I wish it were the awarding of its 14th Nobel Prize that is putting my country in the news these days.
Instead, Hungary is back on the world stage because of a disastrous chemical spill. An avalanche of a highly alkaline mud that could fill 440 Olympic-sized swimming pools has broken through the shoddy containment walls at an aluminum plant not far from the Lake Balaton region. As a result, nine people have died and 250 were injured. Wild and farm animals have perished, and lands and little summer gardens that were the villagersâ food and staple for winter have been ravished.
The 16th century castle in Devecser has surely seen a lot but now looks over hundreds of homes doomed to demolition. Kolontar, the village right under the alumina pond has even been compared to Chernobyl, the infamous home of a nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine in 1986.
But a comparison of this sort only adds more damage to the grief: The red mud, as bad as it looks, is not highly radioactive, which was the case with Chernobyl. What makes the red sludge dangerous is alkali, which can dissolve skin as water dissolves soap. Eating up shoes and rubber boots, alkali left villagers with second- and third-degree burns.
Unfortunately, Alkali is all too familiar to Hungarians.
Heartbroken maids would drink [alkali-rich] laundry detergent in the 19th century, Dr. Zoltan Komaromi, secretary of the Hungarian Medical Chamber, said. ÂAlkali dissolves the esophagus immediately so drinking it used to be a popular way of committing suicide.Â
Beyond the obvious damages, however, not even experts of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences or the top eco-toxicologists of Europe who arrived in Hungary last week have been able to assess the long-term consequences from the sludge. For it is the first ecological disaster of its kind in the world. So are the methods with which Hungarians try to fight it.
They have dumped tons of clay and vinegar into rivers. They poured gypsum over the land. The neutralization of the alkalinity worked just in time to save the Danube, the second largest river in Europe, a main drinking water supply.
For now, the most urgent task is preventing the mud that covers an area twice the size of ManhattanÂs Central Park from drying into dust and being carried by the wind. When inhaled as dust, alkali is still a menace â it burns sensitive tissue in the nose, throat and lungs.
Residents are already allowed to return to the settlements, but hundreds of them decided to stay away from their homes for good. Who would blame them when no one is sure about the longÂterm effects of heavy metals in the mud and rumors spread about carcinogenic repercussions and even radiation.
ÂContinuous inhaling of toxic dust may result in an excessive metal load in the body which may damage the lungs and may cause tumors, said Dr. Gabor Zacher, head of Toxicology at Péterfy Sándor hospital in Budapest. âWe have only guesses at this point. The world, in four or five years time, will be able to learn from our example, but for now we cannot say anything unambiguously.Â
Meanwhile, an increasing number of people in Ajka, the town closest to the alumina refinery have spoken about illnesses caused by inhaling its red dust decades before the accident.
ÂIn my street, almost every house has had someone getting sick with cancer, Ferenc Nemeth, a local of Ajka told Duna TV, a Hungarian public channel. ÂMy father had lung cancer, my neighbor was operated with brain tumor and my other neighbor died from lung cancer. (â¦) WeÂre scared that this is going to continue, he said.
If anyone could provide some advice it would be Jamaicans, one of the biggest alumina exporters in the world. ÂEach year, bauxite processing in Jamaica produces enough caustic mud to bury 700 football pitches and their goalpost, wrote the New Scientist in 1986, the year when Jamaicans seriously started research ways to reduce the accumulation of red mud.
An obvious idea was to make bricks of it so they needed to test its toxicity. Dr. W.R. Pinnock, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies and an expert of red mud projects, found that a building made entirely of materials based on red mud, ÂwouldnÂt be safe for permanent living. But, sadly, Jamaicans know that there is no real Âcleaning up when it comes to waste material.
So Hungarian wit is most needed now to figure out what to do with our mud if we are to preserve the environment and ourselves.
The opinions expressed are Donathâs own.
Photo caption: A footprint is seen in the mud after red toxic sludge flooded the village of Devecser, 93 miles west of Budapest, October 11, 2010. A million cubic metres of red mud burst out of a sludge reservoir last Monday, flooding three local villages and fouling rivers including a tributary of the Danube. The town of Devecser, home to 5,400 people, is on alert should it need to be evacuated.
could provide some advice
Oct 18 (Reuters) - Billionaire Wilbur Ross-backed Assured
Guaranty Ltd said it was restating its net profit for
2011 quarters and the last two years to fix errors in the
elimination of certain transactions related to financial
guaranty variable interest entities.The Bermuda-based bond insurer said the estimated impact of
the restatement on net income was a decrease of $11.2 million
for 2009, $55.2 million for 2010, and an increase of $30.3
million for the first two quarters of 2011.The adjustments … will have no impact on cumulative
operating income over the affected periods or on operating
shareholders’ equity or adjusted book value as of June 30,”
Chief Financial Officer Robert Bailenson said.The restatements will reduce consolidated shareholders’
equity by $36.1 million, which is less than 1 percent, Bailenson
said.On Monday, Assured sued Credit Suisse Group AG for
allegedly misleading it about the quality of mortgage loans
underlying securities it insured, exposing it to hundreds of
millions of dollars in potential claims.Shares of Assured closed at $11.88 on Monday on the New York
Stock Exchange.
OTTAWA Oct 17 (Reuters) - Despite world economic
uncertainty, Canada will press ahead with plans to cut billions
of dollars in government spending, the federal minister in
charge of the program said on Monday.”We’re convinced that this is part of being fiscally
prudent as a government, which is what markets and business
investors are looking for,” Treasury Board Minister Tony
Clement told Reuters in an interview.The cuts are part of a government plan to eliminate the
budget deficit by finding C$4 billion ($3.9 billion) a year in
savings by 2014-15 from an envelope of C$80 billion, or about 5
percent of overall spending.Clement brushed off political opponents who cite the 2008
crisis as a reason Ottawa should not be cutting spending, given
the fragile state of the world economy.”This is a very different kind of economic situation than
that which was facing the world three years ago … Here what
we’re facing is uncertainties in the marketplace caused by
sovereign debt,” he said.”The best way to deal with that as a government is to offer
the fiscal virtue of lowering the deficit in stages to get back
to balance with a plan that will get you there, that is a real
plan, and is a legitimate plan”.
The financing will be provided on a lending basis by
Brazilian private bank Itaú BBA S.A, with BNDES funds.Last year, the company had said it was considering various
options to finance its C$170 million phosphate project in
Brazil, which will start production by mid-2012.”We currently see a very robust market for Single Super
Phosphate in our target markets with recent pricing in the
US$400 per tonne range,” MBAC Chief Executive Antenor Silva said
in a statement.The Company, which has already received 11.5 million
brazilian real ($6.5 million) from the entities, expects loan
disbursements to begin immediately after the execution of
transaction documents.BNDES, the Brazilian Development Bank, is the main financing
agent for development in Brazil.
Hewlett-Packard’s personal computer shipments grew 5.3
percent in the third quarter, while China’s Lenovo overtook Dell
Inc to become the world’s No.2 PC maker for the first
time, according to data from two research firms.
“Armed people came in our factory … evacuated our employees, then seized half a million dollars of our goods without any charges having been filed,” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told reporters and others at a Washington lunch.”I think it’s a clear overreach,” he said.Government agents seized a total of over $1 million worth of rosewood, ebony and finished guitars from Gibson factories in Memphis and Nashville in raids in 2009 and August of this year, Juszkiewicz said.He brought samples of rosewood and ebony to the lunch; these tropical hardwoods, used in guitar fingerboards, are prized for their strength and tone. Gibson’s factories remain open “under great difficulty” because the raids took most of the company’s raw materials, the CEO said.The U.S. Justice Department declined on Wednesday to comment on the case but provided information on the Lacey Act, which aims to curb trafficking in wildlife, fish and plant products, including illegally obtained timber.”By prohibiting trafficking in wood illegally harvested overseas, the Lacey Act prohibits companies from undercutting law-abiding U.S. wood products companies … by trading in artificially inexpensive raw materials that have been illegally harvested from foreign forests,” Justice and Interior department officials wrote in a letter.Gibson Guitar uses a small fraction of the world’s tropical hardwoods, compared to that used for furniture and flooring, and because it uses so little it can use it sustainably, Juszkiewicz said. He said his company has been a leader in this area with its line of SmartWood instruments, using wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.”The issue here is not illegal logging or some conservation abuse,” he said. “The laws that are being identified by the Department of Justice have to do with protectionism by the country of origin, keeping work in that country and therefore not allowing something that isn’t that value-added to be exported.”The Lacey Act, enacted in 1900 and amended in 2008 to broaden the range of plant products it includes, makes it illegal to trade in plants obtained in violation of U.S. or foreign law.Those who unknowingly possess an instrument containing wood that was taken illegally “do not have criminal exposure,” the government said in a letter responding to questions from members of Congress on the Gibson case.Gibson has filed suit in federal court in Nashville to recover the seized material, but that suit has been stayed while the investigation continues, Juszkiewicz said.Meantime, Gibson’s chief said the law should be changed.”I believe in the intent of the law … but I do believe that the way it’s currently written allows what’s happening to me to happen to other companies, and that’s wrong,” he said.House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner invited Juszkiewicz to join him in the speaker’s box to watch President Barack Obama’s address on jobs to joint session of Congress on September 8.
“Armed people came in our factory … evacuated our employees, then seized half a million dollars of our goods without any charges having been filed,” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told reporters and others at a Washington lunch.”I think it’s a clear overreach,” he said.Government agents seized a total of over $1 million worth of rosewood, ebony and finished guitars from Gibson factories in Memphis and Nashville in raids in 2009 and August of this year, Juszkiewicz said.He brought samples of rosewood and ebony to the lunch; these tropical hardwoods, used in guitar fingerboards, are prized for their strength and tone. Gibson’s factories remain open “under great difficulty” because the raids took most of the company’s raw materials, the CEO said.The U.S. Justice Department declined on Wednesday to comment on the case but provided information on the Lacey Act, which aims to curb trafficking in wildlife, fish and plant products, including illegally obtained timber.”By prohibiting trafficking in wood illegally harvested overseas, the Lacey Act prohibits companies from undercutting law-abiding U.S. wood products companies … by trading in artificially inexpensive raw materials that have been illegally harvested from foreign forests,” Justice and Interior department officials wrote in a letter.Gibson Guitar uses a small fraction of the world’s tropical hardwoods, compared to that used for furniture and flooring, and because it uses so little it can use it sustainably, Juszkiewicz said. He said his company has been a leader in this area with its line of SmartWood instruments, using wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.”The issue here is not illegal logging or some conservation abuse,” he said. “The laws that are being identified by the Department of Justice have to do with protectionism by the country of origin, keeping work in that country and therefore not allowing something that isn’t that value-added to be exported.”The Lacey Act, enacted in 1900 and amended in 2008 to broaden the range of plant products it includes, makes it illegal to trade in plants obtained in violation of U.S. or foreign law.Those who unknowingly possess an instrument containing wood that was taken illegally “do not have criminal exposure,” the government said in a letter responding to questions from members of Congress on the Gibson case.Gibson has filed suit in federal court in Nashville to recover the seized material, but that suit has been stayed while the investigation continues, Juszkiewicz said.Meantime, Gibson’s chief said the law should be changed.”I believe in the intent of the law … but I do believe that the way it’s currently written allows what’s happening to me to happen to other companies, and that’s wrong,” he said.House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner invited Juszkiewicz to join him in the speaker’s box to watch President Barack Obama’s address on jobs to joint session of Congress on September 8.
The company, which will report fourth-quarter results on
Oct. 27, said it expects an adjusted quarterly profit of 75
cents a share and sales of about $10.7 billion.Analsyts on an average are expecting earnings of 78 cents a
share, on revenue of $10.5 billion, according to Thomson Reuters
I/B/E/S.The company forecast 2012 earnings of $2.85-$3.00 per share,
on sales of about $44.2 billion.Analsyts on an average are expecting 2012 earnings of $3.10
a share, on revenue of $44.6 billion, according to Thomson
Reuters I/B/E/S.The company expects automotive production in 2012 to be
higher in North America and China, and relatively flat in
Europe.Johnson Controls also said it sees margin improvements in
all three of its businesses — Automotive Experience, Power
Solutions and Building Efficiency — for 2012.The global building efficiency market is forecast to improve
slightly in 2012.Shares of the company closed at $30.14 on Tuesday on the New
York Stock Exchange.