It is the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Dirty tricks and toxic waste in Ivory Coast

By Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean
BBC Newsnight

It is the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century, the type of environmental vandalism that international treaties are supposed to prevent. Now Newsnight can reveal the truth about the waste that was illegally tipped on Ivory Coast's biggest city, Abidjan. A giant multinational is being sued in London's High Court by thousands of Africans who claim they were injured as a result.

Our investigation took us to Amsterdam where the waste could have been safely disposed of. Instead the company, Trafigura, went for the cheaper option and offloaded it in Abidjan.

Trafigura has always denied that the chemical waste was dangerous, but we have seen an analysis by the Dutch authorities which reveal it to be lethal.

We consulted a leading toxicologist, John Hoskins from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He said it would bring a major city to its knees.

The waste includes tons of phenols which can cause death by contact, tons of hydrogen sulphide, lethal if inhaled in high concentrations, and vast quantities of corrosive caustic soda and mercaptans which John Hoskins describes as "the most odorous compounds ever produced".

A terrible smell

It happened on 19 August 2006 in the dead of night. A convoy of trucks from a newly-formed company in Abidjan arrived to take the waste away. They illegally dumped the first loads at the huge tip in Aquedo. A powerful stench soon engulfed the area. The tip's operators were called out and the drivers sent packing. They looked elsewhere to drop the waste, tipping it in at least 18 places across the city and beyond.

VIDEOS AND FULL STORY HERE:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8048626.stm

[conscious evolution]

1. Who owns Trafigura?

Anyone know?

[HeresyLives]

4. Swiss based multi-national apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura

[TheBigotBasher]

5. They are commodity traders

http://www.trafigura.com/about_us.aspx

[malaise]

6. It's a Dutch company

They were involved in a major scandal here in 2006/7 where they provided cash for one of the political party's annual conference in exchange for a major contract.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

13. Here's part of their portfolio:

Private ownership enables us to make
rapid decisions as well as to take
long-term views on new markets
and opportunities. The strong growth
experienced by Trafigura over the
past five years testifies to the value
of this approach.

Supporting our customers and
suppliers often means providing services
beyond our core business of sourcing
and supplying commodities.
Increasingly we are offering logistical
transport as well as finance and
other types of risk management
to our customers.

The language reminds me of mercenary companies that are used to protect diamond mines in Africa etc.

[G_j]

14. "rapid decisions

as well as to take
long-term views on new markets
and opportunities"


I see..

I hope they get nailed to the wall!

[malaise]

18. They're mercenaries all right

They buy and sell influence.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

7. Here's more

Trafigura, a London-based company which bills itself as one of the world's largest oil traders, said it was in talks to reach a "global settlement" to the claim by 30,000 people from Ivory Coast, who brought Britain's largest-ever lawsuit after contaminated sludge from a tanker ship was fly-tipped under cover of darkness in August 2006.

The incident caused at least 100,000 residents from the west African country's capital Abidjan, to flood into hospitals and clinics complaining of breathing difficulties and sickness. Investigations by the Ivorian authorities suggested that the deaths of at least 10 people were linked to the waste. Trafigura has always insisted the foul-smelling slurry, dumped without its knowledge by a sub-contractor, could not have caused serious injury or illness.

The bitterly contested legal action has seen Trafigura repeatedly deploy one of Britain's most aggressive firms of lawyers to dispute reporting on the case by media outlets including the BBC. Under the deal, thousands of Ivorians who suffered short-term illnesses, including vomiting, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties, receive a payout understood to be set at several hundred pounds.

But the settlement, which is likely to be confirmed by the end of this month, will mean that claims of more serious injuries caused by the waste – including miscarriages, still births and birth defects – will now not be tested in the £100m court claim, which had been scheduled to start in London's High Court next month.

Trafigura, a privately-owned multinational which has 1,900 staff working in 42 offices around the world, last year claimed a turnover of $73bn (£44bn). The figure is double the entire GDP of Ivory Coast, where half the population of 21 million live on less than a dollar a day.
Internal Trafigura emails, obtained by Greenpeace, show that Trafigura struck a series of bargains on the international markets in 2005 and early 2006 to buy cheap and dirty petroleum, called coker gasoline, which the company believed could then be cleaned up at profit of £4m per cargo.

...

http://thepoormouth.blogspot.com/2009/09/trafigura-corporate-criminals.html

Scroll down to page 12 here:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:uFm3e2XJ43UJ:www.anvilmining.com/files/Anvil%2520and%2520Trafigura%2520Strategic%2520Alliance%2520-%2520Aug%252010%25202009.pdf+trafigura+ownership&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Google "Trafigura Ownership" and click on second link either the cache' or the pdf.

[TheBigotBasher]

2. The BBC are cowards on this.

This was the story that had reports from Parliament injuncted. The BBC did little until the blogs broke it.

http://thebigotbasher.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/a-victory-for-blog-freedom-the-dead-tree-industry-is-still-near-death/

and here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6768468

[Orwellian_Ghost]

15. You are correct, this was posted today from a UK blog:

Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Trafigura, Carter-Ruck and the Streisand Effect (UPDATED)

UPDATE: The situation has now been resolved and the Guardian ungagged. Read to the bottom of the post for further details.

Looks like Carter-Ruck solicitors should be in the PR business, because neither I nor, I'll wager, you, had ever heard of Trafigura until they allegedly slapped an injunction on the Guardian prohibiting them from - get this - reporting proceedings in Parliament in which Trafigura's name had, apparently, been mentioned.

Well, get comfy, guys, because you're big time now; everyone who's anyone (as well as those of us who aren't) are busily writing about you, and directing baffled readers to articles like this one, in the Independent, which says all sorts of nasty things about you the veracity of which I am not qualified to comment on. In no particular order, you're now famous to the readers of, inter alia, Iain Dale, Guido, Dizzy, Next Left, Unity, Chicken Yoghurt, Harry's Place and Timmy, as well as here and at the Kitchen; between them, they can't be a kick in the arse off having a higher daily readership than the paper you've tried to gag (this outbreak of blogospheric solidarity, to put it into context, is akin to the Russians and the Germans taking a time-out from slaughtering each other to erect a big sign in downtown Stalingrad telling everyone that Cary Grant was a poof). Add Alex Massie at the Spectator and Nick Cohen and Joshua Rozenberg at Standpoint magazine, and this is quickly becoming an online clusterfuck of epic proportions.

One day these highly-remunerated libel lawyers are going to wake up and realise that they aren't being paid in guineas any more and that, thanks to this thing called the Interwebs, they can't shut down freedom of speech the way they used to in the old days. On the contrary; as Barbara Streisand found to her cost, 99% of people don't give a shit about 99% of stuff, right up the moment when you start waving your arms up and down telling them to stop reading about it.

http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2009/10/streisand-effect-trafigura.html

[Orwellian_Ghost]

16. Lots of info on the gag, not-gag, order here:

http://order-order.com/2009/10/13/guardian-gag-lifted/

Look at the comments section for lots of information and further links.

[thunder rising]

3. How long the sentence ... how small the cell. These MF cannot get off with a fine

This shit that movies are made.

[Greyhound]

9. If only that were true.

For well over a century large corporations have been killing and maiming people and destroying the environment with impunity. From United Fruit to Union Carbide to Exxon the trail of devastation is heartbreaking.

[TheBigotBasher]

8. Are they on this board?

What is with the unrecs?

[Greyhound]

10. Back to zero. n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

11. That's amazing isn't it?

That's just utterly disgusting. Toxic waste dumped on third world by scurrilous MNC is okay with some folks? Maybe Larry Summers fan club?

[blindpig]

20. A vendetta of cowards

who can in no way justify their opposition to this thread. Why do they not explain their reasoning? Or perhaps it is perceived self interest?

[slipslidingaway]

12. knr nt

[maryf]

17. K&R nt

[DCKit]

19. SOME articles we should be able to rec more than once. n/t

[blindpig]

21. kick n/t

[ensho]

22. the 44 to over 100 toxic ships sitting on the sea floor scandal

is right up there too

[leftstreet]

23. K&R

[CanSocDem]

24. Well, money is....

...more valuable than a sick person in a capitalist economy isn't it? Sick people can be turned into money.

.

[bluesmail]

25. K&R EOM

[Orwellian_Ghost]

26. Bumping

[debbierlus]

27. I wish I could be surprised by such atrocious actions...

It is all par for the course.

Thanks for posting.

[Starry Messenger]

28. Thanks for the article.

I saw reference to this on Twitter and wanted to know more. Recommend.

[tosh]

29. K&R.

[Vidar]

30. BBC

[flvegan]

31. Rec #50

And a kick to boot.

[onethatcares]

32. and so it goes, pissing in our own drinking water, only worse.

all those billions of dollars probably buys some great medical care, hopefully, they rot and stink as much as what they had their hands in does.

And we think we can win against this type of company, get a grip, they own the world or know the other people that do. They can talk people into blowing the tops off their own mountains in order to keep their jobs, they can talk people into cutting up ships without safety equipment to feed their families, meanwhile, they never get their hands dirty or their foreheads sunburned.

Our children will curse our names.