Mark Macintyre News

Canada's refusal to accept a hazardous waste shipment from a U.S. military base in Japan left U.S. authorities scrambling to find at least a temporary home for the unwanted cargo now aboard a Chinese-owned ship. Environmentalists planned to picket at the Port of Seattle in an attempt to persuade local longshoremen not to unload 14 containers holding electrical transformers contaminated with cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the freighter Wen He. Longshoremen's union officials declined comment, but sources familiar with the situation said the union had agreed to unload the ship's other cargo and leave the PCB-laden containers on board. The U.S. Coast Guard will not allow the containers to be unloaded in Seattle without a special permit from the U.S.