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Sunday, November 15, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
BOLIVIA: Referendum Gives Major Boost to Autonomy Movement
The overwhelming vote in favour of autonomy in Bolivia’s richest province has strengthened the challenge to the reforms being ushered in by the government of Evo Morales.ECUADOR: New Constitution Addresses Demand for ‘Plurinational’ State
Ecuador’s new constitution, which a constituent assembly expects to finish drafting by mid-June, establishes a united "plurinational" state, recognising equality along with ethnic diversity, as agreed between the government and indigenous organisations.BOLIVIA: Santa Cruz Autonomy Statute Violates Constitution
Voters in the Bolivian province of Santa Cruz, which is in the vanguard of an "autonomy" movement involving six of the country’s nine regions, will decide Sunday on a statute that runs counter to the constitution.
Q&A: A Bishop with His (Sandalled) Feet on the Ground
Fernando Lugo has rocketed into Paraguayan history. Not only is he the first Catholic bishop to be elected president, but he has also ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.
RIGHTS-BOLIVIA: Guarani Families in Forced Servitude
Efforts by Bolivia’s land reform authorities to free 167 Guaraní families living in servitude in Alto Parapetí, a rural area in the eastern Bolivian lowlands province of Santa Cruz, have brought to light a phenomenon that had remained largely hidden and ignored until now in the country’s vast Chaco plains region.RIGHTS: Native People Warn U.N. of Biofuels Disaster
Growing demand for biofuels by the world's rich nations is propelling attacks on indigenous people and destroying their lands and forests, according to native leaders attending a three-week international meeting here.
PERU: Preserving the Potato in Its Birthplace
Thousands of varieties of potato (Solanum tuberosum), one of the most widely-eaten and well-known foods in the world, have been developed in the heart of South America’s Andes mountains, where the crop was domesticated more than 8,000 years ago.DEVELOPMENT-BRAZIL: Activists Opposed to Rebuilding Amazon Highways
Nearly four decades after they were first planned, three highways through the jungles and swamps of Brazil’s Amazon region are being rebuilt. Neglected in the past when they became economically obsolete, they are once again a focus of environmental criticism.ARGENTINA: Training Health Agents to Reduce Child Mortality
An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina’s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for.
RIGHTS-JAPAN: Ainu People to Press Demands at G8 Summit
Japan's hosting of the G8 summit in Hokkaido in July will afford a rare opportunity for the Ainu people who live on the island to press their long-standing demand to be recognised as an indigenous people.POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Equitable Distribution of Wealth – The Challenge
With Malaysia's opposition pact in the ascendancy after stunning gains in a general election last month, some are wondering how different their economic policies are likely to be if they do wrest power, as many expect them to do, eventually.
LATIN AMERICA: Eliminating Poverty at Low Cost
The success of pioneering efforts to reduce inequality and poverty using relatively few resources has led to an expansion in Latin America of direct aid, targeting the most vulnerable families, especially in rural areas.
Q&A: Land Reform Agents Try to Free Indians from Servitude in Bolivia
Alto Parapetí, a rural area in the eastern Bolivian province of Santa Cruz, is caught up in a dispute between large landowners and the government, which is trying to free more than 2,700 Guaraní Indians from a state of servitude.LATIN AMERICA: Can Rising Food Prices Help Small Family Farms?
Rising global food prices could represent an opportunity for the development of small-scale family farming if national governments provide effective support as part of long-term policies, say experts from various agencies.Q&A: “Transgenic Seed Companies Lie and Bribe”
Biotech corporations that developed genetically modified seeds are bribing authorities and carrying out costly advertising campaigns "plagued with lies in order to create monsters that attack life," says Jesús León Santos, an indigenous man who is one of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.
RIGHTS: Climate a "Life and Death" Issue for Native Peoples
Leaders of the world's 370 million indigenous peoples are calling for the United Nations to include their voices in its future talks on climate change.AUSTRALIA: Olympic Torch Set to Light Passions
With demonstrations and counter-demonstrations anticipated this week when the Olympic torch relay makes its way through Canberra, a leading Chinese student’s association has called for politics to make way for harmony.CHINA: Peeved at 'Insults' to Olympic Flame
When the Eiffel Tower was lit up in red to celebrate the Chinese New Year in 2004 during the year of China in France, Chinese people generously professed their love for all things French. "The warmth the Chinese felt could not be described in words," gushed the People’s Daily.
Q&A: "Between Implementation and Planning, There Is a Disconnect"
Accounting for about a third of the gross domestic product in sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture clearly plays a significant role on the continent. But, figures only tell part of the story. A review of Africa produced under the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) notes that agriculture is also "woven into the fabric of most societies and cultures in the region."
POLITICS-DRC: Cautious Calm Settles Over War-Scarred Ituri Region
Wading through the chest-high grass outside of this hamlet in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Mathieu Nyakufa gestures to the bones - still bleaching in the sun - of those who have been lost to the country's wars.
ELECTIONS-PARAGUAY: Indigenous Woman on Course for Senate
An indigenous woman has an excellent chance of winning a seat in Congress for the first time in the history of Paraguay, in Sunday’s general elections.« 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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