A study has revealed that birth defects suffered by children in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are greater than those inflicted by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Since a ruthless American attack in 2004, there has been a twelve-fold increase in childhood cancers, and a fourfold increase in cancer overall.
Children have been seen with grotesque deformities – an eye or nose in the middle of the forehead, and so on. The suspicion is that the Americans’ use of depleted uranium and other “special weapons” is to blame, but the BBC’s world affairs editor John Simpson pointed out last night that US law would make it virtually impossible for the victims to hold the USA to account. Maybe Americans will feel they should hand over some of the $20bn they’re extracting from BP? No, thought not.
The Fallujah revelation comes just as we are learning that in 2002, the then head of Britain’s secret service MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, was warning Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair that if he joined in the attack on Iraq it would expose Britain to a greatly increased risk of terrorism. Blair and his Labour cronies ignored this, of course, just as they ignored the biggest mass protest in history by the British people. We are now paying the price.
*My new book London’s Disasters: from Boudicca to the Banking Crisis is out! Published by the History Press, ISBN: 9780752457475. City AM was kind enough to write about it yesterday:-
http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/allister-heath/why-britain-needs-save-far-more
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Sunday, 18 July 2010
BP - Of spills and compensation
Before BP, America’s worst offshore oil accident was the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. That was much smaller than BP (11 million gallons against 184 million so far). However, many experts believe the BP spill is likely to cause less damage because the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico will break up the oil much quicker.
The Exxon Valdez spill is reckoned to have killed more than 20 whales and a quarter of a million sea birds. Fishermen in the affected area say that herring were wiped out permanently, destroying their livelihood. So far the BP spill is known to have killed just less than 1,400 birds. But while BP is having to pay $20 billion in compensation, Exxon had to shell out just half a billion.
Here’s another interesting fact. President Obama has appointed Kenneth Feinberg to administer BP's $20 billion BP fund. Mr Feinberg also administered the compensation fund for 9/11, when nearly 3,000 people were killed. That paid out just $7 billion.
America’s, and the world’s, worst oil spill, incidentally, was probably the Lakeview Gusher in California, which released more than 370 million barrels over 18 months in 1910-11, flooding an entire valley.
The Exxon Valdez spill is reckoned to have killed more than 20 whales and a quarter of a million sea birds. Fishermen in the affected area say that herring were wiped out permanently, destroying their livelihood. So far the BP spill is known to have killed just less than 1,400 birds. But while BP is having to pay $20 billion in compensation, Exxon had to shell out just half a billion.
Here’s another interesting fact. President Obama has appointed Kenneth Feinberg to administer BP's $20 billion BP fund. Mr Feinberg also administered the compensation fund for 9/11, when nearly 3,000 people were killed. That paid out just $7 billion.
America’s, and the world’s, worst oil spill, incidentally, was probably the Lakeview Gusher in California, which released more than 370 million barrels over 18 months in 1910-11, flooding an entire valley.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Lockerbie - let's have the right inquiry
I worry more and more about the BBC’s supposed flagship 10 o’ clock Television News. Last week it consumed more than half the programme in an extraordinarily repetitive, virtually information-free report on the hunt for Raoul Moat.
Last night it devoted seven minutes to American outrage over the release eleven months ago of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. You will remember that al-Megrahi was freed from his Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Two BBC reporters told us how cross the Americans were that al-Megrahi had had the temerity to not die, that the new UK government now considered the release a “mistake”, how the Americans were accusing their favourite villain, BP, of having engineered the release etc, etc. Neither reporter seemed aware that there are very serious doubts about al-Megrahi’s guilt, shared by the families of some of the UK victims. (These doubts appear not to be much thought about in America where questioning the guilt of Arabs is not really part of the culture.)
Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the attack, has condemned the US’s “mass hysteria” and its cynical attempt to use al-Megrahi as another means of taking “revenge” on BP. The Scottish government are standing firm and have coolly pointed out that the prisoner was released under due process of Scots law, after taking into account the testimony of independent medical experts.
The Americans want an inquiry into al-Megrahi’s release, but Scottish MSP Christine Grahame has a better idea. Why doesn’t the US stop blocking a full independent inquiry into who really bombed Flight 103? Then we might finally get the truth. The new British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is in Washington next week. He has promised to be less subservient to the Americans than Labour were. The next few days may reveal whether he will keep his word.
(See also my blogs of 27 July, 16 and 22 Aug, and 19 Sept, 2009)
Last night it devoted seven minutes to American outrage over the release eleven months ago of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. You will remember that al-Megrahi was freed from his Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
Two BBC reporters told us how cross the Americans were that al-Megrahi had had the temerity to not die, that the new UK government now considered the release a “mistake”, how the Americans were accusing their favourite villain, BP, of having engineered the release etc, etc. Neither reporter seemed aware that there are very serious doubts about al-Megrahi’s guilt, shared by the families of some of the UK victims. (These doubts appear not to be much thought about in America where questioning the guilt of Arabs is not really part of the culture.)
Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed in the attack, has condemned the US’s “mass hysteria” and its cynical attempt to use al-Megrahi as another means of taking “revenge” on BP. The Scottish government are standing firm and have coolly pointed out that the prisoner was released under due process of Scots law, after taking into account the testimony of independent medical experts.
The Americans want an inquiry into al-Megrahi’s release, but Scottish MSP Christine Grahame has a better idea. Why doesn’t the US stop blocking a full independent inquiry into who really bombed Flight 103? Then we might finally get the truth. The new British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is in Washington next week. He has promised to be less subservient to the Americans than Labour were. The next few days may reveal whether he will keep his word.
(See also my blogs of 27 July, 16 and 22 Aug, and 19 Sept, 2009)
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
A tale of two disasters - BP and BhoPal
BP has just put a new cap on its leaking oil well in the Gulf Of Mexico. It’s not clear yet whether this latest attempt to halt the flow of oil will work. The US government has been uncompromising in its punishment of BP. The clean-up has cost the company $3.5bn so far, and the Obama administration has forced it to set aside another $20bn to pay for further clean-up, compensation and other costs.
When an American company is the guilty party, though, US attitudes are rather different. Yesterday, protestors in India demanded the extradition from America of Warren Anderson. Mr Anderson was the boss of US company Union Carbide when cyanide gas leaked from its plant in Bhopal in 1984, and the Indian authorities have a warrant out for his arrest. The US has resisted all their efforts.
While the BP accident killed 11 people, Bhopal cost the lives of at least 3,800 in the immediate aftermath, while up to 20,000 more may have perished since, and perhaps another 120,000 are still suffering ill effects – making this probably the deadliest industrial accident in history.
So how many billions in compensation did Union Carbide pay? Er, no billions actually - just $470 million.
(See also my blogs of June 9 and Aug 1, 2009; March 17, April 24, May 1, June 7 and 9, 2010.)
When an American company is the guilty party, though, US attitudes are rather different. Yesterday, protestors in India demanded the extradition from America of Warren Anderson. Mr Anderson was the boss of US company Union Carbide when cyanide gas leaked from its plant in Bhopal in 1984, and the Indian authorities have a warrant out for his arrest. The US has resisted all their efforts.
While the BP accident killed 11 people, Bhopal cost the lives of at least 3,800 in the immediate aftermath, while up to 20,000 more may have perished since, and perhaps another 120,000 are still suffering ill effects – making this probably the deadliest industrial accident in history.
So how many billions in compensation did Union Carbide pay? Er, no billions actually - just $470 million.
(See also my blogs of June 9 and Aug 1, 2009; March 17, April 24, May 1, June 7 and 9, 2010.)
Saturday, 1 May 2010
Oil spills
A week ago (April 24), I blogged on the 11 people who lost their lives when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank off Louisiana. Now this is also turning into an environmental disaster, with up to 5,000 barrels of oil a day gushing into the sea.
The slick is 130 miles long, and efforts to contain it are being hampered by choppy seas. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida have all declared states of emergency, and the US government has launched a fierce attack on the British oil company. It is only a month since President Obama eased restrictions on offshore drilling.
The worst oil spill in history came in 1991 when the Iraqis opened valves at the Sea Island terminal and dumped oil from several tankers into the Persian Gulf to try to foil any landing by US marines during the first Gulf War.
Estimates of the volume spilled range as high as 1.5 million tons (that compares with about 35,000 from the Exxon Valdez in 1989 – up to now America’s worst oil spill). Though wildlife was harmed in the Gulf, a study sponsored by UNESCO, the USA and countries in the region suggested that it did little long-term damage.
The slick is 130 miles long, and efforts to contain it are being hampered by choppy seas. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida have all declared states of emergency, and the US government has launched a fierce attack on the British oil company. It is only a month since President Obama eased restrictions on offshore drilling.
The worst oil spill in history came in 1991 when the Iraqis opened valves at the Sea Island terminal and dumped oil from several tankers into the Persian Gulf to try to foil any landing by US marines during the first Gulf War.
Estimates of the volume spilled range as high as 1.5 million tons (that compares with about 35,000 from the Exxon Valdez in 1989 – up to now America’s worst oil spill). Though wildlife was harmed in the Gulf, a study sponsored by UNESCO, the USA and countries in the region suggested that it did little long-term damage.
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