Author: admin

Part II

 Source: Information Clearing House

Producer/Director of Blowin’ in the Wind and five times AFI winner, David Bradbury’s latest contribution A HARD RAIN explores the ‘other side’ of the nuclear debate.

      Traversing five countries – China, France, UK, Japan and Australia, and using what Bradbury learnt from his previous three nuclear documentaries (Public Enemy Number One, Jabiluka and Blowin’ in the Wind) – A Hard Rain takes a closer look at the global nuclear industry in its entirety, from the mining of uranium through to the nuclear power plant to the radioactive waste and weapons manufacturing.  It exposes the hidden agendas behind this latest push for Australia to go nuclear.

      By looking at the experience of countries overseas that have gone nuclear, A Hard Rain debunks some of the myths of the nuclear industry: that nuclear is safe, cheap, healthy and green with little chance of another Chernobyl happening.

      If you want vital and factual information to debate the issue intelligently and overthrow the myths that the nuclear and pro uranium mining lobby has so successfully implanted in the media, in the government and the Labor Party, then this film is a must see.

   Yes, this is a documentary that HAD TO BE MADE!

West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter says he has no doubt there will be several more desalination plants built along the state’s coast in the future.

The first major seawater desalination plant to be built in the southern hemisphere has been commissioned at Kwinana.

The $400 million plant will produce 45 billion litres of water annually, which is almost 20 per cent of Perth’s current needs.

Mr Carpenter says given the success of the project, he is certain more desalination plants will be built to help secure Perth’s water supply.

"There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that we will have another desalination plant at least of this scale, along the coast north or south of Perth in the not too distant future," he said.

"In the longer term, we’ll have more than one more, we’ll have several."

Source: ABC Online  

by John Pickrell

The Earth exploded into the nuclear age on 16 July 1945.On that day, the US tested a completely new type of weapon in the New Mexico desert. Crafted from a tennis-ball-sized plutonium sphere, the Trinity bomb produced an explosion equivalent to 20,000 tonnes of TNT.

Sixty years on, tens of thousands of tonnes of plutonium and enriched uranium have been produced. The global nuclear arsenal stands at about 27,000 bombs. Nine countries very probably possess nuclear weapons, while 40 others have access to the materials and technology to make them.

But nuclear technology has also been used for peaceful means. The first nuclear reactor to provide electricity to a national grid opened in England in 1956. Now, 442 reactors in 32 nations generate 16% of the world’s electricity.

Nuclear power has been championed as a source of cheap energy. But this was undermined at the end of the 20^th century by high-profile reactor accidents, the problems of radioactive waste disposal, competition from more-efficient electricity sources and unavoidable links to nuclear weapons proliferation. Nonetheless, growing evidence for global warming had led some to argue that nuclear power is the only way to generate power without emitting greenhouse gases.

However, several high profile accidents damaged public confidence in nuclear power. The worst US nuclear accident was in 1979, when a cooling system malfunctioned at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The reactor melted down, releasing radioactive gas into the environment. There are now concerns about safety with other ageing US reactors.

Nuclear goes wrong 

The world’s most catastrophic nuclear accident happened in 1986, at Chernobyl in Ukraine. Control rods were withdrawn from the reactor in misguided safety test, causing meltdown and massive explosions. The radiation released killed 30 people directly and spread over northern Europe.

The accident has led to radiation-induced conditions such as thyroid cancers and leukaemia, birth defects, baby deaths and contamination to lakes and forests. Three other reactors at Chernobyl began working again in 1988, but the last finally closed in 2000 after Western nations eventually paid Ukraine to close it. Similar reactors in Eastern Europe may be just as dangerous.

In 1999, 70 people were exposed to radiation in Japan’s Tokaimura uranium processing plant after workers added seven times the safe quantity of uranium to a settling tank. This triggered an uncontrolled chain reaction. Many other hazardous or lethal accidents have occurred in facilities such as Windscale, Sellafield, Mayak, Monju, Tsuruga and Mihama.

Radioactive nuclear waste – which remains dangerous for many thousands of years – is another serious drawback of the industry. Governments have considered disposing of it by reprocessing; burying it deep underground, such in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain in the US; burning it; shipping it to other countries; zapping it with giant lasers; encasing it in glass blocks and storing it on-site at nuclear facilities.

But concerns have been raised about potential flooding of repositories, secret disposal sites and the risks of transporting waste. Cleaning up decommissioned nuclear sites is also expensive and difficult.

Yet nuclear power still has one advantage that could prompt a comeback – the lack of greenhouse gas emissions. Some now tout it as a good way to reduce the emissions linked to global warming. The US government has already announced plans for a raft of new nuclear power stations – the first since 1979.

Source: NewScientist.com news service

 

By Greg Mitchell April 12, 2007

For the entire war in Iraq, the press has been kept largely in the dark concerning the number of civilians killed by our forces, and what happened in the aftemath. Now several hundred files posted online reveal some of the true horror while raising questions about lack of compensation.

The most revealing new information on Iraq — guaranteed to make readers sad or angry, or both — is found not in any press dispatch but in a collection of several hundred PDFs posted on the Web this week.

Here you will find, for example, that when the U.S. drops a bomb that goes awry, lands in an orchard, and does not detonate — until after a couple of kids go out to take a look — our military does not feel any moral or legal reason to compensate the family of the dead child because this is, after all, broadly speaking, a "combat situation."

Also: What price (when we do pay) do we place on the life of a 9-year-old boy, shot by one of our soldiers who mistook his book bag for a bomb satchel? Would you believe $500? And when we shoot an Iraqi journalist on a bridge we shell out $2500 to his widow — but why not the measly $5000 she had requested?

This, and much more, is found in the new PDFs of Iraqi claims, which are usually denied.

Last June, The Boston Globe and The New York Times revealed that a local custom in Iraq known as "solatia" had now been adapted by the U.S. military — it means families receive financial compensation for physical damage or a loss of life. The Globe revealed that payoffs had "skyrocketed from just under $5 million in 2004 to almost $20 million last year, according to Pentagon financial data."

In a column at that time, I asked: How common is the practice? And how many unnecessary deaths do the numbers seem to suggest?

It’s necessary to ask because the press generally has been denied information on civilian killings and, in recent years, it has become too dangerous in much of Iraq for reporters to go out and investigate shootings or alleged atrocities.

Now we have more evidence, thanks to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) request for files on payments by the military. The FOIA request produced 500 case studies, which deserve broad attention.

An Army spokesman told the New York Times that the total payments so far had reached at least $32 million. Yet this figure apparently includes only the payments made in this formal claim process that requires offiical approval. The many other "solatia" or "condolence payments" made informally at a unit commander’s discretion are not always included.

The ACLU site, www.aclu.org, now features a searchable database of reports (the ACLU is seeking more of them in case this is just the tip of the iceberg).

The New York Times comments today: "There is no way to know immediately whether disciplinary action or prosecution has resulted from the cases. Soldiers hand out instruction cards after mistakes are made, so Iraqis know where to file claims. …"

Exploring the case reports quickly turns disturbing. They often include the scrawled claims by a victim’s family member detailing a horrific accidental or deliberate killing (all names blacked out) and then a ruling by a U.S. Army captain or major with the Foreign Claims Commission.

Occasionally the officer orders a payment, although it can still make you scream, as for example: "Claimant alleges that her two brothers were returning home with groceries from their business, when U.S. troops shot and killed them, thinking they were insurgents with bombs in the bags. I recommend approving this claim in the amount of $5,OOO."

More often the officer denies the claim due to alleged lack of evidence, or threatening behavior by the deceased (usually just failing to stop quickly enough while driving) or the death occurring in some sort of vague combat situation. Many of the denials seem arbitrary or unfair, particularly when the only reason cited is a "combat exemption" — as in the case of the dead kid in that orchard.

Then there’s this example:

"Claimant’s son and a friend were fishing, in a small boat, 15 kilometers north of Tikrit on the Tigres river at 2200 hours on 31 March 2005. The claimant and his son had fished the Tigres many nights recently, but the father did not join his son this night. U.S. Forces helicopters were flying overhead, like they usually did and there were no problems.

"A U.S. Forces HMMWV patrol pulled up to the beach near where they were fishing. The patrol had spotted and destroyed a boat earlier in the evening that had an RPG in it. They set off an illumination round and then opened fre. The claimant’s only son was shot and killed. His friend was injured, but managed to get the boat to the other side of the river. At the small village across the river they received medical help and were taken to the hospital. But, it was too late for the claimant’s son.

"The claimant and his son were huge supporters of democracy and up to this day held meetings and taught there friends about democracy. The claimant provided two witness statements, medical records, a death certificate, photographs and a scene sketch, all of which supported his claim.

"Opinion: There is sufficient evidence to indicate that U.S. Forces intentionally killed the claimant’s son. Unfortunately, those forces were involved in security operations at the time. Therefore, this case falls within the combat exception."

Sometimes the Army officer, perhaps feeling a bit guilty for his ruling – or the whole war – authorizes a small payment in "condolence" money, which does not require admitting any wrongdoing on our part. One of the PDFs notes that a U.S. army memo states a maximum condolence payment scale: $2,500 for death, $500 for property, $1,000 for injury.

To give you more of the flavor, here are some excerpts (with a few typos corrected).

***

Claimant filed a claim for $5,500 on 3 Sept. 2005.

Facts: Claimant alleges that a CF [coalition force] dropped a bomb in his orchard. The bomb allegedly did not explode upon impact. Claimant’s son went to investigate and was killed when the UXO detonated. Claimant’s cousin was seriously injured in the explosion. A couple of hours later, CF allegedly took the body and Claimant to LSA Anaconda for medical treatment. In support of their claims, the Claimants have offered witness statements, medical records from LSA Anaconda, and police and judicial reports.

Opinion: Under AR 27-20, paragraph 10-3, Claims arising "directly or indirectly" from combat sctivities of the US. Armed Forces are not payable. AR 27-20 defines combat activities as "Activities resulting directly or indirectly from action by the enemy, or by the U.S. Armed Forces engaged in armed conflict, or in immediate preparation for impending armed conflict." Here, an airstrike clearly constitutes combat activity. While unfortunate, this claim is precluded from compensation under the combat exception.

Recommendation: The claim is denied

***

Dec. 5 2005:

Claimant alleges that on the above date at the above mentioned location, the child was outside playing by their gate and a stray bullet from a U.S. soldier hit their son in the head and killed him. The U.S. soldiers went to the boy’s funeral and apologized to the family and took their information to get to them, but never did. The child was nine years old and their only son.

I recommend approving this claim in the amount of $4,OOO.OO.

***

April 15, 2005

Claimant alleges that on or about 24 February 2005, he was riding in a mini-bus with his nine-year-old son on his lap when Coalition Forces fired a round into the bus. The round allegedly hit his son in the head, causing the son’s death later on. Xxxxx alleges that some Americans came to the hospital and apologized. He also states that one of the HMMWV’s had "32" on the side. Claimant has enclosed an autopsy report.

Allow me to express my sympathy for your loss, however, in accordance with the cited references and after investigating your claim, I find that your claim is not compensable for the following reason: In vour claim you failed to provide suflicient evidence that U.S. Forces and not someone else is responsible for your damages. Accordingly, your claim must be denied.

***

Incident occurred Jan. 6, 2005 at a bridge near Haifa Street

Claimant alleges that her husband, who was working as a journalist, was walking across the bridge when he was shot and killed by U.S. troops. She has documentation from CA confirming that US. troops were in the area at that time. Also, a medical report is attached stating that the round that killed the victim was a 5.56mm round. The claimant has submitted sufficient evidence.

I recommend approving this claim in the amount of $2,5OO.OO.

(She had asked for $5000)

***

On 11 April 2005, Claimant’s father was allegedly killed by CF forces near the Samarra Museum&hellipClaimant says that his father was deaf and would not have heard danger nearby. The claimant did not personally witness the shooting and relies solely on eyewitnesses. Eye witnesses related that victim was shot by CF forces. The Claimant does not know if his father was shot by CF forces responding to an AIF attack, or whether CF fired directly on his father.

The claimant presented a claim in the amount of $4,000 on 21 November 2005.

RECOMMENDATION: this claim be denied.
***

Dec. 5, 2004:

The issue presented is whether claimant may receive compensation for the death of his father, his mother, his brother and 32 sheeps.

In this case, the claimant has lost his entire family and his herd of sheep that provide a means of income. In addition, the claimant suffered gun shot wounds himself.

The claimant states that his family was sleeping when the shots were
fired that killed his family. He claims that the family had only one AK-47 that the father carried outside after his wife was shot in the head The coalition force may have been justified in shooting at another target where the claimant and his family would be collateral damage to that combat operation. However, the ROE require units to have positive identification of target before engaging. In this case, reports indicate that over one hundred rounds were fired that impacted around a flock of sheep and his sleeping family. Accordingly, it appears that the shooting, although not "wrongful", was conducted "negligently". It is therefore my opinion that there is sufficient evidence to justify compensation under the FCA.

I recommend that claimant be appoved in the amount claimed totaling $11,020.

***

On 11 April 2005, at about 11:30 am, Claimant’s 8 year old sister,
xxxx was allegedly killed by CF forces near the Al Khatib Secondary School, Samarra. xxxx says that his sister was playing near the school and was shot by CF. Deceased’s death certificate … she was killed by gunfire. The claimant did not personally witness the shooting and relies solely on eye witnesses. Eye witnesses related that victim was shot by CF forces by a "random shot." During the interview, it was impossible to clarify what the claimant meant by a "random shot." A SIGACTS investigation revealed no activity or incidents in Samarra on that date.

RECOMMENDATION: Based upon the investigation by this FCC, it is reasonable to conclude that the CF activity can be characterized as combat activity. I recommend this claim be denied.

***

June 17, 2005

Claimant alleges that on the above date at the above mentioned location, his brother xxxxx was traveling in his car with rugs that he was taking to a rug store to sell. He was shot by U.S. soldiers, and the rugs and cash on his possession were never recovered…and his body left there.

I recommend approving this claim in the amount of $3,000.00
**

April 23, 2006, Samarra

Claimant alleges that Coalition Forces fired upon his two sons as they were leaving the market. The claimants sons waived their shirts and their underwear as a sign of peace. The claimant provided death certificates, legal expert and witness statements to substantiate the
claim.

Opinion: There is not enough evidence to prove the claim.

Recommendation: The claim is denied.

 

 

Forestry Tasmania stonewalling attempts: Allston’s intervention followed several point-blank refusals by Forestry Tasmania to supply details of its deal with Gunns after an initial application by Greens native forests spokesman Tim Morris in July last year. Both Gunns and Forestry Tasmania "strongly objected" to the wood contract Memorandum of Understanding, signed in April 2004 between then-Forestry Tasmania chief Evan Rolley and Gunns chairman, John Gay, being made public. The two companies claimed the contract was commercial-in-confidence" and its publication would harm both companies’ competitive advantages.

Ombudsman decision to open up debate: But the Ombudsman has now decided this is not sufficient grounds for keeping the entire deal top secret. But he agreed to continue to conceal the key price paid per tonne of timber and the timber volumes involved. However, the ruling is expected to reveal how Gunns has convinced Forestry Tasmania to give it cheaper access to the state’s native timber if the world pulp price falls below a certain level.

Forestry Tasmania loses FoI exemption claim: Forestry Tasmania indicated it would supply the document immediately. Allston specificially pointed out in his finding that since July 2005, Forestry Tasmania had lost any special status exempting it from the state’s FoI laws.

The Mercury, 13/4/2007, p.13