Ibero-American News Digest

Argentine, Chinese Presidents Swipe at the Empire

July 14 (EIRNS)—City of London financial oligarchs and others of their ilk, are howling over Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's just-concluded state visit to China, where she pointedly announced that the two governments agreed on two key issues that are anathema to the British Empire: Argentina's claim to sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, and China's assertion of a One-China policy.

Nor were the financial predators pleased by the Argentine President's statements hinting at—but never quite mentioning by name—the need for a global Glass-Steagall standard, when she attacked the global financial deregulation which had led to the unbridled growth of investment banks, hedge funds, and financial derivatives which created "a kind of parallel international system which no one—absolutely no one—controls and which introduces toxicity into many economies."

During a July 12 press conference following her meeting with her Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, Fernández de Kirchner reported that she had received China's support "for our sovereign claim to the Malvinas, and we offered them our [support] for the One-China [policy] which has been their traditional diplomatic stance." Also noteworthy, she said, was the "similarity" in the economic policies adopted by both China and Argentina to deal with the global financial crisis. In the midst of economic crisis, she added, the United Nations had reported that first China, and then Argentina, had embraced "heterodox" policies that "generated growth."

In Argentina's case, Fernández explained, this is due to the fact that her government "doesn't have a monetarist conception of the economy, but rather one based on job creation and technological renovation."

The centerpiece of the agreements signed by the two governments is a $10 billion deal by which China will issue credit for the renovation of Argentina's dilapidated railroad system. Additional agreements expand cooperation in the areas of agro-industry, trade, nuclear energy, infrastructure development, and manufacturing and mining, among others. The memorandum of understanding the two Presidents signed emphasizes that all investment and development projects will be designed to encourage each other's "productive capacities."

As for what both leaders agreed are the most important issues of this century, Fernández pointed to food sovereignty and energy, noting China's interest in Argentina's nuclear sector. The China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) has expressed interest in helping to build Argentina's fourth nuclear plant, Argentine Planning Minister Julio De Vido reported yesterday, after meeting with CNNC's president. A CNNC delegation will travel to Buenos Aires in August.

Argentina has a great deal to offer China in terms of agricultural know-how and technology, Fernández stated, exclaiming that "what an associated Argentina and China can do together, makes us a showcase to the world."

Chávez Slanders LaRouche, in a Display of Insanity

July 17 (EIRNS)—Lyndon LaRouche today responded to the recent raft of slanders against him appearing in the Venezuelan press, especially on websites such as Aporrea associated with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, by commenting that these are long-discredited ridiculous fables. "They only serve as conclusive evidence of Chávez's insanity, or that somebody is trying to manipulate him into this behavior. Chávez should consider the absurdity of the fables being retailed, and their origin," LaRouche counseled.

The slanders surfaced in the wake of the July 12 arrest of Alejandro Peña by Venezuela's SERBIN (Bolivarian Intelligence Service), for purported links to terrorist plans to overthrow the Chávez government. Peña was associated with LaRouche until 1998, and was then recruited as an enemy of the LaRouche organization, based on his long-standing profile of psychological and political instability, and deployed as an expendable pawn among right-wing networks in Ibero-America.

Although more than a dozen years—and an absolute political chasm—separate LaRouche from Peña, the absurd claim is that there is a current, ongoing link.

"I know that Chávez knows that these are lies," LaRouche noted. "His retailing them at this point means either that he is being played for a fool by an enemy operation, or that he is clinically insane."

Castro Warns of Nuclear War, But 'Forgets' To Mention the British

July 17 (EIRNS)—On July 16, Cuban leader Fidel Castro spoke for over an hour to a meeting in Havana of some 115 ambassadors of Cuba's diplomatic corps, and warned of the danger of nuclear war being unleashed around the Iran and North Korea crises.

"There is a grave danger of aggression against Iran or North Korea," he said. "All responses have already been programmed. It's only a question of seconds.... Today, it is not possible to draw up plans that would not be computerized."

This is the fifth time in ten days that Castro has spoken out publicly about the danger of war—in his first public appearances since his serious illness nearly four years. On July 13, he spoke to economists at the World Economy Research Center, and urged them to draw up plans for economic reconstruction after nuclear war. And on July 12, he was on a nationally televised program warning that, "If there is a massive attack against Iran, North Korea is not going to wait for aggression against that country. Therefore, another war would be unleashed in that zone, also nuclear in character."

In each case, however, Castro has pointed to the United States and Israel as the source of the threatened aggression—with nary a mention of the British, who are in fact the architects of the long-war policy that their stooge Barack Obama is executing.