This D.H wanted to ban off-peak water heaters in Australia.
Posted on 09/04/2007 1:51:06 AM PDT by familyop
Prime Minister John Howard has refused to confirm whether Australia and Russia will announce a bilateral uranium deal at this week's APEC summit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in Sydney on Friday, the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit Australia.
He will meet Mr Howard and the two leaders are expected to sign a nuclear safeguards deal allowing the export of Australian uranium to Russia for use in its nuclear reactors.
A Russian official told news agency Reuters last week that the former Soviet state would sign an agreement with Australia.
"The agreement will be signed during President (Vladimir) Putin's trip to Australia," a Russian official said.
But Mr Howard was not giving away any details today.
"I'm not going to speculate on all the stuff in the papers on deals with different countries," Mr Howard told Sky News.
"If there are any arrangements announced, then I'm going to explain them in detail when those arrangements are announced.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last month said Australian uranium could feed Russian nuclear reactors as early as next year, with arrangements to be signed during the APEC leaders' forum in Sydney.
Australia already exports uranium to Russia but under the current agreement it is for processing by a third party.
Australia also sells uranium to China and has reached an in-principle agreement to sell uranium to India, which is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
'Standards met'
Mr Downer expressed confidence in Russian nuclear safety standards.
Mr Downer says people do not need to be fearful of Russia breaching any safety deal or about the prospect of another Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
"My view is you can put in place a good safeguards arrangement with Russia (and) Russia would have absolutely no interest in breaching a safeguards arrangement in creating a massive diplomatic confrontation, not just with Australia, but with most of the western world over something like that," he told Sky News.
Mr Downer is confident safety has improved vastly since Chernobyl more than 20 years ago.
"It was a Soviet reactor. There has been an enormous amount of work done, not only that model of reactor, the ones that are still in existence have been very substantially upgraded. But I think the level of safety with nuclear reactors these days is very high," Mr Downer said.
Voter anger
However a new survey has discovered more than half of voters are against any plan to sell uranium to Russia.
Released at the Sydney Summit on Russia today, the survey showed 66 percent of Australians would vote against the deal if a referendum were held on the issue.
The survey of 1,200 voters undertaken by Research International found 41 percent of people were concerned the uranium may end up in the hands of terrorists or rogue states, while 20 percent feared Russia would use the uranium for nuclear weapons.
Summit keynote speaker and international human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam said Australians were right to be concerned about the deal.
"If the Australian uranium is only going to be used for civilian purposes, then what you're doing is you're freeing up the Russian uranium to be used, to be sold on, to Iran," he told reporters in Sydney today.
"Mr Putin stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Iran.
"If Mr Howard wishes to do business with Mr Putin, he needs to understand the kind of company he's keeping."
Hmmm. Iran already has uranium in its soil.
This D.H wanted to ban off-peak water heaters in Australia.
curious.. what does america have to say about this???
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