Science & Drama!
What Is Sense-Perception?
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
September 16, 2010—Creativity, whether expressed as physical-scientific, or Classical-artistic, is always lodged within what is, according to relevant principle, a commonly shared domain of Classical artistic composition. So far, today, few currently leading spokesmen for either of those two phase-spaces, currently share that actual view, a fact which explains the greater part of their frequent, systemic failures in performance.
Nevertheless, the most effective cure of that fact, can be found, as a matter of principles, within the specific domain of Classical tragedy in the tradition of Aeschylus, Plato, William Shakespeare, Gotthold Lessing, and Friedrich Schiller, most notably. The same principle is met in physical science in the legacy of such as Plato, Eratosthenes, Filippo Brunelleschi, Nicholas of Cusa, and of such followers of Cusa as Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Kepler, Gottfried Leibniz, Bernhard Riemann, and, then, of such among Riemann's followers as Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and V.I. Vernadsky.
Unfortunately, we must reject the currently prevalent, but false presumption that art and science are essentially different categories. That, unfortunately, popular view prevents those indoctrinated in such a view from understanding either the role of the discovery of universal principles of science, or, knowledge of the fact, that the relatively deepest principles of creativity are expressed...
This Week's News
U.S. Economic/Financial News
Sept. 29 (EIRNS)—The halt to foreclosures announced two weeks ago by Ally Bank/GMAC across 23 states was by no means "voluntary," and is steadily spreading in its effect on the—heavily fraudulent—mass home seizures which Rep. "Bailout Barney" Frank (D-Mass.) and the Obama White House have refused to stop, or even slow down.
Ally Bank is the number 4 holder/servicer of mortgages in the United States, ahead of Citibank. Due to the auto bailout by President Obama, the U.S. Treasury is the bank's majority shareholder. The fact that Ally Bank was bringing its foreclosures before courts and magistrates without using any process to determine if the foreclosure was justified and lawful, was coming under preliminary investigation by the FBI, due to the qualms of an Ally bureaucrat who was supposed to be certifying these hundreds of thousands of fraudulent foreclosure papers.
Ally has stopped all foreclosures, foreclosure sales, and home seizures in the 23 "judicial foreclosure" states—those which require that a foreclosure be brought before a judge or magistrate and court-ordered. It claimed the stoppage would be "temporary" to clear up "important but technical problems." That's not likely to be true.
Since Sept. 15, four additional, "non-judicial foreclosure" states—California, Ohio, Connecticut, and Colorado—have ordered the bank to stop foreclosing; and four others—Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, and Illinois—are moving to do so. This is likely to keep spreading into an effective nationwide ban on this bank's foreclosures.
In June, a Utah judge had briefly stopped all foreclosures by Wells Fargo (the number 1 holding/servicing bank in the U.S.) and Deutsche Bank (number 6), in a decision later overturned by Federal Circuit Court. The grounds were fundamentally the same: As economists like James Galbraith and William Black have long insisted, a majority of 2005-early 2007 mortgage issuances were fraudulently drawn up ("underwritten"), then fraudulently sold, broken up and resold in packages and derivatives instruments, without lawfully establishing the title of the repurchasers.
While legal challenges on these lines have generally failed or been overturned since 2007, now the Ally Bank breakdown is opening the floodgates for these challenges to be made effective by state authorities.
Nearly 8 million foreclosures have been filed, and 2.5 million American homes lost to repossession, since Barney Frank led the blocking of Lyndon LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act in early 2008.
Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—It would be no surprise to say that, in the throes of a major depression, millions more people have turned to Medicaid for their basic health-care needs. A new report by the Kaiser Foundation, on Medicaid and the uninsured, puts out some new numbers on the growth of the program over the past couple of years. Total spending growth in Medicaid averaged 8.8% across all states in fiscal year 2010, the highest rate of growth in eight years, and well above the projection for FY2010 of 6.3%. Enrollment growth averaged 8.5%, also significantly higher than the 6.6% growth forecast at the start. An additional 3.7 million people joined the program last year, driven there by loss of jobs and health benefits. States projected that Medicaid enrollment and spending growth would average 6.6% and 7.4%, respectively, in FY2011. However, given what happened in 2010, Medicaid officials in two-thirds of the states believe that FY2011 legislative appropriations could be insufficient.
The report also goes into some detail on the budget pressures Medicaid has put on states, which was relieved to some degree by extra Federal money appropriated by Congress in 2009 and 2010. The problem is, Obama's Nazi health-care reform will use Medicaid as one of the ways to increase insurance coverage, which will put further pressure on cash-strapped states.
Global Economic News
Sept. 30 (EIRNS)—British-demanded hyperinflationary policies have unleashed financial chaos around the globe—as Lyndon LaRouche warned they would—along with vituperative finger-pointing and threats to jump ship from among the guilty parties themselves.
As demanded by London, a large number of central banks—including Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve—have been engaging in frenetic "quantitative easing" and other forms of hyperinflationary bailouts. "So far this year, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, Peru, Argentina, and Switzerland have engaged in quantitative easing or similar measures," the economic blog SeekingAlpha.com correctly notes. "And who knows how many central banks have fired up the printing presses? In his last meeting, Bernanke announced that the Federal Reserve is on the verge of joining this curious activity."
As a result, commodity prices have soared this year, including corn, +54%; wheat, +57%; and soybeans, +21%. The currencies receiving the greatest speculative inflows, such as Brazil's real, have also risen dramatically: by 25% since the beginning of 2009.
"If this activity strikes you as absurd," SeekingAlpha wrote, "it is. Desperate would be another apt description. It's like trying to push down all the bumps in a carpet that is too big for the room.... The more funny money is printed, the better gold will do"—a point noted by LaRouche in his Sept. 29 discussion with diplomats in Washington, D.C.
The day after his Sept. 28 de facto confession that LaRouche's warnings about hyperinflation had been right all along, City of London mouthpiece Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writing in the Daily Telegraph, warned that the hyperinflationary binge that he, among others, had demanded, was threatening to unleash currency interventions, capital controls, and other forms of protectionism—which London considers anathema. Brazilian central bank head Henrique Meirelles, for example, who is a London loyalist, warned, in a Sept. 28 speech in London, that "some countries" were engaging in competitive devaluations, and Brazil was considering doubling its tax on incoming capital flows from 2% to 4%, to try to stop the real's whirlwind rise. "This is not necessarily a war," he said, "but Brazil is not going to pick up the tab" for the mess.
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn jumped into the fray, to warn that nothing good ever comes from intervening on exchange rates.
How much of these violent speculative capital flows are actually dirty money from the black economy, including drug trafficking? Probably a lot.
Suggestive, for example, were additional remarks made in London by Brazil's Meirelles, where he promised his audience of investors that Brazil would eliminate remaining obstacles to full convertibility of the real. But, he warned, "what people see as restrictions on capital flows, are actually laws against money laundering, which are rigorously applied in Brazil."
Oct. 1 (EIRNS)—Commenting on the latest Irish bank bailout, an Irish economic source told EIR that he does not see "how the government can shoulder the EU50 billion bill of the bank bailout."
The answer is simple: It can't. The EU50 billion is one-third of the nation's annual income, and brings the deficit from 13% of the gross domestic product, to 32%. The European Union is demanding that Ireland come up with a four-year plan for bringing its budget deficit down to 3%, in line with the EU's Maastricht Treaty criteria. With a 19% approval rating, it is not certain whether the current government will last four weeks, let alone four years. Labour Party spokesman Michael Noonan warned that any future Labour-led government would not necessarily be bound by the current government's four-year plan.
The Irish economy is all but collapsing. The British daily the Guardian reports today that 100,000 workers are expected to leave Ireland by the end of next year, to seek work. This is close to 5% of the nation's 2.2 million workforce. Unemployment is now at 13.6% and is expected to go up when more budget cuts are implemented, as the government has promised.
A big exposition taking place in Dublin, on Oct. 3, is on the new export product of Ireland: its people. Called "The Working Abroad Expo," it is a recruiting event for New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. While younger and more skilled workers may find work, less-skilled workers, particularly those in construction, will not find work in Great Britain or on the Continent, since the collapse of the real estate bubble has all but ended construction.
Peter Bunting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions warned, "A lot of Irish workers in the past got jobs in publicly funded projects like building motorways, schools, and hospitals. The manual laborers and semi-skilled workers from Ireland are the most vulnerable to an economic downturn at home ... and are the ones least likely to get a job if they emigrate to Britain for work."
The trade unions have warned that these unemployed could be exploited by dissident Irish Republican terrorists.
United States News Digest
Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—Today's edition of the Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.) published an editorial that concluded: "We don't need another six months of Obamacare. Congress' first order of business should be to repeal it." After blasting the Obama lies that the new health reforms would curb insurance company rate gouging, the editorial noted that even the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are admitting that the bill will actually add hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. The editorial also slammed the Obama lies about protecting existing coverage and doctors for people already insured. The Health and Human Services Department now admits that 67% of individual policies and 80% of small business policies will be forced to change.
The same day, Florida Today published a letter to the editor demanding Obama's impeachment for the shutdown of NASA. The author of the letter, John Gaynor, noted that 1,000 NASA workers had just been laid off, with 3,000 more about to be dumped. Brevard County, he warned, "will become a ghost town," concluding: "I know you cannot impeach a president for stupidity. If we could, Obama would be on his way back to Chicago. As far as I'm concerned, I would impeach Obama for being a traitor. During his campaign for the presidency, Obama said we need change. Is sending our country down the tubes his idea of change?"
These are typical of hundreds of such editorials and letters, appearing all over the country, at increasing frequency.
Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—Having abandoned President Franklin Roosevelt's policy of Federal assistance for poor people, especially mothers and children, in the 1990s, the U.S. Congress has succeeded in preventing millions of families from getting emergency aid during the current breakdown crisis, as documented in the Washington Post today.
Welfare rolls only grew by 11% on average from December 2007 to March 2010, while food stamp enrollment rose 50%, and unemployment benefit claims rose more than 100%. Medicaid enrollment grew more than 13%.
While there is speculation that some of the slack is being taken up by emergency single payments (as in preventing utilities from being cut off), the reality is that almost all states have steadily tightened conditions for receiving aid, including demanding that women with young children, who might have already lost a job, meet job training requirements, and work.
The special aid from the Federal government, which provided funds for 250,000 jobs for people on Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF—what welfare is now called), has now expired. People are just being thrown on the scrapheap to die.
Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—The Department of Justice announced yesterday the awarding of $298 million in Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants to 379 police and sheriff's departments across the country, for hiring and/or retaining 1,388 law enforcement officers. That's a paltry 3.6 officers per department, where many thousands have been laid off since 2008. New Jersey provides the most stark example of how useless the COPS grant program has become: Six communities received $8.34 million to help them hire or retain a grand total of 36 police officers. The problem is that three of the state's largest cities are laying off, or have already laid off, about 9 times that number, including 111 in Trenton, 165 in Newark, and 40 in Atlantic City. New Jersey Police Benevolent Association President Anthony Weiners said yesterday, during a press conference with about 30 mayors, that New Jersey has 2,228 fewer police officers than it did at the beginning of 2009, a reduction of about 11%.
Sept. 30 (EIRNS)—The House of Representatives yesterday gave up fighting for its own inadequate version of the NASA authorization bill, because its passage would have conflicted with the much worse Senate bill endorsed by the White House. While the House's "compromise" bill sought only to keep NASA together and running, in the unchallenged fiscal environment of budget-cutting, the House had in July restored the canceled funding of the Constellation lunar mission. The Senate bill maintains that cancellation, and grants a larger proportion of funding to commercial rocket companies.
The House began to fold its tent earlier this week, fearful of the implications of leaving town without having provided something for NASA, since the Senate was deemed unlikely to pass the House bill. Emblematic of this preemptive surrender, was the statement of House Science and Technology Committee chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)—heretofore, a leading supporter of the House bill—who explained the coming vote for the Senate version: "For the sake of providing certainty, stability, and clarity to the NASA workforce and larger space community, I felt it was better to consider a flawed [Senate] bill than no bill at all." Rather than continue the fight for the better bill, which would require wrangling with the Senate and more votes on the succeeding versions, a bipartisan House grouping voted 304 to 118 to suspend the rules, and simply vote up the Senate version.
Prominent among those in the House who voted to suspend the House rules was Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), who is opposed in the general election by LaRouche Democrat Kesha Rogers. Olson, who has attempted to portray himself as pro-NASA in his Houston district, thus voted for the cancellation of the Constellation program.
Sept. 29 (EIRNS)—In January of 1937, almost four years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had taken office, and significantly after he had changed the direction of the United States by securing the enactment of the TVA, the CCC, the Glass-Steagall Act, and much more, Roosevelt was honest enough to tell the American people in his second inaugural address, that, to fulfill the promises of the American Constitution, they had to face a massive challenge.
"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished," FDR said. He pledged to "make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern," in the same spirit in which Americans had adopted the Constitution 150 years before. He insisted that Americans should "use the power of government" in order to "promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to the America people."
Contrast this spirit with Barack Obama, in his remarks to students at the University of Wisconsin on Sept. 29. Rather than admit any of the realities of life for the American population—the 30% unemployment, the unprecedented rate of home foreclosures, the skyrocketing poverty—Obama lied that "we have made progress over the last 20 months." "I've only been here two years, guys," he declared. "If you look at the checklist, we've already covered about 70%...."
Is Obama too involved with his own ego to be aware of people's actual conditions of life? Or is he evil?
The answer to that question is indicated by the points which Obama made about the role of government later in the speech. Protesting against the charge that he is for "big government," Obama declared: "We don't believe that government's main role is to create jobs or prosperity."
He said it in his own words, folks. This President literally opposes the role of government laid out in the Preamble to the Constitution, not to mention the commitment of Franklin Roosevelt. No wonder his Presidency is a disaster. No wonder he has to go.
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—After Obama's psychotic rant, when confronted by a former big supporter at a Princeton University alumni event last week, some media pundits have finally woken up to his latest manifested mental disorder: empathy deficit disorder. In just the past 72 hours, Obama's enraged response to Velma Hart was the subject of commentaries in the New York Times ("Obama, Empathy and the Midterms"), the Daily Beast ("Obama's Empathy Deficit"), and the Chicago Tribune ("Obama's Pinatas"). All three articles, and scores of others, noted Obama's disconnect from the pain that the American people are going through, as the result of his murderous policies, starting with Obamacare. The term "empathy deficit disorder," however, is misleading. What is really being described is a sociopathology that is an integral part of Obama's narcissism. He really does not care about the fate of the American people. It's all about his ego.
Kirsten Powers in the Daily Beast came closest to the truth, writing on Sept. 25: "As President, Obama has demonstrated an almost pathological incapacity to connect with Americans' fears and despair over the future. Whether it was the Gulf oil spill or a woman's heartbreaking pleading at a recent town hall meeting, Obama's much ballyhooed coolness seemed more icy than reassuring.... Nothing brought this problem into relief like the two Obama supporters who confronted the President at a recent town hall meeting expressing total despair over their economic situation and hopelessness about the future. Rather than expressing empathy, Obama seemed annoyed and proceeded with one of his unhelpful lectures."
Ibero-American News Digest
Sept. 30 (EIRNS)—Darien province makes up the eastern third of Panama, with its eastern-most region forming the so-called "Darien Gap" which borders Colombia, that swath of jungle through which no road or railroad yet crosses. The province may be the largest in territory in Panama, but it is the smallest in population, with just over 46,000 people abandoned to their fate.
Ninety percent of the border itself is currently locked up as a nature preserve, the Darien National Park, controlled by Prince Philip's genocidal "environmental" apparatus, which asserts that the major threat to this "ecoregion ... is the construction of the Inter-American Highway." The park also provides a safe haven for Colombia's narcoterrorist cartel, the FARC, and the rest of the Darien province is hardly more developed than the formally-designated "nature preserves."
An article appearing in the Panamanian publication Martes Financiero on Sept. 28 reported that there is 75% unemployment in the province, with only 5,000 people employed out of the 20,000 people who are able to work. The province is becoming a region of children and grandparents, its youth and adults leaving to seek work elsewhere.
Food prices there are the most expensive in all Panama, in large part because there are no paved roads in much of the province. Recently, a main road which had been in the works for more than 30 years was finally finished, but it stops halfway into the province, and thousands of people have to then travel by river or sea to their destinations.
Martes Financiero reports that the majority of the people in Darien province want the Pan American Highway to be completed. That highway, running from one tip of the Americas to the other and first proposed in 1889, has been completed—except for the 54 miles of the Darien Gap.
Prince Philip's minions are showing signs of worry that Lyndon LaRouche's campaign to transform the Biosphere with NAWAPA-style projects, can break the environmentalists' power to keep the Gap locked off from civilization. On Sept. 27, Panama's La Estrella daily published a commentary by the former executive director of the Darien Sustainable Development Program, Alfredo U. Acuña H., raving against completing the Pan American Highway, because once the Darien Gap is bridged by a road, it would mean, in short order, the end of national park along the Panamanian-Colombian border.
Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa survived what he described as an attempted coup d'état, in the form of a police strike and uprising on Sept. 30, which appeared to have the support of at least part of the country's armed forces. Police protesters tear-gassed Correa, who had gone to meet with them over their opposition to a law reducing their labor benefits; they then wouldn't allow him to leave the Police Hospital where he had fled for treatment. After being held hostage for 10 hours—during which time Correa received international statements of support from most of the Presidents of Ibero-America, the heads of the UN and the OAS, and from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—he was rescued by military special forces.
But angry policemen don't make coups on their own initiative—even in Ecuador. Some of the questions that arise are:
What is the role of London, and its allies in the Obama Administration, in this operation, which could have thrown the whole region into chaos? Is London distraught at the serious blow delivered to Dope, Inc.'s FARC cartel, with the Colombian military's Sept. 22 killing of the satanic Mono Jojoy? (See InDepth for more on this.) Are they becoming alarmed that British asset Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan President who is joined at the hip with the FARC, suffered a significant setback in that country's Sept. 26 elections, and that his influence in Ibero-America is waning?
Correa has historically lined up with Chávez and other leftists in South America, but he has been careful to distance himself from Chávez's overt support for the narco-terrorist FARC.
Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—Fidel Castro once again came out in defense of London's cocaine cartel, the FARC, and lamented the death of its bestial military commander "Mono Jojoy," in his Sept. 30 column, "Reflections of the Comandante." Perhaps preparing for what may be revealed from the FARC military command's computers, which are now in Colombian government hands, particularly as regards his ally, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, Castro lied that the FARC cartel is a "revolutionary movement," insisting that it will not have to surrender. He blamed the United States for directing what he called "a gross assassination" of Mono Jojoy. "I have criticized the FARC," he said. I "disagreed" with their seizing "prisoners of war ... but I never denied the revolutionary character of the FARC," the aged Synarchist wrote.
Oct. 3 (EIRNS)—The U.S.-Mexico border, along New Mexico, Arizona, and California, resembles more and more the under-siege Gaza Strip. A New York Times report today described surveillance drones tracking drug traffickers from Mexico into the United States. Traffickers are digging sophisticated tunnel systems, to bring marijuana and cocaine into the United States. The border cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, which share a common drainage system, are one epicenter of this tunneling effort, second only to the Tijuana region. In the past two months, law enforcement officials have discovered 51 tunnels passing between the two Nogaleses alone. In the most sophisticated incident to date, a tunnel west of Nogales ran from the master bedroom of a home in Mexico, into the garage of a home across the border in Arizona.
Western European News Digest
PARIS, Sept. 29 (EIRNS)—Angry workers across Europe staged mass street protests today, bringing cities to a halt, and clashing with police. Irish police arrested a man after a cement mixer truck with "Toxic Bank Anglo" written on it, was crashed into the front gate of Ireland's Parliament building in Dublin. A Croatian consulate in Duesseldorf, Germany, was firebombed.
This afternoon, in Brussels, while the EU Commission had yet another meeting to elaborate increasingly dictatorial sanctions against EU member-states unwilling to commit hara-kiri by adopting brutal austerity measures, over 100,000 protesters, from 50 trade unions and over 30 countries held the biggest demo in a decade, in the Belgian capital, saying "No to austerity!" Leading the march was a group of masked demonstrators, carrying umbrellas and suitcases symbolizing the funeral of Europe.
Industrial workers of the Polish shipyards, Romanian gas workers, together with German and Polish mineworkers, marched in front of the EU Commission. "We've sat on a bus for two days and two nights to tell Europe this must stop," said a Romanian policeman, citing a 25% wage cut, a pension freeze and the threat of 20,000 layoffs of police officers.
Mass demonstrations also took place in Helsinki, Dublin, Lisbon, Porto, Rome, Paris, Riga, Warsaw, Nicosia, Bucharest, Prague, Vilnius, Belgrade, The Hague, Athens, Nantes, Lyon, Barcelona, Bor in Serbia, and Cyprus.
Sept. 30 (EIRNS)—Spanish unions carried out a 24-hour general strike yesterday, in which they said 10 million people, or more than half the workforce, participated. The strike was called to protest the government's austerity measures, approved by the Parliament, which cut the wages of public sector workers by 5%, froze state pensions, and introduced new labor laws which will make it easier and cheaper to fire workers and will raise the retirement age from 65 to 67.
On Oct. 1, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will present his budget to the Parliament, a speech in which he is expected to announce even more draconian cuts and tax increases. He is trying to reduce the 11% budget deficit to 6% in 2011.
Today, the credit agency Moody's downgraded Spain's debt from AAA to AA1, citing the weak economic outlook.
MILAN, Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—On Sept. 23, Liliana Gorini, chairwoman of Movisol, the LaRouche movement in Italy, and Andrew Spannaus of EIR were again guests of host Roberto Ortelli for a two-hour special on Radio Padania, the official radio network of the Lega Nord (the Northern League), on Lyndon LaRouche's proposals for Glass-Steagall and NAWAPA, and their potential effects in Italy. Ortelli began by reminding the audience that LaRouche had just turned 88, and that he had some advice to give to Italy, and handed the mike to Gorini, who suggested that the audience watch the debate between Rachel Brown and Barney Frank, and follow LaRouche's webcast the next day in the Italian translation, since all political events in Italy have no importance unless we change the U.S., unless Obama is removed, and LaRouche's proposals for Glass-Steagall and NAWAPA are adopted.
Gorini mentioned what LaRouche had to say about 17th-Century Venetian operative Paolo Sarpi and Liberalism in Europe, and the politicians' attempt to increase pleasure and reduce pain by catering to voters' prejudices—shown in the recent debate to expel Roma (Gypsies) from France and Italy, in order to secure easy votes, including for the Lega Nord. This provoked a number of angry calls from macho Lega listeners, who claimed it is not true that they are "scared" of foreigners, that they are "scared of nothing." Spannaus went on to explain LaRouche's concept of infrastructure, as opposed to the prevailing one today.
Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—On Dec. 11, 2008, the EU Council signed a paper with concessions on Ireland, in exchange for a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (the first referendum had gone against the treaty). The concessions included the commitment that the EU would not interfere with Irish tax rules. Ireland has a lower corporate tax than the rest of the EU. Eventually, Ireland approved the Lisbon Treaty, in a second referendum in 2009.
But now, the Irish Times reported today, the EU is targetting Ireland's low corporate tax in order to reduce the deficit. "The EU Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn said yesterday that no tax policy changes should be excluded from the government's plan to return the national deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2014," the Times wrote. A strong reaction against the suggestion of raising the corporate tax came from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Ireland.
Oct. 2 (EIRNS)—Only a few days after the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Boulder Dam's inauguration by President Franklin Roosevelt on Sept. 30, 1935, the new Hoover Dam Bridge will be opened, as well. The construction of this bridge, way above the Dam and the old road that runs on top of it, has been a very challenging task for engineers, and the team that did the job included a number of specialists from other countries. The German firm Putzmeister, a world leader in the manufacturing of special pumps, contributed to the project with a high-speed pump to continuously transport cement over several hundred meters to the piers and the anchors of the bridge—which was often a job lasting for 18 or more hours without interruption. The problem here is that the cement must not change its temperature during the transport, otherwise the entire project would be doomed.
In a report that appeared on German television a couple of weeks ago, U.S. engineers spoke about their pride in doing this difficult job for their country, in the tradition of their fathers or grandfathers who worked on the Boulder (Hoover) Dam 75-80 years ago. One of the leading engineers said he came out of retirement to work on the project. Another said that their grandchildren would someday also be proud of what their fathers and grandfathers had done and completed in 2010.
Russia and the CIS News Digest
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—The level of political tension in Russia has risen with the involuntary departure of longtime Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, whom President Dmitri Medvedev fired today with a terse decree, issued from China, that said Luzhkov had "lost the confidence of the President." State TV and other, quasi-official, media coverage focusses on corruption charges against Luzhkov and his wife, billionaire construction-company owner Yelena Baturina, as well as Luzhkov's handling of Moscow's notorious traffic jams and the smog crisis during this year's nearby forest fires. At the same time, there is much Kremlinological tea-leaf reading about a power struggle—some of which hinges on a recent public remark by Baturina that she thought Medvedev feared Luzhkov would support Vladimir Putin's return to the Presidency in 2012.
While such commentaries are speculative, it is beyond a doubt that Luzhkov has often incurred the anger of the British financial oligarchy's stooges in Russia. Mayor of Moscow since 1992, he has also been a figure of national stature. In 1999, he allied with ex-Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov in the Fatherland/Our Russia electoral bloc, which later merged with United Russia (from which Luzhkov resigned today). He has strongly advocated national infrastructure projects, including revival of the Ob-Irtysh/Central Asia river diversion scheme, which was featured in his 2008 book, Water and the World. As the global crisis hit Russia full-force in 2008, Luzhkov said that Russia should follow the example of Count Sergei Witte, organizer of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, to launch the development of Russia's Far East. His other books include The Development of Capitalism in Russia—100 Years Later: a Polemic with the Government on Social Policy (2005), and the forward-looking Russia 2050 in the System of Global Capitalism: Our Tasks in the World Today.
Sept. 29 (EIRNS)—On Sept. 20, the Petersburg Dialogue organization and the German-Russian Forum were cosponsors of an event addressed by Russian Railways CEO Vladimir Yakunin and Russian Ambassador to Germany Vladimir Grinin.
Asked if Russia would join NATO, Yakunin cited the thousands of civilian deaths in Iran, for which "a former prime minister of Great Britain" (he didn't mention Tony Blair by name) is responsible, but that person has not faced any consequences for this actions. Yakunin said he does not want Russia to participate in an organization whose values allow for that.
The Russian Railways leader disputed the statement by a German spokesman for one of the sponsoring organizations, who had said that the crisis is over, and that Germany and Russia are in an upswing. Yakunin pointed out that Russia's economy is still in worse shape than before 2008, and that leading economists are warning about a new financial crisis in the U.S.A. So the crisis is not over, and while the global real economy is represented by a value of $60 trillion, the derivatives market accounts for $600 trillion. It would be impossible to control the dollar, he added, because the dollar is not printed by the U.S. government, but by the Federal Reserve.
Yakunin said that infrastructure programs are a way to overcome this crisis, and that we have to take care of the next generation by giving them a good education and better social conditions. Eight regions in Russia are still without a railway system, he noted, but that will be changed by 2030, when the Russian Railways long-term plan is completed.
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—The U.S.-NATO operations in Afghanistan are a failure from the military and drug-fighting standpoints, Russian anti-drug expert Igor Khokhlov of the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) said Sept. 24. "The U.S. has a lot of troubles in Afghanistan, such as increased influence of the Taliban, which controls the biggest part of the country. Thus, people have no choice—either to grow poppies for drug lords, or cooperate with the Taliban. Obviously, drug trafficking is not among Obama's current priorities," Voice of Russia quoted Khokhlov.
Khokhlov has been emphasizing the failure of the U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan under both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations for some time, saying in earlier interviews that military intervention has never worked in Afghanistan, since the British attempt in the 19th Century, and it will not work today. To deal with the current crisis, stopping the opium traffic is essential. In May, he pointed out that Uzbekistan, among other Central Asian nations, is working on biological means to eradicate opium.
Victor Ivanov, head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service, addressing the Federal Counter-Narcotics Agency Sept. 24, called for creating an anti-drug department in the Russian Defense Ministry to combat the well-armed drug caravans from Afghanistan. This is necessary because Afghan drug traffickers are not being controlled by the U.S. and NATO forces, he said.
Reflecting Ivanov's statements, Voice of Russia today reported that international interdiction of opium is essential, due to the failed operations inside Afghanistan. "If the NATO troops cannot control drug distribution inside Afghanistan, it is necessary to control it during transportation across the border with the help of the neighboring countries. And taking into consideration the ever-growing volume of drug trafficking, all methods of fighting it become important," the report stated.
Ivanov called for a separate, unified anti-drug budget in Russia, citing the U.S. $15.5 billion anti-drug program, which is 100 times bigger than the current Russian budget. Voice of Russia reported that a permanent representative of Russia's Defense Ministry would soon join the anti-drug organization, under a law being prepared by the Russian Presidential Administration. Drug trafficking from Afghanistan can only be stopped by regular military forces at this point, and the Russian military does have intelligence and special forces capabilities for this work. Dmitri Rogozin, Russian permanent representative to NATO, pointed to U.S. Special Operations troops being used in Colombia against the drug mafia, as an example for using military forces in Russia, Voice of Russia reported.
Oct. 1 (EIRNS)—Following Soviet President Dmitri Medvedev's Aug. 19-21 visit to Armenia and signing of an agreement to help Armenia build nuclear power plants, Armenia's Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and Russia's state-owned nuclear power enterprise, Rosatom, announced that they will build a new nuclear power unit which will replace Block 2 of the Metsamor nuclear power plant, 40 kilometers west of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. The old unit is scheduled to be closed in 2016. The capacity of the old block, built in 1980, is 407 megawatts, corresponding to 12% of the total power generating capacity in Armenia. The new block will have a designed capacity of 1,060 MW.
The Japanese news daily Asahi Shimbun reported the setting up of a Japanese consortium, consisting of Toshiba Corp., Japan Atomic Power Co., and Marubeni Utility Services Ltd. This group has been contracted by the Kazakhstan government to do a feasibility study of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan. Possessing the world's second-largest uranium reserves, Kazakhstan supplies 20% of Japan's uranium requirements. The three Japanese companies will examine Kazakhstan's need for a pressurized boiling water reactor (BWR) of 600 MW capacity.
Note to Readers:
Our reports on the Russian-Chinese summit in Beijing continue this week in the Asia Digest.
Southwest Asia News Digest
Oct. 1 (EIRNS)—In Lyndon LaRouche's Sept. 24 webcast, he discussed the NAWAPA (the North American Water and Power Alliance) "platform" as the infrastructure concept that should guide the countries of Southwest Asia and Northern Africa in their plans for nuclear power.
Over the past few weeks there has been extensive activity in Southwest Asia regarding nuclear power and water desalination. Here are some highlights:
* A Vienna conference on Sept. 28-29, "Nuclear Power: Middle East & North Africa 2010," focussed on the plans of Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia to build nuclear power. However, other countries attending the conference such as Yemen, Kuwait, and the U.A.E., declared that they are planning to build nuclear power plants, with special emphasis on nuclear water desalination. The organizer of the conference was a Singapore group called Synergy Conferences and Exhibitions Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd., and the conference was sponsored by the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the U.S.-based nuclear technical corporation Excel Services Corp. Vienna is the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
* A conference held on Sept. 28-29 in Damascus, Syria, and organized by the Network of Syrian Scientists, Technicians and Inventors Abroad (NOSSTIA), in cooperation with the Middle East Water Desalination Institute and the International Desalination Association, concluded that the only solution for the water crisis and desertification in Southwest Asia is water desalination. Al-Jazeera.net quotes engineer Basim Halabi of NOSSTIA: "Water desalination is the main solution for the Arab countries, and there is no other alternative." Although there is no report on nuclear power use in this context, due to heavy presence and sponsorship of the conference by European and international organizations, there is no way that Syria, for example, could desalinate seawater without the use of nuclear power.
* A conference held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 12 inaugurated the "King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Power." One of the main speakers was an Arab-American, Prof. Ahmad Hassan from the New Mexico Institute for Mining and Technology, who is a member of the IAEA. Hassan, who is senior researcher at the institute and a chemical engineer, praised the Saudi decision to launch a nuclear program, referencing the massive positive applications of nuclear power and technology, especially water desalination, medical applications, but most importantly raising the scientific level and productivity of the Saudi labor force.
* Jordanian King Abdullah II on Sept. 28 received a high-level delegation from China, comprised of Trade Minister Chen Deming, the chairman of China's Export-Import Bank, the chairman of China's Industrial Bank, senior officials of the Chinese nuclear power agency, the deputy chairman of the China Development Bank, the chairman of the Chinese railway corporation, and executives from other major infrastructure corporations. The delegation had held a bilateral conference with their Jordanian counterparts on Chinese direct investments and building of nuclear power plants, water desalination, railway and dam building. Jordan is expanding its options to include China and Russia in its nuclear power sector, just in case the United States and Europe drag their feet. Jordan has some of the world's largest unexplored uranium reserves. One of the main foci of the Jordanian government is to launch the nuclear water desalination project on the Gulf of Aqaba and start the industrial mining of its massive uranium and sand-oil reserve.
* Egypt's Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Dr. Mohammed Nasreldin Allam told Egyptian press that President Hosni Mubarak has issued directives that all water supplies in the dry northern coastal regions be provided through the desalination of seawater by nuclear power and solar power. Egypt is planning to build four reactors with 1,000 megawatts each in the coming 20 years. The first will be in Dhabaa on the Mediterranean, as soon as an international bidding company is chosen, later this year.
A note on solar power investments and Desertec: Governments in North Africa are paying lip-service to solar power investments, because they need to receive the subsidies and aid for other local projects in the region. The fact that solar power is ineffective and too expensive is understood by an important layer of economic and political institutions, but if they can get it subsidized by the EU, then they believe that there is no risk in building some solar parks here and there, which would and employ some people and show Europe that they care about the "climate change" scare. This is foolish, since it puts the emphasis on the wrong area, and because it promotes the insane greenie fantasies in Europe and among their own populations. It also prohibits the development of the Biosphere, by keeping the desert brown. The Desertec swindle is a major part of this operation. Desertec's modus operandi is to get some start-up money to build solar parks in Syria, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco. Then they print some glossy brochures to show these nice projects to the next group of suckers, to get them to put their money into further projects, and so forth.
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—The director general of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, asked whether International Atomic Energy Agency director general Yukiya Amano's provocative statements accusing Iran of violating IAEA rules were an attempt to provoke an attack on Iran. In an interview with Der Spiegel Sept. 27, Salehi also accused Amano of bias: "Amano failed a number of times with his application for this position, despite the fact that he comes from a powerful country like Japan. Many countries were concerned that he would yield to external pressure. He was only elected with a slim majority after he expressly promised his integrity. But exactly that is lacking from our point of view. Mr. Amano must be careful not to lose his legitimacy due to his partisanship for certain policies."
Asked if Iran is threatening not to cooperate with Amano, Salehi said, "Amano has simply reheated old accusations. And when we reject two inspectors, which is our right, he presents that as a lack of cooperation. I am trying to accommodate the IAEA, beyond that which is required by our written obligations. Opposition to flexible cooperation with the IAEA has, however, grown significantly in Tehran. We will not accept the new tone.... We are not threatening anyone.... We are asking ourselves: 'Is Mr. Amano interested in providing a pretext for an attack against us?... Is Amano interested in connecting his own name with war? Does he want to see the world beset by catastrophe?' "
In his Sept. 13 statement to the IAEA board of governors, Amano not only accused Iran of failure to cooperate, for objecting to the three IAEA inspectors, who allegedly falsified reports and leaked information to the press; he also demanded that Iran accept 39 other inspectors whom they had disqualified, going back to 2007.
Amano took a very weak stance on Israel's refusal to open itself up to IAEA inspections, or to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), even after the 2010 meeting on the NPT at the United Nations strongly reaffirmed support for a Middle East nuclear-free zone, and a demand that Israel sign the NPT.
Amano told the IAEA board meeting that "there continues to be a general lack of clarity among member states in the region on the substance and modalities of an agreement to establish a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone," and would not specifically mention Israel's refusal to sign the NPT. Instead of saying that Israel told him point blank that it would not sign NPT, Amano merely referenced an annex to another document that he had written.
Yet he strongly criticized Iran, going back to 2005, when Iran decided not to extend the additional protocol.
In sharp contrast to what he is now saying, Amano had said, in his opening statement to the NPT meeting on May 3: "I would like to recall that the IAEA General Conference has adopted resolutions in recent years on the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.... Last year's General Conference also adopted a resolution on Israel's nuclear capabilities. I am following up on these resolutions as requested by the General Conference."
Is the difference between Amano's May and September statements related to the mentally unfit President Barack Obama? Initially Obama said he is determined to see the end of nuclear weapons. But after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July, Obama made a 180-degree turn and supported Israel's "special" security needs—i.e., its secret nuclear arsenal—in justification for its not signing the NPT.
Asia News Digest
Oct. 1 (EIRNS)—Responding to a Washington-based corespondent's query about why New Delhi kept mute following U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg's recent statement that China has an important role in South Asia, India's National Security Advisor, Shiv Shankar Menon, said:
"These are not powers which are limited to some little geographical area. We have global interests, the Chinese have global interests. South Asia is part of the globe. All of us, all the major powers, as I said, are not only interdependent on each other, but also are dealing with each other across a whole range of issues, none of which recognizes some artificial geographical construct like South Asia or East Asia."
Steinberg, following his address on "The Impact of U.S.-China Relations in Asia," at a conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars on Sept. 21, was asked about the "Administration's thinking on the proper role for China in South Asia." He replied: "China has an important role. It's a neighbor of South Asia. And it's unimaginable that China would not be involved."
Menon argued: "For me, it's just an academic argument as to whether China has a major role to play in South Asia. Of course, China has a presence in South Asia, and has so for a long time. We have had a presence in East Asia for a long time.... But that presence has changed and evolved as China has changed, as South Asia has changed, and we have changed. And we will continue to do that."
Lyndon LaRouche praised Menon's response, while noting that Menon failed to mention that it is only the British who do not change, and always try to provoke conflicts among nations, such as India and China.
Sept. 29 (EIRNS)—During this week's talks between visiting Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao, stepping up the dialogue with India for regional cooperation figured prominently.
"The two sides [Russia and China] will continue to strengthen dialogue among China, Russia, and India and will make joint efforts to create sound Asia-Pacific and international environments," the joint statement said.
"Both countries are willing to make achievements out of cooperation among the three parties in various fields including disaster relief, agriculture, and public health, deepen communication among academic, industrial, and business circles, as well as promote multilateral cooperation and democratic international relations," it said.
Last October, the foreign ministers of Russia, China, and India met and agreed to enhance cooperation against terrorism, and expressed concern at the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. A joint communiqué issued after a meeting in Bangalore said that among the topics they discussed were the global financial crisis, climate change, increased cooperation in the energy sector, and reform of international bodies, including the UN.
Sept. 27 (EIRNS)—Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's current visit to China marks a "new starting point" in relations, Chinese President Hu Jintao said after meeting Medvedev in Beijing today. While energy cooperation was a leading issue, there is a lot more on the agenda. Medvedev is leading an unprecedented delegation of government and economic leaders, including two-thirds of his Cabinet, according to Russia Today—representing the oil and gas, nuclear, military, and high technology, railway, fishing, and other industries, as well as governors of the regions closest to China. Hu cited the recently completed China-Russia oil pipeline as an example of cooperation: China is giving Russia a $25 billion long-term loan in exchange for 300 million tons of oil between 2011-30. Deals were signed on nuclear power, energy grids, efficient coal production, and other topics during Medvedev's visit.
Medvedev and Hu have already met five times in the past year, and this intensity of contacts "meets the interests of strategic partnership," Medvedev said. He added that "coordination between Russia and China on the international stage is strategic cooperation. This guideline, which allows us to adapt to the complex international situation, will not falter." The two Presidents discussed cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, on the Korean Peninsula, Iran, and other situations.
Medvedev is also promoting his Skolkovo Innovation City, an imitation Silicon Valley, in his visit to Shanghai today.
Oct. 10 (EIRNS)—China is expanding construction of infrastructure which can help it "leapfrog" over more developed nations in several key technologies, including high-speed railways. Today, Hubei province news service announced that the country has started building its first-ever high-speed railway vocational training center, which will enroll 13,000 people beginning next year, to train as engineers, technicians, drivers, and for other skills needed to build and run China's high-speed rail system, now the longest and consistently fastest in the world. By 2020, some 24,000 people will be enrolled in the training base in Wuhan, one of China's biggest industrial centers, in the Yangtze River valley.
The base will become a platform for research and development of high-speed rail systems, and international cooperation in these technologies, the news service reported.
On Sept. 26, China announced the launch of construction of the strategic extension of the highest-altitude railway in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet railway. A 253-km extension will link Lhasa, capital of Tibet, to the city of Xigaze, close to the borders of Nepal, India, and Bhutan. The rail line will pass (relatively) near to Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain, and will cross one of the world's biggest canyons, on the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River in Tibet. The Tibet rail line had to be built in very challenging technological conditions, including permafrost and high altitude, requiring pressurized rail cars.
China successfully launched its second unmanned lunar probe today, from Sichuan province. This will be the first Chinese lunar probe to directly enter the Earth-Moon transfer orbit without orbiting the Earth first, the China Academy of Space Technology announced. In an editorial on the space program published by the Xinhua news service today, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC) emphasized, "Many of the leading information, biological, and new materials technologies, among others, in the United States were based on its Apollo missions." A key resource would be lunar helium-3, for use in nuclear fusion, which could provide energy for 10,000 years, and it would be possible to produce ultra-high purity metals and drugs, due to the weaker gravity and other lunar conditions, CASTC reported.
China is also constructing a huge network of dams and hydroelectric power stations on the tributaries of the Yangtze River, site of the Three Gorges Dam. This system, which will include more than 20 dams on the Yalong and Jinsha rivers, will eventually produce 10 times the hydropower output of the Three Gorges. The over 300-meter Jinping I project, on the dramatic "Jinping bend" of the Yalong, will be the world's highest dam, when finished in 2014. A second part of the project will include an underground powerhouse which will exploit the bend's geography: The river flows around a narrow neck just 16 km wide, but the drop from one side to the other is 310 meters. Digging a headrace tunnel for the water through this neck, will rival tunnels dug in France and Switzerland.
Sept. 28 (EIRNS)—The Chinese-made new generation of high-speed train called the "Harmony" CRH-380A, today hit 258.9 miles (416.6 km) per hour on the Huhang high-speed railway, which runs from Shanghai to Hangzhou, creating a new record as the world's fastest high-speed operational rail.
Other high-speed trains, notably the French TGV, have reached higher speeds, but in a test, not in an operational environment.
The 100-mile Huhang route is currently expected to handle 80 million passenger-trips per year. China, only at the start of its high-speed rail deployment, has 4,400 miles (7,055 km) of operating track, which leads the world.
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