On the Vanguard -- Lisa DeVille 'Zinke Visit to North Dakota'

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US Secretary Visit to North Dakota

By Lisa DeVille, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara
Censored News

Members of POWER requested to have a meeting with Secretary Zinke while he was here in ND. We also requested that allotted landowners have an opportunity to voice our concerns because of the federal government has stated that they want to work with tribes on rights of way for development. Will landowners have that right to have a say about what happens to OUR land? 

I am very concerned about the precedent being set by our tribal business council; we have millions of dollars from oil and gas development (even though we've been drastically under paid for our leases.) Because of this the federal government has taken special interest in exploiting our lands and natural resources, is our business council is allowing it to happen? Federal government should acknowledge the government to government relationship to all tribes not smile in our faces while their hands are in our pockets.

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We've forgotten our roots as the people of Nueta, Hidatsa, Sahnish nations, we need to remember that we have other people in these lands that are our relatives; the Lakota, Dakota, Chippewa. We are all northern plains tribes that survived from the river that runs through our ancestral lands. But we have few people making the calls on how the water is being pillaged and ​our families and communities are being left behind as few people prosper at the cost of our health.

Our elected representatives must take into account that the Department of the Interior must protect the trust responsibility of all tribal citizens, not just MHA interest. It is only now, in this new industrialized age for Indian Country that the government is willing to give us a seat at the table because they see that we have lands that is sitting on top of one of the biggest oil reserves in this continent. Our representatives need to remember what history has shown us, we cannot trust takers. They will continue to lie to our people to get what they want. This election season, I ask that the citizens of MHA Nation keep a close eye on who is willing to bend over backwards for the takers and who is actually here to protect our people, land, water, and air.

VIDEO -- Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation Confronts Credit Suisse at Shareholder Meeting

Watch this powerful video as the Indigenous Women's Delegation demands answers from Credit Suisse, and holds it responsible for financing the disastrous fossil fuel industries in their homelands.
Watch Video at:
https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/videos/2139723286056243/
Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation Confronts Credit Suisse at Shareholder Meeting 

"The decisions you make as Credit Suisse and the Swiss people effect those of us downstream from your actions. You sit here comfortably in your privilege, while our communities bear the risks of your investments with our very health, our lives - we face a future without clean water, as you reap your dividends and returns. To us, water is life, to all of us." - Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle

Indigenous women and their allies are rising in action to divest funds from banks and fossil fuel companies endangering Indigenous peoples, human rights, climate, and water. They are advocating against unwanted extractive development and demanding adherence to international Indigenous rights and human rights standards and norms.

The third Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation To Europe traveled to Germany and Switzerland, engaging in high-level meetings with officials from UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and the Swiss government; holding a public education event in Zurich; participating in a direct action outside bank headquarters; and presenting powerful testimony at the Credit Suisse annual shareholder meeting.

International allies are called upon to demand Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank stop funding the companies violating Indigenous rights and destroying the climate! Continued action from people across the U.S. pushing for their Tribal Nations, cities, schools, friends, and families to divest from U.S. based fossil fuel funders also remains imperative!

Featuring Delegates - Charlene Aleck (Elected councillor for Tsleil Waututh Nation, Sacred Trust Initiative, Canada); Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle (Oglala Lakota and Mdewakantonwan Dakota pediatrician, living and working on the Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota); Wasté Win Yellowlodge Young (Ihunktowanna/ Hunkpapa of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Former Tribal Historic Preservation Officer); Monique Verdin (Member of South Louisiana's United Houma Nation Tribal Council and the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative); and Michelle Cook (Diné/Navajo, human rights lawyer, Founder and Co-Director of the Divest, Invest, Protect campaign, and Delegation Co-Organizer) - along with Osprey Orielle Lake (WECAN Executive Director, Co-Director of the Divest, Invest, Protect campaign and Delegation Co-Organizer), and Swiss women leaders.

Read the latest Delegation press release here: bit.ly/2KzN4xu

Learn more about ongoing work of Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations here: wecaninternational.org/…/divest-invest-…

The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network is honored to participate in this vital work.

Follow and support ongoing pipeline struggles including: L'eau Est La Vie Camp - No Bayou Bridge - No Bayou Bridge Solidarity Campaign - Camp White Pine - Three Sisters Resistance Camp - Makwa Initiative - Line 3 Frontline Resistance - Tiny House Warriors

Freedom Flotilla to Gaza nearing Kiel, Germany

Freedom Flotilla to Gaza nearing Kiel, Germany  Sailing for the Right to a Just Future for Palestine

***Breaking News Just before noon local time, the Freedom Flotilla vessel Al Awda (The Return) was boarded by the German Coast Guard, at the orders of the German Ministry of Interior. They collected all the passports on board, wrote down everyone’s personal data, searched the vessel thoroughly, asked for detailed information about ports of call along the way to Gaza, and inquired about the whereabouts of the Swedish sailing boats traveling with us in parallel. The Scandinavian crew on this ship are all veterans of earlier Freedom Flotillas and attested that they have previously been harassed by other Coast Guards from European countries. Of course, our vessel is in international waters and doing nothing illegal.– and this is by no means standard procedure. The massive German Coast Guard ship had been tailing Al Awda all morning, and finally sent a rubber dinghy with a crew of four to check it out.  We are within an hour-and-a-half of Kiel, having arrived early, and are moving slowly so that the sailboats can catch up with us and we can all arrive in unison at Kiel harbour.  Reporting from the high seas off the coast of northern Germany. Al Awda (The Return) Hurriya (Freedom), Falestine (Palestine) Mairead (for Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire) The boats are scheduled to arrive in Kiel from Copenhagen on Wednesday May 23 and will be in port until Friday morning May 25. A reception is expected at 6PM. The boats will visit European ports on their way to challenge the illegal Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in late July. The Freedom Flotilla is sailing in 2018 for the Right to a Just Future for Palestine. We challenge the blockade of Gaza and demand an end to our governments’ complicity with the blockade, which has created a humanitarian crisis, with civilians lacking clean water, electricity, and medical care. For more information about our mission and about the blockade of Gaza, see  https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/about-just-future-palestine Participants on board Al Awda include Zohar Chamberlain Regev, Israeli Spanish resident and Freedom Flotilla Coalition boat leader; Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer from the United States; Mikkel Grüner, Danish national and city councillor in Bergen, Norway; indigenous activist Heather Milton-Lightening from Canada, professor of Business Nazari Ismail and CEO of MyCARE Malaysia Kamarul Zaman, both from Malaysia; sailor and human rights advocateCharlie Andreasson from Sweden. On Thursday afternoon May 24 in Kiel, the boats will be met by Reiner Braun, Co-President of the International Peace Bureau in Berlin. Braun comments: “The blockade of Gaza violates the human rights of Palestinian civilians. If unaddressed the blockade is likely to lead to more war in the future as it has in the past. As peace advocates we must challenge this human rights violation and end it.”

Russell Means and Angela Davis: U.S. Imperialism, Perpetual War and Global Racism

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The incredible words of two great revolutionaries are in my mailbox today, dated ten years apart.
The first is an interview with Russell Means, at the anti-war march at the Democratic National Convention, speaking out on U.S. perpetual war and imperialism. Thank you Govinda Dalton for preserving and sharing this today.
Christine Prat in Paris sends us the words of Angela Davis, former Black Panther, speaking out on racism, and standing in solidarity with Leonard Peltier and Palestinians.
The power of Russell Means words are a reminder that Martin Luther King, Jr., spent the final year of his life, before he was assassinated, leading anti-war efforts.
Angela Davis' words reveal the reality that racism in the United States, and throughout the world, did not end with McCarthyism, but today is a global reality marked with police brutality, imprisonment, and death.