So it has happened: Hillary did not win! I say that instead of saying that "Trump won" because I consider the former even more important than the latter. Why? Because I have no idea whatsoever what Trump will do next. I do, however, have an excellent idea of what Hillary would have done: war with Russia. Trump most likely won't do that. In fact, he specifically said in his acceptance speech:

I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone — all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict.

And Putin's reply was immediate:

We heard the statements he made as candidate for president expressing a desire to restore relations between our countries. We realise and understand that this will not be an easy road given the level to which our relations have degraded today, regrettably. But, as I have said before, it is not Russia's fault that our relations with the United States have reached this point.

Russia is ready to and seeks a return to full-format relations with the United States. Let me say again, we know that this will not be easy, but are ready to take this road, take steps on our side and do all we can to set Russian-US relations back on a stable development track.

This would benefit both the Russian and American peoples and would have a positive impact on the general climate in international affairs, given the particular responsibility that Russia and the US share for maintaining global stability and security.

This exchange, right there, is enough of a reason for the entire planet to rejoice at the defeat of Hillary and the victory of Trump.

President-elect Donald Trump is scrambling to line up senior officials to run the government's sprawling intelligence and homeland security bureaucracy.

Team Trump is struggling to fill numerous key slots or even attract many candidates because hundreds have either sworn they'd never work in a Trump administration or have directly turned down requests to join, multiple current and former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the transition efforts told The Daily Beast.

Team Trump didn't expect to win until the campaign's internal polling a month before the election signaled a possible victory. That's when senior Trump officials went into overdrive, trying to build a bench of experienced national security candidates with top secret clearances willing to work for a Trump presidency—and they met resistance across the landscape of experienced GOP national security professionals.

One person who met last month with Trump's national security and homeland security transition team leader said that she confessed that many candidates had flatly rejected attempts to recruit them, believing that Trump was unfit to hold the office of commander in chief.

Donald Trump should seize on his earlier idea to hold a summit with Russian President Putin before his inauguration. The dangerous state of international relations makes such a summit urgent and necessary.

Adam Garrie and I have discussed how the way is now open for Donald Trump to move forward with Russia to settle the two big crises affecting US - Russian relations: Ukraine and Syria.

The initial words spoken by Trump and Putin in the aftermath of Trump's victory do hold out a measure of promise. In his public comments after his victory Trump was careful to say

I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone. All people and all other nations. (bold italics added)

Whilst these words do not specifically refer to Russia, it is no secret to anyone at all familiar with international relations that the Russians - perhaps more than any other nation - strongly feel that the US has not been treating them fairly. They are bound to see in these words a first clue that Trump is genuinely interested in patching up relations with them.

The Russians have responded in kind. Taking the opportunity of a meeting with foreign ambassadors in the Kremlin, Putin had this to say about Trump's election victory

We heard the statements he made as candidate for president expressing a desire to restore relations between our countries. We realise and understand that this will not be an easy road given the level to which our relations have degraded today, regrettably. But, as I have said before, it is not Russia's fault that our relations with the United States have reached this point.

Russia is ready to and seeks a return to full-format relations with the United States. Let me say again, we know that this will not be easy, but are ready to take this road, take steps on our side and do all we can to set Russian-US relations back on a stable development track.

This would benefit both the Russian and American peoples and would have a positive impact on the general climate in international affairs, given the particular responsibility that Russia and the US share for maintaining global stability and security.

The election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the US certainly sent shockwaves around the world. But perhaps the uppermost sense is one of huge relief that Hillary Clinton was kept out of the White House.

For most ordinary citizens around the world, Clinton, her multi-billion-dollar election campaign and the fawning corporate media coverage represented everything that is perceived as fundamentally wrong in Western politics.

Her cronyism goes so far that she would not hesitate to start a world war with Russia, or whoever, in order to appease her corporate sponsors and indulge her deluded notion of "exceptional liberalism".

Trump's stunning victory is a victory for common people and common sense. Despite the Western media's systematic shielding of Clinton from criticism, a good number of ordinary Americans and other nationals around the world could clearly see her irredeemable flaws. She is a self-enriching puppet for Big Finance and the military-industrial complex. And, as her email scandal shows, a consummate liar on top.

Advocates of a New Cold War got a nasty surprise on Wednesday morning, when it became clear that Donald Trump would be America's next President. For the rest of us, it offers hope of US foreign policy changing for the better.

So, the unthinkable has happened. Donald Trump has won. And the so-called liberal world order, which has ruled almost unchallenged since the demise of the Soviet Union is probably toast.

There's been enough talk already about the repercussions for America itself. So, here we will stick to external affairs. But there's one important domestic proposal which greatly affects America's global position. In his victory speech, Trump made a major point of emphasizing his desire to invest heavily in America's decaying infrastructure. And there's only one feasible way to fund such a plan - sharply cut military spending and foreign aid.

Thus, instead of flinging billions of American tax dollars around the Middle East, Asia and Europe, in what always amounted to bribing nations - or at least their elites - into friendship, Trump intends to bring a good deal of the money home. By any measure, this will amount to a geopolitical earthquake.

China's Meng Hongwei has become the president of Interpol, while Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk has been elected the organization's vice president for Europe, the global police agency has announced.

"China's Meng Hongwei, Vice Minister of Public Security [has been] elected President of Interpol... Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk, head of the Interpol NCB [National Central Bureau] in Moscow [has been] elected Vice President of Interpol [for Europe]," the organization tweeted.

The officials were chosen for their posts during the agency's 85th General Assembly in Bali, Indonesia, which took place November 7-10. Meng Hongwei, the first Chinese official to hold the position, takes over from France's Mireille Ballestrazzi who was elected in 2012. China has been an Interpol member since 1923.

The president is usually elected by the General Assembly, Interpol's supreme governing body, which is composed of delegates appointed by each member country. Vice presidents such as Prokopchuk are elected in the same way. Each member has only one vote. The president heads the agency's Executive Committee for four years. There are four vice presidents at Interpol, representing four continents, according to Interpol rules.

What could be better than waking up in time to witness the last few minutes of the historic race between the Champion of Deplorables and the Best Friend of Banksters, and to see Trump emerging victorious! Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to see these scenes at all and especially in sunny Jerusalem where I am now, and thank you, our American friends, for achieving this victory. You were not scared when they called you "racist rednecks", you did not despair when the CNN said (yesterday) that Clinton had a 96% chance of winning. You did not sit down with a bottle of beer, you still went to the booths and voted, God bless you.

And thank you those who voted against Trump. Ex-Pres. Bush said he did not vote for Trump - why, this news made my day! I am so happy that we do not owe anything, not a single vote in the victory, to the warring Bushmen. It would be embarrassing to find oneself in the same camp as the Butcher of Iraq. John McCain tried to knife Trump, didn't endorse him - this is also good news. The FBI boss submitted to pressure and supported Clinton instead of adhering to the law: good riddance!

God bless you, my colleagues and editors of the truly great independent American media, Ron Unz of Unz.com, Jeffrey St Clair of Counterpunch, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com! By attacking the corrupted mainstream media, you preserved the dignity and the meaning of our profession, you delivered analysis and opinions to the thinking working men of America.

God bless you, Julian Assange of Wikileaks, in the windowless room in the Ecuadorian embassy in London! You did so much by publishing the documents nobody dared to touch. Without you, the American people would not know of the evil stratagems in the DNC, of the Podesta plots. You unmasked their plans. These discoveries will provide much material to tomorrow's media. Let President Donald Trump pardon Julian, for all he did, he did for us, in the great battle against the evil globalizers. And while he's at it, let him pardon Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, let them go home in honour.

Viktor Orban, Hungary's maverick PM, says Donald Trump's US election victory marks an end of a two-decade period of "liberal non-democracy" in the West.

"This is the second day of a historic event, in which Western civilization appears to successfully break free from the confines of an ideology," Orban told a conference organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

"We are living in the days where what we call liberal non-democracy - in which we lived for the past 20 years - ends, and we can return to real democracy," said Orban, without explicitly referring to Trump's election win.

Orban, a billionaire investor turned politician, is not unlike Trump. He is conservative, often criticized for choosing pragmatic solutions over those based on values, and skeptical over globalization and the dangers it poses to his home country.

He was the first European politician to express a preference for the Republican nominee in the American election over Democrat Hillary Clinton. In July he called Clinton's foreign policy plans "deadly" for Hungary, while Trump's skepticism over immigration was "vital" for Budapest. In his Thursday speech, Orban dismissed fears that Trump's surprise victory would be disastrous for the West.

We will be keeping tabs here on the Israel/Palestine related news coming out of the staggering election results in the United States last night, with many updates to follow:

Rightwing Jewish leader Naftali Bennett, Israel's education minister and head of the Jewish Home party, saw unequivocal meaning in the Trump victory:

Trump's victory is a tremendous opportunity for Israel to immediately announce its intention to renege on the idea of establishing Palestine in the heart of the country - a direct blow to our security and the justice of our cause.
This is the president-elect's outlook as it appears in his platform, and that definitely should be our way. Salient, simple and clear. The era of the Palestinian state is over."

The oil market faces another year of a "relentless" growth in oil supply without an OPEC deal to curb output, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned. The cartel meets this month to discuss a production freeze.

According to the IEA's monthly report, global supply rose by 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) in October to 97.8 million bpd. That came on the back of record OPEC output and growing production from non-OPEC members such as Russia, Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan.

"If the supply surplus persists in 2017 there must be some risk of prices falling back," the IEA said.