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| BP knew gulf oil well was faulty, finds inquiry Posted: Halliburton officials knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job, the presidential commission investigating the accident said. In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the biggest offshore oil spill in US history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards. Failure to act The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel's lead investigator, Fred Bartlit Jr, said in a letter delivered to the commissioners on Thursday. "There is no indication that Halliburton highlighted to BP the significance of the foam stability data or that BP personnel raised any questions about it," Bartlit said in his report. Another Halliburton cement test, carried out about a week before the blowout of the well April 20, also found the mixture to be unstable, meaning it was unlikely to set properly in the well. Although Bartlit did not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he made clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressurised oil and gas out of the well bore, there would have been no accident. 'We have known for some time that the cement used to secure the production casing and isolate the hydrocarbon zone at the bottom of the Macondo well must have failed in some manner," he said in his letter to the seven members of the presidential commission. "The cement should have prevented hydrocarbons from entering the well." The failure of the cement set off a complex and ultimately deadly cascade of events as oil and gas exploded upward from the 18,000-foot-deep well. Number game 4.9 million: Total number of barrels of oil leaked from the well 11: The number of people killed in the initial explosion. 17 others were injured 184,181: The number of times you could drive a Toyota Prius around the Earth at the equator using the lost oil 665: Miles of coastline contaminated by oil
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| Rs 6 crore for woman who got spanked at work Posted: Incident had taken place during a team-building exercise A saleswoman from California who won a substantial settlement for enduring being spanked during a company team-building exercise, finally has the right to collect her money. Janet Orlando (57) was a saleswoman for an Anaheim-based security company when she claims she was sexually harassed four years ago. She sued and a jury originally awarded her $1.7 million against Alarm One Inc in April 2006, but she has yet to see a penny. The company and its insurance carriers agreed to a settlement figure of $1.4 million (Rs 6 crore) but later declined to pay saying the deal with dependent on finding a bank willing to finance it. They said they didn't find a bank to fund the payout. A jury ruled that the settlement stands and she is entitled to receive the payout. Jurors had awarded Orlando $10,000 for economic loss, $40,000 for future medical costs, $450,000 for emotional distress, pain and suffering, and $1.2 million in punitive damages. Alarm One Inc, appealed but jurors hearing the retrial deliberated for less than an hour and found Alarm One, Carolina Casualty Insurance and Monitor Liability Managers Inc in breach of their contract with Orlando and have ordered them to pay her the whopping sum. They made a middle-aged woman go in front of mostly male co-workers between the ages of 18 and 24, bend over, put her hands on the wall and spanked her with a metal sign. The unpaid fund has already drawn $600,000 in interest and if the case is prolonged further the damages will grow at least $200,000 each year. Emotional Orlando cried as the verdict was announced in Judge Donald Black's courtroom in Fresno, California. Outside court she described the case as being like a sexual assault. "You feel like they just keep raping you and raping you," she said. "It's almost like they are doing it on purpose." Orlando's lawyer Nicholas Wagner said that because Alarm One has now gone bankrupt, Carolina Casualty might be left paying most of the bill. The Fresno County resident had only worked at the home security company for five months between late 2002 and early 2003. She quit her job claiming to have been humiliated by being spanked in front of her co-workers with a competitor's yard sign. Team-building only Her employer claimed it was just a camaraderie-building exercise. Orlando said she was embarrassed, permanently scarred and mentally anguished by the fraternity-like atmosphere and sales-building exercises at Alarm One Inc. Employees were also paddled if they were late for a sales meeting. Mr Wagner said at the first trial, "The most compelling evidence is that they made a middle-aged woman go in front of mostly male co-workers between the ages of 18 and 24, bend over, put her hands on the wall and spanked her with a metal sign." "I have the best attorneys in town. We're never going to give up," Orlando said.
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