How big money buys the media,and threatens democracy
Rupert has indicated very clearly, he is coming to buy the alternative forms of media, not only to have control, but to make money out of it.
I liked a little thing I saw in the paper where Gina Rinehart’s Dad, good old Lang Hancock, said decades ago that if we’re going to get anywhere, we have to buy the media. And Gina is dutifully moving to do [that] just now and what a difference that has made.
Bob Brown and the media: ‘I’ll take them on … they’ve crossed the line’ THE CONVERSATION, by John Keane 4 June 11, , “……Brown:’…it ought to be for the people to make and break governments and it is for the Fourth Estate to be informing them. …. I think it goes back to Jefferson, the very simple dictum: that information is the currency of democracy. So that information is gold and it is very important that the public has a right to be informed. But what they are getting it now is opined. They are getting an opinion coming from a multi-billionaire who cashed in his Australian citizenship because Australia didn’t serve accumulation of money well enough….. Continue reading
ERA’s hidden agenda for expanding Ranger uranium mine
Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) spokesman Dave Sweeney says ERA has its eyes on a bigger prize than just expanding its existing Ranger Uranium Mine operations.
“It wants to stay active and in the region and wear people down, and wait for times to change,” he said….
A new report prepared for the Federal Government shows climate change could damage mine infrastructure and pose challenges to its processing systems over the next 60 years.
Mr Sweeney says Ranger Uranium Mine’s location within the boundaries of Kakadu National Park makes it too risky to expand.
Critics turn up heat on uranium miner – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), By Lucy McNally, Jano Gibson and Rick Hind Jun 3, 2011 Environmental groups are warning Territorians to pay attention to a plan by Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) to expand its uranium mine in Kakadu National Park.
They say they believe the ultimate goal of the company is still to mine Jabiluka. Continue reading
Explaining Australia’s ineffective solar energy policies
Australia has no policies to build the market for large-scale solar power.The carbon price, if it is ever introduced, will be too low for at least a decade to assist significantly….
Flagships will subsidise initially only one large CPV and one large CST power station by 2014.
Cuts to this program in the 2011 federal budget make it unlikely that a second round of grants will be made….
There is really only one plausible explanation for Australia’s piecemeal and ineffective set of solar policies: the immense political power of Australia’s big greenhouse polluters.
Australia’s confused solar policy June 1, 2011, PHYSORG.com By Mark Diesendorf Solar collectors spread out over a square 50 km could generate all of Australia’s current electricity demand. Continue reading
Danger and deception in Lynas’ plan to leave radioactive wastes in Malaysia
The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, experts will evaluate this plant, BUT only for radiation, and that, during normal operations! They are the same experts who declared Fukushima safe, even with NO protective wall around the cooling pumps.
The Lynas chairman Nicholas Curtis claims that they have permission from the government to store the waste onsite forever. On the other hand, AELB’s (Atomic Energy Licensing Board) director general Raja Datuk Abdul Aziz Raja refutes that claim in saying that the plant can only store waste temporarily
Rigmarole : The Star Online: May 30, 2011 An Australian Co., Lynas, is building the REE refinery in Malaysia. However, that refinery can never be deemed as safe, because accidents happen. It is not only the thorium 232 radioactive alpha particles, those from the ores and the waste, that could accidentally be released into the air as dust, (lung cancer), and into water, (liver cancers etc.), but there is the possiblility of accidental release of highly toxic gases that are REE refining by-products, such as fluorine, radon, (radio-active), and sulphur dioxide. Continue reading
Health dangers of electromagnetic radiation
The first time that cell phones were associated with cancer risk was in 1997, following a study conducted by Michael Repacholi and his colleagues from the Royal Adelaide Hospital in South Australia that showed an increase in the occurrence of lymphoma in mice exposed to cell phone radiation over a long term.
WHO Rings The Alarm Bell On Mobile Phone? RTT News 2 June “………Mobile phones emit electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range.Over the last few years, there has been a growing concern over the possible health hazards of mobile phone radiation. Continue reading
How Australia could be powered by solar technology
Australia’s confused solar policy June 1, 2011 PHYSORG.com By Mark Diesendorf “…….Scaling up to industrial-size solar The residential and commercial sectors are together responsible for about half of Australia’s electricity consumption. Almost the entire other half is industrial.If this demand were supplied by solar, it would need large solar power stations. Continue reading
News limited’s attack on Cate Blanchett does not reflect community’s attitude
Essential asked about trust in political coverage. Commercial radio was again the least trusted medium, with only 40% of voters saying they trusted it all or a lot, fewer than the 48% who said they had no trust or only a little trust. Newspapers fared better — 53% trusted them, better than commercial television, but still a distant third behind the ABC and SBS.
‘Carbon Cate’ and the confected outrage of News Limited, Crikey, 30 May 2011, by Bernard Keane News Limited’s hatchet job on Cate Blanchett hit all the right notes for this sort of confected outrage — indeed, it could be an exemplar of the form…….. interesting was the automatic connection made by News Ltd and its employee between the media outlet and the community.
Because a News Ltd editor was outraged, that necessarily meant the community was outraged, regardless of the fact that his employee couldn’t find any independent evidence of any outrage. Continue reading
Rio Tinto’s ERA Ranger uranium mine doomed by Climate Change?
Today’s Australian newspaper covers the very drastic threat now posed to Kakadu National Park by by flooding and sea level rises.
These climate changes mean that Kakadu is further threatened by radioactive waste leaks from theRanger uranium mine.
ERA’s uranium mine is surely no longer viable, and it is high time that RioTinto closed it down permanently and stopped this charade of Northern Territory uranium mining having an economic future – Christina Macpherson
Kakadu treasures ‘at mercy’ of climate-change floods * Sid Maher : The Australian * June 03, 2011 KAKADU faces more flooding and a loss of freshwater flora and fauna as a result of sea-level rises caused by climate change.
A report released yesterday by the Climate Change Department predicts that over the next 20 to 60 years, there will be more large floods on the South Alligator River, which is in Kakadu National Park.
The predictions are based on models predicting 143mm of sea-level rise by 2030 and 700mm of sea-level rise by 2070…… Kakadu treasures ‘at mercy’ of climate-change floods | The Australian
They still don’t know how to clean up Rum Jungle’s uranium wastes
A RUM MATTER, Brisbane Times, Damien Murphy and Aaron Cook June 1, 2011 Still glowing in the dark after all these years, the Rum Jungle uranium mine, 100 kilometres south of Darwin, needs another $7 million report to find out how to clean it up 40 years after it closed. The Greens’ Scott Ludlam told the Senate the money would be spent over four years just to determine how to deal with the defunct uranium mine’s toxic legacy. “The government can’t tell us yet what the final cost will be. The multi-million-dollar, publicly funded assessment is just the beginning.
Forty years after this mine closed, it continues to be an environmental graveyard for the Northern Territory. How many decades and how many millions of dollars will it take to clean up Ranger mine, or Olympic Dam?” The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trailer finds its way out
Lynas rare earths company downplays toxicity of thorium wastes
doubts on the thorium content as claimed by Lynas, saying that claims that rare earth ore imported from Australia had a low thorium content were a way to downplay its significance.
Toxicologist T. Jayabalan agreed, saying supporters of the Malaysian project were using the term ‘low-level radiation’ in an attempt to allay fears, but the fact remains that it’s still a form of radiation and it is carcinogenic.
A Battle for Rare Earths – The Diplomat, 2 June 11“……One issue, however, has emerged that will test that goodwill with Australia. The battle is over rare earths, the toxic by-products it produces and the Malaysian home one Australian company would like to find for it…..
But the neighbours aren’t happy, Continue reading
Confusion and deception over Lynas’ plans for toxic and radioactive wastes in Malaysia
The Lynas chairman Nicholas Curtis claims that they have permission from the government to store the waste onsite forever. On the other hand, AELB’s (Atomic Energy Licensing Board) director general Raja Datuk Abdul Aziz Raja refutes that claim in saying that the plant can only store waste temporarily. Foreign experts begin Lynas probe The Star Online: troon May 30, 2011 An Australian Co., Lynas, is building the REE refinery in Malaysia. However, that refinery can never be deemed as safe, because accidents happen. It is not only the thorium 232 radioactive alpha particles, those from the ores and the waste, that could accidentally be released into the air as dust, (lung cancer), and into water, (liver cancers etc.), but there is the possiblility of accidental release of highly toxic gases that are REE refining by-products, such as fluorine, radon, (radio-active), and sulphur dioxide. There will also be millions of gallons of waste water loaded with toxic cadmium and other carcinogenic, DNA damaging, heavy metals. Continue reading China’s bad record on rare earths radioactive contamination
simonthongwh, 2 June “………, China has secured more than 95 per cent of the rare earths market. …..Though China denies 
exploiting its market position, it has created stockpiles, is seeking overseas involvement in companies such as Lynas and operates an export quota system, comparable to that used by the OPEC oil cartel…….
though abundant in the Earth’s crust, extracting earths individually from a ”cocktail” of earths within ores, sands and clays is – at any price – ”a difficult, time-consuming, costly and dirty business”.
Until recently, at least, China’s pre-eminence in the business has been built on cheap labour and, according to critics, minimal health, safety and environmental precautions. China has now moved to impose stricter standards, and cracked down on illegal mining and smuggling, but the social, health and environmental legacy of existing projects is horrific.
Martin Ferguson taking over foreign policy from Kevin Rudd?
Mr Ferguson had written to an environmental non-government organisation saying he was in charge of nuclear policy………Mr Ferguson told the US embassy in Canberra in 2009 a deal to supply India with nuclear fuel could be reached in three to five years…..
“Which I suspect would be a big surprise to the foreign minister (Kevin Rudd) who signed off on the bilateral security agreements,” Senator Ludlam told AAP…It would no doubt be a surprise to Environment Minister Peter Garrett
Ferguson self-crowned nuke king: Greens, Sydney Morning Herald, Andrea Hayward,May 31, 2011 The rift between the Australian Greens and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is widening after another attack on the Labor frontbencher over nuclear policy.
Mr Ferguson had “crowned himself the emperor of nuclear policy”, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said after a senate estimates hearing on Tuesday. Continue reading
Australia’s Future Fund breaks Australian law with investments in nuclear weapons
the Future Fund’s investments chief appeared unaware that nuclear weapons are banned under Australian law.
The fund’s biggest holding is in Honeywell International (A$76.8 million), a company in charge of conducting simulated nuclear tests for the US government and helping to extend the lifecycle of America’s Trident II nuclear weapons.
Our Nuclear Sovereign Wealth | newmatilda.com, Tim Wright 1 June 11“ If the Future Fund is to comply with its own stated policy not to finance companies involved in activities that are unlawful in Australia, it should exclude nuclear arms makers from its investment universe.
The Future Fund would not be the first sovereign wealth fund to do so. The Norwegian Pension Fund and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund have both deemed it unethical to finance nuclear weapons companies, winding up all investments they once had. Continue reading
Uranium mine expansion to damage marine life, leave huge radioactive wastes
plans for the desalination plant would pose a major risk to local marine life……..”Under no circumstances should the governments 
involved in the assessment of the supplementary EIS approve of this desalination plant,”
it will dump more than two cubic kilometres of radioactive tailings over an area measuring up to 44 square kilometres,” Senator Ludlum said.
“The new open pit proposed will leak over eight million litres of radioactive liquids every day.”
OLympic Dam Mine Expansion ‘Staggering’ ninemsn news, 31 May 11 BHP Billiton’s proposed expansion at its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia would make it the biggest mine in the world. The figures involved are simply staggering……….the whole site, with its production and support facilities, will cover an area of about 30 square kilometres, a fair chunk of Adelaide’s metropolitan area…… Continue reading
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