MARBELLA CLUB

Hours before kicking off earnings season, Alcoa (AA: 9.44, +0.02, +0.16%) said on Monday it plans to scale down operations at three aluminum smelters in Italy and Spain to tighten expenses as metal prices continue to fall. The curtailment will reduce the company’s global smelting capacity by 12%, or 531,000 metric tons, with operations as its Portovesme, Italy, and La Coruna and Avilies, Spain, facilities impacted in the first half of 2012. Alcoa plans to permanently close the facility in Portovesme, which has capacity of 150,000 metric tons, but just partially and temporarily shut the operations in Spain. The company said those plants are among the highest-cost producers in the Alcoa system. The Pittsburgh-based company blamed the curtailments on an uncompetitive energy market combined with rising raw materials costs and falling aluminum prices, which are down 27% from their peak in 2011. The move is a part of Alcoa’s long-term goal of improving its aluminum production operating margins by cutting down on costs. Last week, Alcoa said it would permanently close its smelter in Alcoa, Tennessee, and two potlines at its Rockdale, Texas, smelter. The company is expected to cut a total of 240,000 metric tons, or about 5%, of its global smelting capacity. “In today’s rapidly changing global economy, it is imperative to respond quickly to maintain competitiveness,” said Chris Ayers, president of Alcoa Global Primary Products.  “This decision was made after thorough analysis of all the possible alternatives.” The company said the total impact on its workforce will not be determined until consultations with employee representatives and government have been completed. However, the three facilities employ a total of about 1,500. Alcoa also says it will aggressively accelerate plans to reduce the cost of raw materials used by its primary products business and adjust capacity in the global refining system to reflect internal demand and market conditions.

Thirteen people, mostly of South American origin, have been arrested in the dismantling of a drug-trafficking organization that had been operating in several Spanish provinces.In the so-called Operation Alvagar, the Civil Guard seized almost 10 kilos (22 pounds) of high-purity cocaine that on the black market could have provided 400,000 doses, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.The group basically operated in Madrid and Catalonia, although it moved easily throughout all of Spain and used as its center of operations a house in the central city of Toledo.The organization's kingpin, according to the ministry, is also accused of conspiring to murder, since he was planning to call on hired killers to settle a number of scores.
Thanks to the cooperation of Ecuador's National Police, it was discovered that the gang leader lived in Spain under a false identity and that he had a long record in his country for holdups, illicit bearing of arms and four murders, three of them attempted murders.Through the use of hired gunmen he was planning the deaths of three people of the same family, one of them his previous partner.
The agents charged with dismantling the group spoke of the "complications, compartmentalization and complexity" of the operations the criminal organization carried out.The drug traffickers brought cocaine in by air in suitcases handcrafted for that purpose and with a special system of concealment and transportation.