Worst Companies in the World, 2009

Corporations must face trial for crimes against Indigenous Peoples; Bush and Cheney must go on trial for torture

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Corporations exploiting the water, land and resources of Indigenous Peoples, using displacement, rape, torture and assassination, must be charged in an international court. The corporations and the individuals must be charged for crimes against humanity.
While Canada leads the world in the number of gold and uranium mining corporations carrying out criminal acts, the United States leads the world in corporations of torture and war manufacturing.
The US and Israel lead the world in the production of Apartheid spy and border technology aimed at control and profiteering. The US and Israel also lead the world in misinformation technology, including misinformation-based television and print media.
This is only the beginning of the list of the Worst Corporations in the World 2009, now being updated:

BARRICK GOLD (Canada) is coring out sacred mountains, including the Western Shoshone's sacred Mount Tenabo. In New Guinea, Barrick has carried out rapes and murders as it seizes Indigenous lands. In Australia, protests by the Save Lake Cowal campaign are ongoing at the Barrick Gold open pit mine at Lake Cowal, New South Wales, Australia. Lake Cowal is home to many migratory water birds and sacred sites of the Wiradjuri people.
Barrick leads the list of the worst companies in the world, for its mining in Papua New Guinea, the United States, Canada, Dominican Republic, Australia, Peru, Chile, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, Argentina and Tanzania.
Read about Barrick's global crimes against Indigenous Peoples:
http://protestbarrick.net/
DENISON MINES/International Uranium Corporation (Canada) also leads in crimes against Indigenous Peoples for its uranium mines. Denison is now threatening to reopen a uranium mine in the Grand Canyon, which could destroy sacred land of Havasupai, endanger tourists and contaminate Southwest water supplies. Denison is already poisoning the land and water of Utes and Navajos in Utah and Natives in Saskatchewan, Canada. Read more:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/07/boycott-denison-mines.html
DESERT ROCK/NAVAJO NATION is planning the third coal fired power plant on Navajoland in the Four Corners area, already saturated with radioactive tailings from uranium mines, two other power plants and hundreds of oil and gas wells. These are already desecrating the Navajos most sacred place of origin in this region, Dinetah. The financing to the local Dine' Power comes from Sithe Global, primarily owned by the Blackstone Group, whose cofounder Stephen Schwarzman is a member of Skull and Bones. Skull and Bones is the secret society at Yale, whose power mongers include the Bush family, who robbed the grave of Geronimo, then attempted to silence the San Carlos Apaches about this.

The electricity from Navajo Nation coal and power plants goes primarily to non-Navajos in the Southwest while many Navajos still live without electricity and with the respiratory diseases and cancers from pollution and toxins. The revenues from polluting industries are the primary source of salaries and lavish expense spending for elected Navajo Nation officials.
GOLDCORP (Canada) In Guatemala, Indigenous are fighting Goldcorp which brings in 200 tons of cyanide a year for gold extraction. While poisoning the water and land, Goldcorp continues to displace and make homeless Indigenous Peoples. In 2005, one Mayan protester was killed at the Canadian owned Goldcorp mine, operating under Montana Exploradora at the Marlin mine.
DOW CHEMICAL/UNION CARBIDE killed 18,000 people in the Bhopal disaster in India. The Yes Men, activists and filmmakers, are making sure no one forgets. Who will care for those left ill and disabled?
Dow has a long history of poisoning and killing people, from the cancer alley of the Louisiana coast to Vietnam.
Wikipedia says, "During the Vietnam War, Dow became the sole supplier of napalm to the United States military who used napalm in their efforts during the war.
"Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant containing dioxin, was also manufactured by Dow in New Plymouth, New Zealand and in America for use by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. In 2005, a lawsuit was filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against Dow and Monsanto Company, which also supplied Agent Orange to the military. The lawsuit was dismissed.[14]
Read more about how Dow Chemical and Union Carbide have poisoned the world and killed people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Chemical_Company
MONSANTO is killing people slowly with mutant seeds.
VEDANTA RESOURCES (England) preys on the people of India: "According to the tribesmen and others supporting them, the mining of the Niyamgiri hills will lead to massive deforestation, affect water resources, destroy the local ecosystem and endanger wild animals commonly found in the area like tigers, leopards and elephants." http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?a=jh1w5qadfca&title=Orissa_s_anti_mining_protests_reach_Delhi
Once again, in the Southern Amazon, Canada's mining death squads strike. The biggest projects belong to Vancouver-based Corriente Resources and Toronto's Kinross Gold.
CAMECO, another Canadian company, is planning to mine uranium in Lakota territory and Lakotas are now battling this corporation. The US secretly transported 500 tons of yellowcake from Iraq to Montreal for the private company Cameco in Canada in 2008.
Profiteering from Apartheid at borders, from Palestine to Arizona and around the world are Boeing, the Israeli Defense contractor Elbit Systems and Wackenhut Transportation (owned by G4S in England/Denmark.)
Profiteering from the imprisonment of migrants and people of color in the US are GEO (formerly Wackenhut) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA.)
The war profit manufacturers that keep youths dying in foreign lands, and politicians lying about the reasons for those wars, include General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockhead Martin, DynCorp, Blackwater and a long list of weapons suppliers, drone manufacturers, killers for hire and "intelligence" corporations.

Chiquita International Brands admitted in court that the company hired assassins to kill farmers and activists in Colombia.
For overcharging at the gas pumps, all qualify as the worst corporations in the world: Exxon Mobile, Chevron, Shell and all the others.

Just as corporations must be held responsible before an international court, Bush and Cheney must be placed on trial for torture, kidnapping and murder.

The Obama administration is backing an anti-terrorism policy of Bush, urging a federal appeals court to throw out a lawsuit that accuses Boeing's Jeppesen Dataplan of helping the CIA fly suspects overseas to be tortured.

In a poll by Censored News, readers voted the United States "the worst corporation in the world."
In domestic and international terrorism, the torture trainers at the US School of Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), Army intelligence officers at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and the US Border Patrol top the list. Border Patrol agents continue their murders, rapes, assaults and drug smuggling.
The US courts, filling prisons with people of color, and violating federal laws designed to protect Native Americans and the environment, follows. Then there is FEMA, which watched people die after Hurricane Katrina, and continues to distribute toxic trailer houses to desperate people across America. At its core, is toxic racism.
Waving its flag as a peace loving country ensuring human rights, the United States leads the world in deceptive war profiteering, spilling the blood of its youths to water the economy.
Obama has not ended the war, he has only changed the location from Iraq to Afghanistan, ensuring corporate war profiteering, the deaths of American youths and the murder of innocent mothers, children and elderly in their homelands.
Finally, unless Obama makes public the evidence of torture and ensures Bush and Cheney are held responsible for torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions, Obama will have failed as president.
Obama's silence is complicity in this crime.

Boycott Denison Mines

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Photo: Supai Gathering to halt uranium mining/Photo Brenda Norrell

(Double click on photo to enlarge.)

RED BUTTE, HAVASUPAI TERRITORY -- Toronto-based Denison Mines (International Uranium Corporation) is threatening to reopen Canyon mine and drill for uranium at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It only takes a quick look at the company to see that it has targeted Indigenous Peoples around the world with mining, poison and death.
Denison uranium mines and explorations are in White Mesa, Utah, McClean Lake in Saskatchewan, Australia, Mongolia and the Mutanga Project in Zambia.
Leaving a trail of disease and death around the world from mining, the stockholders of Denison need to know that their wealth streams from the poisoned water and lands of Indigenous Peoples. In White Mesa Ute country, near the Navajo Nation, the uranium mine was built on sacred kiva grounds and left a toxic dump of radioactivity.
During the Havasupai Gathering to halt uranium mining in the Grand Canyon last weekend, Supai Waters, carrier of the water songs, spoke of the unseen and how the Supai Guardians of the Canyon are maintaining the balance, not just here, but for the Earth.
If sacred Red Butte is violated, it will not just be the Supai and the crowds of tourists who are poisoned. It will not just be the Colorado River in Arizona and the drinking water of southern Nevada that is poisoned, the Earth will be in a state of dis-ease, imbalance.
Matthew Putesoy, vice chairman of the Havasupai Nation, said Red Butte is a traditional site sacred to the Havasuw 'Baaja.' Located in the Kaibab National Forest, Red Butte is known as Wii'i Gdwiisa, meaning "clenched-fist mountain." Havasupai leader Rex Tilousi says, "Red Butte is the lungs of our Grandmother Canyon."

Denison has staked 110 claims within the 1 million-acre area around the Grand Canyon and plans to produce nearly 110,000 tons per year of uranium ore at its Arizona 1 site over 10 years. During hearings, a water utility manager said virtually all of Southern Nevada would be left without water supplies if a mining disaster should occur. Recent legislation to protect the Grand Canyon does not apply to existing claims.
According to Denison Mines, "The company was formed through the combination of the business and operations of Denison Mines Inc. and International Uranium Corporation on December 1, 2006. Denison’s assets include an interest in two of the four licensed and operating conventional uranium mills in North America, with its 100% ownership of the White Mesa mill in Utah and its 22.5% ownership of the McClean Lake mill in Saskatchewan."

Another Canadian corporation, Cameco, is targeting Lakota lands for uranium mining. One year ago, in July, 2008, the US secretly transported 500 tons of yellowcake from Tuwaitha, Iraq, to Montreal, for the private company Cameco in Canada, according to CNN. Cameco said it was for nuclear power generation. But no doubt, there is more to this story of a secret shipment of yellowcake:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/iraq.uranium/index.html
Also, read how uranium mining has poisoned Lakotas and the region of the Black Hills:
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=1

With the Supai in the language of love

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

RED BUTTE, HAVASUPAI TERRITORY -- Sometimes it is hard to put into words the beauty, grace and love. That is the case of being with the Supai elders from the canyon as we gathered at sacred Red Butte. The gathering was to oppose uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, but it was so much more. The people spoke with the language of love and carried out their ceremonies with the assurance of things that are to come that are now unseen.
In my 27 years as a journalist, I've covered about every kind of event, but never one like this. A heartfelt thank you to the Supai elders for sharing their lives with all of us. We broadcast live Thursday through Sunday on www.earthcycles.net and most of the time on the FM radio as well at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Govinda brought the solar powered bus/radio station in from northern California.
Thank you to all of those who came, Louise Benally from Big Mountain, Anna Rondon, Navajo, Petuche Gilbert and Manny Pino from Acoma/Laguna Pueblos, Dennis Banks and the Hopi, Yavapai, Paiute, Zuni, Apache, Lakota, Tohono O'odham and all the others from so many nations. Some came from as far away as Hawaii, others brought their cultures from the south, like the Azteca dancers from Tonatierra. They all assured the Supai that they are read to stand with them and fight. The cooks in the camp prepared some of the best food ever. Thank you to the Havasupai Tribe for providing so much for everyone.
In this pristine and beautiful setting, we listened to Keith Secola, Casper and many other musicians, who as always sang with their hearts. There were dancers and singers from Hopi, Navajo and many other Indian Nations. Many thanks as well to the Supai leaders and organizers for this event, and the Sierra Club for helping bring Earthcycles radio.
The audio archives can be listened to at www.earthcycles.net (click Havasupai and scroll far down the page to listen or download.) Radio stations are encouraged to rebroadcast anywhere in the world. Many audios are already available in the permanent file and others will be soon be posted.
Thank you to all the organizers, the Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and everyone who supported this event.
Special thanks to all those who labor and sacrifice in this cause of love to protect Mother Earth and the Grandmother Canyon from disease and destruction.
Photos and brief videos at Censored News: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Thanks to the UN OBSERVER & International Report at the Hague http://www.unobserver.com/ for spreading the word.
RED BUTTE: LUNGS OF GRANDMOTHER CANYON
by Matthew Putesoy
Vice Chairman Havasupai Tribe
The Grand Canyon is a national treasure, inviting 5 million people every year to explore and be inspired by its beauty. To the Havasuw 'Baaja, who have lived in the region for many hundreds of years, it is sacred. As the "guardians of the Grand Canyon," we strenuously object to mining for uranium here. It is a threat to the health of our environment and tribe, our tourism-based economy, and our religion.
Thank you, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, for announcing a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in the 1 million acres of lands around Grand Canyon National Park. But existing claims, such as those pursued by Canadian-based Denison Mines Corp., still threaten the animals, air, drinking water and people of this region.Denison, which has staked 110 claims around the Grand Canyon, is seeking groundwater-aquifer permits that would allow it to reopen the Canyon Mine, near Red Butte on the South Rim, as well as two other mining sites.
Uranium mining has been associated with contamination of ground or surface water.
Here, mining could poison the aquifer, which extends for 5,000 square miles under the Coconino Plateau, and serves as drinking water for our tribe and neighboring communities.
As I told Congress recently, if our water were polluted, we could not relocate to Phoenix or someplace else and still survive as the Havasupai Tribe. We are the Grand Canyon. Thanks to Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva for introducing the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act.
We urge U.S. Sen. John McCain to introduce it in the Senate.
Additionally, air and water pollution and the development associated with mining operations could deter tourists, the lifeblood of our economy. Visitors come here to hike, camp, relax at our lodge and enjoy the Havasu, Mooney, Beaver, and Navajo falls, which are among the best-loved and most-photographed waterfalls on Mother Earth.
Most importantly, Red Butte, where Denison Mines intends to reopen a mine, is a traditional site sacred to the Havasuw 'Baaja. Located in the Kaibab National Forest, Red Butte is known as Wii'i Gdwiisa, meaning "clenched-fist mountain." As longtime Havasupai leader Rex Tilousi says, "Red Butte is the lungs of our Grandmother Canyon."
My people have used these traditional Havasupai religious areas for centuries. Instead of allowing the destruction of our national treasure, we are asking the federal government to work with Havasupai Tribe to protect Red Butte and all of the lands on and around the Grand Canyon from further mining activities. This natural wonder is irreplaceable and demands our shared action and protection for those living now, and those yet to be born.
For more information go online to: http://www.arizona.sierra/club.org/
Matthew Putesoy is vice chairman of the Havasupai Tribe.

Havasupai: Singing away uranium mining

Supai gathering at Red Butte, photo Brenda Norrell 2009

Tiny Hanna, Havasupai, spoke of the time when Supai lived all through these lands, now the Grand Canyon National Park. Tiny Hanna sang a morning prayer that the uranium mining would blow away. Click video arrow to watch. (Video by Brenda Norrell)

Havasupai Dance to Honor Earth

Dennis Banks joined Havasupai to halt uranium mining Saturday. Click for brief video of Havasupai and guests honoring the Earth at Red Butte during a four day gathering. Video by Brenda Norrell

Dennis Banks joins Supai to halt uranium mining in Grand Canyon

Red Butte: Lungs of Grandmother Canyon

by Matthew Putesoy
Vice Chairman Havasupai Tribe
July 25, 2009

The Grand Canyon is a national treasure, inviting 5 million people every year to explore and be inspired by its beauty. To the Havasuw 'Baaja, who have lived in the region for many hundreds of years, it is sacred. As the "guardians of the Grand Canyon," we strenuously object to mining for uranium here. It is a threat to the health of our environment and tribe, our tourism-based economy, and our religion.

Thank you, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, for announcing a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in the 1 million acres of lands around Grand Canyon National Park. But existing claims, such as those pursued by Canadian-based Denison Mines Corp., still threaten the animals, air, drinking water and people of this region.

Denison, which has staked 110 claims around the Grand Canyon, is seeking groundwater-aquifer permits that would allow it to reopen the Canyon Mine, near Red Butte on the South Rim, as well as two other mining sites.Uranium mining has been associated with contamination of ground or surface water. Here, mining could poison the aquifer, which extends for 5,000 square miles under the Coconino Plateau, and serves as drinking water for our tribe and neighboring communities.

As I told Congress recently, if our water were polluted, we could not relocate to Phoenix or someplace else and still survive as the Havasupai Tribe. We are the Grand Canyon. Thanks to Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva for introducing the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act.

We urge U.S. Sen. John McCain to introduce it in the Senate.Additionally, air and water pollution and the development associated with mining operations could deter tourists, the lifeblood of our economy. Visitors come here to hike, camp, relax at our lodge and enjoy the Havasu, Mooney, Beaver, and Navajo falls, which are among the best-loved and most-photographed waterfalls on Mother Earth.

Most importantly, Red Butte, where Denison Mines intends to reopen a mine, is a traditional site sacred to the Havasuw 'Baaja. Located in the Kaibab National Forest, Red Butte is known as Wii'i Gdwiisa, meaning "clenched-fist mountain." As longtime Havasupai leader Rex Tilousi says, "Red Butte is the lungs of our Grandmother Canyon." My people have used these traditional Havasupai religious areas for centuries. Instead of allowing the destruction of our national treasure, we are asking the federal government to work with Havasupai Tribe to protect Red Butte and all of the lands on and around the Grand Canyon from further mining activities. This natural wonder is irreplaceable and demands our shared action and protection for those living now, and those yet to be born.

Members of the public are invited to join the Havasupai today for a free public concert at 6 p.m. and for a public forum on uranium mining and protecting our sacred lands on Sunday at the base of Red Butte.

For more information go online to: arizona.sierra club.org/

Matthew Putesoy is vice chairman of the Havasupai Tribe.