The Age has a report on the impact of heavy rains on the Ranger uranium min in the Northern Territory - Radioactive water threatens Kakadu.

Radioactive water is in danger of spilling into an Aboriginal community and Kakadu's World Heritage-listed wetlands if record rainfalls continue to deluge the vast Ranger uranium mine.

Mine management faces drastic action to avert an environmental disaster and avoid costly delays that could stall high-grade ore extraction for months or even years.

Rio Tinto-controlled Energy Resources of Australia relies on the Ranger mine, 230 kilometres south-east of Darwin, to supply 10 per cent of the world's uranium market, including Japan's stricken Fukushima plant.

ERA will be forced to pump more than 10 billion litres of highly contaminated water from an almost overflowing dam into its operating open cut mine, known as Pit 3, if the Kakadu area receives about 100 millimetres more rain.

This level of rainfall is likely with three weeks of the Top End's wet season still remaining.

The company conceded this week it will not be able to resume production in the pit until the end of July at the earliest and that its "ultimate contingency" to protect the environment is to transfer water from the tailings dam.

But Pit 3 - the only place available to put the water - already contains 3.6 billion litres of water that is sitting above high grade ore deposits.

If forced to pump water containing heavy metals and radioactive material from the tailings dam into the pit, ERA would then have to treat all of the water there as highly contaminated.

Sources at the mine say its treatment plants do not have anywhere near the capacity to solve existing water management problems despite recent upgrading of equipment.

For 30 years about 100,000 litres of contaminated water a day has been leaking from the tailings dam into fissures beneath Kakadu but an 18-month review completed last year failed to establish where the water has gone or whether it will damage the environment.

Saslon has a review of Judy Pasternak's book """ which looks at the history of uranium mining in the south west of the US - "Yellow Dirt": Radioactive reservation.

In the summer of 1979, an earthen dam over the town of Church Rock, New Mexico, broke, flooding the arroyo below and then the bed of the Rio Puerco (an intermittent stream) on the southern border of the Navajo Nation. It was a small flood, but a dangerous one. It burned the feet of a boy who stepped into it, and caused sheep and crops along the banks to drop dead. That's because the pond it came from had been used by a nearby uranium mine to store the tailings (residue) of its excavations -- the water kept the radioactive dust from blowing away. The 93 million gallons of contaminated water that poured into the Rio Puerco remains the largest accidental release of radioactive material in U.S. history, bigger than the notorious Three Mile Island reactor meltdown that occurred 14 weeks later.

The Church Rock flood is only one incident among many in the "slow-motion disaster" investigative journalist Judy Pasternak comprehensively recounts in her chilling new book, "Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed." Based on a prize-winning four-part series she wrote for the Los Angeles Times, "Yellow Dirt" begins during World War II, when secretive government surveyors first appeared on the remote reservation, supposedly looking for deposits of an ore called vanadium, used to strengthen steel needed for the war effort. Uranium was the real prize, and after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the ramping up of the Cold War, the American demand for the radioactive substance boomed.

The Navajo Nation and the area around it contained some of the richest deposits of uranium ore in the world, and certainly the most conveniently located. For about a decade, various corporations and government agencies reaped 1.4 million tons of uranium ore from the Monument Valley region alone; Pasternak makes a single mine there, known as Monument No. 2, her primary focus. The mining operations were relatively rudimentary, and by ordination of the tribal government, worked almost entirely by Navajo men. Even the cheapest and most elementary safety practices, such as wetting down blast areas to keep the miners from breathing toxic dust, were neglected in the rush to satisfy the Atomic Energy Commission's insatiable appetite for uranium.

By the 1960s, the need tapered off, and the mining companies blithely abandoned the sites, leaving piles of radioactive tailings lying around for Navajo kids to play on and their parents to scavenge for conveniently sized rocks with which to build houses, ovens and cisterns. The dust and gravel made seemingly excellent concrete for floors. Monument No. 2, once a mesa, had been nearly leveled, its uranium-laced innards exposed to the open air, reduced to what Pasternak characterizes as a "radioactive pit." Old quarries filled up with rain- and groundwater, new "lakes" from which local residents watered their herds and gratefully drank.

The next boom, unsurprisingly, was in cancer rates (previously so low among the Navajo that they were thought to be miraculously immune to the disease), and in a birth defect, christened "Navajo neuropathy," that caused children's fingers to fuse together and curl into claws. Still, it took decades for the cause to be fully recognized and even longer for it to be addressed; it wasn't until 2008 and under the lashing of Rep. Henry Waxman, that the federal government made serious efforts to clean up the mine sites, purify water supplies and relocate families living in houses built from radioactive materials.

Byron King at The Daily Reckoning has a look at the upsurge in Chinese uranium demand on the back of their reactor construction program - Uranium Is Heating Up.

Uranium prices appear to be bottoming, as China buys major supplies from Cameco (NYSE:CCJ). On June 24, China agreed to buy more than 10,000 tons of uranium oxide - yellowcake - over 10 years from Cameco.

According to Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, China is buying unprecedented amounts of uranium. Based on public information, China may purchase about 5,000 metric tonnes of yellowcake this year. That's more than twice as much as China consumes.

Clearly, China is building up stockpiles for its long list of new reactors. According to the China Nuclear Energy Association, China plans to build at least 60 new reactors by 2020. The average 1,000- megawatt reactor costs about $3 billion. Loading a new reactor requires about 400 tonnes of uranium to start. Take 60 reactors, times 400 tonnes each. That's 24,000 tonnes of uranium (over 52 million pounds) - about all of the world's current output for one year.

New nuclear plants represent a game-changing aspect for future uranium demand and pricing. Even though the reactors may not come online for several years, the knowledge of hard future demand creates a solid floor for the uranium mining industry. Increased demand, just from China, could cause uranium prices to jump by about 32% next year, to about $55 per pound, according to RBC Capital Markets. And future speculative interest could drive prices to the $60-80 range - almost double the current price level.

Higher prices would be a relief for suffering uranium investors. Uranium prices have tumbled about 70% since peaking at $136 a pound in July 2007. Part of the tumble was due to increased output. According to data from Cameco, there were at least 27 new mines, in nine countries, coming on line in the past 10 years. This has added nearly 65 million pounds a year to global output.

The strong uranium market of 2006 and 2007 stimulated the development of new supply. But with current pricing in the $40 per pound range, the economics don't support new mines. It's certainly not enough to ensure adequate supply for future requirements.

According to the World Nuclear Association, China's demand for uranium may rise to 20,000 tons a year by 2020. That translates into more than a third of the 50,500 tons mined globally last year. The thing is, all of the world's current uranium output currently has a market, supplying the existing global demand for nuclear power.

Now we're going to see an explosion (no pun intended) of uranium demand from China, on top of the existing user base (plus other new demand from India and numerous other locales in the world).

Where will China obtain its future uranium? According to China National Nuclear Corp., it's exploring for the fuel in Niger, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mongolia. Indeed, we're just beginning to see the initial stages of China going abroad to buy stakes in uranium mines, similar to what we're already seeing with China and oil.

Thus, don't be surprised to see uranium in shortage by the second half of this decade. Looking ahead, there's just not enough new production in the planning stages. The world needs new mines, but startup costs are much more expensive than 10 or 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, much of the world's uranium comes from mines that have been in operation for a long time. That, and decommissioned nuclear warheads from the Cold War days. But this latter source is nearing exhaustion.

The SMH has an article on Chinese interest in acquiring stakes in Australian uranium mines - Chinese target uranium.

A BEIJING directive to its growing nuclear power industry to step up the acquisition of strategic uranium supplies has led to an agreed $85 million takeover bid for Energy Metals, the main partner in the Northern Territory Bigrlyi uranium deposit.

China's state-owned China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Company (CNGNPC) is bidding $1.02 a share in cash for up to 70 per cent of Energy Metals and will also underwrite an $11.7 million rights issue at 90c a share, which could end up delivering it 73 per cent of the company.

The move into the local uranium industry is the biggest yet by China and follows the agreement that allows uranium exports from Australia to China for the first time.

The chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Ziggy Switkowski, forecast the investment would be ''just the first of many'' as China and the world eyes Australia's uranium to meet its energy needs.

I'm not quite sure to make of this report from "Taipan Daily", but it is unusual enough that I figure I'll throw it in to the mix (it may just be a bizarre piece of marketing by the uranium industry however) - SWAT Team Looks To Cut China's Dependence On Dirty Coal.

There is a coal panic in China, and Beijing has dispatched a SWAT team of energy traders to corner the market on abundant, clean-burning uranium. China’s problem is two-fold: a lack of coal and severe coal pollution.

In case you haven’t seen the CNN.com story of May 20th, Chinese power plants are running out of coal, with less than a three-day supply in some areas, according to official government statements. About 32 power plants shut down due to a scarcity of fuel — aggravated by the May 12th earthquake.

The current decline in uranium prices gives these China super-traders a critical inflection point to pick up the slack and clean up the environment.

China is the world’s biggest emitter of sulfur dioxide, a toxic byproduct of burning cheap, dirty coal. The country’s all-powerful State Council reported that pollution cost more than $200 billion in 2005, nearly 10% of the national GDP — the last year Beijing released the numbers of the nation’s environmental damage.

The pollution is also sparking little-known riots. On April 8, 2006, villagers armed with iron bars attacked factories polluting their water. Pollution riots in Huashui in April 2005 pitted outraged citizens against 10,000 police officers. And in mid-July 2005, some 15,000 protestors amassed in at the gates of an offending factory, throwing stones and overturning police cars, despite the thick clouds of tear gas.

The Chinese people are taking to the streets. They want to stop the pollution that is damaging their livelihoods and health. ...

There is a growing sense of urgency to corner the uranium market. This stealth team of Chinese traders is armed with a $300-billion war chest to grab up every last ounce of U308 uranium. And if anyone can pull this off, it’s the Chinese.

Unlike gold, oil or copper, there’s no regulated trading exchange for U308. You can’t buy an ETF for it. U308 moves in a near-underground economy of secretive auctions where uranium trading is fast and furious.

The absence of a regulated trading exchange gives an enormous advantage to a stealth team of Chinese traders instructed by the government to track down every last pound of U308.

This crackerjack team is headed by a cabinet-level rising star who is chauffeured around Beijing in a big, black Audi. He sports a cigarette holder like FDR and is considered one of China’s top economists.

Under his brilliant supervision, the Chinese uranium traders will draw on a war chest of $300 billion in U.S dollars. That amount is nearly twice the size of the world’s largest mutual fund. It’s about six times bigger than the legendary Magellan Fund. And it’s bigger than the world’s top four mutual funds combined.

Over the next 15 years, China plans on building 30 new nuclear reactors. Without those critical reactors, the country’s environment and economy could be heading straight for the dumpster.

The SMH has a disturbing story about a family living next to an old uranium smelter site in suburban Sydney.

WHEN both their parents died of cancer in their 30s, within nine months of each other, and with no family history of the disease, Katie and Greg McGrath thought it was a tragic coincidence. Nobody had told them their family home in Nelson Parade, Hunters Hill, was next to an unmarked radioactive waste dump.

"But it's just too much of a coincidence," says Ms McGrath, now 36. "I now genuinely believe it was related to what occurred on that site, to what's under the ground there.

I hesitate to bring this subject up, as the last time I did I had a bizarre encounter with a deranged Objectivist, but Grist points to an L.A. Times series on Navajos and uranium. In summary "Its depressing".

The Los Angeles Times today concluded a four-part series (with photos) on uranium mining on 27,000 square miles of Navajo lands in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

It's a depressing, but interesting, read.

Part one (nine pages) gives the background: The huge boom in uranium mining fizzled post-Cold War; when mines and processors shut down, they left piles and pits of radioactivity, seldom labeled with warning signs. Many houses were built with radioactive materials. The cancer death rate on the reservation doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. Most of the Navajos were unaware of the problem; most of the government and industry figures that were aware willfully ignored it.

Part two (seven pages) digs deeper into the effect radioactivity had on the area's water -- and the children and animals who drank from it. The cases of animals born without eyes or with three legs, or children who developed corneal ulcers and liver disease, stymied medical professionals for years.

Part three (six pages) explains how a federal decontamination plan finally got underway -- then was derailed by bureaucratic delays, misunderstandings, and disputes that kept the site from Superfund designation.

Part four (four pages) has the unbelievable headline "Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land." The tribe vows a "knockdown, drag-out legal battle," according to a tribal attorney.

Crikey reports that the Rodent is now on staff at The Washington Speakers Bureau. I used to have a regular reader at that organisation last year - clearly they weren't deterred by my many criticisms of Mr Howard - though I got the impression they were mostly interested in my running commentary on the proposed Iraq oil law.

The agency represents a who's who of the political, media and military establishment. Other recent high profile Washington Speakers Bureau recruits include Tony Blair, former US Senate leader Trent Lott and Arianna Huffington.

Former world leaders such as Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Jose Maria Aznar and Brian Mulroney are on their books, along with international political figures like Colin Powell, Joschka Fischer, James Baker and Chris Pattern.

Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf, James Carville, Barbara Walters, Bob Woodward, Donald Trump and the Duchess of York are also on the Bureau's roster.

The Washington Speakers Bureau publicity material describes the former PM as "one of the most thought-provoking world leaders in modern history". John Howard is the "ideal choice to bring high-level international insight to your next event," it says.

Mungo MacCallum has a column up at Crikey - "The Permit System Should Stay" - which notes that the popular permit system that allows Aboriginal communities to keep unwanted intruders (like uranium miners and journalists from The Australian) out is being reinstated by the Rudd government, to the gnashing of fangs from some of Rupert's minions.

So it's back to work, and the Rudd government's honeymoon is already over – at least it is if the Murdoch press has anything to say about it.

Last week Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin announced that the permit system for Northern Territory settlements, marked for abolition under the previous government's intervention, would be retained; and the wrath of the Sun King descended upon her and all her works.

Admittedly, this makes The Australian and its messenger, Nicholas Rothwell, a trifle out of step with the mainstream. The permit system favoured by the present federal government, the Northern Territory government, the Northern Territory police force, most Aboriginal leaders, most independent experts in the field and even the Arts and Media Alliance – the union representing the journalists who have most to lose by being barred from entering the settlements without permission.

And of course most of the communities affected were puzzled and alarmed when the gung-ho commander-in-chief of the invasion, the late and unlamented Mal Brough, announced that the permit system was to go.

But to Rothwell and his various editors, the system was anathema: a symbol of apartheid that provided very real protection for paedophiles and drug pedlars. The Australian has provided no evidence of how the system sheltered such criminals, and the police say it had the opposite effect of enabling communities to exile such offenders when they could not be charged. But it is true that the permit system at least once kept Rothwell from visiting Wadeye at a time of unrest.

Far from being some sinister and unique privilege granted only to Aborigines, as The Australian suggests, the permit system is a simple recognition that land owned by Aborigines has exactly the same legal status as land owned by other Australians. The title has been granted by the courts under the Land Rights Act; it is therefore private property, no more or less so than Rupert Murdoch's own backyard. It is true that it is owned by a trust rather than by an individual, but that is irrelevant; the law allows for all kinds of multiple occupancy, strata title, gated communities etc and has for a very long time.

The permit system reaffirms the validity of the Land Rights Act; and one of the reasons there was so much distress and even outrage when Brough proposed to abolish it was that the proposal was seen as a covert attack on the whole system of land rights, a suspicion confirmed by Brough's insistence that the settlements would be leased back by the Commonwealth for the duration of the intervention. Once the communities could no longer control who came to their land (or the circumstances by which they came, as John Howard might have added) it ceased to be their land in any meaningful sense; they were there only by the grace and favour of the government, which could be withdrawn (as the intervention showed) at any time.

Land rights has been arguably the only substantial achievement on the path to reconciliation. The idea remains absolutely central to Aboriginal culture and to any aspirations towards genuine reconciliation. Rothwell and The Australian have, in recent times, provided serious and thoughtful coverage of indigenous Australia. We can only hope last week's attack was an aberration. If they really must beat up the Rudd government, there are plenty of less sensitive areas in which to pick a fight.

One last story from Crikey, this one from Jeff Sparrow noting that it is the first birthday of the surge in Iraq.

Downgraded from full scale catastrophe, Iraq has become just another foreign crisis, rarely worthy of the front page. In that sense, the US troop surge must be hailed as success. On its own terms, not so much.

The press coverage has focused on military successes (while ignoring the very Vietnam-like strategy of reducing US casualties through increased air strikes)

Yet the surge was advertised as a political intervention as much as a military one. Here's President Bush announcing his plan:

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

What were those benchmarks?

The Iraqi government was to take responsibility for security in Iraq's provinces by November 2007. It promised to pass legislation fairly distributing oil revenue. It pledged to spend $10 billion dollars of its own money on infrastructure projects. It was supposed to hold provincial elections, and pass de-Baathification laws to allow Sunnis to re-enter political life.

A year later, none (count them) of those accountability measures has been met.

The deadline for Iraqi control over provincial security has crept steadily back: it's now scheduled for July 2008. The oil laws are stalled, with the Kurds continuing to cut their own deals with foreign oil companies. Not only has the Iraqi government fallen entirely short of its own infrastructure targets, it's provided incapable of spending the billions handed to it by the US. The provincial elections simply failed to happen.

As for de-Baathificaiton, the legislation was opposed by the very ex-Baathists it was supposed to assist. As Newsweek recently commented: "The complicated new law on de-Baathification has been, in the words of a senior Iraqi official, 'a big mess, perhaps worse than if we had done nothing'."

If anything, the past six months have brought heightened sectarianism to Iraq, with the falling levels of violence correlating with the successful ethnic cleansing of Baghdad.

It's not simply that Sunnis and Shiites have been driven into separate areas. As Andrew J. Bacevich explains:

By offering arms and bribes to Sunni insurgents -- an initiative that has been far more important to the temporary reduction in the level of violence than the influx of additional American troops -- U.S. forces have affirmed the fundamental irrelevance of the political apparatus bunkered inside the Green Zone.

Rather than fostering political reconciliation, accommodating Sunni tribal leaders ratifies the ethnic cleansing that resulted from the civil war touched off by the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a Shiite shrine. That conflict has shredded the fragile connective tissue linking the various elements of Iraqi society; the deals being cut with insurgent factions serve only to ratify that dismal outcome. First Sgt. Richard Meiers of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division got it exactly right: "We're paying them not to blow us up. It looks good right now, but what happens when the money stops?"

In other words, there are short term solutions – and then there's the effect of Balkanisation for decades to come.

Nonetheless, there's one point on which Iraqis remain united. As Kevin Young explains:

Iraqis have consistently stated that the occupation is a destabilizing force in their country, that the situation would improve after a US withdrawal, and that the US has ulterior motives for staying in Iraq. Over the last four years, and in polls from a wide range of sources, Iraqis have been especially unequivocal on one point: that the US military occupation of their country produces more violence than it prevents.

But what would they know? They only live there.