Contradictions abound in the accusations against Julian Assange
Julian Assange hopeful a photo could help clear him of sexual assault allegations Herald Sun, Abul Taher Daily Mail August 27, 2012 IT seems an unremarkable image: a group of friends smiling broadly. But it is the photograph Julian Assange hopes will clear his name.
The Mail on Sunday has published a photo of a beaming woman, pictured with Assange and three other people, who would later tell police that 48 hours before the picture was taken, the WikiLeaks founder pinned her down in her flat and sexually assaulted her.
If the case ever reaches court – Mr Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London – his lawyers will argue that the photograph undermines the 33-year-old woman’s entire story. And, they claim, there is more.
In the two days after the alleged assault in Sweden, Mr Assange and Woman A, as she is known, attended a conference and two dinner parties where it is claimed they were practically inseparable. During one party, Woman A tweeted that she was “with the world’s coolest, smartest people!”…..
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/julian-assange-hopeful-a-photo-could-help-clear-him-of-sexual-assault-allegations/story-fnd134gw-1226458585105
How Aborigines were cheated out of their land in Victoria
The most important outcome of this event was that Batman became the first and possibly the only early Anglo-Australian to formally recognise the indigenous Aboriginal population as property owners.
On this day: annulment of the Batman treaty AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC 27 Aug 12 IN 2012, MOST MELBOURNIANS would be confused if you offered them a handful of tomahawks, a few handkerchiefs, some blankets and some scissors for their land. One hundred and seventy-seven years ago in the rough-shod days of early Australian settlement, however, they
represented a princely sum. And that is exactly what settler John Batman used for currency to acquire the 250,000ha on which Melbourne and Geelong sit. Continue reading
Police to arrest Assange ‘under any circumstance’ – leak from UK police
Police note lets slip Julian Assange arrest plan http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/police-note-lets-slip-julian-assange-arrest-plan/story-fnd134gw-1226457832696 By CHARLES MIRANDA in London
August 25, 2012 THE order is simple and the note brief but it points to a likelihood of a complex and lengthy impasse between Ecuador and Britain over the future of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
“Assange to be arrested under all circumstances,” the confidential Scotland Yard note seen yesterday being carried by an officer outside the Ecuador embassy reads.
And therein lies the problem. He has political asylum in Ecuador but cannot get there with Britain refusing to let him step onto public soil without immediate arrest, detention and extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations.
Scotland Yard acknowledged the handwritten note was from a briefing and stressed that the force’s objective is to arrest Assange for breach of bail.
“Under no circumstances would any arrest be made which was in breach of diplomatic immunity,” Scotland Yard said.
King Uranium is losing not only its Big Mine, but also its Adelaide Castle!
BHP dumps Adelaide tower plans BY: SARAH DANCKERT The Australian August 25, 2012 BHP Billiton has scrapped plans to take a long-term lease on a purpose-built $250 million office tower in central Adelaide following its decision to shelve the expansion of its Olympic Dam mine.
The miner is also understood to be considering reducing the amount of existing office space it leases, said to be about 10,000sqm, in what will be a blow for the Adelaide office market…. Adelaide property professionals are maintaining a stiff upper lip despite the miner’s devastating decision to put on ice the $US30 billion ($28.6bn) expansion of the uranium and copper mine, 560km north of the city.
Earlier this year the miner began sounding out developers for a purpose-built office tower in the city’s central business district to house the new employees. BHP Billiton established its uranium headquarters in Adelaide in 2009 when the company created the Uranium Customer Sector Group.
Up until recently BHP Billiton was seeking a long-term lease on a state-of-the-art office that would be built for the resources group in the heart of the city. The lease was to include naming rights over the building. Continue reading
South Australia better off without the Great Big New Uranium Mine?
The union movement sees an upside to the delay at Olympic Dam, urging the state government to use it to fight for a better deal for SA.
SA Unions state secretary Janet Giles said benefits from the mining industry should flow to the whole community, and the state government would be wise to show caution when dealing with BHP Billiton in the future.
Olympic delay no mining death knell Sky News, August 24, 2012 South Australia’s peak mining group says BHP Billiton’s decision to delay the expansion at Olympic Dam is not all doom and gloom.
Chief executive Jason Kuchel said SA’s mining industry had diversified dramatically over the past decade and the state currently had 20 major mines in production with many more projects in the pipeline…..
‘South Australia has a lot on the go with several new mining regions, exciting oil and gas developments, and a multitude of small and mid-tier miners who collectively could bring just as much, if not more, benefit to the state than the expansion of Olympic Dam.’ Continue reading
South Australia just escaped a very poor deal of Olympic Dam as “China’s quarry”
SA government now wary of BHP: premier, Yahoo Finance, AAP – Wed, Aug 22, 2012 “…He [Premier Jay Weatherill ] said South Australia was now entitled to be wary when dealing with the company in future and warned the government would take a tougher approach to negotiations if asked to approve expansion a third time.
“We’ve been given to understand that BHP were proceeding with an expansion once. We’ve been given to believe that BHP will proceed with an expansion twice,” Mr Weatherill said. “If they come to us and seek permissions and approvals on a third
occasion, we will be taking a different approach to the negotiations….
the Greens said the delay was a “get-out-of-jail card” giving the government the chance to negotiate a much better deal.
“The 2011 deal was economically irresponsible, environmentally reckless and would have left South Australia as little more than China’s quarry,” Greens MP Mark Parnell said. “Despite giving the company nearly everything it wanted, it still
didn’t stack up economically.”… Continue reading
Decision to stop new Olympic Dam uranium mine was unavoidable
New era for BHP shareholders Financial Review 24 AUG 2012 TONY BOYD Marius Kloppers secured his job by delaying $30 billion in capital projects in Australia but he needs to do much more to get the BHP Billiton machine humming at optimum speed….
There was an inevitability to the project delays….. Olympic Dam might have been justified several years ago when its cost was estimated at $15 billion. But at a cost double that amount and with Australia’s high construction and infrastructure cost base, it was untenable.
Kloppers said the project never actually jumped the hurdle called “economic concept”, which meant BHP was never able to talk seriously with a potential Chinese partner to develop the world’s largest uranium deposit and fourth largest copper and gold deposit….
His outlook statement issued with the full-year results was seen by several analysts as bullish. But coverage will be dominated by the Olympic Dam decision because of its widespread implications.
Analysts think it is unlikely that a large-scale development project will proceed at the site in South Australia…. Given the company’s desire to operate within a credit rating envelope that delivers it low-costing debt, the Olympic Dam decision was unavoidable. Continue reading
Scrappimg of Olympic Dam new uranium mine does not help the present plight of the uranium industry
... the effects of the project delay are longer term and do little to address near-term challenges facing the uranium industry…
Implications Of The Olympic Dam Expansion Delay For The Uranium Industry Seeking Alpha, August 24, 2012 Earlier this week, BHP Billiton (BHP) announced that it will investigate an alternative, less capital-intensive design of the Olympic Dam open-pit expansion, effectively shelving this massive, over $20 billion project. Though not unexpected, the decision is undoubtedly an important development for the world’s largest mining company.
But it has even larger long-term implications for the small and highly concentrated uranium mining industry. Continue reading
Tony Abbott’s inconvenient untruths revealed
he [Tony Abbott] appeared in mournful procession with his South Australian MPs to declare that the carbon and mining taxes were, in fact, responsible for BHP Billiton’s decision to shelve expansion plans for its Olympic Dam uranium and copper mine.
No matter that the mining tax applies to neither uranium nor copper and that the company had said the decision was entirely due to ”current market conditions including subdued commodity prices and higher capital costs” and that the ”tax environment for this particular project has not changed at all since we started working on it six or seven years ago”.
Lack of carnage Abbott’s inconvenient fiscal truth, WA Today, August 25, 2012, Lenore Taylor National Affairs Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald Perhaps Tony Abbott needs to send out a search party or post a reward because, bafflingly, his carbon tax wrecking ball appears to have gone missing. It’s now almost two months since the tax that he predicted would work like a ”wrecking ball”, with ”unimaginable” and devastating consequences for the economy, came into effect. To date there has been, from the Coalition’s point of view, a very inconvenient absence of devastation.
In fact, almost every economic statistic continues to look pretty good. Continue reading
Australian Carl-Magnus Larsson will head UNSCEAR report on the Fukushima nuclear disaster
Next December Carl-Magnus Larsson, head of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, takes over as UNSCEAR chairman.
UNSCEAR has been the go-to body for such complex, high-profile investigations since it was established by the UN General Assembly in 1955 under the chairmanship of Australian radiation expert Cecil Eddy…. the Fukushima report .. will be
presented to the [United Nations] General Assembly late next year.
Radiation risks high in Japan http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/radiation-risks-high-in-japan/story-e6frg8y6-1226456949429 BY: LEIGH DAYTON The Australian August 25, 2012 IT’S hard to believe, but earlier this month the power company that runs Japan’s devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant revealed that five people working on the clean-up had covered their radiation detectors with lead, rendering them useless.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company said the five were contracted by a subcontractor of a – yes – subcontractor and were not even authorised to work at the plant. Other workers were found not to have used dosimeters at all.
“That such egregious flouting of safety protocols would occur despite the media attention on the clean-up efforts is astonishing,” Continue reading
Can Olympic Dam copper mine be developed without uranium recovery?
Dr Gavin M. Mudd Environmental Engineering, Monash University December 2010
“…… – it is eminently reasonable to propose a process flow sheet for Olympic Dam which does not include recovery of the uranium but still allows for copper, gold and silver to be produced.
http://users.monash.edu.au/~gmudd/files/ODam-Cu-only.pdf
Of course, a more modern idea is in design. Designing technologies so that it is practical and relatively easy to RECYCLE copper – C.M.
Tony Abbott “misspoke” on Olympic Dam, revealing Liberals’ confusion about carbon pricing
Abbott having it both ways on BHP (includes video) August 23, 2012 Phillip Coorey Sydney Morning Herald It was eminently predictable the opposition was going to blame the decision to shelve the Olympic Dam expansion on the mining tax and the carbon price…..
When BHP announced the Olympic Dam decision yesterday, Kloppers’ statement cited ‘‘current market conditions, including subdued commodity prices and higher capital costs’’.
Minutes later, Tony Abbott, flanked by 10 South Australian Liberal MPs and senators, declared it was a catastrophic day for South Australia and blamed the mining tax and carbon taxes….
He kept at it on the 7.30 Report last night during an interview in which he said he had not read BHP’s statement issued hours earlier. Today he said he had misanswered the question and had read the statement…..
The Coalition is trying to have it both ways on the mining tax. It has been saying for months that the big miners, BHP included, have told it privately that they swindled the government during negotiations and will pay little or no tax for many years.
At the same time, the Coalition says the tax is killing such projects as Olympic Dam.
The mining tax did not apply to Olympic Dam because it only applies to iron ore and coal. There is a strong but unsubstantiated rumour in the industry that when the minerals giants renegotiated the mining tax with the government after Kevin Rudd was dumped, exempting uranium, gold and copper was a condition of Olympic Dam going ahead.
Either way, BHP cited neither the mining tax nor the carbon tax in its statement, and afterwards Kloppers told journalists the mining tax – which BHP will supposedly pay on its iron ore and coal projects – was not a factor.
‘‘As you know the tax environment for this particular project has not changed at all since we started working on it six or seven years ago,’’ he said.
‘‘The MRRT only covers coal and iron ore – not copper, not gold and not uranium – so the tax situation for this project has not changed. What has changed is the capital cost of construction. What has changed also is that post-Fukushima there is a different and still developing outlook on uranium..
.. Regardless of what BHP says, the opposition will continue to blame the carbon and mining taxes.
…: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/abbott-having-it-both-ways-on-bhp-20120823-24nle.html#ixzz24V97BzJ2
Calls for Australia’s nuclear wastes to go to Maralinga – Aboriginal political leader
AUDIO http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nt/content/201208/s3574500.htm Indigenous party wants radioactive dump built on nuked land ABC Rural News, By Steven Schubert, 23 August 2012 The founder of the First Nations Political Party is calling for the nuclear waste dumped proposed fo Muckaty Station north of Tennant Creek to be built at Maralinga in South Australia instead.
That’s the site where the British Government tested several nuclear bombs during the 50s.
Maurie Japarta Ryan is running for the party in the seat of Stuart at the election, and says he believes Maralinga would be a better site for the dump.
“Why wreck a pristine place where there’s water at Muckaty, why not use scientific evidence, which they all talk about, and move it to a place where they’ve already nuked Australian people at Maralinga in South Australia?
“What I’m saying is scientifically nothing lives there, nobody goes there.”…. http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nt/content/201208/s3574500.htm
International Court of Law likely to protect Julian Assange’s bid for asylum
Assange could go to international court THE AUSTRALIAN : AAP August 23, 2012 JULIAN Assange’s legal team will likely apply to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to get the activist out of London to diplomatic asylum in Ecuador.
Former judge at Spain’s top criminal court, and head of Mr Assange’s legal team, Baltasar Garzon, says they are exploring a number of ways to guarantee his safety.
The ICJ is the world’s top arbitration body for disputes between states.
Speaking through an interpreter on the sidelines of the International Council of Archives Congress in Brisbane, Mr Garzon said the United Kingdom is bound by international law to offer his client safe passage to asylum. Continue reading
DLP Senator John Madigan moves in Senate to stop Victorian wind farm
Senator tries to halt Bald Hills wind farm ABC News, Aug 23, 2012 The DLP Senator for Victoria, John Madigan, will put a motion to the Senate to stop a wind farm development at Bald Hills in the state’s east. The power company Mitsui is building the 50 tower wind farm near Inverloch, in South Gippsland.
Senator Madigan says the Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke can stop the project….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-23/senator-tries-to-halt-bald-hills-wind-farm/4217532
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