Home > The weeks’ nuclear news to February 1
The weeks’ nuclear news to February 1
by Christina Macpherson - Open-Publishing - Wednesday 1 February 2012Australia: The Australian media excelled itself in its distortion of news on Aboriginal protest in Canberra. There may be an investigation into the violence there – violence not from the Aborigines, but from the police. Focus on this incident obscured a deeper problem – the draft Constitutional changes which include entrenching the discrimination and land-grabbing that goes on in the interests of the uranium/nuclear industry. The Commission’s full report is available at: www.brc.gov
Anxious talks between BHP Billiton and South Australian government, as BHP wavers about the future of the new bigOlympic Dam uranium mine, in view of the nuclear industries global stagnation.
Australia’s richest person (en route to becoming the world’s richest woman) Gina Rinehart starts a new uranium mining company. Western Australian Labor, under a new leader, weakens its anti uranium policy.
Hypocrisy as 700 prominent Australians call for ban on nuclear weapons, but it seems that most, if not all, of them are quite happy for Australia to keep on selling the fuel for nuclear weapons – uranium.
A quiet push to have Australian ports deepened, in preparation for USA nuclear submarines. And another quiet push to have Australia buy its own nuclear submarines from USA. And an even quieter meeting between Russia’s Foreign Minister and Australian officials on nuclear technology vo-operation between Australia and Russia.
International: Drama continues as USA hawks want war with Iran, while other opinions advise the difficult path of diplomacy.
More revelations of the secrecy and ineptitude of Japanese government following the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
USA’s “Blue Ribbon Panel on Nuclear Future” comes out with its Final Report - with no solution to nuclear wastes, but no suggestion of stopping producing them!
France in somewhat of a financial pickle over its nuclear reactors – can’t afford new ones, can’t afford to shut down existing ones, can’t afford to upgrade their safety – but forced to do the latter, by the European Union’s new safety rules.
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Christina Macpherson
Antinuclear Australia