Changes to Australia’s Law planned, to further uranium mining
sends a further public message about the likelihood of uranium mining being an increasing part of the mining landscape in Australia.
Changes to Commonwealth environmental approvals for uranium mining Australia, Lexology -July 6 2010 In brief:
- The Federal Government released its response to Deloitte’s 2008 Review of Regulatory Efficiency in Uranium Mining in May 2010.
- The response indicates there may be major changes to the environmental regulation of uranium mining in Australia. These may facilitate the approvals process for uranium mining. Continue reading
India’s nuclear plans just a “plum market” for USA nuclear companies
In the event of a tragedy, tax payers will have to cough up the compensation while foreign companies will go scot free,” ….. foreign nuclear companies have seen their market dry up in the US, UK and France because no new plants have been set up there in 20-30 years, and therefore, India was a plum market. And it is with an eye on securing these companies’ interests that the US and other developed nations are insisting that India pass the Nuclear Civil Liability Bill.
Public hearing nukes civil liability bill. Indian Express, 07 Jul 2010, HYDERABAD: Speakers at a public consultation on the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010 held here today pilloried the Union government for learning nothing from the Bhopal gas tragedy. They described as a sellout the Bill’s provision to impose a ceiling on the compensation payable by foreign nuclear suppliers in the eventuality of a nuclear accident. Continue reading
Australia’s students take to the streets against the uranium/nuclear industry
7 July 2010, Students take to the street to hold nuclear scumbags accountable.
Today hundreds of students from across Australia will take to the streets of Adelaide on The ‘Nuclear Scumbags Tour’. This will be a creative and informative demonstration by Traditional Owners, students, and community members speaking out against the coercion and exploitation of Aboriginal communities by Government and nuclear industry alike. The irresponsible industry practices combined with the lack of ethical government policy shows complete disregard for the environment, water and indigenous rights. Continue reading
Many mining companies worse off in Gillard’s new tax plan
BHP Billiton pays the South Australian government an embarrassing 3.5 per cent royalty for the uranium it extracts in the state’s north. As a result of the Gillard compromise it has escaped paying a resource rent tax of 40 per cent but regained a huge sovereign risk.
Sovereign risk back on the resources table, Sydney Morning Herald, PETER MARTINJuly 7, 2010 Have many mining companies been made worse off by of the changes made by Julia Gillard?…….. Continue reading
Women cancer victims of nuclear industry
The Udall measure, S. 3224, also would set aside money for an epidemiological study of the health effects on families of uranium workers and residents of uranium-development communities.
(USA) Feds not handling women’s uranium claims, GJSentinel.com, By Gary Harmon, July 5, 2010 The clerks and secretaries who worked in the Atomic Energy Commission offices in Grand Junction during World War II and later during the Cold War handled ore samples and were frequently in and around milling products. Continue reading
Survey shows the unpopularity of nuclear power
Support for nuclear power still pales in comparison to renewable sources.
(UK) Nuclear power is more unpopular than we’re led to believe | Liberal Conspiracy, July 5, 2010 New polling sheds some light both on where the public stand in terms of different power options, ……At a basic level, nuclear power is currently pretty much the least popular form of power generation in the UK. Continue reading
Billionaire corporate miners now running Australia’s ship of state
Like the wealth that comes from iron ore and coal, the answer takes some digging but it appears to be corporate, not union, power that steers the ship of state.
Gillard Caves In To Miners, The Age , DAVID MCKNIGHT, July 6, 2010 Corporate, not union, power can frequently drive politicians’ priorities. The struggle to define the victor and vanquished over the new mining tax will continue until the election, but we are left with a larger question, one once scornfully directed at trade unions: who is running the country? Continue reading
German govt to raise 9 billion euro by taxing nuclear fuel
German MOF: Not Abolishing Plan To Impose Nuclear Fuel Rod Tax – WSJ.com, By Andrea Thomas, BERLIN (Dow Jones) 6 July 2010, –The German finance ministry Monday rejected a media report that it might scrap the proposed tax on nuclear fuel rods and raise money from an energy fund instead.”The finance ministry doesn’t disavow the nuclear fuel rods tax,” a finance ministry spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires…….
As part of its EUR80 billion austerity package, the German government has said it plans to impose a tax on fuel rods, with proceeds seen at some EUR9.2 billion over a four-year period.
Germany is in the process of gradually phasing out all of its remaining 17 nuclear reactors by around 2022,…….Germany’s nuclear power plants are operated by utilities E.ON AG (EOAN.XE), RWE AG (RWE.XE), EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (EBK.XE) and Vattenfall Europe AG (VTT-XE).
German MOF: Not Abolishing Plan To Impose Nuclear Fuel Rod Tax – WSJ.com
Aboriginal Summit’s challenge on ownership of “wild country”
The conference resolved that international legal and political challenges are now pending and will be mounted within the coming months..
New Way Summit: Aboriginals In Australia To Retake Lands – Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources, 05 July 2010 “……The third meeting of the New Way Summit movement, initiated by Michael Anderson, heard that the Mabo judgment on Native Title was legal trickery, because hunting, gathering, walking on land, ceremonies on Country do not constitute a claim to legal title and ownership, whereas erecting fences, buildings and clearing of land does as an act of ‘adverse possession’.
Adverse possession is the means by which the colonizers asserts title to alleged ‘wild country’. Continue reading
Uranium Awareness from Experts, with Aboriginal Interpreters
Uranium awareness tour hits the road 5 July 2010, The Kimberley Uranium Awareness Community Forums kick off this week with meetings in Kununurra, Halls Creek, Billiluna, Fitzroy Crossing, Looma, Mowanjum, Derby and Broome.
The forums aim to inform Kimberley people about the risks of uranium mining and how this activity has affected Indigenous in other parts of Australia. Forum organisers have invited technical experts and Traditional Owners from the Northern Territory and South Australia to speak at the meetings. Continue reading
Sweden’s Anti Nuclear Protestors
Sweden fines activists for nuclear plant break-in, Google hosted news, The Associated Press:– 2 July 20201, STOCKHOLM — A Swedish court has ordered 29 Greenpeace activists to pay fines of up to 17,000 kronor ($2,200) each for breaking into the grounds of a nuclear energy plant.
The Uppsala District Court on Thursday convicted the demonstrators of trespassing for climbing a fence of the Forsmark power station in central Sweden last month.The Greenpeace activists included 13 Germans and eight Poles, as well as demonstrators from Britain, France and Nordic countries. The organization said they had been protesting Sweden’s plan to allow old reactors to be replaced with new ones.In 1980, Swedes voted to phase out the use of nuclear energy, but the current center-right coalition has overturned the decision. The Associated Press: Sweden fines activists for nuclear plant break-in
Nuclear power is no answer to Climate Change
Time is running out for the expensive, dangerous, dirty, nuclear power industry. The nuclear lobby’s desperate propaganda is that the industry is clean, and is a solution to global warming. That is a lie.
BHP and Olympic Dam uranium mining – beyond the laws
BHP Billiton’s power in Australia seems to grow daily.
BHP , Rio Tinto, Xstrata showed their power by intimidating Julia Gillard with the threat of renewing their $100 million advertising campaign. She had to act fast – hence the new, watered-down Resources Rent Tax.
Exempted from Australia’s planned new Resources Rent Tax, and with BHP people in its policy-making, along with their lackey, Martin Ferguson, BHP adds to its achievements in being beyond both Federal and State laws.
Water: In South Australia, BHP’s Olympic Dam uranium mining gets 37 million litres of water daily completely free of charge
SA Roxby Downs Indenture Act . This legislation allows the mine to operate with wide-ranging exemptions from:
Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act
Environment Protection Act
Natural Resources Act
Freedom of Information Act
Nuclear salesmen to run Australia’s new Resources Rent Tax
BHP Billiton and the uranium lobby are getting ever more powerful in policy-making in Australia.
Julia Gillard’s new Resources Rent Tax will be organsed by two top nuclear salesmen – Don Argus (from BHP BIlliton) and Nuclear Industry Minister Martin Ferguson.
Australia’s top science research body has strong links to BHP, and a chairman, Simon McKeon, who is a climate change doubter.
No Resource Rent Tax for Olympic Dam uranium mine
Done deal for Rann as Olympic Dam emerges unscathed , David Nason : The Australian * July 03, 2010 THE compromise mining tax won’t wring a single extra cent from the country’s biggest proposed mining project in South Australia. BHP Billiton’s $20 billion-plus Olympic Dam expansion in South Australia is exempt from the new tax, Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 