Media.Knet.Ca

The Chiefs Steering Committee Communications Bulletins are being distributed to the First Nations involved in discussions about the hydro grid routes being considered to transport power from Northern Manitoba. The following six bulletins are available for download as Word documents by clicking on each of them.

• Bulletin #1 
• Bulletin #2
• Bulletin #3
• Bulletin #4
• Bulletin #5
• Bulletin #6

All are welcome to joing the next Online Economic Development Workshop with Darcy + Susan's Gas

November 30, 2006  9:30-11:00AM (CST)

Darcy and Susan Kejick are the owners and operators of Darcy and Susan’s Gas in North Spirit Lake First Nation. They have received awards from NADF for Youth Entrepreneur and Partnership (2005). Recently they received a business plan award regarding the expansion of their business to include a grocery store. The Kejicks will share the story of how the business was started, some tips for community entrepreneurs and the vision they have for the future of the business. Come and ask Darcy and Susan about starting or expanding your small business.

Please book your video conference site.

Contact: Terry Moreau Phone: 877.737.5638 X 1266

Email: tmoreau@knet.ca

Visit the website for more information, live webstream, archived sessions, links and resources.

The Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority (www.nodin.on.ca) is working with K-Net to webcast their district chiefs meeting. The meeting is taking place this week in Sioux Lookout at the Sunset Suites.

One important item on the agenda is to discuss the First Nation distribution formula for Health Canada's Reinvestment Fund. The Reinvestment Fund are the millions of dollars saved by Health Canada after they transferred the administration of the former Zone Hospital over to the Sioux Lookout Menoyawin Health Centre. Under the four party agreement, these funds were suppose to begin to be available for First Nation health services.

Everyone is invited to watch the live video webcast of the chiefs' meeting and presentations by visiting http://www.nodin.on.ca/webcast.htm during the following time slots:

• Wednesday November 29 - 11:15am - 12 Noon
• Wednesday November 29 - 1pm - 4:30pm
• Thursday November 30 - 9:30am - 12:30pm

If the video does not display on your window you will need to download a codex onto your computer that supports the display of the live video stream. The codex can be downloaded to your computer by clicking on http://webcast.knet.ca/VCGSUSetup.exe

Press release ...

Isuma to Extend Indigenous Film Distribution in Canada and Worldwide  INDIGENOUS FILM NETWORK LAUNCHES NOVEMBER 22

Isuma Distribution International (IDI) announces the launch this month of Indigenous Film Network (IFN), a $900,000 initiative to expand feature film distribution to 200 remote Inuit, Métis and First Nations communities across northern Canada.

Using portable high-definition projectors for screenings in community halls and school gymnasiums, IFN hopes to achieve 50,000 admissions by May 2007, with a gross theatrical box office value of $500,000.

In its second phase starting 2007-08, IFN will install projectors in selected communities and deliver films regularly by internet video downloads. IFN will harness emerging technology to establish a permanent indigenous film sector in some of the world's most under-served regions.

Telefilm Canada has committed $250,000 to the initiative as a recoupable marketing advance from its Alternative Distribution Fund. Other sponsors include Makivik Corporation, Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution, Kivalliq Inuit Association, Canada Council, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, First Air, Air Inuit, Wasaya Airways and Air Creebec.

Indigenous Film Network kicks off November 22 in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, with a screening of Igloolik Isuma Productions' The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, followed in the next two weeks by screenings in Pikangikum, Deer Lake and North  Spirit Lake, Ontario, and in Kuujuaq, Nunavik, in northern Quebec.

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen is the second Inuit-language feature film by Zacharias Kunuk and the same team that made Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, winner of the 2001 Camera d'or at Cannes and Best Picture Genie in 2002.

The Journals was Opening Night Film at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, the Atlantic, Calgary, Edmonton and Scottsdale (Arizona) film festivals, and invited to New York, London, Flanders, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Vienna film festivals, among others. Released in Canada by Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution and Film Circuit, and in Denmark by SF Films, The Journals recently was named Best Feature Film at the 2006 imagineNATIVE Film Festival in Toronto, and Best Director at the 2006 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.

However, 80% of Inuit, Métis and First Nations Canadians, the principal target audience for The Journals, live in remote northern communities without 35mm theatres and have been unable to see the film.

Rankin Inlet, on the west coast of Hudson Bay, is Nunavut's second-largest community and the home of Kivalliq Inuit Association, the first Nunavut political agency to contribute to this project.

KIA's Social Development Coordinator, Bernadette Dean, will co-host the premiere screening in Rankin  Inlet with The Journals' director, Zacharias Kunuk, and lead actor, Pakak Inuksuk,

Kuujuaq is capital of Nunavik, northern Quebec, and headquarters of Makivik Corporation, owner of First Air and Air Inuit, one of IFN's leading sponsors. First Air and Air Inuit also support Before Tomorrow, Igloolik Isuma Productions' first feature produced in Inuit Quebec, currently shooting in Povungnituk.

Pikangikum is an Ojibway community in northwestern Ontario whose unhealthy water, housing and sanitation conditions were exposed in a series of articles November 7-8 by The Globe and Mail. As one of Canada's 'forgotten' aboriginal communities, Pikangikum needs more than a movie to improve its quality of life. However, by screening a film expressing solidarity and understanding, IFN makes a statement of hope for people feeling otherwise abandoned.

Isuma Distribution International is the first distributor to address regional and racial inequalities in the film system's failure to serve remote northern and other indigenous audiences. Enlarging the Canadian box office also makes the film system more equitable for indigenous filmmakers competing for national production financing awarded by audience approval and box office success.  Along with film screenings, Indigenous Film Network will deliver workshops for youth and emerging filmmakers in each community.

IDI President Norman Cohn commented: "Third World conditions in health, unemployment and living conditions in Aboriginal communities are the largest HUMAN RIGHTS problem facing progressive First World countries like Canada and Denmark. Full participation by indigenous people in film and media systems can provide clearer insights into these problems and lead to practical contemporary solutions to many of them."

Bernadette Dean, Social Development Coordinator for Kivalliq Inuit Association, added: "When the U.N. approved the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples this year, only two states voted against it: Canada and Russia. Now our new government has cancelled its $172 million commitment to the Aboriginal Culture and Language Initiative, promised as part of the residential schools legal settlement. Assimilation and destruction of Aboriginal culture and language remain policies of the Canadian government into the 21st century."

Adds Zacharias Kunuk, co-director of The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, "Our film is not about the past, it's about what's happening today. How did we get into this mess in the first place and how can we ever get out of it? All indigenous people have a right to see this film to help figure out what to do about it."

For more information, contact: Lucius Barre, Isuma Distribution International, +1.917.353-2268, lucius@rcn.com, cohn@isuma.ca, JacquieC@isuma.ca, zkunuk@isuma.ca Or go to www.isuma.ca

Click here to read the CBC coverage of this story 

Platinex press release ...

Platinex Announces Big Trout Lake Chromium-PGE Deposits Results

TORONTO, Nov. 28 - Platinex Inc. - (TSX-V PTX) has filed a qualifying report, setting out a preliminary size estimate and related market parameters of a chromium-PGE deposit underlying its Big Trout Lake property. The property comprises 221 claims and 81 mining leases acquired earlier this year from an INCO joint venture.

Commenting on the report, Mr. James R. Trusler, President and CEO of Platinex stated, "Platinex has now compiled results of previous drilling on its expanded property. I believe that the Big Trout Lake deposit will ultimately be proven to be among the largest chromium deposits in the world. Despite its isolation, the size of this deposit combined with the expanding demand for stainless steel may enable the establishment a market foothold. Further, the market studies indicate that the chromium appears compatible or in need of minor upgrading to meet market specifications. The PGE content is an added sweetener which may impact deposit economics significantly. Zones One and Two which have both been correlated for some 13 kilometres contain some significant PGE intersections."

The Big Trout Lake Igneous Complex is a classic layered intrusion turned on end so that the layers are nearly vertically dipping. Persistent layering has been documented in some 86 drill holes and outlined in magnetometer surveys and is generally believed to be correlative for the entire 19 km strike length of the property. Volume calculations have been made on four PGE-bearing chromium deposits defined in 29 separate intersections in 15 drill holes. The four layers or zones have a combined composite true width of 40.8 metres. Two of the zones have been correlated for a strike length of 13 km and the other two have been correlated for a strike length of 6 km but are open ended. The deepest intersection is 300 m below surface. All of the data has been obtained from previous drilling by several different companies and joint ventures (the Canadian Nickel Company (Canico), Canadian Occidental Petroleum, Platinum Exploration Canada Inc., International Platinum Corporation and Degussa). Platinex has relied on qualified persons currently and in the past who have had involvement in all of the previous programs carried out in the 1970's and 1980's. Most of the details of the chromium data and the scope of the deposits have never before been subject to public release.

Due to the fact that the Canico assay data cannot be absolutely confirmed at this time and the large 3 km spacing between drill fences it is deemed non-NI-43-101 compliant. Resources and reserves cannot be stated using old data unless it can be adequately verified and demonstrated to be representative. However, based on the interpolation between drill hole intersects and extensions 50 m up and down dip from intersections, a conceptual model has been built containing 140 million tonnes grading 8.4% Cr2O3 and a yet to be determined amount of PGE as a minimum tonnage. Further, based on a composite true width of 40.8 m, a strike length of 12 km and a projected depth of 1,000 m, a conceptual model has been derived containing 1.68 billion tonnes of chromium-PGE mineralization as a maximum tonnage. The anticipated upper and lower limits on grades are 3.47% to 21.78% Cr2O3 for both the lower and the greater conceptual tonnage. There is no assurance that further drilling will confirm these grades and tonnages or the conceptual models or define a reserve or resource.

The Cr/Fe ratio of the chromite mineralization ranges from 0.8 to 1.4 and averages 1.0. A recent preliminary market study conducted for Platinex through Burnside Engineering has determined that current and projected demand for chromium for use in stainless steel is strong and deposits with Cr/Fe ratios approaching 1.2 are being utilized. Further, it is Burnside's opinion that the Big Trout Lake chromium mineralization could be upgraded to meet specifications and that this is probably the first time ever that the Big Trout Lake deposits could potentially meet technical specifications.

Canico performed very few platinum and palladium assays but recorded values of up to 5.0 grams per tonne of Pt and Pd combined over 0.4 m within an interval running 1.3 g/t over 4.3 m in the Zone 2 Chromitite. In the correlative zone underlying the claims south of the former Canico property the combined Pt plus Pt values are 8.4 g/t over 2.3 m within a 3.3 m section grading 28.54% Cr(2)O(3). A total of 310 core samples, most of which were collected within and marginal to the chromitites, returned combined Pt and Pd assays greater than 1 g/t. The report also proposes a $2.3 million first phase 24 hole, 7,225 m drilling program, metallurgical studies on chromium-PGE beneficiation and logging with systematic PGE assaying of some 5,000 m of core previously drilled and obtained earlier this year from the INCO joint venture.

Trusler added, "Nonetheless, beyond the drilling stage several hurdles remain for this potential multibillion dollar mega-project, including establishing transportation, an inexpensive energy source and a trained labour force.

"One of the key elements required to succeed is obtaining the cooperation of the local First Nations communities who stand to benefit substantially in many ways if this property is able to take advantage of a window of economic opportunity to proceed to the development stage" stressed Trusler.

In that respect Platinex, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug "KI", the closest First Nations community, and the Ontario government are to appear before Ontario Superior Court Justice Smith on January 5, 2007, to provide a progress report of the court mandated consultation. Since Justice Smith's decision was published in July, several drafts of a consultation protocol have been prepared among the three parties. As of September Platinex has been willing to execute each version but (as indicated in a release last week by KI) the consultation has been sidelined by apparently faltering talks between KI and Ontario (just at the point of closure) from which Platinex has been excluded. Platinex still remains hopeful that the Ontario government will succeed in reconciling the rights of industry with those of First Nations, and thereby discharge the Crown's duty of meaningful consultation, as repeatedly called for by the Supreme Court of Canada in recent decisions.

For the purposes of this release Mr. J. R. Walls of Burnside Engineering is the qualified person.

About Platinex Inc.

Platinex is a Canadian exploration company based near Toronto. Platinex focuses on carefully selected Platinum Group Element targets in settings analogous to the JM reef (Stillwater Complex, Montana) and the Merensky and UG2 reefs (Bushveld Complex, RSA). Shares of Platinex became listed for trading on the TSX Venture Exchange on November 4, 2005, under the symbol PTX. Platinex has 14,271,173 common shares issued and outstanding.

To receive Company press releases, please email alison@chfir.com. and mention "Platinex" on the subject line.

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

For further information: please visit www.platinex.com or contact: Platinex Inc., James R. Trusler, President & CEO, Tel: (905) 727-9046, Email: jim@platinex.com;. CHF Investor Relations, Cathy Hume, CEO, Tel: (416) 868-1079 ext. 231, Email: cathy@chfir.com.