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Better Earth

Putin, Rouhani, Erdogan discuss Syrian peace process in Sochi, issue joint statement

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 22:10 UTC
rouhani putin erdogan
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hosted President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in the Sochi to discuss a peace process for Syria. The meeting is part of the Astana format which has previously agreed to create and maintain de-escalation zones in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Who said what:

The three Presidents agreed to further their commitments to deeper cooperation over all matters relating to a final peaceful political settlement to the Syrian conflict.

President Putin spoke first saying that in addition to cooperating on peace measures, all three countries agree to continue cooperation against remaining terrorist group in Syria, such as al-Nusra (al-Qaeda's branch in Syria).

Once al-Nusra and remaining Takfiri terrorists are neutralised, Putin stated that a "long lasting comprehensive normalisation of the territory of Syria (and) political restructuring of post-conflict Syria" is necessary and that the joint statement by the three Presidents reflects this.

Putin stated that is is additionally important for the return of Syrian refugees to a peaceful country as well as for Russia, Iran and Turkey to work with Syria to normalise the situation for internally displaced persons.

Comment: Sputnik adds a few more details:
Speaking to the media after the talks, Putin observed that the "large-scale military operations against terrorist gangs in Syria are coming to an end," adding that the joint efforts by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara have effectively saved Syria from disintegration and its capture by the jihadists, and the humanitarian disaster that would have accompanied that eventuality.

"Indeed, militants in Syria have suffered a decisive blow, and now there is a real chance to end the civil war that has lasted many years," the president added.

Putin emphasized the importance of the Astana peace talks process, pointing out that it made possible, for the first time, to successfully bring the representatives of the Syrian government and the armed opposition to the negotiating table. A "completely new stage" - the chance for a genuine and lasting peaceful political settlement, is now possible for Syria, he added.

The president thanked presidents Rouhani and Erdogan personally for the "special role they played" in this process. "Without the stance you took, the Astana process would not have existed; there would have been no cessation of hostilities, no ceasefire, no de-escalation zones," Putin stressed.

...the Iranian leader emphasized the point that any foreign military presence in Syria is acceptable only with the consent of the Syrian government, in accordance with international law.
...
Erdogan noted that the three sides have made important progress, but that the Astana talks don't go far enough, and that "all stakeholders must put effort into a political resolution to the conflict which the Syrian people would accept." He also emphasized that the YPG Kurdish militias (which Ankara classifies as terrorists) must be excluded from the process. "We came to a common conclusion that we need to more actively develop relations in all sectors," he said, rounding out his takeaway from the meeting.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it welcomes the Sochi communique. A Foreign Ministry source speaking to the SANA news agency said that "any political action that respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria and contributes to sparing the blood of the Syrian people" has Damascus's support. Accordingly, "the Syrian government welcomes the final statement of the trilateral summit held today in Sochi." The source added that it sees Wednesday's meeting as a continuation to Monday's bilateral meeting between President Putin and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Note that this never would have happened without Russian support. Turkey would still be supporting Nusra and colluding with ISIS. Iran would be offering some small support, but not enough to turn the tide of the war. Russian intervention has not only stopped the jihadists in their tracks and retaken the country, it has also brought Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria closer together. A+.

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Dollar

Fusion GPS bank records unsealed, show $1million in payments from DNC-hired law firm

Chuck Ross
The Daily Caller
Tue, 21 Nov 2017 21:58 UTC
Obama Fusion GPS
A federal court unsealed documents in a lawsuit over Fusion GPS's bank records on Tuesday, revealing new details of payments made last year to the opposition research firm that commissioned the infamous Trump dossier.

The documents also shed new light on requests made by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about payments that Fusion GPS made to journalists.

The records were unsealed in response to a ruling made last week by Richard Leon, a federal judge in the district court in Washington, D.C.

The bank documents list 112 transactions involving Fusion GPS.

Most are redacted, save for transactions between two law firms that the oppo firm worked with last year on two Russia-related projects.

Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC, paid Fusion a total of $1,024,408 between May 24, 2016 and Dec. 28, 2016, the records show.

The largest payment was made just before the election. Perkins Coie made a $365,275 payment to Fusion GPS on Oct. 28, 2016, according to the records.

Comment: Remember, the DNC filed these payments as "legal expenses", when in fact they were opposition research. The DNC just used the law firm as a middleman. Would you expect anything less from Crooked Hillary?

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Flashlight

Conyers first denies sexual harassment settlement, then admits it, but denies allegations

Joshua Caplan
Gateway Pundit
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 21:14 UTC
conyers
The morning after Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) was hit with sexual harassment claims, the Associated Press went to the lawmaker's Detroit home to seek comment.

Conyers denied the report, claiming he has not settled any sexual harassment complaints with staffers. Hours later, the lawmaker confirmed that he did, in fact, pay a settlement over sexual harassment claims.

"JUST IN: Rep. John Conyers retracts earlier statement to AP, says he was surprised and confused about which allegations. He confirms a settlement but denies the allegations," tweeted BuzzFeed's Paul McLeod.


Comment: See also: Democrat Congressman Conyers accused of sexual harassment, having employees provide transport for mistresses

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Gold Bar

Price of gold could skyrocket to over $5k per ounce in five years


RT
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 20:25 UTC
gold
© Leonhard Foeger
A prolonged period of cheap money and the shift of investor focus to gold as a haven from geopolitical and financial risk could boost the price of the precious metal to over $5,000 an ounce in five years, McEwen Mining CEO Rob McEwen says.

If that happens, "there is going to be a tsunami of money looking for a place to go," he told Bloomberg at a mining industry conference in San Francisco.

One of the industry's biggest bulls, McEwen is known for his passion for gold. He was one of the top hundred wealthiest Canadians as of 2016, with an estimated personal net worth of over $800 million.

According to him, lower-for-longer interest rates have fueled bubbles in the stock, real estate, and even art markets as investors seek out higher returns. While conventional wisdom is that a return to higher rates would make interest-bearing assets more attractive, gold should become more appealing as markets re-calibrate, said the businessman.
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Gold Seal

"Putin's professor"? How Stephen Cohen is smeared as a Kremlin apologist, simply for telling the truth

Jordan Michael Smith
The Chronicle Review
Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:48 UTC
stephen cohen
Here is a picture of Gorbachev with Steve. Here is another picture of Gorbachev with Steve, this one with some Russian dissidents. And look, there is one of Gorbachev and Katrina, Steve's wife, holding their infant daughter. There is even a Gorbachev magnet on the refrigerator.

Walking around this book-lined apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side on an August evening, it is almost as though the man with the world's most famous birthmark is the third partner in the marriage of Stephen F. Cohen and The Nation editor-publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel.

For more than four decades, Cohen has been a leading voice on Russian affairs, pinballing between the academy, where he is now emeritus at Princeton University and NYU, and the media, influencing world events along the way. Few scholarly works can be said to have equaled the direct political impact of Cohen's 1973 biography of the Soviet founding father Nikolai Bukharin. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (Alfred A. Knopf) didn't just suggest a new understanding of the Russian Revolution when it was released in the middle of the Cold War - it profoundly affected the course of that war. Mikhail Gorbachev's chief foreign-policy adviser, Anatoly Chernyaev wrote, "Some of us had already read the book, and we encouraged Gorbachev to do so. He took the book on vacation with him. He read it closely and kept quoting it to me. ... The re-evaluation of Bukharin's role and personality opened the sluice gates to reconsidering our whole ideology."

Comment: Prof. Cohen is a hero. It takes a certain kind of courage to go against the rabid consensus. But when the consensus is wrong, someone has to do it. And Cohen has been doing a bang-up job.

See also: And these recent pieces by Cohen:

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Dig

The Russia Scandal just got much worse ... For Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama


Investors.com
Tue, 21 Nov 2017 18:20 UTC
HillaryObama
© CNN.com
Corruption: Shortly after the Uranium One story broke, various news reports claimed that it was much ado about nothing. But a review of a huge cache of newly available documents shows that, if anything, it was worse than previously thought.

The Hill broke the bombshell story last month, which summed up goes like this: While the Obama administration was approving the controversial 2010 sale of Uranium One to a state-owned Russian energy giant - which gave it control of one-fifth of U.S. uranium supplies - the FBI was actively investigating that company for extensive criminal activity designed to expand Russia's footprint in the U.S. uranium business.

This raised questions about who in the Obama administration was aware of the FBI's evidence - which included bribery, extortion and racketeering - before greenlighting the sale. Officials involved denied knowing anything about the investigation at the time.

Now a cache of documents 5,000 pages long, which were reviewed by The Hill, sheds new and more troubling light on this story.
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Arrow Down

Google's Eric Schmidt, Obama-Clinton campaign advisor, to de-rank RT articles online


RT
Tue, 21 Nov 2017 19:16 UTC
Schmidt
© Bertrand Guay/AFPExecutive Chairman Alphabet, Inc. Eric Schmidt
Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet, announced that his company will 'de-rank' RT's articles online, calling them propaganda. Is he concerned for the integrity of news, or are his motives more partisan?

The 62-year-old, with an estimated wealth of $11.1 billion, has never hidden his political leanings, jumping straight into Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign long before she officially announced her candidacy. In one of John Podesta's leaked emails, the long-time Clinton confidant and chairman of her presidential campaign told her soon-to-be campaign manager Robby Mook that he had met with Schmidt in April 2014, more than a year before Clinton told the American public that she was hoping to become their next president.

Comment: De-ranking amounts to censorship and suppression. It is a politically-driven decision by one man that affects millions of news-seekers in what they may or may not read, an attack on free will and information.

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Cowboy Hat

Is Canadian PM prepared for a Middle East war?

Murray Dobbin
Murray Dobbin's blog
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 19:25 UTC
Justin Trudeau
© Time MagazineCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
The world is now at the mercy of a coalition of three of the most dangerous autocrats on the planet: Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia's new absolute ruler Mohammad bin Salman, a name that will become increasingly familiar as the months go by. These three "leaders" are now collaborating in an incredibly reckless plan to permanently reshape the Middle East.

The final outcome will unfold no matter what Canada does. But unless the government of Justin Trudeau gets a grip on reality, Canada will be drawn into this potential catastrophe by virtue of foreign policy positions it has already taken. Geopolitics is getting incredibly complex and there is little evidence that the Liberal government has a clue how to navigate through the dangers. The problem is that despite all the hype about "being back", Canada's foreign policy under Trudeau and minister of foreign affairs Chrystia Freeland is still characterized by cynicism and ill-considered trade-offs on files within the broad spectrum of foreign affairs - including investor rights agreements like NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Obviously, a certain amount of realpolitik is inevitable and even necessary to protect Canada's interests. But even so it begs the question of how Canada's interests are defined. How much of the store is Trudeau willing to give away to buy favour with the U.S. on NAFTA, especially when it seems concessions like putting our troops on Russia's border has gotten us nothing in return? With Trump and his redesigned U.S. empire, there is no quid pro quo.

The embarrassing "me too" gang-up on Russia is bad enough. The Canadian version of the U.S. Magnitsky Act is a pathetic effort to please the U.S. (EU allies in NATO are increasingly uneasy about Russophobia given their own particular national interests). And Putin can hurt Canada and Canadian businesses more than we can hurt Putin and his oligarchs - and he has promised to do so.
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Stock Down

Capitalism collapsing from inequality - what to do? Blame Russia!

FInian Cunningham
Strategic Culture
Fri, 17 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
poor business
© unknown
New figures published this week on obscene inequality show how the capitalist economic system has become more than ever deeply dysfunctional. Surely, the depraved workings of the system pose the greatest threat to societies and international security. Yet, Western leaders are preoccupied instead with other non-existent threats - like Russia.

Take British prime minister Theresa May who this week was speaking at a posh banquet in London. She told the assembled hobnobs, as they were sipping expensive wines, that "Russia is threatening the international order upon which we depend". Without providing one scrap of evidence, the British leader went [on] to assert that Russia was interfering in Western democracies to "sow discord".

May's grandstanding is a classic case study of what behavioral scientists call "displacement activity" - that is, when animals find themselves in a state of danger they often react by displaying unusual behavior or making strange noises.

For indeed May and other Western political leaders are facing danger to their world order, even if they don't openly admit it as such. That danger is from the exploding levels of social inequality and poverty within Western societies, leading to anger, resentment, discontent and disillusionment among increasing masses of citizens. In the face of the inherent, imminent collapse of their systems of governance, Western leaders like May seek some relief by prattling on about Russia as a threat.

Comment: The writing has been on the wall for quite awhile. Some have noticed.

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Biohazard

DOJ under Sessions nabbed downplaying evidence linking Obama, Hillary to Uranium One scandal

Joshua Caplan
Gateway Pundit
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
KilSesOba
© pjimageClinton • Sessions • Obama
A new report says the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions downplayed evidence linking former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Uranium-One scandal. The evidence comes amid the secret FBI informant behind the Uranium-One deal breaking his silence.

Last week, William Campbell came forward as the secret FBI informant, saying he is eager to testify because of his "concerns about Russia's activities in the United States, but declined to comment further," reports Reuters. "I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist, and I have it," Campbell told Reuters.

"FBI informant Campbell, acting as a consultant trying to help Rosatom overcome political opposition to the Uranium One deal, gathered evidence for six years, and, according to the more than 5,000 pages of documents from the counterintelligence investigation, there are a number of evidentiary links between corrupt Russians, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton," reports Zerohedge.

Comment: See also:

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