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White House announces clean energy initiatives on coal

On Tuesday, the White House said that it was directing hundreds of millions of dollars toward supporting coal communities, including $450 million for sustainable energy initiatives in both active and past mining regions.

REUTERS

Stormy Daniels: Woman at center of Trump indictment is porn star turned ghostbuster

The alleged 2006 sexual encounter between adult movie star Stormy Daniels and former president Donald Trump has helped her create a sizable economic empire.

Reuters By Julia Harte, editing by Germán & Co

New York Already Knows a Lot About Donald Trump…

...a "SOROS BACKED ANIMAL." Mr. Trumph said.

While awaiting the indictment, the former president referred to Mr. Bragg in an anti-Black and anti-Semitic manner on Truth Social, calling him a "SOROS BACKED ANIMAL." Law enforcement authorities had to prepare for potential street unrest on Tuesday because Mr. Trump threatened "death and destruction" and called for large-scale protests before being indicted.

NYT, By Mara Gay, April 4, 2023, editing by Germán & Co

OPEC+ oil cut delivers blow to ECB

The action consists of putting additional pressure on European governments when voters from London to Berlin are unsatisfied with the rising expenses of energy, food, and transportation. Support for politicians has declined as individuals have struggled to pay their costs, leading to protests and industrial unrest. The West's reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other factors contributing to inflation is not getting any less important.

Analysts expect the supply crunch to negatively impact inflation in Europe.

POLITICO EY BY PAOLA TAMMA, EDITING BY GERMÄN & CO, APRIL 3, 2023

There ought to be no hiding place for Putin

Successful charges before an international tribunal would fully recognize the crime allegedly being committed by its full and proper name — the crime of aggression.

POLITICO EU BY AARIF ABRAHAM, TODAY

White House announces clean energy initiatives on coal

On Tuesday, the White House said that it was directing hundreds of millions of dollars toward supporting coal communities, including $450 million for sustainable energy initiatives in both active and past mining regions.

Reuters

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) - The White House said on Tuesday it was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to help coal communities, including $450 million for clean energy projects on current and former mining areas.

The Department of Energy will also provide $16 million to the University of North Dakota and West Virginia University to complete design studies for a domestic refinery that will extract rare earth and other critical minerals from coal ash, acid mine drainage and other mine waste, the White House said.

"This project will help strengthen American supply chains, revitalize energy communities, and reduce reliance on competitors like China," the White House said in a statement.

The government action also includes putting 11 federal agencies to work in tandem on getting new resources into energy communities like former coal mining towns, it said.

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service will release guidance on Tuesday that will allow developers of clean energy projects and facilities to tap into billions of dollars in boneses, in addition to existing tax credits, it said.

The funding for this initiative comes from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the White House said.

Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

Stormy Daniels: Woman at center of Trump indictment is porn star turned ghostbuster

The alleged 2006 sexual encounter between adult movie star Stormy Daniels and former president Donald Trump has helped her create a sizable economic empire.

Reuters By Julia Harte, editing by Germán & Co

 Who's who in Trump hush money case

April 4 (Reuters) - Adult film star Stormy Daniels has built a lucrative business empire around her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with former President Donald Trump and earned legions of fans for her breezy retorts to those who cast her as an immoral woman.

Her popularity and profits appeared to get a boost with the news of Trump's indictment on Thursday in a case involving a $130,000 hush payment she received in the waning days of his 2016 election campaign.

"Thank you to everyone for your support and love!" she posted on Twitter after news of the criminal charges broke. "#Teamstormy merch/autograph orders are pouring in."

Daniels, 44, is an author, director and media personality. She launched her own reality TV show, "Spooky Babes", in which she searches haunted houses as a "paranormal investigator", and she once flirted with a U.S. Senate bid as a Democrat-turned-Republican.

When a Twitter user asked what "the whore" was doing one day this week, Daniels responded, "Not sure why you're curious but... Just fed my horse and mucked stalls, signing photos and #teamstormy shirts and mailing them, booking crew/location for a music video I'm directing, floating in my pool and then my live show."

"Basically the usual," she added.

She is not shy about capitalizing on the attention around her connection to Trump. She points out he has done the same - but, in her view, has faced far less criticism.

"You take the opportunity," Daniels said on a Wednesday livestream on OnlyFans, an online subscription platform known for adult content, according to a report by British newspaper The Independent. "Isn't that what America is all about?"

Trump has raised more than $2 million for his legal defense since predicting on March 18 that he would soon be arrested, according to his campaign. A Trump fundraising group sent an email asking supporters for more contributions after his indictment.

After he announced his impending arrest, searches for Daniels on the website Pornhub jumped 21,655%, according to the site's research and analysis branch.

A spokesperson for Daniels could not be reached for comment.

'VINDICATION'

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is married to a fellow adult film star and has a young daughter and a horse farm, according to her social media profiles.

Her childhood was marred by sexual assault and poverty. Growing up in Louisiana with a single mother, "we were just trash. And my mom was a trainwreck, and my clothes didn't fit, and I was poor and I smelled," Daniels told Vice News in 2021.

Daniels said she had been a straight-A student and editor of her high school newspaper when she left home and started stripping to support herself.

She continued working in adult entertainment after graduating high school and began her career in adult films in 2002, according to the Vice News interview. Daniels soon began winning industry awards and landed roles in TV shows and films such as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up".

Daniels has said she received the hush money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied having the affair and initially disputed knowing anything about the payment.

It is unclear what charges he will face, and he has signaled he will continue his 2024 bid for the presidency as he fights the case.

In an interview with Britain's Times newspaper on Friday, Daniels called the indictment "vindication" and referred to a vulgar comment Trump made in a 2005 recording in which he boasted about forcing himself on women.

"But it's bittersweet," she said. "He's done so much worse that he should have been taken down before. I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star. But it's also poetic; this pussy grabbed back."

New York Already Knows a Lot About Donald Trump…

...a "SOROS BACKED ANIMAL." Mr. Trumph said.

While awaiting the indictment, the former president referred to Mr. Bragg in an anti-Black and anti-Semitic manner on Truth Social, calling him a "SOROS BACKED ANIMAL." Law enforcement authorities had to prepare for potential street unrest on Tuesday because Mr. Trump threatened "death and destruction" and called for large-scale protests before being indicted.

NYT, By Mara Gay, April 4, 2023, editing by Germán & Co

Ms. Gay is a member of the editorial board.

If Donald J. Trump seems a little on edge lately, so does the city where he made his name.

The former president, after largely eluding legal accountability of any kind for decades, has now been indicted by a grand jury in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.

So far Mr. Trump has handled the investigation, which has looked into whether he broke laws while paying hush money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election, exactly as one might imagine: with the minimum amount of class and the maximum use of racist slurs. Not only has he made sure everyone knows Mr. Bragg is Black, he has also suggested he is subhuman.

“HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL,” the former president told his followers on Truth Social while waiting for the indictment, using anti-Black racism as well as antisemitism to describe Mr. Bragg. Mr. Trump also called for widespread protests before he was indicted and predicted “death and destruction,” forcing law enforcement agencies to prepare for possible violence in the streets on Tuesday, when he is expected to be arraigned.

All of this has made New York City, his former hometown, a bit anxious, too. The wait for Mr. Trump’s arraignment and any backlash that may come from it has the city unnerved.

Few Americans have seen Mr. Trump shimmy his way out of a jam more often than New Yorkers. We’ve seen him bounce back from bankruptcy six times, and he has never been truly held to account for his long history of excluding Black people from the rental properties that helped make him rich. We’ve seen his political fortunes soar despite credible claims of sexual assault and tax fraud. We’ve watched up close his gravity-defying, horrifying metamorphosis from a tacky real estate developer and tabloid fixture into a C-list celebrity and, finally, a one-term president with authoritarian aspirations.

Given that history, the idea that Mr. Trump will soon be fingerprinted and booked in a New York courthouse has left many in disbelief. A kind of collective angst over the Trump prosecution has settled over New York City, where many deeply disdain him but seem unconvinced he will ever truly be held to account.

During a recent stage performance of “Titanique,” the hit musical comedy and glitter-filled parody of the 1997 film about the doomed ship, Russell Daniels, the actor playing Rose’s mother, let out a kind of guttural scream. “It’s not fair that Trump hasn’t been arrested yet!” Mr. Daniels cried. Inside the Manhattan theater, the audience roared.

In Harlem recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton held a prayer vigil for Mr. Bragg, who received threats after Mr. Trump used his social media platform to share a menacing photograph of himself with a baseball bat juxtaposed with a photo of the district attorney, in a clear hint of his violent mind-set.

“We want God to cover him and protect him,” Mr. Sharpton said, referring to Mr. Bragg. “Whatever the decision may be, whether we like it or not, but he should not have to face this kind of threat, implied or explicit. Let us pray.”

New Yorkers, weary and still recovering from the pandemic Mr. Trump badly mismanaged, are also now bracing themselves for the possibility of demonstrations by the former president’s supporters. In the hours after the indictment on March 29, N.Y.P.D. helicopters hovered over the courthouses of Lower Manhattan and officers set up barricades along largely empty streets. The Police Department ordered all roughly 36,000 uniformed members to report for duty amid bomb threats and the arrest of one Trump supporter with a knife.

The inevitable spectacle began on Monday, when television helicopters tracked every inch of Mr. Trump’s motorcade from LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan, as if he were visiting royalty. The courthouse area downtown is expected be largely closed to traffic on Tuesday. All Supreme Court trials in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building will be adjourned early. There are also police lines and TV trucks around Trump Tower, where the former president stayed on Monday night. Meanwhile, Republican groups and Trump supporters are planning or sponsoring rallies nearby, one of which will be addressed by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will bring her destructive rhetoric up from Georgia.

Of the four known criminal investigations Mr. Trump faces, the Manhattan case is seen by some legal experts as the least serious, in part because it may involve allegations of campaign finance violations before his presidency rather than attempts to abuse his office by overturning the results of an election or inciting supporters to effectively overthrow the United States government. Fair enough.

Still, it’s a poetic irony that the former president will face his first criminal indictment in New York City, the town where he sought to burnish his “law and order” credentials. In 1989, Mr. Trump took out a notorious ad in several newspapers, including The New York Times, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty when a group of Black and Latino teenagers were accused of the sexual assault of a jogger in Central Park. After serving prison sentences that varied from six to 13 years, the teens were exonerated.

“What has happened to the respect for authority, the fear of retribution by the courts, society and the police for those who break the law, who wantonly trespass on the rights of others?” Mr. Trump wrote in the 1989 ad. “How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits?”

Over many years, New York has learned a painful lesson. Mr. Trump and his many misdeeds are best taken seriously.

OPEC+ oil cut delivers blow to ECB

The action consists of putting additional pressure on European governments when voters from London to Berlin are unsatisfied with the rising expenses of energy, food, and transportation. Support for politicians has declined as individuals have struggled to pay their costs, leading to protests and industrial unrest. The West's reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other factors contributing to inflation is not getting any less important.

Analysts expect the supply crunch to negatively impact inflation in Europe.

The move is seen by analysts as a deliberate attempt by the group's largest countries to push the price of oil higher | Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

POLITICO EY BY PAOLA TAMMA, EDITING BY GERMÄN & CO, APRIL 3, 2023 

A shock cut in oil output by the OPEC+ group has thrown a spanner into central banks' efforts to tame inflation just as pressure on Europe's cost of living was starting to ease.

The announcement on Sunday by the oil-producing cartel of a reduction of over 1 million barrels per day ― forcing the price up by as much as 8 percent by Monday morning ― has stoked fears of a knock-on effect on the economy as a whole. It comes at a time when inflation is only just starting to slow after reaching record rates in the eurozone since the summer.

It will take about two months for the OPEC+ decision to trickle down to the real economy, as current crude prices make their way to oil products, said Jorge León, senior vice president of Rystad Energy, a market intelligence firm. This will "most likely" increase inflation.

"That's a problem for Europe, because oil prices are very relevant for headline inflation in Europe" as a net importer of oil, he said. Future gasoline contracts are already trading at higher prices.

The move heaps more pressure on European governments at a time when rising costs of energy, food and transport have sown discontent among voters from London to Berlin. As people have struggled to pay bills, support for leaders has slipped and has triggered a wave of protests and industrial unrest. One of the many drivers of inflation ― Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the West's response to it ― shows little sign of becoming any less critical.

Money supply

Closer to home, higher inflation also may encourage the European Central Bank to continue tightening the money supply by putting up interest rates, and this in turn could have consequences for growth in the eurozone.

"What I'm worried about is the impact that this could have, first of all, on inflation, and therefore, on the attitudes of central banks, and therefore, on economic growth perspectives for this year and for next year," said León.

Annual inflation in the eurozone dropped to 6.9 percent in March from 8.5 percent in February having hit a record 10.6 percent in October. In an effort to bring it back to its 2 percent target, the ECB has continued to increase interest rates from -0.5 percent last summer to 3 percent in March — its fastest-ever tightening cycle.

The Opec+ decision was led by Saudi Arabia, it's most powerful member. This move, together with Saudi's continuing cooperation with Russia, adds to tension with the US and European governments as they struggle to present a united front on Moscow's aggression.

"The dramatic cut [in oil production] will only add to pressing global inflationary squeezes," said Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, an independent financial adviser. "There's real concern that the surprise decision announced by Saudi Arabia for OPEC+ will prompt central banks to maintain interest rates higher for longer due to the inflationary impact, which will hinder economic growth."

The move sent prices jumping from just under $80 per barrel of crude at market close on Friday to over $85 at one point on Monday, before falling back slightly. Analysts immediately raised their expectations for future oil prices, with Goldman Sachs projecting crude to reach $95 a barrel by the end of the year.

Concerns linger

It was the second slash in output announced by OPEC+ in under a year, after last fall it cut production by 2 million barrels per day — a decision that was sharply criticized by the U.S.

Non-OPEC countries can do little to counter the effort to push the price of oil higher at a global level | Vladimir Simicek/AFP via Getty Images

The move is seen by analysts as a deliberate attempt by the group's largest countries to push the price of oil higher. It hovered around the $100 a barrel mark last year.

Non-OPEC countries, including the U.S. and those of the EU, can do little to counter the effect, given historically low levels of crude oil reserves. U.S. reserves, which Washington can decide to release to counter some of the supply crunch, are at their lowest since 1984.

"It will take some time to see exactly how much this impacts global prices as demand concerns linger, but this is another potential factor exerting upward pressure on inflation," analysts at Deutsche Bank wrote in a note.

Opec, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was expanded to become Opec+ in 2016 to bring in countries including Russia as crude oil prices fell.

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

There ought to be no hiding place for Putin

Successful charges before an international tribunal would fully recognize the crime allegedly being committed by its full and proper name — the crime of aggression.

POLITICO EU BY AARIF ABRAHAM, TODAY

Aarif Abraham is a British barrister and a member of Garden Court North Chambers and Accountability Unit in London.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war crime of unlawfully deporting children to Russia is a historic moment for intentional criminal justice. It is only the third time the ICC has issued indicative charges against a serving head of state, and the first time against that of a U.N. Security Council member.

The warrant starts a process that runs in parallel with another first — the initiative to create a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression as allegedly being committed in Ukraine. It would be the first aggression-focused tribunal since Nuremberg and Tokyo, which prosecuted axis-power leaders after World War II. 

If created, such a tribunal could prosecute senior military and political leaders for what the 1946 Nuremberg judgment called the “supreme international crime.” Why? Because had the manifestly illegal acts of aggression — such as invasion, attack or occupation — not occurred, the egregious harm inflicted on civilians, including tens of thousands of war crimes, would never have happened. 

But the ICC cannot prosecute the crime of aggression in relation to Ukraine, only other international crimes like war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. The only way for the ICC to prosecute the crime of aggression would be either with Russia’s consent, or through a U.N. Security Council referral. And it is for this reason the initiative for a tribunal led by Ukraine has received the active backing and strong engagement of over 30 countries — and the list is growing.

So, where does the ICC arrest warrant for Putin leave both processes, and which is more likely to succeed? The truth is, the ICC route and the tribunal route are highly complementary.

First, Ukraine rightly wishes to see all responsible military and political leaders in Russia and Belarus held to account for the totality of the harm resulting from aggression. And there would be far more senior leaders caught by the aggression net than the ICC net, which requires a strong evidential link between international crimes being committed by soldiers on the ground and senior leaders in Russia and Belarus. This usually makes such crimes difficult to decisively prove — particularly when Russia claims its actions, such as the deportation of children, are motivated by humanitarian concerns.

By contrast, the crime of aggression is easier to prosecute, as it goes straight to the top and does not require extensive testimonial evidence, given its focus on the high-level acts of the armed forces. It may, however, likely require significant material from intelligence and military sources.

Second, Russia heavily contests the ICC’s jurisdiction to try nationals of countries that are not its members — countries that include Russia, the United States and China. So, while the ICC’s 123 members are under a legal duty to apprehend Putin, executing the arrest warrant will be a source of immense political, and possibly legal, contention, as there is a view that serving heads of state enjoy personal immunity from arrest or prosecution — especially before courts to which they do not belong.

Thus, the consequences for a country apprehending the Russian head of state are not likely to be insignificant, but a special tribunal would face a similar challenge —although a different pool of states may back it. And in such a case, the support of powerful countries like the U.S., which has now been confirmed, could decisively strengthen the possibility of apprehending Putin, and provide some degree of immunity from Russian retaliation in enforcing any arrest warrants.

Third, the ICC route is clear, and its jurisdiction derives from a treaty that its 123 members agreed to adhere to.

The tribunal would likely be created by a similar treaty, ideally agreed with the U.N. General Assembly and/or the European Union and/or multilaterally. Its jurisdiction could be inherent from the extant prohibition on aggression under international law, which binds states through custom, combined with the prohibition on aggression under Ukrainian law. Incidentally, there is a prohibition on aggression under Belarusian and Russian law too —  a concept that was ironically pioneered, and strongly advocated for, by the Soviet Union in response to the horrors it suffered during World War II.

A man looks at his vehicle parked outside a destroyed building after a deadly strike in the city of Sloviansk in Eastern Ukraine, on March 27, 2023 | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images

Considering the continuing aggression, and the risk of further contagion to other countries, both the ICC and special tribunal routes ought to run on a parallel track, for continued backing for a tribunal means there would be no hiding place for senior Russian and Belarusian leaders.

And successful charges before such a tribunal would not only encapsulate the horrors of the harm suffered, but it would finally recognize the crime allegedly being committed by Putin and those around him by its full and proper name.