The New York Times reported this week that the refinery in Gebeng, just 70 kilometres north of Najib’s Pekan constituency,
The RM700 million rare earth refinery being built near Kuantan is set to be a major election issue with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim now calling for a campaign to alert residents there about the dangers of radiation pollution.
By Shannon Teoh A nation that cannot uphold its law cannot preserve its order. When Anderson was smuggled out to safety, the authority of state abandoned the responsibility of state. Excuses, evasions and lies have shifted over 26 years; this central truth has not.
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Anwar: This issue is important but the public is generally not well-versed in the negative effects. I propose we prepare leaflets to be distributed.
The massive earthquake in Japan yesterday and the resulting tsunami has also added fears about the plant in Malaysia’s east coast which faces the Pacific Rim’s ring of fire, the world’s active volcanic region. The 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan and the 10-metre high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.
Australian mining company Lynas Corporation has begun construction of the rare earth refinery in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s home state, raising fears of a repeat of the radiation pollution in Bukit Merah, Perak that has been linked to at least eight leukemia cases in the local community there.
The Asian Rare Earth plant is now the subject of a quiet US$100 million (RM303 million) cleanup exercise by Mitsubishi Chemical which shut down the facility nearly two decades ago.
“This issue is important but the public is generally not well-versed in the negative effects. I propose we prepare leaflets to be distributed,” the opposition leader wrote to his Pakatan Rakyat (PR) colleagues in an email
.Anwar has been going around the country for ceramahs to promote his PR’s economic programmes and promises in its Buku Jingga for the next general elections, widely expected to be held this year.
.Anwar has been going around the country for ceramahs to promote his PR’s economic programmes and promises in its Buku Jingga for the next general elections, widely expected to be held this year.
The New York Times reported this week that the refinery in Gebeng, just 70 kilometres north of Najib’s Pekan constituency, will be the first such plant outside China in nearly three decades.
Environmental hazards have made other countries wary of rare earth processing, leaving China to control 95 per cent of global supply of rare earth metals.
The metals are crucial to high technology products such as the Apple iPhone, Toyota Prius and Boeing’s smart bombs.
The newspaper said that if prices of the metals stayed at current levels, the Lynas plant would generate over RM5 billion a year in exports for Malaysia, or nearly one per cent of its entire economy.
However, Lynas corporate and business development vice president Matthew James has denied that the plant will be dangerous and told The Malaysian Insider that radiation will be minimal as the raw material used has only 2 per cent of the thorium found in the material processed in Bukit Merah.
Thorium is the radioactive element found in nearly all rare earth deposits.
PKR vice president Fuziah Salleh, who is also Kuantan MP, responded saying that a local group of citizens has been trying to raise awareness there and has echoed Anwar’s call to drum up the issue.
PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Tantawi has also questioned the need for theplant to be located in Gebeng, some 2,500 kilometres away from Lynas’ mine in Mount Weld, Australia.
“Are the wide deserts of Australia not enough to build this factory if it is really safe as they say it is?” said Nasrudin.
James had told The Malaysian Insider that the company chose Malaysia instead of refining the ore in Australia, due to savings in already available infrastructure and labour.
He said that the plant would need a larger supply of water, natural gas, industrial land and chemicals such as lime and sulphuric and hydrochloric acid — all readily available in Malaysia.
“Each container contains about US$1 million (RM3.04 million) of rare earth so the transport cost is negligible,” James said.
James also said that the Kuantan facility, located in the Gebeng industrial area, will be the largest rare earth processing plant in the world once completed next year
'Justice' for Bhopal is just political farce
By M J Akbar
Trust me: if thousands of politicians, or their cousins, the nouveau riche, had died on that apocalyptic night in Bhopal, Anderson would still be in an Indian prison, rather than in America, protected by his company, and the company that his company keeps. But only the poor died in Bhopal. We treat our poor as dispensable chattel whose death is meaningless in the economic calculus, since there is no shortage of supply. Bhopal is class war.
which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it… ... The Irrational Knot (1905). To understand a saint, you must hear the ... You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. ...
Cynicism is never irrational. The irrational, often wrong, sometimes right, are impelled by instinct, heart or even conscience. Cynics are morality-proof. They prefer data to truth.
Delhi has set the gold standard for cynicism. It operates on four axioms: public memory is a dwarf; anger is effervescent; media can be massaged at the appropriate moment; any public crisis can be assuaged with crumbs, while the promotion of private interests continues off-screen.
Jairam Ramesh’s promise of a Green Tribunal in Bhopal is a classical instance of a crumb dipped in the pickle of hypocrisy. Where was this or any other tribunal in the last 26 years when the dead, the deformed and blind babies and the stillborn fetuses were a reminder that justice must be done? Or is this tribunal meant for the next onslaught by the dogs of chemical war upon the sleeping slums of Bhopal? Who was Veerappa Moily trying to fool when he claimed that the case against Warren Anderson had not been closed? Why doesn’t he keep the case open for a few more years, until God closes the chapter by taking Anderson away to whichever destination has been allotted to the butcher of Bhopal? A Group of Ministers has been appointed — merely to buy time until the return of amnesia.readmore The Malaysian Insider Shannon Teoh says Justice' for Najib’s Pekan constituency is just political farce Cynicism is never irrational.
By M J Akbar
Trust me: if thousands of politicians, or their cousins, the nouveau riche, had died on that apocalyptic night in Bhopal, Anderson would still be in an Indian prison, rather than in America, protected by his company, and the company that his company keeps. But only the poor died in Bhopal. We treat our poor as dispensable chattel whose death is meaningless in the economic calculus, since there is no shortage of supply. Bhopal is class war.
which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it… ... The Irrational Knot (1905). To understand a saint, you must hear the ... You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. ...
Cynicism is never irrational. The irrational, often wrong, sometimes right, are impelled by instinct, heart or even conscience. Cynics are morality-proof. They prefer data to truth.
Delhi has set the gold standard for cynicism. It operates on four axioms: public memory is a dwarf; anger is effervescent; media can be massaged at the appropriate moment; any public crisis can be assuaged with crumbs, while the promotion of private interests continues off-screen.
Jairam Ramesh’s promise of a Green Tribunal in Bhopal is a classical instance of a crumb dipped in the pickle of hypocrisy. Where was this or any other tribunal in the last 26 years when the dead, the deformed and blind babies and the stillborn fetuses were a reminder that justice must be done? Or is this tribunal meant for the next onslaught by the dogs of chemical war upon the sleeping slums of Bhopal? Who was Veerappa Moily trying to fool when he claimed that the case against Warren Anderson had not been closed? Why doesn’t he keep the case open for a few more years, until God closes the chapter by taking Anderson away to whichever destination has been allotted to the butcher of Bhopal? A Group of Ministers has been appointed — merely to buy time until the return of amnesia.readmore The Malaysian Insider Shannon Teoh says Justice' for Najib’s Pekan constituency is just political farce Cynicism is never irrational.
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