Yesterday's Real Journalist News - FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2018

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FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2018

• Now, 35 Years Since Reagan’s Call for a Strategic Defense Initiative, LaRouche’s ‘New Paradigm’
• Theresa May Forced To Answer on British Interference in U.S. Elections
• Russian Ambassador Antonov, Sen. Rand Paul Discuss Resuming Inter-Parliamentary Dialogue
• North Korean, South Korean and U.S. Delegates Meet at Helsinki, Amid Summit Expectations
• Summit Plans for North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. Are Moving Ahead
• Russia Reminds the World of Tony Blair’s Lies about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction
• U.S.-Russia Military-to-Military Contacts Intensify
• Moscow and Washington’s Foreign Intelligence Agencies Maintain Regular Dialogue
• Southeast Asia Is ‘Focus of New Nuclear Build,’ Says World Nuclear Association Head
• Gazprom: Russia-China Power Gas Pipeline Is Advancing at a ‘High Tempo’
• After Sarkozy’s Arrest, Demands Grow for the Truth on the War against Qaddafi
• Qaddafi’s Son Confirms Allegations against Sarkozy, Condemns Him as a War Criminal

EDITORIAL
Now, 35 Years Since Reagan’s Call for a Strategic Defense Initiative, LaRouche’s ‘New Paradigm’
March 22 (EIRNS)—The March 23rd issue EIR Daily Alert appears on 35th anniversary of the 1983 call by President Ronald Reagan, for the United States and Soviet Union to launch a collaboration in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), for the security and development of the world. This strategic policy was the brainchild of Lyndon LaRouche, who had introduced it publicly years before in his pamphlet, “Sputnik of the Seventies: The Science behind the Soviets’ Beam Weapon,” released in the 1977, which identified the necessity for R&D of new physical principles to both protect and to benefit mankind. While the SDI’s realization at the time was thwarted by British-brand geopolitical machinations, the LaRouche intervention, and Reagan’s initiative, constitute important actions towards a New Paradigm of collaborative foreign relations, which today we urgently must see through.

We are at a moment of both extreme tension, given the danger of nuclear war and annihilation, and of great hope, given the spread of the “spirit of the New Silk Road,” and potential for collaboration among President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The opponents of this, for example, British Prime Minister Theresa May, are conducting dirty operations—such as the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, which accusation was directed against Russia, but which only serve to expose their own geopolitical intent.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave her reflections on the historic Reagan SDI announcement today, in her weekly Schiller Institute webcast. She said, “I think that the SDI proposal, which was absolutely not what the media made out of it, calling it “Star Wars,” and things like that, the SDI proposal of my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, was an absolutely farsighted vision of a New Paradigm! And if you read the relevant papers about it, especially the proposed draft for a dialogue among the superpowers, which was published one year later, which you can find in the archives or in the newer issues of EIR, this was a vision where both superpowers would develop together, new physical principles which would make nuclear weapons obsolete. And I think what Putin announced on March 1st in terms of new physical principles applied for new weapons systems, is absolutely in this tradition.

“And Putin also asked: Now they have to sit down and we have to negotiate and put together a new security architecture, including Russia, the United States, China, and the Europeans.

“This was all envisioned by my husband in this famous SDI proposal, and it was a very far-reaching way to dissolve the blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, to cooperate instead among sovereign republics, which is exactly what the New Silk Road dynamic today represents. And it was also the idea to use a science-driver in the economy to use the increased productivity of the real economy for a gigantic technology transfer to the developing sector, in order to overcome their underdevelopment and poverty.

“And this is what we’re seeing today, also, in the collaboration between China, Russia and the countries that are participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

“So I think, in a certain sense, part of this danger of peace breaking out, that there is right now the very vivid tradition and actualization of that tradition of the SDI, and I think we should circulate this proposal by my husband again. I think we should enlarge it to become the SDE, the Strategic Defense of the Earth, because it was just discovered that very soon, another big asteroid is already taking course on the planet Earth: So we need to move quickly to the common aims of mankind, and all countries should cooperate and be a shared community for the one future of humanity.

“This is the New Paradigm which I think is so obvious. I mean, if you look at the long arc of history, we have to overcome geopolitics and we have to move to a kind of cooperation where we put all our forces together to solve those questions which are a challenge to all of humanity—nuclear weapons, poverty, asteroids—there are so many areas where we could fruitfully cooperate—space exploration is one of them. And I think we are in a very fascinating moment in history.”

(Lyndon LaRouche’s March 30, 1984 document, “The LaRouche Doctrine: A Draft Memorandum for an Agreement between the United States of America and the U.S.S.R.,” was reprinted in EIR, Feb. 9, 2018.)

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Theresa May Forced To Answer on British Interference in U.S. Elections
March 22 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, during the period called the “Prime Minister’s Questions” in the British Parliament, Prime Minister Theresa May was asked, “Does the Prime Minister agree that subverting the democratic process in another country [i.e., the U.S.] is totally unacceptable?” The questioner was Ian Blackford of the Scottish National Party, and he was referring to interference in the U.S. presidential election through the British firm Cambridge Analytica, exposed in the March 23 lead story in EIR by Barbara Boyd. Some of that exposé was in yesterday’s EIR Daily Alert.

May’s answer and Blackford’s further questioning were anticlimactic—the most important thing was that this question was finally formally and publicly asked at last.

May had prepared an answer claiming that Cambridge Analytica had had British government contracts between 2008 and 2016, but none under her government. Blackford went on to document numerous ties between Cambridge Analytica and May’s Tory Party.

Russian Ambassador Antonov, Sen. Rand Paul Discuss Resuming Inter-Parliamentary Dialogue
March 22 (EIRNS)—Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov met with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) recently, and discussed, among other things, the possible resumption of inter-parliamentary dialogue, TASS reports today. “Ambassador Antonov and Senator Paul discussed Russian-U.S. relations and the prospects for a resumption of inter-parliamentary dialogue,” a statement by the Russian embassy said. “The interlocutors also took up the problems of regional and global security.” Paul’s office put out a statement about their meeting on March 21. The Senator is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and said he “regularly” meets with ambassadors to the U.S.

Antonov had told Politico on March 7 that “The Congress, overwhelmed by Russophobia, is led by politically biased emotions, rather than a clear-thinking mind. We’re bluntly told they fear criticism.” Senators Bob Corker (TN), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Ron Johnson (WI) had told Politico they had already met with Antonov, as had Senate President Pro Tem Orrin Hatch (UT).

TASS also quotes a Congressional aide’s remarks to Politico: “After what happened to Jeff Sessions, no member wants to be in the press for meeting with the Russian ambassador [and] ... any lawmaker who does meet with Antonov should be upfront about it. At least for now, any meeting would have to be bipartisan and publicly acknowledged.”

However, TASS repeated that Moscow wants to resume dialogue between the U.S. Congress and Russia’s bicameral legislature, the Federal Assembly, which the U.S. had suspended.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
North Korean, South Korean and U.S. Delegates Meet at Helsinki, Amid Summit Expectations
March 22 (EIRNS)—AP reported Tuesday on the March 19-20 two-day talks among the U.S., North Korean and South Korean delegates at a 19th-century manor house just outside Helsinki. Eighteen delegates, six from each country, plus observers from the United Nations and European Union, attended the meeting, which was carried out under a veil of secrecy. Media were largely kept in the dark about the identities of the delegates and issues on the table, apart from Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini saying on March 20 that denuclearization wasn’t on the agenda, AP reported.

What is known, however, is that senior North Korean diplomat Choe Kang-il, who handles North American affairs for his Foreign Ministry, was among the delegates from Pyongyang, while the U.S. delegation is believed to have included Kathleen Stephens, the former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea.

Many observers consider that the Finland meeting was geared toward preparing a summit between the North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, and a meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, AP reported. A South Korean academic in Helsinki told a Finnish broadcaster media that It was the first in a series of planned meetings among the Koreas and the U.S., involving unofficial talks between current and former officials and academics. The meetings are likely to be important for establishing summit expectations and possibly even agenda items, said AP.

Summit Plans for North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. Are Moving Ahead
March 22 (EIRNS)—Things are being moved into place ahead of the proposed summits between leaders of North Korea and South Korea and the United States. A case in point is that North Korea will convene a meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s legislative body, on April 11 in Pyongyang, according to North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), reported UPI.

It will be the sixth session of the country’s 13th assembly and will deal with issues such as the national budget, judicial changes, and personnel policy in state bodies; the assembly convenes once or twice a year. But, of course, it is now taking place within weeks of the proposed summit.

Russia Reminds the World of Tony Blair’s Lies about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction
March 22 (EIRNS)—In a briefing and discussion of the Skripal case for foreign diplomats in Moscow yesterday, Vladimir Yermakov, Director of the Foreign Ministry Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, said, according to the transcript published by the Foreign Ministry:

“One thing is clear: Russia has absolutely nothing to do with this [poisoning], if only because such an audacious undertaking would be unacceptable and damaging for Russia in every respect.

“But the United Kingdom has a completely different record. Suffice it to recall how former Prime Minister Tony Blair openly admitted not so long ago that the British leadership and intelligence services lied to themselves and to the British nation while plunging it into the bloody war in Iraq. Well, he did make this confession now, but hundreds of thousands of absolutely innocent Iraqi citizens had been killed as a result of that war, and no one has been brought to account for this.

“One can only speculate as to who is trying to plunge the United Kingdom into another dirty and a priori unwinnable campaign against Russia, and for what purpose. Is this some kind of a hypnotic trance under the influence of Michael Basset’s ‘Strike Back’ television series, aired in the United Kingdom several months ago and featuring the Novichok chemical agent?”

U.S.-Russia Military-to-Military Contacts Intensify
March 22 (EIRNS)—The Hill reported yesterday that U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford had just spoken with Russian Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov, about Syria. As is usual in these discussions, no details were disclosed. Dunford had last spoken to Gerasimov on March 13, eight days earlier.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement yesterday that General Gerasimov had also spoken on the phone with U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO Supreme Allied Commander-Europe. The two generals “exchanged their views on topical issues of international security,” and Gerasimov agreed with Scaparrotti on a proposal for the two to meet.

Barack Obama had shut down all military-to-military contacts with Russia in 2014, but the Trump Administration has opened them up again. There are reports that Dunford and Gerasimov have spoken by telephone at least monthly. They have met at least twice: once in Baku on Feb. 16, 2017, which was the first such meeting since January 2014, and then again in Antalya, Turkey, on March 6, 2017.

Associated Press reported last September that unnamed U.S. and Russian generals had met in Syria around Sept. 21, 2017, and shared maps, graphics and information about where their forces were fighting around Deir Ezzor. Additionally, the military “hotlines” which link U.S. and Russian headquarters for Syria, are frequently active, sometimes for many hours or even a day at a stretch during dangerous periods.

As these examples make clear, the reason for all these contacts is not so much that the U.S. and Russia agree with each other, but that they agree to manage their differences.

Moscow and Washington’s Foreign Intelligence Agencies Maintain Regular Dialogue
March 22 (EIRNS)—Responding to a question from TASS today, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister for Counter-Terrorism Oleg Syromolotov said Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency have been maintaining a “rather active” dialogue.

Syromolotov said “the FSB and the CIA have been maintaining regular contacts as you can see from dialogue on the St. Petersburg issue” when the CIA provided Russia with information allowing it to foil a planned terrorist attack in St. Petersburg last December. “You can rest assured that if we have any information of this kind we will definitely pass it over to the United States,” said Syromolotov, who was Chief of the FSB’s Counterintelligence, before joining the Foreign Ministry in 2015. He also pointed out that in October 2017, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov had chaired a conference on counterterrorism, which had involved senior officials from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the CIA and the State Department.

On this month’s changes in the Trump administration that has brought the former CIA Director Mike Pompeo in to run the U.S. State Department, Syromolotov opined: “I can see that Michael Pompeo has a reasonable approach to things, while [former Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson did not fit into the team consisting of former military officers.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Southeast Asia Is ‘Focus of New Nuclear Build,’ Says World Nuclear Association Head
March 22 (EIRNS)—Speaking on the first day of the March 21-23 Sustainable Energy Technology Asia 2018 conference in Bangkok, Director-General of the World Nuclear Association Agneta Rising strongly promoted nuclear power to become the energy focus of Southeast Asia. Rising said nuclear power generation is growing rapidly in Asia, having increased by 35% over the last five years. “Asia is a focus of new nuclear build, with 40 of the 56 reactors under construction globally being built in Asian countries. New countries are planning to start using nuclear generation, with construction of Bangladesh’s first reactor under way and preparations progressing in countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” she said, according to a statement covered by World Nuclear News today.

Pointing out that Southeast Asia has become reliant on fossil fuels for electricity supplies, while its electricity demand is expected to double over the next 20 years, she said: “Countries in Southeast Asia can be part of a global clean energy future by committing to use nuclear energy. This will help reduce pollution, improve air quality and deliver better public health. ... Nuclear energy will provide a clean and reliable 24/7 supply of electricity at a competitive price,” she said.

science and infrastructure
Gazprom: Russia-China Power Gas Pipeline Is Advancing at a ‘High Tempo’
March 22 (EIRNS)—“The construction of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline is going on at a high tempo. It is a link between the gas production centers and consumers,” Gazprom said in a statement after a meeting of its board of directors, RT reported on March 21. In May 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping signed a landmark $400 billion gas deal under which Gazprom will supply the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas every year for 30 years. Gazprom’s statement said that the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline is 75% complete and runs over 1,600 km.

The project entails the bringing supplies from the gas deposits in Siberia to Russia’s Far East. At the border in Blagoveshchensk, the pipeline will be extended into China. Gas will be delivered to both Russian consumers in the Far East and to China. A section of the gas pipeline will cross the Amur River, called the Heilongjiang River in China, near Blagoveshchensk (capital of the Amur region in the Russian Far East), and China’s border city of Heihe.

Russia is also negotiating with China for a second gas pipeline to China, the Power of Siberia 2. This pipeline is intended to deliver an additional 30 bcm of gas per year to China.

OTHER
After Sarkozy’s Arrest, Demands Grow for the Truth on the War against Qaddafi
March 22 (EIRNS)—Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been formally accused of having accepted illegal bribes from Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2007, and after one night in jail was released on bail today.

Sarkozy’s judicial troubles have raised overall political allegations on the real nature of the war against Libya he unleashed in 2011, pulling in NATO and resulting in a political, social and humanitarian disaster. Especially in Italy, which lost a stable oil supplier and commercial partner, and has suffered the major burden of the refugees in the Mediterranean, the demand to finally tell the truth on that war is coming from many political factions and media.

Guido Crosetto, Undersecretary of State in the Defense Ministry in 2011, told Il Giornale that the war in Libya “was clearly an intervention against us, against our interests, against [Italy’s oil company] ENI. At that time, 25% of our energy supplies were covered by Libya. Today, Libya covers only 7%. At that time, there were already rumors that there was something strange in Sarkozy’s determination against Qaddafi....”

Sarkozy succeeded in convincing NATO allies by first finding “backing from the British and eventually from [then U.S. Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton. [Then Prime Minister] Berlusconi found himself alone against everybody. Probably, we failed in seeking support from Germany at that moment.”

Crosetto reports that there was an emergency meeting on Libya chaired by President Giorgio Napolitano, in which Crosetto stated his opposition to the war, but Napolitano kicked him out. “I remember a detail: While Berlusconi was at the Elysée to discuss the intervention, French aircraft took off and flew over Italian air space without notice. Which is very serious.”

Crosetto says that Italy should draft a 10- to 20-year plan to stabilize Libya and the Mediterranean, but he doubts the current or the next government will be able to do it.

Former Lazio Governor Renata Polverini, a Deputy for Forza Italia, said that if the allegations against Sarkozy are confirmed, full light should be shed on the 2011 war against Libya. “That resulted in a disaster for our country, with incalculable damage for which we are still paying on the economic front and on the migratory front. We cannot forget that year, 2011, not least because of the smirks exchanged by Sarkozy and Merkel in response to a question on the Italian situation and Berlusconi, during a press conference. Still today, that indecent laughter is an offense to the Italian people and appears as inopportune and unfortunate.”

Even the establishment daily Corriere della Sera, in its correspondence from Paris, wrote that the political allegations against Sarkozy are more serious than the allegations of corruption. “It was suspected that by eliminating Qaddafi, France aimed to put feet and hands into an area of energy interests traditionally close to Italy. It was said that Qaddafi represented a threat to French interests in the Sub-Saharan area, according to alleged plans for monetary and geopolitical expansion. But it was especially suspected that Qaddafi was the depository of many secrets related to funding, business, and favors in France, where his sons would stay in the best hotels and his emissaries had access to the high salons of politics and finance capital.”

Qaddafi’s Son Confirms Allegations against Sarkozy, Condemns Him as a War Criminal
March 22 (EIRNS)—Qaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, who according to unconfirmed reports, has announced plans to run in the Presidential elections in Libya, welcomed the arrest of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and reiterated his offer to provide evidence showing that Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign was financed through illicit funds. This was said in an interview with multimedia platform Africanews, founded in 2013 by Euronews.

Another witness, Qaddafi’s former advisor Moftah Missouri, said in an interview with Il Giornale that he was there when Sarkozy asked Qaddafi for $50 million, and was later told by Qaddafi that he had given Sarkozy only $20 million.

Africanews reported on March 20: “Saif al-Islam alluded to the evidence he gave to European media channel Euronews in Tripoli in 2011, and lamented that it had taken the French justice system seven years to act on the matter....

“... Saif al-Islam mentioned that there are several witnesses willing to testify against Sarkozy, including Abdallah Snoussi, the former director of the Libyan intelligence services, and also Bashir Saleh Bashir, the former CEO of Libya Investment.

“According to Saif al-Islam, Snoussi has a recording of the first meeting between Sarkozy and Qaddafi held in Tripoli before Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign.

“Saif al-Islam adds that he too can testify, having witnessed the delivery of the first portion of the money to Sarkozy’s former chief of staff, Claude Guéant in Tripoli.

“He goes on to accuse Sarkozy of being a war criminal who is responsible for the spread of terrorism and illegal immigration in Libya. He urges French President Emmanuel Macron to right the wrongs of his predecessor and prosecute Sarkozy for crimes committed against Libya.

“Saif al-Islam...also told Africanews that he supports an expeditious organization of presidential elections in the North African country.

“He warned that there are parties in Libya and abroad that seek to maintain the current chaotic situation in Libya, saying an endless war is imminent if elections are not held quickly.”