Google moves Supreme Court against Andhra Pradesh Asbestos firm

New Delhi: Google India, a subsidiary of US-based Google Inc, has moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of a criminal complaint filed against it for allegedly carrying defamatory material on its website against an Andhra-based asbestos manufacturing firm.

Visakha Industries, in its complaint before a civil court in Secunderabad, has alleged that the network service provider had hosted some defamatory articles aimed at it on its website.

Visakha had sent a legal notice to Google India in December 2008 alleging that articles authored by Delhi-based Gopal Krishna (coordinator of Ban Asbestos India) and hosted by the website violated its rights and were defamatory as they were aimed at a single manufacturer.

Subsequently, Visakha filed a case in the civil court, which summoned the Google India officials. However, on appeal, the high court stayed the order.

An apex court bench headed by Justice P Sathasivam, while seeking a reply from Visakha, also stayed the proceedings pending before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate at Secunderabad.

Senior counsel KK Venugopal argued that the service was not provided by Google India but by its parent company Google Inc and the entire complaint was bereft of any averment of its involvement in the defamation case.

Challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s judgement that dismissed its plea, Google India said the high court grossly erred in concluding that the service provider did not initiate any action to expeditiously remove or disable access to the alleged defamatory material after the asbestos firm brought it to its notice.

Claiming that Google India doesn’t have any control over the website www.groups.google.com , counsel Mahesh Agarwal argued that the petitioner cannot be termed as ‘intermediary’ as per the Information Technology Act, 2000. Besides, the Indian arm has no control over the activities of its parent company and is not even providing hosting services on its website or any other platform.

“The high court failed to appreciate that to constitute an offence of defamation under the IPC only in the event of a publication, would the publisher be liable… The service provider merely provides a platform for third parties to post their contents and does not undertake the activity of publishing such content,” the search engine giant's petition stated.

According to the largest search engine, it is trite law that actions of intermediaries such as Google Inc in providing a platform to end users to upload content does not amount to publication in law and consequently, the question of holding such intermediaries or their employees liable for defamation would not arise.

Alleging that such complaint was malafide, it further added that it is the third party user who creates and disseminates information/content by posting such content.

“Consequently, the service provider is not the author and publisher of the allegedly defamatory content and neither Google Inc nor Google India can be termed as publishers of such content,” Agarwal stated.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/google-moves-supreme-court-against-andhra-pradesh-firm/833943/0#

Last stand for asbestos?

The LAB Chrysotile asbestos mining operation in Black Lake Que. (Dec. 13, 2010) Jacques Boissinot/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Kathleen Ruff

The Harper government is negotiating a free-trade agreement (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) with India, which would advantage our asbestos industry by removing the 10 per cent tariff on exports to its biggest customer, India.

This issue might seem academic, since asbestos mining has ceased in Canada. The Jeffrey mine at Asbestos, Que., (the biggest open pit asbestos mine in the world) closed two years ago and Canada’s last operating asbestos mine — LAB Chrysotile’s mine at Thetford Mines, Que. — closed in November this year.

These last two asbestos mines were facing financial and environmental disasters. Both were forced to seek bankruptcy protection several years ago, slashing wages and pensions. From being the world’s biggest exporter of asbestos, the asbestos industry represented only 0.1 per cent of Quebec exports in 2010. By 2011, after 130 years, Quebec asbestos mining finally stopped altogether. Other asbestos mines in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Ontario closed years ago.

One would think this was the end of a sorry chapter of Canadian history. But one would be wrong.

Undeterred, both Jeffrey Mine Inc. and LAB Chrysotile Ltd. are aggressively seeking financial and political assistance from the Quebec and Canadian governments to restart the asbestos disaster all over again.

When it comes to promoting the interests of the asbestos industry, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is no sluggard. In the weeks prior to the May 2 general election, the 14,000 citizens of Asbestos were treated to not just one, but two visits by the Prime Minister, who proclaimed his commitment to fight “discrimination” against the asbestos industry.

Harper’s courting of the citizens of Asbestos did not produce the desired result. The Bloc held the seat by a hair’s breadth over the NDP, with the Conservative candidate coming a humiliating third.

Harper’s dedication to the asbestos trade continued unabated, however, as evidenced by his sabotage of the UN Rotterdam Convention Conference in Geneva earlier this year to prevent chrysotile asbestos (100 per cent of the global asbestos trade) from being put on the convention’s list of hazardous substances, thus ensuring continued uncontrolled sale of asbestos.

Asbestos can only be sold if there are no safety controls. Safety measures are complex and costly, as Canadians well know, and are required for the whole life cycle of asbestos, thus pricing it out of the market. Even its biggest fan, Industry Minister Christian Paradis, admits this.

Chrysotile asbestos is listed under Canada’s Hazardous Substances Act but, according to our government, is not hazardous for people overseas. Around the world, Canada’s conduct was bitterly condemned as a despicable double standard.

When it comes to the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with India, Harper is likewise employing a double standard. He will not tolerate “discrimination” against the asbestos industry, but is undisturbed by discrimination favouring the asbestos industry.

While working to eliminate tariffs on asbestos, Harper is conspicuously silent over the $58 million subsidy that the Quebec government has offered to the consortium of “free enterprise” investors to cover 70 per cent of the cost of the underground Jeffrey asbestos mine they want to open in Asbestos.

Under free trade rules, such subsidies are prohibited and the Canadian government has responsibility for ensuring their elimination.

LAB Chrysotile will also receive a $58 million subsidy from the Quebec government, according to Thetford Mines Mayor Luc Berthold, who states that Quebec Minister of Municipal Affairs Laurent Lessard has agreed to offer LAB the same subsidy as offered to the Jeffrey mine investors.

Paradis, Harper’s Quebec lieutenant, is the MP for Thetford Mines and a powerful political ally of LAB Chrysotile. He has pledged the Harper government’s full support for the plan to restart mining asbestos. Since taking power, the Harper government has given $1.5 million to the asbestos industry’s lobby group, the Chrysotile Institute. Conservative MPs say the Harper government has cut the funding, but the institute’s president, Clément Godbout, says that federal government funding continues.

The Canadian Cancer Society has criticized this financing as promoting deceptive industry propaganda that will cause loss of life. The financing also clashes with CEPA.

In Quebec, Minister of Economic Development Sam Hamad is in charge of the $58 million loan guarantee to the asbestos investors. In 2003, Hamad gave the global asbestos industry a priceless PR gift. He recommended replacing “asbestos” with the word “chrysotile” in order “to give the industry nobility and growth.”

Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest refuse appeals to respect science and protect health. Perhaps, ironically, the free trade deal with India will succeed where scientific evidence and human compassion have failed: an end to taxpayer subsidies to the deadly asbestos industry.

Toronto Star, Dec. 15, 2011

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1102952--last-stand-for-asbestos

James Hardie Loses Bid to Overturn Asbestos Award

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- James Hardie Industries SE lost a bid to overturn an asbestos award to a cancer victim, allowing under people who contracted mesothelomia to seek compensation,
Turner Freeman Lawyers said in a statement. The Australian High Court today rejected James Hardie’s appeal, the law firm said.

CANADA'S CHRISTMAS GIFT TO POOR INDIANS: MORE CRUEL DEATHS BY ASBESTOS EXPORTS

PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER’S CHRISTMAS GIFT TO POOR INDIANS: MORE CRUEL DEATHS BY ASBESTOS EXPORTS

(Photo: Grim Reaper Stephen Harper making it easier to kill Indians with asbestos!)

Asian Journal, Dec. 9, 2011 http://www.asianjournal.ca/dec%209_11/roar_2.html

“HARPER Government Plans to Increase Asbestos Exports to India,” was the heading of a press release by the federal NDP on Monday with the sub-heading: “CEPA Trade Negotiators Reveal Deliberate Strategy to Eliminate Tariffs on Dangerous Exports.”

Ironically enough, this was the heading of a Vancouver story this week: “Asbestos contractor faces jail” with the sub-heading: “Workplace Safety.”

I really don’t know whether I should LAUGH or whether I should CRY! But my blood sure BOILS at Canadian blatant criminality and sheer hypocrisy!

Readers of this newspaper have already seen the tons of scientific evidence that I have been presenting here about the deadly effects of asbestos from the world’s most respectable experts and organizations for such a long time.

Just go to our website at www.asianjournal.ca and type in the word “asbestos” in the search engine and you will see all the evidence there.

THE Vancouver story said that asbestos-removal contractor Arthur Moore of AM Environmental will be sentenced on January 23 for contempt of court for ignoring orders from both WorkSafeBC and the B.C. Supreme Court to stop exposing “vulnerable” workers – as young as 14 years of age - to asbestos.

Boy, if this is what is happening right here in Canada, can you imagine how those unscrupulous businessmen in India who can bribe judges, politicians and cops exploit poor, defenceless Indian workers in their asbestos workplace!

And while in Canada it is about REMOVING deadly asbestos, in India, it is about USING Canadian asbestos!

Even the Devil and his demons must be laughing and toasting Harper and his Conservative caucus perverts! As a Christian, I am mortified.

And guess what Workers’ Compensation Board lawyer Scott Nielsen told the judge?

Noting that WCB statistics on the effects of asbestos were unequivocal, he added: “ASBESTOS KILLS. It was the LEADING KILLER of workers in B.C. in 2009, responsible for 44 PER CENT OF ALL DEATHS arising from employment.” [Capitalizations mine for emphasis.]

SOUTH Asians should laud the NDP for having the MORAL COURAGE to oppose the export of death to India.

The federal NDP said that they have learned that the Harper government is trying to eliminate trade tariffs on exports of lethal Canadian asbestos to India.

“It is a disgrace that the Harper government has opposed the global effort to ban this substance,” said Official Opposition International Trade Critic Brian Masse , who is from Ontario. “Now we find out Conservatives are actually attempting to expand Canadian asbestos sales to the developing world. This represents another sad chapter for the Harper government.”

In response to questions from Masse, the Chief Negotiator for the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement admitted Canada is currently working to eliminate tariffs on asbestos exports to India. Currently there is a 10 per cent duty on asbestos exports to India, the world’s second largest consumer of asbestos.

“We already dump hundreds of thousands of tons of asbestos each year into developing nations – and now we want to make it easier for asbestos magnates to do so?” said MP Pat Martin, who’s from Manitoba. “This is deplorable and Canadians need to let their government know they will not put up with this any longer.”

Despite being asked repeatedly in recent weeks about asbestos in the House of Commons, the government never mentioned their plan to increase asbestos trade to the developing world through axing tariffs.

To actively pursue exporting this deadly product to countries that have little to no protection for workers is reprehensible,” said Masse. “It’s time for our government to acknowledge reality and develop a plan to help transition asbestos workers into new, sustainable industries.”

-RATTAN MALL
EditorAsianJournal@gmail.com
The BEST READ South Asian column in North America at www.AsianJournal.ca

Asbestos contractor faces jail

"Asbestos kills. It was the leading killer of workers in B.C. in 2009, responsible for 44 per cent of all deaths arising from employment."

An asbestos-removal contractor who ignored orders from both WorkSafeBC and the B.C. Supreme Court to stop exposing "vulnerable" workers to asbestos will be sentenced Jan. 23 for contempt of court.

WorkSafeBC inspectors found that Arthur Moore of AM Environmental used employees as young as 14 years of age to remove asbestos-contaminated drywall from homes being demolished without providing them any protection.

He continued to do this despite restraining orders from the B.C. Supreme Court.

Workers' Compensation Board lawyer Scott Nielsen told Justice Richard Goepel that Moore "contrary to the court's order exposed workers as young as 14 to a life threatening substance."

He said WCB statistics on the effects of asbestos were unequivocal.

"Asbestos kills. It was the leading killer of workers in B.C. in 2009, responsible for 44 per cent of all deaths arising from employment," said Nielsen.

Neilson asked for a jail sentence of between six to 12 months.

gbellett@vancouversun.com

By Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun December 5, 2011 http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Asbestos+contractor+faces+jail/5811651/story.html

National law organization joins call to ban asbestos

A national environmental law organization has issued a statement today calling for a total ban on asbestos.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association is calling for broad support for banning asbestos across the US and Canada. The CELA endorsed a statement, The North American Declaration -- issued in Washington DC by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and the Canadian Voices of Asbestos Victims -- which calls on Canadian Prime Minister Harper and US President Obama to take immediate steps to prevent further production or export of asbestos.

"My father was exposed to asbestos while working as a labourer and electrician at the petro-chemical plants in Sarnia, Ontario. In 2008, he died from mesothelioma, just two months after his diagnosis, thirty to forty years after he was exposed," said Stacy Cattran, Canadian Voices of Asbestos Victims Co-Founder. "Sarnia, like so many industrial towns, has suffered the loss of too many of her citizens to asbestos-related disease. After 130 years of mining asbestos, it is time for Canada to close the mines and transition the affected workers to other forms of industry. . . "

"It is unconscionable that while Canadians are spending billions of dollars on health care costs for asbestos victims in Canada and on removing asbestos from our schools, homes, hospitals and public buildings -- including Prime Minister Harper's workplace and residence -- the Canadian government is providing political and financial support to the asbestos lobby and supports a plan to relaunch Canada's bankrupt and deadly asbestos industry,” asbestos campaigner Kathleen Ruff told the Tyee.

"The asbestos issue is a shocking example of denial of science and environmental racism by our government."

As reported earlier in the Tyee, many health, trade union and human rights groups across Canada, including the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Medical Association, have called for an end of Canada’s national asbestos policy, which has allowed the known carcinogen (now rarely used in Canada itself) to be exported to 3rd World countries. There is no safe level of asbestos exposure, critics argue, and Canada should cease exports altogether.

"For the first time in decades, Canada's asbestos mines have stopped production. However, a decision to finance, reopen and expand the Jeffrey Mine in Quebec is expected by the end of the year", said Fe de Leon, Researcher at CELA in a press statement. "If the Quebec government supports a decision to restart these mining operations, it will entrench the Canadian export of this cancer causing substance for decades to come. For developing countries where there are markets for Canadian asbestos, workers and their communities will bear the burden of asbestos exposure since exporters are not required to provide information on the toxicity or safe handling of these hazardous substances. This year, Canada was one of several countries that opposed listing asbestos under the Rotterdam Convention for exchanging information on hazardous substances. Consequently, health and safety labeling need not accompany these exports to unsuspecting workers."

Tom Sandborn covers health policy and labour news for the Tyee.

By Tom Sandborn December 8, 2011

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2011/12/08/CELA_Calls_For_Abestos_Ban/

Promotion of Asbestos Trade with Canada by Commerce Ministry & CCEA Condemnable

Press Release

Promotion of Asbestos Trade with Canada by Commerce Ministry & CCEA Condemnable

WHO and ILO call for elimination of asbestos of all forms including chrysotile asbestos

Decontaminate asbestos laden buildings of Parliament, Supreme Court, houses of legislators, personnel from armed forces, airports, railway platforms etc

New Delhi: Public health and environmental groups demand that Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) should ensure that India desists from signing the "Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" (CEPA) with Canada that allows the export of cancer causing Canadian asbestos to India.

CCEA cannot defend its promotion of asbestos trade given the fact that the WHO, the ILO, all medical health professionals, overwhelming scientific evidence is opposed to it. Support for asbestos trade is indefensible. There is not a single reliable study in the world that shows that asbestos can be used safely in a controlled manner. Had that been the case some 60 countries would not have banned it.

ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA) appreciates the role of New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada, the Official Opposition party for resisting the efforts Stephen Harper government of Conservative party of Canada to eliminate trade tariffs on exports of lethal Canadian asbestos to India. “It is a disgrace that the Harper government has opposed the global effort to ban this substance,” NDP said in a release dated December 5, 2011.

Every day, work is underway in the Canadian House of Commons to decontaminate offices and houses of Members of Parliament that contain asbestos. The offices are being decontaminated because asbestos is carcinogenic and harmful to human health. In India, will members of Indian National Congress led United Progressive Government, CCEA and Commerce Minister, Anand Sharma reveal whether they want the asbestos roofs in their own houses and offices to be made of carcinogenic chrysotile asbestos?

Don Stephenson, the chief negotiator of Canada for CEPA revealed to Canadian Parliamentary committee, "The potential impact of trade negotiations of asbestos is that the tariff applicable to imports of asbestos in India would be reduced. The current rate is 10% and there is a possibility that negotiations could lead to a reduction or elimination of this rate "on December 1, 2011.

In India, this amounts to disregarding the notice dated July 6, 2011 issued by National Human Rights Commission that seeks report on victims of asbestos and need for ban on chrysotile asbestos (white) asbestos. The proposed free trade agreement between India and Canada will boost asbestos trade and lead massive increase in deaths and diseases to the killer fibers of Canadian asbestos.

TWA demands that instead of reducing or eliminating tariffs on asbestos from Canada as is proposed in the CEPA negotiations, CCEA and Commerce Ministry should safeguard present and future generation of Indian citizens, consumers, workers and their families by banning trade in asbestos in every form.

TWA has been writing to Commerce Ministry since the inception of these free trade agreement negotiations that commenced in November 2010, warning it against continued asbestos trade with Canada. The CEPA is to be finalized by 2013. Unmindful of incurable asbestos related diseases, Canada exported 70 000 tonnes of asbestos to India in 2010 alone.

India rightly disassociated itself from Canada in June, 2011 who derailed the international consensus that categorizes chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance under the UN’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. Thus, India has taken a position that it considers chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance. Now it should take the next logical step and phase out asbestos use. In an explicit case of hypocrisy and double standard, Canada categorizes chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous substance in Canada but promotes it as a harmless substance to India.

In a related development, on December 5, 2011 members of the public in Ottawa, Canada heard why Ms Michaela Keyserlingk thinks that the production and use of asbestos should be banned in Canada. Michaela's husband Robert died 2 years ago from asbestos cancer; since then, Michaela has been campaigning to raise awareness of the asbestos hazard. The event was organized by the Reverend Michel Dubord at St. John's Anglican Church in Ottawa. Six weeks ago, the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa passed a motion denouncing the Canadian Government's policy of exporting asbestos. TWA appreciates the efforts of Michaela and the Church.

According to WHO estimates, more than 107 000 people die each year from asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis resulting from occupational exposure. About 125 million people in the world are exposed to asbestos at the workplace.

The World Health Assembly Resolution 58.22 on cancer prevention urges Member States to pay special attention to cancers for which avoidable exposure is a factor, including exposure to chemicals at the workplace. With Resolution 60.26, the World Health Assembly requested WHO to carry out a global campaign for the elimination of asbestos-related diseases "…bearing in mind a differentiated approach to regulating its various forms - in line with the relevant international legal instruments and the latest evidence for effective interventions…".

Eliminating asbestos-related diseases is particularly targeted at countries still using chrysotile asbestos, in addition to assistance in relation to exposures arising from historical use of all forms of asbestos.

WHO, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and with other intergovernmental organizations and civil society, -works with countries towards elimination of asbestos-related diseases in the following strategic directions:

• by recognizing that the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop the use of all types of asbestos;

• by providing information about solutions for replacing asbestos with safer substitutes and developing economic and technological mechanisms to stimulate its replacement;

• by taking measures to prevent exposure to asbestos in place and during asbestos removal (abatement); and

• by improving early diagnosis, treatment, social and medical rehabilitation of asbestos-related diseases and to establish registries of people with past and/or current exposures to asbestos.

The resolution of the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference of ILO reads:

• Considering that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme),

• Alarmed that an estimated 100,000 workers die every year from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos,

• Deeply concerned that workers continue to face serious risks from asbestos exposure, particularly in asbestos removal, demolition, building maintenance, ship-breaking and waste handling activities,

• Noting that it has taken three decades of efforts and the emergence of suitable alternatives for a comprehensive ban on the manufacturing and use of asbestos and asbestos-containing products to be adopted in a number of countries,

• Further noting that the objective of the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention 2006 is to prevent occupational injuries, diseases and deaths,

1. Resolves that: (a) the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths; and (b) the Asbestos Convention, 1986 (No. 162), should not be used to provide a justification for, or endorsement of, the continued use of asbestos.

2. Requests the Governing Body to direct the International Labour Office to: (a) continue to encourage member States to ratify and give effect to the provisions of the Asbestos Convention, 1986 (No. 162), and the Occupational Cancer Convention, 1974 (No. 139); (b) promote the elimination of future use of all forms of asbestos and asbestos containing materials in all member States; (c) promote the identification and proper management of all forms of asbestos currently in place; (d) encourage and assist member States to include measures in their national programmes on occupational safety and health to protect workers from exposure to asbestos; and (e) transmit this resolution to all member States.

Taking cognizance of the above mentioned facts and resolutions, TWA demands that the Commerce Ministry and CCEA should: (a) stop asbestos trade in CEPA in particular and ban manufacturing, use and import of asbestos and trade in asbestos products in general; (b) assist workers affected by diseases caused by asbestos fibers by developing a Just Transition Plan; (c) introduce measures dedicated to affected workers and their families to assure them of a decent standard of living; (e) support and compensate citizens and consumers who are victims of asbestos exposure through legal remedy, (f) decontaminate asbestos laden buildings of Parliament, Supreme Court and the houses of legislators, officials, personnel from armed forces, airports, railway platforms etc and (g) float global tender inviting companies who have competence, skill and capacity to remove asbestos from existing buildings.

India should act urgently to stop import of human misery on a monumental scale. Asbestos trade is morally and ethically reprehensible.

For Details: Gopal Krishna, ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), New Delhi, Mb: 9818089660, E-mail: krishna1715@gmail.com Web: toxicswatch.blogspot.com