Risky Business: BHP, Rio Tinto given carte blanche to export uranium to global hotspots

The Fukushima nuclear disaster, fuelled by Australian uranium mined by multinationals BHP and Rio Tinto, was entirely avoidable, as numerous reports have found.

Yet neither company has taken any responsibility for the catastrophic impacts on Japanese society that resulted from the use of their uranium in a poorly regulated industry.

With numerous warning signs of impending disaster at Fukushima, the mining giants and our leaders could have played an important role by making uranium exports conditional on improved management of nuclear plants and tighter regulation.

Yet the uranium companies get tetchy at any suggestion of culpability, with the Australian Uranium Association describing it as “opportunism in the midst of human…