Languages
Sunday, November 15, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Tribals Distressed by Ban on Forest Gathering
The magical trill of the Nilgiri Whistling Thrush deep in the jungles of this remote southern Indian wildlife sanctuary is no comfort to its nearly 2,000 Soliga aboriginal tribal families.
VENEZUELA: Lightning in the Sky Fed by Underground Methane
A red, yellow and orange flash illuminates a slice of the sky and Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. For a fraction of a second after, lightning of incandescent white move left to right and right to left between small clouds like dark silhouettes.LATIN AMERICA: And Now For Some More Ambitious Anti-Poverty Goals
Sixty-eight percent of the time available for reaching the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which is to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, has expired, and Latin America has gone 87 percent of the way towards achieving it. Countries that have advanced the most should now work on halving total poverty, ECLAC says.PARAGUAY: State Accused of Violating Rights of Rural Poor
Civil society groups in Paraguay are hoping to persuade a United Nations expert committee to send international observers to investigate allegations of violations of the rights of peasant farmers and indigenous people in this country.CANADA: Native Group Questions Custodial Deaths
Canadian policing authorities are drawing criticism on the issue of in-custody deaths, especially among aboriginal people, including some cases that are now decades old.
ENVIRONMENT: Are Alaska's Energy Riches Blowing in the Wind?
Eight hundred kilometres west of Anchorage, on the coast of Kangirlvar Bay off the Bering Sea, sits the Yup'ik Eskimo community of Toksook Bay.EUROPE: 'Biofuels Can Hurt the Poor'
A body tasked with shaping European Union policy on biofuels is dominated by companies with a vested interest in promoting this source of energy, environmentalists have claimed.ELECTIONS-GUATEMALA: Colom Calls for Unity
"Guatemala is starting out on a path to change, and from now on I am president-(elect of all Guatemalans); I am no longer identified with a single party," said social democrat Álvaro Colom, urging unity after Sunday’s runoff elections.
Q&A: 'We Need Partners, Not Masters'
Bolivian President Evo Morales visited Italy this week to receive a special award for his government's commitment to social and health issues. He has made these issues a "political priority."WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Highlighting the Amazon’s Diversity
The international council of the World Social Forum met this week in the northern Brazilian city of Belem to plan the next steps to be taken by global activists, including the eighth edition of the WSF, to be held in January 2009 in Brazil’s Amazon region.AUSTRALIA: Gov’t Consistent in Opposing Indigenous Rights
Australia’s opposition to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, passed in September, is in step with the government’s approach to domestic policies under Prime Minister John Howard.
RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Civil War Brutality Hits New Lows
While Sri Lanka’s minister for human rights Mahinda Samarasinghe has denied allegations by a top United Nations official that torture is ‘routine’ in the country, there is little doubt that the renewed civil war has resulted in brutality hitting new lows.PERU: Disappointing Talks on Mining Miss the Point
Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo signed a memorandum of understanding with mayors and governors opposed to the Majaz mining company’s Río Blanco project, which the people of the Piura highlands in northern Peru have been opposing for five years.RIGHTS-INDIA: Landless Farmers Demand a Piece of the Action
As India revelled over the emergence of homegrown businessman Mukesh Ambani as the world’s richest person, following a stock market spike this week, landless labourers and socially marginalised groups marched into the capital by the thousand demanding a piece of the country’s newfound prosperity.GUATEMALA: Mayan Manuscript Returned (In Replica)
A Mayan manuscript known as the Dresden Codex was acquired by the Royal Library of the court of Saxony in 1739. As of this week, an exact replica of the precious manuscript is on display in Guatemala, donated by the Saxon State Library in Dresden, Germany, which holds the original.
Q&A: "If You Are Poor, You Are Out"
Miloon Kothari, the U.N. special rapporteur for housing, recently visited Canada on a fact-finding mission to look at homelessness, aboriginal and women's housing issues, and the impact of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.NICARAGUA: Of Forests, Floods, Fatalities and Famine
The forces of nature are giving Nicaragua no respite. After the hurricane that devastated the country’s northeastern Caribbean coast in September, weeks of torrential rains have claimed lives and caused economic damages, and now the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning of famine.
ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Tigers Lose in Park vs People Conflict
Three years after 22 tigers were brazenly hunted down by poachers in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, a protected park in the Aravalli hills of northwestern India, the blame game has not ended.FINANCE: World Bank Confronts Pygmy Challenge Over Logging
The World Bank is scrambling to respond to complaints that it broke its own rules to support commercial logging at the expense of Pygmy lands and livelihoods in the war-wrecked Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).SOUTH PACIFIC: Hero’s Welcome for Bainimarama at Regional Do
Fiji’s interim Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama will return from the 38th Pacific Island Leaders meeting in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, pleased, if not surprised by the hero’s reception he got - to the consternation of the leaders of Australia and New Zealand.ENVIRONMENT: Indigenous People Make Best Forest Custodians
The millions of indigenous people living across Asia and the Pacific are finally gaining recognition for the key role the play in forest conservation.« 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.
The Week with IPS
NEXT STOP - SDGs
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
