Gillard, Rudd, Obama – talks on uranium to India (as well as nuke waste to Australia)?
Could Gillard and Rudd be set for a nuclear fusion? The Age, Michelle Grattan, November 6, 2011 , JULIA GILLARD and Barack Obama are having plenty of time together. They’ve been at the G20; the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum is coming up in a few days, followed by the President’s visit to Australia and then the East Asia Summit. Somewhere along the way, you’d think they would find time to discuss a big issue on which their two countries disagree – selling uranium to India.
This question is very live in the ALP just now. If the Australian government wants the option of lifting its ban on uranium sales to India in the next two years, it needs to change party policy at the December ALP national conference.
There is considerable support for a policy change. Resources Minister
Martin Ferguson wants it. On the union side, so 
does Australian Workers’ Union boss Paul Howes. As he departed the South Australian premiership last month, Mike Rann declared it was ”probably time to have a rethink on that in terms of the very strict standards that India is now prepared to sign up to”.
Gillard, having committed herself to party reform, will have to say how far she wants to go in this area. Add uranium sales to India and that is quite a bit of potential conflict to manage.
One thing is certain. Any push for change would have to involve Gillard and Rudd standing shoulder to shoulder – just like those other rivals, Hayden and Hawke, did at the 1982 ALP conference…..Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/could-gillard-and-rudd-be-set-for-a-nuclear-fusion-20111105-1n0v5.html#ixzz1d4JgOuFF
2 Comments »
Leave a comment
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Why did Kevin Rudd allow China to import Australian uranium?
China proliferated by providing an atomic bomb design to Pakistan in the early 1980s in exchange for enrichment technology that rogue scientist A. Q. Khan had smuggled out of the Netherlands. Today, under its NPT status as a “recognized” nuclear weapons state, it has less stringent IAEA safeguards on its own nuclear reactors than India has. China showed utter disdain for international norms in 2010, by bypassing NSG guidelines altogether and agreeing to provide even more nuclear reactors to unstable Pakistan. Pakistan has the world’s fastest growing, and soon to be 4th biggest, nuclear arsenal in the world.
India has shown no interest in a South Asian arms race. It maintains the smallest arsenal among all nuclear powers, (barring North Korea). In spite of being an NPT non-signatory, it is a responsible nuclear power. Unlike Chinese and Pakistani nuclear arsenals, the Indian arsenal is under firm civilian control.
Exporting uranium to India, the world’s largest democracy, second fastest growing economy, and soon to be the third largest global power, makes 100% sense commercially, from an Asia-Pacific security standpoint, and to mitigate global warming.
LikeLike
I can well understand Sanjay Das’ frustration, in seeing that Australia exports uranium to China.
I too, deplore the export of uranium to China, and oppose it.
Antinuclear opposes all nuclear power and the uranium trade.
The Australian government, led by supposedly disarmament enthusiasts – Kevin Rudd and Gareth Evans makes its small effort against nuclear weapons by adhering to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.
So, if India were to sign that treaty, as China has done, then Australia would sell uranium to India.
From my point of view – Australia’s uranium exports either end up in nuclear weapons anyway, or, at best, free up uranium from other sources, so that the buying country still can fuel its nuclear weapons.
Many people in India are now waking up to the fact that nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and super expensive.
It is pathetic that India is still virtually a colony of the West – letting itself be conned into buying nuclear technology from USA, France and Russia. – perhaps Japan too.
As with asbestos – Western countries are turning away from dangerous industries, but quite happy to make megabucks selling these industries to their industrial colonies such as China and India.
Sadly – my own country, Australia, is part of this colonialist exploitation.
LikeLike