Australia’s discriminates in favour of India, on uranium sales
India is not a party to the NPT, has never been, has developed a nuclear weapons capability as a non-member of the Treaty, and accordingly, is in an entirely different position from China vis a vis Australian uranium export policy..
Surely the more appropriate sequence would have been to have the Cabinet discussion first, and make a fully-informed decision as to whether or not a change in the policy is desirable, and what its ramifications are, then take the matter to the party if needs be, armed with the support of a properly considered Cabinet decision…… Once she has made an exception for India, what is she going to say to our allies in Pakistan and her dear friends in Israel?
Nuclear policy and process dumped at the drop of a hat, The Drum, Paul Barratt, 21 Nov 11 The announcement by the Prime Minister that she intends at the forthcoming ALP National Conference to seek a change in the Party’s Platform to permit the export of uranium to India is of concern on three grounds: the content of the policy change; the apparent failure to extract anything in return for what is by any measure a major policy shift; and the extraordinary decision-making process by which this change is to be brought about.
The change has been presented publicly as little more than an administrative matter designed to correct an anomaly in our current export policy. The narrative runs that the policy discriminates against India because we are prepared to export uranium to China, a nuclear weapon state, but not to India for peaceful use. This is arrant nonsense. Continue reading
Wide area of Japan contaminated with radioactive caesium
Nearly a tenth of Japan contaminated Almost eight per cent of Japan’s land area has been covered by radioactive caesium from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. ABC Nes 22 Nov 2011 Mark Willacy, North Asia correspondent Japan’s Science Ministry says nearly 10 per cent of the country’s land has been contaminated by radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
It says more than 30,000km², or eight per cent of the country’s land area, has been blanketed by radioactive caesium.
The Ministry says most of the contamination was caused by four large plumes of radiation spewed out by the Fukushima nuclear plant in the first two weeks after meltdowns after the March earthquake and tsunami.
The Japanese Government says some of the radioactive material fell with rain and snow, leaving the affected areas with accumulations of more than 10,000 becquerels of caesium per square metre. http://abcasiapacificnews.com/stories/201111/3373127.htm
“Please don’t sell uranium to India” – Goanese priest writes to JUlia Gillard
India has enough of trouble on this front. The 1983 disaster at Union Carbide in Bhopal is still to be sorted out and people affected are still awaiting compensation, including the several thousand left affected, blinded and maimed.
Dear Ms Gillard, please do not sell uranium to India. It will leave India the poorer if you lift that ban on uranium sales.
OPEN LETTER on World Fisheries Day 21st. Nov 2011 From: Fr. Xavier Pinto,C.Ss.R. Apostleship of the Sea India, 876,Alto Porvorim. GOA. India 403521.
To: Ms. Julia Gillard, The Hon. Prime Minister of Australia. ACT, Australia.
Re: Impending disaster & plight of fishing communities on the Southern coast in India.
Dear Ms Gillard,
I read with great distress news that you are urging your Government to overturn a ban on supplying Australian uranium to India.
If this news is true, please, please do not do this. The world at large is still struggling to understand the effects and aftermath of several nuclear disasters which have occurred in plants and establishments certified as “very safe”. The one in Fukushima, Japan, a nation of advanced technologies, is still in the news. Recently the Catholic Bishops of Japan (CBCJ) have warned how dangerous and ill-conceived plans for nuclear plants are.
The Japan Catholic bishops said on Thursday Nov 10th 2011, that they advocated an immediate end to nuclear power generation. At a press conference at Motoderakoji Cathedral in Sendai City, they launched a document, End Nuclear Energy Now: Coming to terms with the tragic disaster of the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
In 2001, the CBCJ warned of the risks from nuclear power plants: “In order to avoid tragedy, we must develop safe alternative means of producing energy.” Such an incident was precisely the type of tragedy as occurred at Fukushima. There are 54 nuclear power stations in Japan. According to the new document, every one of those “holds within itself the danger of another enormous accident like [Fukushima Daiichi].”
The bishops acknowledged that, if nuclear energy were to be abolished, Japan would be left with an energy deficit, and that the problem of CO2 would still need to be addressed. But they insisted that humans have a responsibility to protect “nature and all life, which are God’s creatures,” and to pass a safe environment on to future generations.
Japan has “a culture, national wisdom, and tradition of living in harmony with nature.” Its Shinto and Buddhist religions are infused with a similar mentality, and “in Christianity, we also have the mentality of noble poverty.”
The bishops urge their countrymen to change their lives fundamentally: “The essential thing is to adapt our lifestyle, which is excessively dependent on nuclear energy; to turn that lifestyle around in its whole way of being.”
India has enough of trouble on this front. The 1983 disaster at Union Carbide in Bhopal is still to be sorted out and people affected are still awaiting compensation, including the several thousand left affected, blinded and maimed.
Currently others in India are protesting against building new nuclear plants. The people of a small fishing village – KOODANKULLAM – in south India are in distress and anxiety, fearing they will be displaced and lose their ancestral rights. 20,000 people collected there recently to protest against the nuclear plant.
Dear Ms Gillard, please do not sell uranium to India. It will leave India the poorer if you lift that ban on uranium sales. India and the world know that Australia does a lot for India. Please do this one more good thing. Don’t lift the ban on selling uranium to India.
It is time that all concerned, especially governments, search for safer means of generating energy. These are available for those with the will to develop alternative energy sources, and so avoid excessive risks to later generations.
Fr. Xavier Pinto, C.Ss.R
Apostleship of the Sea ,
National Chaplain and Director &
AOS South Asia Coordinator.
A few atomic veterans, previously excluded,can now claim compensation
Aussie nuke testing victims receive compo, News.com.au, 22 Nov 11 A HANDFUL of Australian veterans exposed to British nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s who missed out on compensation will finally get payments and health care. Tonight the Senate passed laws to close loopholes that had inadvertently excluded about 10 victims….. The radiation victims were involved in maintenance, transporting or decontamination of aircraft used in the British nuclear test program….. Continue reading
In China, wind power racing ahead, while nuclear power declines
Nuclear power, on the other hand, is a tale of decline. China’s wind sector overshadows the 11GW worth of nuclear in their electricity supply. In only six years, wind has blossomed to deliver 55 per cent more electricity to the grid each year than nuclear – an energy source the Chinese have been building for the last 26 years.
The growth of nuclear in China, although slow, has slowed further
China’s massive deployments will be driving renewables down the cost curve, so Australia can invest in wind today with certainty that the technology is a wise long-term investment.
China’s path to renewable superpower Climate Spectator, Matthew Wright, 23 Nov 11 Comparing China’s wind and nuclear power sectors reveal much about the fortunes of new and old energy technologies. Wind power in China is growing at a blinding pace. China commenced construction of its first wind turbines in 2005 and in just six years has installed 58GW worth of wind power, which now contributes 128TWh to its grid. This is enough renewable electricity to power Australia’s most populous states – NSW and Victoria combined. Continue reading
Australia’s electric transport future – powered by sun and wind
Australia needs to begin a deliberate and widespread push into electrifying its transport 
network, which means a big push for electric vehicles, but also a much higher ambition for renewable energy deployment. Siemens, Europe’s biggest supplier of energy equipment, which recently dumped nuclear from its portfolio after Germany’s withdrawal, suggests 40 per cent of Australia’s power generation should come from renewables – particularly solar and wind – by 2030.
An electric dream for transport, Climate Spectator Giles Parkinson, 23 Nov 11 Imagine an Australia with fast trains linking the major capital cities, diesel/electric trucks equipped with pantographs following overhead wires like trams in the inner city, electric vehicles dominating the passenger vehicle market, and 40 per cent of our electricity coming from renewable energy. Imagine, also, a smart phone-style “mobility manager” that allows you to make transport choices that can generate carbon credits, that can be accumulated and redeemed for restaurant vouchers, movie tickets and free travel. And all this by 2030. Continue reading
Australia does not need this economically risky uranium industry
Less than a third of one per cent of our export revenue comes from this toxic, destructive and obsolete trade. Yet somehow it has been painted as some sort of economic saviour, even as the mining boom is warping and damaging other parts of our economy.
What is happening here demonstrates a fundamental denial of the risk of the uranium trade. It glosses over the steep decline in nuclear capacity in Europe. The industry there has been in decline literally for decades—since the early 1980s—and it perpetuates the delusion that the safeguards regime actually provides meaningful safeguards
Greens dissenting report on Euratom Treaty criticises the inadequate discussion by Joint Standing Committee on Treaties , by Senator Scott Ludlam, 22 Nov 11 Before we raced down this path of shovelling this material to plants all across the Indian subcontinent, because the long and honourable history of the antinuclear movement in India will tell you there are very good reasons why people are staging sit-ins and hunger strikes at the moment at the site of a plant that is under construction by, of all people, the Russian government. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 