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APRIL 14th, 2008 |
IN THIS ISSUE: |
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1)
OPP DETACHMENT DECIDES NOT TO SEND OFFICERS TO THE URANIUM CITIZENS' INQUIRY 1) OPP DETACHMENT DECIDES NOT TO SEND OFFICERS TO THE URANIUM CITIZENS' INQUIRY After discussions with the Major Events Liaison Team (MELT), Inspector Salisbury, of the Perth OPP detachment, has determined that the Citizens' Inquiry into the Impacts of the Uranium Cycle does not require police presence. Two on-duty officers were present at the last hearing in Kingston and this caused concern for most of the people in the audience. Many presenters felt that they were being intimidated and requested that the Inquiry panel to note their concern. MELT spoke about the scope of the four inquiries and made it clear to the Inspector that these events were not protests but an inquiry to gather information about the uranium cycle and its impacts. The organizers of the inquiries have stressed that everyone, pro or con, was welcome to register and make a presentation to the panel members. The panel members would then take the information that they gather and submit their findings to be included in a final report to be presented to the Ontario government. MELT also made it very clear that the organizers of the Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium promote peaceful action and does not endorse violence. Given CCAMU's history, it was recognized that the Citizens' Inquiry was not a public security risk and that no one is in danger by attending the sessions. There are two more sessions to be held over the next two weeks. Peterborough
Public Hearing: April 15th, 2008 Go to http://www.uraniumcitizensinquiry.com/index.htm for more information. Lynn Daniluk The CCAMU website "Information for the Media" pages have been updated. There is information about high-resolution photographs, interview contacts and an abridged history page that covers the formation of CCAMU and the First Nations' court battles and negotiations with the Ontario government. 3) CHRISTIAN PEACEMAKER TEAMS' INVITATION TO PRAY AND FAST The CPT Aboriginal Justice Team invites supporters of aboriginal justice to pray and fast 24 hours on Saturday, April 19, 2008. We are taking this spiritual action to seek the release of the captive leadership of the KI 6 and Ardoch leader Bob Lovelace. They are political prisoners because the government and mining companies have refused to negotiate in good faith, as stated in the Constitution. As leaders of their people, these seven have stood up to the mining industry's threat of environmental destruction to their communities. We will fast from midnight Friday night to midnight Saturday, April 19, but will be at the prison from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Saturday. The CPT team of Jerry Stein and Rosemarie Milazzo will have community prayer every hour on the hour and invite all to join them during their nine hour presence at the Central East Correctional Centre, Lindsay Prison (541 Highway 36 north of Lindsay). We also invite those who are not able to be with us at the prison to pray and fast where they are. Please email the CPT Team at ajt@cpt.org and let them know of your participation in the prayer and fasting so we can assure the First Nations communities and families of your support. The six jailed leaders of the Cree community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (Big Trout Lake) live 650 km north of Thunder Bay. We particularly want to honor and seek justice for Cecilia Begg, great grandmother and head councillor of KI, and the lone woman jailed. We are fasting in solidarity with the Wave of Fasting begun by the Nishnawbe Aski Nation Women's Council on April 1, 2008. The Ardoch Algonquins are saying no to uranium mine exploration on their traditional territories an hour north of Kingston. KI is protecting their land from platinum exploration. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that governments must consult with First Nations before any economic activity is permitted on land that they claim. Ontario could have avoided this situation, and still could secure the release of all by entering into good faith negotiations with the Ardoch Algonquin, as well as its sister First Nation Shabot Obaadjiwan, and KI. CPT calls on Premier Dalton McGuinty to secure the immediate release of all seven prisoners, to stop mineral exploration on their lands, and to agree to the proposal of Ardoch and KI to form a joint panel to deal with issues of mineral exploration on their lands. As part of our prayer and fasting, please consider writing: The Honorable
Dalton McGuinty 4) LAND AND SEA SHOW ON URANIUM: ARCHIVE LINK Go to the following website and click on the "Watch this Episode" button: http://www.cbc.ca/landandsea/archive/2008-apr-13.html Taken for the CBC website. Apr. 13,
2008 "(RealVideo
runs 22:37) Now, the current government - wanting to capitalize on world-wide demand for all commodities - is thinking of lifting that moratorium. And, once again, many of those same ecological activists are manning the barricades, ready to battle the government so the ban is maintained." 5) CBC'S "SOUNDS LIKE CANADA", COVERS URANIUM MINING IN CANADA'S NORTH CBC: Sounds
Like Canada Information about the two day Uranium Public Hearing held in the Screech Lake community was covered in an interview with Gabriel Mackenzie Scott. This area has the highest grade of uranium known. The hearing lead to a decision to stop exploration for uranium as the area is sacred to the Dene Tha' First Nation. Archive link will be up soon. To search CBC Radio's archives for this and other programs go to, 6) "ALPHA PARTICLE" URANIUM CONTAMINATION IN PORT HOPE, ONTARIO Taken from the Global Research Center website. By Edward (Tedd) C. Weyman The following text pertaining to "alpha particle" ionizing radiation in Port Hope, Ontario was submitted by the Uranium Medical Research Center to Canada's Minister of Health. Uranium
Medical Research Centre Hon. Tony
Clement House of
Commons Topic: Uranium contamination, Port Hope, Ontario Dear Mr. Clement: November 13, 2007, Uranium Medical Research Centre, Inc released laboratory results of assays of uranium measured in the 24-hour urine specimens of nine (9) representative residents and former nuclear workers in Port Hope, Ontario [1]. The Port Hope findings were peer reviewed at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine's Annual Congress, August 2007 [2]. The lab study was conducted at a world leading radioisotope laboratory, Institute of Petrology and Geochemistry, Johannes Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany [3]. The urine analysis of the nine Port Hope residents and former nuclear workers revealed all study subjects' bodies to be contaminated by unnatural species of uranium. Neither Health Canada, nor the other responsible monitoring and regulating agencies (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Natural Resources Canada, Ontario Public Health, and the Provincial or Federal Departments of Environment) list these uranium species as present in Port Hope. Nor do they identify them as potential contaminants to the residents and workers there. We can find no environmental, biological or radiological study identifying these species of uranium in any jurisdiction in Canada [4]. To read
the rest of this letter go to, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkFtCmG9pcQ This documentary tells the story of uranium mining in the homeland of Indigenous People from the 1940's until today. It is set against the Indigenous landscape of the Desert Southwest and focuses on lives being destroyed by the horror of uranium mining and effects of radiation. 8) THE FOUNDATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY AGENCY TO BE FORMED This sent in by Ulla Kloetzer - Finland At the invitation of the German Federal Government representatives of 60 countries met today and yesterday (10th and 11th April 2008) in Berlin at the Preparatory Conference for the Foundation of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Over the last few years the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and EUROSOLAR have been the main driving force behind the initiative to establish an International Renewable Energy Agency. Now the German Government has agreed to push the process forward. The IRENA will constitute an independent driving force behind renewable energy and help to create a level playing field for developing renewable energy. Participants at the conference emphasised that, without an organisation such as IRENA, the world will remain unable to realise the benefits of renewable energy in full. The conference has been very successful. The German Government aims to invite all interested countries to the Founding Conference in autumn 2008. Here you find the Chairs' Conclusions and a paper arguing for the establishment of the IRENA. (We will provide you with additional documents as well as Hermann Scheer's keynote speech within a short time.) Link "conclusions": Link "The
case for IRENA": World Council
for Renewable Energy (WCRE) 9) GREEN PARTY MEDIA RELEASE: ABORIGINAL LEADER'S SENTENCE UNWARRANTED April 14, 2008 Aboriginal Leader's Sentence Unwarranted Canadian courts have clearly established that whenever the rights of First Nations may be affected, governments have a legal duty to ensure that there must always be meaningful consultation to identify and accommodate First Nations' concerns. When Justice Cunningham sentenced and fined Mr. Lovelace and Chief Sherman, he failed to understand the Ardoch Algonquin's Constitutional rights and Ontario and Canada's duty to consult with them regarding use of Crown land. His decision to impose incarceration and inflict heavy fines reflect the colonialist bias of the courts, and ignorance of the province's constitutional duty to consult. The LFLA Green Party of Ontario CA calls on the province of Ontario to reform provincial laws and policies in order that they respect and uphold the duty of meaningful consultation, accommodation, and consent with respect to First Nation's people in Ontario. The province should also ensure that the court is made aware of its constitutional duty in this regard, particularly in the event of a court appeal. "The
Ontario judiciary has neglected its fiduciary responsibility to First
Nations people." said Green Party of Ontario leader Frank de Jong.
De Jong today called for the McGuinty government to commute Bob Lovelace's
six month sentence. "It is imperative that Ontario courts recognize
and consider that First Nations people base their actions on traditional
Algonquin wisdom." Questions regarding this press release should be directed to: Laurie Davey-Quantick, LFLA, email lauriedq@excalibur.ca 10) ARTICLE: WYOMING RAISES ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS ABOUT CAMECO Friday, April 11, 2008 The State of Wyoming is raising environmental concerns about a uranium mine run by Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp. The Smith Ranch-Highland facility, near Douglas, Wyo., is the largest active uranium mine in the United States, producing about two million pounds last year. But the state regulator says the mine has had about 80 spills and it wants the facility's environmental problems fixed immediately. Cameco spokesman Gord Struthers said 80 spills might sound terrible, but the spills weren't dangerous. "We need to point out that in none of them is there any threat to human health or any lasting environmental effect," Struthers said. To read more of this article go to, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2008/04/11/cameco-wyoming.html
Many of
the facts I am repeating here are taken from the address given by Dr.
Gordon Edwards at the World Uranium Hearings at Salzburg, Austria, September
14, 1992. (1) And the
report; The effect of U.S. nuclear testing on the Marshal Islanders By
Hugh Gusterson | 28 October 2007 (2) Quote: The public reaction at that time was more than one of uneasiness. The Eisenhower administration decided it was necessary to put a positive spin on all of this. They needed to put a happy face on it. They conjured up the Atoms for peace program. My high school science newspaper promised there would be endless power available for domestic use by splitting the atom. It would be obtained for pennies. The radioactive fission byproducts created in nuclear reactors could be reprocessed and used as fuel. In other words, nuclear reactors would breed their own fuel to be used in subsequent cycles. Fusion, the power released from exploding hydrogen bombs, would also be harnessed by 1960. Here it is more than fifty years later and none of these promises have come to pass. Today, Canada remains the world's largest producer and exporter of uranium, ostensibly for peaceful purposes; that is, as fuel for civilian nuclear reactors. Canada is also one of the very few countries in the world in which uranium mining is currently expanding. There are two categories of human illness that everyone agrees can be caused by exposure to atomic radiation even at very low levels. These are; (1) Cancers of all kinds. Some of the early Atomic scientists; Marie and Pierre Curie, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer, who lead the scientists in the Manhattan project also died of cancer. and (2) Genetic mutations -- which can be caused right down to the lowest levels of radiation exposure. Quote: The Bush administration opposed legislation offering $2 million a year to provide rudimentary medical care to these innocents we have harmed. But at the same time we can afford more than $130 billion a year for the Iraq War." 2 The report: The effect of U.S. nuclear testing on the Marshal Islanders By Hugh Gusterson | 28 October 2007 (2) http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/hugh-gusterson/20071025.html Quote: The effective half-life of this radioactivity is 80,000 years." 1 How does anyone, in fact, guard 200 million tons of radioactive tailings safely forever, and keep it out of the environment? As stated earlier, we still do not have an adequate answer for that. Fission products are completely different substances. They are created only inside nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors. They are the leftover fragments of uranium atoms which have been exploded by the fission process. There are over 300 of them altogether. Each of these fission fragments, being radioactive, also begets its own decay products! All the uranium that is mined here ends up as either as nuclear weapons or as highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. That's the destiny of all the uranium that is mined. In the process of mining the uranium we liberate these naturally occurring radioactive substances into the biosphere. Nuclear technology never was a solution to any human problem. Nuclear power is not a viable answer to our energy problems. Nuclear weapons do not bring about a sane world. What we have here, in the case of nuclear power, from the very beginning, is a technology in search of a sane application. Quoting Petra Kelly, the late founder of the Green Party "Uranium is the raw material of a power-elite who has taken Mother Earth's every living creature hostage." So, I think that we as a human community have to come to grips with this problem and say to ourselves and to others that enough is enough. We do not want to permanently increase our radiation levels on this planet. We have too much already. The participants at the Salzburg conference concluded that we should leave Uranium undisturbed in the ground. Quoting Petra Kelly again "We, the generation that faces the next century, can add the solemn injunction: If we don't do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.'' I hope that you will write to Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada (c/o House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6) and to Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada asking them not to continue the expansion of this industry. -Tim Seitz
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