Uranium causing mental retardation in kids
‘Uranium making Punjab kids retarded’, THE TIMES OF INDIA, Balwant Garg, Jun 14, 2010, BATHINDA: Confirming Punjab’s worst fear and The Times of India reports, a resounding document from Germany’s Microtrace Mineral Lab has revealed that hair samples of 80% of 149 neurologically disabled children, mainly from southern Malwa region, have high levels of uranium…. Continue reading
Radioactive wastes are produced at all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle
The NUCLEAR INDUSTRY and the GLOBAL NUCLEAR WASTE PROBLEM – our theme for June 2010
From the uranium mine to the final destruction of the nuclear reactor….
Ranger uranium mine’ s salty leak into freshwater creek
Uranium mine caused abnormal salt levels in Kakadu creek – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting
Corporation) 12 June 2010, The company that operates the Ranger uranium mine has confirmed higher-than-normal salt levels in a creek in Kakadu National Park is a result of its operations.Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) has investigated two salinity spikes in Magela Creek downstream of the mine in April.Chief executive Rob Atkinson says run-off water from the mine had flowed into the creek….
Uranium companies pressuring Aboriginals in Australia’s Kimberly region
Green group on ‘uranium awareness’ tour » Kimberley Page, 10 June 2010, Uranium Awareness Community Forums planned for July While the proposed construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at James Price Point attracts widespread media attention, an increase in uranium exploration is underway and under the radar in the Kimberley.
Presently there are numerous uranium tenements covering the Kimberley . This spike in activity is the result of the Barnett Government’s move to overturn the long-standing ban on uranium exploration and development held by the previous Labor Government.Already Traditional Owners across the Kimberley are under pressure to allow exploration activities. Meanwhile uranium companies are talking in glowing terms about the Kimberley as Australia’s new uranium province. Continue reading
BHP Billiton fudges radiation exposure levels of uranium mine workers
The whistleblower produced documents that show BHP uses manipulated averages and distorted sampling to ensure the figures are below the maximum exposure levels set by government…..managed to manipulate the sampling by transferring workers, whose exposures were escalating, to a different area
Radiation unsafe at BHP’s Olympic Dam: whistleblower, Sydney Morning Herald, June 4, 2010 Workers at BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam are being exposed to unsafe levels of radiation, according to a company whistleblower. Continue reading
Australia-Russia uranium dealings
The machinations have been going on for many years. One way or another, Australian uranium is getting under foreign control – take the current Russian situation. Negotiations with Russia’s Roasatom nuclear tsar, Sergei Kiryienko went on, secretly, between Kiriyenko and BHP Billiton. over many years.
Kiriyenko was to quietly visit Australia, but apparently did not. A former Prime Minister of Russia, Kiriyenko has, in recent years, guided the State nuclear agency, Rosatom, with the aim of becoming the world’s most powerful uranium and nuclear power company.
Honeymoon uranium mine to be controlled by Russian govt
Moscow moves on global uranium mines The Australian * June 10, 2010 RUSSIA has moved to boost its holdings in global uranium mines, with state-owned Rosatom agreeing to take a controlling stake in Canada’s Uranium One……If the deal goes ahead, it will put the Honeymoon uranium project in South Australia, scheduled to come into production at the end of the year, under the control of the Russian government.…. Continue reading
Australian uranium will help Russia to run Iran’s nuclear plant
Rosatom Agrees to First Asset Sale to Foreign Investor, The Moscow Times, 09 June 2010By Anatoly Medetsky “…..Kiriyenko announced that Russia and Iran would jointly run Iran’s first nuclear power plant that Rosatom plans to launch in August…..
Under a deal signed in 2007, which Australia also has yet to ratify, Russia will be able to import Australian uranium for use at its own nuclear power plants after enrichment…….Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said at the end of April that the country would ratify the agreement. He didn’t say when.Rosatom Agrees to First Asset Sale to Foreign Investor | Business | The Moscow Times
Review: resources tax, India’s dilemma, oil gusher
Australia: a seemingly quiet week. Obama cancels visit to Australia. Mainstream media continue to ignore Senator Scott Ludlam’s penetrating questioning on matters nuclear – (the taxpayer funded Uranium Council lobby, Muckaty nuclear waste plan, nuclear weapons proliferation..) BHP and Rio spend a sizable little of their massive profits to fight the govt’s super profit resources tax. These corporations fear that other countries might take up the idea too. Union push against health danger of uranium mining.
International: Dow Chemical Company escapes justice after 25 years, and hundreds of thousands of deaths from the Bhopal gas disaster. A portent for India’s nuclear energy future? Meanwhile USA seeks to prosecute BP over oil spill. U.S looks like getting useless Climate legislation. Pointless debate over nuclear bombing as a solution to BP’s oil gush .
The definitive story on nuclear power and health
I recommend that you download, print off, and study at your leisure, the complete article – from
Evatt Foundation: Publication: Nuclear power & public health – 31 May 2010
Nuclear power & public health, Evatt Foundation:, By Peter Karamoskos, 31 May 2010“… there is a linear dose-response relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and the development of solid cancers in humans. It is unlikely that there is a threshold below which cancers are not induced.” – National Academy of Science, BEIR VII report, 2006
“We need to develop a very firm commitment to the elimination of nuclear power as a source of energy on the earth.” – Russell Train, former US Environmental Protection Agency administrator, 1977″
[t]he [economic] failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.” – Forbes, 1985
Introduction
The public health implications for a resurgence of nuclear power appear to have taken a subordinate position to the economic and global warming arguments that the industry has advanced to justify its expansion. The purpose of this essay therefore is several-fold: to review the scientific evidence for public health impacts of nuclear power, to assess occupational hazards faced by nuclear industry workers involved in the nuclear fuel cycle, to assess the evidence for nuclear reactor safety and critically challenge the underlying assumptions which may be less than adequate. It will also examine the public health risks of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. The common thread linking these safety issues is the risk posed to public health by ionising radiation and in particular the cancer risk. The nuclear industry and our understanding of radioactive health hazards, developed in tandem during the twentieth century, however, the relationship to this day has always been uneasy and often in conflict. A brief historical narrative of this joint evolution is reviewed as it is essential to understanding the context and scope of the public health issues at the heart of the nuclear power debate.
If we are to believe the nuclear industry, nuclear power is both safe and vital to our future, yet over half a century of nuclear power has proven both contentions as false……
Evatt Foundation: Publication: Nuclear power & public health – 31 May 2010
Australia will not sell uranium to India, will sell gas
Mr Smith reiterated that his country will not change its stand on uranium exports.
Australia keen to supply gas but baulks on uranium , The Hindu Business Line K Giriprakash Perth, June 7 Australia on Monday said it is willing to supply more gas to Indian companies but remained firm on its stand on supplying uranium to only NPT-signatory countries. Continue reading
Australian taxpayers fund uranium lobbying council
Greens Senator keeps asking awkward nuclear questions in Parliament Christina Macpherson, 7 June 2010. For just one example – this one, about the Uranium Council, funded by the Australian Government.
Senator LUDLAM—The council has been characterised by the uranium industry as a leading advocacy group. Can you explain to me why a group dedicated to increasing the exploitation of uranium should be funded by the Commonwealth? Why does this particular sector deserve Commonwealth support to do its advocacy for it?…
There are two of the largest resource companies in the world exploiting uranium in Australia, and a host of others, but the Commonwealth still thinks it is worth $3 million of taxpayers’ money to do its advocacy for it….
Do other commodities get their own taxpayer funded advocacy groups or is uranium a special case?
Saudi Arabia looking to the solar alternative to nuclear power
a great opportunity to not only use solar energy as a primary energy source but to profit worldwide from the renewable energy, as well…Minister of Petroleum, Ali Al-Naimi, said: “Saudi Arabia aspires to export as much solar energy in the future as it exports oil now.”
Alternatives to nuclear energy under focus – Arab News 7 June 2010, “…………..Official studies from the German government has shown that the risk of getting cancer significantly increased in children growing up in the neighborhood of a nuclear power station, particularly leukemia. Other disadvantages have to do with nuclear waste. The EIA has shown that a typical nuclear reactor produces 20-30 tons or waste per year that can’t be disposed of with Plutonium 239 remaining dangerous for as much as 10,000 years and radioactive for 240,000 years. Most countries reuse nuclear waste to create energy but this just creates more waste while others utilize the waste through their national defense departments…. Continue reading
The eternal danger of nuclear wastes
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AND RADIOACTIVE WASTES – our theme for June 2010. “The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government.” – Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789
Half-life is the period of time it takes for a radioisotope atom to degrade to a state having half of its original intensity
As you can see the continued production, use, and dumping of such waste materials as depleted uranium and plutonium, into the world’s air, land, and water leaves a permanent problem for our children, grandchildren. great-grand-children ….
Call To Martin Ferguson to withdraw nuclear dump plans
We, the undersigned residents of the federal electorate of Batman, call on Martin Ferguson MP to withdraw his plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in the NT.We condemn his plans to override Aboriginal heritage laws, environmental protection laws, and all necessary state/territory laws in order to impose the unwanted and unnecessary nuclear dump.
” if you live in Ferguson’s Batman electorate, please sign the e-petition against the dump posted at:
http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/batman-voters-against-a-nuclear-waste-dump/sign.html
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
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