On World Environment Day – DUMP THE DUMP – No Muckaty radioactive waste dump
Dump the Dump: Radioactive Waste on Trial Support Muckaty Traditional Owners on World Environment Day
For the past seven years there has been sustained community opposition to a federal government plan to dump Australia’s radioactive waste on Aboriginal land at Muckaty in the Northern Territory. Now Traditional Owners opposed to the dump plan are taking their case to the Federal Court with a trial starting on June 2 in Melbourne.
Join us to discuss the court case and the way forward for the campaign and responsible radioactive waste management.
Speakers include lawyer Elizabeth McKinnon, Kevin Bracken (MUA), Natalie Wasley (Beyond Nuclear Initiative), Dave Sweeney (ACF), and MC Karrina Nolan (Oxfam Australia).
Musical interlude from Lucie Thorne and images and voices from the Muckaty lands.
Green Building
60 Leicester St, Carlton
Thursday June 5 − World Environment Day
6pm (snacks and images) for 6.30pm start, finishing 8pm.
Facebook event: Dump the Dump
Court proceedings begin on Monday 2nd June until Friday 6th June in Melbourne, before continuing in Tennant Creek and Darwin for the entire month. To support the Muckaty Traditional Owners in the Federal Court in Melbourne:
Federal Court Melbourne
Corner of William and La Trobe Streets
Monday June 2 from 9:30am
Supporters are welcome in the open courtroom all week
Contact: Gem 0421 955 066
Information on the nuclear dump plan: http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/
“We want to keep talking about it and continue to fight it until we are listened to. The big capital N-O. The Ngapa clan and the rest of the other totems in that land trust are all connected. We have connections to each other and are related to each other. We are the same tribe, the one ancestral cultural group of people who are the strong voice, and one voice, in that country.” − Dianne Stokes
Terminally ill? Paladin closes its uranium mine in Malawi
Paladin to shut its uranium mine, Australian Mining, 27 May, 2014 Cole Latimer Paladin has announced it will cease production at its Kayelekera uranium mine in Malawi.
It comes after the miner advised it would place the operation in to care and maintenance earlier this year.
According to Paladin it is ceasing production “due to reasons beyond the company’s control and related to the depressed uranium prices”.
On May 21 it halted all operations at the mine, and will now cease supplying uranium to the global market, causing a drop of around 3.3 million pounds of supply per annum.
“The outcome is an unfortunate but direct consequence of the continuing deterioration in the uranium price,” the company said in a statement. “Certain estimates now place up to 60% of current annual global production with costs above the current spot price, which is unsustainable.”…..http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/paladin-to-shut-its-uranium-mine
Pacific Island Delegates urge Australia to change climate change policy
Pacific nations urge climate change action, ask Australia for help http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/pacific-countries-make-climate-change-appeal/5481050 Australian Network political editor Catherine McGrath 27 May 2014 Songs of the Pacific have been heard at Parliament House as islanders from countries likely to be most at threat from rising sea levels braved the Canberra winter to highlight the issue of climate change.
In traditional dress, the group performed a cultural dance and spoke about their concerns.
When it comes to high tide you can see the tide everywhere it seeps through the whole island. It kills the crops – it kills our traditional root crops.
Maina Talia
The delegates, from Kiribati, Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea, are meeting federal politicians and officials representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop and Environment Minister Greg Hunt.
They are seeking a cut in carbon emissions and more assistance for their countries’ climate change mitigation.
Kiribati, which is only about two to three metres above sea level, and Tuvalu, at four metres above sea level, are already battling rising sea levels and crop losses.
The delegate from Wewak in PNG says her region in the East Sepik province is also in danger.
Apisaloma Tawati, 19, from Kiribati says the group is taking its campaign to the world.”I am here today to make everyone aware of our hardship and to convince you that we need your help and … you can help us,” he said. “As a youth I am afraid of climate change. I see our land is becoming thinner and thinner. “We live near the coast and we see a lot of things. We saw coastal erosion, the land has been eroded away, sea walls have broken.
“I come to Australia to tell the world of our hardship and our stories back in Kiribati.”Kiribati is enduring a lot of problems due to climate change.”
Delegates urge Australia to change climate change policy
Maina Talia, 29, from Tuvalu wants Australia to rethink its climate change policy. “We are the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable countries,” he said. “Since we don’t have any mountains or rivers, for us to adapt is very difficult. It is a burden to the people of Tuvalu as to how they can adapt. “Now when it comes to high tide you can see the tide everywhere it seeps through the whole island. “It kills the crops – it kills our traditional root crops. “It (the rising sea levels) are just there and we don’t know how that happens but we believe it is climate change.”
Mr Talia says it is important to keep campaigning because people from Tuvalu feel so vulnerable. “It is difficult to determine who is listening and who is not listening,” he said.”I believe they have heard our message so many times but we keep on pushing and advocating for Tuvalu and Kiribati and low lying atolls [so] that leaders of Australia and other industrialised countries will continue to hear our voice.”
Tony Abbott’s blatant lie to the Aboriginal people on land rights
PM Abbott’s top 40 broken promises and blatant hypocrisies — so far, Independent Australia Alan Austin 24 May 2014, Alan Austin updates IA’s running tally of hypocrisies and broken promises by Australia’s most mendacious ever prime minister — Tony Abbott…….
35. Aboriginal land rights
At the Garma festival in north-east Arnhem Land last August Abbott promised to
“… do whatever I humanly can in government to bring this [improved land rights for Aboriginal people] about.”
As funding for research and for legal aid for land claims across Australia is critical, all Aboriginal land claimants were looking expectantly at the May budget.
They got nothing..….http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/pm-abbotts-top-40-broken-promises-and-blatant-hypocrisies–so-far,6512#.U4Umyx0K8pE.twitter …@IndependentAus
Nuclear wastes – theme for October 2012
The world faces a dangerous and ever more pressing problem – nuclear wastes. In Australia – “new nuclear” is being hyped as the answer- don’t believe it!
The logical steps to deal with nuclear wastes are:
1. Stop making the stuff. Close down the commercial and military nuclear reactors that produce plutonium and other long-lived radioactive materials
2. Choose the “least worst” option to dispose of the existing nuclear wastes – (a) Interim storage of radioactive wastes into above ground containers (b) Deep burial underground permanent repositories.
The nuclear lobby, desperate to stave off the death of its industry, comes up with grand promises of new Generation IV systems, reactors that will reprocess, “recycle” plutonium wastes into Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) to fuel for other Gen IV reactors. At the end, highly toxic radioactive wastes are still produced.
And all this – despite the enormous costs, the very dangerous transport of plutonium, the risks of terrorism, the increased risks of weapons proliferation.
The nuclear lobby’s cries for Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTR)s, Super Critical Water Reactors (SCWR)s, Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)s, Gas Cooled Fast rectors (GCFR)s, Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors (SCFR)s, Lead Cooled Fast Reactors (LCFR)s – all desperate and conflicting cries for their own salvation, rather than any solution to wastes, costs, climate change, energy needs.
The worry is that the nuclear lobby might win, by manipulating governments and populations into buying their expensive and dangerous new toys – because nobody really wants a nuclear waste tomb in their area.
The trouble is – nuclear cemeteries, however unappealing, are still the least worst option.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 