Australia
In Australia, the Aboriginal population has been unfairly targeted with radioactive waste dumps and uranium mining. Stripped of their rights, Aborigines however continue to fight back to prevent waste dumping and expansion of uranium mining.
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Over 25 years since it exploded and caught fire, the Australian television program Sixty Minutes on June 6, 2011 revisited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine to learn the lessons about radioactivity's hazards for application in Japan, downwind and downstream of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe.
The government of the Northern Territories has withdrawn its support of a planned uranium mine project near Alice Springs. Strong community opposition combined with threats posed to tourism prompted the government's change of position. The mine would have been operated jointly by Paladin and Cameco.
Traditional owners of Muckaty Station in Australia will fight a nuke dump on their land claiming that they were not properly consulted about the dump and that the government decision to construct it is void. See the story.
"Fears of radiation exposure to uranium workers has led to the Electrical Trades Union in Brisbane, Australia, to ban members from working in uranium mines, nuclear power stations, and any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, according to a BBC report. Union leaders believe uranium exposure will replace asbestos as the high profile toxic workplace contaminant...the reasons stated for not allowing union workers in Australia be exposed to uranium recalls statements made by dying and ill workers in the United States who unknowingly made the ultimate sacrifice working at Cold War uranium diffusion and processing plants." More.
A company whistleblower claims that mining giant BHP Billiton is risking the lives of employees at Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. Of particular concern is the radioisotope, polonium-210 which is leathal in very small doses, as small as the weight of a butterfly wing scale. Polonium-210 was used to murder Alexader Litvinenko, a Soviet intelligence operative, in 2006. Workers at Olympic Dam are exposed to polonium-210 because it is a decay product of uranium. The full story is in the June 4 issue of The Independent Weekly.
June 25, 2011