Anti-nuclear Waste Dump Rally in Northern Territory, Then Legal Action Against Govt?
“But [they] have been asked by the traditional owners to act from them, so officially have been asked to act and stop the dump and to hold the Federal Government and Northern Land Council accountable for their actions.”
Hundreds rally to stop nuclear dump ABC Alice Springs – Australian Broadcasting Corporation April 5, 2010 Indigenous groups and environmentalists are continuing a push to stop a radioactive waste dump being built on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.More than 200 people gathered in Tennant Creek on the weekend to protest against the dump being built on the site north of the town. Continue reading
Call for Australia to get out of the nuclear cycle
The team at ICAN – International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 5 April 2010
We Australians often like to think of ourselves as a peace-loving nation.
However, as long as we continue to supply uranium to nuclear weapon states around the world, the perception of Australia as being benign in global affairs is an illusion.
The threat of nuclear weapons is as real today as it has ever been – yet Australia is in danger of setting itself up as uranium supplier to the world. Continue reading
$Millions paid to nuclear executives in UK, too
included paying £3.8 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses to staff during 2008…The payments, which ranged from an average of just under £12,000 to nearly £37,000, were made on top of regular salary payments totalling £19.5 million.
Top jobs go in shake-up at nuclear quango, The Times April 3, 2010, Two of Britain’s most highly paid civil servants have been axed and dozens more jobs are under threat at the quango charged with cleaning up nuclear plants, The Timeshas learnt. Continue reading
$Million salaries for nuclear power industry executives
Salary Survey: Nuclear Exec Earns $3 Million, Energy Section, Amy Harder, April 2, 2010 The nuclear power industry may be stagnant, but the sector’s top trade group is banking on turning that around — and as one sign, it’s giving its top executive a hefty salary.
The uranium mining industry makes it easier for terrorists
An IAEA database counts scores of thefts, losses and other incidents involving nuclear materials each year.
Uranium-mining nations flout UN on nuclear terror Norwalk News 03/31/2010 By CHARLES J. HANLEYAP NEW YORK (AP) — Years after a six-month deadline passed, dozens of nations, including uranium producers, remain potential weak links in the global defense against nuclear terrorism, ignoring a U.N. mandate on laws and controls to foil this ultimate threat. Continue reading
Taxpayer’s uranium mining clean-up costs not factored in to nuclear’s ‘revival’ costs
While the nuclear power loan guarantees essentially subsidize new power plants, what has not been factored in are the hidden costs of “clean” nuclear power: the financial legacy of past mining and milling operations have reached into tens of billions of dollars in the West’s “National Sacrifice Areas.”
Hot Rocks: Hidden Cost and Foreign Ownership of “Clean” Nuclear Fuel Emerging,THE HUFFINGTON POST, D.A. Barber, 1 April 2010, “…..Unlike coal, which goes straight from the mine to the power plant, uranium goes through several steps to become fuel for “clean” nuclear power plants and then needs to be disposed of. Continue reading
France’s nuclear reactors cutting costs and safety
Revelations from an EDF insider Réseau “Sortir du nucléaire” French Nuclear Phaseout Network, 6 March 2010, : EPR reactor prone to major nuclear accident risk! The French Network for Nuclear Phase-out (Réseau “Sortir du nucléaire”) reveals confidential documents disclosed by an anonymous insider from EDF (Electricité de France, the main French power utility). These documents show that the design of the EPR presents a serious risk of a major nuclear accident – a risk deliberately taken by EDF to increase its profitability. Because it is potentially vulnerable to a situation which could have uncontrollable consequences, the EPR reactor is extremely dangerous.
Appeal to help local communities attend Senate hearing on nuclear waste dump
“Traditional Owners, Tennant residents and Barkly region pastoralists are extremely disappointed that the Senate Committee will not sit in Tennant Creek. The distance and cost to travel to Darwin makes it impossible for the majority of concerned people to attend the hearing,”
A public appeal is being launched to raise funds for Muckaty Traditional Owners to attend a Senate Inquiry hearing in Darwin on April 12.
The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is considering the recently tabled National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010, which identifies an area in the Muckaty Land Trust as the only site to be initially considered for a radioactive waste dump. Continue reading
Review: waste dump, uranium to Russia, U.S. waste problem, depleted uranium
Review: Australia: A big week with the Howard-Rudd government pretending that all is well with Muckaty waste dump plans, despite growing opposition. Rudd govt also intending to follow Howard’s deal on uranium sales to Russia. Concern rising over unnecessary medical radiation .
International: Nuke waste problem threatens “nuclear renaissance”. Canadian doctors oppose uranium mining, UK fears of radioactive terrorist attack. More revelations of cancer, birth deformities, from depleted uranium. Impoverished Niger a magnet for uranium miners
Terrorist nuclear attack a likely result of developing nuclear technology
Legitimate uses for such materials also “significantly increases the risk that they may be diverted and exploited by terrorist organisations”….
BRITAIN FACES NUCLEAR THREAT FROM al-QAEDA, GOVERNMENT REPORT WARNS, San Francisco Sentinel, By Duncan Gardham;The London Telegraph, 23 March 2010, Britain faces an increased threat of a nuclear attack by al-Qaeda terrorists following a rise in the trafficking of radiological material, a government report has warned. Continue reading
Nuclear waste problem likely to end the ‘nuclear renaissance’
ANALYSIS – Toxic waste weighs on revival of nuclear industry Reuters, by Ayesha Rascoe, 17 March 2010, “…LEGAL LIABILITY ANOTHER ISSUE Nuclear power producers also have to grapple with the legal liabilities of owning waste. The Energy Department was supposed to take ownership of waste in 1998, but that has not happened
Utilities “don’t like the idea of this long-term liability over which they really have no control,” said Robert Fri of Resources for the Future.
With no place for the used fuel to go, the nuclear waste has to stay on site even when plants are shut down. There are about 14 shut-down reactors where waste remains at the site.
Dealing with technical and legal issues will not be easy. But the biggest obstacle for the new commission will most likely be overcoming political opposition.
ANALYSIS – Toxic waste weighs on revival of nuclear industry | Business News | Reuters
Nuclear company creates a “spinoff” to avoid paying its debts
The New York Public Commission staff has concluded that Entergy’s proposed spinoff is not in the public interest, and that the new company will be too debt-burdened and financially unstable.
Nuclear “SpinCo”, t r u t h o u t , 18 March 2010 by: World Business Academy, Rinaldo Brutoco and Madeleine Austin The nuclear industry, like Wall Street, knows how to make money with other people’s money: move liabilities off balance sheet, use lots of borrowed money and leverage, don’t worry about loading too much debt onto the company as long as insiders can walk away with plenty of money and look to the fool taxpayer to cover the losses. Continue reading
150 German towns unite against nuclear power
150 German towns want nuclear power ended, de.indymedia.org, Diet Simon, 17 March 2010Themen: Atom Weltweit ÖkologieLocal power utilities in Germany have formed an anti-nuclear power alliance saying that planned longer running times for nukes are endangering their plans to invest billions in climate-friendly green energies… Continue reading
Hypocrisy of Rudd government on selling uranium to Russia
Never mind that they got elected on promises to repeal Howard’s plans to dump nuclear waste on Northern Territory aboriginal land.
Never mind that the Rudd government’s own Senate inquiry recommended that selling uranium to Russia was unsafe, could increase nuclear weapons proliferation.
But – the sheer hypocrisy of Kevin Rudd, posing as the world’s great disarmament leader (with another old pro-nuker, Gareth Evans), and then deciding to send nuclear fuel to Russia!
Right at the time when the world tries to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and while Russia is now supplying Iran’s nuclear power plant!
France’s nuclear industry – not safe, not clean
(This site contains an informative video on France’s radioactive pollution. In French and Italian)
(France and Italy) Nuclear dwarves, Beppe Grillo’s Blog 17 March 2010, “…….If the nuclear “picciotto” {rank and file mafioso} in Italy is Berlusconi, its instigator is Sarkozy. The greatest pusher of nuclear power stations in the world. And thus it is with joy that I read the news of the electoral collapse of the “Transalpine Carlànano”. One dwarf attracts another…. Sarkozy could lose in the whole of France at the second round…. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 