http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=23122
NGOs criticize Indonesia-Australia nuclear program Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi), Greenpeace and the Indonesian Anti-Nuclear Community have criticized the plan to sign an agreement between Indonesia and Australia because it contains a nuclear development program. The three organizations Friday called on the Indonesian government to stop its efforts to develop nuclear energy by establishing a nuclear power plant. Nur Hidayati, Greenpeace`s climate and energy campaigner, said the nuclear development program for peaceful purposes would be part of the agreement on security cooperation between Indonesia and Australia, which was expected to be signed by Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and his Australian counterpart Alexander Downer in Lombok, West Nusatenggara, on Monday (Nov 13). Meanwhile, Walhi`s mining and energy campaign manager Torry Kuswardono said the signing of the agreement on the nuclear program would only lead Indonesia to dependence on energy resources in other countries, which would pose a problem to efforts of reaching energy safety as expected by the government. He pointed out that the current condition of the nuclear industry was the same as that in the 20th century in which danger was an inseparable part of the nuclear program. >From time to time, the nuclear industry showed that the terms of `security` >and `nuclear energy` could not be put together, Torry said. According to those against the nuclear program, a safe nuclear reactor is only a myth as an accident could occur at any reactor, which could release deadly radiation to the environment. Nuclear accidents had occurred far before the Chernobyl tragedy in 1986. Careless attitudes would cause more accidents in the nuclear industry 20 years following the Chernobyl catastrophy. When a nuclear reactor became old, it would give a bad impact on the nuclear industry because the maintenance cost of the reactor was too high, about 70 billion poundsterlings. Nur Hidayati also reminded that a number of nuclear power plants posed a lot of problems, including radioactive waste disposal. In the meantime, executive secretary of the Indonesian Anti-nuclear Community, Dian Abraham, said the process of making a decision on a plan to set up a nuclear power plant in Indonesia had ignored the people`s aspirations, and Law No.10/1997 on nuclear power so that it was contradictory to democracy in Indonesia. Thus, Dian said, it would be ironical if the Australian government ignored the process and only cared about the aspect of uranium business.(*) Copyright © 2006 ANTARA November 11, 2006 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
