As you know, Sharon won her constitutional challenge in the B.C. Supreme Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal in 2007 and 2009 and both courts ruled that s.6 of the Indian Act discriminates on the basis of sex against Aboriginal women and their descendants.

Things are now moving VERY quickly. The Conservative Government introduced Bill C-3 on March 11 to respond to these court rulings. But Bill C-3 is very narrowly framed and will not completely remove sex discrimination from the Indian Act.

Despite legal challenges and a U.S. Government moratorium, Denison Mines, a Canadian company, has started mining uranium on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  This according to sources has been going on since December of 2009.

There plans are to extract 335 tons of uranium ore per day out of this mine, operating four days a week.  This ore is being trucked over 300 miles through towns and communities to the company's mill located near Blanding, Utah.

After pressure from environmental groups, the U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar called for a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in a buffer zone of 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon National Park.  But supposedly, this doesn't exclude existing claims such as Denison's.

Aboriginal nations of the area have banned uranium mining on their reservations.  This does not preclude the federal government, who has land around the park, from allowing permits to go forward.

The biggest pressure to expand uranium mining is the recent increases in the price of uranium.  Because of this increase, over 8,000 new mining claims are now threatening Northern Arizona.  Most of this uranium is being purchased by Areva (France) and Korea.

Neoliberalism As Water Balloon from Tim McCaskell on Vimeo.

As the government of Saskatchewan is only barely discussing the future of renewable energy like wind and solar, much of the world has already left the starting blocks of a race to switch the worlds energy supply from the dirty oil, coal and nuclear to the ultimate source of all energy on the planet, the sun.

To put this into context, there is enough energy hitting the earth from the sun in one hour to provide all of the energy for society for an entire year.

So, we have a number of options to get out of the dirty business of fossil fuels.  The options today include photovoltaic, thermal solar, solar lamps, solar pumps, wind power, biomass and hydro.  Before this, we need to begin with energy conservation or energy demand side management.  For reference, Saskatchewan uses about 3,000 MW of electrical energy.

Photo: Chinook helicopters in Musa Qala. British Army photo.


A CIA think tank has produced a strategy paper for President Barrack Obama on how to manipulate public opinion in NATO countries on the war in Afghanistan. Recent public opinion polls show that in all the European NATO countries the majority is against continuing the Afghan war.

Just recently the coalition government in The Netherlands fell when the Labour Party withdrew its support over the decision to continue its military role in Afghanistan. The CIA and the U.S. government fear that this might encourage other governments to follow suit and start “listening to the voters.”

The classified confidential Red Cell Special Memorandum, dated March 11, 2010, was published by Wikileaks. The “CIA Report into Shoring Up Afghan War Support in Europe” reveals  particular concerns about France and Germany, where 80% of the population has indicated opposition to the war in recent polls.

PETITION IN SUPPORT OF FIRST NATIONS UNIVERSITY

We write to you as concerned faculty members of the University of Regina, to urge you to withdraw our university immediately from participation in the “Project Hero” scholarship program. This program, which waives tuition and course fees, and provides $1,000 per year to “dependents of Canadian Forces personnel deceased while serving with an active mission”, is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We do not want our university associated with the political impulse to unquestioning glorification of military action.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee and the CAUT Executive have voted to recommend lifting censure of the administration and board of First Nations University.-- Time to follow Advanced Education Minister Rob Norris’s lead and restore funding Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Minister Chuck Strahl.