Review- the nuclear week that has been
Australia: Climate denialists Monckton and Plimer touring Australia (wonder who’s paying for this tour?). Maralinga nuclear veterans must take their case to England. Tony Abbott calls for uranium sales to India, as India builds its nuke weapons arsenal. Australian Super decides that uranium is ethical enough. Point Lowly Action group trying to save iconic Great Australian Cuttlefish. ERA uranium shares and production fall. Govt considers airport scanning amid public ignorance on the issue.
International: Huge global renewable energy summit. France’s nuke industry embroiled in strife. Critical talks about Iran’s nukes. Germany in dilemma over mounting nuclear waste. Future very complicated for USA’s nuke industry. Colorado anti-uranium legal bid moves along. Revelations of Israel’s uranium tests on workers. Doomsday clock – slight improvement. USA – anti-uranium protest. Court action over depleted uranium in Hawaii. Protest against NASA’s radiation testing on squirrel monkeys.
Australian atomic radiation victims not compensated
Ex-servicemen who were ordered into radiation zones and to clean planes and vehicles following the blasts have not received any compensation….Many have died from blood disorders and cancers
Veterans clear to chase compo over Brit N-tests Brisbane Times ANDREA HAYWARD January 16, 2010 Continue reading
Tony Abbott calls for selling uranium to India
Australian opposition calls for India uranium sales Australia’s Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbot says Australia should sell uranium to India.ABC Radio 15 Jan 2010
The incumbent Rudd government fulfilled an election promise and outlawed uranium sales to India because Delhi has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But Mr Abbott says selling uranium to India is a good idea……..
The former Howard government had agreed to Indian uranium sales on the back of a United States-Indian agreement allowing the sale of uranium for civil purposes. http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201001/2792805.htm?desktop
IAEA’s grand new ‘peace’ plan, that just happens to promote uranium
International nuclear bank – helping world peace?
By Humphrey Hawksley
BBC News, Kazakhstan 9 Jan 2010
In 1953, eight years after the American nuclear bombing of Japan, President Dwight D Eisenhower laid out a vision that he called Atoms for Peace. Continue reading
Can uranium mines be operated safely?
Uranium Mining: Australia and Globally League of Individuals for the Environment, Inc , Gavin M. Mudd 7 Jan 2010 “………………..The most recent experience of Australia’s operating uranium mines demonstrates the challenges involved in uranium mining, which are distinct and unique. There have been numerous incidents at the now closed Nabarlek mine and the operating Ranger, Olympic Dam, and Beverley projects. Continue reading
Review of the nuclear year that has been
Review of the nuclear year that has been Christina Macpherson 5 January 2010
Australia: An extraordinary year in which Climate Sceptics were allowed to dominate much of the media, turning Australia into a curious outpost of anti-science. Pro-nuclear hype revved up, too – sometimes promoted as cure for global warming, but, inexplicably, also promoted by climate change disbelievers.
BHP Billiton put out huge but inadequate Environmental Impact Statement for its planned Olympic Dam expansion. Uranium explorations all over the place, especially in South Australia, as govt and mining industry try to manipulate aboriginal owners. Awareness of radiation effects at last leads to Maralinga veterans’ legal bid for justice.
International: While the nuclear hype went on, the facts were otherwise. France’s “flagship” new nukes are still struggling, under construction, and ramping up huge debts to AREVA. UK and USA governments struggle with the reality that only the tax-payer can pay the costs of nuclear power. State-owned nuclear industry – e.g France, Russia, China are not troubled by having to reveal the costs.
USA in a turmoil over where to put nuclear wastes, as Yucca Mountain dump plan is dumped. Revelations of illegal waste-dumping by UK and European countries were quickly glossed over in mainstream media. China is secretive about its nuke wastes, in earthquake areas, and imprisons nuclear dissidents.
The world waits for a resolution of Iran and its nukes, with fear of attack on Iran by Israel or the USA.. Middle Eastern countries seek nuclear power “for peaceful purposes only”, while India revs up its nuke power and nuke weapons, and everyone eyes Pakistan with trepidation.
Quietly, the anti-nuclear and anti-uranium movements built up momentum, along with strengthening indigenous rights movement, and a strong presence at Copenhagen. Impediments occur to the growth of the nuclear industry, including for example, quite a few legal victories in USA.
Nuclear plant cooling pools – terrorist targets
The Department of Homeland Security has marked Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.
Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina . Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina In Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010 Project Censored, Organic Consumers Association January 3, 2010 One of the most lethal patches of ground in North America is located in the backwoods of North Carolina, where Shearon Harris nuclear plant is housed and owned by Progress Energy. The plant contains the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country. Continue reading
Maralinga atomic veterans join British class action
It is a race against time as applications have to be lodged before a legal deadline of May 2010
CLASS ACTION BY NUCLEAR VETERANS HEADED BY SYDNEY LEGAL TEAM – NO WIN NO FEE December 31, 2009 by Coober Pedy Regional Times Surviving Australian veterans of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga, Monte Bello Island and Christmas Island in the 1950s and 60s are joining British and other nuclear veterans in taking the British government to court in what could be one of the most significant compensation cases in legal history. Continue reading
Russia keeping its policy of nuclear first strike
Weak Russian Military Suggestive of Nuclear First Strike Doctrine The Market Oracle by Pravda, 27 Dec 09 In October 2009, Nicolai Patrushev, Russia’s Security Council Secretary, announced that the new military doctrine was on its way. The old one was dated back in 2000 and written even earlier, under Yeltsin. Patrushev named the announcement of Russia’s right for a preventive nuclear strike the key provision of the new doctrine. He kept his word, and this provision does exist in the text of the doctrine approved by the Security Council. Continue reading
Depleted uranium was tested on soldiers in Australia
An Australian royal commission first discovered the use of depleted uranium in atomic tests at Maralinga some years ago,
Global changes ruining the world, September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action UK Admits Soldiers Used in Radiation Experiments The UK Ministry of Defense admitted on 12 May that it exposed British, Australian and New Zealand servicemen to radiation in tests during the 1950s and 1960s. A spokesperson for the Ministry denied that the soldiers were used as guinea pigs, Continue reading
Russia still ignoring its nuclear guinea pigs
These people were used as guinea pigs, tested, and then left to die slowly of cancer. The state does not want their tragedy recognized, because it would cost money. Nobody wants to know.
Global changes ruining the world September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action Soviet Human Nuclear Experiments Reported According to recently released reports, some 45,000 people, mainly Soviet soldiers, were deliberately exposed in 1954 to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima just nine years before. Continue reading
Nuclear power declining, not reviving, in USA
Throughout the US, while the corporate media hypes a “renaissance” of new nukes, facts on the ground say the opposite is happening
A Quiet but HUGE No Nukes Triumph By Harvey Wasserman 24 Dec 09
In the wake of Copenhagen, an unheralded but hard-fought No Nukes victory has moved us closer to a green-powered Earth.
It has happened in upstate New York, Continue reading
China’s nuclear program mired in corruption and dubious safety
Nuclear Power Expansion in China Stirs Concerns The New York Times By KEITH BRADSHER 15 Dec 09 “………. inside and outside the country, the speed of the construction program has raised safety concerns.
The last country to carry out such a rapid nuclear expansion was the United States in the 1970s, in a binge of reactor construction that ended with the Three Mile Island accident Continue reading
A positive view of the Nuclear Disarmament Commission
A real chance for a world free of nuclear weapons Sydney Morning Herald MARK DAVIS December 17, 2009 “…………………The original “grand bargain” of the NPT was that the nuclear-armed states signing up agreed to negotiate disarmament while the states without nukes agreed not to develop or obtain weapons. Continue reading
A negative view of the Disarmament Commission
Report on nuke threat is a dud Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor : The Australian December 17, 2009 “……………The world has more than 20,000 nuclear weapons and it would be a good thing if this number were substantially reduced. Continue reading
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