On April 9, the same day that Trump’s nation-specific tariffs took effect, Trump announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs for most nations—the well-behaved ones—with the notable exception of China, on whom Trump brazenly announced a 125% tariff, because of the "lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets," and in retaliation for China’s announced reciprocal 84% tariff on US imports. Looming in the background of the bravado and news headlines is a financial system which is ready to blow sky-high, perhaps beginning in the bond market, and which, in its terminal condition, could not be saved by any amount of liquidity pumping or bailout. Add to this picture—because it is an integral part of the same system—the multiple flashpoints of war that still loom. At the moment, a meeting, or perhaps indirect negotiation, between US and Iranian representatives is planned for April 12 in Oman—a hopeful step toward diffusing a war that could quickly turn nuclear—while at the same time, the US amasses weaponry in the region and announces new sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program. Conditions have not yet been agreed upon for an end to the war in Ukraine, and Israel proceeds in its genocidal liquidation of Gaza. Moments like this must give us pause to think, along with Dr. Martin Luther King, that "only when it’s dark enough, can you see the stars." The fact that there is no solution within the dying geopolitical system of empire, war, and Wall St. means that the only way out is via the creation of a new system, a new paradigm, based on entirely different axioms than the current one. In her April 9 webcast discussion with Ambassador Jack Matlock Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche put forward a sane approach to dealing with the impending blowout of the financial system: "The proper way to have done it would have been to call for a big international economic conference, like a New Bretton Woods conference, and then discuss the principles of how this reorganization should be done. And then put the details to a taskforce and expert groups and work it all out in a goodwill cooperation." The world has been holding up a dying financial bubble which is triggering a general breakdown and world war. Join the International Peace Coalition this Friday at 11am ET/5pm CET with former U.S. diplomat, CIA official, and Islamic scholar Graham Fuller, Historian Geoffrey Roberts, and others to be announced soon.