Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Julian Assange files new appeal fighting extradition to US.

Washington Examiner. by Ryan King, Breaking News Reporter, July 01, 2022  

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is appealing the United Kingdom’s order to extradite him to the United States.

Two appeals were filed in the High Court of Justice in London to challenge the extradition, and the court will decide whether to evaluate the case, Assange’s attorney Gareth Peirce announced, according to the Wall Street Journal……………………………………

Friday was the deadline for Assange to appeal the extradition order, according to the BBC. He is being held at Belmarsh prison in London.

His lawyers claimed that he could face up to 175 years behind bars if he stands trial in the U.S., but the U.S. argued he will likely face between four and six years.

A myriad of groups championing freedom of the press urged the U.K. not to extradite Assange, arguing that doing so could set a bad precedent and hamper press freedoms in the future. For example, the International Federation of Journalists has expressed concerns the move could pose a “chilling effect” on journalists worldwide. 

“The US pursuit of Assange against the public’s right to know poses a grave threat to the Fundamental tenets of democracy, which are becoming increasingly fragile worldwide,” the group said. “Irrespective of personal views on Assange, his extradition will have a chilling effect, with all journalists and media workers at risk.”

“The case sets a dangerous precedent that members of the media, in any country, can now be targeted by governments, anywhere in the world, to answer for publishing information in the public interest,” the group added.https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/julian-assange-files-appeal-fighting-extradition

July 4, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, civil liberties, politics international | Leave a comment

Mr Albanese goes to Madrid: Australia on the alliance path to Global Nato

Albanese’s trip to the leaders’ summit of a US-dominated alliance centred on the other side of the world will prepare the way for deeper Australian integration into a broadened Nato.

Above all, in one respect Mr Albanese’s rush to Madrid is not so different from his predecessor’s cajoling of Washington and London to help out a mate with the anachronistic PR nonsense of AUKUS and the gift horse of a ‘privileged’ offer to allow Australia to buy massively expensive American or conceivably British nuclear-powered submarines.


https://johnmenadue.com/mr-albanese-goes-to-madrid-australia-on-the-alliance-path-to-global-nato/ By Richard TanterJun 30, 2022, While most eyes rest on the remains of Scott Morrison’s failed attempt at a khaki election through last September’s announcement of a backward-looking AUKUS alliance, prime minister Anthony Albanese’s trip to Madrid for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit points to a much more significant shift in Australia’s alliance with the United States – ‘a global alliance of democracies’, aka Global NATO.

 Scott Morrison’s AUKUS centring on agreement with the US and UK to provide Australia with submarine nuclear propulsion evoked derision about its back to the 1950s strategic vision and despair about what promises to be the worst and most consequential of Australia’s numerous recent politically-driven defence procurement choices.

The submarines debacle apart, AUKUS for the most part remains a matter of two or three lines of unpromising promises in media releases, largely dealing with matters already the subject of bilateral agreements or dimly-seen possible futures like quantum computing for defence purposes.

The most recent, if somewhat limp, nudge to keep the Albanese government on the nuclear submarine track came at the National Press Club when the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove mocked an informed questioner concerned about the deal’s implications for the tattered nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This widely-held worry – if first Australia, then serious nuclear weapon-wannabes Brazil and South Korea – was in fact unimportant Fullilove replied, since experts such as former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans have assured us are under control.

At the same time the US has just added its confidence booster to this process with a bill before Congress for an Australia-U.S. Submarine Officer Pipeline Act that would allow two RAN submariners a year to attend a seven-week nuclear reactor training, take the US Navy’s Submarine Officer Basic Course, and then deploy aboard a US nuclear-powered submarine.

This only leaves the imponderables of deciding the strategic rationale of the mission to which the submarines are to be solution, the actual technical requirements that would be entailed by that mission, the design of the submarine, the choice of country and lead contractors for the build, the development of a full-scale naval nuclear-engineering safety and maintenance regime, and a brief discussion of the lifetime costs likely to be more than a couple of multiples of the $100 billion estimate for the French submarines.

What could possibly go wrong?

And that’s before any discussion of opportunity costs – even for alternative contenders for defence spending, let alone meeting non-military requirements for a secure Australia – of the lifetime costs of a commitment to nuclear submarines that are likely to move towards the half trillion dollar mark.

But Albanese’s trip to the leaders’ summit of a US-dominated alliance centred on the other side of the world will prepare the way for deeper Australian integration into a broadened Nato.

For over a decade US and Nato officials and Australian defence advisors have been calling for ‘a global alliance of democracies’. The Australian prime minister, together with the leaders of Nato’s other ‘Asia-Pacific partners’ from Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, will participate in the launch of the first formal iteration of Global Nato with Nato’s Strategic Concept 2022.

Two decades of high tempo deployment of Australian military under Nato auspices in the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East have conditioned the Australian Defence Force to close operational coordination and interoperability with US-led Nato ground, air, and naval forces.

Defence planners have gradually integrated Nato into high-level Australian strategic planning, first as an ‘Asian partner’ Nato along with Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, and recently as an ‘Enhanced Strategic Partner’.

Nato’s centrality to the hyper-multinational International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan provided the first and possibly most important Australian escalator into Nato.

While replete with consequences as lethal for the people of Afghanistan as they were dysfunctional for all of the alliance militaries involved, ISAF, together with the parallel US-orchestrated Combined Maritime Forces in the western Indian Ocean from 2002, provided deep operational experience and ‘learnings’ for a Nato-centred US-led coalition on a scale approaching a multilateral ‘global’ presence.

Nato’s Strategic Concept 2022 is to be formalised at the Madrid Summit, representing a maturation of US post-Cold War planning for a major step towards an integrated global defence alliance after seventy years of US-dominated Nato in Europe and the limitations of bilateral hub-and-spokes alliances in Asia.

Most importantly, apart from integrating its Asian partners more closely, the new Strategic Concept is to prepare Nato ‘against all threats, from all directions’.

Full membership of Nato for any of these Asian partners will be a long way off, not least because the governing institutions of a now 30 member country nuclear alliance will need adjustment, even assuming there is no uncomfortable internal opposition as Turkey has mounted against the admission of Sweden.

For the present, Australia, Japan and Korea – and possibly New Zealand – will be drawn into Nato’s seemingly endless rounds of political, diplomatic, military and civil society consultations (though the last is in practice a most attenuated and selective grouping of actual national and international civil society).

US-led military interoperability drives will be coupled with injunctions for closer political and strategic planning coordination between Canberra and Brussels (aka Washington).

But there can be little doubt of the ultimate goal for Washington in the construction of ‘an alliance of democracies’ with global reach.

The follies of AUKUS distract attention from the scale of the quiet achievement of the United States in rescuing Nato from post-Cold War obsolescence, latterly assisted greatly by the Russian war against Ukraine.

Drawing the line from Kyiv to Taipei, ‘we know’, the Prime Minister said, ‘that there is an alliance that has been reached as well between Russia and China. There are implications for our region, given the strategic competition that is in our region, which is why this Nato summit comes at such a critical time’.

As Mr Albanese rightly put it Russia’s ‘brutal invasion is against the rule of law’, and carries implications for ‘all of those who cherish democracy, who cherish the rule of law, and who cherish the rights of nations to be sovereign’.

Yet Australia needs to tread carefully.

The warm glow of rhetorical solidarity with Ukraine facing World War 2-scale Russian attack tends to veil the fact that multiple US-auspiced Nato interventions in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan have led, via great destruction, to evident defeat or specious ‘mission accomplished’.

Moreover the list of Nato members and partners does not provide an unsullied list of countries honoured for their respect for democracy, rule of law, or sovereignty.

Mr Albanese might like to chat about the rule of law with Victor Orbán from Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from Turkey, or indeed with Boris Johnson – or mull over the battered state of American democracy with Joe Biden.

Perhaps a stopover by his RAAF plane in Diego Garcia might prompt some thoughts about British respect for the rule of law – in certain respects, such as the forced dispossession of the indigenous Chagos Islanders to make way for a giant US military base often used by Australia, more egregious than China’s violations of international law somewhat further east.

Above all, in one respect Mr Albanese’s rush to Madrid is not so different from his predecessor’s cajoling of Washington and London to help out a mate with the anachronistic PR nonsense of AUKUS and the gift horse of a ‘privileged’ offer to allow Australia to buy massively expensive American or conceivably British nuclear-powered submarines.

By all means, let us make common cause with governments we find congenial – when our interests do in fact genuinely align. Defence coordination and cooperation with democratic states in our principal areas of strategic interest is a must for Australia. The problem is that Europe is not such an area, and neither was the Middle East, Afghanistan, nor Nato’s latest fronts in North Africa and the Sahel.

Thinking about an alliance of democracies is not inherently foolish. The problem comes when the form of periodic elections is confused with the substance of democracy. It may seem carping to point to the Orbans and Erdoğans of Nato, but with Marine Le Pen possibly just one more election away from the Elysée, the authoritarian threat in Europe is palpably real.

Remarking on a British prime minister’s announced willingness to trash international agreements for political gain at the risk of re-starting a war in Northern Ireland may seem unoriginal, it is scarcely beside the point with talk of new alliances built on rule of law.

Most seriously of all, we should be talking about the risk of a precipitous decline, or even collapse, of democracy in the United States extremely seriously. Appalling as it is, the Supreme Court decision abolishing US women’s rights to control their bodies is but the latest blow to the unexamined claim for the United States to still be called a global model of democracy.

The view in Canberra seems to be that the US alliance has survived the threat of Trump, so it’s back to business as usual, and onward to ever closer union – with the path leading now through Brussels. Yet the dangers to Australia from unconsidered reliance on a country with both systemic dysfunction and deep anti-democratic impulses at its heart should not be ignored.

The common element between the swooning Australian interest in Global Nato and the Morrison fiasco with AUKUS and the manifold problems of its submarine element is that in both cases a considered assessment of whether Australian national interests align with those of the United States – in this case in the guise of Nato – is absent.

The new Australian foreign minister has started a commendable reset of Australian regional relations in an effort to recover, at least as a start, from the wreckage of a decade of coalition policy.

In a series of important statements on foreign policy in recent years Penny Wong eloquently has made the case for understanding that a proper consideration of our national interest cannot be separated from the long and sometimes difficult process of working out who we are.

Interests very largely flow from identity, especially when it comes to reading a map of threats and opportunities. Why then would the first foreign policy ventures of a new prime minister be tied to an alliance with the other side of the world – for Australia, the old world?

July 2, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, reference | Leave a comment

AUKUS nuclear submarine plan to be revealed by March 2023

ABC By defence correspondent Andrew Greene 29 June 22, 

Key points:

July 2, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Spinbusting the propaganda of SMR Nuclear Technology’s Tony Irwin as he spruiks for Small Nuclear Reactors for Australia

First to nuclear power, which, we should remember, has been effectively banned in Australia since the late 1990s.

On page three of the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney, columnist Piers Akerman wrote an “exclusive” news
story showing “nuclear energy is cheaper” than coal, gas, solar or wind. Such a claim would overturn pretty much all serious analysis of electricity costs around the globe. So where did it come from? The
International Energy Agency maybe, or perhaps the CSIRO?

No. Akerman quoted “new data” from Tony Irwin, who is a nuclear industry veteran and a technical director at a consultancy company with “specialist industry knowledge on the procurement and development of nuclear technologies” with a focus on small modular reactors (SMR).

But one problem with using Irwin’s numbers is they are based on an estimate of the cost of one
particular SMR design which has not yet been built and won’t produce power until at least 2029.

Guardian 30th June 2022

 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/30/net-zero-nuance-commentary-on-decarbonising-the-grid-misses-the-mark-on-batteries-and-nuclear

July 2, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Oh, for a Prime Minister honest about Australia’s security!

 https://johnmenadue.com/oh-for-a-prime-minister-honest-about-australias-security/1 By Mike Gilligan, Jun 29, 2022,

How did it come to this? Australia’s defence policy has been baldly sacrificed to US interests via AUKUS with little public discourse.

Mostly, those that present as security experts have mumbled support as the US entangles Australia in its planning for war with China. Not a word from the serried rows of professors, publicly funded, who otherwise jostle for public exposure.

For five decades Australia’s security policy has centred on defending our territory independently. Self-reliance has been the prudent and rational posture for Australian governments with ANZUS deliberately avoiding a commitment to armed response by the US in the event of attack on Australia.

Implementing that strategy has been a big task – intellectually, financially and managerially, requiring all our defence spending to be directed to that objective. Whenever we have chosen to join the US in its global wars we did so with modest contributions drawn from forces created for our own priorities, measured to signal political support but not detract from our own objective. Now that policy has been abruptly buried with AUKUS requiring our taxes to heavily fund US strategic denial of China – building nuclear submarines of little value for our own needs to fit with US planning for military conflict with China.

How could Australia’s security policy move largely unremarked from an earnest and internationally respected self-defence policy to mounting aggressive deployments into China’s adjacent waters, at mind numbing cost? Former Prime Minister Paul Keating was an early and insightful critic of AUKUS. Just a few weeks after it was announced, Keating addressed the National Press Club, in November last year. He began by inferring that it was because mainstream media coverage of security is so weak in Australia he felt compelled to share his perspective. Keating’s reservation was reinforced by the level of questions from the floor at the end. Keating made the then striking claim that Australia was to build nuclear submarines specifically to attack China in its waters. He observed that this had been admitted effectively by Australia’s ambassador to Washington, Arthur Sinodinos. The submarines would be designed to attack China’s nuclear missile submarines which are China’s second-strike deterrent to US nuclear attack on China.

So, Australia is being set up as a key factor in the nuclear war equation of the US and China. Broadly, Keating argued that China deserves respect. It now has a bigger economy than the US by 25% and can be expected to expand that gap in coming decades. China has shown it wants to participate in global structures and be part of reform. China has a lot to offer and is not contriving to run the world. Its security concern is to push US sea and air military forces away from its borders, noting US and other forces (including Australian) exercise in the South China Sea. The more senior of the serried professors, Paul Dibb, quickly took up the pen disparagingly against Keating, observing that Keating “gave the strong impression of being a sleepwalker”. Dibb is thereby suggesting it has long been common knowledge that Australia is preparing for war against China. If so, that is news to most Australians, including those who have a more-than-cursory interest in our security affairs.

On Thursday last week, Dibb was delivered by ABC TV into the living rooms of Australians via the 7:30 Report, unannounced and without context, just prior to Leigh Sales’ interview with Prime Minister Albanese. His hectoring message was that Defence should have first priority from the Government, to ensure that it counters an “aggressive and expansionist” China. Urgency was implied as China could exploit a “window of opportunity” with the US distracted by the Ukraine. I suspect most viewers thought that this was just more of the banality we enjoy on Thursday nights from Sammy J. But it was shabby, ABC.

Dibb’s professional pedigree lies in Cold War intelligence. It has been claimed that he enjoyed unusual access to sensitive classified material for years. In this regard Dibb should now be obsolete. These days he writes for an online ASPI platform where his paragraphs settle comfortably alongside trademarks of weapons systems purveyors. The tone is invariably unsettling and receptive to greater defence spending. Yet big media conduits such as the Press Club and ABC television, which provide him a national platform at prime time, offer no declaration of interests.

Another professor, Rory Medcalf, head of the “National Security College “ at the ANU with staff of about sixty, writes and comments regularly. His recent book “Contest for the Indo-Pacific” is engaging but the substance is a worry. In discussing Australia, Medcalf shows poor comprehension of the realities of Australia’s defence policy post ANZUS: “ Australia relies acutely on … in the ultimate crisis, the expectation under the ANZUS Treaty that overwhelming (US) force would come to its aid “. In fact Australia’s policy has been quite the reverse – to have no such expectation of US force intervening on our behalf under ANZUS . Even security hobbyists know Medcalf Is at odds with decades of Australian defence policy centred on self-reliance, deriving from the ANZUS negotiation by Spender, its ratification by Congress and subsequent affirmations. This failure is not of some slippery nuance. Ignorance of a key risk factor in our security is more than disappointing at his level. Only by getting ANZUS right can we address our security risk.

In public commentary Medcalf seems as anchored ideologically as the daily media, lining up with China as a threat to be constrained. How can Australians understand security without credible public thought leaders? Recognising the deficiency is a start. Balanced analytical commentary should aim for Australians to be confident that their governments comprehend and are dealing with the risks in ANZUS. At present few realise that any Australian government joining with the US in applying military force against China on the assumption that the US will be with us “all the way”, is foolhardy.

What an achievement it would be for a serving prime minister to inform Australians honestly of our ultimate security risk under ANZUS. Prime Minister Albanese might ponder that as he sits amongst NATO leaders in Madrid, none of whom carry similar risk to him because they share a real security treaty with the US. And perhaps the Prime Minister might realise that Australia, in being treated differently, can learn from Ukraine’s experience as a qualified friend of the US.

Dr Mike Gilligan worked for 20 years in defence policy and evaluating military proposals for development, including time in the Pentagon on military balances in Asia.

June 30, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international | Leave a comment

Harsher anti-protest laws targeting environmentalists are putting greed before green 

Guardian, Bob Brown 27 June 22,

Penalties for peaceful action are now the same as for aggravated assault.

Last Friday dozens of armed New South Wales police officers raided a camp near Sydney and arrested two environmentalists. One was Aunty Caroline Kirk, an Aboriginal elder. She was charged with “wilfully obstructing and intimidating police”.

“I can’t run, I can’t climb,” she said. “All I can do … is teach my culture. Why are they doing this?”

The answer lies in the showdown of our age between greed and green.

At the heart of this is greenophobia, the fear of things green, including environmentalists. It involves the blighted idea that people should be stopped from taking action to defend the environment, especially if it gets in the way of making money.

It has infected the world of natural resource extractors and they have found the established political parties around the world extra helpful. So, in this year’s Queen’s speech, Boris Johnson announced a bill to jail peaceful UK protesters for up to 10 years. The proposal of those measures was one of the triggers that brought 400 alarmed scientists out to support environmental activists last year.

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is a greenophobe who is letting the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous cultures be destroyed. His nation has descended into environmental lawlessness in which two rainforest defenders, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira, were murdered this month. Globally, 220 environmentalists were murdered last year and thousands more were injured, terrorised or imprisoned. Most of the perpetrators have not been arrested or charged.

MMG’s lobbying helped influence the Tasmanian parliament to vote last week for harsher penalties for the defenders of the Tarkine and its giant masked owls. A clear majority of Tasmanian MPs want MMG to get its toxic waste dump in the Tarkine and Tasmania’s defenders of nature to get a cell in Risdon prison.

Tasmania’s laws match those of NSW, with penalties of up to $11,000 for peaceful environmental protest and double that, or two and a half years in jail, for a second offence. Had these laws been in place in other jurisdictions at other times, the Franklin River would be dammed, the Daintree rainforest razed and much of Kakadu national park mined.

Victoria has also introduced legislation, one aim of which is to deter scientists who have previously gone into the highlands and found forests with protected species – such as the greater glider and the state’s critically endangered faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum – being logged. That’s illegal. While the loggers faced no charges, the intention of the new laws is to stop or arrest those scientists next time.

In Newcastle last year a young man was sentenced to a year in jail for delaying a coal train. The court did not hear the assessment of the former chief scientist at Nasa who told the US Congress that, in this world of dangerous global heating, transporting coal is a criminal activity.  

Greenophobia is percolating down. On the Monday before Aunty Caroline’s arrest, 100 or so officers raided Blockade Australia’s camp for peaceful protest at Colo near Sydney after four undercover officers who failed to identify themselves “feared for their lives” – though the police had the guns and the people in the camp, including the children, had none……………………………..

Corporate PR machines, with the rightwing media ready to go, are developing greenophobia to divert attention to their business wellbeing and away from the graver threat of the collapse of Earth’s biosphere, including through global heating and species extinctions. As the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, put it: “What we are stopping, or criminalising even further, are protests that shut down major economic activity.” It’s money before the planet.22

The new federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is now Australia’s most powerful environmentalist. She will decide if MMG should treat its toxic wastes inside or outside the Tarkine rainforest. In doing so she will also decide if Tasmania’s environmentalists will face the new draconian sentences there. Those penalties, for peaceful environmental action, are now the same as for aggravated assault or for threatening neighbours with a shotgun.

Such laws may be tested in the high court as earlier laws were, after I was among those arrested in Tasmania’s Lapoinya rainforest in 2017. The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that… The court found those laws unconstitutional because they took away the right to peaceful protest. Meanwhile the Lapoinya forest was flattened and burnt, along with its rare wildlife. No one was arrested for that.

If MMG’s needless waste dump is given the go-ahead I, for one, will help defend that vital forest, its owls, kingfishers and Tasmanian devils. They can take us out of nature but they can’t take nature out of us.

As for the “terrifying” Aunty Caroline, I would like to meet her and thank her. She may not be able to run or climb but she is an inspiration.  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/27/harsher-anti-protest-laws-targeting-environmentalists-are-putting-greed-before-green-bob-brown

  • Bob Brown is a former senator and leader of the Australian Greens and is patron of the Bob Brown Foundation……

June 28, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, civil liberties, environment | Leave a comment

Assange’s wife sounds alarm over his treatment

Assange’s wife sounds alarm over his treatment,  https://www.rt.com/news/557738-assange-wife-treatment-extradition-us/ 27 June 22.WikiLeaks founder was subjected to ‘especially cruel’ treatment after extradition to US was approved in UK, Stella Moris has said.

Julian Assange was strip-searched and moved to a bare cell on the very day the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved his extradition to the US, the WikiLeaks founder’s wife, Stella Moris, told journalists on Thursday. The 50-year-old remained there for a weekend as prison guards searched his own cell, she added.

“Prison is a constant humiliation but what happened on Friday felt especially cruel,” Moris, who married Assange in March, has said, adding that the guards had told their inmate that it had all been done “for his own protection.”

According to Moris, the guards were looking for any things that could be used by a person to take their own life. In the bare cell where Assange was placed, the guards checked his status every hour until he was allowed to return to his cell on Tuesday.

The WikiLeaks founder currently remains in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison in south-eastern London, having been placed there in April 2019 as the UK was deciding on his extradition to the US. On June 17, Patel approved his transfer to US custody.

A British court had initially refused the extradition request on the grounds that Assange may otherwise kill himself, or that he’d be subjected to inhumane treatment in US detention. But Washington successfully appealed the ruling, offering the UK assurances that the Australian’s rights would be observed.

“The fact he is imprisoned while this outrageous extradition proceeds is a grave injustice in itself. He needs to deal with all that, while preparing for a complex appeal to the High Court,” Moris said. Assange still has a right to appeal the decision within 14 days of June 17.

“This kind of thing never becomes more tolerable. Any person would find it degrading. The mental strain on Julian is enormous as it is, having to process what is essentially a death sentence,” Moris said, adding that extradition to the US would “drive him to take his own life.”

It is not some “regular discussion about mental health,” she has insisted, adding that “we are talking about driving a person to take their own life.”

Moris, who has two children with Assange, has vowed to “use every available avenue” and “every waking hour fighting for Julian until he is free.” John Rees, a leading member of the campaign aimed at making the authorities free Assange has also branded Patel’s ruling “illegal” and said the WikiLeaks founder’s supporters “need to redouble our efforts to stop the extradition.”

The UK Home Office said last week that the British courts “have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange,” adding that they also believed his rights would be observed.

Assange has been a target for the US since 2010, when WikiLeaks published a trove of State Department cables and Pentagon documents that depicted alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has since been accused of attempting to hack Pentagon computers and is charged under America’s Espionage Act, over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified materials. If extradited to the US, he might face up to 175 years behind bars.

June 28, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, civil liberties | Leave a comment

ERA looks at funding options for Ranger

 https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/era-looks-at-funding-options-for-ranger/?fbclid=IwAR0d8ZOC6Sw7adxsNmSSEDnOWzZ319hiuqJB4clv0bQtKX5INnhiTtalqeY June 27, 2022 Ray Chan Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) is reviewing all available options to ensure that the forecast increase in the cost of rehabilitation of its Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory will be adequately funded.

In January 2021, ERA – in which Rio Tinto holds 86.3 per cent shares – ceased all mining and processing activities at Ranger after 40 years of operation. It was Australia’s longest continually operating uranium oxide producer.

ERA said it was committed to delivering a positive legacy for Traditional Owners and for all Australians for the future, with its closure plan outlining the path for progressive rehabilitation, which began in 1981, with final rehabilitation to be completed by January 2026.

But given ERA’s current cash on hand position, it said an urgent interim funding solution was required.

The company is engaging with its substantial shareholders in relation to a potential interim entitlement offer to raise ongoing funding for the rehabilitation of the project, the size, price and structure of which are still to be determined.

The operations of ERA are located on Aboriginal land and surrounded by, but separate from, Kakadu National Park. ERA respectfully acknowledges the Mirarr, Traditional Custodians of the land on which the Ranger project area is situated.

During its lifetime, Ranger produced in excess of 132,000 tonnes of uranium oxide.

June 28, 2022 Posted by | Northern Territory, uranium, wastes | Leave a comment

A new era as Australia joins historic UN nuclear ban meeting

.

 https://johnmenadue.com/australia-joins-historic-un-nuclear-ban-meeting/ By Tilman RuffJun 27, 2022,

This week in Vienna, Australia joined a landmark gathering of eighty-three governments to further implement and develop the treaty banning nuclear weapons.

In a stunning demonstration of resolve, goodwill and cooperation, with no shred or adversarial politics, the meeting adopted a realistic  action plan that breaks new ground. It maps out collaborative programs of work led by different states in key areas of treaty obligations: promoting treaty membership and norms, complementarity with other nuclear treaties, disarmament processes including verification, and assisting victims and remediating (where possible) environments harmed by nuclear weapons use and testing. States also made a  political declaration that is arguably the strongest and clearest rejection of nuclear weapons ever made by a multilateral gathering.

Five years ago, by a vote of 122 to 1 in the United Nations in New York, the first treaty to ban the worst weapons of mass destruction was born: the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). For its role in bringing about the treaty, the Melbourne-born International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) became the first Australian-born entity to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The treaty entered into legal force last year, and this week for the first time, governments gathered to discuss and decide how to promote and implement the treaty.

The Australian delegation to Vienna was led by NSW Labor MP Susan Templeman, federal member for Macquarie, who last year said Australia “can and should lead international efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons”. She  told the Blue Mountains Gazette this week: “It was great to be in Austria to observe the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on behalf of Australia. … Australia shares the ambition of TPNW states parties of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

The Vienna meeting from 21-23 June was the first intergovernmental gathering focused on addressing the threat of nuclear weapons since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and multiple threats by President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons. Other “nuclear-endorsing” states attending the meeting as observers included NATO members Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. Sweden, Finland and Switzerland also joined.

Shamefully, the previous Australian government boycotted the negotiation of and opposed the TPNW, the first time Australia has ever boycotted multilateral disarmament negotiations. This stands in stark contrast to Australia under governments both Labor and Coalition having joined the treaties that ban biological and chemical weapons, landmines and cluster munitions.

In 2018, the ALP adopted unanimously a national policy platform commitment to sign and ratify the TPNW. It reaffirmed that policy at its national conference in 2021. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a long-term champion of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and moved the new policy in 2018. Over three-quarters of all members of the new government have personally backed the treaty. In this they have strong public support – opinion polls over recent years have consistently shown 70-80% of the public want Australia to join the TPNW – in the most recent poll 76% of those asked want Australia to join the nuclear weapon ban, with only 6% opposed (Ipsos, March 2022).

Fifty-five Australian former ambassadors and high commissioners this week released an open  letter to PM Albanese urging him to sign and ratify the TPNW without delay.

The meeting in Vienna and a new more constructive era in Australia’s approach to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation could not come at a more critical time. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accompanied by repeated threats to use nuclear weapons, the world faces the greatest evident danger of nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Russia’s threats should shatter any misplaced sense of complacency or denial that somehow the risk of nuclear war is a faded relic of the past that no longer demands our urgent attention.

Russia’s threats have upended decades-old assumptions about security and deterrence, with Russia using nuclear weapons not to deter but to coerce and intimidate, and provide a cover for war crimes and gross violations of international law and human rights.

But as former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said, “There are no right hands for the wrong weapons.” Every day that thousands of nuclear weapons remain launch-ready, two thousand of them ready to be launched within minutes, they remain the most acute existential threat to humanity and our planet. The leading scientists behind the Doomsday Clock have set it at 100 seconds to midnight, further forward than ever before. None of the nine states wielding nuclear weapons are disarming or negotiating for disarmament as they are obligated to do. To the contrary, all are engaged in upgrading and modernising their arsenals with new, more accurate, flexible and ‘usable’ weapons. Kinds of nuclear weapons the world has never seen before are being developed and deployed, including hypersonic missiles, nuclear-armed cruise missiles powered by nuclear reactors, and nuclear torpedos. And the number of usable weapons in military stockpiles is again increasing.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in a  report released last week documented that last year the nine nuclear-armed countries spent US$82.4 billion (A$116 billion) on nuclear weapons – A$220,000 per minute – an inflation-adjusted increase of A$9.2 billion from 2020.

The day before the treaty meeting, the Australian delegation also joined a  Conference on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons hosted by Austria, which provided compelling updated evidence from scientists, emergency responders and other experts on the catastrophic consequences and growing risks of use of nuclear weapons.

The TPNW provides our best hope to control our worst weapons, and is currently the only bright light in an otherwise bleak and darkening nuclear landscape. Hopefully this early positive step will be promptly followed by the new government signing and working towards Australia ratifying the treaty, in line with its pre-election commitments. 

TILMAN RUFF

Tilman Ruff AO is Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985); and co-founder and founding international and Australian Chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the first to an entity born in Australia.

June 27, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A big win for Yeelirrie — Beyond Nuclear International

Indigenous community keeps door closed to uranium mining in Australia

A big win for Yeelirrie — Beyond Nuclear International Cameco delays mean uranium mining permit not extended
By Maggie Wood, Acting Executive Director, Conservation Council of Western Australia
On April 6, we celebrated a huge step forward in our sustained campaign to keep the door closed to uranium mining in Yeelirrie. 
The Minister for Environment has rejected an application by the Canadian mining company Cameco to extend their environmental approval for the Yeelirrie uranium mine. 

The approval was controversially granted in 2017 in the dying days of the Barnett government and required Cameco to commence mining within five years. They have failed to do this and now they have failed in their bid to have this time extended.

This is a huge win for the local area, the communities nearby and for life itself. The special and unique lives of the smallest of creatures, endemic subterranean fauna found nowhere else on earth, would have most likely been made extinct had this project gone ahead, according to the WA EPA. 

For over five decades Traditional Custodians from the Yeelirrie area have fought to protect their Country and community from uranium mining. Over this time they have stood up and overcome three major multinational mining companies – WMC, BHP and now Cameco.

We have stood united with communities to say no to uranium mining and this consistent rejection of the nuclear industry in WA has helped secure the sensible decision to not extend the approval.

“It is possible to stand up to multinational companies and stop major mining projects from destroying sacred lands and environments – we do that from a base of strength in unity and purpose, from persistent and consistent actions and most of all perseverance against all odds to stand up for what is right …” – Kado Muir, Tjiwarl Traditional Custodian.

And this couldn’t have happened without you. Hundreds of supporters like you have spent time on country with Traditional Custodians – listening, walking, connecting with country and standing up for a nuclear free future. Traditional Custodians, unions, faith groups, health groups, environmental groups, the WA and Australian Greens and WA Labor – we’ve all had a big part to play. 

Thank you to everyone who has stood up, spoken out, donated, walked, written letters, signed petitions and online actions, bought artwork and t-shirts, volunteered, and organised to say no to uranium mining.

The campaign to protect Yeelirrie is not entirely over. While the approvals can’t be acted on currently, they do still exist, and an amendment could be made by a future government giving Cameco the greenlight to mine.

This is why we are now calling on the State Government to withdraw approvals for Yeelirrie along with expired approvals for Cameco’s Pilbara proposal at Kintyre and Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium proposal. Doing this would be consistent with WA Labor’s policy and community expectations and – as Vicki Abdullah says – is the next step to a lasting solution.

“We’re really glad to hear the news that Yeelirrie’s approval has not been extended. It was a bad decision in the first place and after years in court and fighting to defend our country this news is a great relief. We will really celebrate properly when this government withdraws approvals altogether and then we can have more confidence the threat is over…” – . – Vicki Abdullah, Tjiwarl Traditional Custodian.  https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/4098309284

June 27, 2022 Posted by | politics, uranium, Western Australia | Leave a comment

The United States-the Pacific bully

 https://johnmenadue.com/the-united-states-the-pacific-bully/ By Brian Toohey, Jun 24, 2022,

The US dominates the Pacific Islands to an extent China can never hope to achieve. With Australia’s support, the US is now engaged in an arms build-up in its Pacific territories and de-facto colonies in a little known boost to its containment of China.

The US has three self-governing territories in the Pacific: Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Guam hosts some of the US’s most important bases the world. After a large scale military expansion on one of the main islands in the Northern Marianas, Tinian is expected to rival Guam in importance in coming years.

The US also has Compacts of Free Association with three countries covering thousands of islands in the Pacific – the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands. The compacts are a de-facto form of colonialism which gives the US exclusive military access to these countries’ land and maritime surrounds in return for defence guarantees and financial assistance.

The Federated States of Micronesia has a population of around 100,000. It has a land area of 702  square km on 607 islands amid 2,600,000 square km of ocean. The US will build a new base there. The residents are concerned about the impact of the base as their islands are often tiny and the landscape important to their identity. The US is also establishing a new military base on Palau, which has 340 islands and a total population of just over 18,000. The Marshall Islands landmass is 181 square km amid 466,000 square km of ocean. Although the Kwajalein atoll is only 15 square km, it is exclusively a military base with an extraordinary array of US activities; including a key role in US testing interceptors aimed ballistic missiles.

The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi recently visited seven South Pacific countries and signed various agreements in some, including the provision of infrastructure and police training , but he failed to get support for a 10-country trade agreement. He did not seek permission to build a navy base in the Solomon Island or anywhere else. Nevertheless, some saw the visit as an act of Chinese aggression. It is an odd view of aggression compared to the damage done by US, British and French testing of thermonuclear (also called hydrogen) bombs on Pacific islands, or when Australia helped invade Iraq.

The US conducted 105 nuclear tests in the Pacific, mainly in the Marshall islands, between 1946 and 1962, as part oftits program to develop thermonuclear bombs. Operational weapons were sometimes tested, including a submarine-launched war head. One test in 1952 completely vaporised the island of Eluglab. In 1954, a thermonuclear bomb tested on Bikini atoll exploded with force of 15 megatons – over 1,000 times bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The radioactive cloud engulfed a Japanese fishing boat about 80 miles away in a white powder that poisoned the crew. One died from the exposure seven months later and 15 more in following years.

The radioactivity affected the drinking water and food. Children played in the ash-like powder. Some ate it. Marshall Islanders over a wide area were subject to abnormal radiological doses. In 2005, the US National Cancer Institute reported that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to the fallout was over one in three.

Nevertheless, in 1946, a US Navy Commodore had asked 167 people living on Bikini atoll to re-locate so their home could be used use “for the good of mankind”. They were resettled in 1969, but had to be evacuated again after high radiation levels were detected.

There has been some increase in the pathetically low initial compensation. But it is hard to compensate for the environmental damage and loss of cultural heritage, traditional customs and skills. In 2014, the Marshall Islands attempted to sue the US and eight other nuclear armed nations, for failing to move towards nuclear disarmament as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A US Court dismissed the suit in 2017.

Britain tested 40 thermonuclear bombs on an islands in the Kiribati group between 1957 and 1962. Troops from Britain , Fiji (then a British colony), and New Zealand worked on the tests. Many were harmed by radiation and other causes. As usual, the locals were treated badly and their water and lands polluted.

France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1966 and 1974 in French Polynesia. It then conducted 140 underground, primarily of thermonuclear bombs, until 1996. One of the islands used was subject to cracking. In an act of state terrorism, French secret service frogman killed a photographer when they bombed a Green Peace protest ship in Auckland harbour on its way to the French nuclear testing area.

Labor’s defence minister, Richard Marles now refers to France as a Pacific county, despite the fact that it is a European country with a tenuous justification for holding onto its colonial possessions in the Pacific – New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Labor used to oppose colonialism. Now it seems it’s good if the colonial power opposes China.

The South Pacific Forum comprises 18 members: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Not all are normally considered to be in the South Pacific. The inclusion of three countries with Compacts of Free Association with the US and two French possessions basically guarantees they will vote for what the US or France wants.

However, the legacy of the contemptuous disregard for the indigenous residents during massive hydrogen bomb tests ensures that  nuclear issues, including the passage of nuclear submarines, remain sensitive.

At the time of the negotiation of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in 1985 Paul Malone wrote that it was for a “partial nuclear free zone”, as it did not prohibit the “passage of nuclear-armed ships or aircraft through the region”. Malone reported that some Pacific Island countries wanted to be Treaty to prohibit access to nuclear-armed warships. The then Prime Minister Bob Hawke insisted on that omission which reflected the wishes of the US. However, nuclear issues have been revived by the creation of the 2021AUKUS pact in which Australia is committed to buying nuclear powered submarines.

A journalist and researcher based in the Pacific, Nic Maclellan says, “Any hope that Australia’s island neighbours will welcome further nuclearisation of the region is folly. Within days of the UKUS announcement, statements from Pacific leaders, community elders and media organisations highlighted the persistence of the deep antinuclear sentiment.

The general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwa tweeted

“Shame Australia, Shame.” The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told the UN General Assembly his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free . . . We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”

The Kiribati President Taneti Maamau told the ABC, “Our people are victims of nuclear testing. We still have trauma. With anything to do with nuclear, we thought it would be a courtesy to discuss it with your neighbours”. He said he was especially concerned about Australia developing nuclear powered submarines which he said “puts the region at risk”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama tweeted that his father was among the Fijian soldiers the British sent to help with their nuclear bomb tests. He said, “To honour the sacrifice of all those who have suffered due to these weapons, Fiji will never stop working towards a global nuclear ban.”

The New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern repeated that nuclear submarines “can’t come into our internal waters”. New Zealand and nine South Pacific Forum countries have ratified the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Australia hasn’t. The Samoa Observer wrote, “It is a relief seeing Prime Minister Ardern continuing to maintain the tradition of her predecessors by promoting a nuclear-free Pacific; probably she is the only true friend of the Pacific Islands.”

June 27, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international | Leave a comment

“Truly historic” First Meeting of States Parties concludes! -UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

ICAN Australia, 24 June 22, The first Meeting of States Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has just concluded in Vienna! To great applause, the meeting adopted a political declaration and an action plan to take the work of the treaty forward. Read them here.

There were 82 states in attendance, including the Australian Government attending as an observer, along with other nuclear-endorsing states Germany, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Australian delegation participated constructively in the meeting, engaging with many delegations including the ICAN team in Vienna. Susan Templeman MP, head of the delegation, also made time to join our Nuclear Ban Hub online on Wednesday night.

At the conclusion of the meeting the Chair, Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, said:

“I think we’ve accomplished something truly historic…

We have a powerful and clear political declaration that we do not accept the nuclear status quo of the sword of Damocles above us…

The path is prepared and the real work starts, so let us continue to work in this spirit and show the world what kind of progress is possible.”

June 24, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

MP Susan Templeman represents Australia at landmark nuclear weapons ban treaty in Vienna 

MP Susan Templeman represents Australia at landmark nuclear weapons ban treaty in Vienna ttps://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7791272/mp-susan-templeman-represents-australia-at-landmark-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty-in-vienna/Federal Member for Macquarie Susan Templeman has attended the first Meeting of State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Joining the conference as an observer, the Labor MP’s attendance was welcomed by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). A spokesperson said they see see it as “recognition the newly-elected federal government is willing to engage with this critical meeting as a step towards signature and ratification [of the treaty]”.

Held from June 21 to 23 in Vienna, Austria, Australia’s attendance as an observer will provide insights into how states parties intend to address serious questions about the treaty, including:


  • the adequacy of the TPNW’s verification and enforcement regime;
  • interaction with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which the Australian Government considers to be the cornerstone of the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime;
  • how states parties will work to achieve universal support, especially that of nuclear-weapon states.

“It was great to be in Austria to observe the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on behalf of Australia,” said Ms Templeman.

“Australia shares the ambition of TPNW states parties of a world free of nuclear weapons.”

Australia is not a party to the TPNW and Ms Templeman’s attendance as an observer does not represent a decision to join the treaty.

ICAN Australia campaigner Jemila Rushton, who is also in Vienna this week for the historic meeting, welcomed the Australian government’s decision to participate.

“We’re delighted that Australia will be officially represented at this important meeting. It’s a first step towards our country becoming a TPNW state party,” she said.

Australia will also attend the fourth Conference on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, hosted by Austria.

June 23, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

China accuses the US and UK of hypocrisy on press freedom for calling out Beijing’s crackdowns while putting Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on trial for espionage

  • China accuses US and UK of hypocrisy over extradition of Julian Assange 
  • Assange set to face charges in the US over leaking of classified US documents
  • Chinese say the ‘trumped up’ charges expose press freedom double standards
  • Australian government says it is quietly discussing the case with US authorities

By DAVID SOUTHWELL FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA 21 June 2022  China has branded US and UK hypocrites on press freedom over the looming extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to face espionage charges that could land the Australian in jail for life.

Assange’s extradition to the US to face charges over the leaking of thousands of official secrets has been approved by British Home Secretary Priti Patel after a protracted legal battle.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accused the US of pursuing ‘trumped up’ charges against Assange for exposing secrets about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and about the CIA’s cyber attacks against other countries. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the US and UK were conspiring against Assange using ‘trumped up’ charges to punish him for exposing US wrongdoing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the US and UK were conspiring against Assange using ‘trumped up’ charges to punish him for exposing US wrongdoing.

‘The US and Britain are cooperating in cross-border crackdowns on certain individuals,’ he said.

The case of Assange is a mirror that shows how hypocritical the US and Britain’s claim to uphold press freedom is. 

‘People enjoy fully freedoms to expose other countries and will be regarded as heroes if they do so, but they will be severely punished and considered to be criminals if they expose their own country or its allies and partners.’

………  Mr Wenbin said all eyes would be on Mr Assange’s human rights and expressed the hope that ‘justice’ would prevail over ‘abuse and hegemony’.

…………..  His defenders argue he exposed US war crimes and human rights abuses in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as revealing the CIA’s covert activities against its own citizens…………………..

There have been calls for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to make a public plea on behalf of Assange, which so far he has resisted.

Employment Minister Tony Burke said the government was making quiet ‘behind-the-scenes’ representations to the US over the case..……………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10936875/China-calls-UK-press-freedom-hypocrites-Julian-Assange-trial.html

June 23, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, civil liberties, politics international | Leave a comment

Nuclear test survivors’ plea for Australia to sign treaty, as they speak at UN meeting

ABC North and West SA / 21 June 22, By Bethanie Alderson  Three generations of First Nations survivors of historic nuclear tests have told the United Nations that Australia must do more to address the devastating impact the tests have had on their families. 

Key points:

  • Three First Nations survivors of nuclear testing share their stories at a United Nations meeting
  • They are calling on the Australian government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
  • The survivors say they are facing intergenerational trauma from nuclear tests carried out in the 1950s in outback South Australia

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) invited survivors to address a conference in Vienna, more than 60 years after nuclear bombs were detonated in the South Australian outback.

Yankunytjatjara woman Karina Lester, Kokatha elder Sue Coleman-Haseldine and her granddaughter, Mia Haseldine, shared their experiences via video link from Port Augusta.

The women told the conference how the tests conducted by the British government at Maralinga and Emu Field in the 1950s had affected the health of successive generations of Aboriginal families from the region.

They called on the Australian government to sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in January last year.

Intergenerational toll

Survivor June Lennon, who was in the audience, said she was only a week old when her father covered her with a tarp to protect her from a nuclear blast at Emu Field.

She told the ABC her family would continue to suffer physical and mental trauma from the testing for generations to come.

“Most of our grandchildren have got pretty bad eyesight, and we were born basically with epilepsy,” Ms Lennon said.

“It’s quite likely that I’m going to die because I’ve got bleeding from my kidneys.

“We want to live. We want our children to live after us. We’re losing them at really young ages now and some of that is mental health issues.”………………

‘We still eat the bush tucker’ in test zone

Ms Haseldine outlined gaps she believed the government needed to address to support the next generation of survivors, including a commitment to greater research and education with Aboriginal communities on the impact of the testing.

“If we can somehow link those scientists or researchers studying DNA into people that live on community, eat food from this community,” Ms Haseldine said.

“We still eat the bush tucker that’s out there where fallout probably landed.”

Last year, Australian researchers found that radioactive particles released during the nuclear tests remained highly reactive.

Second-generation survivor Karina Lester noted in her presentation the importance of language for Aboriginal communities who never gave consent to the testing.

Our mob were not informed of those tests that were about to take place on their traditional lands,” Ms Lester said.

“It’s important for information to be in traditional language so they know of the impacts it has on our bodies and our environment.”…………………………….    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-20/nuclear-test-survivors-plea-for-australia-to-sign-treaty/101167332

June 21, 2022 Posted by | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »