Katie Melua…Spider’s Web

Trafigura, the international oil company blamed for dumping the waste that led to seven deaths in Ivory Coast, has denied that the waste was toxic.
The Holland-based firm said independent tests showed the chemical sludge met international safety standards.
The environmental group Greenpeace maintained pressure over the scandal by blockading the Probo Koala, the tanker that carried the waste, in an Estonian port to demand an EU investigation.
Ten people, including two French Trafigura executives, have been charged with violating toxic waste laws and have been imprisoned in Abidjan.
Thousands suffered from vomiting, stomach pains and breathing difficulties after the black sludge was dumped around the town of Abidjan.
The Ivorian government resigned following a wave of public anger at the dumping.

Al-jazeera article here

About these charges, Trafigura has issued this press release:
TRAFIGURA TESTS CONTRADICT MEDIA SPECULATION, 24 September 2006

From Greenpeace, this:

International - Toxic waste from Europe openly dumped on the streets of an African capital city. Six people dead and thousands requiring medical treatment. The Ivory Coast cabinet resigns but still no one owns up to the dumping. How could this be allowed to happen?
The scandal of the toxic waste dumped in the Ivory Coast first came to light on September 6 when the first casualties where reported and protests broke out on the streets against the government, which was blamed for allowing the dumping.
There is no doubt that the wastes are deadly. Four of the six dead are children and 23 people have required hospital treatment so far. The fact that the toxic waste was dumped openly on the streets of a city is shocking enough. The fact that the waste was delivered by a ship chartered by Trafigura LTD (controlled by Dutch firm Trafigura Beheer BV), who claimed they thought the waste would be ‘properly treated’ in a poor African nation raises serious questions about why they sent it to Africa. The fact that international law may have been broken makes it a serious scandal that such deadly incidents still occur today.

Full article here

This is a small snippet of the Senator’s speech to the 2006 Voter Values Summit. If you have the stomach for it, you can read more here. (this is a great site btw)

And so - get the scene now - back, that was, the ilk, the, the idea of this is that the, the, the climate is changing, it’s going up, and it’s due not to actual causes but due to the release of CO2 and what they call anthropogenic gasses. Man made gasses. The motive of this is to try to shut down this machine called America, stop building, stop - y’know - driving around and all these things and so - ah, anyway - we were just about to sign the Kyoto treaty when I became chairman of the committee that Gil talked about in his introduction, its called Environment and Public Works. Now, in this committee we have jurisdiction over this, uh, all these areas, so I thought “we need find out what the truth is about the Global Warming.

So the question above about Senator Inhofe above is a rhetorical one. He is a crazed lunatic to say the least.

The United States is following the lead of “dirty war” nations, such as Argentina and Chile, in enacting what amounts to an amnesty law protecting U.S. government operatives, apparently up to and including President George W. Bush, who have committed or are responsible for human rights crimes.

Article here.

This president and his administration have known all along that their love of and practise of torture has always been both immoral and illegal. Why else would they be so desperate to get this legislation passed before the coming elections? The answer is simple, not only are they murderous war criminals, they are premeditated murderous war criminals and they are desperate now to cover their sorry asses.

Too harsh?

Colbert on the Writ of Habeas Corpus

Major General John Batiste testifies regarding Rumsfeld’s failures.

Secretary Rumsfeld’s dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American service men and women, or allies and the good people of Iraq.

Until the world stops turning a cheek to the war crimes being committed in the Middle East…..there will be no peace.

DEIR QANOUN, Lebanon - The messages scrawled in red on the concrete, stone and cinder-block walls near Ali Saqlawi’s house are worded differently but mean the same: “CB,” “cb strike,” “cluster strike.” Arrows point with deceptive precision in every direction. Saqlawi, a mechanic, needs no warning. He has already seen the thousands of bomblets the size of cellphones that littered his town, the detritus from hundreds of cluster bombs fired in the last days of the 33-day war with Israel.

“I saw them where your feet are,” he said, pointing to the ground next to the rubble of what was once his house and garage. He waved toward the parched lemon groves across the cratered street. “You’ll find them there,” he said. He pointed at the olive orchard behind him, awaiting a reluctant harvest by workers too fearful to enter. “It’s all bombs over there,” he said.

Read full article at MSNBC

Rest in Peace Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard!

By Kim Barker and James Janega
Chicago Tribune
Posted September 26 2006, 7:21 AM EDT

MEHTARLAM, Afghanistan _ The older soldiers called themselves the Gray Brigade, but Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard never talked about her age. Soon, no one asked.

In training, the Waukesha, Wis., resident ran as hard as men much younger. She became a gunner on a Humvee at this small military base, building a wooden box to stand on so she could see over the turret.

Her last night here, Howard and Staff Sgt. Robert Paul sat on the back stoop of their barracks with the base cook, as usual.

“We started talking about the time she got shot at,” said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Marlin McDaniel, 42, the cook. “I said I’d probably duck. I wouldn’t know what to do. But they both basically said at the same time, `When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.”’

Read more here