25 years since Chernobyl...
Australia must stop fuelling Fukushimas...
25 years on since the disaster at Chernobyl, Australia sells uranium to TEPCO, the nuclear power company involved in the ongoing Fukushima radioactive saga. Australia also sells uranium to nuclear weapons states, while the government proposes to build a radioactive waste dump in the NT and continues to push for an expansion of the uranium mining industry.
The Chernobyl disaster has left a toxic zone in which 9 million people living in the region are still victims to radiation’s legacy – untimely deaths, genetic damage, cancer and other radiation related illnesses. Everything they eat, drink and breathe, the soil their food grows in and their children play on, is poisoned by radiation. Chernobyl demonstrates that nuclear power is neither peaceful, clean, nor safe.
The ongoing disaster at Fukushima in Japan will affect millions similary, with hundreds of thousand driven from their homes, perhaps permanently. Nuclear material continues to leak into the air, water and has been detected in food an women's breast milk in the region. There is no doubt that Australian uranium is the source of the nuclear contamination now injuring the Japanese.
The Australian government has been pushing to expand the nuclear industry – engaging in uranium deals with nuclear weapons states, imposing a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory, inaccurately presenting nuclear power as a solution to climate change and pressuring states, such as Queensland to open uranium mines. Over 40 sites are now targeted for uranium mines in Western Australia alone.
25 years on, people are still being affected by the Chernobyl disaster.
Chernobyl, and now Fukushima are lessons we must learn: uranium mining is a toxic industry and nuclear power is never safe.
We hope that the reality of Chernobyl will convince the Queensland government to retain it's no uranium mining policy and that we can we work to make Australia truly nuclear free.
Chernobyl Day activities around Australia:
* BRISBANE Chernobyl Day Nuclear Awareness Action, April 26, 12:30pm Meet in King George Square, Brisbane City for roving street theatre, leafletting etc
*MELBOURNE April 27th - Film Screening ‘Beating the Bomb’, Westgarth Palace Cinema 6:45pm
*PERTH Tues 26th Public Rally at Forest Place 2.30,Tues 26th Film night Hyde Park 7pm, Weds 27th Peace vigil at Wesley Church 12 noon - 2pm.
*ADELAIDE: April 18th - 24th 'Tour De Flinders' bike ride from Port Augusta to Arkaroola,
*SYDNEY: Sydney: April 26th 6pm Candlelight vigil at Sydney Opera House
Comments
Re: 25th Anniversary of Chernobyl nuclear meltdown: ...
Indymedia is to be commended, for publicising these Chernobyl Day activities,while the mainstream media is strangely silent.
However, The Age is also to be commended today, as it publishes Dr Helen Caldicott's warning against the current nuclear "spin" about radiation being not all that bad for health.
It is understandable that the mainstream media is confused about the effects of nuclear radiation. Dr Caldicott gives a timely reminder of the links between some establishment agencies and the nuclear lobby.
A particularly worrying one is the World Health Organisation. For one thing, it classifies only thyroid cancer as a community health problem from Chernobyl radiation. Leukaemia and other cancers are not counted.
Dr Caldicott reminds us: "On May 28, 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. A clause of this agreement says the WHO effectively grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA - a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry. Its founding papers state: ''The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world.'"