Antinuclear

Australia should rethink uranium sales to India, as India has poor nuclear security

India scores poorly in nuclear security ratings, The Age, David Wroe, January 13, 2012 A NEW report that gives India a poor rating on nuclear material security has been seized on by opponents of plans for Australia to sell uranium to the emerging economic giant. The report, released yesterday by US think tank the Nuclear Threat Initiative, ranked India fourth-last among countries with significant quantities of weapons-grade nuclear material, putting it above only North Korea, Pakistan, Iran and Vietnam.
The Nuclear Materials Security Index assessed countries’ ”contribution towards improved global nuclear materials security
conditions”. The report follows Labor’s proposal, ratified at its party conference late last year, to overturn its long-held stance against selling uranium to India, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As part of its deal with India, Australia is negotiating a treaty to guarantee safeguards on its uranium exports.
But Greens nuclear spokesman Scott Ludlam said the report highlighted how far India had to go in meeting the standards Australia should demand. ”I think this is going to force the government to put some teeth into this so-called safeguards agreement, which doesn’t address the kinds of issues that the NTI is putting down in their paper,” Senator Ludlam said.

The NTI’s report rated India as below average on a number of issues including transparency, corruption, the number of sites where material was stored, the independence of regulators and security during transport.

”I think it’s a massive wake-up call that, first of all, the change of policy at the end of last year was a mistake,” Senator Ludlam said. On a broader scale that included countries not in the possession of weapons-usable material, Australia ranked No. 1 in the world, partly because it has little nuclear material at all.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/india-scores-poorly-in-nuclear-security-ratings-20120112-1pxj6.html#ixzz1jNWNIOtk

January 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international