From the Editors:
Helga Zepp-LaRouche took the LaRouche movement's campaign for the BRICS new paradigm, to Washington, D.C. last week, shocking her audience of diplomats, policymakers, and citizens with her presentation of what the BRICS nations have put on the table in terms of development projects which will transform the Earth (Feature). The United States must join this process, or else the already ongoing war dynamic will bring global catastrophe.This issue of EIR includes Zepp-LaRouche's entire presentation-which should whet your appetite for the full "New Silk Road" Special Report which she was promoting. Our other departments highlight the impending disaster if the U.S. does not dump the warmongers, and join the BRICS. In International, we feature the NATO-Merkel offensive against Russia, which the Russians have now publicly identified as a drive for "regime change." President Putin's address to the Federal Assembly is vital reading, and we excerpt it at some length-as is the recent initiative by members of the German elite who have come out to say "War in Europe? Not in Our Name!" Lyndon LaRouche explained how to jam up this war drive, in LaRouchePAC's Dec. 5 webcast: Kick neo-con State Department official Victoria Nuland out of office! We present his urgent message, and the latest developments in Congress on the war question. Mankind faces not only a war of extinction, but the horrors of pandemic disease, should the current paradigm persist. The Ebola epidemic still represents such a threat, as Debra Freeman updates the picture in this issue (Economics). The latest developments in the accelerating BRICS process are featured in our coverage of South African President Zuma's trip to China. Of relevance for further progress are our interview with Bereket Simon, an advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Desalegn; and the latest Schiller Institute conferences on the BRICS New Paradigm, held in Chicago and Boston last weekend.We urge you not to miss another significant feature of this issue, our obituary for the recently deceased Russian economist Stanislav Menshikov. "Stanislav Menshikov was one of the most energetic, colorful, and knowledgeable participants in Soviet-American relations during the height of the Cold War, and in Russian-American relations thereafter," and he was also a close friend and interlocutor with Lyndon and Helga LaRouche over 15 years. His personal history provides a unique glimpse into U.S.-Russian relations over several decades.