding. Instead, President Biden issued a King Canute executive order yesterday, that goods shipments will henceforth be speeded up, because the Long Beach-Los Angeles port complex, the biggest in the nation, will henceforth work 24/7 and no longer take night-time and weekends off. In Washington, D.C., the Group of Seven finance ministers also met yesterday on the subject of the supply-chain crises, and issued a decision to form a task force on supply chains, rather than take any meaningful action. Meantime, the situation is untenable for millions more people each day. There are major labor actions now almost daily in the U.S. This morning, 10,000 workers of the John Deere machinery manufacturer went on strike. The workforce of Kellogg’s cereals processor are on strike. Alabama coal miners are on strike for the seventh month. There is no other recourse in the interest of nations and peoples, than for citizens to step forward and see the “big picture,” as it is described in the joint statement being circulated internationally today, and to act accordingly. The premises and policy recommendations of what must be done are presented clearly in the report, “The Coming U.S. Economic Miracle on the New Silk Road,” the 55-page report by The LaRouche Organization, now available online, and in print. Doing what is right for Afghanistan is the act of conscience necessary to make economic development happen everywhere, for everyone.