January 12, 2019Washington - U.S. Senate (click here) Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Saturday he will force a vote soon on a resolution to disapprove the Trump administration’s decision to relax sanctions on three Russian companies connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
“I have concluded that the Treasury Department’s proposal is flawed and fails to sufficiently limit Oleg Deripaska’s control and influence of these companies and the Senate should move to block this misguided effort by the Trump Administration and keep these sanctions in place,” Schumer said in a news release....
The return of financial capacity to Oleg Deripaska is a direct threat to the USA national security. It is also a favor to Putin and an extension of the continued wrongful ways of Donald Trump.
3 September 2018This Nov. 10, 2017, file photo shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin, left, and Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska, right, walking to attend the APEC Business Advisory Council dialogue in Danang, Vietnam.
Washington — US justice officials (click here) secretly sought cooperation from a few of Russia’s richest men as they investigated Russian organized crime and possible aid from Moscow to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, The New York Times has reported.
Nearly all the half-dozen Russian oligarchs approached between 2014 and 2016 by the US Justice Department and FBI have close links to President Vladimir Putin, the newspaper said. None of them apparently cooperated.
At one point, FBI agents reportedly appeared unannounced at a home that billionaire Oleg Deripaska maintains in New York to press him on whether Paul Manafort, a onetime business partner of the Russian and briefly chairman of the Trump campaign, had served as a liaison between the campaign and the Kremlin....
...Instead, the newspaper said, Deripaska notified the Kremlin of the American contacts.
The N.R.A.’s Pete Brownell, (click here) left, with Ms. Butina and Donald Trump Jr. at a 2016 dinner hosted by the gun-rights group.
Washington — President Trump's son-in-law (click here) and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia's central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said....
July 16, 2018By Dan Mangan
Sen. John McCain (click here) said President Donald Trump, appearing with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference following their summit in Helsinki, had “abased himself ... abjectly before a tyrant.”
“The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naivete, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate,” the Republican senator from Arizona said in a prepared statement.
McCain’s blistering take came hours after the press conference, in which Trump refused to criticize Putin for what U.S. intelligence agencies have said was a concerted effort by Russians to interfere in the 2016 presidential election....
Who is Deripaska? A very savvy Russian that controls an aluminum interest so large The West is weakened in it's resolve because of it. Isn't that what Putin wants? What's "W"rong, The West has no resolve to overcome dependencies on Russia? You've got to be joking.
Explain what good international treaties are if The West backs away from real life consequences for breaking them. No sooner does the US Treasury Secretary give permission for Deripaska to again embark on international sales and relations do the Donbas militants fire on Ukraine. (click here) The shelling hasn't stopped for two days now and they are supposed to be under a ceasefire.
December 19, 2018
By Polina Devitt and Nathan Layne
The U.S. Treasury (click here) said it will lift sanctions on the core empire of Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal and its parent En+, watering down the toughest penalties imposed since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
London aluminum prices sank to a 16-month low after the U.S. Treasury’s announcement, while shares in Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer after China’s Hongqiao, surged to an eight-month high.
In April, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Deripaska, Rusal, En+ and other companies in which he owns stakes, citing “malign activities” by Russia, prompting turmoil in global aluminum markets....
I understand completely the importance of aluminum, but, The West has to rise to the occasion and provide for its independence from Russian dependencies. US Senator Schumer could not be more correct. The West needs to find their backbone.
July 1, 2017By Binyamin Applebaum
Reydarfjordur — Where did the United States’ aluminum smelters go? (click here)
More than 30 of the giant factories once dotted the American landscape, sucking down huge amounts of electricity to produce the metal for car parts, beer cans and aluminum foil. Now there are just five smelters — all facing an uncertain future.
President Trump blames China for flooding global markets with subsidized aluminum. In April, he ordered the Commerce Department to consider quotas or tariffs to shelter American producers from foreign competition. He promised a revival that would create jobs for “lots of wonderful American workers.”
But the jobs, for the most part, didn’t go to China. American aluminum was in decline long before Chinese production began to grow. The more complicated truth is on display here, on Iceland’s remote eastern shore.
A generation ago, this hamlet was a herring town, a place where almost everyone made a living from the sea. Today, people work on the flats of the spectacular fjord, where America’s largest aluminum company operates its newest smelter....
No one believes Putin didn't MEASURE his invasions into Ukraine before he did it, including the occupation of Crimea? No one believes the empire of Deripaska didn't play into Putin's almighty gall to invade Crimea and the Ukraine border? Of course, he did. He knew he would come out on top while The West whittled their thumbs over the fall of aluminum on the markets.
Now, either The West can be counted on to defend democracy and freedom or they may as well wave their white flag now. The idea the USA would turn it's back on the Russian invasion into Ukraine after an international treaty was completely disregarded by Putin is an affront to the very values the people of The West holds most dear. What does that say to Japan? South Korea? Allies in the Southern Hemisphere? It is outrageous because the stock markets are screaming OUCH! over aluminum, the USA crumbles like a child losing his weekly allowance.
The reason USA smelters were lost is no different than the steel plants; they were polluting in a way that was dangerous to human health and burning fossil fuels in huge amounts that only increased the USA greenhouse gas emissions, but, when Alcoa moved their smelter to Iceland because Iceland produces no GHG and uses geothermal energy to power their businesses and homes; that was a "OMG" moment to realize how Wall Street would only seek to find loopholes in international measures and never address the real problems they have in conducting their operations without a danger to people or Earth.
Since Alcoa did such an outrageous act, things have changed in the steel industry to improve their performance with GHG.
Basic Principle: (click here) Continued reduction of emissions through innovation
As a carbon-intensive industry, the steel industry and U. S. Steel are conscientious about the amount of greenhouse gasses produced in the steelmaking process. Even though the steel industry produces less than three percent of the world’s CO2, it is the position of U. S. Steel, the American Iron and Steel Institute, and the World Steel Association that this amount can be decreased. And through active participation by the global steel industry, there has been a 33-percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the industry since 1990, well beyond the Kyoto Protocol goals for that time frame....
There is an active initiative to de-carbonize GHG emissions and to eliminate them altogether. It can be done and it should be done.
This brief provides an overview of emissions trends and projections, (click here) and of decarbonization challenges and opportunities, in the industrial sector. Key points include:
While greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial sector have declined over the last 20 years, they are projected to increase through mid-century, fueled by low prices for energy, particularly natural gas and natural gas liquids.
Direct emissions from a wide range of sources account for more than 73 percent of the sector’s total emissions.
Indirect emissions from the use of electricity generated off-site account for the rest. On-site fossil fuel combustion is the largest source of industrial emissions.
Energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (from both on-site fossil fuel combustion and off-site electricity) account for around three-quarters of the sector’s total greenhouse gas emissions. In 2016, bulk chemicals, refining,and iron and steel production were responsible for nearly half of the sector’s total energy-related CO2 emissions.
Options for reducing emissions in the industrial sector include: improved energy efficiency, developing and deploying new manufacturing techniques, switching to lower-emitting fuels, combined heat and power, carbon capture and storage, and more efficient use of resources....
The West cannot give in to the pressures Russia has planned for them all along. That is surrendering to a country that is killing many, many people not just in Ukraine, but, other regions of the world. It is completely "W"rong to allow Russia to have it's way with The West. The West is the primary defender of freedom and democracy and to simply surrender to an aluminum magnet that answers to Putin is outrageous.
When The West relinquishes power to Plutocrats, including Putin, they are surrendering far more than a spot on the financial exchanges, they are surrendering freedom and allowing power brokers to the very countries they claim to hold dear. It is outrageous this is even an issue. If Wall Street can rally around Trump Tax Cuts and pocket them, then there is enough money flowing in the markets to INVEST in modernized technologies that will allow The West it's independence from oppression and communism.
Knock it off and go back to being the leaders of the Free World!
HONESTLY!
You spineless idiots!
