After 62 days in jail, Shawn Brant has finally been released from custody!  Shawn was being held on trumped up charges alleging he had assaulted a white local businessman during recent road blockades aimed at stopping a development planned on stolen Mohawk land. The blockades succeeded inconvincing the developer to back off. Charges arose when eager OPP officers learned that Shawn had challenged two racist locals (the LaLondes) when they attacked a small group of mainly Mohawk women and children.  LaLonde flew into a rage when he was turned back at the roadblock, wielding a bat at protesters, and hitting a woman with his car. Although Mohawks called 911 the police never laid any charges against Lalonde.

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Tom Sandborn, 30 June 2008, TheTyee.ca

Organizers of the 2010 Olympics refuse to tell the public where gear for the games and Olympics-branded products are made, though critics say such secrecy makes it far harder to expose sweatshops in the Olympic supply chain. The reason is that businesses fear competitors might lure away factories that produce on an ethical basis, or gain proprietary information, said Ann Duffy, who looks after sustainability issues for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Secrecy is guaranteed in agreements already entered into with some suppliers and sponsors, Duffy said at a June 12 public event focusing on ethical purchasing for the Olympics.

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By Jonah Gindin. Briarpatch Magazine. June/July 2008

When it’s truly alive, memory doesn’t contemplate history, it invites us to make it. -Eduardo Galeano.

On June 29, 2007, Mohawks from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ontario, erected blockades on the Canadian National rail line, local Highway 2, and Highway 401-the busiest thoroughfare in the country. This marked the second time in six months that the community blocked the rails in defence of their land. In the days before June 29, which had been declared a National Day of Action by the Assembly of First Nations, Mohawk spokesperson Shawn Brant explained to the CBC why the community could no longer wait on distant negotiations. “We bury our children in this country every day,” he said. “We have to force them to drink polluted water. We’re sick and tired of it. It’s going to end-June 29 is going to mark the time when First Nations people are going to be in a different relationship with the rest of the country.”

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To Whom It May Concern;

Please accept this letter as a declaration of opposition to the upcoming 2010 Olympics set to take place within traditional St’at’imc Borders. Many members of our Nation, including children, youth, elders and land users do not support the Olympics taking place in Whistler for many reasons. First being that Whistler and many other towns, cities and municipalities are illegally occupied by foreigners and run by fraudulent government systems that oppress the original inhabitants, the St’at’imc People. These government systems are built to hold lands illegally and destruct entire ecosystems in order to gain profit for the already wealthy corporations.

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By BRYAN MEADOWS. Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Forest industry giant AbitibiBowater Inc. is pulling out of the Whiskey Jack Forest north of Kenora.  The company says it has more available and accessible fibre elsewhere, and that it can‘t wait four more years for the province and Grassy Narrows First Nation to come to an agreement on acceptable logging practices there. “We plan to discontinue the use of the Whiskey Jack Forest while the government and Grassy Narrows conducts their negotiations,” company spokesman Jean-Philippe Cote said Tuesday.

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