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Anti-nuclear activists in Alice Springs say changes to uranium royalties in the Northern Territory will make way for the exploitation of Aboriginal communities. The bill extends the royalty system so miners pay a fixed rate only if they are making profits, rather than basing the rate on production. The bill was passed in the federal Senate earlier this week. Jimmy Cocking from the Arid Lands Environment Centre says the Federal Government has bowed to industry pressure and Aboriginal people will suffer. "It's going to be easier for companies to get it up so you might find that companies who are more marginal - not the big producers but the more marginal companies - will start digging and then find out that they can't even pay for the rehabilitation costs," he said. "That's of concern because you end up with a big radioactive hole and no money to fill it with."

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West. The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity. "In this case, a pile of rocks is more than just a pile of rocks," said New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division Director Bill Brancard. There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damaged.

CONTAMINATED: The chief of Daren Township welcomed the proposal to build a nuclear waste facility because of the NT$5 billion in promised compensation Led by a royal descendant of an ancient line of Aboriginal Paiwan kings, residents and environmentalists yesterday staged a parade in Daren Township (達仁), Taitung County, to protest Taiwan Power Co's (Taipower) plan to build a storage facility for nuclear waste there. Taipower announced in March that Daren Township and Wangan Township, Penghu County, were the two candidate sites for the nuclear waste dumping ground. Opposed to the plan, more than 100 Paiwan and Puyuma Aborigines and environmentalists rallied outside a local elementary school yesterday morning, where they were blessed by Paiwan elders in a traditional ritual before they departed. The demonstrators then carried a cross on a two-hour march to the site selected for the facility.

They're uniting in an effort to influence the federal government to act. Former workers of the region's uranium mines and their families will tell their stories today at a town-hall style meeting dubbed "Families of Uranium workers United," in Teec Nos Pos, Ariz. Their saga includes countless incidents of birth defects, lung cancer and kidney disease, which were a result of radon exposure from the uranium mines. It's a push to encourage federal legislators to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. "We're expecting 1,000 people," said Phil Harrison, Council Delegate for Red Valley/Cove Chapter of the Navajo Nation. "We'll be satisfied if we can get that many people there." The fight for fair compensation has gone on for decades.

The Native Community Action Council (NCAC) is prepared to provide oral arguments to support a Petition to Intervene and Contentions before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the Department of Energy (DOE) License Application to construct a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV. The NCAC filed one of twelve petitions along with contentions in response of the NRC's Notice of Hearing October 22, 2008. The twelve parties presented 319 contentions, to which the DOE has responded are all invalid. Licensing hearings begin March 31, 2009 in Las Vegas, NV on the Petitions to Intervene. According to Margene Bullcreek, President of the NCAC, "We are a vulnerable population and need representation of our contentions in licensing." Ms. Bullcreek added, "We fought against the monitored retrievable storage site for nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation to protect the land and people…and, we are doing the same here."

THE largest native title claim in South Australia, covering a uranium mine and the iconic Wilpena Pound rock basin, will be signed off today by the Federal Court in Adelaide, in a move welcomed by state and federal governments. The court is expected to formally recognise claims made by the Adnyamathanha Aboriginal people to more than 41,000sqkm of land in the Flinders and Gammon Ranges and surrounding areas, about 350km north of Adelaide. The claim by the Adnyamathanha people was lodged in 1994 after the landmark Mabo judgment in the High Court, recognising the existence of native title. Attorney-General Robert McClelland said today's sign-off by the courts, which has been agreed by the state Government, pastoralists and mining companies, marked a "significant achievement for all parties".

Stacey Hamburg remembers the day in the fall of 2007 when she was cruising up Arizona's Route 64 toward the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and saw a helicopter flying low and slow, back and forth just above the tops of pinon trees. "This helicopter was not out tracking antelope, but was scouting for uranium," she told me. Stacey is the conservation organizer for the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Protection Campaign. There's a Uranium Rush going on and it's threatening one of this country's greatest treasures. In 2003 there were just 10 uranium-mining claims within five miles of the Grand Canyon; now there are 1,100 and thousands more beyond the five-mile mark. I think this map tells the story pretty well.

"Dianne Stokes says the Rudd government's decision to push ahead with plans to dump nuclear waste on the red-soil land north of Tennant Creek has caused trouble in her Warlmanpa tribe. ''People have given away land that doesn't belong to them … now there is big trouble among us,'' she said. For centuries, Aboriginal clans followed their dreaming across the low scrub land that became known last century by white people as Muckaty cattle station. Now, some members of one of those clans have agreed to allow Australia's first national waste dump to be established on 1.5 square kilometres of land they claim is theirs in return for $12 million, most of it in cash."

"Native tribes across the American West have been and continue to be subjected to significant amounts of radioactive and otherwise hazardous waste as a result of living near nuclear test sites, uranium mines, power plants and toxic waste dumps. And in some cases tribes are actually hosting hazardous waste on their sovereign reservations-which are not subject to the same environmental and health standards as U.S. land-in order to generate revenues. Native American advocates argue that siting such waste on or near reservations is an "environmental justice" problem, given that twice as many Native families live below the poverty line than other sectors of U.S. society and often have few if any options for generating income. "

While the Maralinga Tjaratja people are excited and relieved about this week's land hand-back, the veterans who served at the British nuclear testing site are still fighting for compensation. Yesterday, the final parcel of land at Maralinga was returned to the Tjaratja people after years of remediation work by the Federal Government. However, the thousands of Australian servicemen involved in the series of atomic tests there in the 1950s are still battling for their compensation and are turning to the British courts for justice.

While the Maralinga Tjaratja people are excited and relieved about this week's land hand-back, the veterans who served at the British nuclear testing site are still fighting for compensation. Yesterday, the final parcel of land at Maralinga was returned to the Tjaratja people after years of remediation work by the Federal Government. However, the thousands of Australian servicemen involved in the series of atomic tests there in the 1950s are still battling for their compensation and are turning to the British courts for justice.

Prairie Island tribal leaders pledged Monday to keep their focus on nuclear waste management. Newly elected Tribal Council members said after being sworn-in that the fight over dry cask storage at the nearby Prairie Island nuclear plant would continue over the next two years. "Our community faces significant challenges in the coming years and we need to band together to make sure the tribe's interests are well represented," said Tribal Council President Victoria Winfrey. "Our continued battle to get nuclear waste removed from Prairie Island and to preserve our community's culture and heritage will be our top priority."

Prairie Island tribal leaders pledged Monday to keep their focus on nuclear waste management. Newly elected Tribal Council members said after being sworn-in that the fight over dry cask storage at the nearby Prairie Island nuclear plant would continue over the next two years. "Our community faces significant challenges in the coming years and we need to band together to make sure the tribe's interests are well represented," said Tribal Council President Victoria Winfrey. "Our continued battle to get nuclear waste removed from Prairie Island and to preserve our community's culture and heritage will be our top priority."

"To date, the U. S. government has paid out $61,650,000 on some 1,213 claims prepared right here in Globe under the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The majority of these claims are called "downwinders," filed on behalf of persons who became ill with one of the certain type of cancers on a government approved list while living here in Gila County between Jan. 21, 1951 and October 1958, for a total period of 24 months, or for the period of June 1962 through July 3l, 1962. However, one needs to examine the U.S. Justice Department's list of approved cancer diseases, because not all cancers are eligible for compensation for "downwinders." In addition, the compensable disease list differs for other types of claims available under this federal act, if they are used. "

"Post '71 uranium workers employed as miners, millers and ore transporters between 1971 and 1982 have been trying for years to be recognized by the U.S. government as having illnesses that should be compensated under the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. During those years New Mexico's uranium workers made up about one third to one half of all uranium workers in the United States. While a large number of them are ill, to date, they have no medical benefits as provided to pre-1971 victims, no compensation, and no one to go to bat for them in Washington. But that could be about to change."

"The U.S. Justice Department announced today that it has launched an "intensive outreach effort" in the Four Corners area to Native Americans and their families whose work in the uranium industry during the Cold War benefitted the United States but exposed them to radiation. Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a news release that workers and their families may be entitled to compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Under the act, people in the following categories may receive payments: uranium miners, millers and ore transporters; people who were present at nuclear weapons test sites; and people who lived in certain areas "downwind" of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. In the latest outreach in the Four Corners area - Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona - the Justice Department has developed an internship program using part-time college and graduate students recruited from tribal communities."

"Uranium mining, banned on the Navajo Nation, advanced closer to tribal boundaries when the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing of in situ leach uranium mining at four sites near Crownpoint and Church Rock in New Mexico. The split decision by a three-judge panel March 8 also denied a request for review of one of the sites near Church Rock where Hydro Resources, Inc., whose parent company is Uranium Resources Inc., has a joint venture with Itochu, a Tokyo-headquartered transnational, to begin producing an estimated six to nine million pounds of uranium annually from New Mexico. Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, a Navajo community organization; Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit environmental education organization; and two local ranchers were joined by the Navajo Nation in a friend-of-the-court brief asserting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated atomic energy and environmental laws in granting the license."

"Although Native American activists are trying to persuade tribes that storing nuclear and other toxic waste is not worth the potential pitfalls, some continue to host it on their sovereign reservations-which are not subject to the same environmental and health standards as U.S. land-in order to generate revenues Native tribes across the American West have been and continue to be subjected to significant amounts of radioactive and otherwise hazardous waste as a result of living near nuclear test sites, uranium mines, power plants and toxic waste dumps."

"Some toiled in uranium mines, transported the extracted ore and carried it home on their clothes. Others participated in nuclear weapons testing or lived downwind from test sites. Not all have been compensated, let alone know about a federal program that does so. Larry Martinez knows of thousands of them who live on the Navajo Nation, and this summer he hopes to get some help finding more in the towns that dot the 27,000-square-mile reservation. A new U.S. Department of Justice program will select 30 students to travel the vast reservation and other communities in the Four Corners region to identify potential participants in the federal compensation program."

"The Central New York offices of Indian Country Today are typically rather quiet. But the sound of drums April 8 sparked the worker's attention. A multicultural group of about 20 began a 700-mile "Walk for a Nuclear Free Future" March 7 in Salamanca, N.Y. to call attention to the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which is scheduled for May 3. According to an event announcement the treaty's objective is "to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament.""

The Prairie Island Indian Community today called on President Barack Obama to follow the law and deliver on the federal government's decades-old mandate and promise to establish a permanent repository for the nation's commercial nuclear waste. The Tribe's urging comes after Congress approved the FY2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bill which cuts funding for the proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., to record low levels. High-level, radioactive nuclear waste from the nation's nuclear power plants is currently accumulating at 'temporary' storage sites in 39 different states, including Minnesota. The Prairie Island Indian Community, near Red Wing, Minn., is located less than 600 yards from a nuclear power plant and nuclear waste storage site operated by Xcel Energy.

The Prairie Island Indian Community today called on President Barack Obama to follow the law and deliver on the federal government's decades-old mandate and promise to establish a permanent repository for the nation's commercial nuclear waste. The Tribe's urging comes after Congress approved the FY2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bill which cuts funding for the proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., to record low levels. High-level, radioactive nuclear waste from the nation's nuclear power plants is currently accumulating at 'temporary' storage sites in 39 different states, including Minnesota. The Prairie Island Indian Community, near Red Wing, Minn., is located less than 600 yards from a nuclear power plant and nuclear waste storage site operated by Xcel Energy.

oday I have had the opportunity to meet with Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other distinguished Indian leaders. We had productive discussions about the opportunities for partnerships between our two countries on clean energy technologies. Meeting the climate and clean energy challenge is a top priority for President Obama. In the past ten months, the United States has demonstrated its renewed commitment to these goals both by supporting domestic policies that advance clean energy, climate security, and economic recovery; and by vigorously vigorously re-engaging the international community through bi-lateral relationships, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, the G20, and the UN negotiations. The U.S. will continue to work hard toward combating climate change and reaching a strong international agreement that puts the world on a pathway to a clean energy future. Working together, we can meet the clean energy and climate challenge in a way that will drive sustainable, low-carbon economic growth in the 21st century.

oday I have had the opportunity to meet with Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other distinguished Indian leaders. We had productive discussions about the opportunities for partnerships between our two countries on clean energy technologies. Meeting the climate and clean energy challenge is a top priority for President Obama. In the past ten months, the United States has demonstrated its renewed commitment to these goals both by supporting domestic policies that advance clean energy, climate security, and economic recovery; and by vigorously vigorously re-engaging the international community through bi-lateral relationships, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, the G20, and the UN negotiations. The U.S. will continue to work hard toward combating climate change and reaching a strong international agreement that puts the world on a pathway to a clean energy future. Working together, we can meet the clean energy and climate challenge in a way that will drive sustainable, low-carbon economic growth in the 21st century.