General Abdourahamane Tchiani. Photo: X

Pavan Kulkarni

Accusing French state-owned Orano of illegally extracting a disproportionate share of Uranium, Niger’s government said that nationalization will make way for “optimal enjoyment of the wealth from mining resources by Nigeriens.”

In yet another assertion of sovereignty, the government of Niger announced on Thursday, June 19, that it would nationalize the Somaïr uranium venture, wresting control from the multinational nuclear fuel cycle corporation Orano.

Orano is owned by the French state, which, the government noted, has been “openly hostile toward Niger since July 26, 2023”, when the then president Mohamed Bazoum, domestically perceived as a French puppet, was ousted in a popularly supported coup.

Without yielding to French threats of war, the military government replacing Bazoum’s regime consolidated widespread support by expelling French troops, fulfilling the demand for which mass protests had been underway in the lead-up to his removal.

The nationalization of Somaïr is yet another measure in defiance of its former colonizer. France has long exerted a monopoly over Niger’s uranium, which is among the highest grade in Africa. It has been fueling French nuclear power plants, lighting up a third of its light bulbs, while over 85% of Nigeriens lacked connection to the electricity grid.

Accusing Orano of “irresponsible, illegal, and unfair behavior”, the government said that between 1971 and 2024, it had taken over 86% of Somaïr’s uranium. This is disproportionately higher than the 63% stake it owned, leaving Niger’s state-owned Sopamin as a minority stakeholder in Somaïr.

The nationalization changing this neo-colonial arrangement “will allow for healthier and more sustainable management of the company and, consequently, optimal enjoyment of the wealth from mining resources by Nigeriens,” its statement added.

Threatening Niger with “legal actions, including criminal proceedings if necessary”, Orano said it “intends to seek full compensation for the damages suffered and will assert its rights to the stock corresponding to Somaïr’s production to date.”

[…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/06/25/niger-nationalizes-uranium/

Paper: Paging Through History

Mark Kurlanky (2017)

Norton and Company

Book Review

This book provides a comprehensive survey of the development of paper and written language, starting with its earliest use in Sumeria in 3300 BC. Kurlanksky also traces the essential role of printing in the blossoming of science, art, and revolutionary religious and political movements.

Following its first development in Sumeria, written language seems to have developed independently in Egypt in 3000 BC, Crete and Greece in 1400 BC, China 1200 BC, Zaptote Mexico 600 BC, the Mayan empire 250 BC and Scandinavia (runes) 200 BC.

The Sumerians first wrote on stone and clay, the Egyptians on papyrus and the Chinese on wood tablets, bamboo scrolls, silk and eventually paper.

The Chinese, the first to invent paper, were inspired by wool felting technology, which preceded spinning. In felting, wool is repeatedly hammered into a fibrous mat. The Chinese, who also invented paper cups and toilet paper, initially used bark, hemp, rags and fishing nets to make paper.

After the Arab victory at the 751 AD Battle of Talas (see See Taizong and the Rise of the Tang), the Arab commander a took Chinese paper maker prisoner, who set up paper mills in Baghdad and Damascus in 800, The first paper mill in Cairo was built in 900. The Islamic Empire was the world’s fully literate society (ie extending literacy to commoners), Europeans only began making paper after 1000 AD, when their contact with Islamic scholars versed in classical science, math, medicine and philosophy led to a growing drive for increased literacy. By the 14th century, paper making was a common industrial activity throughout Europe.

Printing (of wood blocks and prints) also began in China in the late 7th century. Koreans printed the first book in 700 and invented moveable type in 1444. Johannes Guttenberg, a German goldsmith, also began experimenting with moveable type in the 1440s. By the 16h century, all of Europe, now the most advanced civilization in the world, was paper mad. In 1605 Cervantes published Don Quixote, which became the most sold book in publishing history.

According to Kurlansky, it was paper and printing of pamphlets, posters and religious tracts that made the Protestant Reformation possible. Luther and Calvin printed thousands of religious tract to prospective follower. Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell published similar anti-papist tracks to promote England’s separation from the Catholic Church.

Ben Franklin, a printer by trade and a prominent propagandist for American independence, started many newspapers. In addition to owning 18 paper mills, he also ran a business sourcing rags for paper pulp. In their desire to build and maintain colonists’ support for the War of Independence, the Continental Congress exempted paper workers from military service. It was essential to keep the paper mills running. ce.

In 1840, a chronic shortage of rags led German paper workers to produce the first wood pulp paper. American’s abundance of old growth forest allowed the new country to overtake Europe as the world’s primary paper maker by 1873.

By Clayton Baker MD

Over the last couple of weeks, a remarkable sequence of events involving two US Senators has unfolded that demonstrates the profound and positive influence that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is exerting on Washington, DC, which extends far beyond the halls of the CDC, FDA, and NIH.

On June 12, 2025, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced a dramatic course correction. Four months after aggressively attacking Kennedy at his Senate confirmation hearings (and subsequently voting against him), Sanders has co-sponsored a bill named the “End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act” with Senator Angus King (I-ME), to outlaw direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in the United States.

On his website, Sanders states that “the bill would also answer Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s repeated calls to end prescription drug advertising, a position he promoted while campaigning for President Trump in 2024.”

As an increasing number of Americans have learned – and as Sanders notes – Pharma advertising is currently permitted in only two countries on Earth: the United States and New Zealand. This allows the pharmaceutical industry to effectively buy off the entire US mainstream media, silencing media criticism of its practices and products while bombarding the public with a constant stream of pro-Pharma propaganda and advertisements.

Sanders’ website does not hold back in its valid criticism of Pharma’s stranglehold on the media, stating:

Last year, the 10 largest drug companies made more than $100 billion in profits while the pharmaceutical industry spent over $5 billion on television ads. Prescription drug commercials now account for more than 30% of commercial time on major networks’ evening news programs. In the first three months of this year, Big Pharma spent more than $725 million advertising just 10 drugs.

Now, let us rewind to late January, back to the days of now-HHS Secretary Kennedy’s confirmation hearings. During the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) hearings, ranking committee member Sanders launched into a harsh attack on now-Secretary Kennedy that veered into the comical. At one point, Sanders posted photos of some baby onesies that Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy’s former nonprofit organization, had been selling online.

Barking furiously in his trademark Brooklyn accent (and growing increasingly unhinged as he went along), Sanders repeatedly demanded of Kennedy,

“Are you supportive of these onesies?”

Later, Kennedy called out Sanders for the Senator’s Big Pharma campaign receipts, stating, “Bernie, you were the single largest acceptor of pharmaceutical dollars.”

And yet, a mere four months pass, and voila, Bernie Sanders sponsors the End Prescription Drugs Now Act, and name-checks Kennedy and Trump in his supporting arguments for the bill.

Has Senator Sanders had a 180-degree change of heart? Is Bernie suddenly supportive of those onesies?

Well, not so fast.

One day after the bill was announced, on June 13, Sanders wrote a letter to HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA). In the letter, he states:

As you know, last week, in a dangerous and unprecedented decision that will have a profoundly negative impact on the lives of the American people, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)…

I am requesting that we immediately initiate a bi-partisan investigation into these firings and conduct serious oversight into the actions Secretary Kennedy has taken to mislead the American people about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and erode public health.

Of course, Sanders makes no mention whatsoever of the extensively documented conflicts of interest that numerous prior members of the ACIP committee possess. Many received significant funding from relevant pharmaceutical companies. Others held patents on the products voted upon by the committee. Videos of past proceedings of ACIP meetings have been posted online, and they reveal the ACIP committee to be an embarrassing rubber stamp/kangaroo court composed of feckless functionaries.

Sanders’ pen pal from across the aisle, Bill Cassidy, has also been a staunch opponent of Kennedy’s efforts at reform. This may be explained by the fact that once Cassidy assumed the role of chairman of the HELP committee in 2023, he rapidly received a windfall of Pharma contributions, as evidenced by the April 2023 STAT news article entitled, “Pharma executives shower Bill Cassidy with Campaign Cash.” According to Open Secrets, Cassidy received over $290,000 from pharmaceutical Political Action Committees in 2023-4.

While Cassidy was harshly critical of Kennedy during the Senate confirmation, and while he insisted on Kennedy having monthly meetings with him once confirmed, Cassidy ultimately voted in favor of Kennedy to lead HHS. However, in other vital respects, Cassidy has continued to obstruct Kennedy’s work.

Cassidy teamed with another Republican Senator on the HELP committee, Susan Collins of Maine, to effectively block Trump and Kennedy’s nominee for CDC Director, former Congressman David Weldon, from even coming before the committee. (Weldon has deep knowledge of the problems surrounding the vaccine approval process.) Ultimately, Weldon’s nomination was withdrawn on March 13.

Thanks to Cassidy, Trump’s replacement nominee to lead CDC, Susan Monarez, still awaits confirmation hearings, which according to the HELP website, are scheduled for June 25, 2025, more than 3 months after Cassidy forced the Weldon nomination to be pulled, and ironically on the same day as the upcoming and much-anticipated ACIP meetings. Multiple other key HHS positions remain unfilled to date due to similar Senate delays in the confirmation process.

Suddenly – literally as this essay is going to press – on June 23, 2025, STAT News has reported that Cassidy has called for a delay of the ACIP meeting, claiming that “advisers picked by RFK lack experience, and may be biased against some shots.”

You literally cannot make this nonsense up. Bernie and Bill, these Keystone Cop Senators, their hair flagrantly afire, are riding off furiously in all directions, at the bidding of their Big Pharma owners, to do whatever they can to impede the will of the electorate.

The correct and absolutely necessary response, of course, is for Secretary Kennedy and his eminently qualified and morally unhindered (and yes, they are both) panel to proceed as scheduled, and render an honest and reasonable appraisal for the first time in the modern history of ACIP.

Cassidy, meanwhile, had better watch himself. He faces a reelection minefield in 2026, including a wide open primary from two experienced challengers, and reform of the state primary system that may work to his disadvantage. Cassidy’s decision to vote in favor of President Trump’s impeachment in February 2021 has already soured him with MAGA voters. Cassidy’s obstructionism toward Kennedy has alienated even more Louisianans.

As Cassidy’s reelection problems suggest, a Venn diagram of President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s supporters would likely show far more overlap than most would have guessed a year ago.

Kennedy has only been HHS Secretary since February 13, 2025 – a little over 4 months. He has received more scrutiny in that brief period than perhaps all other HHS Secretaries combined since the office was created in 1980.

Based on Bernie Sanders and Bill Cassidy’s recent behaviors, Secretary Kennedy is having effects that reverberate well beyond the halls of the CDC, FDA, and NIH. His opponents don’t quite know what to do with themselves. It’s no longer possible to just do Big Pharma’s bidding in secret. Everyone’s watching now. And they’re not just watching Kennedy, but also the people trying to undermine and destroy him. And they consider attacks on Kennedy to be attacks on the President as well.

Could it be the progress that Trump and Kennedy’s NIH Director, Jay Bhattacharya, have made against deadly Gain-of-Function research, which we all now know to have been the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that is driving this consensus? After all, what sane person wants our Deep State continuing to create superbugs at taxpayer expense?

Could it be the measured, step-by-step progress Kennedy has led toward reform of the US’s utterly corrupt vaccine approval and recommendation process – despite the opposition of Sanders, Cassidy, and the like? What sane person thinks the increase from 7 recommended childhood vaccines in the 1980s to 23 today promotes health, especially when American children today are dramatically less healthy? (In fact, much of the criticism Kennedy has faced from ordinary Americans is that this process of vaccine reform is happening too slowly.)

These trends in public opinion should surprise nobody. Only the most wicked and diabolical of people would impose an endless stream of toxic injections, medications, fake foods, ubiquitous pesticides, geoengineered weather, and the patenting, corporatization, and denaturing of life itself onto their fellow humans and the entire planet, while propagandistically denouncing a healthy, natural lifestyle for children and future generations.

[…]

Via https://brownstone.org/articles/the-rfk-effect/