SO LORDY, lordy, Peter Mandelson did talk turkey with Oleg Deripaska when he was the European Union’s trade commissioner and most things affecting the oligarch’s commercial interests in Europe. But it was not aluminium but timber, according to his official aides. As if that makes a difference. So why wasn’t that admitted at the time? Because the officials thought press questions were only about aluminium and only about when the pair met in Corfu. Pity Mandy wasn’t commissioner for the environment. He could have asked Deripaska about the toxic waste that his pulp mill has been pumping into Lake Baikal – known as the Pearl of Siberia and a Unesco world heritage site. The lake holds 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water and is the deepest on the planet. Deripaska’s mill on its shore, has been dumping thousands of tonnes of dioxin into the lake over many years. But, to the delight of environmentalists, it has been forced to close under pressure to clean up its act. A spokesman for the Baikal Environment Wave commented that the lake can now “begin to heal itself”. Just like Mandy.
