Nuclear Free Queensland protest in Brisbane, against uranium mining policy
Activists protest return to uranium mining in Queensland http://www.centraltelegraph.com.au/news/activists-protest-return-uranium-mining-queensland/2065510/ 28th Oct 2013 ABOUT 20 people staged a colourful protest in Brisbane today to mark the first anniversary of the Queensland Government’s decision to allow a return to uranium mining in the state. The protesters gathered outside the Executive Building in the hope of catching State Government ministers as they entered the building for the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Members of anti-uranium group, Keep Queensland Nuclear Free, spent about 10 minutes chanting “No Mandate for Uranium” before dispersing. Anti-Nuclear campaign co-ordinator Mark Bailey said regional centres like Townsville, Mt Isa, Emerald and St George along with a number of smaller towns will be at risk from nuclear accidents.
“Rather than arrogantly place many Queenslanders at risk the government should at least facilitate an informed debate about the dangers and risks of uranium mining through an independent inquiry,” he said.
“It is highly unlikely a majority of Queenslanders would support the resumption of mining when presented with all the facts. “Uranium mining is a dangerous, risky, small industry with big impacts on the environment, on workers, surrounding regions and potentially along transport routes.”
Call for community action against Australia’s corporate lackey government
From where we are now, the core of any successful campaign of resistance must be – can only be – civil disobedience.
The next two years will tell the story. We act now or the battle is lost.
Climate change countdown Part Two: Time to stand up and be counted Independent Australia, 21 Oct 13 By electing an Abbott-led Government, Australians have just collectively delivered an ironical two-fingered salute to our future environmental prospects, writes Doug Evans.
What have we just done?
Australian voters have just collectively delivered an ironical two-fingered salute to our future environmental prospects.
With a shrug and a yawn, at this critical turning point which may mark the end of our environmental viability as a species, they have just elected a conservative Government that denies the scientific evidence of global warming and regards global warming as a socialist plot. This is a government determined to promote the best interests of the environment’s worst corporate enemies. As if this was not enough, they have elected and delivered the Senate balance of power into the hands of Clive Palmer, whose business interests and personal wealth are inextricably linked to the destruction of our climate future. With time as short as it is, this was the worst possible outcome for the environment. The ludicrous climate change ‘policies’ of this disgraceful government are assessed here……
Stand up and be counted Continue reading
China’s high risk of nuclear disaster
these 30 nuclear power plants will use reactors that have not been operationally tested. They are all being built inland and all face problems with water supply. Several third-generation plants, including Pengze in Jiangxi and Taohuajiang in Hunan, each with six reactors, cheated during the environmental impact assessment process, with no action taken by the National Nuclear Safety Administration.
Chinese nuclear disaster ‘highly probable’ by 2030 The Ecologist, He Zuoxiu 25th October 2013 As the UK prepares to build a fleet of new nuclear power stations with Chinese capital and expertise, a former state nuclear expert warns: China itself is heading for nuclear catastrophe……
Qian Shaojun, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has repeatedly said that nuclear safety relies on experience – you cannot claim something is safe until it has been operating for a certain number of reactor years. Japan has at least 10 times as many reactor-years of experience as China.
China has a similar likelihood of natural disasters to Japan, but the quality of its nuclear staff lags behind. It’s not that Chinese nuclear power technicians fall short in design ability. But they have less design and management experience than their Japanese counterparts.
If we refer to the data from Japan’s experiences, China will “most probably” suffer a nuclear disaster around 2050.
How long can China’s nuclear industry stay “safe”? Continue reading
Deceptive presentation by UK government, of its uneconomic nuclear power plan
No wonder the private sector has declined to take this opportunity.
Behind the nuclear smoke and mirrors http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/2134515/behind_the_nuclear_smoke_and_mirrors.html Tom Burke 26th October 2013 There is an important question to be asked of Mr Davey. If there is no public subsidy for Hinkley C why are you having to make an application to the Brussels for state aid clearance?
The most important decision in this issue is EDF’s decision to order the major components for Hinkley. Only when that has happened will it become too expensive not to go ahead.
If that has not been done, no deal has actually been made. All that has happened is that the price the British Government will pay for the output from Hinkley has been announced.
It is very unlikely that any such order will be made until after state aid clearance has been granted.
As far as I can see the following is what the combination of Osborne and Davey’s announcements adds up to:-
Two Chinese companies will take a minority stake in EDF’s proposed nuclear power station at Hinkley point.
At some future point Chinese companies may be allowed to take a majority stake in other nuclear power stations if they are built.
Under the current levy control cap there is no money even to build the second EDF station let alone any Chinese stations.
The Chinese simply bought – for nothing – an option to participate in something that may never happen. Continue reading
China trying to clean up its foul radioactive legacy from rare earths refining
Whole villages between the city of Baotou and the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia have been evacuated and resettled to apartment towers elsewhere after reports of high cancer rates and other health problems associated with the numerous rare earth refineries there.
China Tries to Clean Up Toxic Legacy of Its Rare Earth Riches NYT By KEITH BRADSHER : October 22, 2013 TIANJIN, China — In northern China, near the Mongolian border, radioactively contaminated leaks from two decades of rare earth refining have been slowly trickling underground toward the Yellow River, a crucial water source for 150 million people. In Jiangxi province in south-central China, the national government has seized control of rare earth mining districts from provincial officials after finding widespread illegal strip-mining of rare earth metals.
And in Guangdong province in southeastern China, regulators are struggling to repair rice fields and streams destroyed by powerful acids and other runoff from open-pit rare earth mines that are often run by violent organized crime syndicates.
Communities scattered across China face heavy environmental damage that accumulated through two decades of nearly unregulated rare earth mining and refining. While the Chinese government has begun spending billions of dollars to clean up the damage, the environmental impact is becoming an international trade issue, with a World Trade Organization panel in Geneva expected to issue a crucial draft report on Wednesday……. The rare earth case “will be a landmark case in terms of both export restrictions and the environment,” said James Bacchus, the former two-term chairman of the W.T.O. appeals tribunal in Geneva. Continue reading
Australian uranium miners in the rush to mine in Greenland
Greenland’s parliament just voted to allow Australia and China to start mining away. The vote was as close as they come: 15 for, 14 against, with the common call for jobs and economic growth winning out over immense environmental concerns.
Greenland Has Melted So Much That We Can Mine It for Uranium Now Motherboard, By Brian Merchant 28 Oct 13, Climate change has finally melted enough of Greenland to allow mining companies to exploit its natural resources. And it’s got a lot. The remote, increasingly well-named island nation has a payload of uranium and rare earth elements buried beneath its quickly-thinning ice sheets.
Last year, nearly 97 percent of Greenland’s ice cover melted during the summer. That hadn’t happened for 123 years. And while big melts like that are thought to happen from time to time, scientists think Greenland is melting six times faster than it would have if humans didn’t load the atmosphere up with coal and oil pollution. Clearly, not everyone is disappointed with the result.
As with the other major industries circling the warming Arctic like a vulture—oil and shipping companies being the biggest—mining corporations have long licked their chops at the prospect of digging into Greenland’s untapped mineral reserves…… Continue reading
Queensland University gets a second, and even larger, solar array
Queensland’s Largest Solar Panel Array Announced http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3998 27 Oct 13, Queensland University will soon be home to the largest solar power system in the state.
Announced last week, the 3.275 megawatt pilot plant will incorporate more than 34,000 ground mounted solar panels. The solar farm will be constructed on a 12.6 hectare former airstrip site at the University’s Gatton campus, which is situated 90km west of Brisbane.
Doubling as a research facility, the Gatton plant will augment the University’s existing St Lucia campus 1.22 megawatt photovoltaic array; which is currently Australia’s largest rooftop solar installation. Continue reading
Fukushima horse breeder cares for his irradiated animals
As Iitate’s population plummeted in the spring of 2011, Hosokawa managed to find new homes for more than 80 of his horses. Then, in January this year, he noticed that several among the 30 that remained, mainly foals, had become unsteady on their feet.
Within weeks, 16 had died in mysterious circumstances. Autopsies on four of the horses found no evidence of disease and tests revealed caesium levels at 200 becquerels per kilo – twice as high as the government-set safety limit for agricultural produce,
Fukushima horse breeder braves high radiation levels to care for animals Despite the departure of all his neighbours and the unexplained deaths of some of his stock, Tokue Hosokawa refuses to budge Justin McCurry in Iitate theguardian.com, Monday 28 October 2013 Until March 2011, Tokue Hosokawa had only to peer through the window of his home in Iitate village to confirm that all was well with his 100-year-old family business.
The 130 or so horses that once roamed this sprawling farm in Fukushimaprefecture have sustained three generations of Hosokawa’s family. Some were sold for their meat – a local delicacy – but his animals were better known for their appearances in commercials, period TV dramas and films, and local festivals celebrating the region’s samurai heritage.
For decades, the 62-year-old horse breeder barely registered that his farm was just 25 miles north-west of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant. But the rural idyll was shattered on the afternoon of 11 March 2011, when the facility was hit by a towering tsunami that caused meltdowns in three of its reactors…….
two and half years after the accident, Iitate has become a nuclear ghost town. When Hosokawa looks out of his window these days, it is at empty, irradiated fields. Continue reading
Aboriginal activist refuses nomination for Australia Day Award
Aboriginal activist refuses Australia Day award, October 27, 2013 Amy Corderoy Health Editor, Sydney Morning Herald Prominent Aboriginal lawyer and activist Michael Mansell says he cannot morally accept an Australia Day award nomination because the day is inextricably linked to the invasion of Australia by white settlers.
Mr Mansell is a finalist in the Senior Australian of the Year award for his dedication to “social, political and legal reform to improve the lives of Tasmanian Indigenous People”.
But he said he could not in good conscience accept it or the Tasmanian nomination because it is a key part of the Australia Day celebrations, which is a race-based day that “marks the coming to Australia of whites”.
“Australia has not once apologised, and meant it, for the invasion of Aboriginal lands,” he said. “There has been no acknowledgement of the massacres that remain hidden under a ‘pioneers’ version of Australian history. There is no effort to genuinely undo the wrongs that still affect Aboriginal people today.” Continue reading
NSW government moves to limit Aboriginal land rights claims
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell wants more control over crown land ANDREW CLENNELL STATE POLITICAL EDITOR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH OCTOBER 24, 2013 THE state government wants to change the laws around crown lands to gain more control over them because it fears Aboriginal land rights claims will be made around 7000 land reserves if it does not do so after a Supreme Court finding…….
Shadow treasurer Michael Daley said there were “serious questions that the government needs to answer on this issue”.
“The central theme of the O’Farrell government to date has been that its biggest beneficiaries have been mates and lobbyists. Their proposed changes to crown lands go way too far, so this is all just way too convenient for my liking.”…. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/nsw-premier-barry-ofarrell-wants-more-control-over-crown-land/story-fni0cx12-1226745729146
Is the taxpayer footing the bill for Abbott’s media cronies dinner?
Guess who’s coming to dinner? Abbott’s round table SMH, October 26, 2013 Peter Munro When entertaining at home Tony Abbott prefers like-minded company, if the guest list to his Saturday soiree is any guide. The Prime Minister’s first gathering of the Australian media is an invite-only affair of conservative columnists and broadcasters. Invited to dinner and drinks at Kirribilli House is a roll-call of Mr Abbott’s strongest supporters, among them Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman, Janet Albrechtson, Miranda Devine, Dennis Shanahan, Paul Kelly, Chris Kenny and Tom Switzer.
Daily Telegraph editor Paul Whittaker, whose newspaper backed Mr Abbott to the hilt, will be attending. News Corp editor Col Allan is believed to have flown back from New York in time for the intimate gathering of friends. The Australian editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell was invited but told Fairfax Media he was unable to attend.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard was mocked for her ”mummy bloggers”. Here then, perhaps, was a conspiracy of conservative columnists. That the majority of Mr Abbott’s guests come from News Limited would surely please Rupert Murdoch, who is back in Australia. Mr Abbott this week divided Australia’s media landscape into two broad camps: ”There tends to be an ABC view of the world, and it’s not a view of the world that I find myself in total sympathy with. But, others would say that there’s a News Limited view of the world.”
Fairfax Media columnists Paul Sheehan and Gerard Henderson were also invited to the knees-up, which was orchestrated by Mr Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin.
Guests were asked to keep details of the evening strictly confidential. ”We do not release details of the Prime Minister’s private functions,” a spokeswoman said. She declined to respond when asked whether the taxpayer would foot the bill. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner-abbotts-round-table-20131025-2w76k.html#ixzz2j56pdspR
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 