Pro nuclear spin now wearing thin
No surprise that Australia’s nuclear establishment is revving up propaganda at present – with falling uranium prices, and Fukushima, and even Chernobyl won’t go away.
Australia could just be waking up at last. Today, Helen Caldicott reminds us of the World Health Organisation’s subservient position to the International Atomic Energy Agency. A reminder of the current nuclear mafia’s “spin” about nuclear radiation being sort of OK, after all.
Australia can’t continue to get away with:
(a) selling uranium to Fukushima reactors, to Russia, China, – pretending the industry is safe, and not connected with weapons.
(b) Australian companies setting up uranium and rare earths industries in countries with poor environmental regulation – e.g Paladin in Africa, and now Lynas, in Malaysia
Ziggy Switkowski, Barry Brook, Michael Angwin, and a swag of Liberal and Labor heavies can try to put it over the Australian public, on the nuclear industry – but they just might not be succeeding any longer.– Christina Macpherson
Dangerous Liaison – WHO and IAEA
Nuclear apologists play shoot the messenger on radiation, The Age, Helen Caldicott, April 26, 2011 “…..In the early days of nuclear power, WHO issued forthright statements on radiation risks, such as its 1956 warning: ”Genetic heritage is the most precious property for human beings. It determines the lives of our progeny, health and harmonious development of future generations. As experts, we affirm that the health of future generations is threatened by increasing development of the atomic industry and sources of radiation.”
After 1959, the organisation made no more statements on health and radioactivity.
What happened?
On May 28, 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. A clause of this agreement says the WHO effectively grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA – a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry. Its founding papers state: ”The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world.”
The WHO’s subjugation to the IAEA is widely known within the scientific radiation community,.. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/nuclear-apologists-play-shoot-the-messenger-on-radiation-20110425-1du2w.html#ixzz1KfXmalLq
Pro nuclear propaganda confuses external and internal radiation
Their first piece of disinformation is to confuse the effects of external and internal radiation.
Nuclear apologists play shoot the messenger on radiation, The Age, Helen Caldicott, April 26, 2011 George Monbiot and others are distorting evidence of the dangers of exposure.
TWENTY-FIVE years after Chernobyl, many billions of dollars are at stake if the Fukushima reactor meltdowns cause the so-called “atomic renaissance” to halt or even slow down. This is evident from the nuclear industry’s vociferous attacks on its critics.
We see this especially in Australia, where the industry is conducting a whatever-it-takes propaganda campaign to ensure that nothing stands in the way of vast profits to be made from continuing to export uranium; from the plan to establish a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory; and from the industry’s desire to dot the continent with reactors.
by reassuring the public that things aren’t too bad, Monbiot and others misrepresent and distort the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of radiation exposure. Continue reading
Chernobyl Day events across Australia
Chernobyl demonstrates that nuclear power is neither peaceful, clean, nor safe.
The ongoing disaster at Fukushima in Japan will affect millions similarly,
25th Anniversary of Chernobyl nuclear meltdown: Australia wide events. Indymedia reports on anti-nuclear and Chernobyl Day activities across Australia – Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney. 26 April 11
25 years since Chernobyl…Australia must stop fuelling Fukushimas... 25 years on since the disaster at Chernobyl, Australia sells uranium to TEPCO, the nuclear power company involved in the ongoing Fukushima radioactive saga. Continue reading
Time for Australia to phase out its involvement in nuclear
Specifically, ACF has called on the Federal Government to:
• Grant no further approvals to Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger mine in Kakadu
• Not approve any uranium projects in Western Australia and Queensland, where there are no commercial mines and no bi-partisan political support for uranium mining
• Grant no further uranium sales agreements
• Ensure BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam project keeps its uranium product and other radioactive mine waste on site and sells only non-radioactive minerals.
Chernobyl anniversary a reminder of the true costs of the uranium trade 26 April 11 On the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster the Australian Conservation Foundation has called for a halt to uranium exports and a national debate on the full costs and consequences of Australia’s uranium trade. Continue reading
Australian company Lynas meets opposition to its rare earths plan
The Star Online, said that if Lynas claimed the residue from the plant would be safe, it should be shipped back to Australia. “Malaysia cannot afford to keep a health time bomb here and we do not know when it will explode,”
Protests threaten Lynas’s Malaysian rare-earths plant, The Australian, Sarah-Jane Tasker , April 26, 2011 RARE-EARTHS miner Lynas’s plans for a processing plant in Malaysia have been thrown into doubt as local authorities review the proposal in light of concerns about radiation pollution. Continue reading
“Rare Earths” – radioactive substances
some countries are dumping their nuclear wastes (rare earth included) in some third world countries under the guise of economic and scientific co-0peration!
THE RARE EARTH CONTROVERSY The Star (Malaysia) 24 April 11 by: cheaman What is ‘rare earth’? They are ‘actinide’ substances. So what are ‘actinides’, pray tell?
Actinide substances are a series encompassing the 15 chemical elements with atomic numbers from 89 to 103, actinium tolawrencium…. All actinides are radioactive and release energy upon radioactive decay; uranium, thorium, and plutonium, Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 