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Thursday, November 12, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
MIDEAST: Israel Hovers Between War and Peace
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current visit to Washington is not just about trying to smooth over the crisis which has rocked U.S.-Israeli relations over the past fortnight.ECUADOR: Native Leaders Call for Anti-Government Protests
"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." The words of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill after the 1942 defeat of Germany's forces in Africa are an apt description of the situation between the government of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).ECUADOR: Avatar Downfall a Blow for Indigenous Communities
Science fiction blockbuster Avatar was the big loser in the Oscar awards ceremony - not only a blow for director James Cameron but also seen as a symbolic reverse in the struggle to recover Amazon rainforest areas in Ecuador from the effects of oil pollution.
PERU: Suspension of Mining Operation Merely a Placebo
Although the Peruvian government reported that it had suspended the exploration activities of the Afrodita mining company in the country's northern Amazon jungle region to avoid further protests by local indigenous people, officials took no actual steps to bring the firm's work to a halt.
PERU: Relocating Entire Villages for Mines, Dams
Hundreds of Peruvian communities were displaced as they fled the 1980-2000 civil war. Today the government is pushing for urgent passage of a law that would facilitate the relocation of entire villages or neighbourhoods in mineral or energy-rich areas.RIGHTS: What Fish may do for Western Sahara
Legal advice stating that European vessels have no justification to fish off Western Sahara - a territory occupied by Morocco - has provoked a row between the main political institutions in Brussels.RIGHTS-PERU: No Justice for Indians in Amazon Massacre
Although the technical investigations cleared two of the indigenous demonstrators accused in the murders of 12 policemen during a bloody June 2009 clash between native protesters and the security forces near the northern Amazon jungle town of Bagua, they are still behind bars.RELIGION-TURKEY: Alevi Future Bleak Despite Equality Moves
A political initiative to eliminate discrimination against the Alevi, Turkey’s main religious minority, risks being stymied by the Diyanet, the country’s powerful religious body that does not recognise anything but Sunni Islam.
CANADA: Resistance Casts Pall over 2010 Olympic Festivities
The 2010 Winter Olympics opened with the largest protest convergence in the history of the Games.CHILE: Mapuche Indians Set Up Autonomous Legal Defence Unit
As tensions mount in Chile's Mapuche territories, the indigenous people have created a new legal defence body for cases involving resistance against the state, as they put little stock in the justice system for working out cases such as land disputes.SRI LANKA: The Post-Election Road Ahead for President Rajapaksa
Sri Lankans witnessed one of the country's most contentious elections ever when President Mahinda Rajapaksa staved off the challenge posed by his former Army commander, Sarath Fonseka, and clinched more than 1.8 million majority votes during the Jan. 26 poll.NICARAGUA: Can Army Protect Plundered Forest Reserves?
The Nicaraguan state has embarked on an iron-fisted policy, including the use of military force, to clamp down on those responsible for environmental depredation, after repeated denunciations by organisations and government officials that the country's two largest biosphere reserves are being plundered.BURMA: Ethnic Women Expose Opium Fields in Junta Strongholds
A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.BOLIVIA: Unprecedented Gender Parity in Cabinet
Evo Morales began his second term as president of Bolivia by swearing in a cabinet made up of an equal number of women and men - unprecedented in this South American nation with a strong patriarchal tradition.BIODIVERSITY: Words Are Not Enough
Words are not enough to stop the rapidly unraveling web of life, agreed heads of state and international conservation organisations at a high-level meeting that ended here last Friday.INDIA: Stalled Korean Mining Operations Face Fresh Protests
The Indian government’s grant of the final environmental clearance to a Korean giant firm, allowing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘forest lands’ in the eastern state of Orissa, has prompted a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 families that will be affected by a proposed mining project.
BOLIVIA: More Women in Parliament, With Their Own Agenda
An unprecedented 28 percent of seats in Bolivia's new parliament will soon be occupied by women. Female lawmakers have already launched a battle for women to serve in half the posts in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
PERU: Victims of Military Rapists Wait for Justice 25 Years On
"I want justice. That will be a kind of peace," says Micaela, a 40-year-old woman from the Andean region of Peru who is a survivor of the sexual violence prevalent during the 1980-2000 civil war. Twenty-five years ago, soldiers assaulted her at a military base and in her own home.MALAYSIA: Sarawak Dams: Boon or Bane of Development?
"I don’t know what's going to happen to our people ... what our future will be?"BRAZIL: ‘Colonisation Made Us Poor,’ Say Indigenous Peoples
"We weren't poor until colonisation made us poor," indigenous leader Marcos Terena said at the Rio de Janeiro launch of a United Nations report on the State of the World's Indigenous Peoples.RIGHTS: U.N. Condemns Land Grabs in Native Territories
Millions of people around the world who belong to indigenous communities continue to face discrimination and abuse at the hands of authorities and private business concerns, says a new U.N. report released here Thursday.« Previous Page — Next Page »
The planet's roughly 350 million indigenous peoples took notable steps on the international stage in the last decade. They got the world's governments to agree to create a body to represent them at the United Nations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to appoint a special rapporteur responsible for their human rights. In 2007 a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved by the UN. Yet the living conditions of most "tribal", "aboriginal", "native" or "first" peoples remain precarious. IPS, with its network of contributors at the UN and linked to indigenous communities worldwide, is committed to tracking the world community's efforts to do justice to the rights and aspirations of these peoples, with a special current focus on Latin America's 40 million rural indigenous peoples.
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