Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Why Toro’s uranium mining plan at Wiluna should be stopped

Key concerns with Toro’s plan to mine uranium at Wiluna,
by Mia Pepper and Jim Green, 9 sept 11,

* Traditional Owners are opposed to the construction of a uranium mine at
the significant sacred site of Lake Way. Toro has not completed
Archeological and Ethnographic studies and does not already have a
comprehensive Aboriginal Heritage Management Plan.

* Uranium exported from Wiluna will at best end up as high-level nuclear
waste. At worst it will end up as fissile (explosive) material in nuclear
weapons, or in a nuclear disaster such as that unfolding in Fukushima,
Japan.

* Toro does not accept responsibility for its own application, stating
that it has “not fully verified the accuracy or completeness” of its
application.

* Lake Way is home to a unique population of Stygofauna − a
newly-discovered species of subterranean crustaceans.

* Toro has not factored in recent advice from the International Commission
on Radiological Protection that radon is twice as carcinogenic as
previously thought.

* Transport plans are presented as a “preliminary draft” and the company
plans to transport its toxic, radioactive product over many thousands of
kilometres, from Wiluna to Adelaide and Darwin.

* Uranium mining and tailings disposal in this region will occur below the
water-table and will be connected to aquatic ecosystems. There is a
significant risk of contaminating the aquatic ecosystems with changes in
water chemistry, including the mobilisation of radioactive compounds.

* The legal requirement for tailings management at the Ranger uranium mine
in the NT is effective isolation for at least 10,000 years. The minimum
standard should be the same for Wiluna.

* There has not been a calcrete uranium deposit mined in Australia and
there is only one calcrete deposit presently being mined worldwide. There
is a lack of expertise and experience in engineering and mine design for
these deposits.

* Wiluna has a number of operating mines close to town and in the region.
Despite current mining activity, Wiluna still suffers from extreme
poverty, homelessness, unemployment, violence and other social problems.

www.ccwa.org.au/campaigns/nuclear-free-wa

September 9, 2011 Posted by | environment, uranium, Western Australia | 1 Comment

Uranium pollution in Darwin harbour – taxpayers cop the cost

Taxpayers pay for polluting Darwin harbour 1057 ABC Darwin, Sep 07, 2011 ,   by Vicki Kerrigan

Contaminated stormwater containing uranium, zinc, copper, arsenic, lead, cobalt, iron, nickel and magnesium gushed into Darwin Harbour last year. The Darwin Port Corporation has been ordered to to pay a 19 thousand dollar offence for the disaster. The fine has to be paid by one government department to another government department; effectively this means you the taxpayer will pay….. http://blogs.abc.net.au/nt/2011/09/taxpayers-pay-for-polluting-darwin-harbour.html

September 9, 2011 Posted by | business, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

Australia’s power companies campaign to undermine renewable energy

Power giants to hit out at renewables, Christine Milne warns, GRAHAM LLOYD, The Australian, September 08, 2011  THE electricity industry was planning a “massive assault” to undermine government policies to promote billions of dollars worth of investment in wind farms and other renewable energy technologies, Greens senator Christine Milne has warned.

Senator Milne’s comments to a renewable energy conference in Brisbane this week coincide with a fresh call by Origin Energy for the government to reconsider the timing of its target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020….

Calling on the renewable energy sector to speak out, Senator Milne said an electricity industry backlash threatened many of the so-called “complimentary measures” negotiated by the Greens to secure their support for the federal government’s carbon tax that will be introduced into federal parliament next week.This includes the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is designed to kick start investment in alternative energy projects…..

Wind power is currently the lowest cost option for electricity companies to meet their obligations under the mandatory renewable energy target.

September 9, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Christian fundamentalism and the nuclear danger

At least some portion of the population also practices mental readiness for a nuclear strike. The country’s solitary final assembly plant for nuclear weapons is located in Amarillo, Texas. Twenty-five years ago the journalist A. G. Mojtabai set out to understand how the people of this city bear the psychic burden of this work. As she reported inBlessèd Assurance: At Home with the Bomb in Amarillo, Texas, many members of the population believe in the Rapture—the end of the world and the gathering of true believers into the arms of Christ. For many of these believers, nuclear weapons, far from being something to repudiate, are vehicles to this blissful end-time event…….

Jerry Falwell stated, “In terms of its impact on Christianity, [Left Behind is] probably greater than that of any other book in modern times, outside the Bible.”  But whether or not readers believe in the literal claims of the book, they are surely being counseled to regard nuclear disarmament as morally sinister and nuclear weapons as morally good, even godly...

Until late July 2011, the Air Force had a mandatory course on Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare for its missile officers…The course—“mandatorily teaches its nuclear missile launch officers that fundamentalist Christian theology is inextricably intertwined with the ‘correct’ decision to launch nukes.”

Extreme Injury, Boston Review, Elaine Scarry, September 2011 “…….Our nuclear weapons are, at every minute of the day and night, ready for use Continue reading →

September 9, 2011 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Time for Australians to act on Murdoch media’s distortion of news

Murdoch media in Australia: malign but excisable,   Independent Australia, 9 sept 11, Alan Austin says that the Murdoch media network is a malicious influence on Australia — that the nation has a chance of eradicating.

Rarely is a nation faced with a malicious influence which it has the chance to eradicate. Such is Australia’s luck today with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, owner of The Australian, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, Melbourne’s Herald Sun and other ‘news’ outlets.

The Murdoch network in Australia has moved irretrievably away from being a legitimate news provider. It must go.

Essential to free enterprise and democracy is access to information free of distortion. Newspapers are free to say what they will in editorials and opinion pieces, of course. But news data must be untainted.

Most Murdoch publications now openly spruik for conservative politics. Not just in the opinion pieces, but news pages as well. Continue reading →

September 9, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media | Leave a comment

Glencore now HAS to reveal data, let Australians keep an eye on it

Secretive Glencore, Swiss- based international company, has a very bad record – connected with fraud, corruption, environmental degradation (- check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencore )

Glencore is now more or less forced to reveal some information, seeing that it recently changed from  a private company to public.  The change was connected to it increasing its share in uranium miner Xstrata . Pretty inportant, as Xstrata is defending an environmental court case run by Friends of the Earth – a win here could be an unwelcome precedent for Glencore’s world-wide activities.

By the way, Glencore’s CEO, South African Ivan Glasenberg, formely of Switzerland, now resident in Australia, and now an Australian citizen, – is Australia’s second richest person, (after mining multi-billionaire Gina Rinehart.) – Christina Macpherson

Glencore’s 1st Sustainability Report Shows 18 Deaths, Planet Ark, s 08-Sep-11 Eric Onstad Commodities group Glencore released its first sustainability report on Wednesday showing it paid $780,000 in major environmental fines last year and had 18 fatalities.

Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodities trader, promised to launch sustainability reporting during the run-up to its listing earlier this year after spending decades as a private company, revealing minimal information about its business to the general public.

The 106-page report said the company incurred four major environmental fines each worth more than $10,000, relating to encroachment on protected land at unidentified locations and for emissions, water discharge and tailings disposal in Kazakhstan.  In contrast, the world’s biggest mining group BHP Billiton reported environmental fines of $35,057 for its 2010 financial year ending in June and miner Rio Tinto paid $540,328 in fines last year……
Glencore also said it had joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which seeks to boost accountability and governance by getting companies to publish what they pay governments and the nations to disclose how much they receive from mining and oil production….

Glencore’s total revenues were $145 billion, the bulk from trading activities, and total core profit was $6.2 billion, but the group has historically paid very low taxes on its trading operation, according to analysts.

Liberum Capital has said Glencore, based in the low-tax canton of Zug in Switzerland, has paid a corporate tax rate close to zero on its trading business up until last year due to its partner ownership structure…. http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/63196

September 9, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, business, Christina reviews | Leave a comment