Joel HillikerColumnist A Nuclear Power Is About to Fall to Islamists
May 6, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com Radical Muslims are closer to the nuclear bomb than we’d like: only 60 miles. Pakistan is turning into the Iranian Revolution—plus nuclear weapons.
The immediate danger is heightened exponentially by Pakistan being one of the world’s eight nuclear powers, possessing between 60 and 100 nukes, scattered throughout the country. Amid escalating chaos, some of those bombs are sure to slip into extremist Muslim hands……………..

Spent nuclear material focus of meeting VIENNA, May 6 (UPI) — The International Atomic Energy Agency is planning to host a multinational meeting in Vienna to address the safety and security of spent nuclear material. The IAEA meeting, scheduled for May 11-20,…….
………According to an IAEA news release, the meeting will focus on long-term challenges, “such as the management of spent fuel, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste and the need to find suitable disposal options for all types of radioactive waste.”

Concern coming over states dumping nuclear waste in Utah SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) May 7, 2009 –– A new study shows several states may dumping nuclear waste in Utah when they could be doing it in their own backyard.

An Associated Press analysis of U.S. Department of Energy records shows three states with their own radioactive waste dump have shipped millions of cubic feet of waste this decade to a private facility in Utah that’s the only one available to 36 other states.

US, Australia and China should work together to secure future Science Alert , 07 May 2009 By Stewart Taggart As the US cedes global economic primacy, Australia mulls a military buildup and China struggles with crippling pollution. One big issue facing all countries is how to ensure Asian regional stability.Buying ships and jets won’t do it, particularly if trying to match the Chinese.A more farsighted approach is to use the next 20 years of geopolitical transition to bind the Asian hemisphere into a ubiquitous, universally-beneficial energy delivery system.This offers everyone a slice of the pie and a stake in stability: the Americans, the Chinese, the Australians, the Southeast Asian nations.In “Australia 2050, Clean Energy Superpower”, DESERTEC-Australia argues for a pan-hemispheric High-Voltage Direct Current power line and natural gas pipeline network stretching from the Great Australian Bight to Beijing and beyond.Through it could flow everything from Southern Ocean wave energy ……………………………

Through it could flow everything from Southern Ocean wave energy to Mongolian wind power, all ‘load balanced’ by natural gas and cross-border hydropower. In short, Asia could have the ultimate multilateral ‘smart grid.’

The benefits would be huge: more efficient transport of energy, greater security of energy supply, better price signals for investment, dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The technology is there, the money is there, the brains are there, and the renewable energy is there.

America has an edge in innovation and risk-tolerant capital investment (i.e. venture capital). Australia has an edge in renewable energy resources. China has an edge in High Voltage Direct Current power lines, and soon Ultra High Voltage Power lines.

Therein lies the solution: use American expertise in risk-tolerant capital to fund renewable energy experimentation throughout Asia, including Australia, with the Chinese providing the multilateral energy ‘superhighway’ comprised of High Voltage Direct Current power lines and natural gas pipelines……………………..

A recent US study “A Roadmap for U.S.-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change” noted the United States and China had in common large renewable energy resources and aging, inefficient energy transmission infrastructures. The same can be said for Australia. Therefore, the templates and roadmaps are there for cooperation.

DESERTEC-Australia estimates fitting out Australia with a transcontinental High Voltage Direct Current transmission system and a unified national gas pipeline system would cost about A$30 billion, or three per cent of Australian GDP. That’s significantly less than Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposed $42 billion national broadband system.

Taking on the Taliban

THE AUSTRALIAN 7  May 09 Any Taliban success in nuclear-armed Pakistan would be a disaster for the Western world.Following September 11, the US invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban government that had harboured al-Qa’ida, but president George W.Bush, distracted by Iraq, failed to finish the job. Mr Obama, with the help of NATO and Australia, must defeat the Taliban now. The terrorists are intent on creating a clerical dictatorship and using it as base to fight the world.It would be a disaster if they succeeded in Afghanistan, and a catastrophe if they imposed their authority on any Pakistani province.

Australia Breaks with U.S. on Missile Defense NTI May 6, 2009 * The Australian government on Saturday expressed its categorical opposition to national ballistic missile shields, the Sydney Morning Herald reported The position — buried in a 140-page defense white paper — represents a break from the United States and put Australia in the same camp as China and Russia on the question of missile defense………………….Opposition to missile shields is part of the platform of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party.

Egypt drops U.S. construction giant Bechtel as nuclear consultant
The Canadian Press 5 may 09 CAIRO — Egypt’s Electricity Ministry says it has dropped U.S. construction giant Bechtel as a consultant for the country’s first nuclear reactor.The state-run news agency quoted a ministry statement Sunday as saying it has chosen Australia’s WorleyParsons for the 10-year consultancy.

US spies’ anger over China antennae deal

A $10 MILLION contract let by the CSIRO to a Chinese Government subsidiary threatens the security of a new American military communications base in Australia, US officials believe……………………

The source said the West seemed to be falling over itself to overlook China’s history of supplying nuclear secrets to rogue states like North Korea, which recently tested a missile system capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, and to rogue scientists like Pakistan’s Dr Doom, Abdul Qadeer Khan.