The San people (Bushmen) of Botswana have lodged an appeal against a High Court decision that denied them access to water on their ancestral lands.

TROMSØ, Norway -- The reactions to the assassination of Lisandro Guarcax have been strong in Guatemala and Norway alike. The Guatemalan ambassador to Norway, his Excellency Mr Juan Leon Alvarado, has asked that his country´s authorities give top priority to the investigation.

LIMA, Peru -- Hilaria Supa has broken down many barriers in her life. Now she has overcome another one, in an unprecedented achievement: this Quechua indigenous woman who never went to school is today chair of the congressional education committee in Peru.

TROMSØ, Norway -- This summer, under the leadership of multi-talented artist Lisandro Guarcax, the group called Sotzil took part in the Riddu Riddu Festival. On 25 August Lisandro Guarcax was abducted. The next day he was found assassinated and his body showed clear signs of torture.

CARACAS -- Franklin Brito, who held several long hunger strikes since 2004 to defend ownership of his farm, became the first Venezuelan to fast to the death.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya’s smallest Indigenous tribe that resides in the world’s largest desert lake is in the verge of extinction as climate change and human activities continues unabated on the tributaries that feed the lake.

XIADIAN, China -- Feng Jun´s fight against a local government and the steel mills he believes polluted the water that killed his daughter has cost him nearly everything.

CANADA -- Cities are home to a rising number of Aboriginal Peoples, who -- despite pride in their heritage -- live in Canada´s ethnically diverse urban centres and are reluctant to return to native communities, according to a study on urban aboriginals.

GUATEMALA -- Due to human rights violations affecting the indigenous peoples of the country, Guatemala risks becoming “ungovernable” according to the U.N. indigenous rights special rapporteur, James Anaya, after his visit in June.

GENEVA -– The Government of Nicaragua has delivered to the ILO the instrument of ratification of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), whose purpose is to protect the rights of these peoples and to guarantee respect for their integrity.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- For 46 years, Nicanor García didn´t know that his first name was seven letters long and that the first letter was also the start of the names of his country, Nicaragua, and his father, Norberto. He found out just eight months ago, when he finally learned how to read and write.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- The poverty rate in the districts of southern Chile where the logging industry is the main economic activity is nearly twice the national average, a new study shows.

ALGONQUIN TERRITORY, Canada – What if the federal government imposes a chief and council on an indigenous community, but no one – including the imposed chief – agrees to abide by the decision?

A tribe in India has won a stunning victory over one of the world’s biggest mining companies. In an extraordinary move, India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has blocked Vedanta Resources’ controversial plan to mine bauxite on the sacred hills of the Dongria Kondh tribe.


UNITED NATIONS -– Although the Russian Government has made “important steps” to protect the rights of its indigenous people, a United Nations independent human rights expert today urged the country to accelerate progress.

QUITO, Ecuador -- The powerful middleman threatened them: "I hope it lasts for you. I hope the government buys your beans forever, because I don´t want you ever coming back to me!"

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The original inhabitants of the equatorial forests of Africa’s Great Lakes region – the Batwa Indigenous community - are decrying the high rate of violence against women, says a new report.

NEW YORK –- People around the globe marked the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People Aug. 9 as the U.S. State Department continued its review of the federal government’s rejection of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

TRINIDAD, Bolivia -- In the northeastern Bolivian department (province) of Beni, a region of wetlands, savannah and jungle where three-quarters of the population lives in poverty, indigenous women are building a new kind of leadership to help develop their communities.

Ottawa -- Canadian sealers claimed a victory saying the European Court of Justice had suspended a seal products ban, even though the European Commission insisted the ban would come into force Friday as scheduled.

ALTAMIRA, Brazil, -- It might seem a bit strange to adopt, in the Amazon rainforest, a solution developed for drought-stricken northeastern Brazil. But rainwater collected on rooftops and stored in tanks is helping to improve the health, hygiene and overall living conditions of rural communities in the jungle.

Inukjuak, Nunavik -- "We would like to offer a full and sincere apology to Inuit for the relocation of families from Inukjuak and Pond Inlet to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay during the 1950s",said John Duncan, the new minister of Indian affairs and northern development, who offered an official apology from Canada.

IRVING, N.Y. -– The Seneca Nation council has authorized the nation’s president to file a human rights violation and a hate crime complaint with local, state and international bodies against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for making “derogatory racial statements” against the nation and its citizens.

UNITED NATIONS-- The United Nations and other relief organisations will observe World Humanitarian Day Thursday amid steadily increasing attacks on aid workers.

The Palawan tribe of the Philippines is celebrating after a local government panel refused to give the go-ahead to mining giant MacroAsia to mine on their traditional territory.

BLANTYRE,Malawi -- Hop over a seep of filthy sludge behind a bathroom screened with ragged sacks, turn past the toilet with battered cardboard walls, crab between mud-brick shanties roofed with rusty metal... There: emerge into a small, neat yard where a dozen women and girls are filling plastic buckets from five water taps sticking out of concrete wall.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia –- Through their work at the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network and a local rape crisis center, Cherry Smiley and Laura Holland are on the frontlines of helping girls and women escape the horrors of forced prostitution.

GUATEMALA CITY -- "I used to work on the south coast, cutting sugar cane, and I would go all the way to Belize to pick oranges during the harvest. I went through a lot so we could get by," Héctor Pan, a Q´eqchi Indian in Guatemala who has now abandoned farming to become a river rafting guide, told IPS.