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With Canada’s Uranium boom in overdrive, more and more indigenous peoples are being threatened by the scourge that is the uranium industry.

The latest threat, according to Ruth Levi, President of the Mawiw Council of First Nations, concerns the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet on the east coast.

Ruth says the two Nations “are experiencing growing frustration with the approach of industry and government toward achieving development and self-sufficiency in the province.”

The First Peoples are being conspicuously ignored, and their rights flagrantly violated and infringed, as result of this new-drive to modernize and expand. …

There were multiple offensives against indigenous people throughout the month of June. A Canadian court paved the way to reclassify 16 lakes as mine waste dumps; The US Supreme court issued at least three rulings against indigenous rights; Police in Australia barred a group of Indigenous People from visiting a scared site; and there was state-sanctioned violence against people in Guatemala, India, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru.

In other news, the O’odham of Gila River became the first Indigenous Community in the US (perhaps in the world) to ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights …

The Anishinabek have launched a campaign to get rid of the term “Aboriginal.” According to a recent press release, the Chiefs of the 42 member-communities endorsed a resolution during their annual Grand Council Assembly that characterizes the word as “another means of assimilation through the displacement of our First Nation-specific inherent and treaty rights.”

“It’s actually offensive to hear that term used in reference to First Nations citizens,” said Grand Council Chief John Beaucage. “Our Chiefs are giving us direction to inform government agencies, NGOs, educators and media organizations that they should discontinue …

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that literally punishes Alaska Natives for the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The court told the company that they now only have to pay a tenth of the $5 billion in punitive damages that were awarded by a jury 14 years ago.

“Exxon knew this would happen,” writes Greg Palast. “Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that …

Last week, a group of indigenous Kofan expressed concern about a new base Colombia’s army is building at a site called “Finca Maravales” in the Guamués valley in Putumayo, reports the Colombian newspaper El Espectador.

The group had traveled to Bogota to take part in a press conference marking the creation of a 10,000-hectare bio-reserve for traditional medicines used by the Kofan and other Indigenous Peoples in the region.

When it came time for the Kofan to speak, they took the opportunity to read a statement concerning the new …

After more than forty years, the U.S. government is finally moving to clean up the uranium waste on Navajo lands.

On June 13, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a five-year plan to start cleaning the radioactive waste left by more than 40 years of mining uranium on Navajo lands.

From 1944 to 1986, companies grabbed more than 40 million tons of uranium, producing 996 pounds of radioactive waste for every 4 pounds of uranium extracted. A great deal of that waste has never been cleaned up.

As a result, for three generations …

Members of the Kelly Lake Cree Nation (KLCN) took down a roadblock on Saturday because “angry and dangerous drivers” began blasting through, almost running over four people in separate incidents.

One of the People that almost got hit was KLCN spokesman Clayton Anderson. According to the CBC,

Anderson said he was walking toward a vehicle at the blockade on Highway 52, about 180 kilometres southeast of Chetwynd, in northeastern B.C., when “this guy just steps on the gas and practically runs me over.”

He was nicked, Anderson said, and then “these two big rigs and …