The Saturday Word: Nuclear Fallout

World leaders head back home this morning after an unusually dramatic Group of 20 summit that included sharp warnings to Iran after the disclosure that the nation is building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel.

The Times’s Mark Mazzetti, David Sanger and William J. Broad detail the events leading to President Obama’s announcement and the international response in two front page stories this morning. Publicizing the program, which intelligence officials said they discovered years ago, proved a long-sought leverage against Tehran allowing Mr. Obama to demand Wednesday that the country permit highly intrusive international inspections.

Denver American Indian Commission: Transform Columbus Day

The Denver American Indian Commission believes the city’s rich community of diverse tribes deserves a proactive change most of us can agree on — that rapidly approaching Columbus Day could be transformed into a day to honor our all of cultures and values. Only in recent years and in some places has the holiday become a tribute to Indian America, but the DAIC believes our Denver community could join the growing chorus of tribal nations and other Native and non-Native entities that choose to honor the continent’s original residents and its vital, pre-1492 history. We feel this is an opportunity we can’t take lightly.
Our present and future generations view their culture and themselves as being directly affected by how we celebrate our history. As it stands, the holiday reinforces the inaccurate notion that North America came into being in 1492, when “uncivilized” Native inhabitants appeared only to play a short-lived role in the founding myth, and soon vanished into history.
With growing, abundant evidence of complex pre-Columbian cultures in North as well as South America, we want to restore our ancestral tribal nations to the dignity they deserve. Therefore, the DAIC is joining a growing number of tribes and nations, like the sentiment of the 10,000-member Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians that this year voted unanimously to replace recognition of Columbus Day with a day to commemorate the cultural and religious center of Choctaw life.
“For Native Americans, Columbus Day should not be a day of celebration,” said Mississippi Band Chief (Miko) Beasley Denson. “His arrival on our shores marked the beginning of centuries of exploitation of our people and our land. Much better that we should celebrate our rich culture and our traditions.”The following have eliminated, replaced or changed Columbus Day, according to media and internet information: Navajo Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Tohono O’odham Nation, Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan, Jicarilla Apache Tribe, and Gila River Indian Community; Cities of Berkeley, Portland, and Duluth; the states of Alaska, South Dakota, Hawaii, Nevada, and Alabama, and several colleges and universities, including Brown University, Rhode Island.

Sioux leaders work on Black Hills Land proposal for Omama

Sympathetic signs from President Barack Obama have inspired hope among Sioux spiritual and government leaders that some federal land in the Black Hills might one day be returned to Native American control.

Leaders for Sioux tribes in the Dakotas, Montana and Nebraska are holding meetings to shape a proposal on Black Hills land for the Obama administration, one they hope will be better than the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1980. That forced settlement was about millions of dollars, not acres of land, and it has consistently been rejected by tribes of the Great Sioux Nation.

Latest guest blog – the Chernobyl Children’s Project

Linda Walker, from the Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK), reveals the ongoing legacy of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Almost 24 years on, time has not been a healer for those living in the regions most heavily affected by radiation.
In Belarus, the country which received the heaviest fall-out, those who were babies or very young children [...]

Cause Announcement from Dooda (No) Desert Rock

Cause Announcement from Dooda (No) Desert Rock
GREAT NEWS folks: US EPA Environmental Appeals Board Remands PSD Permit for the desert rock energy project! Celebration information coming forth! Here’s another opportunity for you to contribute to DDR, we need your help!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 25, 2009
Contact: Elouise Brown, [...]

Blogging again

Am blogging again, Sorry for the illness delay
gregor

Last May2009 Shundahai Co-founder Mateo was able to meet with President Obama. He discussed the CTBT and presented the president with the late Corbin Harney’s first book “One Air, One Water, One Mother Earth”