Aboriginal Catholic Ministry welcomes U.N. probe into Northern Territory Intervention
On her arrival in Darwin, Ms Pillay was handed a petition signed by 6500 Australians calling for her support in restoring the rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory….Ms Pillay also said the Aborigines told her they were under pressure from the Govern-ment to sign 99-year leases over their land which they saw as “a land grab”…….The enabling legislation for the intervention expires in June next year.
UN NT probe, The Catholic Leader, 29 May 2011, By: Paul Dobbyn A TOP United Nations official’s Australian visit to investigate the Federal Government’s Northern Territory Intervention has been welcomed by the head of a ministry to Aboriginal Catholics. Continue reading
ANSTO making efforts to clean up its tarnished safety image
Nuclear agency safety culture ‘stuck in 70s’ | The Australian, Leigh Dayton, 25 May, 11,“……..Dr Paterson said he was instituting the “safety culture approach” adopted by the nuclear power industry. To assist what he called this “safety journey”, Sydney-based workplace resolutions company CoSolve has been hired. As well, recalcitrant staff are encouraged to move to another ANSTO job.Industry observers will be watching closely, following the Easter weekend incidents involving the handling of low-level laboratory waste and a batch of radioactive molybdenun-99. Dr Paterson disputed allegations they were not handled properly.ANSTO also disputed reports in The Australian last March that staff had been suspended after raising safety concerns and that others were bullied….”
Gigantic scale of BHP’s planned uranium mine expansion
It’s the end of the world as we know it The Drum, Ben Eltham23 May 11,“……If you want to understand the impact of the “China and India story” on Australia’s economy, one way to do so is to have a quick glance at BHP Billiton’s plans for Olympic Dam.
This month, when the South Australian government announced it was giving a provisional go-ahead to the expansion of Olympic Dam, some of the provisional figures about this development were released. This astonishing feat of human ingenuity will see the excavation of a kilometre of rock in order to mine an ore body with the chimerical value of $1 trillion. Just getting to the ore body will take four years of digging, and at its peak, the mine will consume more electricity than the city of Adelaide – in fact, it will eventual consume about 60 per cent of South Australia’s entire electricity supply.
It will require so much water that BHP is building a huge desalination plant in the upper Spencer Gulf that will make 200 mega-litres of water every day.
The mine will operate for 100 years, producing mainly copper, a key raw material for the hungry Asian factories that make your laptops and phones. So important is it to South Australia’s economic fortunes that South Australian premier Mike Rann told The Australian Financial Review recently that that Olympic Dam was the single biggest demand on his time…..http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2725060.html
The rush to dump Australia’s thorium and uranium wastes in Malaysia
Unknown to the public the poorly done Preliminary Environmental Impact Assessment (PEIA) for Lynas does not cover the radiation and health concerns……
- the space for underground wastes storage cells is very limited due to the groundwater being extremely close to the surface;
- the ground is susceptible to subsidence as it is a former peat swamp area…. CAP and SAM recommend that:
- The Lynas project be stopped in order to address the issues, including the Wastes Management Plan, which an Australian mining expert reported as being ‘yet to be disclosed by Lynas’;.
Lynas plant rushed ahead before radiation study Malaysia Kini 23 May 11 SM Mohamed Idris, president of Consumers Association of Penang and Sahabat Alam Malaysia — The Lynas plant in Kuantan is unravelling into a nightmare. The lanthamide concentrates (rare earths) from Australia that Lynas will import into Malaysia contain thorium AND uranium, which suggests the processing in Kuantan will produce massive amount of radioactive wastes. Continue reading
Why did Julian Assange get a more severe security notice than Gaddafi did?
Why did Julian Assange receive an Interpol Red Notice, but Gaddafi only an Orange? Independent Australia Tess Lawrenceinvestigates the murky world of Interpol exclusively for IA, asking some troubling questions and uncovering some startling facts.
- Why was Julian Assange – who has not yet been charged – given the most severe Red Notice by Interpol, when brutal dictator Muammar Gaddafi only received an Orange Notice?
- Do senior Interpol officials have a vendetta against Wikileaks and Julian Assange?
- Is the organisation and its Travel Document system fatally compromised?…….http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/politics/ia-investigation-interpol-and-julian-assanges-red-notice/
Australia’s democracy weakened by monopoly mass media
Concentrated media ownership: a crisis for democracy, Independent Australia, David Donovan, Australian mass media is concentrated into the hands of a very small number of proprietors. For example, 11 of the 12 major newspapers in Australia are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation or John Fairfax Holdings. In fact, Murdoch bestrides the Australian media landscape like a colossus—NewsCorp owns 8 of that 12, and also dominate the regional and suburban newspaper publishing industry, as well as owning a major slice of Foxtel.
The Australian people have less different voices to use upon which to make their decisions than almost any other place in the free world. And Rupert Murdoch is happy to wield his overwhelming power……Despite Australian media ownership being amongst the most concentrated in the world, at the behest of powerful proprietors, successive Australian Governments have gradually further relaxed media ownership rules….
With the extra demands placed on the dwindling number of main-stream journalists, they are increasingly reaching for stage managed events and press releases to create their stories. Pew reported that a staggering 86 per cent of stories were produced by power, with only 14% of stories resulting from actual journalism—research, investigation, interviewing sources, digging, et al.
We get most of our news from PR companies. Whilst journalism has declined, career opportunities within the public relations industry have boomed……Democracy is at stake, but the people in power aren’t listening because they are very happy with the way they can easily dominate the news cycle. Pew’s research showed that 63 per cent of stories came directly from Government officials…….http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/democracy/concentrated-media-ownership-a-crisis-for-democracy/
Renewable energy revolution – the timing is critical for Australia
The Critical Decade reinforces the science behind the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 judgement that global warming is caused by burning fossil-fuels for energy, and raises the question of possible links between recent severe floods and bushfires around Australia with human-induced climate change.
Australian Renewable Energy Revolution Critical By 2020, Renewable Energy News, by Energy Matters, 24 May 11, The author of a new report from the Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade: Climate science, risks and responses,” says the world is running out of time to prevent serious climate events caused by global warming and warns Australia should embrace a renewable energy revolution by 2020 to offset irreversible damage from climate change.
Point Lowly desalination plant – profit for BHP, destruction to environment
the Rann Government’s lack of foresight is being clouded by the short term financial windfall created by the mine. “It’s just the cheapest, nastiest alternative,” said Melville-Smith. “There is no planning for the future of South Australia,
The Point Lowly desal plant that’s got SA squabbling Crikey Esther Ooi 23 May 11: BHP Billiton refuses to back down from its controversial plans to build a desalination plant at Point Lowly, South Australia. The plant forms part of the proposed Olympic Dam mine expansion, but fears are growing over the possible risk of significant environmental damage.
“The fact is, it is just the worst place you could put a desalination plant,” Dr. Andrew Melville-Smith, chairperson of the Save Point Lowly group, told Crikey. He also says there will be severe ecological damage on Point Lowly’s recreational, coastal and living areas. Continue reading
Australian govt silent on Lynas dumping radioactive waste in Malaysia
“Mitsubishi took advantage of the non-existence of authorities checking licencing facilities of this nature in Malaysia,” …… “Lynas has a similar modus operandi. It would not be cost-effective to produce in Australia, and more importantly there is lax enforcement in Malaysia and so Lynas is able to operate here…..”The Australian government is silent knowing full well that the rare earth ore will be brought from Mount Weld in Australia to be processed in Gebeng and the finished products will be exported overseas while the radioactive waste dumped in Gebeng,”
Down To Rare Earths Newmatilda.com, 20 May 11, “………Why are the residents so concerned? The process of rare earth refinery has radioactive by-products, including thorium — which is why Lynas can’t process the mineral closer to the mine in Australia. Residents are concerned about the cost to the environment and to the health of citizens of dumping huge amounts of radioactive waste. Continue reading
Warning on expansion of Olympic Dam uranium mine – report from the ground
“Recent research from Monash University has demonstrated that the mine could operate profitably exporting copper, gold and silver but not uranium. We would like to see the radioactive risks left out of this mine expansion. It is incredibly disappointing that BHP continues to peddle the fiction that uranium export is necessary and unavoidable.”
ROXBY EIS CONCERNS ENVIRONMENTALISTS FROM THE NORTH TO THE SOUTH 23 May 11, The annual Friends of the Earth’s Radioactive Exposure Tour has visited the Olympic Dam mine a week after BHP Billiton‘s Supplementary EIS was released.
The expansion plans which include a 3.5km X 4.1km open pit mine have triggered concerns with environmentalists from Darwin to Melbourne. Continue reading
Australia’s Climate Commission warns on need for urgent action
Climate jury finds dire need for action to slow warming, Sydney Morning Herald, Ben Cubby, May 23, 2011 THE evidence for global warming is now ”exceptionally strong and beyond doubt” and actions this decade will determine the impact of climate change for the rest of the century, according to the first big report produced by Australia’s Climate Commission. Continue reading
Malaysian protest – Lynas, take back your radioactive wastes to Australia
300 Malaysians protest plant on radiation fears TODAYonline May 20, 2011, KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – About 300 Malaysians have staged a peaceful protest against plans for an Australian-built rare earth refinery amid fears of radioactive pollution.The plant being built by Australian miner Lynas in eastern Malaysia ………..Protesters including opposition lawmakers marched Friday from Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin Towers to a street near the Australian High Commission. Some carried banners that read “Go back to Australia” and “Malaysia not a radioactive waste dump site.”…..TODAYonline | Business | 300 Malaysians protest plant on radiation fears
BHP’s desalination plant a threat to Upper Spencer Gulf ecology
at left – the unique and beautiful Giant Cuttlefish faces extinction by the desalination plant
Green fears aired over Olympic Dam mine plans ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) May 20, 2011 Concerns have been raised about BHP Billiton’s plan to expand the Olympic Dam mine.A fishing group in Upper Spencer Gulf says BHP Billiton’s revised plans do not go far enough to protect the environment.In its revised environmental impact statement, BHP confirmed it will go ahead with a desalination plant at Point Lowly. BHP also plan to build an unloading facility to barge machinery further up the gulf.
Robin Sharp from the Coastal Homes Association says he is worried the region’s ecosystem will be in danger.”We’ve already got an invasive oyster up here that we believe has been introduced by shipping over the last 20 or 30 years, pretty much overrun the whole razorfish intertidal zone, so it will pretty much wipe out all the razorfish in this area,” Mr Sharp said.Green fears aired over Olympic Dam mine plans – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Rural Australia’s enthusiasm for solar and for feed-in tariff
“A sensibly designed scheme would make Australia a world leader in solar power.”…The feed-in tariff scheme’s cancellation comes despite huge interest in solar power across the State.
Wanted: sensible solar, The Land RICHARD FOX, 21 May, 2011 “…….“Australia has an excellent resource for solar, particularly west of the Dividing Range, and consumers have an enthusiasm for renewable energy. Continue reading
New South Wales rally for solar feed in tariff to re-open
Australian Solar Energy Society holds rally to demand re-opening of New South Wales feed-in tariff Solar Server 20 May 11 On May 18th, 2011, the Australian Solar Energy Society (AuSES) organized a rally in Sydney, Australia to ask the New South Wales (NSW) Government to re-open its Solar Bonus program.The NSW Government has announced that it will not accept applications to the program filed after April 28th, 2011, and has reduced the existing feed-in tariff level for the highest tier.
“AuSES and NSW homeowners are calling for certainty and security,” stated AuSES CEO John Grimes. “The rally is the last chance for solar, because businesses and livelihoods are on the line.”…KW20 | Australian Solar Energy Society holds rally to demand re-opening of New South Wales feed-in tariff – SolarServer
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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