Month: October 2009

Still on Trafigura, blindly trying to figure out how Carter Ruck managed to ban the Guardian from reporting a question in Parliament.

The situation should be pretty clear: libel doesn’t apply to parliament, or to media reporting of parliament.

Under the [1996 Defamation Act](http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1996/plain/ukpga_19960031_en), ‘A fair and accurate report of proceedings in public of a legislature anywhere in the world.’ is exempt from libel claims, provided:

1. The publication is not malicious
2. The newspaper provides a right to reply
3. The information is in the public interest

There

are

some theoretical loopholes there, but it’s hard to see how Trafigura could squeeze through them.

More likely, there was some other grounds to prevent publication. This might involve claiming that the issue is

sub judice

(already being considered in court), perhaps because Trafigura is embroiled in a related court case in the Netherlands.

Trafigura have long been cracking down on anybody mentioning the Minton Report. As they wrote to Norwegian journalists:

Your questions of today do also reveal the fact that you are in possession of a draft,

preliminary expert opinion produced by Minton Treharne & Davies Ltd, and that you appear

to be ready to disclose information from this report. Trafigura looks very serious upon this, as

disclosing any information from this report would be a clear breach of confidentiality

and privilege. The report is clearly privileged and confidential and was obtained unlawfully

by whoever is responsible for it coming into your possession.

Please be aware that on Friday of last week, our clients sought and obtained an injunction in

relation to this document and information contained in it against the Guardian newspaper and

Persons Unknown, pending a further hearing. For your attention we have attached hereto a

copy of the Court Order.

But that wouldn’t explain why the Guardian can’t even explain how they are being prevented from publishing:

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

On that, I have no idea. Anybody with ideas, or links to ideas, I’d love to hear about them.

It’s great that the [Streisand Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect) has kicked in over the [Guardian parliament gag order](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament), that [#Trafigura](http://twitter.com/search?q=%23trafigura) is the top trending topic on Twitter, etc.

But I’ve still not seen much decent analysis of the situation. Yes, we’ve figured out the [question](http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/the-parliamentary-question-carter-ruck-and-trafigura-dont-want-you-to-see/#comment-5557). Yes, we’ve got the idea that the target is the words “[Minton Report](http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep_2006)” in the question — this is the report, commissioned by Trafigura, which told them the likely effects of the waste they had dumped in [Abidjan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abidjan) (“

possible consequences are…loss of consciousness and death

“). But there are plenty of questions I’ve not seen even touched on:

• [On what legal basis](http://ohuiginn.net/mt/2009/10/trafigura_secrets_and_lies.html) were Carter Ruck able to gag the Guardian?
• Why no word from the rest of the British media? Are they really afraid to even mention the order against the Guardian?
• Why hasn’t anybody used this legal wheeze before? Are the circumstances rare enough that it hasn’t been previously applicable? Or is it just that Carter Ruck have come up with a new legal approach?
• What did Trafigura hope to achieve? I would have thought their reputation is now mud, whatever they do, and the main question is whether they can dodge legal proceedings? Do they really expect to bury the Minton Report, to the extent that nobody will bring it up in court?

The Trafigura affair really is an embarrassement to British law. Company dumps toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, causes perhaps 10 deaths and a lot more illness and injury. Uses libel law to batter down journalists trying to report it. Newsnight and the Guardian get at least some of the news out. Then, today, things get really bad:

Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.

The question involved is pretty sure to be this one:

N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

WTF:

Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

…

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

Via Warren Ellis, disturbingly enough. This whole affair could have come straight out of Transmet.

Anybody know what’s going on? All the speculation I’ve seen so far says it’s about Trafigura. But how could it even work from a legal standpoint?

The Bad Rash seems like one of the better English blogs in Barcelona. Most posts have some meat to them, and it’s nice when a blogger shares your political/cultural prejudices. He also has links to plenty of other expat blogs in his sidebar.

Of these, From Barcelona concentrates on culture and expat life. Drink Barcelona is a bar guide, unsurprisingly. Catalonia Blog and South of Watford cover politics. This blog mixes Spanish and Scottish politics; this one concentrates mainly on Catalan nationalism.

Of the international networks, Metblogs and [Gridskipper](http://gridskipper.com/tag/barcelona) are absent, but [Unlike](http://barcelona.unlike.net/) and [Spotted by Locals](http://www.spottedbylocals.com/barcelona/) make up for that.

This is a notes-to-myself entry, in which I try to figure out the best online sources for Spanish news in English. There doesn’t seem to be much, which I guess is useful encouragement to learn Spanish

• Guardian
• New York Times
• Google News
• Of sources aimed at expats, Typically Spanish seems to be the only one with any content at all. Euro Weekly News is low-volume and looks like repackaged wire copy.
• Barcelona: Barcelona Reporter has the most news (not much). Barcelona Metropolitan is an entertainment/lifestyle magazine; Barcelona Connect is mainly classifieds.

Simon Reynolds speaks truth:

one of my fiend heros (ex this parish) is said to have said that deconstruction did more damage to him than the drink and the drugs ever did.

My past life peddling MMORPGs to children made me deeply uncomfortable; I’d lump (some) online games in with twitter, religion, Marxist introspection and, yes, deconstruction as serious memetic dangers.

[written with a certain flippancy. Deconstruction has its uses, but too often it forms part of an inward-looking academic world unable to make much connection to the rest of reality. I’m very fond of those rare theorists who

can

harness deconstruction to achieve real-world ends]

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This is a notes-to-myself entry, in which I try to figure out the best online sources for Spanish news in English. There doesn’t seem to be much, which I guess is useful encouragement to learn Spanish

• Guardian
• New York Times
• Google News
• Of sources aimed at expats, Typically Spanish seems to be the only one with any content at all. Euro Weekly News is low-volume and looks like repackaged wire copy.
• Barcelona: Barcelona Reporter has the most news (not much). Barcelona Metropolitan is an entertainment/lifestyle magazine; Barcelona Connect is mainly classifieds.

[from a comment posted elsewhere]

There’s a goth club listing at http://etoile.de/; Berlin is in the section ‘PLZ-Bereich 1′. You can probably read through the genre descriptions and club addresses without needing much German.

The Kit Kat Club is — well, if you’ve had it recommended, you probably have an idea. I like it, although I’ve not been since a couple of years ago, when it was in a different venue. [I stopped going after seeing a page on their site seemingly saying that they don’t want Turks or feminists in the club. Probably it’s just an unfortunately-worded page, but it didn’t make me want to go back]

Also on the sex end of the spectrum, check out Insomnia. It’s a fetish club, with a monthly goth night called ‘angel in bondage’.

K17 is the largest and most regular goth club, with a big dose of metal and industrial. On a Friday or Saturday, they generally have four floors: one trad goth and 80s, one electro/industrial, and two small ones for metal. The venue is ugly as hell, but also huge.

If you fancy going out on a Monday night, Duncker is a lovely smallish club, with a lot of regulars and a friendly atmosphere. They (always?) have some kind of barbeque-type food in their back courtyard, and will keep going until Tuesday morning. I think there’s also a small goth market there every other sunday afternoon (http://www.darkmarket.de/).

Other places: Kato is more rock-oriented, and has lots of smallish live gigs. ACUD and Sama-Cafe are squats (perhaps legalised; I’m not sure), which do goth/wave nights. They’re incredibly cheap (to make them accessible to everybody; do pay a bit more if you can!). Expect plenty of shabby-looking punks and people out of their heads on (cheap) Sternberg beer.