Australian uranium firm condemns Malawi NGOs
Trading Room BLANTYRE, Oct 2 AFP
October 03 2009,
Australia firm Paladin has dismissed allegations of contamination from a northern Malawi uranium mine, telling MPs that two rights groups have been paid funds to discredit its operations.
Malawi’s parliamentary health committee summoned the firm after a non government organisation alleged that workers and villagers around the mine could be drinking uranium-contaminated water from a river nearby.
“They are being paid and used as puppets to advance ideologies of western corporations that are against nuclear energy as an alternative source of power,” Neville Huxham, Paladin’s Malawi country manager, was quoted as saying by Malawi media on Friday.
Paladin inaugurated a $US220 million ($A253 million) uranium mine project in Karonga district in April.
The Catholic Commission for Peace and Justice (CCJP) has warned that “with mining at full throttle, the possibility is that uranium would easily flow into Lake Malawi”, Africa’s third largest lake, in a report on the mine……………
Huxham singled out the CCJ and the Citizens for Justice as two groups against the uranium mining.
“We know that there is funding coming from overseas to fund these NGOs. These attacks on Paladin are attacks on the integrity of the government which gave us the go-ahead to do the mining.”
He said there’s no danger from the mining, telling the commission the uranium at Karonga is of “low grade with a low dosage of radioactive elements”.
News: Australian Stock, Share & Commodity Markets News – Tradingroom.com.au
Tags: Australia, nuclear secrets, radiation, radioactive wastes
