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Friday, November 13, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
PERU: Drama Exposes Rape as Weapon of War
The film La Teta Asustada/The Milk of Sorrow, the big winner at the Berlin Film Festival, drives home the brutal effects of Peru’s armed conflict on thousands of women who were raped and have lived with the pain and a lingering sense of shame and fear ever since.POLITICS-CHINA: Row Over Tibet Escalates
China has sealed off Tibet with troops and demanded that the international community recognise the legitimacy of Beijing's historical claims over the Himalayan plateau, escalating a row over its policies there.
Q&A: Gitmo Uighurs Highlight a Complex Ethnic Problem
Although United States President Barack Obama was quick to order the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay soon after assuming office, the question of what to do with the roughly 175 current inmates who are unlikely to be prosecuted by the U.S. remains.ECONOMY-CHINA: Human Rights Critics Silenced by Meltdown
If the global economic downturn is a crisis with a silver lining for cash-rich Chinese companies intent on bargain deals, it is equally so the image-conscious government whose human right critics have been silenced by the need to cooperate with Beijing on overcoming the recession.SOUTH-EAST ASIA: ‘Bali Process’ May Address Rohingya Crisis
South-east Asian governments are examining the possibility of using a seven-year-old regional mechanism, known as the ‘’Bali Process,’’ to find an answer to minority Muslim Rohingyas fleeing ethnic cleansing in military-ruled Burma.
COLOMBIA: Awa Indians Hemmed in by War
Colombia’s FARC guerrillas admitted to killing eight Awá Indians who they accused of being army informants. Expert on military affairs Ariel Ávila said this indigenous community in the war-torn province of Nariño had formed vigilante "self-defence" groups.RIGHTS-BURMA: Rohingya Issue Figures in Regional Summit
Burma’s military regime has set a tough challenge for regional leaders to grapple with when they gather for a summit over the weekend in this resort town south of Bangkok.RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: New Drive Against Racism
With new figures showing that 44 percent of Australians were either born overseas or have at least one parent who was, community organisations have welcomed a stepped-up government programme to tackle racial, cultural and religious intolerance.
COLOMBIA: Rebels Kill Awa Indians as Army Informants
A local group of Colombia’s FARC guerrillas acknowledged that it had killed eight members of the Awá indigenous group, who it accused of being army informants.
CHILE: Gov’t Unleashes Anti-Terror Law on Mapuche Activist
"They burst in aiming machine guns at us. They found him in the hallway, they grabbed him by the hair, they threw him on the floor and they beat him up," Ida Huenulef told IPS, describing the arrest of her son Miguel, the first indigenous Mapuche activist to be charged under the Anti-Terrorist Law by the government of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.COLOMBIA: A Hundred-Year War on Drugs
The anti-drug, anti-insurgent Plan Colombia is, paradoxically, at the heart of the tragedy involving Awa indigenous people who were murdered this month by the FARC guerrillas.SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Burma's Muslim Rohingyas – The New Boat People *
It happened decades ago when this region was gripped by the fallout of the United States’ war in Vietnam. But the ‘boat people’ phenomenon is back, and this time it has to do with Burma’s Muslim Rohingyas fleeing harsh realities at home.
POLITICS: Rhetoric and Reality Clash on Obama’s First Foreign Visit
On his first foreign visit as U.S. president, Barack Obama's rhetoric of "hope" and "change" came face to face with the hard, divisive policy realities of climate change from Canada's tar sands, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan and the sputtering world economy.RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Year Later Apology to Lost Generations Looks Hollow
One year after the historic apology made to indigenous Australians by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on behalf of the nation, conjecture remains over whether enough has been done to support the acknowledgement of wrongs inflicted on the first Australians.LABOUR-JAPAN: Brazilian Japanese Organise Against Joblessness
Rodney Freitas, 24, is happy to see Brazilians of Japanese descent organising themselves at time when Japan’s economy is cooling down and many are in danger of losing jobs or are already unemployed.RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Change National Day Say Indigenous People
Australia's national day is celebrated annually with much fanfare. But Jan.26, which marks the establishment of the colony of New South Wales more than 200 years ago, is viewed by many indigenous activists as the anniversary of the European invasion of their land.WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: ‘Stateless Peoples’ Defend Diversity
The immense diversity of peoples was apparent at the World Social Forum (WSF), which ended Sunday in Belém, the capital of the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon region.WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Resolution and a Plan of Action
The World Social Forum ended its ninth edition Sunday in Belém with its "Assembly of assemblies" adopting dozens of resolutions and proposals to be the subjects of a programme of mobilisations around the world in 2009.WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Presidents for Feminist Socialism
"True socialism is feminist," and is already being built, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, standing next to three other South American presidents, all of them men, at a dialogue that took place Thursday at the World Social Forum (WSF).THAILAND: Malay-Muslims Complain in Court of Torture
A year after they were allegedly subjected to torture by the Thai army, two young men from the country’s troubled southern provinces have done what no other victim of similar abuse in the area has dared to do - go to court.CHINA: Striking Hard in Tibet 50 Years After The Uprising
China is preparing for the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising - which saw the Himalayan territory’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, flee into exile - with a 'strike hard' campaign and propaganda on the evils of feudal oppression in pre-1949 Tibet.« 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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