The big nightmare overshadowing the international Interior Ministers summit last Sunday, Jan. 11, in Paris, and the follow-up meeting Feb. 18 in Washington (will the BRICS be invited to this?), is the increasing numbers of Americans, and even more so of Europeans, going abroad to join terrorists in Syria and Iraq, and then heading back home again for more terrorism.

“Until this process begins, the ‘party of war’ will continue to be tempted to resolve the matter…by force of arms.
— Sergei Lavrov • Jan. 12, 2015— Speech to EU Ambassadors

At a tribute today to the three police officers killed in last week’s attacks, French President Hollande said that France will be “merciless in the face of anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim acts, and unrelenting against those who defend and carry out terrorism, notably the jihadists who go to Iraq and Syria.”  French Prime Minister Valls said yesterday that “there are 1,400 [french] individuals who are involved in the departures for jihad, for terrorism, in Syria and in Iraq.  It is a massive jump in very little time; there were just about 30 cases when I became interior minister [in mid-2012], and 1,400 today.”

And the German cabinet is expected to approve a law Today, to seize personal ID cards of would-be jihadis for up to three years, to prevent their joining up with terrorists in the Middle East.

This won’t work, Lyndon LaRouche said today.  Instead, we have to get clarity about which side we’re on, and who it is we’re fighting, namely the Saudi-British empire.  We have to start with releasing the classified 28 pages of the report of the Joint Congressional Commission on 9-11, exposing the Saudi, and by implication the British hand behind 9-11.  From there, reverse Obama’s 2011 blunder of calling for Bashar Assad’s overthrow, and join with Syria, Russia, China and others to root out terrorism, while strictly preserving and protecting Syrian sovereignty.

LaRouche said: “You have to go in and get it under control directly…Not this indirect approach; you’ve got to go at it directly.  Don’t try to negotiate this; that doesn’t work.”

SEE “Declassify the 28 Pages”

At the same time, U.S. oil (WTI) fell below $45 for the first time in six years, and Britain’s Standard and Chartered became the first bank to acknowledge facing large losses from the commodity price collapse; bank analysts predicted StanChart will have to raise billions in additional capital. 

LaRouche said:

“They may as well give up right now… raise Hell, not money. Wall Street is absolutely bankrupt and cannot restrain that process. So therefore, the problem is that this is a disease that threatens the entire U.S. economy; that disease must be put under control.  That means shutting down the system.”

That means Glass-Steagall and the rest of LaRouche’s Four Cardinal Laws.

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will travel to China for a state visit Feb. 3-5, with a large multi-sectoral delegation.  The Argentine Foreign Ministry said the purpose of the trip is to “consolidate and diversify our country’s export offers to one of the most dynamic economies on the world scene.”

Last week in Beijing, Argentine Foreign Minister Timerman met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, to discuss the state of the bilateral relationship and assess implementation of existing accords, signed during Xi Jinping’s visit last July. Wang Yi also stated his country’s support for Argentina’s efforts to establish an anti-vulture-fund international framework agreement on sovereign debt restructuring, which will be discussed at the UNGA beginning in February.

Argentina’s Central Bank will activate the next tranche of the $11 billion China currency swap agreement, for $400 million, to continue bolstering foreign reserves, and ramp down any expectation of a devaluation.

SEE “LaRouche’s Four Laws”

But yet, at the same time, all this could end in a few moments if the slide towards world war continues around the Ukraine pretext.  Foreign Ministers of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine met Monday, but made so little progress, according to German Minister Steinmeier, that they cancelled plans for a heads-of-government summit, and instead agreed to meet among themselves again in the near future, without setting a date. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told the EU ambassadors to Moscow two days ago that peace would come to Ukraine after the Kiev government fulfilled its promises of last April.  He said the most serious problem was

“the absence of any progress whatsoever, or even the beginning of motion toward carrying out constitutional reform with the participation of all regions and political forces of Ukraine — what was agreed upon back in April 2014.

“Until this process begins, the ‘party of war’ will continue to be tempted to resolve the matter of restoring and ensuring Ukraine’s territorial integrity, not on the basis for nationwide accord and consensus in society, but by force of arms.  This is unacceptable and will be destructive for our Ukrainian neighbors.”

In the midst of this dangerous deterioration, a civilian inter-city bus was hit by military fire near a Kiev checkpoint in the Donetsk area yeseterday, killing a dozen passengers and wounding an equal number.  The fascist Kiev regime immediately blamed the self-defense militias of Donetsk, but they said the bus was deep into Kiev-held territory, far from their front-lines and out of range of their weapons.

LaRouche concluded:

“There are interesting options offered from the BRICS and Europe. The French government will tend to be against war, but some other parts of the world, for example Germany, are in a very touchy situation.  The development in France as such is probably useful in tempering the situation, but I don’t think Germany has shown any sign of that as yet.”

 Oil Collapses and Copper Crashes 8% in Day – Great Recession Cometh? Oil prices fell another 1 per cent this morning  and continue their collapse – down 57% in just over 6 months. Copper crashed 8% on the London Metal