Nuclear Protest, Nuclear Dump in Northern Australia

APEC energy officials meeting in Northern Australia have stepped from the air-conditioned conference room inside Darwin's Parliament House to the elevated balcony to spy this unusual sight. It's a giant inflatable nuclear power stack erected by protesters who don't want a nuclear power industry in Northern Australia. Currently there is one uranium mine - the Ranger Uranium mine - which operates on a lease inside the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park and there is pressure on traditional aboriginal owners - the Mirrar people - to agree to a second mine closeby at Jabiluka. The Mirrar's senior custodian, Yvonne Margarula, has for years strongly opposed Jabiluka's development, often explaining that uranium mining at Ranger had upturned aboriginal people's lives, brought access to alcohol and created arguments - mostly about money.


There's another nuclear issue brewing in Northern Australia. Aboriginal elders living on a remote Northern Territory community have agreed to accept $12 million for allowing Australia's first nuclear waste dump to be built on their land.
Under the deal, Canberra would take the land for up to 200 years to store nuclear waste. Up to 150 truckloads of radioactive material would be driven thousands of kilometres from Lucas Heights in Sydney and Woomera in South Australia to the site. Suspend your judgement about what this could all mean and click here for taste of what this same issue has produced elsewhere.


... And back to the APEC meeting in Darwin for one moment. Greenpeace is questioning why no renewable energy representatives were on a key panel at the meeting. Other protesters used the opportunity of visiting nations to voice their anger at human rights abuses in Indonesia's West Papua. The flag on display (right) is "The Morning Star" - the independence flag of the Free Papua Movement.

Protest in Indonesia's Papua

Papua's remarkable highland peaks. Below the mist is the Grasberg mine carved out of the mountains. This is the traditional lands of the Amungme people. According to legend these mountains are the sacred home of their ancestral grandmother who guards the balance of nature. Freeport has been accused of disturbing this natural balance.

In an unprecedented action, thousands of workers from a giant US-run mine in Indonesia's remote Papua province have staged a protest demanding better wages and welfare.

The workers come from the Grasberg gold and copper mine high up in the mountainous interior (see photo above). They demonstrated outside the Indonesian headquarters of Freeport-McMoRan, which is in the lowlands about 70 kilometres downstream from the minesite. News reports say the protest was peaceful , but the thousands of demonstrators were flanked by Indonesian police at all times.

The workers have been gathering in Timika from surrounding villages and towns demanding to speak with a Freeport executive in the US via teleconference.
Critics accuse Freeport of not giving enough to the people of Papua in return for the mine. They allege the mine causes pollution and that the military's protection of the site leads to human rights abuses.
The firm has disputed the claims.
A Freeport spokesman told the AFP News Agency that in the past decade the company had almost quadrupled its Papuan employment, from some 800 in 1996 to the current 3,000 workers.

Freeport runs its Grasberg mine under a 30-year contract with the Indonesian government that began in 1992. The company owns 91 percent of PT Freeport Indonesia, with the rest in government hands.

Members of the Amungme people who live downstream from the Freeport mine project. In 2000 I reported on a mine spill which wiped out part of the Amungme village of Banti. You can read about this story and the struggles of Papua's people in my book Running Amok

Breakthrough malaria treatment

Aussie Scientists discover malaria treatment

Scientists in Australia's tropical north say they have discovered an effective treatment for the potentially deadly vivax malaria.

This is a major breakthrough because vivax is the commonest strain of malaria and is the scourge of many developing countries.

Researchers at the Northern Territory's Menzies School of Health Research say they have successfully trialled two treatments for the vivax strain of malaria in Timika in West Papua (the easternmost province in Indonesia).

The treatment combines a Chinese herbal extract and a longer-acting anti-malarial drug used to combat another, even more potent strain of the disease found in Africa.

In Running Amok, I write about malaria research going on in Timika (page 230) - not the good work carried out by the Menzies School - but a more dubious experiment being carried out by one American researcher using locals as live bait to catch and collect malaria-carrying mosquitoes! Timika is an extraordinary town carved out of the tropical jungle. Men from all over Indonesia have flocked to work at the nearby Freeport mine - one of the richest gold mines on earth. It's Indonesia's "wild east" - a place of considerable social and ethnic as well as health problems.

On page 190-191 you can also read about my wife Kim's ordeal with vivax malaria - including days of cold fits and high fever. We suspect that she was bitten during a stay at a luxury resort on the island of Lombok. Kim describes how the whole experience felt like near death. Luckily she was treated relatively quickly with Primaquine at an Australian Embassy clinic.

Most malaria sufferers don't have the advantage of being treated quickly or with access to the right drugs. Each year there are up to two million deaths from the disease.

It's reported that malaria causes the death of an African child every thirty seconds, and the main victims are young children and pregnant women.

The value of this new treatment can't be underestimated. It not only stops the malaria infection but it also protects sufferers from reinfection.

More about the history and cultural issues at Freeport