Category: Aggregated

In their meeting yesterday in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner outlined an optimistic vision of future collaboration between the two nations, noting that Fernandez’s state visit to Beijing, which ends today, has permitted a “qualitative leap” in their strategic alliance, based on a shared commitment to economic and scientific development for all of humanity.

While the Queen’s financial vultures on Wall Street and in the City of London were at work with their Argentine allies trying to destabilize Fernandez’s government, in effect demanding a coup against her, the two presidents signed 15 bilateral agreements, adding to the twenty that they had signed last July when the Chinese president visited Argentina.

The agreements span the areas of culture, nuclear energy, aerospace, transportation — particularly rail —, telecommunications, defense, education, and agriculture, among others. Fernandez noted that with Chinese investment in energy and irrigation infrastructure, Argentina will be able to expand its agricultural production, even beyond its current ability to feed at least 500 million people in the world. Fernandez pointedly contrasted China’s positive role in helping to rebuild Argentina’s railroad system for passenger and cargo uses, with the way Britain built the country’s railroads in the 19th Century for the sole purpose of extracting raw materials for export.

In her remarks at today’s ceremony, the Argentine President made a point of noting China’s support for her government in its battle against the predatory vultures, and its support for Argentina’s initiative at the UN General Assembly to create a new international framework agreement for restructuring sovereign debt without vulture fund interference. The two governments, she said, have the same views on the need to reform the international financial system. As Xi Jinping stated,
“we agreed that we are going to deepen our strategic cooperation in international organizations and multilateral fora and we are going to work together to develop our comprehensive association characterized by equality and mutual benefit and joint development.”

What will drive the British imperialists wild is the heavy emphasis in the agreements on cooperation in the area of science and technology. China will help build and provide financing for Argentina’s next two nuclear reactors, Atucha III and Atucha IV, working with Argentina’s highly-trained scientific cadre force and nuclear energy experts in a collaborative effort that will involve technology transfer from China. Another key component of this cooperation was the agreement signed between Argentina’s National Space Activities Commission (Conae) and its Chinese counterpart for cooperation in space technology and satellite navigation, among other areas.

In the world that is to come, Fernandez emphasized, Argentina is interested in everything that has to do with space,
“investment in which I know the People’s Republic of China, and particularly Xi Jinping, is particularly interested, and we see the possibility of a very important strategic association between Argentina and China in the area of space.” 

In a Feb 3 op-ed in the Washington Post, Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and editor of The Nation, wrote that Greece’s ongoing revolution has

“offered Europe hope. This is Europe’s chance to turn from the crippling austerity that has left the South mired in depression and the North sinking in deflation. Syriza is calling for a ‘New Deal,’ not only for Greece but for all of Europe.”

Note that the EIR article on the election is titled “Greek Elections Can Spark Shift to European ‘New Deal.'”

Noting that Germany and the EU leadership’s response to the Greek election is to reject any changes, and to “opt for misery” for the people of Europe, vanden Heuvel calls on the US and progressives to “join in a bold call to save Europe from its folly.”

Most importantly, she asserts that “the Greek debt cannot be repaid.” When the troika responded to the crisis in southern Europe by bailing out the banks, she writes, Greece’s corrupt leadership followed orders, and
“sold off their assets, crushed workers, trampled labor laws and slashed vital public services to ensure that the private bankers be paid.”

It’s not only Greece, she adds:

she suggests.

Alexis Tsipras, she says, wants to honor the debt, but

She calls on Germany to learn from its own history, with the WWI reparations leading to the rise of Hitler and Nazism, while after WWII,
“the allies had enough good sense to forgive German debt racked up by the most heinous of all governments, and put the country on the road to growth.”

The implication is clear, but not stated in her article, that the alternative to writing down the debt is war.