Uranium

Indigenous Human Rights Hearing In DC Scrutinizes Uranium Industry

February 29, 2024 Alex Binder, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Congress, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Navajo nation, Oglala Lakota Nation, Uranium, Ute Nation, Washington D.C.

Washington, D.C. — Members of the Navajo Nation, Ute Nation and Oglala Lakota Nation will testify on Wednesday during a thematic hearing on the impacts of uranium exploitation on the human rights of Indigenous peoples in the United States. The hearing is being held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and will “allow Native communities who have lived for generations with the waste from historic uranium mining and milling to hold U.S. government officials to account in a public forum,” according to a press release.

Niger Coup Will Have Ramifications For United States, France And Canada

August 10, 2023 Owen Schalk, Canadian Dimension. Educate! Canada, coup, France, Imperialism, Niger, United States, Uranium

On July 26, the African continent was rocked by news of a military coup in Niger, the fourth in West Africa since 2020. Cooperation between the US and Nigerien militaries has been suspended. The Niger government has withdrawn from its military agreements with France. The over 1,000 US troops in Niger have been restricted to their bases. France has evacuated 600 nationals from the country, while in a veiled threat, President Emmanuel Macron declared he “would not tolerate any attack against France and its interests.” Meanwhile, a rift has emerged in West Africa, with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) led by Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu on one side, and the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger on the other.

Niger Puts An End To Uranium And Gold Export To France

August 6, 2023 Al Mayadeen, Orinoco Tribune. Resist! Africa, Burkina Faso, European Union (EU), France, Gold, Mali, Mining, Multipolarity, Niger, Uranium, West Africa

With immediate effect, the Republic of Niger, under the leadership of new president General Abdourahamane Tchiani, and supported by the people of the country, announced the suspension of the export of uranium and gold to France on Sunday. In parallel to the decision, protestors were surrounding the French Embassy in Niger calling for the end of French colonial practices repeating the slogan “Down with France!” and reaffirming their support to the coup leader, Tchiani. Wazobia Reporters, a Nigerien news website,reported one protestor proclaiming “We have uranium, diamonds, gold, oil, and we live like slaves? We don’t need the French to keep us safe.”

US/France Threaten Intervention In Resource-Rich Niger

August 6, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Coups, De-colonization, France, Gold, Niger, Uranium, Western imperialism

The US and France have threatened foreign intervention to re-install a pro-Western regime in Niger. Niger is a major producer of gold and uranium, the latter of which is needed for European nuclear energy. The country has significant oil reserves to which foreign corporations have wanted access. It also hosts large US drone bases. These Western threats follow coups led by nationalist, anti-colonial military officers in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, whose governments have warned that intervention would be considered an act of war, and could thus set off a regional conflict. West Africa is rich in natural resources. It is also very strategic for the United States and France.

Uranium Water Contamination In US Far More Prevalent Than Believed

January 8, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Cold War, Radioactive Waste, Uranium, Water, Water Pollution

Maybe it’s the good kind of uranium that turns you into Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk and not the bad kind of uranium that turns you into Thyroid Cancer Man – one of the lesser-known Marvel superheroes. ProPublica has come out with an investigation entitled “The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater.” After World War II, the Cold War started between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. because the rich needed to stop the damn Communists from pushing their furry hats on everyone! There was a feverish need to build loads of nuclear weapons. To do that, the U.S. needed uranium, and its ruling class didn’t care how they got it. More than 50 uranium mines popped up across the Western U.S. But they didn’t just turn our weapons radioactive.

Small-Town Residents Get Creative In Black Hills Uranium Mine Fight

August 31, 2022 Talli Nauman, Resilience. Resist! Environment, Indigenous Rights, South Dakota, Uranium

Hot Springs, South Dakota – A budding national reputation for healing mineral waters spawned this town of 3,400 in the early 1900s. Appreciative of that source, today’s area residents have fended off proposed radioactive uranium mining in the aquifers for more than four decades. This summer of 2022, they scored a breakthrough. They collected enough signatures to obtain a ballot measure that would declare the activity a “nuisance” in Fall River County. If the measure passes in the county’s Nov. 8 general election, then an interested party could take legal action to prevent or stop the nuisance, according to South Dakota law.

Clock Ticking On Benefits Deadline For Uranium Workers

July 18, 2021 Kathy Helms, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment. Educate! Health Care, Radiation, Uranium, Worker Rights and Jobs

Churchrock – Larry King, president of Churchrock Chapter and a former uranium worker, doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in the melting Arctic of receiving federal benefits afforded sick Navajos who worked in the uranium industry before 1971. King isn’t the only one. Linda Evers of Milan, co-founder of the Post-’71 Uranium Workers Committee, and the group’s members also can forget about help with their medical bills unless Congress changes qualifications for the 1990 program. This weekend, the first day dawned in the countdown to July 10, 2022, when, according to statute, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Trust Fund “terminates,” along with the authority of the U.S. Attorney General to administer the law, according to the Department of Justice.

Take Uranium Tailings Far Away From Navajo Nation

May 6, 2021 By Arlyssa Becenti, Navajo Times. Resist! Environment, Navajo nation, Nuclear Waste, Uranium

Window Rock - President Jonathan Nez has sent a letter stating the Nation wants radioactive mine waste disposed off of — and nowhere near — the Navajo Nation. The letter is in response to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s recent proposal to allow United Nuclear Corporation to transfer the waste from the Northeast Church Rock abandoned uranium mine on the Navajo Nation to the neighboring uranium mill tailings impoundment at the UNC Church Rock Mill Site. Comments are being taken until May 27. Nez’s letter to John R. Tappert, director of the ?Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards ?for the NRC, states the Red Water Pond Road Community and many other Navajo communities have been severely impacted by the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation.

Inaugural ‘No Uranium In Treaty Territory Summit’ Held In Rapid City

October 9, 2019 Staff, Unicornriot.ninja Resist! Environment, Radioactive Waste, Uranium

Rapid City, SD – The first-ever No Uranium in Treaty Territory Summit is taking place on Oglala Sioux Tribal land to alert the local public about the current fights against mining companies and to share knowledge about the extensive history of uranium mining in the Black Hills. The summit has been organized by local activist groups Defend the Sacred Black Hills and Magpie Buffalo Organizing and will span two 8-hour days with over 20 presenters. The flyer for the summit described the process of radioactive decay, whereby unstable uranium atoms break down into more stable heavy metals and release high-energy particles in the process.

Southwestern Lakes And Rivers Are Radioactive

December 17, 2017 Jonathan P. Thompson Educate! health, Mining, Uranium, Water

During the uranium days of the West, more than a dozen mills — all with processing capacities at least ten times larger than the one at White Canyon — sat on the banks of the Colorado River and its tributaries, including in Shiprock and Mexican Hat on the San Juan River; in Rifle and Grand Junction and Moab on the Colorado; and in Uravan along the San Miguel River, just above its confluence with the Dolores. They did not exactly dispose of their tailings in a responsible way. At the Durango mill the tailings were piled into a hill-sized mound just a stone’s throw from the Animas River. They weren’t covered or otherwise contained, so when it rained tailings simply washed into the river.

Day 9 Of Countdown To Launch: Featuring Klee Benally

December 2, 2017 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Environment, health, Indigenous Rights, Uranium

By Popular Resistance. Klee Benally is a Navajo (Diné) musician, artist, film producer and activist living in Flagstaff, Arizona. He has worked on numerous campaigns to protect sacred sites and other issues. For the past three years, he has coordinated the Clean Up the Mines Campaign, which is also part of the Haul No Coalition. There are more than 15,000 abandoned Uranium mines in the United States. They are left over from the Uranium Rush of the 1950s and 1960s. These mostly open-pit mines continue to emit radiation and toxic heavy metals that pollute the air, land and water and are causing severe health impacts such as cancer, autoimmune diseases and birth defects. Popular Resistance has worked with Klee Benally since before the founding to create, launch and maintain the Clean Up The Mines campaign.

Trump Administration Targets Uranium Mining Ban Near Grand Canyon

November 4, 2017 Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust, Havasupai, Wildlands Network, Sierra Club and National Parks Conservation Association, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Environment, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Uranium

WASHINGTON— The Trump administration wants to roll back a 20-year ban to allow uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, according to a Forest Service report formally released today. Under today’s recommendations the Interior Department would revise an Obama-era mining ban that sought to protect tribal resources and drinking water, as well as safeguard critical wildlife corridors and habitat threatened by uranium contamination. “This appalling recommendation threatens to destroy one of the world’s most breathtakingly beautiful regions to give free handouts to the mining industry,”

Why We’re Investigating Grand Canyon Uranium

July 9, 2017 John Ahni Schertow and Garet Bleir, www.intercontinentalcry.org Resist! Environment, Grand Canyon, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Uranium

By John Ahni Schertow and Garet Bleir for InterContinental Cry. In 2012, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a twenty-year ban on mining surrounding the Grand Canyon National Park. It was one of the biggest wins for the environment that year. After all, 10,000 uranium mining claims threatened to turn this iconic natural landscape into a radioactive wasteland. The moratorium put an end to all that -- at least for the next 20 years. Unfortunately, our celebration of the historic decision had consequences. It drowned out two pressing facts that the media urgently needed to focus on: there were at least four old uranium mines near the Grand Canyon that could be reopened despite the moratorium; and there were still hundreds of abandoned uranium mines on Navajo (Diné) land that needed remediation.

Grand Canyon Is Our Home. Uranium Mining Has No Place Here

July 3, 2017 Carletta Tilousi, www.theguardian.com Resist! Grand Canyon, Mining, Uranium

By Carletta Tilousi for The Guardian - The Havasupai – “people of the blue-green waters” – live in Supai Village, located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Today our lives and water are being threatened by international uranium mining companies because the US government and its 1872 mining law permit uranium mining on federal lands that surround the Grand Canyon. In 1986, the Kaibab national forest authorized a Canadian-based uranium company to open Canyon mine, a uranium mine near the south rim of Grand Canyon national park. The Havasupai tribe challenged the decision but lost in the ninth circuit court of appeals. Miners were just starting to drill Canyon mine’s shaft in 1991 when falling uranium prices caused the company to shut it down for more than two decades. Havasupai ancestors share stories of the sacredness of the Grand Canyon and all the mountains that surround it. They have instructed us to protect the waters and the mountains from any environmental contamination. That’s why we stand firm against any uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region. As uranium prices began to rise again in 2007, the uranium company reopened three closed mines on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, north of the Grand Canyon.

First Cross Border Anti-Nuclear Action

June 29, 2017 the Intermountain West Uranium Summit, www.popularresistance.org Resist! health, Indigenous Rights, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Uranium

By the Intermountain West Uranium Summit. ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico -- Intermountain West Uranium Summit participants are inviting affinity groups everywhere to take part on July 15-16 in our first Cross-Border AntiNuclear Action (CBAN), commemorating the anniversary of the largest radioactive accident in U.S. history and the explosion of the first atomic bomb. Members are holding events in our locales to raise awareness that the entire nuclear industry, from cradle to grave, is one deadly chain. Beginning with extraction of uranium, proceeding to refinement of yellow cake, through transportation on public routes, operation of nuclear power plants, and weapons manufacture, to waste disposal issues, the nuclear process releases lethal radiation to air, land and water. It history is fraught with accidents, illness and threats to life on earth. It must stop before it kills more humans and other living things.

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