At CCI, we see the need and possibility for changing this situation. When real people in large numbers get involved, amazing things begin to happen. Join us! Let's help reduce the tensions existing today between the two Superpowers.
Join Fellow Citizen Diplomats on Our June Russia Trip
June 15- 30, 2016, I will lead a group of forward-thinking, informal citizen diplomats to Moscow, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg and the newly rejoined Crimea (Yalta, Simferopol, and Sevastopol). Our chief objective will be to get a realistic understanding of Russia today, from students at their universities to policy makers in their offices. We will engage in informal discussions with Russian businessmen and women, NGO organizers, physicians, educators, working journalists and families in their homes. Dividing up in groups of four Americans each day, we will have different experiences which will later develop into a composite picture of what collectively we have learned.
This will be no ordinary trip. We will catch metros and taxis and forego tourist buses with tour guides. We will try to squeeze in a few cultural activities. I wouldn’t want you to miss the truly exceptional palaces and landmarks, like the Yalta palace where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met to divide up the spoils of WWII. It is lovely beyond imagination. The place reeks of history! If you want more cultural activities, local professional guides can be arranged. And you can veer off by yourself from the planned meetings as you wish.
President’s Report – April 2016
Dear Community of CCI Friends,
Following the February 2016 trip to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Volgograd, I took time out to restore my energy systems––they were near depleted from the past year of travel and 70-hour work weeks. Next was to re-examine how to best use CCI’s resources in the coming months. And last, to determine what was behind my totally unexpected and bizarre “pick-up” and detainment during the Volgograd Rotary meeting on February 18th––and to assure my Visa status for future travel in Russia.
In this April 2016 President’s Report, I want to share with you the extreme seriousness of the current situation between Washington and Moscow. It has been an extraordinarily dangerous game of international wits and high stakes since the beginnings of the Maidan protests in 2014. Yet U.S.mainstream media have provided little coverage of the grave standoff between the two nuclear Superpowers. [Continue Reading]
Beyond a New Cold War
The threats of terrorism, failed states and civil wars cannot be resolved without respectful collaboration between Russia and the United States, says the former CEO of Procter & Gamble.
By John Pepper
John Pepper is a member of the founding board of the American Committee for East-West Accord (ACEWA), a nonpartisan organization of American citizens from different professions—business, academia, government service, science, law, and others—who are deeply concerned about the possibility of a new, potentially even more dangerous Cold War between the United States/Europe and Russia. The group’s fundamental premise is that no real or lasting US, European or international security generally is possible without essential kinds of stable cooperation with Russia. Pepper is also former Chair and CEO of the Procter & Gamble Company and former Chair of the Walt Disney Corporation. He served as CEO and is currently honorary co-chair of the National Underground Freedom Center and the author of two books, What Really Matters and Russian Tide: Procter & Gamble’s Entry into Russia.