Friends, not all news is good news, but the following is certainly constructive and hopeful news. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock should be moved back a few minutes given the direction that seems to be emerging.

Also Trump has had phone conversation with China’s president Xi with assurances that both want to develop ties and change the relationship. Let’s hope it all lasts!

Sharon

Kremlin.ru
November 14, 2016

Telephone conversation with US President-elect Donald Trump

As agreed in advance by both sides, Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with US President-elect Donald Trump.

The Russian President once again congratulated the US President-elect on his victory in the presidential election, wished him success in implementing his election programme and said he was ready to develop a dialogue of partnership with the new administration on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs.

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Friends, in the wake of a Trump Presidency in the past few hours, one of the most trusted financial voices, that of Chris Weafer, has spoken out. Christopher J. Weafer (Chris) has worked in Russia and the CIS region for over seventeen years as one of the top financial experts overseeing Russian, American and European investing. We have been on email with each other for nearly two decades. Most recently he was voted the best Russia investment strategist for 2013 by investors in separate polls carried out by Thomson Reuters Extel and Institutional Investor magazine. He has regularly placed in the top three of these respective polls over the past dozen years.

Below Chris gives us a seasoned hope that the relationship between our country and Russia will grow, yet he knows the difficulties involved in this route as we go forward.

Let us all be determined to do all that we can to open the doors again between our two nations; to reject the demonization and propaganda; to rebuild truthful information among us for the first time since 2000 when the tone began to change between our countries.

We at CCI were there in the early 2000s, trying to figure out why “an ill wind was blowing” between Washington and Russia. The long and tragic process is captured step-by-step in my book, “The Power of Impossible Ideas”— yet at the time I couldn’t understand why it was happening. Looking back now it’s all clear as a bell. The Neocons were taking full charge of the US’s Russia policy from behind the Oval Office. Somehow they decided Putin would be a threat to their purposes and Bush II was easy to manipulate. From then on they were entrenched in Washington policy making … up until yesterday.

Hopefully that dangerous chapter, which appeared to be headed toward a final nuclear showdown over Syria or some other hot spot, may now be behind us. I was a Jill Stein supporter, not a Trump supporter, in this election. In any case, I breathe a little more easily this morning.

As far as our immediate CCI response, I’ve been watching each aspect of this tortuous election to determine how best for CCI to move forward. A number of directions were possible depending on the election outcome. More on what each of us can do to rebuild the US-Russia relationship on or before December 1. Get ready, there’s no time to lose! The presidency didn’t go to the neocons’ expectations, but the neocons are still very much present in the halls of power.

Have a Happy and grateful Thanksgiving! More to follow, Sharon

Thanks to Chris Weaver for allowing the following analysis to be sent!

What Does a Trump Presidency Mean For Russia?

by Chris Weafer

Finally, the most divisive and disruptive election in modern US history is over. Donald Trump will occupy the White House for at least the next four years, starting in late January. The question that many in Russia and those who have, or are considering investing in Russia, are asking is what does a Trump president actually mean for Russia risk? The perception widely held before the election is that Trump would have a friendlier disposition towards Russia and President Putin personally and that he “could do business with him”. The extension of that being that Trump would be good for Russia and for investors in Russia. But, is that assumption overly naïve, i.e. the default assumption in a bitterly contested election, or can both countries now enter a new friendlier phase?

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Dear Friends,

PLEASE take ten minutes to watch this video with Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos. A week ago, Papadopoulos passionately revealed the truth of the US-Russia relationship at the House of Lords in Britain’s prestigious House of Parliament.

Papadopoulos defines the situation in terms of ACTION and REACTION: Washington/NATO’s ACTION and Russia’s REACTION. If the ACTION stops … Russia’s REACTION will stop. Papadopoulos is spot on.

The situation between Washington/NATO and Russia gets more tense by the day, with the prospect that a full-scale Nuclear War could break out in a matter of days, weeks or a few months––if the current direction isn’t altered. Can you believe the situation has degenerated to this stage?

With American and Russian cities already targeted … and many of the 10,000 nuclear weapons on high alert, one would think that only the insane would continue to move toward nuclear war. Yet this is not the case.

Dr. Papadopoulos gives a full explanation of the needless and relentless wars going on, and rightly points to the cornerstone, The Wolfowitz Doctrine, which was quietly hammered out in the bowels of the Pentagon in 1992 after the USSR collapsed. It was written by Paul Wolfowitz and “Scooter” Libby, later to be made a little more palatable by Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.

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The Nation

The personal vilification of Russia’s president is propelling the new Cold War toward hot war, poisoning American politics, and degrading US media.

by Stephen F. Cohen

Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Unlike most installments, which cover an array of news stories, this one focuses on a single but encompassing subject: the nearly decade-long demonization of Putin by the US political-media establishment.

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Friends,

Again Robert Parry, our award winning investigative journalist, brings truth home to us.

Our mainstream media interprets near identical wars in Aleppo and Mosul in two radically different ways. One is extolled, the other condemned. In Mosul where US troops are attacking and Aleppo where the Syrians and Russians are attacking.

Pray tell, what is the difference?

Sharon

Consortium News
October 17, 2016

Good Deaths in Mosul, Bad Deaths in Aleppo

Exclusive: As the U.S.-backed offensive in Mosul, Iraq, begins, the mainstream U.S. media readies the American people to blame the terrorists for civilian casualties but the opposite rules apply to Syria’s Aleppo, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Note how differently The New York Times prepares the American public for civilian casualties from the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government assault on the city of Mosul to free it from the Islamic State, compared to the unrelenting condemnation of the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on neighborhoods of east Aleppo held by Al Qaeda.

In the case of Mosul, the million-plus residents are not portrayed as likely victims of American airstrikes and Iraqi government ground assaults, though surely many will die during the offensive. Instead, the civilians are said to be eagerly awaiting liberation from the Islamic State terrorists and their head-chopping brutality.

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