The Australian Nuclear Horn (Daniel 7:7)

Australian Uranium Mining Sites

Western Australia ready to dice with uranium & radiation

by Gerry Georgatos

April 26th, 2015

Several years ago I wrote about the West Australian Government, in collusion with the mining industry and the Federal Government, slating between 30 to 40 uranium mines for Western Australia over the next couple of decades. Stalwart activists who have been honourably fighting the struggle to prevent the prospect of radiation sickness did not want to believe that this was a prospect. But sadly it is.

Yesterday, the Federal Government ‘green light’ welcomed in a uranium mine in the Pilbara. There are now four uranium projects in advanced development stages. The Government will sell the underwriting of revenue and jobs but it is their mining chums who will get rich not the Australian nation – but the burden of any radiation leaks will be borne by the Australian people.

Mining companies are investing huge fortunes in research, exploration and development projects for the mining of uranium. Nuclear energy is not just touted but will be the energy fuel of the future. Previous and incumbent Australian Governments have signed off uranium export deals and not just with India.

Western Australia has four uranium mining projects in the advanced stages leading to their establishment – Kintyre, Mulga Rock, Wiluna and Yeelirrie.

For now, they are mostly by the communities – Homelands – of First Peoples. The communities are being told that jobs will be waiting for them at the uranium sites. The uranium sites are being sold as world’s best practice – you know, former nuclear disarmament and anti-uranium campaigner, Peter Garrett as a politician did an about face and sold Australian uranium mines as “world’s best practice” with “in-situ filtration”. However, despite Mr Garrett’s missed opportunity as a politician to make a difference, mining uranium is scary for many Australians, especially since the Fukishima catastrophe, despite the mainstream media skilfully reducing news coverage since the disaster. Australians do not want to hear people are living by uranium mines. This is part of why the Western Australian Government wants to close down Homelands and evict people off their Country. If they can get rid of the Martu from nearby Kintyre then there will be less controversy.

There are 500 nuclear reactors operating worldwide, with more than 70 being built and 200 in the planning stages. There will be thousands of nuclear reactors by the end of the century. Western Australia is infrastructure wealthy, and has 40 per cent of the world’s easily accessible high grade uranium. The Northern Territory has huge deposits of uranium. Australia will become the world’s greatest exporter of uranium but also its people the most at-risk to radiation sickness.

India will be a benefactor – and thanks to Australian uranium will increase its nuclear power generation from 3 per cent to 25 per cent. India will need one twelfth of the world’s uranium export.

Yesterday, Western Mines and Petroleum Minister, Bill Marmion has buoyed by the never in doubt decision by Federal Minister Greg Hunt in his granting of environmental approval for the Kintyre mine.

Minster Marmion said it all, “This marks another important step forward for Western Australia’s uranium industry.”

“I’d like to congratulate Kintyre’s operator, CAMECO, on reaching this significant milestone in the development of the mine, which will bring jobs and community benefits to the local community and the State.”

The uranium mines must be in operation within five years. However they reckon they will be operational within less than two years.

The uranium lobby is one of the nation’s most powerful.

Minister Marmion said, “More than $300 million has been invested in Western Australian uranium exploration since the Liberal/National Government lifted the mining ban in 2008.”

“With positive signs for a price recovery, including recent progress on an export agreement between Australia and India, these mines could be exporting $1 billion worth of uranium by 2020.”

“Importantly, they will generate more than 1,500 jobs during the construction phases and 500 jobs once in production.”

The State Labor Opposition carries on that it supports a uranium ban however this is hogwash. It was former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Government, helped along by Gary Gray and Martin Ferguson, who talked up uranium mining no less than Bob Hawke did, and who negotiated with India. State Labor despite its promises at its annual conferences will never reinstate the ban on uranium.

The Russian Government’s official death toll for Chernobyl is 46 but according to anti-nuclear campaigner, Dr Helen Caldicott it could be as high as 985,000. What is on the record is that there has been a significant rise in cancer rates in the affected region.

The long latency periods, as with asbestos related mesotheliomas, have skewed the data on the incidence of radiation related disease.

In 2006, the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) Committee of the US National Academy of Sciences reviewed the available data.

Their report stated, “The risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold.”

The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) estimated 30,000 fatal cancers from Chernobyl.

In 2006, twenty years after the Chernobyl disaster the World Health Organisation estimated up to 4,000 deaths among the Chernobyl population and more than 5,000 deaths among Ukrainian and Belarus populations from the exposure to lower dose radiation.

A 2006 Greenpeace commissioned report – 52 scientists – estimated 93,000 deaths.

Dr Caldicott investigated a Russian report, “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.” Alongside this report she argued 985,000 eventual deaths.

If Western Australia goes heavy duty on uranium mining with say 40 uranium mines even as far away as the end of the century if not by 2030 or 2050, uranium mining will touch even more lives than the ‘mining boom’ does at this time.

The Australian Nuclear Horn (Daniel 7:7)

Australian the Nuclear Horn

Australia looks forward to help India with uranium supplies

PTI

New Delhi, April 13 2015   

 

Expressing its readiness to walk with India to drive its economic growth and meet “strategic challenges”, Australia today said it wants mutually beneficial Free Trade Agreement to boost bilateral trade ties and also help India with uranium supplies for its energy needs.

Describing India as a “significant player and world leader”, visiting Australian Foreign Minister Julia Bishop said the two countries should work together with other nations of the Indo-Pacific region to ensure peace, stability and economic growth and also engage with China in this regard.

Addressing the inaugural session of ‘Indo-Pacific Oration’, she made a strong pitch for early conclusion of the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation agreement saying, “A commercially meaningful agreement will help propel both of our economies forward and enable our people to realise their full potential.”

She pointed out that Australia has FTAs with South Africa, Japan and China and is now looking forward to an FTA with India to complete the quartet.

Australia’s trade in goods and services with India was $12.12 billion in 2013-14 with Indian exports of goods amounting to $2.30 billion. Australia’s exports of goods to India were $9.82 billion, as per official data.

She also welcomed India’s recent move to liberalise its foreign investment caps in some sectors, such as insurance.

Noting that India needs secure sources of energy, Bishop said, “Australia can go some way to help provide that security. That’s why we signed a Nuclear Cooperation Agreement last September and are negotiating administrative arrangements so we can supply uranium to India.”

Pakistan Prepping Tactical Nukes (Daniel 8:8)

Pakistan wants short-range nuclear weapons

Pakistani military personnel stand beside a short-range surface to surface NASR missile system during the Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad, March 23, 2015. Getty

WASHINGTON – Pakistan needs short-range “tactical” nuclear weapons to deter arch-rival India, a top adviser to its government said Monday, dismissing concerns it could increase the risk of a nuclear war.

Khalid Kidwai also rejected concerns over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, insisting that adequate safeguards are in place to protect what analysts have described as the world’s fastest-growing atomic arsenal.

Pakistan’s development of smaller warheads built for use on battlefields, in addition to longer-range weapons, has increased international concerns that they could get into rogue hands because of the pervasive threat of Islamic militants in the country.

Pakistan and its larger neighbor India have fought three wars. They have held on-off peace talks over the years but are involved in a nuclear and missile arms race that shows no sign of abating.

Neither side discloses the size of its arsenal. But a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank estimated that Pakistan has enough fissile material to produce between 110 and 120 nuclear weapons, and India enough for 90 to 110 weapons.

For 15 years, Kidwai led the administration of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile weapons program. He now serves as an adviser to the National Command Authority, a committee of the top civilian and military leaders that sets the country’s nuclear weapons policy. He spoke Monday at a conference on nuclear security organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

On the sidelines of the conference, Rakesh Sood, former Indian special envoy for disarmament and nonproliferation, said it was “extremely destabilizing for any country to develop tactical nuclear weapons” and that India has no plans to. He contended that Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine is “cloaked in ambiguity” which undermines confidence between the two countries.

Kidwai said nuclear deterrence had helped prevent war in South Asia. He said Pakistan’s development of tactical weapons — in the form of the Nasr missile, which has a 37-mile range — was in response to concerns that India’s larger military could still wage a conventional war against the country, thinking Pakistan would not risk retaliation with a bigger nuclear weapon.

Peter Lavoy, a former senior U.S. defense official, questioned whether such intermingling of conventional forces and nuclear weapons in a battlefield could increase the risk of nuclear war.

Kidwai replied that having tactical weapons would make war less likely.

He said given the strength of the rest of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, the fear of “mutually assured destruction” of the South Asian rivals would ensure that “sanity prevails.”

At the other end of Pakistan’s missile inventory is the Shaheen-III missile that it test-fired this month. It has a range of 1,700 miles, giving it the capability to reach every part of India – but also potentially to reach into the Middle East, including Israel.

Kidwai said Pakistan wanted a missile of that range because it suspected India was developing strategic bases on its Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal. He said the nuclear and missile program was “India-specific” and not aimed at other countries.

India and Pakistan have not fought a major conflict since 1999, when Pakistani military infiltrated into an Indian-held area of disputed Kashmir called Kargil, sparking fighting that left hundreds dead on both sides. Tensions, however, have sometimes escalated dangerously since then. In 2008, Pakistan-based militants attacked India’s commercial hub of Mumbai, killing 164 people.

Antichrist Spreads His Influence (Revelation 13)

Official sources expect Muqtada al-Sadr’s visit Jordan

[3/23/2015 1:25:30 PM]

AMMONNEWS – Diaa Al-deen Talafha – Official sources told Ammon that expected that the leader of Sadrist movement in Iraq , Muqtada al-Sadr will visit the Kingdom in the coming days.
The source did not specify a date for the visit, saying only emphasizing that it “over the coming days.”
The visit comes, “that has” days after the visit of the President of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Ammar Al-Hakim to the Jordan , where met with King.

The Horns Of The Ram: Iran & Iraq (Dan 8:4)

Iran’s Influence in Iraq Deeper Than Assumed

March 19, 2015 5:00 PM

Sharon Behn

 

Just five years ago, the United States was involved in nearly every aspect of Iraq’s life, from economic reconstruction to political development to military cooperation. Now, analysts say, regional power broker Iran dominates the Iraqi landscape.

On the battlefield, Iran is helping Iraq push out Sunni-dominated Islamic State extremists from key northern cities. Trade between Iraq and Iran flows easily over the border. And Tehran has permeated deeply into Baghdad's security and intelligence structures.

Maria Fantappie, senior Iraq analyst for the International Crisis Group, says Iran’s strong sway over the Iraqi Shi’ite militias, and their likely leadership role in re-establishing basic services such as electricity and water as Islamic State militants retreat, risks weakening the Iraqi government’s already fragile control over its own territory.

But Iran's influence, Fantappie says, stretches much further than that: it is changing the very character of the Iraqi nation and as a result, the power dynamics in the region.

“It’s enough to have a tour of the streets of Baghdad, to see pictures of the [Iranian] Supreme Leader Khameini posted everywhere, and often now the Iraqi national flag is often showed besides another flag which is that one of Hussein, which is a reference to the Shia identity. Although this does not refer strictly to Iran, it is a direct consequence of Iran’s peaking role within Iraqi politics," she said.

Western allies and Iran, who are in prolonged negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, appear to have found common ground in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq, says Henry Smith, senior consultant for Control Risks in the Middle East. The U.S. and its coalition partners are assisting Iraqi ground forces with airstrikes in its battles against the Islamic State, while Iran is providing supplies, arms, ammunition and aircraft and leadership.

“In the period in which Iran has been negotiating over its nuclear program with the P5+1, you have also had a growing implicit acceptance of the fact that Iran [has] a key role in some of the key security issues in the Middle East," said Smith.

But videos have emerged of the government-backed Shi’ite militias committing atrocities in Sunni communities. Islamic State militants have capitalized on Sunni anger with the sectarian policies of successive Baghdad governments.

University of Maryland researcher Phillip Smyth warns that Iran’s ever-stronger presence will exacerbate Iraq’s Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian divide and make it harder to form an effective inclusive government.

“Many of these groups are going into Sunni areas and putting power drills through people’s heads," said Smyth. "They are a highly sectarian organization, so you can’t really deny that they are actually part of the cause for the crisis we are facing now.”

But Henry Smith of Control Risks, says Tehran wants a stable Iraq where it can extend its sphere of influence.

“There is a bit of a balance there," he said. "Iran wants to have a government in Baghdad which is compliant and in line with Iran’s strategic thinking, both in Iraq and the broader region, but it also doesn’t want a country that is essentially slipping out of control.”

For American policy makers, there is no clear solution. They are faced at home with a nation tired of war and endless years of expensive reconstruction, and a choice between Iran or the Islamic State gaining strategic ground in Iraq.

But as U.S. policy makers wait, Fantappie says, Iran is taking over Iraq’s own security structure.

“It’s a wait and see attitude. It’s a wish of not involving into the restructuring of the state, but it’s also in a way a complete detachment from the full erosion of a state,” she said.

With Iraq’s weak government and tenuous control over tens of thousands of armed Shi’ite militia fighters, Iran will likely continue to play a crucial role in the country’s security. The question remains as to whether Tehran will turn out to be a long-term stabilizing influence or a potential source of even greater instability.

The Australian Nuclear Horn (Daniel 7)

Jay Weatherill appoints royal commission to debate SA nuclear industry

Australian the Nuclear Horn

Simon Evans – 08 Feb 2015 12:41:45

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has opened the door for a nuclear industry to be set up in the state, which hosts one of the largest uranium deposits in the world at BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam.

He will set up a Royal Commission to look at the risks and opportunities in expanding the industry beyond mining to include enrichment, energy and storage to both deliver better economic growth, and to assist in warding off problems caused by climate change.

“The question is whether we should deepen our involvement for our benefit,” Mr Weatherill said at a press conference in Adelaide on Sunday.

He said consultation on the terms of the Royal Commission would start on Monday, and it would be a forward looking commission calling on experts from a broad range of fields.

Mr Weatherill said he had previously been opposed to the nuclear industry and the Labor Party platform was against it but it was time to have a wide-ranging debate about the whole issue.

“This is not going to be a short debate, this is going to be an extended debate,” he said.

Mr Weatherill declined to put a time frame on when the Royal Commission might report.
He emphasised it would be a long-term project and any changes would need to go through the political process and have community support.

South Australia hosts four out of five of Australia’s uranium mines, with ERA’s Ranger mine in the Northern Territory the other mine. The others in SA beside Olympic Dam are Honeymoon, Beverley and Four Mile.

But some of the smaller uranium mines in far north South Australia are mothballed because of a slump in uranium prices which happened after the nuclear reactor disaster in Japan at Fukushima in 2011.

Mr Weatherill said he hadn’t yet consulted BHP, which is still working on new lower-cost expansion plans for the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, 560 kilometres north of Adelaide.

But he said there had been many proposals advanced by various companies over the years seeking to set up nuclear projects in far north SA, which has stable geology and is considered ideal for nuclear storage.

“There’ve been many proposals that have been advanced by companies almost on a regular basis,” Mr Weatherill said.

BHP in 2012 scrapped a planned $30 billion expansion of the Olympic Dam mine because of falling copper and uranium prices, in a big blow to the South Australian economy.

South Australia is host to about 30 per cent of the world’s known uranium deposits and supplies about 7 per cent of the world’s uranium.

Mr Weatherill said the royal commission would look closely at all phases of the nuclear cycle including mining, enrichment, energy and storage.

“The truth is we are already in the nuclear fuel cycle. I mean we are selling uranium to the world,” he said.

This had been the case for more than 25 years, with the Olympic Dam mine having been exporting uranium soon after it became operational in the late 1980s when it was owned by Western Mining, later known as WMC. WMC was later acquired by BHP.

Mr Weatherill said the debate around the nuclear industry needed to be carried out in a way that “understands the potential economic benefits for our state and our nation”

He said the matter had been discussed in State Cabinet, and he was entitled to change his mind from earlier in his political career, when he had been a fierce opponent.

“When the facts change, people should change their mind,” he said.

Uranium prices fell more than 50 per cent after the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactor in 2011 but have since partially recovered.

The Honeymoon mine in northern SA owned by a subsidiary of United States nuclear giant General Atomics was mothballed in 2013 because of low prices, while the nearby Beverley mine followed soon after. But the nearby Four Mile mine has uranium processed at Beverley.

India Preparing For Pakistani Biologic Terrorism

ISI ragging “Disease Warfare”

New Delhi Times

India-Pakistan rivalry has existed ever since Pakistan was created out of the larger land form in 1947. The countries have faced each other in battlefield over years deepening the rivalry and hatred, the aim of Pakistan to win the race against India in developing nuclear weapons has led to lack of development of the country as all funds are focused on planning and plotting terrorism and terrorist activities in the rival nation.

It is not easy for any country to stand the embarrassment of losing the battlefield against the enemy over and over again. To avenge the vengeance, Pakistan is creating more weapons of destruction. The arms race is no more limited to the battlefield. Pakistan has been involved in sending Taliban militants in India to spread terrorist activities in the country. Allegedly, 26/11 was one such operation that was incorporated by the ISI agents of Pakistan was confirmed by the lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Kasab of the incidence.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program is driven by its need to counter India’s superiority in conventional forces. As a matter of fact, Pakistan has never conducted missile tests only to confirm its success. It is known to both the countries that the race of dominance has increased to a level that Pakistan has been involved in taking steps beyond army’s mode of conduct, infiltrating jihadis in India through Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and through other parts of the country aiming to cause maximum destruction on the land.

The rage of vengeance of Pakistan has now not been limited to development of artillery and continuing terrorist activities. According to some confident EU think tank reports attained exclusively by New Delhi Times affirm that Pakistan is on the verge of waging disease terrorism in India. The reports specially describe the role of ISI Major Rahim Khan in inducing disease-terrorism activities in India. As per records Major Rahim Khan on 10th October 2014 issued standing orders to find Ebola patients and send them to India. Ebola outbreak that has claimed nearly three thousand lives in West Africa and has shown the potential of travelling miles in infected patients has increased the possibility of claiming all the more life across the globe. Of the three regimes of weapons of mass destruction- nuclear, chemical and biological, it is the last one that is most potent, accessible and the weakest regime in the global efforts to prohibit and prevent.

Pakistan has a past record of being a major contributor of chaotic situations in India, killing lives to claim it’s superiority and take on it’s rival nation; the orders of Rahim Khan would not be something that would surprise Indian authorities. Small-scale ‘disease terrorism’ option would be to recruit individuals for Ebola suicide missions, such a plan would hinge on injecting Ebola virus into a limited number of people. In the wake of the Ebola outbreak, the potential disease terrorism has emerged with a convenient retribution.

In the past, there have been only two known cases of disease terrorism which have been extensively researched and analyzed. Since terrorist groups often strike without warning, it is difficult to know when and where a terrorist organization might strike after taking inspiration from the previous cases and the incidents relating to anthrax as being used as disease terrorism weapon.

CIA director George Tenet on 2nd February, 1999 said to have made a statement that Bin Laden, was trying to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. His operatives were trained to conduct such attacks with toxic chemicals or biological toxins and there are indications he is seeking to obtain chemical, biological and radiological or nuclear weapons. The ISI had established well fortified facilities in Kandahar in Afghanistan for production of chemical, bacteriological and radiological weapon too. This set-up was established in May 1998 with the acquisition of plant and machinery from Yugoslavia. This plant arrived via Pakistan with assistance of ISI. It is hence a proven fact that Pakistan has been involved in incubating terrorism and contributing to weapons of mass destruction from past.

The Indian authorities need to be more vigilant over prospect of such deal of terror that would spread fast and claim many lives. India has set up a group of experts to formulate a plan to counter the threat of biological terrorism. India has maintained its sanctity of keeping peace and has followed the legacy of not attacking or inflicting attacks on Pakistan. On the other hand Pakistan has played a vital role not just in spreading terrorism in India but all over the world. India has always been Pakistan’s priority rival so it would test its first mission of spreading disease terrorism in India. India needs to be well prepared and should pay attention to waft away the plans of Pakistan.