— Sam Peh
The Malaysian Insider
Feb 23, 2012
FEB 23 — Now let me get this straight: The Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB)) need not worry what the international community or investors think about getting Lynas out of Malaysia.
It only think about Malaysians — the same chaps who pay the salaries of Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan and other civil servants. According to the director-general of Lynas, he only goes by the facts.
So do I. The facts are that AELB has given Lynas a temporary operating licence and allowed them to put up a multimillion ringgit plant without a long-term plan for the disposal of toxic waste.
No company in the WORLD has devised a foolproof storage system and to think that some company from Australia has achieved a world breakthrough in storage is a joke. And to think that they have been given a temporary operating licence.
And let me remind you that if not for the pressure by the Opposition, the AELB and MITI would have given Lynas a full licence without batting an eyelid despite obvious holes in the waste storage.
Even now I can tell you that this TOL is an eyewash, because are we to understand that the government is going to reimburse Lynas for the multimillion ringgit plant?
So Raja Aziz can carry on his wayang and sound like he actually knows what he is talking about. Another fact is that he can put whatever spin he wants about the revenue-sharing plan with Lynas (0.05 per cent of Lynas revenue) but no regulator worth its salt should put itself in a position of conflict.
The simple fact is that something stinks about this project and the government’s handling of it.
I guess the government desperately needs the money to entice people for votes in GE13 and hence the TOL.
All these noise, noise, noise. Just shift the plant to the Royal Town of Pekan, Najib’s backyard. Then dispose the waste at the vacant plot of land next to AELB HQ since it is safe. Everybody then will be happy.
Loh si mah, a newly minted Ozi U-conferred loctor, will tell residents of her hubby’s state: No problem 1, TRUST ME, Lynas is good, all of us can go SHOPPING regularly in Ozi leh
Honestly – imagine some Perkasa/Sembrong UMNO/unhappy KFC restaurant worker take some apparently easily obtainable C4 and blow up the waste…
To those who cut this dirty deals with lynas, I hope the toxic waste will poison your own generations to come. May you have sufferings thru your ill gotten gains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australia-climate-map_MJC01.png
Australia is the world’s sixth-largest country by total area. The world’s smallest continent, Australia—owing to its size and isolation—is often dubbed the “island continent”, and is sometimes considered the world’s largest island. Australia has 34,218 kilometres (21,262 mi) of coastline (excluding all offshore islands), and claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,060 sq mi). This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory. So there is something terribly wrong when it refuses to site Lynas in its vast empty deserts but wants Malaysia to do so.
With records like MAS, proton, hicom, perwaja, leaking roofs, cracking mrr2 pillars, collapsed bridge and stadium roofs, insubmergible submarines and dozens upon dozens more, can we seriously trust umno?
Bodoh punya umno.
///So there is something terribly wrong when it refuses to site Lynas in its vast empty deserts but wants Malaysia to do so?”/// #6 by k1980
Good point! Sorry to be philosophical about this but the answer probably lies in the bigger picture of the nature of the Human Condition. Which is, in the so called struggle for survival (remember Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest for the human species?) operating on dynamics of cunning self deception and exploitation, the weaker comprising the less intelligent or having lesser moral fibre can easier be exploited to take all the social costs and get all the crap wilst the benefit goes the other side! The guys in Australia know that people here can be easily bribed: so they push to us their not wanted radioactive wastes even if they have vast places including near extraction source in Western Australia to locate it without transportation costs! The other thing they wanted to push is/was the unwanted tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the controversial refugee swap deal!
There is something really fishy here. Ordinarily, a government would heed the overwhelming wishes of the majority and scrap the deal, but here the government decides to go against the overwhelming objections to the deal – in an election year ! There has to be something “hidden” from view as far as this deal is concerned. Is it the ridiculous compensation formula that the government agreed to with Lynas in the event of termination ? Is it an integral part of the refugee swap deal with Canberra as Jeffrey has alluded to ?
How can anyone challenge this question: If the plant is as safe as they say, why don’t you put the plant in your own backyard ? Maybe in Pekan, maybe even in Raub. Maybe even in Putrajaya.
Maybe it is the smell of their famous salted fish?
Fat mama once expressed her earth shaking opinion on the japanese quake and tsunami. “Its because the japanese failed to engage in green technology” (well, something like that).
Oh dear I only hope that lynas is sufficiently green.
It was a forgone conclusion Lynas will finally get its way.
It was drama all the way. It was also a typical way of BN government handling project of such magnitude without any comprehensive planing and studies of its consequences. The final losers are the tax payers.
We also see the arrogance style shown by the BN leaders in handling this issue. The menteri besar was the one who arrogantly ask people who are afraid of radiation can move out of their home and the they will buy their home.
Today one of the Sin Chew’s editorial commentary rightly put it : Australia is much much larger than Malaysia and Australia also have large non human inhibit lands, the question why Lynas not setting its plant in Australia. Further why they choose a place that was far away from where they can source the raw materials for the process, this mean more costs on transportation. Australia must have refused to issue them an operating license. If Lynas own country has refused the license, how can Malaysia find it fit to issue one? This is the question that AELB should answer.
W ith millions have been spent by Lynas, it seems all system go come rain or shine for them. TOL is as good as POL to them. They must a compensation clause in its agreement. Give them or refuse them the gainer is LYNAS and losers the all Malaysia tax papers and worst for people who live around the area. The nightmare has just going to start all because of BN
“If Lynas own country has refused the license, how can Malaysia
find it fit to issue one? This is the question that AELB should
answer.” – end of quote
The answer is simple.
The Aussies don’t want it in their own backyard.
Full stop!!!
New Zealand and Singapore will definitely reject such plants.
In fact, the Aussies dare not even mention the possibility of
locating such plants there!
They’ll be screwed upside down!!!!!!!!!
Malaysia is the nearest earthquake free & volcanic eruption free
country to them.
Both Indonesia and the Philippines have these problems.
And both are riddled by insurgencies!
Besides that, this country is also up in the scales on corruption.
So, this country is ideal for locating the plant!!!
It is a given that this plant and 1Care will become realities.
The question is: What are Malaysians going to do about it?
Think about frequency of earthquakes & our location just outside volcanic “ring of fire”. Think about that east coast seaside town in Japan with a radioactive facility mayhem, today acknowledged to be a stupid place to put a plant like that. And acknolwdged as national catastrophe affecting generations deeper inland and into sea.
Now think about Kuantan’s similar location …
This is a hullabalooing about nothing!!
Get that big plant operating already.. we all know it is going to happen whether we like it or not.
We have Bukit Merah and Ipoh.
High rates of cancer in Ipoh since the 1980s from all the radioactive tin trailings. Almost every family knows of a family member with thyroid cancer.
And the Bukit Merah with the Rare earth cracking plant… lots of brain damaged kids.
Spread the love, cancer, and heavy metal poisoning to all. Why should the Malaysian chinese be the only community to develop natural immunity to heavy metals?
We are so bloody tough already that the malays will lag behind if they are not exposed to the same selection processes.
So do it!
I am sure UMNO will reap the praises that their voters in areas adjacent to Kuantan will bestow upon them in years to come.
Heavy metals move easy as dust and in water.
Ooo… Kuantan, Ipoh and Bukit Merah… just notice their population composition.