Danger in plan to hand over environmental regulation from Australian government to the States
Conservationist says uranium mine spill shows states must not be given approval powers http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-09/conservationist-says-states-set-to-water-down-mine-approvals/5145080 The World Today By Katie Hamann 9 Dec 2013, The Australian Conservation Foundation says it is time the Ranger uranium mine was closed permanently after yet another spill in Kakadu National Park, east of Darwin.
More than a million litres of toxic slurry engulfed the mine on Saturday.
The spill coincides with a move by the Federal Government to allow states and territories to assess all mining applications, as part of its overhaul of environmental approvals.
Earlier this year, the Federal Government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Queensland Government aimed at giving the state the power to be a one-stop shop for environmental approvals………. Continue reading
Tanks for Nothing: New radioactive disaster haunts Rio Tinto
Australian Greens spokesperson on Nuclear issues, Senator Scott Ludlam. 10 December 2013.
In a bizarre and troubling development, Rio Tinto’s Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia has suffered a disastrous acid spill identical in nature to that which closed the company’s Ranger mine in Kakadu on the weekend.
Breaking reports in local media indicate that within three days of the Kakadu collapse, Rio’s Namibian operation suffered a catastrophic failure which put workers and the surrounding environment at risk.
“In addition to the toxic catastrophic at Ranger uranium mine – the latest in over 200 spills, leaks and licence breaches within the Kakadu National Park precinct – Rio is also dealing with “structural failure” of a leach tank at their processing plant in Namibia,” said Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam today.
“Rössing opened in 1976, Ranger in 1981 – both of these mines are ageing and failing.
“Rio is now on the world’s radioactive radar – both in Namibia where worker and environmental safety standards are much lower than at Ranger.
“But it’s not only engineering structural failure in leach tanks. This industry is tanking economically and it’s time to shut it down and clean up these toxic blots on the landscape before they do more damage.
“Australia is blessed with perfect conditions for renewable energy generation, particularly solar, which is clean, safe and doesn’t risk contamination of workers and the environment. The future is renewable not radioactive,” Senator Ludlam concluded.
For further information on the spill in Namibia: http://www.namibtimes.net/forum/topics/rossing-shuts-operations-after-ca…
Ranger uranium mine’s safety in question: closed following radioactive spill
NT uranium mine suspended after radioactive leak SMH, 10 Dec 13,The federal government has suspended operations at the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory, after a major leak of acid and radioactive slurry at the weekend.
The mine’s operator, Energy Resources of Australia, insists there has been no environmental impact from the million-litre spill, but this view is contested by local indigenous people and environment groups…….
On Friday, workers detected a hole in leach tank one within the mine’s processing area, which has a capacity of about 1.5 million litres. The next day, the tank split, pouring out a slurry of mud, water, ore and sulphuric acid…….
The NT Environment Centre said it did not believe ERA when the company said there had been no environmental impacts.
”It’s clear there’s contaminated water from the burst tank on soil,” director Stuart Blanch said.
There have been more than 200 safety breaches and incidents over the past 30 years at the site, according to the centre, which says the slurry spill overflowed levee banks designed to contain it and got into the mine’s stormwater drain system.
The regional organiser of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Bryan Wilkins, said that during the construction and installation of the leaking tank, in 1993 or 1994, the welding was not properly tested. ”I know it wasn’t – I was there,” he said.
An investigation to determine what caused the tank to give way was being commissioned, ERA chief executive Andrea Sutton said……. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/nt-uranium-mine-suspended-after-radioactive-leak-20131209-2z1un.html#ixzz2n5vZT1Pe
Fukushima’s dire situation, and Japan’s new Secrecy Law
So what does this mean to Japan’s nervous Pacific neighbours?
If Japan has its way, they won’t find out.
Japan’s parliament has just adopted a controversial new law on protecting “state secrets”.
Three years on from Japan’s nuclear emergency, the fallout continues to spread WELCOME to Fukushima, where the radiation’s so bad it can be fatal within 20 minutes. The tsunami may have happened some 33 months ago, but the fallout just keeps getting worse. news.com.au, Jamie Seidel, 9 Dec 13
Japanese media is reporting that the intensity of radiation levels in the nuclear powerplant devastated by the earthquake – and subsequent tidal waves – of March 2011 is now at its highest levels ever.
Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from around the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the disaster which sent three of its six reactors critical.
The clean-up operation is expected to take decades but in the meantime:
Radiation contamination of the harbour alongside the plant is steadily rising;
* Another earthquake could cause a disaster 10 times worse than that experienced in Chernobyl;
* Somewhere to store thousands of tons of radioactive water needs to be found; and
* Traces of radioactive caesium has been found in tuna migrating across the Pacific. Continue reading
Mainstream media in UK waking up to the pro nuclear deeption?
Elements of the UK Media have had enough and are beginning to look a little harder at the Pro nuclear spin and analyse the sources of this drive for nuclear. The UK media is beginning to wake up to the deception but how deep will they dig?
UK Olympic sized nuclear cover up – and it has spread to Japan Arclight2011 Nuclear-news.net 8 December 2013 
The UK has decided to take the cheapest option for decommissioning according to a recent report by the badly named Department of the Environment and Climate Change (DECC), as 65 percent of their annual budget goes just on the costs of decommissioning it should be named British Nuclear Fools.
……….DECC also masterminded the Science Media Centre UK (SMC) to cover up or “manage” the Fukushima incident press coverage in 2011, which they then did and were rewarded by their sponsors (The big corporations and nuclear interests).
Bloggers and free press elements in Japan got too much truth out and the Japanese nuclear family had to close ranks with the USA and the Olympic Committee and have came up with the new “Secrets Act” , a shocking attack on free speech from a supposedly western country. It is now up to the Japanese Press to mobilize the people to reject this new Law, there are some signs of dissent in the media. We wish them well! Continue reading
Climate change and Australia’s bushfire danger
Climate Council’s Code Red bushfire warning , The Conversation Lesley Hughes Head of the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University 9 December 2013 Australians have always had to live with bushfires – but climate change is driving that fire danger even higher.
And we’re not talking about a distant threat to future generations. According to real observations from around the country – summarisedin a new report from the Climate Council – we can see that in Australia today, hot days are getting hotter, and heatwaves longer and more frequent.
Some parts of Australia are already becoming drier. Hot, dry conditions are driving up the likelihood of very high fire danger weather, especially in the southwest and southeast. In southeast Australia, the fire season is already becoming longer, reducing the opportunities for hazard reduction burning.
Be prepared: Climate change and the Australian bushfire threat is the Climate Council’s is our first major report since re-launching as a community-funded non-profit group just over three months ago, and it provides a comprehensive, up-to-date summary of the influence of climate change on bushfires.
Setting new recordsThis has been a record-breaking year for Australia…….http://theconversation.com/climate-councils-code-red-bushfire-warning-21257
Rio Tinto’s other uranium mine, Rossing, in Namibia has catastrophic radioactive spill
Rössing shuts operations after ‘catastrophic leak’ Namibia Times, December 6, 2013 By Jade McClune & Marshallino Beukes All milling operations at Rössing Uranium Mine ground to an immediate halt after “a catastrophic structural failure” at one of twelve leach tanks in the processing plant on Tuesday.
The incident triggered a veritable crisis, reinforcing widespread fears of a radioactive leak.
Sources at the mine told the Namib Times on Tuesday that they had heard some “kind of explosion”.
The mine has since confirmed that a leak was detected near one of the leach tanks and said there was “a very serious incident”, but did not mention any explosion.
A Red Banner Health and Safety Alert was sent out to all employees of the mine on Wednesday, confirming that there had been a “leach tank failure” at around 18:30 on Tuesday, 3 December.
The actual outcome of the incident was described as “serious” and the “maximum reasonable outcome: critical”……..http://www.namibtimes.net/forum/topics/rossing-shuts-operations-after-catastrophic-leak
Energy Resources of Australia (ERA)’s share price tumbles after latest radioactive accident
Rio’s ERA Drops After Australia Uranium Mine Spill: Sydney Mover Bloomberg, By James Paton Dec 8, 2013 Rio Tinto Group’s Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. tumbled the most in almost two years in Sydney trading after an acid and ore spill at its Ranger uranium mine near world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
ERA (ERA), 68.4 percent owned by London-based Rio, dropped 13 percent to A$1.135, the most since Feb. 1, 2012, while the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.8 percent…….http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-09/rio-s-era-drops-after-australia-uranium-mine-spill-sydney-mover.html
Tony Abbott losing support for his anti carbon tax drive
Tony Abbott loses his carbon tax edge, says latest Newspoll DENNIS SHANAHAN THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 10, 2013
TONY Abbott and the Liberals have lost their three-year carbon tax advantage over Labor, with support for the Coalition dropping to its lowest since 2011 to leave the opposition leading on preferences for the first time since the election of the Gillard government.
Just three months after being elected, the Abbott government’s primary vote support has dropped to 40 per cent while Labor’s two-party-preferred support has jumped five percentage points to put the ALP in front 52 per cent to 48 per cent…. (subscribers only)
Nuclear war avoided: Prof Des Ball awarded for peace diplomacy
Award for man who helped avoid nuclear catastrophe Standard, By JARROD WOOLLEY Dec. 10, 2013, A FORMER Timboon man who is credited with helping save the world from nuclear annihilation has been awarded the Australian National University’s (ANU) highest honour.
Professor Des Ball, who spent his formative years in Timboon, was presented the Peter Baume Award last month, recognising a career of global significance and an association with the ANU lasting almost five decades………
Professor Ball progressed from a prize-winning economics student who was arrested for climbing a statue of King George V during an anti-Vietnam War rally, to blowing the lid on the secret military facility at Pine Gap during a Senate hearing on treaties in 1999.
Despite his outspoken criticism of US government policy, he was personally invited by President Jimmy Carter to critique the USA’s nuclear defence plans during the Cold War — his analysis persuading the US that its plan to destroy selected Soviet targets would not work in practice.
At the end of last year, a book of essays honouring the iconoclastic scholar contained a contribution from the former president saying Professor Ball had helped save the world from a potential nuclear holocaust.
The book, Insurgent Intellectual: Essays in Honour of Professor Desmond Ball, quoted Mr Carter as saying Professor Ball’s “counsel and cautionary advice, based on deep research, made a great difference to our collective goal of avoiding nuclear war”…….http://www.standard.net.au/story/1961594/award-for-man-who-helped-avoid-nuclear-catastrophe/?cs=12,
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 