Agent Orange victims seek justice: A lawsuit filed last week seeks damages from the American companies that supplied the military with Agent Orange. As many as four million Vietnamese have experienced a lifetime of respiratory and reproductive problems as a result of contamination from the toxic defoliant. The suit, which could cost 30 chemical companies (including Dow and genetic engineering giant Monsanto) billions in damages, could open the way for future suits related to depleted uranium and other virtually untested weapons, writes The Independent's Andrew Buncombe. Some $300 million has been paid to US troops who fought in Vietnam, but the Vietnamese citizens affected by the poison haven't seen a cent. Agent Orange contains the deadliest known form of dioxin, TCDD, which causes cancer in lab rats and birth defects in humans.

According to the plaintiff's lawyer, Jonathan Moore, "The companies ... knew Agent Orange contained high levels of dioxin and did not care because ... they figured the only people getting sprayed were the enemy." Monsanto's Jill Montgomery told CorpWatch, "We are sympathetic with people who believe they have been injured and understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects."

And: Why won't the US mainstream press report this story? And why is Bush's Justice Department trying to get the case thrown out of court? (Answer: it's a "threat to the president's power to wage war and an effort at a 'breathtaking expansion' of the powers of federal courts," writes the New York Times.)