Bhopal unsettled

Union Carbide (UC) has succeeded in beating off a challenge to the settlement set up to compensate the thousands of injured and families of the dead from the 1984 toxic gas leak in Bhopal. The main aspects of the action were dismissed by the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals last November, although it vacated a lower court decision barring plaintiffs from seeking compensation for environmental damage prior to the accident. But this is open to comeback from the judge, who gave no reasons for the bar.