The world’s indigenous peoples are making themselves heard in international arenas, and at the national level, where their growing mobilisation is translating into political muscle. But many challenges remain in the fight for recognition of all their rights.

U.S.: Obama Urged to Sign Native Rights Declaration
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world?s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46742

*****
PERU: Govt Partly Backs Down in Standoff with Native Groups
By Ángel Páez*
LIMA (IPS) – The Peruvian Congress repealed Thursday two of the most controversial decrees that sparked protests by indigenous groups which ended in bloodshed early this month. The decrees opened up native territories in the Amazon jungle to mining, oil drilling, logging and agribusiness.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47297

*****
AGRICULTURE: Foreigners Lead Global Land Rush
By Stephen Leahy*
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, USA (Tierramérica) – More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global “land grab” that got a boost from last year’s food crisis.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46724

*****
Q&A: How an Alcohol Ban Revived an Aboriginal Community
Shari Nijman interviews JUNE OSCAR, CEO of Marninwarntikura Fitzroy Women?s Resource Centre
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – In 2007, a group of aboriginal women from Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia decided that the only thing that could save their community from going under was to impose a complete ban on the sales of takeaway alcohol.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46945

*****
PARAGUAY: University Opens Doors to Native Students
By Natalia Ruiz Díaz
ASUNCIÓN (IPS) – 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.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47282

*****
AUSTRALIA: Plan to Tackle Domestic Violence Wins Support
By Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE (IPS) – Kelly Johnson was just 28 when she was murdered by a former boyfriend at her Adelaide home last year. The mother of one was hit on the head with a frying pan and stabbed repeatedly with “startling ferocity”, according to Justice Trish Kelly, who handed down a mandatory life sentence to Johnson’s killer, Daniel Hall, in February.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46825

*****
RIGHTS: Indigenous Lands Plundered in Oil and Gas Rush
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – Leaders of the world?s 370 million indigenous peoples who are attending an international meeting here this week say they want governments to stop oil and gas corporations from further extraction on their lands.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46919

*****
CHILE: Festival to Showcase Films on Native Peoples
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO (IPS) – 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.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47258

*****
PERU: Congress Probes Massacre; Prime Minister to Quit
By Ángel Páez
LIMA (IPS) – 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.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47248

*****
RIGHTS-PERU: Activists Urge Obama to Use Trade Pact as Leverage
By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK (IPS) – The United States government is coming under intense pressure from rights organisations and environmental groups to redefine its trade pact with Peru, a tool that they charge the government in Lima is using to justify oppression against the indigenous population.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47247

**********
SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE NEW IPS GENDERWIRE:

IPS wants to redress a huge imbalance that exists today: Only about 22 percent of the voices you hear and read in the news are women?s. You can change your perspective – Read the new IPS Gender Wire.
ipsnews.net/_newsletter/genderwire.asp

**********
DON’T MISS IPS EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE OF WOMEN IN THE NEWS.

Elections, health, education, armed conflicts, corruption, laws, trade, climate change, the global financial and food crises, and natural disasters – IPS covers these frontline issues asking an often forgotten question: What does it mean for women and girls?
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/women/index.asp

**********
DON’T MISS IPS SPECIAL COVERAGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE.

Through coverage of issues like food security, extractive industries, biodiversity and climate change, IPS is giving a voice to people whose stories are seldom heard. IPS is also highlighting the various challenges they face in the globalised world: health and food insecurity, environment degradation and poverty.
www.ipsnews.net/environment.asp

You’ll find more IPS indigenous news and links at: ipsnews.net/new_focus/indigenous_peoples/

Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), the world’s leading provider of information on global issues, is backed by a network of journalists in more than 150 countries. Its clients include more than 3,000 media organisations and tens of thousands of civil society groups, academics, and other users.

IPS focuses its news coverage on the events and global processes affecting the economic, social and political development of peoples and nations.

Visit Inter Press Service at www.ipsnews.net