‘Don’t turn our cattle into cats,’ Malaysians tell Australia’s Lynas Corporation

Cows shrinking to the point they turn into cats and villagers wrapped in do-it-yourself anti-radiation suits are only some of the effects of allowing Australia’s Lynas Corporation to open a rare earths plant in Malaysia, according to not-so-subtle protest short satirical films populating YouTube these days.

The most acclaimed of them, by director Liew Seng Tat, has got over 23,000 hits since it was posted on Dec. 2. “Kampong Radioaktif” (Radioactive Village) depicts what would happen to a Malaysian village after radioactive dust has settled and it clearly targets the Aussie miner.

Critics of Lynas’ project believe that allowing the US$230 million rare earth refinery will jeopardize Malaysian’s well-being and the environment. The facility, currently under construction, is set to become one of the few sources outside China to process rare earths and produce metals used in high-tech equipment from weapons to cell phones.

Currently, about 90 percent of rare earths metals are processed in China. However, since the operations produce radioactive waste, Beijingis restricting its rare earth mining, Businessweek reports.

Quoting AFP, The Borneo Post says that the Government of Malaysia caved in to public pressure, inviting a panel from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to assess the project earlier this year and announcing that it won’t allow the plant to open until Lynas has met all of the panel’s safety requirements:

Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria, secretary general of International Trade Ministry, said the government was still reviewing the project and will make its findings public.

Government officials say the project has been unfairly targeted by critics, while Sta Maria said that Lynas needed to engage the public more.

Lynas says that any waste would be placed in safe, reliably engineered storage cells to avoid leaks

The Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) was originally scheduled to start processing rare earths in the third quarter of 2011.

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