…TRUCE IN ALUMINUM WAR?

While the oil war heats up, a truce has been declared in the aluminum war, on one front at least. On July 11 the board of directors of the Krasnoyarsk aluminum factory elected a new director after the controversial former director, Yury Kolpakov, stepped down. The new acting head, Igor Vishnevsky, is a representative of the Swiss-based Glencore International. Kolpakov will apparently stay on as a deputy director. Still unhappy with this outcome is the UK-based Trans-World Metals, which was illegally stripped of its 17 percent share of the plant. The July 11 meeting did not go entirely smoothly: rival groups of security guards clashed around the hotel where the directors were staying, until local police intervened. (Kommersant-daily, July 12)

Alleged Bank Fraud May Not Have Happened.