Leading figures demand ban on Olympic sponsor

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

More than a hundred politicians, academics, Olympians, actors and human rights groups have called on Olympics organisers to review a sponsorship deal with Dow Chemical over its treatment of victims of the Bhopal gas disaster.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) awarded Dow Chemical the rights to produce and fund a fabric "wrap" to cover the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

A letter signed by academic Noam Chomsky, Martin Sheen, Ken Livingstone and a host of Indian Olympians and politicians argues that the deal "is a stain on the ambitions of the Olympics," and have called for organisers to reconsider.

Up to 15,000 people are thought to have been killed and tens of thousands more maimed when poisonous gas leaked from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal in central India in 1984.

Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001 but denies responsibility for Carbide's Bhopal liabilities. It said a £288m settlement with those affected was fair and final.