Moving along with its pleasant-sounding “comfortable housing program,” a lofty endeavor that aims to forcefully move 250,000 Tibetans into featureless apartment blocks under the auspices of ‘protecting the environment and boosting living standards,’ the Chinese Government announced it will relocate more than 52,000 Tibetan herders and farmers this year.

Human rights groups have been consistently speaking out against this program because the resettlements are in fact lowering the Tibetan Peoples’ standard of living. This is made evident in the report “No one has the Liberty to …

Following the standard now synonymous with Canadian mining, Vancouver-based Continuum Resources has reactivated the historic “Natividad” mine site, an area of Oaxaca that’s been looted since before the 17th Century. Largely on Zapotec land, the site is reported to be Oaxaca’s richest gold and silver mine.

Historically, thousands of Zapotec have worked the mine, but today the consequences of development are too well understood. Over the course of 230 years, more than a million ounces of gold and 23 million ounces of silver have been extracted from the site, but …

Directed by Johnathan Demme, The Agronomist is a documentary about the life of Jean Dominique, a respected Haitian journalist and human rights activist who’s life was dedicated to the Haitian People.

Described by his family as “an agronomist without land,” Jean was a source of hope and inspiration throughout his entire career. He survived years of threats and beatings at the hands of Duvalier’s Tonton Macoutes and was twice forced into exile—only to be assassinated as he arrived for his morning news program on April 3, 2000.

During the 1960s, he founded Haiti’s first film club, and then made one of …

There is yet another mine set to be developed on indigenous territory without the consent of the people—a mine that has been so poorly engineered that it threatens an environmental disaster.

According to a Press Release by the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, Western Copper’s proposed Carmacks mine, set to begin this coming spring, “includes a heap leach pile built on the side of a mountain that will cover at least 31.5 hectares (79 acres), and is 90m (300 feet) high.” The mountainside heap would be …

Earlier this week, there were confrontations between police officers and indigenous People in Panama who are opposed to the development of a hydroelectric dam on the Cobre River. On Saturday, about 250 demonstrators closed the Pan-American highway, but were suppressed half an hour later and attacked with tear gas by the National Police.

This was to-be-expected, but as Larrissa Duarte, a spokesperson from the Movement in Defense of the Cobre River, said to La Prensa, they have been carrying out peaceful protests for the past five years, and a …

Just days after a group of Penan came forward to report the disappearance of Kelesau Naan, a respected 79-year old activist and leader from the Penan settlement of Long Kerong in Malaysia, his body was found near Sungai Segita– about a two hours’ walk from Long Kerong.

According to Malaysiakini, the Penan found evidence that he was assaulted. “His hand was broken and looked as if it had been hit by a sharp object,” Matin Bujang told Malaysiakini while en route to lodge a police report.

“While shocked …

As of January 1st, the indigenous town of Sanmin, located in Kaohsiung County, Taiwan, will be known as the Namasiya Township–marking the first day of a new government-backed effort to reclaim the names of Indigenous towns.

According to a an article on Tawain headlines, “the name rectification is in line with appeals from the indigenous movement as well as the “New Partnership between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan” treaty signed by President Chen Shui-bian in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2002…”

The treaty is made up of seven …

On Wednesday, some 300 indigenous people from the Mexican state of Veracruz marched naked through the streets of the capital to demand restitution for the land they were forcefully evicted from in 1992.

The protesters, made up of members from the organization known as “the Movement of 400 Peoples”, have marched every year since then, but they only started doing it nude in 2002.

According to an article on IPS, after they were evicted from the privately-held land they occupied (reclaimed) in 1988, they traveled to the capital and “demanded …

Pictured here is Residential School Activist Nora Bernard, the 72-year old Mi’kmaq woman that started the first class-action lawsuit for Residential Schools survivors in 1996. Nora was recently found dead in her home.

In keeping with the patterns relayed in previous months, December was a time filled with both wanted and unwelcomed events.

On the positive side, government officials in India acknowledged the Narmada dam was illegal; and in Canada, the Ontario Government announced they will be …

“Moving Mountains, ” is a film produced by the Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PhilRights) which examines the toxic legacy of large-scale mining in the Philippines.

The primary focus in the following 10 minute clip is on the region known as the Cordillera.

Home to over a million settlers and indigenous people, the Cordillera is a row of great mountain ranges occupying half of Northern Luzon in the Philippines.

Currently, there are more than 60 pending applications by mining companies to explore and exploit the minerals in the Cordillera–altogether covering more than half of the region (over 11,000 hectares).

There are …