Newsnight being threatened by Carter-Ruck for reporting Hansard proceedings
See also: “Trafigura coverage still curtailed by libel abuse”
From Theyworkforyou
Evan Harris MP: My final question relates to the ongoing problems of English libel law in respect of Trafigura. My understanding is that “Newsnight” is being threatened by the lawyers for Trafigura, Carter-Ruck, if it repeats an allegation against Carter-Ruck that deaths were caused by the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, even though in 2007 Hansard reported the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations laid by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs before Parliament, and a memorandum of explanation to those regulations stated:
“The recent example of the release of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast leading to the deaths of a number of people and the hospitalisation of thousands underlines the risks involved in the movement and management of waste.”
How can it be that that can be in Hansard, yet there are still threats of legal action against “Newsnight” if it reports the very same wording that is used in there? That cannot be right. Although there are powerful interests at stake, there is a public interest in the fact that there was a settlement made—hundreds of millions of pounds paid over in that settlement—and yet the public in this country are not allowed to know some of the contents of those news reports. We have a responsible media by and large in respect of such matters, and it is about time that English libel laws and English laws in general caught up with that fact.
Richard Wilson's blog 
Readers of conservative materials over here get the impression that Brits have a problem if they express ideas essential to their freedom, and mainly because of laws about ‘respecting un-natural behavior’.
How important it is to keep an open-mind, especially when new and logical views appear that change our understanding of reality.
I challenge atheists who say we just don’t have our brains in gear: 166 years ago Abbott’ s ‘Flatland’ showed that contiguous geometrical worlds explain where God is and why we can’t see him. So we wrote ‘Techie Worlds’ for mechanical people and did the scientific thing: we looked at Christian teachings like the Trinity, like resurrection, judgment, the idea of a soul. In contiguous geometrical worlds these things are logical and understandable, even though to ‘this-world-only’ atheists they are ridiculous imaginings.
We see a lot of belief in devils, in miracles, in good and evil spirits. Just talk with your friendly Wiccas and Satanists. Their recognition of spirit worlds makes it more probable that our view (the view of love) of the world is correct. Besides, there is Pascal’s wager, pointing out that Christian belief can reward while atheism surely leads to death. The labels: Thinking, Logical, Reasonable, Rational really belong to Christians more than to those proudly acclaimed agnostics. Get a copy of ‘Techie Worlds’ from amazon.com and see the reasonableness of Abbott’s explanation.
GeorgeRic
GeorgeRic
October 27, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Hmmm a bit too much horse riding I think there George
middleclassmayhem
November 4, 2009 at 2:53 pm
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Trafigura coverage still curtailed by libel abuse. UK media unable to report freely on deaths allegedly caused by dumping of Trafigura’s toxic waste « Don't Get Fooled Again
November 5, 2009 at 10:57 am