Author: Serkadis

An Ivorian court decision to transfer $45 million intended for the victims of the Trafigura toxic waste disaster to a group falsely claiming to represent them is a travesty of justice, Amnesty International said today.
 
The organization called for an immediate stay on the court’s decision so that the money is not transferred before the victims have a chance to appeal.

In late 2009, a group known as the National Coordination of Toxic Waste Victims of Côte d’Ivoire (CNVDT-CI) claimed that it represented some 30,000 victims who had brought a court case against Trafigura in the UK. The claimants and Trafigura had reached an out-of-court settlement for $45 million in September 2009.

All of the claimants in the case were actually represented by UK lawyer Martyn Day of Leigh Day & Co. Amnesty International has seen no credible evidence to support CNVDT-CI’s claim and considers it a blatant attempt to perpetrate fraud.
 
An appeal court today ruled that the $45 million, paid by Trafigura and intended for the victims, should be transferred to CNVDT-CI’s bank account.
 
"Today’s verdict is a devastating blow for the victims of this toxic waste disaster," said Widney Brown, Senior Director, International Law and Policy at Amnesty International. "We call for an immediate stay on the court’s decision so that this money does not disappear before the victims are able to appeal to the Supreme Court."

Martyn Day expressed his profound shock at the court ruling and said that documents provided by CNVDT had been shown to be false: "In 30 years of practice I cannot remember a more depressing Court decision. 30,000 Ivorians have been looking to get the compensation due to them. Now there is a very real chance they will not see a penny."

In August 2006, toxic waste was brought to Abidjan on board the ship Probo Koala, which had been chartered by oil-trading company, Trafigura. This waste was then dumped in various locations around the city, causing a human rights tragedy.

More than 100,000 people sought medical attention for a range of health problems and there were 15 reported deaths.
 
On 23 September 2009, the High Court of England and Wales approved a $45 million settlement between nearly 30,000 victims of the toxic waste dumping and Trafigura. The compensation had been subject to a freezing order pending today’s decision by the Ivorian court.

Los Angeles County, California | Museums and Collections

Also known as the “Hollywood Studio Museum,” this priceless collection of movieland memorabilia and artifacts has been collecting, preserving, restoring and maintaining early Hollywood treasures since 1985. Located in Hollywood, CA, the museum features archival footage photographs from the very early days of motion pictures, props, historical documents, and more.

Located in the Lasky-DeMille Barn, a barn which Cecil B. DeMille rented during the production of the The Squaw Man a 1914 movie which was the first movie to be made in Hollywood. The barn was moved to the United studios/paramount lot before being moved again, to its present location by the Hollywood Bowl.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the museum is the recreated office of Cecil B. DeMille complete with typewriter, film canisters, movie posters, and booze.

Also collected are photos and postcards showing the streets and buildings of Tinseltown during its heyday. Once in a while, silent films are shown, and special events called “Evenings at the Barn” feature speakers and screenings, both of which are open to the public.

After China began tightening monetary policy faster than expected, Obama’s sudden hard charge against U.S. banks was the straw that broke the market’s back according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. What we’ve witnessed with the recent market sell-off is the ultimate result of Wall St. diverging from Main St.:

Merrill: Wall Street (the equity market) and Main Street (the labor market) have diverged, and this cannot continue indefinitely. Financial sector policies have worked. Labor market policies have not. The biggest risk for 2010 bulls is that policy makers withdraw financial market stimulus via regulation, or raise rates before stimulus has had a chance to help the labor market and cause a double-dip.

(Via Bank of America Merrill Lynch, “The Wall St. Vs. Main St. Correction”)

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See Also:

• Meet The Winners And Losers In Obama’s New Wall Street
• Bloomberg Blasts Obama’s War On Wall Street, Says Congress Salaries Should Be Held In Escrow For 10 Years Until We See How Their Laws Worked Out
• Privately, Wall Street Lashes Out At Barack Obama

One of the issues we’ve had with the use of IP addresses as “proof” of file sharing, is that there can be many users and many computers coming from a single IP address — and lots of times we’ve seen parents sued for actions of their kids or even their kids’ friends. Now, under any common sense approach to the world, you would think that this would be seen as a problem. Occasionally, we’ve heard entertainment industry execs say that it doesn’t matter, and it should be the responsibility of whoever pays for the connection to make sure it’s not misused. For the most part, though, our judicial system realizes that you don’t blame the wrong party.

Apparently, over in Germany they feel differently. A woman, whose son apparently used file sharing programs despite the mother’s explicit ban on such things, has been held responsible for the son’s file sharing. The court said that simply banning her children from file sharing was not enough — she should have actively monitored the connection. That seems like an incredible stretch — and even makes you wonder if the judge has children.

Either way, I can see no reasonable argument for blaming a third party for someone else’s actions, and it’s even worse when that third party specifically told the others not to take part in the activity.

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Senator Russ Feingold has had enough of Ben Bernanke.

The Wisconsin democrat says he will vote against reconfirming Bernanke for a second term at the Federal Reserve.

From Politico, his statement below:

“A chief responsibility of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is to ensure a sound financial system. Under the watch of Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve permitted grossly irresponsible financial activities that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Under Chairman Bernanke’s watch predatory mortgage lending flourished, and ‘too big to fail’ financial giants were permitted to engage in activities that put our nation’s economy at risk. And as it responds to the crisis it helped to usher in, the Federal Reserve under Chairman Bernanke’s leadership continues to resist appropriate efforts to review that response, how taxpayers’ money was being used, and whether it acted appropriately. When the full Senate considers his nomination, I will vote against another term for Chairman Bernanke.”

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See Also:

• Fabricated Treasury Department Memo Is Almost Too Real
• How Bernanke’s Policies In 2009 Created A Permanent, Negative Turning Point For The Dollar
• Wait, Could It Be That Bernanke And Rubin Are Quietly Apologizing?

After request from customers, Volkswagen is now offering the Passat CC with an optional rear bench seating creating room for five passengers.

“The new rear bench fulfils all necessary safety aspects with its third head restraint and three-point seat belt at the centre position,” Volkswagen said in a statement. “In addition, the folding backrest is asymmetrically split, so that even larger objects can be transported effortlessly. The 3-seat rear bench system is available as an option for 100 euros.”

Volkswagen has not confirmed the five seater option for the United States… yet.

– By: Omar Rana

Growing up in Louisville I was accustomed to a home town with a few things that were world class: college basketball, a premier horse racing event, a great bluegrass festival, and even good bratwurst at Oktoberfest. Meanwhile, Louisville was hardly known for progressive environmental protection. In fact, Louisville was rather notorious on the water quality scene, better recognized for disaster than innovation. I grew up in the Beargrass Creek Watershed, which was permanently posted as unsafe for body contact activities because of sewer overflows. We played in the creek anyway, and in retrospect I wonder if any of those ‘stomach bugs’ we occasionally suffered were related to exposure to pathogens in untreated wastewater. I was in high school in 1977 when Kentucky Liquid Recycling dumped a toxic mix of chemicals into the sewer system effectively shutting down city-wide wastewater treatment; untreated sewage was discharged directly to the Ohio River for months while the plant and the sewer system were decontaminated. I was at the University of Louisville in 1981when Ralston Purina released hexane into the sewer system and blew up miles of streets in the downtown area, including on campus directly in front of the dorm in which I was living. I still recall being awakened by the explosion, and sitting in a dark hallway with the rest of the woman on my floor anxiously speculating about what had happened.

I’m happy to say that I can now be cautiously optimistic, a little proud even, of how Louisville is responding to their federal and state mandates to finally resolve their water quality problems. While most cities with combined and sanitary sewer overflows continue to take traditional grey infrastructure approaches by building large storage, conveyance and end-of-pipe treatment systems, Louisville is among a few notable cities who have decided to “go green”. Unlike grey technologies, green approaches provide a multitude of benefits in addition to water quality improvement. They generally are also more cost-effective over the long-term. However, because most wastewater engineers are still tentative about technologies other than pipes, pumps, filters and flocculants, green approaches still aren’t mainstream. Louisville has undertaken the necessary environmental and economic analyses, and determined that green infrastructure makes a lot more sense for the community. They have committed to spend millions of dollars on wide-spread implementation of green roofs, green streets, urban reforestation, and other elements of a comprehensive green infrastructure program. Yes, that’s lots of money, but consider that they’ve determined that these solutions will actually SAVE them millions of dollars compared to grey technologies, while providing ancillary benefits that pumps and pipes could not. Though I’m not necessarily expecting to see a vegetated roof on the twin spires of Churchill Downs the next time I visit (though how cool would that be), I do expect to see Louisville transform itself with greener streets, campuses, roofs, parks, and alleys over the next decade or so. That’s good news for Beargrass Creek and the Ohio River, and great for the Louisville community as well.

About the Author: Jenny Molloy is an aquatic biologist currently working in Washington DC as USEPA’s green infrastructure coordinator. She was raised in Louisville, Kentucky.

{img align=left}General Motors Co. and the Volkswagen Group have managed to secure the best positions in the most important emerging markets – countries where automotive sales could see an increase of over 40 percent by 2014, as Reuters reports.

China, Brazil, India and Russia had a combined sales figure of 19 million cars in 2009, which can be translated to 30 percent of the world’s automotive sales, estimated at 62 million units last year, as the Boston Consulting Group said via Reuters.

… (read more)

Other Great AndroidGuys Posts

• January 21, 2010 — Moozone.com Announces Android App (7)
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• January 5, 2010 — Logitech Seeking Android Developer for New Product (3)
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Morgan Stanley’s Steven Roach thinks it’s pretty unfair of politicians to be putting so much blame on banks alone for the financial crisis, as if to forget the role ratings agencies and government itself. Moreover, he also thinks a double dip recession is pretty likely:

Starting at 2:00:

• “The banks didn’t do it alone [the crisis]… there was a shared responsibility… yes even from the brilliant political overseers, who now feel they have the keys to the post-crisis kingdom.”
• “There are many stiff headwinds that are going to restrain the global expansion over the next few years…”
• “I think global growth is going to be anemic and I’d put a 40 percent chance on a double dip at some point in the next couple of years.”

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See Also:

• Roach: The Fed Is Going To Blow The Exit, Get Ready For Another Massive Bubble
• Roach: China’s Market Will Crumble
• Stephen Roach: 1-In-3 Chance We’re Screwed

Mozilla’s first major update since summer of its popular web browser Firefox has just landed after several months in development and more than a couple of delays, as it has been the norm at Mozilla. Now that Firefox 3.6 is finally here, let’s see what’s changed since the big 3.5 release. As you’d expect, the new features list runs a little shorter than the previous v… (read more)

Ubisoft has announced via Twitter the release date for Battle of Forli, the first bit of downloadable content for Assassin’s Creed II.

Filed under: Motorsports, Mercedes-Benz, Racing

At least now we know he’ll have no excuses: Michael Schumacher says his neck is completely healed after last year’s motorcycle incident, and he feels “extremely fresh and fit.” The three-year sabbatical he’s had since retiring at the end of 2006 has recharged his batteries and his competitive fire.

Interestingly, though, he says the last two years in the sport – the two years in a row he lost the title to Fernando Alonso – were even more demanding on him because of “living under constant observation,” and he was glad to get out. But the pressure is already all on him and the season is still six weeks away. He has stated he wants both Championships, and team principal Ross Brawn said he’d put his money on Schumacher. Apparently, however, he’ll need teammate Nico Rosberg’s car number in order to do that…

[Source: Autocar | Image: Malcolm Griffiths/GP2 Media]

Schumacher reportedly says his neck is fully recovered, F1 return a go originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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