US sets out stance as Cameron tells London conference on Libya that Gaddafi is still in flagrant breach of UN resolution Coalition military action in Libya will continue until Muammar Gaddafi complies with the terms of United Nations security council resolution 1973, Hillary Clinton has told world leaders meeting in London. The US secretary of state was speaking at the opening of the London conference on Libya, at which David Cameron said Gaddafi is still in “flagrant breach” of the UN resolution and is allowing civilians to bleed to death in the streets of Misrata. The conference comes as Gaddafi’s forces have attacked rebel fighters east of the Libyan leader’s home town of Sirte, prompting a panicked, chaotic retreat to the town of Bin Jawad. Clinton implored countries to speak with a single voice and tell Gaddafi to leave power. She said that countries must work together so that the North African country “belongs not to a dictator, but to its people”, promising to ratchet up pressure on the Libyan government in the hope of convincing Gaddafi’s remaining loyalists to abandon the regime. She said that military means alone will not force Gaddafi out after 42 years in power, and that further sanctions and diplomatic pressure ought to be applied. Her comments come at a key turning point in the international military action in Libya, as the United States steps back from its lead role and transfers authority for the whole mission to Nato. Cameron said Gaddafi’s behaviour in Misrata showed the need for military action which had averted a massacre and saved Benghazi. The prime minister underlined his message by giving a vivid account of the battle in Misrata as he addressed more than 40 foreign ministers and representatives of international organisations gathered at Lancaster House. He said: “Gaddafi is using snipers to shoot [the people of Misrata] down and let them bleed to death in the street. He has cut off food, water and electricity to starve them into submission. He continues to be in flagrant breach of the UN security council resolution. That is why there has been such widespread support amongst the Libyan people – and in the wider Arab world – for the military action we are taking. It has saved lives, and it is saving lives.” Cameron, who convened the conference as Nato prepared to assume command of the military campaign from the US, chose his words with care. He did not repeat his demand for Gaddafi to stand down immediately and to face justice at the international criminal court. The conference is attended by Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, who is hoping to broker a ceasefire between Gaddafi and the rebel forces. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Libya’s former imperial ruler, Italy, who has raised the prospect of spiriting Gaddafi to exile, is also attending. Cameron said the conference was designed to help create a peaceful Libya as he set out three goals for the meeting: • Reaffirm the international community’s commitment to UN security council resolution 1973 which allowed for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya. This has allowed for the imposition of a no-fly zone, the enforcement of an arms embargo and air strikes to protect civilians. • Ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered to the Libyan people. • Help the Libyan people plan for their future once the conflict is over. The prime minister announced that a contact group would be established to help monitor the transition. This will consist of the EU, the UN, the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Libya’s Transitional National Council will be consulted, though this will be on an informal basis because countries such as Britain are unable to recognise it as the formal representative of Libya. Cameron, who was due to meet Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the council,, on Tuesday hailed a “vision for a democratic Libya” set out by the council. The prime minister said: “We should be clear about the scale of the challenge. It will mean looking afresh at our entire engagement with Libya and the wider region – from our development programmes to our cultural exchanges and trade arrangements. All our efforts must support the building blocks of a democratic society. Freedom of expression. The right to free and fair elections. The right to peaceful protest. Respect for human rights and the rule of law. These aren’t values that belong to any one nation. They are universal.” The prime minister reached out to the Arab world by making clear that rebuilding the symbols of Islam, destroyed in the recent fighting, would be at the heart of the reconstruction of Libya. “When the fighting is over, we will need to put right the damage that Gaddafi has inflicted. Repairing the hospitals ruined by shells, rebuilding the homes demolished by Gaddafi’s tank rounds and restoring the mosques and minarets smashed by his barbarity.” Clinton told the conference: “We have prevented a potential massacre … This coalition military action will continue until Gaddafi fully complies with the terms of 1973, ceases his attacks on civilians, pulls his troops back from places they have forcibly entered and allows key services and humanitarian assistance to reach all civilians.” But Clinton, who endorsed the three goals of the conference, said that military action could not ensure the long-term stability of Libya. “Beyond the humanitarian crisis we know long-term progress in Libya will not be accomplished through military means. All of us have to continue to [put] pressure on and deepen the isolation of the Gaddafi regime. This includes a unified front of political and diplomatic pressure that makes clear to Gaddafi that he must go, that sends a strong message of accountability and that sharpens the choice for those around him.” The secretary of state endorsed the contact group and said the Transitional National Council would play a “critical role”. On the sidelines of the conference she met Mahmoud Jibril, a representative of the Libyan opposition fighting Gaddafi, “to talk about the path forward”. Meanwhile, a senior administration official said the US will soon send an envoy to Libya to deepen relations with leaders of the rebels seeking to overthrow Gaddafi. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, announced that his special envoy, Abdelilah Mohamed al-Khatib, would travel to Libya after the conference to talk to both sides. The secretary general indicated that the two sides were guilty of human rights abuses. “We continue to receive deeply disturbing reports about the lack of protection of civilians including various abuses of human rights by the parties to the conflict,” he said. Muammar Gaddafi Libya David Cameron Middle East Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A “birth tourism” center uncovered by officials in Los Angeles County has given fresh ammunition to people calling for a change to the 14th Amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to every baby born in the US. Officials say they discovered that three connected townhouses were being used as a maternity…
Continue reading …Super spoiled or the victim of a hormonal abnormality? Doctors are worried about a 3-year-old Chinese boy who weighs in at a massive 132 pounds, more than four times heavier than most kids his age, notes the Sun . His doting parents say the boy throws temper tantrums if he’s denied…
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Portugal’s borrowing costs hit record levels after S&P cuts its credit rating to the brink of junk status Portugal’s financial woes deepened on Tuesday as its borrowing costs rose to record levels after the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) cut its rating to the brink of “junk” status. Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income research at brokers Evolution, said the cut in the rating to BBB- “raised the probability” that the country would be forced to accept a bailout. “This is one false step from being junked,” said Jenkins. “It’s very unlikely the market will be prepared to fund Portugal anytime soon.” Portugal has a debt repayment due on 15 April and another in June. But the price the market is likely to demand from Portugal to raise fresh funds is expected to be too high for the country to finance itself without external assistance. Yields – interest rates – on two-year bond hit a new high of 7.69% on Tuesday, while yields on 10-year bonds were at a record, and edging closer to 8.2%. Any price above 7% is regarded as unsustainable by analysts. S&P said it was cutting the sovereign credit ratings on Portugal by one notch to BBB- and putting the country’s outlook on “negative” because of the problems it would face in financing itself. The BBB- rating is one notch above junk – and the further the country falls towards junk the higher its borrowing costs will be. S&P’s BBB- rating is much lower than Moody’s A3 and Fitch Ratings’ A-. S&P said that it felt likely that Portugal, whose prime minister José Sócrates resigned last week when the parliament failed to pass the austerity budget, would need assistance from the European financial stability facility (EFSF) and the European stability mechanism (ESM). “Given Portugal’s weakened capital market access and its likely considerable external financing needs in the next few years, it is our view that Portugal will likely access the EFSF and thereafter the ESM,” S&P said. “The negative outlook reflects our view that the macroeconomic environment could weaken beyond our current expectations and that a political impasse could undermine the effective implementation of Portugal’s adjustment programme, leading to non-negligible policy slippages,” the agency added. “[We] assume that a new government will be formed by the end of the second quarter of 2011. We expect the next government will agree to further fiscal and structural reforms as part of an EU/IMF program.” Ratings agencies Portugal European debt crisis Financial sector Economics Global economy Europe Europe Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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Portugal’s borrowing costs hit record levels after S&P cuts its credit rating to the brink of junk status Portugal’s financial woes deepened on Tuesday as its borrowing costs rose to record levels after the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) cut its rating to the brink of “junk” status. Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income research at brokers Evolution, said the cut in the rating to BBB- “raised the probability” that the country would be forced to accept a bailout. “This is one false step from being junked,” said Jenkins. “It’s very unlikely the market will be prepared to fund Portugal anytime soon.” Portugal has a debt repayment due on 15 April and another in June. But the price the market is likely to demand from Portugal to raise fresh funds is expected to be too high for the country to finance itself without external assistance. Yields – interest rates – on two-year bond hit a new high of 7.69% on Tuesday, while yields on 10-year bonds were at a record, and edging closer to 8.2%. Any price above 7% is regarded as unsustainable by analysts. S&P said it was cutting the sovereign credit ratings on Portugal by one notch to BBB- and putting the country’s outlook on “negative” because of the problems it would face in financing itself. The BBB- rating is one notch above junk – and the further the country falls towards junk the higher its borrowing costs will be. S&P’s BBB- rating is much lower than Moody’s A3 and Fitch Ratings’ A-. S&P said that it felt likely that Portugal, whose prime minister José Sócrates resigned last week when the parliament failed to pass the austerity budget, would need assistance from the European financial stability facility (EFSF) and the European stability mechanism (ESM). “Given Portugal’s weakened capital market access and its likely considerable external financing needs in the next few years, it is our view that Portugal will likely access the EFSF and thereafter the ESM,” S&P said. “The negative outlook reflects our view that the macroeconomic environment could weaken beyond our current expectations and that a political impasse could undermine the effective implementation of Portugal’s adjustment programme, leading to non-negligible policy slippages,” the agency added. “[We] assume that a new government will be formed by the end of the second quarter of 2011. We expect the next government will agree to further fiscal and structural reforms as part of an EU/IMF program.” Ratings agencies Portugal European debt crisis Financial sector Economics Global economy Europe Europe Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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Fukushima meltdown fears rise after radioactive core melts through vessel – but ‘no danger of Chernobyl-style catastrophe’ The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site. The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it. Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe. Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors. At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel “lower head” of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said. “The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” Lahey said. “I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.” The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released. Lahey said: “It won’t come out as one big glob; it’ll come out like lava, and that is good because it’s easier to cool.” The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this. “The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core,” Lahey added. “It’s not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it’s not going to be good news for the environment.” The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines. A less serious core meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. During that incident, engineers managed to cool the molten fuel before it penetrated the steel pressure vessel. The task is a race against time, because as the fuel melts it forms a blob that becomes increasingly difficult to cool. In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have “Swat teams” of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority. The warning came as the Japanese authorities were being urged to give clearer advice to the public about the safety of food and drinking water contaminated with radioactive substances from Fukushima. Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, in 1986, has met Japanese cabinet ministers to discuss establishing an independent committee charged with taking radiation data from the site and translating it into clear public health advice. “What is fundamentally disturbing the public is reports of drinking water one day being above some limit, and then a day or two later it’s suddenly safe to drink. People don’t know if the first instance was alarmist or whether the second one was untrue,” said Gale. “My recommendation is they should consider establishing a small commission to independently convert the data into comprehensible units of risk for the public so people know what they are dealing with and can take sensible decisions,” he added. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Energy Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Fukushima meltdown fears rise after radioactive core melts through vessel – but ‘no danger of Chernobyl-style catastrophe’ The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site. The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it. Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have “lost the race” to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe. Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors. At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel “lower head” of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said. “The indications we have, from the reactor to radiation readings and the materials they are seeing, suggest that the core has melted through the bottom of the pressure vessel in unit two, and at least some of it is down on the floor of the drywell,” Lahey said. “I hope I am wrong, but that is certainly what the evidence is pointing towards.” The major concern when molten fuel breaches a containment vessel is that it reacts with the concrete floor of the drywell underneath, releasing radioactive gases into the surrounding area. At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of radioactive gas released. Lahey said: “It won’t come out as one big glob; it’ll come out like lava, and that is good because it’s easier to cool.” The drywell is surrounded by a secondary steel-and-concrete structure designed to keep radioactive material from escaping into the environment. But an earlier hydrogen explosion at the reactor may have damaged this. “The reason we are concerned is that they are detecting water outside the containment area that is highly radioactive and it can only have come from the reactor core,” Lahey added. “It’s not going to be anything like Chernobyl, where it went up with a big fire and steam explosion, but it’s not going to be good news for the environment.” The radiation level at a pool of water in the turbine room of reactor two was measured recently at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. At that level, workers could remain in the area for just 15 minutes, under current exposure guidelines. A less serious core meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. During that incident, engineers managed to cool the molten fuel before it penetrated the steel pressure vessel. The task is a race against time, because as the fuel melts it forms a blob that becomes increasingly difficult to cool. In the light of the Fukushima crisis, Lahey said all countries with nuclear power stations should have “Swat teams” of nuclear reactor safety experts on standby to give swift advice to the authorities in times of emergency, with international groups co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Authority. The warning came as the Japanese authorities were being urged to give clearer advice to the public about the safety of food and drinking water contaminated with radioactive substances from Fukushima. Robert Peter Gale, a US medical researcher who was brought in by Soviet authorities after the Chernobyl disaster, in 1986, has met Japanese cabinet ministers to discuss establishing an independent committee charged with taking radiation data from the site and translating it into clear public health advice. “What is fundamentally disturbing the public is reports of drinking water one day being above some limit, and then a day or two later it’s suddenly safe to drink. People don’t know if the first instance was alarmist or whether the second one was untrue,” said Gale. “My recommendation is they should consider establishing a small commission to independently convert the data into comprehensible units of risk for the public so people know what they are dealing with and can take sensible decisions,” he added. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Energy Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …President Obama’s speech making the case for intervention in Libya came after some high-level talks—with TV networks. The White House and network officials agreed on a 7:30 pm Eastern time slot, which ensured ABC would still be able to broadcast Dancing with the Stars at 8 as planned,…
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Reconstructing dinosaur behaviour – such as the hunting strategy of raptors – is fraught with difficulty, writes Brian Switek When I first saw Jurassic Park in the summer of 1993, I was stunned. The visions of sluggish, stupid reptiles in my elementary school’s library books were crushed in the jaws of hot-blooded, supercharged dinosaurs, including the fearsome Velociraptor. Small, agile and smart, these hunters relied on cooperation to stalk their human prey. “Clever girl” , indeed. Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs were not entirely accurate, of course. Tyrannosaurus probably could not have kept up with a speeding jeep and Dilophosaurus was not a frilled venom-spitter, but the pack-hunting behaviour of Velociraptor was not a Hollywood invention. In 1969, palaeontologist John Ostrom described a strange dinosaur from the 110m-year-old rock of Montana. Named Deinonychus, this roughly human-sized predator had grasping hands, a hyperextendable sickle claw on each foot, and a stiff tail that acted as a dynamic counterbalance. Presented as the antithesis of the reptilian dinosaur archetype, Ostrom concluded that Deinonychus “must have been a fleet-footed, highly predaceous, extremely agile and very active animal, sensitive to many stimuli and quick in its responses.” Ostrom also thought that Deinonychus was a pack hunter. At least three Deinonychus were found alongside the herbivorous dinosaur Tenontosaurus at a quarry excavated by Ostrom and his colleagues, and numerous Deinonychus teeth were discovered among the remains of the same prey at fourteen other sites. (Since dinosaurs replaced teeth throughout their lives, predators could occasionally afford to lose a tooth or two while feeding.) Where Tenontosaurus bones were found, traces of Deinonychus frequently turned up. Tackling a Tenontosaurus wasn’t easy. Despite lacking armour or spikes, an 8-metre adult Tenontosaurus would have been hefty enough to break the bones of an attacker. Killing such a large animal would have required cooperation, and this conjecture – along with the common association between the two species – fuelled the idea that packs of Deinonychus often pounced upon poor Tenontosaurus. The gory conflicts were immortalised in museum displays and palaeo-art ever after and, given a name change , Deinonychus used the same tactics in Jurassic Park. But not everyone has agreed that Deinonychus hunted in packs. In 2007 palaeontologists Brian Roach and Daniel Brinkman argued that the Tenontosaurus kill sites Ostrom cited represented bloody scrambles where individual Deinonychus scrapped over feeding rights. In Ostrom’s view, the three partial Deinonychus skeletons that inspired his hypothesis were individuals that were killed while bringing down the Tenontosaurus, but Roach and Brinkman argued that the three were slaughtered by other Deinonychus during competition for the carcass. The dinosaurs were more like komodo dragons than wolves. Extrapolating behaviour from scattered skeletons is tricky. As Ostrom himself noted, the associations between the Deinonychus and Tenontosaurus bones can be interpreted in different ways. Roach and Brinkman’s view is one alternative, but is it correct? The idea that Deinonychus hunted like komodo dragons rests on assumptions and circumstantial evidence, just as Ostrom’s pack-hunting hypothesis did, and, at the moment, the stories of the bones remain ambiguous. Nevertheless, exceptional trackways have shown that raptors were social at least some of the time. Deinonychus and its kin – called dromaeosaurs – only stood on two toes, with their wicked sickle claws held off the ground. Their distinctive tracks are rare, but in 2008 Rihui Li and co-authors described footprints of a Deinonychus-like dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Shandong, China. In a single bedding plane, the scientists found the footprints of at least six individuals that walked in close proximity to each other and in the same direction. Footprints are fossilised behaviour, and in this unique case the trackways recorded the movements of a raptor pack. The tracks from China are not the only evidence for gregarious raptors. Just last month palaeontologists Alexander Mudroch and colleagues reported over 120 impressions left by Deinonychus-sized dromaeosaurs in the Mid-Jurassic strata of Niger. There were five distinct trackways made at different times, but one pair of trackways was left by two dinosaurs moving together in the same direction. One of the trackways even shows how one dinosaur abruptly changed speed to avoid running into its companion. We don’t know for sure how raptors hunted. The footprints from China and Niger show that these dinosaurs were social at least some of the time – they didn’t bite each other’s heads off as soon as they saw each other – but we can’t assume that they would have cooperated just like wolves or lions. We need more evidence, and, rather than try to shoehorn them into this or that behavioural repertoire, perhaps we should do as Robert Bakker once suggested and “Let dinosaurs be dinosaurs,” as we search for clues about their lives. Brian Switek is the author of Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature . He regularly writes for the WIRED Science blog Laelaps and Smithsonian magazine’s Dinosaur Tracking References Bakker, R (1986) The Dinosaur Heresies. Kensington Publishing Corp: New York. p 462 Li, R et al (2008) Behavioral and faunal implications of Early Cretaceous deinonychosaur trackways from China. Naturwissenschaften. 95 (3): 185-191. Maxwell, W and Ostrom, J (1995) Taphonomy and paleobiological implications of Tenontosaurus-Deinonychus associations. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 15 (4): 707-712. Mudroch, A et al (2011) Didactyl tracks of paravian theropods (Maniraptora) from the ?Middle Jurassic of Africa. PLoS ONE 6 (2): e14642. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014642 Ostrom, J (1969) Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an unusual theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana. Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. 30: 1-165 Roach, B and Brinkman, D (2007) A reevaluation of cooperative pack hunting and gregariousness in Deinonychus antirrhopus and other nonavian theropod dinosaurs. Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. 48 (1): 103-138 Dinosaurs Fossils Zoology guardian.co.uk
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BP executives, including ex-chief executive Tony Hayward, may be charged by US authorities over Deepwater Horizon explosion The US authorities are considering charging BP managers with manslaughter after decisions they made before the Deepwater Horizon oil well explosion last year killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in US history. Sources close to the process told Bloomberg that investigators were also examining whether BP’s executives, including former chief executive Tony Hayward, made statements that were at odds with what they knew during congressional hearings last year. The US justice department opened criminal and civil investigations into the spill last June . The department filed a civil lawsuit against BP in December and has not filed criminal charges. According to Bloomberg, authorities are investigating BP managers who worked both on the rig and onshore to determine whether they should be charged in connection with the workers’ deaths. The investigation aims to determine whether decisions by BP managers to cut costs and increase speed on the project led to fatal safety sacrifices. As well as the testimony of Hayward and others before congress, investigators are reviewing emails and other documents to determine what BP officials and its partners in Deepwater Horizon knew when they testified last June. In January, a presidentially appointed national commission filed its report on the Deepwater Horizon spill and concluded that the “explosive loss” could well have been prevented. In a final report Fred Bartlit, chief counsel of commission, laid considerable blame on BP. Bartlit said BP had been aware of problems with lab tests of Halliburton cement used to seal the well for three years. He said BP decided not to install a safety device known as a lockdown sleeve in order to save 51/2 days and $2m (£1.2m) in costs. He also said BP’s well-site leader missed a critical test known as a negative pressure test that indicated something was wrong, a test he should have supervised. Last June US attorney general Eric Holder promised to “prosecute to the full extent any violations of the law” his investigations uncovered relating to the spill. Holder declined to name specific charges but said that the justice department would be reviewing the Clean Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Endangered Species Act, and “other traditional criminal statutes”, a statement interpreted to refer to possible manslaughter charges. BP has committed $20bn to settle claims by businesses and individuals who were hurt by the oil spill and has already paid out more than $4bn. BP declined to comment. BP BP oil spill Oil Oil Oil and gas companies Oil spills United States Tony Hayward Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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