Ungani fears hit Buru hard - The West Australian
Within the last year alone, there has been a 20% increase in BHP Billiton’s
Western Australian iron ore exports. In spite of this enormous growth,
the company only paid US$29m in minerals resource rent tax (MRRT).
As it stands, the tax is in no way making BHP uncompetitive – its bumper
profits are a testament to that.
While mining companies such as BHP Billiton
are making a motza, we need to be reminded that 83%
of Australian mining operations are foreign owned. The net income
balance – the difference between the profits of Australian investing
overseas, and profits made by foreign companies in Australia – has
suffered as a result of mining companies extracting greater amounts of
Australian mineral wealth for foreign owners.
From 2003 to 2011, the net income balance
reduced from minus
2% to - 6% of Australian GDP. In other words, Australia is being held at gun point by day light robbers.
Within the last year alone, there has been a 20% increase in BHP Billiton’s
Western Australian iron ore exports. In spite of this enormous growth,
the company only paid US$29m in minerals resource rent tax (MRRT).
As it stands, the tax is in no way making BHP uncompetitive – its bumper
profits are a testament to that.
While mining companies such as BHP Billiton
are making a motza, we need to be reminded that 83%
of Australian mining operations are foreign owned. The net income
balance – the difference between the profits of Australian investing
overseas, and profits made by foreign companies in Australia – has
suffered as a result of mining companies extracting greater amounts of
Australian mineral wealth for foreign owners.
From 2003 to 2011, the net income balance
reduced from minus
2% to - 6% of Australian GDP. In other words, Australia is being held at gun point by day light robbers.
Photo Damian Kelly
Posts
Well there's no doubt about it the mostly Anglo Saxon companies that exploit these former colonies look upon it as their God given right to take whatever they want and under their terms.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why Australia and Canada have nothing to show from their mining booms and everyone in Norway is a millionaire from theirs.
We are stealing for the benefit of people who live elsewhere.
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British Empire & The Anglo Saxon Bloc
The great problem of the near future will be American imperialism, even more than British imperialism. Or, it may be, and all indications point to it, that the two will join together to create a powerful Anglo-Saxon bloc to dominate the world. Jawaharlal Nehru @ Congress of Oppressed Nationalities, Brussels, 1927
The Story Of Great Britain
How did Britain transit from a backward nation in 16th century, to a pre-eminent position in the 20th century?
Two short steps – slavery and colonialism.
The Anglo-Saxon Bloc captured, imported, used and killed an estimated 30-40 million slaves. Even with the latest technology, manpower costs are between 20%-50% of agricultural and industrial goods. By using slave labour, Britain and the Anglo-Saxon Bloc earned super-normal profits – by eliminating the cost of labour.
Apart from the momentous slave revolts of Haiti and Cuba, about 200 slave uprising and revolts in the USA before the Civil War, cleared the way for end to slavery in the Americas. Similarly, more than 20 slave uprisings in the Caribbean, made slavery impractical – and not the Anglo-Saxon concern for human rights or the oozing milk of human kindness.
It was this determined struggle for overthrow of slavery, the more than 20 slave rebellions between 1789-1833, in the Caribbean – one every 2 years, that ‘persuaded’ the West to abolish slavery. The British search and seizure of colonies enriched them – at the cost of the native populations. A significant benefit of the English language to the Anglo-Saxon Bloc is the convenient white wash of history in English language media – and tarring of competitive economies and nations.
Australia
A continent 4 times the size of India – with a population (2.1 cr) slightly bigger than Mumbai. Australia remains one of the largest producers of gold in the world for the last 150 years. This gold exploitation from Australia partly funded British imperialism and colonialism. Like Native Americans in America, and Romani Gypsies, local aborigines, were wiped out from Australia.
By excluding non-whites, they have ensured that this super-concentration of resources wealth and prosperity continues. By token inclusion of Asians, the British-Australian Governments cover their racist economic policies. The co-opted Asians at the social periphery also help the continuation and the justification of Australian policies.
Canada
Slightly smaller (errata - actually, slightly larger) than Australia, and with a population of 3.2 crores, (equal to Mumbai and New Delhi and three times the size of India. Another major producer of gold and silver. Similar wipe-out of native population as in US of America and Australia and enrichment by exploitation of natural resources. Canada was used by the British during WWII for safe keeping of British gold.
So having created the poverty now the likes of Twiggy Forrest claim it is time to lift more black people out of poverty.
ReplyDeleteHow?
By mining their county and taking advantage of the piss poor labour rates to do it.
As he told the Yindjibarndi "we will only pay you $4 million a year to mine your country - because if we paid you more you would just sit down and do nothing".
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British Empire & The Anglo Saxon Bloc
USA
Another huge landmass but with a better territory to population ratio. A British Colony for close to a 150 years, the gold loot from the Native Americans and new mine discoveries in USA enabled the rise of the British power. Tactics learnt from Europeans, similar to the persecution of Romani Gypsies, Native American ethnic groups were persecuted and terminated, their land acquired and reduced to economic slavery by closing all doors to economic activities. The initial break from European history, with the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine, by the USA was soon abandoned.
USA by 1890 acquired a taste of colonialism. They ‘bought’ Philippines from Spain, even today maintains Puerto Rico as a colony and (continues to) eyes Cuba. The Brussels and Berlin conference carved up – and there were few places left to colonise.
Wealth Acquisition – modus operandi
By a simple modus operandi of sale of natural resources,Britain (and now Australia, Canada and USA enriched themselves. These few countries: -
1.Consume disproportionate amounts of natural resources. USA Australia and Canada are amongst the largest per-capita consumers and (also) producers of oil in the world – 60% of the world GDP and Oil. This helps America-Australia-Britain-Canada (ABC) Axis to retain hegemony over large parts of the global economy, politics and trade.
2.Pollute the world, contribute to global warming – and Indian negotiators are happy with a few token carbon credits.
3.This Anglo Saxon bloc has 3 of the 4 largest countries of the world; wiped out native populations in these 3 countries, acquired these countries by force, sequester the world’s natural resources and are united by their will to dominate and exploit the rest of humanity.
4.They control more than 67% of world gold production and more than 80%, if you include Anglo-Saxon companies (like Anglo Gold, Barrick, BHP, Rio Tinto, etc), and the media industry. At the time of the Bretton Woods conference, combined with (colonial) Indian gold reserves, the ABC Bloc virtually had the world economy in a choke.
The Bretton Woods Agreement
In 1944, British-American economists came together and devised the Bretton Woods system – a millstone around the developing world. As WWII came to a close, the world stamped its approval on Bretton Woods Agreement. After WWII, the global financial system has been governed by the Bretton Woods Agreement.
Why? Why did the world believe that only the Anglo-Saxon Bloc could deliver? In 1944, the Anglo-Saxon Bloc (countries, colonies and companies) controlled more than 90% of gold production and reserves. The largest private gold reserve in the world, India was still a British colony. Hence, it was fait accompli.
The Bretton Woods system worked for 20 years because Indians were not allowed to buy gold. During that crucial phase, India’s finance minister, was Morarji Desai, (allegedly on CIA payroll during Lyndon Johnson ’ s Presidency 1963-1968). He presented a record 10 budgets, from February 1958, up to 1967 – with an anti-gold bias.
This system has swamped the world with accelerating inflow of dollars (American, Australian, Canadian) and British pounds. Producers and exporters are left with vast reserves of a depreciating currencies. The Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and other ASEAN countries have lent the USA, US$2 trillion. For the privilege of lending US$2 trillion to the USA, they will lose US$ 300 billion.
http://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/the-rise-of-the-british-empire/
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....and so on and on it goes.......
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_8.html
2. Genocide in Australian History
From the beginning of the British invasion of Australia (justified on the myth of terra nullius), the Indigenous people were slaughtered on a grand scale. In Tasmania between 1804 and 1834, the Aboriginal population was reduced from an estimated 5000 people to just 200, which represented a 90% reduction in just 30 years. In Victoria it has been estimated that the Koori population declined by about 60% in just 15 years between 1835 and 1850 as more than 68 individual ‘massacres’ were perpetrated in that period. Indeed, according to representative of the North West Clans of Victoria, Mr Gary Murray, of the 38 clans that lived in Victoria B.C. (Before Cook) only 24 today have living descendants. By 1850 virtually all active resistance to the invasion had been quelled in Victoria. Census figures published in March 1857 showed that only 1,768 Aborigines were left in all of that state. So comprehensive was the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Australia that out of an estimated 500 language groups on mainland Australia when the British arrived, barely half that number of languages were to survive. By 1871, one correspondent, G. Carrington felt compelled to write,
We shall never possess a detailed history of this singular and gradual work of extermination - such a tale would be too horrible to read - but we have an opportunity of seeing a similar process in full work in the colony of Queensland, and when we have seen that, we shall understand the mystery of Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
By the middle of the 19th Century the situation for Aborigines in most parts of Australia looked very grim. Morris has described it thus, ‘The colonial process had reduced the Aborigines to a residual minority, but they had not been eliminated. The problem was expected to resolve itself.’ In other words a new policy emerged dubbed, ‘Smooth the Dying Pillow’, it was based on the assumption that what was left of the Aboriginal populace would now die out. So whilst indiscriminate killings of Aborigines were to continue well into the 1930’s, the widespread genocidal activity of early ‘settlement’ gave way to a policy of containment. This was typified by the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, which established the first Australian ‘concentration camps’ to provide a place for the doomed race to die off.
3. Racial Attitudes in Germany and Australia up to the 1930’s
One aspect of life that Australia shared with Germany in the first part of this century was the popularity of racial theories based on Social Darwinism. As Karl Schleunes wrote, ‘The publication of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution in 1859 had an immediate impact in Germany’, and when Professor Ernst Haeckel developed these theories to incorporate a general theory of human and social development, the notion was used by racial theorists to justify their, ‘conceptions of superior and inferior peoples and nations’. These were some of the major contributing elements for the Nazis to later concoct their policies against ‘inferior’ ‘races’, such as Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and Blacks.
In Australia Social Darwinism was also very popular, especially among the scientific community. Andrew Markus has said, ‘one doesn’t have to read extensively to discern that a central concern of anatomists was to establish whether Aborigines were closer to the animal than human’. The Elder Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide in 1926 said that Aborigines were, ‘too low in the scale of humanity’ to benefit from ‘the civilising influence of Anglo Saxon rule’.
....and the politicians just do as they are told.........
Deleteby the miners of course.
Friday, February 21st, 2014
ReplyDeleteRoebuck Plains: Ungani 3 well to go deeper
Buru has decided to continue drilling the Ungani 3 well after a series of tests. While the dolomite layer showed less petroleum than the other two Ungani wells, it is hoped a deeper layer of rock called the Nullara formation will show better results.
Rigzone [read this story] - See more at: http://www.kimberleypage.com.au/2014/02/roebuck-plains-ungani-3-well-to-go-deeper/#sthash.6hkxTeuN.dpuf
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Watch 27 years of 'old' Arctic ice melt away in seconds
A video from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows a disturbing trend in the age of Arctic ice
...........The vanishing act is occurring because climate change is helping warm the ocean waters in parts of the Arctic. Those warmer temperatures are whittling away at older sea ice during the summer melt season.
Replacing this thicker, harder old ice with young ice, which is generally thinner and melts more easily, is also contributing to the steep decline in summer sea ice extent and could trigger a feedback loop. That's because less ice means more dark ocean water is exposed to the sun, which absorbs more of the incoming sunlight than white ice. That means warmer waters, which could in turn mean even less old ice and ice cover with each passing year.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/21/arctic-ice-melt-video
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Extreme heat in Australia: more, longer, hotter
As heat waves in Australia become hotter, longer and more frequent, it reveals the immorality of the Abbott government's climate denialism.
.............As John Cook writes in The Conversation, this logical fallacy is the "equivalent to arguing that as humans died of cancer long before cigarettes were invented, it therefore follows that smoking does not cause cancer."
The Climate Council's report is worrying, not just because it points to the growing intensity of extreme weather fuelled by dangerous climate change, but because exposes the moral negligence of the Abbott government.
The social compact in Australia has the role of government to ensure the safety, prosperity and freedom of its people. Abbott and his ministers, like the Howard government before them, are seeking to unpick that compact.
Buru Energy Continues Drilling Activity at Ungani 3 Well in EP 391 in WA
Deleteby Buru Energy Ltd.
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Press Release
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Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Australia's Buru Energy Limited provided Tuesday the following update on drilling operations at the Ungani 3 well in exploration permit (EP) 391 in Western Australia as at 06:00hrs, Feb. 25 (AWST).
The well has been drilled to a total depth of 8,356 feet (2,547 meters) MD, or measured depth, within the Nullara Formation. A comprehensive suite of logs has been run over the open hole to evaluate the Ungani Dolomite and Nullara Limestone intervals. The logs identified a fracture zone at the top of the Ungani Dolomite coincident with the elevated gas readings recorded whilst drilling this section. Attempts are currently being made to acquire pressure and fluid samples over the fracture zone utilizing a wireline formation tester. Following that, rotary sidewall cores will be acquired to sample throughout the Ungani Dolomite interval.
The Ungani 3 well is located some 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) to the east of the central Ungani Field area on what is interpreted from the 3D seismic data to be a separate structure. The forward program will be to suspend the well for future entry following evaluation of the well results integrated with the final processed 3D seismic data.
SOMETHING WE KNEW ALL ABOUT YEARS AGO.......
ReplyDeleteMartin Ferguson labelled a 'traitor' by MUA branch over Fair Work comments
Martin Ferguson's push for industrial relations reform has sparked an angry outburst from his brother and a call for the former minister to be kicked out of the Labor Party.
Mr Ferguson, who was the resources minister in the Rudd-Gillard governments and retired from politics at the last election, has highlighted the behaviour of the West Australian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).
He says the MUA is a "job-killing" and "rogue" union, and is making a case for a review of Labor's workplace laws and tougher action on unions.
But the MUA has hit back, calling him a "traitor" who should be kicked out of the Labor Party.
Mr Ferguson, who now chairs an advisory board for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), spoke in Perth on Friday calling for both unions and workplace laws to change in order to address rising unemployment and boost productivity.
Mr Ferguson said unless the unions were tackled and excessive wages reduced, more Australian jobs would go offshore.
He also said the MUA's WA branch had blocked equipment from reaching the massive Gorgon gas project, which had blown out the project's costs and timelines.
"I think the Maritime Union WA branch is a rogue union," he said.
"I think they are not only potentially going to kill jobs for their own members, children and grandchildren in the future in the way they've conducted themselves, I think it's about time the rest of the union movement fronted up to the fact that they are now killing jobs in manufacturing."
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(I thought it was the mining boom killing all the manufacturing jobs?)
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Martin Ferguson's brother angered by comments
Christy Cain from the MUA's WA branch says Mr Ferguson has sold out to the gas and oil companies.
"My personal view is that he should be expelled from the ALP and he is a traitor to the working class people of this country," he said.
Mr Ferguson's brother, Laurie Ferguson, who is the federal member for the outer Sydney seat of Werriwa, says he is "diametrically opposed" to his brother's views on a wide variety of issues.
Laurie Ferguson says he does not want to air the family's internal conflicts in public but was angered by his brother's decision to invoke his father's legacy during his speech.
Laurie Ferguson says his father was a lifelong member of the building union and would never have supported wage repression or associated himself with calls to restrict the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).
"This whole slant from the big end of town that every sacking in this country is justified by a failure of the Australian workers to go down to Vietnamese and Cambodian levels of wages is totally incorrect," Laurie Ferguson told News Radio.
Abbott praises Martin Ferguson, but rules out changes
Martin Ferguson wants Prime Minister Tony Abbott to go further than his planned changes in industrial relations because he says they are only "modest".
But Mr Abbott said he would not seek to change any industrial laws outside of his pre-election commitments.
"I have a high regard for Martin Ferguson. Martin Ferguson was one of the very serious people for the Labor Party in the Parliament," he said.
Mr Abbott said he was personally "very disappointed" when Martin Ferguson decided to leave the Parliament in 2013 and welcomed his latest comments.
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Martin Ferguson is also on the Board of British oil and gas company BG Group
Coalition pushing hard to lift the Top End
ReplyDeleteKEY themes of a Coalition green paper on developing Australia’s north will include infrastructure investment, land-tenure reform, improving water management, and boosting trade, innovation, research and education.
More than 40 meetings have so far been held with about 84 organisations across northern Australia. Development of the green paper is well advanced, ahead of its expected release next month.
Visiting Darwin yesterday, Tony Abbott revealed that his government would also co-ordinate a “stocktake” of natural and strategic assets across the Top End in preparation for a northern Australia policy white paper, due within 12 months.
The white paper would look for ways to enhance private investment, and identify the critical economic and social infrastructure needed to support long-term growth, as a means of capitalising on northern Australia’s strengths.
The Coalition has committed to developing a “clear, well-defined and timely policy platform” with implementation plans for the next two, five, 10 and 20 years.
Releasing the terms of reference for the white paper yesterday, the Prime Minister said northern Australia had “so much potential”.
“Look at the way the Ord (River irrigation) scheme has flourished,” he said. “There is so much more that can be done.”
He flagged getting rid of red and green tape, and said tax concessions to promote development would be considered, provided they were not unconstitutional.
West Australian Premier Colin Barnett welcomed the news, saying expanding the Ord scheme into the Northern Territory would be a priority, as would developing a supply base for offshore oil and gas. Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles said his top priority would be building more bridges and roads.
The Coalition’s northern Australia policy will be developed by a taskforce within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, with help from representatives of the West Australian, Teritory and Queensland governments.
Those governments will put forward members to an advisory council of indigenous, business and community leaders.
The Weekend Australian understands Western Australia has nominated four people, representing the pastoral industry, the Ord development and indigenous communities. The Territory is considering two nominations, one of which is likely to be Cattlemen’s Association head Luke Bowen.
Development of the white paper will also be informed by the outcome of a federal parliamentary inquiry.
Wilderness Society spokesman Gavin McFadzean said the Ord project had been a “taxpayer-funded environmental disaster from its inception”.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s northern Australia program manager, Graham Tupper, said a massive expansion of agricultural or extractive industries, or an “unsustainable” population boom, would damage the environment.
There have been signs of disagreement between Coalition partners. Mr Giles recently said northern Australia policy development was being politicised, with Queensland and Western Australia gaining the upper hand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/us/coal-ash-spill-reveals-transformation-of-north-carolina-agency.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0
ReplyDelete..
Ash Spill Shows How Watchdog Was Defanged
By TRIP GABRIELFEB. 28, 2014
RALEIGH, N.C. — Last June, state employees in charge of stopping water pollution were given updated marching orders on behalf of North Carolina’s new Republican governor and conservative lawmakers.
“The General Assembly doesn’t like you,” an official in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources told supervisors called to a drab meeting room here. “They cut your budget, but you didn’t get the message. And they cut your budget again, and you still didn’t get the message.”
From now on, regulators were told, they must focus on customer service, meaning issuing environmental permits for businesses as quickly as possible. Big changes are coming, the official said, according to three people in the meeting, two of whom took notes. “If you don’t like change, you’ll be gone.”
But when the nation’s largest utility, Duke Energy, spilled 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River in early February, those big changes were suddenly playing out in a different light. Federal prosecutors have begun a criminal investigation into the spill and the relations between Duke and regulators at the environmental agency.
The spill, which coated the river bottom 70 miles downstream and threatened drinking water and aquatic life, drew attention to a deal that the environmental department’s new leadership reached with Duke last year over pollution from coal ash ponds. It included a minimal fine but no order that Duke remove the ash — the waste from burning coal to generate electricity — from its leaky, unlined ponds. Environmental groups said the arrangement protected a powerful utility rather than the environment or the public.
Facing increasing scrutiny and criticism, the department said late Friday that the company would be cited for two formal notices of violating environmental standards in connection with the spill. It is not clear what fines or other penalties could result.
"These are violations of state and federal law, and we are holding the utility accountable,” said the state environmental secretary, John E. Skvarla III.
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman said Duke will respond to the state.
Current and former state regulators said the watchdog agency, once among the most aggressive in the Southeast, has been transformed under Gov. Pat McCrory into a weak sentry that plays down science, has abandoned its regulatory role and suffers from politicized decision-making.
The episode is a huge embarrassment for Mr. McCrory, who worked at Duke Energy for 28 years and is a former mayor of Charlotte, where the company is based. And it has become another point of contention in North Carolina, where Republicans who took control of the General Assembly in 2011 and the governor’s mansion last year have passed sweeping laws in line with conservative principles. They have affected voting rights and unemployment benefits, as well as what Republicans called “job-killing” environmental regulations, which have received less notice.
Critics say the accident, the third-largest coal ash spill on record, is inextricably linked to the state’s new environmental politics and reflects an enforcement agency led by a secretary who suggested that oil was a renewable resource and an assistant secretary who, as a state lawmaker, drew a bull’s-eye on a window in his office framing the environmental agency’s headquarters.
“They’re terrified,” said John Dorney, a retired supervisor who keeps in touch with many current employees. “Now these people have to take a deep breath and say, ‘I know what the rules require, but what does the political process want me to do?’ ”
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Video|1:45
Credit
Aftermath of Coal Ash Pond Rupture
An animated graphic by the Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability at Wake Forest University shows the aftermath of the coal ash pond rupture at Duke Energy’s Dan River Steam Station.
Same old same old games..........
ReplyDeleteAsh Spill Shows How Watchdog Was Defanged
Last year, the environment agency’s budget for water pollution programs was cut by 10.2 percent, a bipartisan commission that approves regulations was reorganized to include only Republican appointees, and the governor vastly expanded the number of agency employees exempt from civil service protections, to 179 from 24.
The effect, said midlevel supervisors who now serve at the pleasure of the governor, is that they are hesitant to crack down on polluters who might complain to Mr. Skvarla or a lawmaker, at the risk of their jobs. Several spoke anonymously out of fear of being fired.
“They want to have a hammer to come down on anybody who hinders developers by enforcing regulations,” said a supervisor whose department is supposed to regulate businesses under laws devised to protect water quality. “We’re scared to death to say no to anyone anymore.”
A second supervisor, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “A lot of us never considered ourselves political creatures. What’s happened here has really blown us out of the water. People speak in hushed tones in the hallway to each other. We go offsite to talk. It’s totally changed the culture of this organization.”
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Despite deep cuts from the state budget, the agency’s new leadership turned back $582,000 in grants from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to monitor wetlands and study the impact of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas on waterways.
Amy Adams, a former supervisor who left the agency last year, said that the mantra of the current leadership was about “customer service,” but that did not include citizens who might live downstream from a polluter.
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She and others said they were told to stop writing Notices of Violation to polluters, which can prompt fines, and instead to issue a Notice of Deficiency, which she likened to a state trooper giving a warning instead of a speeding ticket.
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“They did a behind-closed-doors settlement with the lawbreaker, and it requires no cleanup of one ounce of pollution or movement of one ounce of ash,” said Frank Holleman, a senior lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which sued on behalf of environmental groups. “The state has been a barrier at every turn.”
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Meanwhile, the agency has reversed its earlier positions on Duke and coal ash cleanup. On Feb. 10, eight days after the spill, the agency withdrew its deal with Duke. This week, it said it might order the remaining ash at the Dan River site, in Eden, N.C., to be moved and stored in a lined landfill — what environmentalists had sought all along.