![](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/-ZGJk0QPWPcs\/TnvPVgAm3xI\/AAAAAAAAHDI\/rhzWYLNPUPU\/mahathirlynas.gif\")
What exactly was behind Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad\u2019s motives when he challenged the Najib Government to push ahead the controversial Lynas rare earth refinery despite strong community protests?<\/p>\nWhat exactly was behind Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad\u2019s motives when he challenged the Najib Government to push ahead the controversial Lynas rare earth refinery despite strong community protests?<\/p>\n
The irony is Tun Dr Mahathir contradicted himself in the same page first referring to the lessons learnt by the medical profession in over exposing themselves to low-dose radiation by not evacuating to a safe distance whilst taking x-rays in the past.<\/p>\n
Then he went on to say he is opposed to nuclear power plant because nuclear wastes keep on radiating harmful rays for a million years and that there is no really safe way to dispose of them.<\/p>\n
Does Tun Dr M not realised that the Mt Weld ore contains both thorium and uranium which are radioactive?\u00a0 Thorium especially is a hazardous substance with a half- life of 14 billion years, far, far longer than uranium.\u00a0 It will continue to decay into ?????? (KK \u2013 can you fill in the details here please??)<\/p>\n
Apart from the radioactivity aspect, the shear volumes of the Lynas waste streams \u2013 solid waste enough to fill 126 Olympic size swimming pools every year; contain other toxic hazardous substances such as sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrates and heavy metals such as lead.<\/p>\n
SMSL is appalled by Tun Dr M\u2019s complacent stance on the Lynas plant despite his own government\u2019s poor track record in managing the Bukit Merah rare earth case.<\/p>\n
How many lives need to be lost and how much of land and water need to be contaminated before we will ever learn to stop accepting highly polluting hazardous projects which Malaysia do not have a track record of managing safely?<\/p>\n
Tun Dr M is well aware of the problem of nuclear waste to the point where he has made his opposing stance against nuclear power plants clear.How then could he developed such a blind spot on the Lynas project?<\/p>\n
Is Tun Dr M complacency truly based on his limited understanding of nuclear science and physics or is it a convenient position for him as a father of two sons in one way or another linked to the Lynas project?<\/p>\n
Firstly it is common knowledge that Tun Dr M\u2019s second son DatukMukhriz Mahathiris the Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister the government body MITI which approved the construction of the Lynas plant.<\/p>\n
Secondly, Tun Dr M\u2019s eldest son Mokhzani is the Group CEO of Kencana Petroleum which has a nice stake in the Lynas rare earth refinery project. KencanaTorscoSdn. Bhd. Is a subsidiary of Mokhzani\u2019sKencacaPetroleum.\u00a0 It has won lucrative contracts from Lynas Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. for the design, fabrication, lining, supply, installation, and commissioning of carbon steel and stainless steel tanks worth MYR9.1 million.
source: http:\/\/investing.businessweek.com\/research\/stocks\/private\/snapshot.asp?privcapId=21989896<\/p>\n
The Lynas contracts probably represented a windfall for Mokhzani since his return to the corporate world in 2007.\u00a0 Back in the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, he was written off. http:\/\/sophiesworld-sophiesworld.blogspot.com\/2007\/11\/corporate-comeback-of-mokhzani-mahathir.html<\/a> What can concern residents – the majority of the mums and dad as well as youths do to keep Lynas inoperable so that they can have a peace of mind that their future will be clean and safe?<\/p>\n Given such entrenched vested self-interest at the elite level of politics, ordinary citizens should band together with like-minded people to claim their democratic right to reject a polluting hazardous project such as the Lynas rare earth refinery plant.<\/p>\n According to SMSL\u2019s own research, one of the world\u2019s leading banks, HSBC has recently sold millions of dollars worth of Lynas shares. SMSL has made two trips to Australia staging protest actions and engaging in public speaking tours in Lynas\u2019 home turf of Sydney, Perth and Femantle respectively.\u00a0 HSBC is a signatory to the Equator Principles (http:\/\/www.hsbc.com\/1\/2\/sustainability\/sustainable-finance\/equator-principles<\/a>) which bound the banking giant to a set of social and environmental standards.\u00a0 It is hardly surprising that through the publicity generated in Malaysia and in Australia, HSBC\u2019s own investigation found Lynas to be too much of a reputational risk to be linked to its corporate image.<\/p>\n The people of Kuatan have spoken loud and clear through the various peaceful public actions, the Stop Lynas campaign is a campaign run and supported by mums and dads and ordinary people who are simply worried about having a mammoth hazardous plant nearby.\u00a0 They want the plant to be stopped and they know they have the support of ordinary people to reach their goal ultimately<\/p>\n ***Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas(SMSL) Press release on 15th September 2011<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What exactly was behind Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad\u2019s motives when he challenged the Najib Government to push ahead the controversial Lynas rare earth refinery despite strong community protests? The irony is Tun Dr Mahathir contradicted himself in the same page first referring to the lessons learnt by the medical profession in over exposing themselves to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It is no co-incident that Tun Dr M decided to blog on Lynas\u2019 when its share value took its steepest tumble yesterday (21st September) in two years.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps daddy decided it was time lend his weight to the deal to make sure Lynas is healthy enough in shareholders\u2019 confidence to pay their bills.<\/p>\n