In depressing uranium market, Australian uranium companies freeze development
Frozen: Uranium exploration on hold North West Star, Nov. 28, 2012 A GLOBALLY weak uranium mining price had led to a development freeze from Valhalla’s exploration company, but they insist the long-term outlook remain positive.
Paladin Energy, the company which is exploring uranium at the Valhalla deposit 40 kilometres North West of Mount Isa, recorded recent losses and frozen development due to the weak uranium price. In a statement, Paladin Energy said it would require a sustainable uranium price, at or above $81.78 Australian dollars per pound to warrant any further expansion or new mine development.
The current uranium price is $41.75 Australian dollars per pound.
Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia expects to post a full-year loss of between $135 million and $155 million this year, blaming difficult market conditions for the cuts…..
The long-term outlook may not be so bleak with an independent investment researcher claiming there is promise. Senior independent researcher Claire Aitchison said uranium demand was supported by 63 new reactors under construction, 18 reactors undergoing power capacity upgrades and the anticipation of more Japanese reactors coming back online following the Fukushima incident.
However she warned another disaster on the scale of Fukushima could have a significant impact on the nuclear industry.
Official lies in post Fukushima Japan, about radiation health effects
In Post-Fukushima Japan, Civil Society Turns up Heat on Officials Global Issues, by 
Kim-Jenna Jurriaans (United Nations), November 27, 2012 Inter Press Service“……..when asked about a link to radiation exposure, Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, a researcher at Fukushima Medical University and who headed the survey, suggested to German TV channel ZDF that the findings may instead reflect Japanese children’s seafood-rich diet.
“Suzuki is lying to the Japanese people,” Dr. Yurika Hashimoto, a pediatrician with 15 years’ experience, told IPS. “People are not believing them anymore.”.
Hashimoto made no secret of her distrust in much of the information issued by government and the highest ranks of the 
medical establishment. Recently, to limit her own exposure to radiation, she relocated to Osaka from Tokyo, where she was trained and once ran her clinic.
Diarrhea, nose bleeds, skin infections and conjunctivitis are among a plethora of symptoms she has increasingly seen in her patients, both in and outside of the Fukushima prefecture, since the March 2011 disaster.
When she brings these symptoms to other doctors, however, patients are frequently ridiculed or ignored, according to Hashimoto. ……. http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/11/27/15359
Solar power success is putting the brakes on gas-fired electricity in South Australia
Solar Helps Delay South Australian Peaking Power Plant http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3489by Energy Matters, 27 Nov 12 Construction of a gas-fired power station at Tepko near Mannum in South Australia has been put on the backburner again; thanks in part to the state’s solar households. Continue reading
Trans Pacific Partnership – a USA plan to increase its corporate and military power in Asia
The U.S. has also pledged to put 2,500 marines in northern Australia, as well as regional missile-defense systems
Obama’s hawkish anti-Chinese rhetoric on the campaign trail coincided closely with U.S.complaints before the World Trade Organization over China’s allegedly illegal subsidization of its auto industry. And only a couple weeks ago, the U.S. International Trade Commission levied sizeable punitive tariffs against Chinese solar companies.
All of which will certainly cast a long shadow over Obama’s Pacific visit.
Asia pivot a go-go, Online opinion, By Marc-William Palen , 28 November 2012 Barack Obama’s speedy post election pivot to Asia has left the world in a tizzy. With the U.S. elections safely behind him, Obama promptly headed off to Asia in advance of this week’s East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh.
100 years ago, American businessmen and diplomats had obsessed over gaining access to the fabled China Market. With intense U.S. involvement in the trade-oriented Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the once mythical Asia Market is fast becoming even more of a reality…. But, American interest in Asian markets brings with it sizeable Sino-American tensions, much as it did 100 years before.
Particularly, like the United States, China is also aggressively seeking to expand its economic influence in the region. For example, it is even now moving forward with its own trilateral trade agreement with South Korea and Japan.
Further American military expansion in the Asia-Pacific will only heighten these tensions, and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta only just finished up a visit to Cambodia for the purpose of expanding U.S. military ties there. This move closely followed his announcement that the Pentagon will be enlarging the size of its military exercises in the region, Continue reading
Secret Labor and Liberal plans to gut Australia’s environmental laws
Minister Burke: Don’t hand your powers to the states 22 Oct 2012 | Larissa Waters In April this year, a special meeting of big business leaders hijacked a meeting of state and federal governments (COAG). They demanded the weakening of Australia’s environment laws.
Now the Labor and Liberal parties are preparing to do just that. Secret discussions are now underway to gut our national environment laws by giving away the Environment Minister’s approval powers to state governments.
Our environment is under attack like never before. If environmentprotection were left to the states, they would have dammed the Franklin River, put oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef and built Traveston Dam.
This December, the state Premiers and the Prime Minister will meet again at COAG to take the next step to gut Australia’s environment laws before final sign off at a meeting in March 2013. Before this happens, tell the Labor and Liberal parties not to gut Australia’s environment laws. Continue reading
Climate Change becoming irreversible as Arctic permafrost thaws
Where even the earth is melting, SMH, November 28, 2012 Ben Cubby ENVIRONMENT EDITOR THE world is on the cusp of a “tipping point” into dangerous climate change, according to new data gathered by scientists measuring methane leaking from the Arctic permafrost and a report presented to the United Nations on Tuesday.
“The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales,” says the report, Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost. “Overall, these observations indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started.”
While countries the size of Australia tally up their greenhouse emissions in hundreds of millions of tonnes, the Arctic’s stores are measured in tens of billions. Human-induced emissions now appear to have warmed the Arctic enough to
unlock this vast carbon bank, with stark implications for international efforts to hold global warming to a safe level. Ancient
forests locked under ice tens of thousands of years ago are beginning to melt and rot, releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 