At this time, Australia can be careful and not sell uranium to Russia – a country that fails to comply with their nuclear disarmament obligations under the Non Proliferation Treaty and has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
On September 18, parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties gave arguments on their merits for the Rudd government to in practice make it clear Australia is serious about reducing nuclear weapons.
This report on a uranium export agreement signed by John Howard and Vladimir Putin last September said the government should not ratify the agreement until a number of onerous conditions have been met, the most important being:
* The implementation of nuclear safeguards inspections in Russia.
* Russian compliance with its disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
* Further consideration of the unresolved problem of nuclear theft and smuggling.
* Consideration of the ramifications of “recent political events affecting Russia” (e.g. Russia’s illegal invasion of Georgia and its illegal threats to strike Poland with nuclear weapons).
* Separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities.
The Joint Standing Committee report and submissions are posted at:
This was a major victory for everyone who raised objections to selling uranium to Putin’s Russia.
But the Rudd government has still to decide.
Get informed on this issue and email Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith to reject a proposed treaty for sale of Australian uranium to Putin’s Russia, add your own views and ask the Minister to response to you – or Phone the Minister’s offices in Canberra Tel: (02) 6277 7500 and in Perth Tel: (08) 9272 3411.Contact details:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Parliament House, Canberra, ACT, 2600.
Or contact via web-form:
Stephen Smith
Foreign Minister
Parliament House, Canberra, ACT, 2600
Email:
Go to: http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=1880
ACF believes this flawed treaty will unacceptably weaken Australia’s policy and practice on nuclear safeguards, compromise our efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons and make Australia complicit in serious failures of the Russian state – where the rule of law, democratic values and human rights are not being observed.
This nuclear treaty would jeopardise the aims of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s new International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament to rid the world of nuclear weapons and would make the world less safe and more insecure.
Nuclear security risks far outweigh any claims for a nuclear expansion. Reject the dangerous nuclear industry.
ACF is working with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) by the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW). For Australia to properly act on our international responsibilities and to take up a leadership role for the abolition of all nuclear weapons must involve the phase out of nuclear power and of Australia’s uranium mining and exports for the realisation of a nuclear free world.
In 2006 ACF and MAPW prepared a major report An Illusion of Protection: the unavoidable limitations of safeguards on nuclear materials and the export of uranium to China on the limitations of safeguards for the proposed export of Australian uranium. This critique applies equally to the proposed nuclear treaty for uranium sales to Russia which is based on the same set of inadequate Australian and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
“The contemporary nuclear threat is a key medical and public health issue with Australia priming the pump through irresponsible uranium exports,†said Associate Professor Tilman Ruff, President of MAPW.
see Jim Green FOE Friends of the Earth
National nuclear campaigner
Information on the Howard/Putin agreement is posted at:
http://www.antinuclear.net/Aust%20politics.htm
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