Al Jazeera English: Oil firm 'settles' toxic waste case

[SealLion]

After reading this article on the website, I almost fell off, of my chair.

Check it out:

Oil-trading company Transfigura has said it has reached a settlement with 31,000 people in Ivory Coast who claimed they were made ill by toxic waste dumped around the capital, Abidjan.

well, that's good that it reached a settlement at least, except this here:

Under the deal, which sees Transfigura pay the claimants nearly $50m, the alleged victims have accepted that there was no link between the deaths, injuries or miscarriages suffered and exposure to the waste, the company said

That is the most ridiculous thing I"ve read all week.

There are numerous studies that claim opposite.

........more than 20 independent experts had examined the case.

..........These independent experts are unable to identify a link between exposure to the chemicals released from the slops and deaths, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, loss of visual acuity or other serious and chronic injuries," it said.

I don't know what kind of experts were hired, but one needs to have both education and knowledge to be able to have such status, yes??

would you not agree??

Maybe the experts were amatures or were paid off.
ONe or the other. Who knows, yes??

Maybe there's a third option to the above that I can't think of at the moment.

I will say this and that is people who are more educated than others do have options regarding health, income, and able to make more informed decisions.

People in Ivory Coast may be less well-off than we are in the western world.

Maybe they took this settlement based on thier poverty level and decided that thier local government, which should have been involved (the article makes no mention of it), didn't.

And that's a sad thing.

When government should and could get involved in something like this that affects it's own citizens, it fails to.



Read the article on Al Jazeera if you like on the history of this oil company and it's dealing on similiar issues when it tried to dump material in Amsterdam, but couldn't and then decided to move on to Africa to do so.

Is Africa a dumping ground or something just b/c some of the African states are less well-off than the rest of the western world who wouldn't stand for this crap??


Anyways....here's the link:

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Oil firm 'settles' toxic waste case

[slikrapid]

man, those people should have watched Erin Brockovich, then there would have been trouble for the waste dumpers - this company thinks they can get away with it, but all it takes is just one person who won't put up with their settlement offers - then its trial time - the courts there should be decent too, if this scenario was to happen

I don't know what kind of experts were hired, but one needs to have both education and knowledge to be able to have such status, yes?

many 'experts' are only experts in (ap)proving their benefactors interests (hence their own interests) - remember Al Gore's (& the likes of him) 'expertize' on global warming or us government 'expertize' on 9/11

Maybe they took this settlement based on thier poverty level and decided that thier local government, which should have been involved (the article makes no mention of it), didn't.

its regularly happening to poor people as they are assumed as the ones who give the least amount of resistance/trouble

as for the government, they should have been involved (no dumping unless they approve ofc) regardless of the local people's wishes (they can file private lawsuits...btw imo their british representatives stink of corruption )

[SealLion]

corruption is rife everywhere, slik.
I know that you know that too.

If the company's British reps are corrupt, then it most likely began from somewhere else...the company in question.

corruption has a way of filtering it's way down. It basically follows gravity. Or the path of least resistance.

Can someone resist payment or having good favors done to them by someone else??
Maybe somebody was paid off.
Who knows??

Nevertheless, regardless, this is unethical.
Corporate immorality is what I'd call it.

If something like this was to happen in the West, there'd be shit-storms from everyone affected.

as for the government in Ivory Coast, I can't speak on thier behalf. But, yes!! Definitly, they should have been involved. Thier involvement is less so now, if they even had any involvement to begin with.

If they had involvement, they may have declined to follow suit of this matter of thier own citizens maybe b/c of lack of government funds??
IDK...African states are known for lack of funds to spread for legit purposes. A great many of the African states are ripe with government corruption as well.

Not all, though, but some are. Most especially the one's that are dictatorships.
What dictorship is going to spend much money on it's own citizens.

Though Ivory Coast is a republic with both a president and Prime Minister.

In my opinion, there could be a number of reasons why Ivory Coast government has not intervened.
It could be b/c of rebel factions that it has to deal with. That's according to Wikipedia article on Ivory Coast. The "Politics' section is what I looked into.