New Zealand’s Maori Party harshly protested the Oct. 15 police raids on Maori activists in which 17 were arrested. “This action has violated the trust that has been developing between Maori and Pakeha and sets our race relations back 100… Read moreNew Zealand: Maoris protest “storm trooper” tactics
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Oct. 14, links added: Vernon Bellecourt, a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, died Saturday. He was 75. Bellecourt died at Abbott Northwestern Hospital of complications of pneumonia, said his brother, Clyde Bellecourt, a founder… Read moreAmerican Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt dead at 75
Award-winning journalist Bill Weinberg will give a report-back in Missoula, MT, this week from an international conference on building solidarity with the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC) held in Tokyo this past summer. The IFC is a coalition of trade unions,… Read moreWW4 REPORT’s Bill Weinberg to speak in Missoula, Montana
From SOA Watch, Oct. 12, via Upside Down World: We are very excited to share that President Evo Morales announced Tuesday that Bolivia will gradually withdraw its military from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as… Read moreBolivia pulls out of SOA
Local Colombian officials have accused two US soldiers, Michael J. Cohen and César Ruiz, of sexually assaulting a 12 year-old girl on Aug. 25. The soldiers are stationed at the Tolemaida Airbase near Melgar, Tolima, as part of Plan Colombia…. Read moreColombia: US troops accused in sexual assault of girl, 12
On Oct. 12 Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez joined Colombian president Alvaro Uribe in Ballenas, in the northern Colombian department of La Guajira, to inaugurate the 224 km Trans-Oceanic Gas Pipeline, which will bring as much… Read moreAndean states sign pipeline pact
The town of Vicam in the northwestern Mexico state of Sonora was the site of the Meeting of Indigenous Peoples of America, which brought together some 1,500 representatives of indigenous groups from the US, Canada, Mexico, Central America and South… Read moreMexico: Sonora hosts indigenous encuentro
As has become traditional, thousands of indigenous people held meetings and staged protests in Latin America to mark the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ first landing in the Western Hemisphere in 1492. Oct. 12 is officially known in much of the… Read moreGuatemala: indigenous protests on Oct. 12
On Oct. 14, Iranian authorities arrested Emaddedin Baghi, a prominent activist who who heads the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights and has campaigned against the death penalty “He is charged with spreading propaganda against the regime and publishing… Read moreIran arrests anti-death penalty activist
Mexico’s Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), now convening an international forum on indigenous rights at Vicam, Sonora, are protesting comments by Supreme Court Justice Aguirre Anguiano dismissing the rebel movement as “folklore.” The statement came in a case brought by… Read moreMexico: high court justice dismisses EZLN as “folklore” group
On Oct. 12, the Regional Court in Ostrava, Czech Republic, awarded compensation of CZK500,000 (US$260,000) to a Romani woman, Iveta Červeňáková, 30, for having been sterilized against her will. Ostrava City Hospital is to pay the damages. According to Kumar… Read moreCzech courts indemnify Romani woman for forced sterilization —at last
Elite police units raided properties across New Zealand Oct. 15, apparently seizing weapons in what the media are calling “anti-terrorist” sweeps targeting Maori activists. An armed roadblock was set up around the inland Maori settlement of Ruatoki on the North… Read moreNew Zealand: Maori activists arrested in “terrorist” sweeps
