Australian government secretive about radioactive waste in its planned Northern Territory dump
Elder’s death won’t affect nuclear waste dump case, ABC News, Anna Henderson and Emma Masters, The Northern Land Council (NLC) says a Federal Court case over a planned nuclear waste dump near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory has not been affected by the death of the senior elder who nominated the site, September 07, 2011 The elder, now known as Kumanjayi Napurrula Lauder-Dixon, died in Elliot last week.
The matter returns to court next month.
………Meanwhile, an anti-nuclear campaigner says he is concerned the federal Government is not doing enough to dispel the belief that the proposed nuclear waste dump will hold only low-level waste.
Dr Jim Green says government documents show plans for a waste dump at Muckaty Station to hold low and intermediate radioactive waste. Dr Green says some of the waste will have a half-life of thousands of years.
“They really ought to be more upfront with Territorians,” he said. “They are not honest and yet they still expect Territorians to trust the federal Government with this dump proposal. “Yet a number of their claims are contradicted by freely available documents, which are produced by the government itself.”
Dr Green says the Government is not doing enough to communicate what type of waste will be stored.”The spent nuclear fuel reprocessing waste that has been sent to Scotland and France is going to come back, and they want to dump that above ground at Muckaty.”…http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-07/20110907death-mackaty-nuclear-dump/2874942
Australian scientists exposing Murdoch media’s climate denial spin
Nowhere has the reliance on spin been more apparent than during the coverage of the climate “debate” by the Murdoch media and allied shock jocks…
In response to all this, and in the absence of politicians with sufficient courage to take on the hate-mongers, some Australian academics have started to provide a platform for accountability by shining a light on the media’s practices.
Using the Conversation, the world’s first daily paper written primarily by academics in co-operation with journalists, academics are beginning to catalogue the excruciating and tortuous daily distortions of climate science by various papers, especially by the Australian, Murdoch’s flagship publication.
Australia’s climate scientists expose shock-jock distortion tactics, Academics catalogue the deluge of spin and misinformation of climate science by various Murdoch-owned papers, Stephan Lewandowsky 1 September 2011, Guardian UK, Australia has unwittingly become a social experiment. A ruthless experiment on the fate of a society when a single media conglomerate, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, owns 167 newspapers and controls around 70% of the printed media market. Continue reading
Oh dear! Uranium price and shares’ inexorable downward slide
Uranium prices plunge causing issues for Australian producers, Herald Sun, Greg Roberts ,September 07, 2011 URANIUM prices have fallen back to levels last seen after Japan’s nuclear accident in March, causing further grief to struggling Australian producers.
The uranium spot price is $US48.85 ($A46.04) a pound, having plummeted from $US67.75 to $US49 immediately after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The spot price had recovered to about $US56.50 after the Fukushima accident. Analyst group Resource Capital Research says the dynamics driving the sector have changed in the aftermath of the meltdown, with Germany planning to close all 17 of its nuclear power reactors by 2022.
The “fund implied price” – an indicator of market price expectations – is signalling a further fall in the spot price to $US45.95. The Merrill Lynch Uranium Equity Index, which measures the performance of uranium equities, has fallen 19 per cent over the past month.
It is down 27 per cent over the past three months and 23 per cent over the past year, according to the latest quarterly report by Resource Capital Research. Shares in Australia’s largest uranium producer, the Rio Tinto-backed Energy Resources of Australia, have fallen 13 per cent in the past month and 73 per cent in the past year.
A year ago, ERA shares were $13.49, compared with $3.65 now, with the company posting a $122 million half-year net loss. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/uranium-prices-plunge-causing-issues-for-australian-producers/story-fn7j19iv-1226130940686
Lynas Rare Earths plant to be highlighted in documentary on ionising radiation
Japanese filmmaker to highlight Lynas controversy, Free Malaysia Today, G Vinod, September 6, 2011“….A foreign documentary on the nuclear meltdown in Japan will also highlight the controversy over the Lynas rare earth refinery in Malaysia.
PETALING JAYA: A Japanese filmmaker plans to include the Lynas rare earth controversy in his upcoming documentary on nuclear radiation which is scheduled to be released in October 2011.The filmmaker, Shunji Iwai, decided to highlight the plight of the people in Gebeng, Pahang after hearing about the matter from his Malaysian counterpart, Tan Chui Mui.
Lynas Corporation Ltd plans to build a RM700 million rare earth refinery in Gebeng, to facilitate transportation of its mining products from Western Australia’s Mount Weld to the plant in Gebeng. The plant is expected to be operational by end of this year.
However, the community in Gebeng are up in arms against the project fearing radioactive contamination in the area surrounding the plant. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had said the mine would be safe, Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh dismissed its report, saying that most of the findings were made based on data given by Lynas itself…….
Tan herself would be directing a few parody educational video called “Survival Guide in Radioactive Village” to create awareness among the public on the Lynas scare. The documentary is scheduled for release in October for the Japanese market. It will subsequently be released to the global audience via the Internet…http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/09/06/japanese-filmmaker-to-highlight-lynas-controversy/.
Senator Christine Milne urges renewables industry to step into political debate
Renewables should get political: Greens, Sydney Morning Herald, Graham Readfearn, September 7, 2011 Greens Senator Christine Milne has urged Australia’s renewable energy industry to step into the political debate over climate change.
Speaking to the Ecogen conference in Brisbane yesterday, Senator Milne urged the sector to “take on the Coalition” while selling the benefits of renewable energy to the public….. “The renewable sector needs to get out there in the community. They need to step up and protect the Renewable Energy Target and get out there and say it’s essential and that we have to have it.
“They need to be out there promoting renewable energy as a solution to climate change and as a jobs creator and as a contributor to a more resilient and diverse economy.”
She said she believed the industry had been absent in the climate change debate because many stakeholders were smaller companies who relied on government funding to develop.“They’re concerned that if they do speak out, it will have adverse consequences for them. It’s time to get over it.”
She said the Coalition was trying to undermine government plans for a $10 billion clean energy finance corporation to invest in and give loans to renewable projects…..http://www.smh.com.au/environment/renewables-should-get-political-greens-20110906-1jvr5.html
Anti Uranium walkers report from Leonora, Western Australia
View the latest pictures from the Walk away from uranium MiningClimate Change disinformation promoted by Koch brothers
‘Inside the Koch Brothers 2011 Summer Seminar The Brad Blog,By Brad Friedman on 9/6/2011“……I’ve been working in the background, for a number of weeks, on an exclusive series concerning the billionaire Koch Brothers, the co-owners of the nation’s second largest private corporation, the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries. They are also massive funders behind much of the Rightwing political disinformation machine. The articles, as I can now reveal, cover audio I’ve obtained as recorded from inside their super-secret, super-confidential, invitation-only Summer Seminar held in late June at the tony Ritz-Carlton Beaver Creek Resort near Vail, COAmong this year’s attendees, in addition to hundreds of corporate baron billionaires and millionaires, were GOP public officials such as current Republican Presidential front-runner Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL).
It appears the brothers went to extraordinary measures, particularly on the first night of the event, to assure that none of the uninvited would ever know what went on inside or even who the first night’s keynote speaker actually was.
Nonetheless, a few of their closely guarded secrets are about to spill out.
The first of my two articles in the series is finally published at Mother Jones today.
Part 1 focuses on the opening and closing remarks, as heard on tape, by billionaire brother Charles as he raises still more undisclosed political money and rallies his troops in advance of the 2012 Presidential election — or “the mother of all wars” as he’s heard describing it. On the first night, Charles welcomes his “great partners” to the event, alludes to President Obama as “Saddam Hussein” and proceeds to list — by name — those “partners” who have donated more than a million dollars to the Koch Foundation political causes over the past year. So much for the post-Citizens United“anonymity” that Koch exec Kevin Gentry, the emcee for both evening’s dinners, informs patrons they can “help protect.”
The full audio and text transcript of Charles’ opening and closing remarks are posted here.
In tomorrow’s report, we’ll reveal the identity of that headliner and detail his stem-winder of a keynote! But for now…
• Part 1 of my exclusive report at Mother Jones…
• Complete audio & transcripts of Charles Koch’s opening & closing remarks…
• Transcript excerpts from Judge Andrew Napolitano’s closing night speech…
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 