Australia ‘inactive’ on Nuclear Disarmament
“At the May 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, Australia was noticeably inactive, failing to walk the talk, merely aligning itself with the United States……..
Hiroshima Day – and still 23,000 loaded weapons! « Darren Churchill: Australian Democrats Senate Candidate for the ACT 6 August, 2010 The Australian Government is playing games on the issue of nuclear disarmament says the Australian Democrats’ lead Senate candidate in the ACT, Darren Churchill Continue reading
Don’t let Australian govt override Northern Territory laws
“In Canberra they’ve changed that constitutional requirement to [mean] the executive or the minister can override Territory laws,” Greens leader Bob Brown said.”We want to put it back to what the constitution says – that the whole of Parliament’s required – because that gives the Territory the backstop of the Senate.”….
Greens want brakes on overriding NT laws – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Aug 4, 2010 Darwin. The Greens say if they win the balance of power in the Senate they will try to pressure the Federal Government to change the law so Commonwealth ministers cannot override Northern Territory law. Continue reading
BHP, Rio – relatively small employers, with big political influence
For such an economically important industry, mining is a relatively small employer (the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not rank it in the top 10 industries by employment)….The mining industry, however, is streets ahead in being able to exercise political influence.
Follow the miners in lobbying , Mike Riddiford, The Australian, August 04, 2010“……..Between them, companies such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata turn over more than $100 billion a year. This enables them to mobilise huge resources to protect their interests. Continue reading
Australia’s Hiroshima Day TV message
A television commercial featuring atomic bomb survivors at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park appealing for the abolition of nuclear weapons will be broadcast in Australia on Friday, the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
Ban, Okada confirm effort to eradicate nukes,The Japan Times Online, Aug. 4, 2010, By MASAMI ITOS U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon confirmed Tuesday with Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada that Japan and the world body will aim for the abolition of nuclear weapons…. Continue reading
Western Australian govt prepared to compulsorily acquire Aboriginal land
WA still prepared to acquire LNG site, Sydney Morning Herald, August 4, 2010 The threat of compulsory acquisition continues to loom over the site of a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) hub in far north Western Australia, Premier Colin Barnett says. Continue reading
Toshiba seeking taxpayer money, despite its CT scans radiation overdoses
one of the companies seeking the aid for a project in Texas is currently under federal investigation for its role in the radiation overdoses of patients who received CT scans on its equipment…..Given the information emerging about Toshiba’s safety record, is that a risk U.S. taxpayers want to take?
(USA) Company seeking nuclear subsidies under investigation for radiation overdoses to stroke patients, FACING SOUTH, , By Sue Sturgis , August 4, 2010 The U.S. Senate could vote as soon as next month on a proposal to give $9 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to companies planning to build new nuclear reactors – Continue reading
Muckaty nuclear dump – a foot in the door for international wastes
Senator Brown says it is only a matter of time before Australia’s first nuclear waste dump stores high level waste from overseas.
“Wait for it, it will become high level further down the line as the waste problem for China, for the US, for the USSR ,as it used to be, Russia, for Europe, for Taiwan.
Store nuclear waste at source, not in NT: Brown, ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) By Jane Bardon, 4 August 2010, “….After launching the Greens campaign in the Territory, Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has called for nuclear waste to be stored where it is produced, such as Lucas Heights in Sydney. Continue reading
How the USA Hollywoodised the bombing of Hiroshima
The Hollywoodization of the bomb had begun. Even in minor details, the film now justified the bombing…….. the White House demanded further changes; among them, deleting a reference to morally concerned scientists who favored demonstrating the bomb for Japanese leaders in a remote area before dropping it on a city……
WHITE HOUSE COVER-UP: How Truman Edited Hollywood’s First Movie About the Atomic Bomb, The Nation, Greg Mitchell and Robert Jay Lifton, 4 August 2010, “……Here’s a close-up look at the “coverup”–led by the Truman White House–of the first “Hiroshima movie,” some of it based on material we were first to discover at the Truman Library in Missouri. Continue reading
The cry of a bereaved Hiroshima father
“I wanted to pass on the fact that the atomic bombing does not end only with the sufferings of the generation of people who were directly exposed.”
Hibakusha writes to his dead child, BY HAJIMU TAKEDA THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, 3 Aug 2010, An 81-year-old survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has written a letter addressed to his stillborn daughter, expressing his anguish at the possibility that his exposure to radiation was responsible for her fate. Continue reading
Greens garnering electoral support against nuclear waste dump
“If people vote for the Greens, they will have a voice against a nuclear waste dump, and a very rigorous one at that, in the national Parliament,” Senator Brown said.
Greens leading the Nats, says Brown, The Age, LINDSAY MURDOCH, August 4, 2010 BOB Brown flew to the marginal Top End seat of Solomon yesterday claiming the Greens vote is rapidly increasing across regional Australia and is now “way ahead of the National Party” Continue reading
Radioactive wastes could truck through Riverina, NSW
“We’re talking about literally hundreds and over time thousands of trucks of radioactive waste passing through these transport corridor communities.”
Residents warned of radioactive transport corridor, ABC Riverina NSW – Australian Broadcasting Corporation August 3, 2010 The group Friends of the Earth has warned that the city of Wagga Wagga could be affected by Commonwealth plans to move nuclear waste from Lucas Heights to a new dump in the Northern Territory. Continue reading
A “dirty bomb’ could be made from medical radioactive isotopes
since cesium can be stolen from a hospital and thus can be more easily acquired than, say, uranium or plutonium, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine a terrorist group acquiring enough cesium to construct a barrage of low-explosive, highly radioactive bombs and blanketing a major city with them.
The Real Deal With Cesium,THE HUFFINGTON POST, Rizwan Ladha, 2 Aug 2010, The idea has been floated for a long time of using cesium in a radioactive “dirty bomb,” which wouldn’t have the same explosive power as a uranium or plutonium nuclear bomb but would contaminate land, water supplies and living organisms, including people. Continue reading
Australia gambles on the dodgy uranium industry
You do wonder where Australian politics is heading. Clearly the big uranium miners BHP, Rio Tinto, ExStrata, are now dictating Labor policy on mining tax. (They have always dictated Liberal policy). Some ambitious union leaders are also hand in glove with those big miners, as are the South Australian and Western Australian governments.
Those States, and the Northern Territory are crawling with uranium explorers, and uranium mining is being hyped in the media. Yet uranium prices fall, and the nuclear industry stalls in USA, Europe, Britain.
Australia pitches its glowing uranium prospects on China. China is notorious for corruption, including in the nuclear industry, it has dubious safety and nuclear waste management, and a keen nuclear weapons program. But apart from all that – China might wake up to the financial and environmental negatives of nuclear power.
While China itself, and Europe, and soon, even USA, show the way on 21st Century renewable energy technologies, Australia is gambling on a very dodgy future of uranium sales.
Uranium miners stack Australia’s group for mines tax policy
the policy-transition group will be headed by former BHP chairman Don Argus and Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson.
Toro Energy CEO joins big miners in Labor’s mines tax policy team, The Australian * Rachel Pannett * From: Dow Jones Newswires * August 03, 2010
WAYNE Swan today named former and serving resource executives ……. to the government’s mines tax policy team. The policy-transition group now includes….. former Rio Tinto executive David Klingner, Erica Smyth, chairman of uranium explorer Toro Energy….. and BHP Billiton),….. Continue reading
France leads in nuclear financial disaster
Last week, AREVA posted a massive operating loss of 485 million euros for the first half of 2010…..Electricite de France (EDF) finds itself in a similar predicament. In the first half of 2010, the company saw its profits slashed by almost half.
France leads the way in the nuclear debacle Greenpeace International, by jmckeati – August 2, 2010 If you want to know why the so-called nuclear ‘renaissance’ is never going to happen, you need only look at the news that’s been coming out of France in the last few days. Continue reading
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