Following the 1,000-strong demonstration on Mother's Day organised by a Facebook group, the anti-rare earth plant movement is building up its momentum, intending to hold another peaceful rally on Sunday.

NONEThis rally, being organised by Kuantan DAP, will be held at 11am in front of the party's service centre in the Pahang capital and expects to see some 500 concerned residents taking part.

"The rally is to allow more Kuantan residents to understand the hazards of the Lynas rare earth plant, and to express the strong protest of Kuantan residents against the plant," Kuantan DAP chief Cheah Kim Hung said in a statement today.

DAP national leaders including Youth chief Anthony Loke and Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching will lead the rally, together with state leaders.

'Stern action against those who create chaos'

However, Pahang police today warned that stern action would be taken against anyone trying to create chaos from protests against the rare earth plant.

According to Bernama, Pahang police chief Saifuddin Abdul Ghani said the "protest programme", including demonstrations and lecture sessions, would be closely monitored.

"I ask all parties concerned to adhere to the law and not do anything drastic," he told reporters in Kuantan today, commenting on the recent spate of protests against the RM700 million plant being built by Lynas Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Australian mining giant Lynas Corporation.

Saifuddin said police would act against protesters who were aggressive or broke the law.

"Thus far, there has been no report of any untoward incident in connection with the issue. And I hope that all concerned will listen to sound advice (and avoid trouble)," he added.

NONEThe construction of the Lynas Advanced Material Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng, some 25km northeast of Kuantan, has sparked much public outrage over fears of potential radiation poisoning that could affect communities living in and around the industrial area.

Both Lynas and the government have repeatedly given assurances that the plant's operations would produce only negligible levels of radiation and that this would not be the same as that from the controversial Asian Rare Earth factory run by Mitsubishi Chemical in Bukit Merah, Perak, between the 1980s and 1990s.

However, opponents of the project stressed that concerns over radiation poisoning were inevitable as there has so far been no clear plan on how and where the plant's waste materials - said to be a major source of radiation - would be disposed.

Bowing to public pressure, the Malaysian government recently announced that the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would organise an expert panel to advise it on the potential radiation risks of the plant.

Press conference on panel line-up cancelled

The panel is supposed to review the Lynas project's compliance with relevant international safety standards and good practices and provide an independent expert opinion on the radiological safety aspects of the project.

The panel line-up was due to be announced by Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Maximus Ongkili at a press conference at 2pm today at the ministry in Putrajaya.

However, some 20 reporters waiting at the office were told at the eleventh hour that the press conference was postponed due to some issues over "technical coordination" with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

In a related development, Cheah expressed regret over Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai's statement that the opposition was capitalising on the Lynas plant issue to gain political mileage.

"As health minister, Liow does not even dare to guarantee that the plant will be safe. This shows that the project is hazardous. Liow failed to use his power as a cabinet minister to close the plant, but instead he is politicising the issue," he added.

Lynas taps new media to try to defuse fears