NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, January 30. 1985
Page 9
First toxic leak suit filed in India
By United Press International
NEW DELHI, India — A real estate broker yesterday filed the first Indian lawsuit seeking compensation for injuries suffered from a toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal that killed 2,500 people, the Press Trust of India said.
The domestic news agency said Yusuf Farah, one of more than 200,000 people injured from the Dec. 3 leak of lethal methyl isocyanate, filed suit seeking 1.8 million rupees, about $150,000. It was not specified what injuries he suffered.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said yesterday he was dissatisfied with Union Carbide's response to the leak from the company's pesticide plant in Bhopal, saying in a television interview the company should provide more relief to the victims and
show "a more positive attitude' toward investigating the accident.
"WE ARE NOT interested in apportioning blame, but we would like to get to the root of it so that we stop it happening anywhere else, not only in India, but the rest of the world." he said.
Farhat's lawsuits listed as defenders the Union Carbide Corp. based in Danbury, Conn., its Indian subsidiary and seven of its officers, the national government and its various ministries, and responsible for Madhya Pradesh and officers responsible for industrial safety laws and the city of Bhopal.
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The Bhopal court said a hearing on the case would be Feb. 5.
where cases commonly drag on for more than a dozen years.
The suit was the first concerning the gas leak filed in an Indian court, where damage generally are far lower than in U.S. courts and
AT LEAST 23 suits seeking a total of $186.4 billion have been filed in U.S. courts. A key consideration in whether the U.S. courts agree to hear the cases may be whether judges decide the victims cannot get prompt legal relief through Indian courts.
Despite opposition charges that Gandhi's Congress-I Party governments at both state and national levels were partly responsible for the death of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament from Bhopal swept to a comfortable victory this week.
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Official All India Radio said Kailash Narain Pradhan, the candidate, piled up an unbeatable lead of more than 70,000 votes, and his nearest rival, L.N. Sharma of the Bharatiya Janata Party conceded defeat.
A senior U.S. delegation led by Allen Wallis, unders secretary of state for economic affairs, met for the second day yesterday with a high-level Japanese team led by Reishi Teshima, deputy foreign affairs minister, to seek ways of opening the Japanese market to American goods.
Officials discuss trade with Japan
By United Press International
TOKYO — Japanese trade officials told their U.S. counterparts yesterday the strong dollar and poor American export promotion were largely responsible for Japan's $34 billion trade surplus with the United States.
The "market-oriented, sector-specific" talks were designed to put
"Their theme will be market access and market penetration, embracing the full range of laws, regulations, institutions and customs that could impede free access for foreign suppliers," he said.
But U.S. officials disagreed and pressed the Japanese to open their markets more fully to U.S. goods and services.
Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe met with the delegation Monday and told them to attend a meeting of the Governing Council.
into action a promise made by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to President Reagan on Jan. 2 in Los Angeles. Wallis said.
Subsequent talks will be broken down into teams at the sub-Cabinet level and will be devoted to specific sectors, Wallis said.
DURING THE SUMMIT, Nakasone assured Reagan that Tokyo would cooperate with Washington to open up Japan's markets for forestunications, electronics and pharmaceuticals and medical equipment imports.
consistent U.S. efforts to promote exports were largely responsible for the trade surplus in Japan's favor, ministry officials said yesterday.
"THE U.S. SIDE pointed out that the exchange rate cannot be used to defect or delay the changes needed upon Japanese markets." Wallis 95.
"A weaker dollar alone would not solve the problem of closed Japanese markets — a problem which ante-dates current dollar strength and effectively kept imports at bay prior to 1981, when the dollar was weak."
Wallis said Washington believed that Japanese trade barriers — both tariff and non-tariff — accounted for as much as a third of the U.S.-Japanese deficit. He estimated that complete liberalization of the four targeted markets could reduce the deficit by as much as $10 billion annually.
Ex-Black Panther's conviction overturned
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on the appeal or a decision for a retrial.
Grace had served 11 years of a life sentence at Norfolk State Prison in Virginia for the Aug. 8, 1972, shooting death of Marvin Morgan, 19, of Providence, R.I., at the West End Social Club in New Bedford.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A former Black Panther convicted of murder 11 years ago had his life prison term overturned yesterday because a key prosecution witness recanted his testimony.
By United Press International
Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Dolan threw out Grace's 1974 first-degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial because a key prosecution witness recanted his testimony against Grace. It was Grace's seventh appeal of his conviction.
Frank "Parky" Grace, 41, was freed on $3,000 cash bail Monday. The man, who worked quickly past cheering supporters who had put up the money.
The Bristol County District Attorney's office has not decided whether to try Grace again but is appealing Dolan's ruling. Grace will remain free on bail pending a ruling
He said he had not been at the club when the murder occurred and was framed by prosecutors, police and the FBI for his political activism and membership in the Black Panthers.
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