WORLD IN BRIEF : INDIA : Bhopal Settlement Due for Challenge

The new government of Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh said it will support petitioners challenging the previous leadership’s $470-million settlement with Union Carbide Corp. for the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. Law and Justice Minister Dinesh Goswami said the government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had “no authority or right to arrive at (a) settlement which extinguishes all rights of the affected victims in respect of criminal liability.” The settlement of a year ago before India’s Supreme Court was accepted as “full and final” by the multinational U.S. company for the gas leak that killed about 3,600 people and injured 20,000 others.