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Thursday, November 12, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
RIGHTS: UN Anti-Racism Committee Concerned for Indians in Peru
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed concern this week over the treatment received by indigenous communities in Peru.
PARAGUAY: Indigenous Squatter Communities Organise Self-Help
Indigenous families living in a squatter settlement on the outskirts of the Paraguayan capital are organising themselves, and now have a community soup kitchen and are producing and selling handicrafts. They don't want to return to panhandling on the streets of Asunción, so far from their home villages.RIGHTS-CHILE: New Wave of Mapuche Land Conflicts
The southern Chilean region of Araucanía has been shaken in the last few days by occupations of land by Mapuche activists claiming it as part of their ancestral territory, attacks on vehicles, and the resurgence of an anti-Mapuche paramilitary group.COLOMBIA: Killings of Indians Continued During UN Rapporteur’s Visit
"Colombia’s indigenous people find themselves in a serious, critical and profoundly worrying human rights situation," says the preliminary report by United Nations special rapporteur James Anaya, who just completed a visit to this country.
ENERGY-CHILE: Geothermal Debate Simmers in El Tatio
El Tatio geyser field, a tourist destination in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta, is at the heart of a controversy over a geothermal energy project being developed four kilometres away. The entire area is claimed by Atacama indigenous communities, who now stand divided.EDUCATION: Mother Tongue Absent in Thousands of Classrooms
Millions of children across the world fail to receive a basic education not only because they are born into poverty, but because local authorities do not allow them to read and write in their native language at school.
PERU: Going to School Still a Feat for Rural Girls
María Belén Sabio, a 30-year-old Awajun woman from Peru’s northeastern Amazonia province, was able to complete a teacher training programme despite having five children to raise. "Life here in the countryside is not easy, and I’ve had a hard time getting ahead," she told IPS.RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Uplifting Aboriginals, a Matter of “Urgent National Significance”
In this remote Aboriginal town, 420 km south-west of Darwin, Northern Territory’s capital, third world living conditions still prevail despite the Australian government’s efforts to improve life for its oldest inhabitants.PERU: Three Days of Anti-Government Protests
Wednesday was the second day of a three-day strike declared by trade unions and social movements in Peru to protest the economic policies of President Alan García.
POPULATION: Poorest Countries to Bear Brunt of Growth
The world's population - already at least 6.7 billion people - will double in the next 40 years if current growth rates are left unchecked, warns the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
AGRICULTURE: A Stormy Time for Indigenous Wisdom
Indigenous peoples risk losing control over their traditional knowledge if the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) insists on strict standards for managing access to information.
PERU: Petroleum Sullies the Amazon
"Now the fish are going to disappear," said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas.US-ECUADOR: Chevron Fails in Effort to Lift Trade Benefits
In the latest in a string of setbacks that could cost the U.S. oil giant Chevron billions of dollars in damages, President Barack Obama decided this week to extend trade preferences for Ecuadorean exports for another six months under the 1991 Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).PERU: Minister Tried to Promote Police Investigated for Massacre
Peru’s Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas attempted to promote 11 police officials for their performance in the brutal Jun. 5 crackdown on native protests against government decrees that opened up indigenous land in the Amazon jungle to oil, mining, logging and agribusiness companies.AUSTRALIA: Policy May Force Indigenous Communities From Traditional Lands
A government plan purporting to improve the lives of people living in isolated areas of Australia’s Northern Territory will be implemented at the expense of surrounding homeland communities and ignores the cultural and health benefits for people living on those traditional lands, warn critics.CULTURE-MEXICO: “New Seven Wonders” Win Falls Flat
The Mexican government spent time and money in 2007 to get the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza declared one of the "new seven wonders of the world" in a contest organised by a Swiss-Canadian businessman. But winning has failed to deliver the desired results.MALAYSIA: Blacklisted For Not Enforcing Trafficking Laws
After years of lobbying by rights activists and the international community, Malaysia passed an effective and comprehensive law in 2007 against human trafficking with provisions for protection, shelter and return of trafficked person to their home countries.PERU: Govt Partly Backs Down in Standoff with Native Groups
The Peruvian Congress repealed Thursday two of the most controversial decrees that sparked protests by indigenous groups which ended in bloodshed early this month.PARAGUAY: University Opens Doors to Native Students
Video camera in hand, Isidro Romero is getting ready for another day of classes in the Paraguayan capital. He is studying Communications as part of a programme aimed at breaking down the barriers that have blocked access to university level studies by the country’s small indigenous minority.CHILE: Festival to Showcase Films on Native Peoples
Thanks to the growing number of films by and about indigenous peoples, over 90 movies, mainly from Latin America, will be screened and voted on by spectators at the First Chilean Indigenous Peoples' Film Festival in the Pacific port city of Valparaíso.PERU: Congress Probes Massacre; Prime Minister to Quit
At the initiative of the opposition parties, the Peruvian parliament approved the creation of a committee to investigate the clash early this month between indigenous protesters and the police near the town of Bagua in the northern province of Amazonas, which according to official reports left a death toll of 34.« 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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