UK support for Australian union’s stand against health danger of uranium industry
“We will be urging unions in the UK to join in the stand opposing nuclear- rather than joining the industry’s Compensation Scheme for Radiation Linked Diseases which has thousands of applicants and has paid out millions of pounds – with the caveat that you don’t talk about it,”
Radiation Free Lakeland backs Aussie unions’ nuclear stance , GETNOTICEDONLINE Uk 14 June 2010 Radiation Free Lakeland is supporting Australian unions who have banned members from working in the nuclear industry. Continue reading
Miners want 15% profit – Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion might not proceed
Broker casts doubt on viability of Olympic Dam expansion, Sydney Morning Herald, BARRY FITZGERALD, June 17, 2010
BHP BILLITON’S proposed Olympic Dam expansion in South Australia’s outback could have no ”economic value” under the Rudd government’s hotly debated proposal to subject resource company super profits to an additional 40 per cent tax……. the assessment of mining analysts at Morgan Stanley, ”Our modelling of this project shows that the resource super profits tax reduces the net present value of the project to an extent that it becomes negative, and return on invested capital falls below the minimum hurdle rate of 15 per cent used by the mining industry.
BHP Billiton’s managing director, Marius Kloppers……. said that although BHP had not shelved or frozen projects in response to the proposed tax, Olympic Dam was the sort of high capital expenditure project with long lead times that was ”most disadvantaged”……But BHP has yet to commit to the project. Approval from the SA, Northern Territory (ore is exported from Darwin) and federal governments is needed and is planned for the first half of next year. The final proposal with all the permits and conditions attached is then likely to go before the board in the latter half of next year.
New tax on nuclear brings uncertainty into nuclear industry
if the plan is approved, other countries could adopt similar measures…the new move will bring uncertainty in the European nuclear sector,
Huge nuclear tax on the cards in Germany, World Nuclear News, By Rumyana Vakarelska, 15 June 2010 The German Ministry of Finance has envisaged an additional €2.3 billion ($2.8 billion) per year ‘windfall tax’ on nuclear operators as part of the 2011 Federal Budget and its financial plan up to 2014………..According to the German Finance Ministry the charge “will be necessary, as part of an overall energy concept, to prolong the operational life of nuclear power plants.” At a time when Germany is looking for tens of billions of euros in budget savings, the ministry said that the money will be used to meet nuclear decommissioning and final repository costs.….. Continue reading
Mike Rann – Premier for the Uranium Lobby
No unconditional support on tax –
Rann | Adelaide Now, Christopher Russell, June 16, 2010 Mr Rann formally opened the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s uranium conference 2010, being held this week at the Adelaide Convention Centre…….
AusIMM president Greg Chalmers said ……..”Uranium should have demonstrated green credentials and cost benefits if we can get over emotions versus logic.…….”
Uranium project stalled idefinitely by community opposition
A conglomeration of NGOs, civil society organizations including the powerful Khasi Students Union (KSU) is leading the agitations to prevent UCIL from starting the site activities. Opposition to uranium mining
(India) KPM Uranium Mining in Meghalaya: A Controversial Project | PRAGOTI, 15 June 2010, Problems in Meghalaya KPM project in Meghalaya has been mired in controversy right since its inception forcing the UCIL to stall its activities Continue reading
Labor’s sorry record on uranium mining and Aboriginal rights
Ark Tribe faces the bosses’ court – time for unions to get back on the front foot, Socialist Alliance Unionists, 17 June 2010, “…..Indigenous rights? The racist and humiliating Northern Territory Intervention. Uranium mining? Looming open slather for mining bosses. So why support the ALP? Continue reading
World’s rarest seal threatened by depleted uranium
to protect marine mammals and other marine life from the …… highly toxic materials like depleted uranium that have been deposited by the military. Archipelagos has created the only independent, non-profit laboratory in Greece,
Saving the world’s rarest seal from uranium, guardian Uk, 17 June 2010, Dr Anastasia Miliou was interviewed by Georgina Kenyon. Continue reading
Arkaroola uranium mining threatens rare frog species
Mining worries as frog species found – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 16 June 2010, The owner of Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary says discovery of a new frog species is yet another reason to be wary of mining in the Flinders Ranges region of outback South Australia.Scientists say it is the first new species to be identified in SA in 45 years.The species was found this month at Arkaroola, where Marathon Resources is involved in a uranium exploration project at Mount Gee.Sanctuary owner Marg Sprigg says she is worried Marathon’s initial drilling program could lead to it getting a full drilling licence later in the year.”I’m a geologist, I’m not against mining but I don’t think you have to mine everywhere and there were a lot of geologists who put in submissions saying ‘leave Arkaroola alone, it is too special, it’s a brilliant geological teaching laboratory’.”Ms Sprigg says mining could prevent more unique species being found in the Flinders Ranges.
Mining worries as frog species found – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Japan’s space junk falls on aboriginal land
Joy and delight, it seems, greets the fall of the asteroid bit, onto already contaminated Aboriginal land at Woomera!
Now I ask you – who, other than the Aborigines, would we expect to be delighted about a bit of metallic junk being flung onto their property?
First the Aborigines got atomic bombs, then uranium mining, now radioactive wastes, now space junk…!
Space probe returns to Earth from trip to asteroid, Google hosted news, By TANALEE SMITH (AP) –14 June 2010,”… It is the first time that a spacecraft has successfully landed on an asteroid and returned to Earth……
Japanese space probe to land in Australian outback, news90, June 13, 2010 · “…local Aboriginal elders,.. will fly out in a helicopter to check it has not damaged any sites sacred to the local indigenous people. – (and what if it has? – too late now!)
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….
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
USA’s double standards on USA’s oil, India’s nuclear pollution dangers
Under the civil liabilities for nuclear damage bill, central to a deal with the controversial nuclear pact with the US, costs for cleaning up a catastrophic failure would end up being paid by the Indian taxpayer…….so that shareholders of large US corporations would not be forced to pay out for sloppy, deadly mistakes.
Obama hasn’t learned lessons of Bhopal, Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk 10 June 2010 Foreign companies such as BP are shown the big stick, but Washington offers a big shield for its multinationals abroad
While Barack Obama is lambasting BP for spreading muck in the Gulf of Mexico, he should perhaps pencil in a date with the people of Bhopal when he visits India later this year. While 11 men lost their lives on BP’s watch and the shrimps get coated with black stuff, the chemicals that killed thousands of people in Bhopal in 1984 are still leaching into the ground water a quarter of a century after a poisonous, milky-white cloud settled over the city. Continue reading
Whistleblower on ANSTO’s nuclear radiation leak now dubbed a “security risk”
Ansto whistleblower now ”security risk’‘ St George & Sutherland Shire Leader, BY ROSITA GALLASCH, 09 Jun, 2010 DAVID Reid, the whistleblower who raised safety concerns about yje Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s radiopharmaceuticals and industrials (ARI) facility last month, is now regarded as a security risk.
ANSTO’s chief executive officer Adi Paterson said Mr Reid, who was a safety officer for six years and an employee for 28, now posed a security threat.
“I cannot be satisfied, from a security point of view, of him entering a nuclear facility,” Dr Paterson said. Continue reading
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
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 