THE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER; COMPENSATION; PRISON

According to the New Yurk Times, 13 June 2010, Obama plans to force the company to set up a compensation fund

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday night, President Obama for the first time will address the nation about the ongoing environmental disaster and outline his plans to legally force company executives to create a fund worth billions of dollars to compensate individuals.

"The president will use his legal authority to compel them," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.

The plans for a prime-time speech escalates Mr. Obama's personal engagement in the environmental and economic crisis.

And they set the tone for a week of events that will have Dow Chemical, owner of Union Carbide, on the defensive more than at any time since the disaster in Bhopal in 1984.

Some estimates put the final death toll in the Bhopal gas leak disaster at about 25,000.

The victims of Bhopal have so far received just £350 each.

According to The Times, Executives could face up to 15 years in prison for their role in the disaster, according to some of America’s top legal scholars. (Fifteen years in jail — the price executives could pay.)

Jody Freeman, Professor of Environmental Law at Harvard Law School, told The Times that if criminal negligence could be proved then "the law certainly provides for prison for environmental crimes".

As to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr Obama says that billions in compensation will have to be paid.

The three American companies involved are:

Transocean, the owners and operators of the rig,

Halliburton, which was responsible for cementing work on the sea bed, and

Cameron International, U.S. manufacturers of the failed blow-out preventer that was supposed to seal off the leak.

Meanwhile, we get some real truth from the Times of India.

The planner of the Mumbai Attacks of 2008, the American David Headley, has been seen by Indian officials.

According to the Times of India, "The limited access, circumscribed by the presence of Headley's lawyer and an FBI interlocutor, is just a sop on the eve of the dialogue and is not aimed at furthering India's understanding of the 26/11 attack.

"Suspicions run deep in the Indian establishment that the US is still shielding Headley...

According to former Indian spy boss B Raman: "With Headley's lawyer and the FBI officer sitting there all the time, will Indian investigators be able to question him properly? No. Headley will just give proforma replies and these would have been rehearsed with his lawyer." ('Limited' access to Headley a sop before talks?)