I doubt that this story is even reported in the US

India has been pursuing the Dow Chemical company, owner of Union Carbide, for over two decades to get decent compensation for the 10,000+ deaths caused by the release of methyl isocyanate at Bhopal in December 1984. Considering all the sanctimonious crap that emanated from the Gulf oil spill last year and the exemplary way that BP addressed the issue of compensation, it is hardly surprising that rank hypocrisy and double standards apply when US corporations pollute overseas. We are talking about a disaster that has claimed thousands of lives, at least three times more than 9/11, and caused up to half a million injuries and yet Dow has got off with paying £300 million, a fucking insult considering the amounts paid out for the loss of a few shrimps in the Gulf. This is one of the most shameful episodes in US corporate history and the worst industrial accident in history, yet it has been buried in the sand by the US media and politicians.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/indians-vote-london-2012-boycott-103110056.html

1) Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide over 15 years AFTER the event. If you buy property, are you responsible for what the previous owner did?

2) UCIL was the subsidiary that actually owned and operated the plant. It was a joint venture between Union Carbide and the people of India (who had about a 49% stake via their government).

3) Union Carbide agreed to pay the settlement reached with the Indian government. Adjusted for inflation of 3%, that would amount to about 670 million pounds today.

4) To say that this has been buried in the sand is a bit absurd given that the case involves a disaster incident from 1984. A case that was settled in 1989.... not to mention the fact that the property was half owned by the Indian Government. Who also prosecuted the individuals deemed responsible and held them accountable to the fullest extent of their own laws (granted their laws were weak, but they were THEIR laws).

5) Bhopal was certainly one of the worst, but Chernobyl and its long term effects was the worst industrial accident in history. That also occurred in the 1980's.

6) Once you settle a case, you cannot go back and ask for more money 25+ years later because you think you didn't get enough. It is most certainly unfair to ask a company that didn't have anything to do with the incident to pay the money simply because it bought the company that was responsible 15+ years after the accident.
 
Nearly five times the number of people that died on 9/11 were killed at Bhopal, yet Dow the bastards that supplied Agent Orange consider £300 million to be fair compensation for all those deaths. Just do the maths, Deepwater Horizon resulted in 11 dead and compensation of $20 billion whereas at Bhopal 15,000 died and hundreds of thousands were injured and Union Carbide/Dow literally got away with murder.

Obviously you are very bitter about the incompetence displayed by BP and the fact that they were fined. Now you are trying to tie the production of Agent Orange to what happened at Bhopar because you want to demonize American companies right now.

Saying Dow 'thinks 300 million pounds (in 1989)' was "fair" is quite pathetic on your part. DOW had NOTHING to do with the settlement reached between Union Carbide and the Indian Government in 1989. THOSE two are the parties that reached the settlement. You do understand what a settlement is do you not? You also ignore the fact that the Indian government owned 49% of the plant where the leak occurred.
 
The silence is certainly deafening. Even the more enlightened poster seem to have been able to find something better to do than respond.
But then, what are a few dead brown people when they have a BLACK man to crucify and get out of their precious WHITE house?
It'll all be OK though cos there will be a picture on fox of someone giving a real Indian a 3 second hug.

What a bunch of merchant bankers!

LMAO... you keep making proclamations about the 'silence' of those who do not comment right away. Once again, when you post threads on WEEKENDS (especially holiday weekends in the US), the normal posters are not all going to be on with frequency.
 
Obviously you are very bitter about the incompetence displayed by BP and the fact that they were fined. Now you are trying to tie the production of Agent Orange to what happened at Bhopar because you want to demonize American companies right now.
Saying Dow 'thinks 300 million pounds (in 1989)' was "fair" is quite pathetic on your part. DOW had NOTHING to do with the settlement reached between Union Carbide and the Indian Government in 1989. THOSE two are the parties that reached the settlement. You do understand what a settlement is do you not? You also ignore the fact that the Indian government owned 49% of the plant where the leak occurred.

Dow bought Union Carbide and refused to revisit the settlement which even then was totally inadequate for the deaths of 15,000 people and up to 500,000 injured. Last year you kind people were at pains to point out that BP's name was over the door and they were therefore responsible for the Gulf spill even though Transocean operated the rig and Halliburton did the cementing, so what is different here? My bitterness, as you term it, was directed to the flak coming from the US media and the White House which was pinning all the blame on BP. I didn't for one moment say that BP wasn't liable but the xenophobic bullshit was just sickening viewed from over here.

I perfectly understand a settlement that was negotiated by charlatans and corporate cowboys, who couldn't give a shit for all those people. If that happened in the US, the legal wranglings would still be going on into the next century. Dow has a shitty track record going back to Vietnam and Guam, they still refuse to even acknowledge that it was dangerous after all the evidence to the contrary. If you ever go to Saigon I recommend that you visit the War Remnants Museum, it might make you realise the hideous effects that Agent Orange had on the Vietnamese people.

http://www.warlegacies.org/Lawsuit.htm
 
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Dow bought Union Carbide and refused to revisit the settlement which even then was totally inadequate for the deaths of 15,000 people and up to 500,000 injured. Last year you kind people were at pains to point out that BP's name was over the door and they were therefore responsible for the Gulf spill even though Transocean operated the rig and Halliburton did the cementing, so what is different here?

The difference is that the settlement with BP had yet to be reached. The difference is that Dow did not own Union Carbide at the time (though again you ignore the fact that the Indian government DID own almost half of the subsidiary that owned the plant). BP by CONTRACT was responsible. It is standard indemnity clauses built into RIG's contracts. That said, BP can still choose to go after them if they wish. The US government goes after who is in charge... let the guilty parties figure out who pays what portion of the $20B.

I perfectly understand a settlement that was negotiated by charlatans and corporate cowboys, who couldn't give a shit for all those people. If that happened in the US, the legal wranglings would still be going on into the next century.

ok... so according to that standard, no settlement should ever be final? That is absurd.

Dow has a shitty track record going back to Vietnam and Guam, they still refuse to even acknowledge that it was dangerous after all the evidence to the contrary. If you ever go to Saigon I recommend that you visit the War Remnants Museum, it might make you realise the hideous effects that Agent Orange had on the Vietnamese people.

Again, this has NOTHING to do with Bhopar. Just shows that you hate Dow. We get it. You hate Dow. Got it. Understood. You hate Dow. You can point to damn near all defense contractors and state that they have shitty track records according to those that got the bad end of the weapons developed.

I understand how horrid agent Orange was on the Vietnamese people (as well as our own soldiers affected). I understand Dow made it for the US government. I understand that the US government used a very nasty fucking weapon in a war we never should have been in. I understand that abhorrent shit like that happens in wars. I understand that is why we should (in the US) force our idiots in DC to actually DECLARE (officially) War, rather than continue to let them put us into situations like Vietnam, Iraq, Afhghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia etc...
 
The difference is that the settlement with BP had yet to be reached. The difference is that Dow did not own Union Carbide at the time (though again you ignore the fact that the Indian government DID own almost half of the subsidiary that owned the plant). BP by CONTRACT was responsible. It is standard indemnity clauses built into RIG's contracts. That said, BP can still choose to go after them if they wish. The US government goes after who is in charge... let the guilty parties figure out who pays what portion of the $20B.



ok... so according to that standard, no settlement should ever be final? That is absurd.



Again, this has NOTHING to do with Bhopar. Just shows that you hate Dow. We get it. You hate Dow. Got it. Understood. You hate Dow. You can point to damn near all defense contractors and state that they have shitty track records according to those that got the bad end of the weapons developed.

I understand how horrid agent Orange was on the Vietnamese people (as well as our own soldiers affected). I understand Dow made it for the US government. I understand that the US government used a very nasty fucking weapon in a war we never should have been in. I understand that abhorrent shit like that happens in wars. I understand that is why we should (in the US) force our idiots in DC to actually DECLARE (officially) War, rather than continue to let them put us into situations like Vietnam, Iraq, Afhghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia etc...

I think that it has a lot to do with Dow, Vietnam is a very good indication of how they conduct business generally and for them to be a sponsor at the Olympics is just disgusting, in my opinion.
 
I think that it has a lot to do with Dow, Vietnam is a very good indication of how they conduct business generally and for them to be a sponsor at the Olympics is just disgusting, in my opinion.

No, it does not. What happened in Viet Nam was almost 40 years ago. While that doesn't diminish the abhorrent use of agent orange by the US GOVERNMENT or the fact that Dow made it FOR THE US GOVERNMENT... it also does not tell you who Dow is today. Saying that what they did FOR THE US GOVERNMENT 40 years ago indicates how they conduct business generally today is absurd.
 
LMAO... you keep making proclamations about the 'silence' of those who do not comment right away. Once again, when you post threads on WEEKENDS (especially holiday weekends in the US), the normal posters are not all going to be on with frequency.

Are you suggesting that posters actually STEAL from their employers? Steal time they are paid for, steal use of computers owned by their employer, steal power that is paid for by their employer?
Surely you are not suggesting that, are you?
Or are you suggesting that those who consider comments and abuse as part of their raison d'etre cannot afford their own computers? Are things really that bad in America?
 
No, it does not. What happened in Viet Nam was almost 40 years ago. While that doesn't diminish the abhorrent use of agent orange by the US GOVERNMENT or the fact that Dow made it FOR THE US GOVERNMENT... it also does not tell you who Dow is today. Saying that what they did FOR THE US GOVERNMENT 40 years ago indicates how they conduct business generally today is absurd.

Dow and Monsanto are still refusing to pay compensation to Vietnamese and Koreans for the use of Agent Orange, that's happening today not forty years ago.

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/nov2008/agent-orange.html

[url]http://www.statesvillelaw.com/20.shtml


http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31485

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Aaron-Glantz/2126
[/URL]
 
Are you suggesting that posters actually STEAL from their employers? Steal time they are paid for, steal use of computers owned by their employer, steal power that is paid for by their employer?
Surely you are not suggesting that, are you?
Or are you suggesting that those who consider comments and abuse as part of their raison d'etre cannot afford their own computers? Are things really that bad in America?

Can you dissect that post you quoted when replying with this nonsense and underline the parts about employers, electricity, or any of that nonsense.

Holidays are spent with family, not on message boards. Now don't ever quit using your employer's computer to post this nonsense... :D
 
Dow and Monsanto are still refusing to pay compensation to Vietnamese and Koreans for the use of Agent Orange, that's happening today not forty years ago.

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/nov2008/agent-orange.html

[url]http://www.statesvillelaw.com/20.shtml


http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31485

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Aaron-Glantz/2126
[/URL]

I don't think Dow used the materials. This is like asking a gun manufacturer to repay the Germans because we used their guns to kill them during WWI and II...
 
Are you suggesting that posters actually STEAL from their employers? Steal time they are paid for, steal use of computers owned by their employer, steal power that is paid for by their employer?
Surely you are not suggesting that, are you?
Or are you suggesting that those who consider comments and abuse as part of their raison d'etre cannot afford their own computers? Are things really that bad in America?

Are you retarded? Are things that bad for brits in HK? Are you a simpleton?
 
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