Ziggy Switkowski spruiks for Australian uranium sales to Pakistan
Pakistan a potential uranium customer, says Australian nuclear expert, The Nation, 6 Dec 11 An Australian nuclear expert Dr Ziggy Switkowski said that Australia will have to consider selling uranium to Pakistan in the future after agreeing to export it to India…..over time, as they gain the confidence of the international community and the civilian nuclear program builds, they will need to be considered.”
Earlier, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Australia, Abdul Malik Abdullah said if Australia is willing to export uranium to India then it should sell it to Pakistan as well.
Abdullah said, “If Australia is going to lift the ban on a country which has not signed NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) it is much hoped that will also apply to Pakistan the same way.” Australia’s ruling Labour Party voted to overturn a decades-old ban on uranium sale to India, paving the way for Canberra to supply yellowcake to a nation outside the NPT.
Sell uranium to us, too, says Pakistan to Australia
Pakistan says it should get Australian uranium News.com.au , 5 Dec 11 PAKISTAN’S High Commissioner to Australia says if the Federal Government sells uranium to India it would be discriminatory for it not to sell it to Pakistan as well. Yesterday, the ALP overturned its ban on the sale of uranium to India after a divisive and passionate debate at the party’s national conference in Sydney.
Abdul Malik Abdullah said Australia should sell uranium to Pakistan as well, as India has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). “If, after the ALP’s decision, the Australian Government is going to change the policy, all we would like to have is an equitable and non-discriminatory decision,” Mr Abdullah told ABC Radio.
“If Australia is going to lift the ban on a country which has not signed NPT it is much hope that will also apply to Pakistan the same way.”…. http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/pakistan-says-it-should-get-australian-uranium/story-e6frfkur-1226213787193#ixzz1ffbvy7PN
Kevin Rudd now denies plan for India, USA, Australia defence pact
Australia government denies backing India, U.S. security pact, Dec 2, 2011 (Reuters) – Australia denied on Friday it was pushing for a joint security pact with India and the United States, a tie-up that would likely add to China’s fears that wary neighbors were trying to encircle it.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd was quoted in an interview with the Australian Financial Review newspaper this week as backing the idea of a trilateral security pact. But a Rudd spokeswoman said he had been misinterpreted and had been responding to a question on the likely overturning soon of an Australian ban on uranium exports to India……
India’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement on the ministry website that New Delhi was “not aware of any such proposal”, while China’s military denounced the United States and Australia for recently upgrading military ties, warning such moves could erode trust and fan Cold War-era antagonism.
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner, with two-way trade in 2010 worth A$105 billion ($107 billion), up almost 24 percent on the previous year and driven by energy-hungry Chinese demand for Australian resources….. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/02/us-china-us-australia-idUSTRE7B10BB20111202
Australia to join USA-India defence pact – antagonising China
U.S. officials have been particularly pushing Canberra to commit additionally to construction of a new fleet of 12 powerful missile submarines — possibly of U.S. design — in what would be the country’s largest sole defence acquisition.
URANIUM SALES TO INDIA…Rudd told the Australian Financial Review that a looming weekend vote and expected approval by Australia’s ruling Labor Party to drop a longstanding ban on uranium sales to non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty countries like India could help clear the way for formation of a new pact.
Australia backs security pact with U.S., India, By Rob Taylor, Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing, Editing by Ed Davies and Jonathan Thatcher), CANBERRA | Wed Nov 30, 2011 (Reuters) – Australia’s foreign minister on Wednesday backed the formation of a security pact with India and the United States, a tie-up that could fuel China’s worries of being fenced in by wary neighbors.
It is the latest move by Australia to take a bigger role in the region’s security. Earlier this month, it
agreed to host a de facto U.S. base in the north of the country which would provide military reach into southeast Asia and the South China Sea, where China has disputes with several other states over sovereignty…..
It was unclear why Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking Sinophile, would risk irritating Australia’s top trade partner China which is already nervous that Obama’s latest diplomatic push into the Asia-Pacific is part of broader U.S. policy to encircle it…..
prominent Chinese military commentator, People’s Liberation Army Major General Luo Yuan, said this week that Washington was clearly trying to fence in Beijing. Continue reading
Australia has now weakened its case to get on the United Nations Security Council
Opposition was led by Norway, Austria, and Mexico, with powerful support from the Cluster Munition Coalition, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and a large number of UN agencies, notably the UN Development Program, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Which got me to thinking about Australia’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.
It its core pitch document, Australia prioritises active participation in “international peace and security” as it’s second highest contribution to the UN over its 65 year history. ….
Australia:…
- initiated the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and, more recently with Japan, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament
Arguably, enough has been done in November to all but unravel Australia’s UN Security Council message that proudly states, ”Australia: We do what we say”.
Obama’s Darwin naval base ….
Cluster munitions ratification
…..the provision in the legislation explicitly permitting stockpiling will remain, and many are rightly worried that a future – or present – government may reneg on their stated commitment. Labor under Rudd and Gillard have, certain WikiLeaks cables have revealed, taken an active role behind the scenes to dilute the standard limiting the production, trasnfer and use of cluster munitions…….
Gillard’s about-turn on uranium ….
..Most worryingly, if approved, this action would go completely against the Australian-sponsored International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament report in 2009:……
Wither Australia’s normative leadership Combined with a perceived level of indifference for the rule of law during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the Gillard governments voting against Palestine’s UNESCO membership, it is inconceivable that Australia may reasonably pitch themselves as principled and responsible international citizens at this time
India’s nuclear future now shaky – might not need Australia’s uranium
In the shadow of increasingly fierce grassroots opposition, India’s nuclear ambitions – and Australia’s future uranium cash cow – are looking decidedly less promising.
India’s nuclear ambitions come up against people power, BY:AMANDA HODGE, IDINTHAKARAI, TAMIL NADU :The Australian . November 26, 2011 1 India’s Koodankulam nuclear power project is like the proverbial cockroach in an atomic storm. It has survived the fall of the Soviet Union, the assassination of an Indian prime minister and the Boxing Day tsunami, when waves surged over the site where it now stands.
The first of six reactors to be built on the shore of India’s southernmost tip in Tamil Nadu was to have been switched on next month, 23 years after Mikhail Gorbachev and the slain Rajiv Gandhi signed off on the friendship project.
Instead it has hit another obstacle – an emerging national anti-nuclear campaign that has gained serious momentum since Japan’s Fukushima meltdown in March. Continue reading
Radiation health effects from rare earths plant – a warning for Australian company Lynas
Industrial health expert T Jayabalan told FMT that he lived in Bukit Merah for three years during the 1980s, “collecting data” on the residents there. According to him, Lai Kwan and Cheah were only two of the many people he studied before presenting his findings to Malaysian courts. “Birth defects still exist,” he said, “and the number of miscarriages is incredibly high. Even if a foetus survives, it can still be born with leukemia and brain damage.”
“I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve seen the suffering of these people. The only good thing about Lynas is that it hasn’t happened yet.”
(includes VIDEO) Inside the world of a radiation victim, Free Malaysia Today Patrick Lee, November 24, 2011 VIDEO Tan Chui Mui’s short documentary is also about a mother’s undying love. Cheah was born in 1983, a year after Lai Kwan worked as a bricklayer at the Mitsubishi rare earth plant in Bukit Merah, Perak.
Cheah has multiple congenital defects, including a hole in the heart. He is also mentally deficient and virtually blind. And Lai Kwan is beside her son nearly every hour of her life, as portrayed in a short film entitled “Lai Kwan’s Love”…..
she tells the camera that she had no idea that the rare earth plant where she worked was handling toxic materials. Continue reading
Australia’s discriminates in favour of India, on uranium sales
India is not a party to the NPT, has never been, has developed a nuclear weapons capability as a non-member of the Treaty, and accordingly, is in an entirely different position from China vis a vis Australian uranium export policy..
Surely the more appropriate sequence would have been to have the Cabinet discussion first, and make a fully-informed decision as to whether or not a change in the policy is desirable, and what its ramifications are, then take the matter to the party if needs be, armed with the support of a properly considered Cabinet decision…… Once she has made an exception for India, what is she going to say to our allies in Pakistan and her dear friends in Israel?
Nuclear policy and process dumped at the drop of a hat, The Drum, Paul Barratt, 21 Nov 11 The announcement by the Prime Minister that she intends at the forthcoming ALP National Conference to seek a change in the Party’s Platform to permit the export of uranium to India is of concern on three grounds: the content of the policy change; the apparent failure to extract anything in return for what is by any measure a major policy shift; and the extraordinary decision-making process by which this change is to be brought about.
The change has been presented publicly as little more than an administrative matter designed to correct an anomaly in our current export policy. The narrative runs that the policy discriminates against India because we are prepared to export uranium to China, a nuclear weapon state, but not to India for peaceful use. This is arrant nonsense. Continue reading
Australia will now be expected to sell uranium to Pakistan
Like India, Pakistan is a nuclear armed state that refuses to sign the NPT. There is no doubt the Islamabad will be keeping a close eye Canberra and on Darling Harbour come Labor’s National Conference in December.
Inevitably, if Labor moves to sell uranium to India then Pakistan will make a political and diplomatic point of being the next cab in the radioactive rank.
If Australia sells uranium to India, will Pakistan be next?, November 18, 2011 Crikey , Dave Sweeney Uranium is both common and controversial in resource rich Australia. It is tricky stuff as it can be used to produce electricity or to fuel nuclear bombs. And India has both…….
A recent high level UN report makes the nuclear power and weapons connection clear and has a special relevance against the current backdrop of pro-sales positioning.
In the shadow of the continuing Fukushima nuclear crisis the September 2011 UN report plainly states: “Nuclear science and technology can also be used to develop nuclear weapons. Compliance with international legal instruments, such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, other bilateral and multilateral non-proliferation agreements and safeguards agreements with the IAEA, is therefore an essential element of the responsible use of nuclear power.”
Australia, as a significant global uranium supplier, has a responsibility to act responsibly. Different rules should apply to uranium supply than to other less destructive and divisive exports. Continue reading
USA militarisation in Australia is disturbing to China
The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper, hit hard upon the theme of 
besiegement. It quoted a People’s Liberation Army major general as saying that the expanded U.S. training and deployment base inAustralia was one of a series of U.S. installations to “encircle China from the north to the south of the Asia-Pacific region.”….
Beijing is wary of Obama’s assertive China policy , Taiwan News, By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN Associated Press 2011-11-18 President Barack Obama‘s sudden moves to contest rising Chinese power are setting this capital on edge, even if in public the response has been muted.
During his ongoing nine-day swing through the Asia-Pacific region, Obama has already unveiled a plan for an expanded U.S. Marines presence in Australia, advocated a new free-trade area that leaves China out, and called on Beijing not to buck the current world order.
The Beijing government is trying to understand the shift, tasking academic experts to review the initiatives and submit options on how to respond. Continue reading
Darwin U.S. military base opens the way for cluster munitions and nuclear-powered vessels
probability cluster munitions will be stockpiled in Darwin since there are known plans for the US to base a number of B-52 bombers historically used to deploy cluster bombs. It is already known that nuclear weapons will not be permitted onto Australian territory, but a number of the US’ naval fleet are nuclear-powered vessels which will be allowed…….
Both acts would result in Australia violating the spirit and intent of the Convention—to eliminate cluster munitions and the harm they cause for all time. And both are likely to occur as a result of the US base in Darwin.
Theorising Darwin: US may stockpile and transit cluster munitions Crikey, November 17, 2011 , by NAJ Taylor, A US military ‘base’ in Darwin will necessitate foreign weapons systems and armaments being stockpiled, retained and transited on and in Australian territory (spun as a “rotational deployment” – for China? I’ll use base until I know better).
Whilst long-standing and committed allies, Australia and the United States hold different positions on many matters relating to both arms control and humanitarian law. One recent normative development where the US and Australia’s views have diverged is the ban on cluster bombs, Continue reading
India wants to be treated differently from other nations
The problem with the Prime Minister’s argument, of course, is that the existing policy does not treat India differently at all….The problem is rather the opposite of what the Prime Minister says: it is not that Australia treats India differently, but that India wishes to be treated differently.
If India wants uranium, let it sign the treaty The Age, 16 Nov 11Trade advantage does not make safety negotiable. THE Prime Minister, writing on our opinion page yesterday, complained that ”despite links of language, heritage and democratic values”, Australia continues to ”treat India differently”. The differential treatment, she says, lies in the fact that we do not sell India uranium for peaceful purposes, despite selling it to China, Japan and the United States. It is time, she believes, to abandon this attitude to India, while acting in our own economic best interests.
At the ALP federal conference in Sydney next month, Ms Gillard will propose that the party make an exception to its policy that Australia should continue to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by allowing uranium exports to India. This will be all right, apparently, because we will ”expect of India the same standards we do for all countries for uranium export – strict adherence to International Atomic Energy arrangements and strong bilateral undertakings and transparency measures that will provide assurances our uranium will only be used for peaceful purposes”. Continue reading
Obama pops in to Australia to dictate policy on uranium sales to India
Gillard uranium move linked to US: report, Business Spectator, 16 Nov 2011 Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s move to open the door to uranium exports to India reportedly follows talks with the Obama administration. The US has been pursuing a closer partnership with India and considers Australia a key part of its strategy, The Australian reported on Wednesday.
Ms Gillard has denied that the decision was made to coincide with President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia and said it was her decision alone.The Australian, however, reported that US and Australian officials have been in intense strategic discussions about India for several months. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Gillard-uranium-move-linked-to-US-report-NMLD2?OpenDocument&src=hp3
India can thank Uncle Sam for Julia Gillard’s uranium backflip, First Post India, 16 Nov 11 Uttara Choudhury New York: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s dramatic decision to open the door to uranium exports to India came after talks with the Obama administration, which viewed the ban as a “fly in the ointment” to greater engagement between Washington, New Delhi and Australia in the Indian Ocean region…….
Gillard announced on Tuesday that she will ask the Australian Labour Party to dump its ban on uranium sales to India, at its national conference next month. The ban was imposed by former prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2008 as India wasn’t a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Gillard has denied her decision to seek to overturn the ban is in order to fall in line with the US. She bristled when questioned on the timing of the announcement which coincided with Obama’s state visit to Australia. Gillard said the decision was hers alone…..
She did, however, point to the US-India civil nuclear agreement of 2008, which lifted the “de facto international ban” on the sale of uranium to India….. While Beijing has learned to live with American forces on its eastern periphery, the possibility of an intimate US-India military relationship, as well as India’s position astride China’s key maritime shipping lanes, has generated fears of encirclement…
Uranium sales to India will trigger India-Pakistan arms race
Should the ALP back Ms Gillard’s call,… this would be seen as “another example of international hypocrisy when it comes to Pakistan”.
Fear trade move will trigger arms race, BY:AMANDA HODGE , THE AUSTRALIAN, November 16, 2011 :SECURITY analysts on both sides of the India-Pakistan border have warned that the decision to sell Australian uranium to India could trigger an arms race between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistani nuclear physics professor and analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy told The Australian many people would be dismayed by Julia Gillard’s push to end the ban on uranium sales to India, given the likelihood it would stoke nuclear proliferation in South Asia.
“It’s very disappointing, because it’s well known that if India gets Australian uranium it will be able to divert a bigger fraction of domestically mined uranium for the production of fissile material used for making bombs,” Continue reading
Pakistan says that Australia should sell uranium to it, too
Pakistan says it should be allowed to buy uranium, ABC Radio National PM Michael Edwards ,
November 15, 2011, MARK COLVIN: Pakistan says that if Australia sells uranium to India, it too should be eligible for exports of the product. India’s chief rival is also a nuclear power and, like India, a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Pakistan says it could use Australian uranium to boost its civilian nuclear power program. And its High Commissioner to Australia says itwould be discrimination to sell to India and not to Pakistan… http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3367265.htm
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