News Snippets

>> An ad supporting Peru’s last uncontacted tribes is appearing in European and American publications in a bid to stop Peru’s government from allowing an oil pipeline to be built through Indian territory. The ad has been created by the tribal rights group Survival International. >> China has restored access to the Internet in its far western region of Xinjiang, ending 10 months of blocked or limited access. The restrictions were imposed in July 2009 after violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese claimed nearly 200 people.

Spills and omissions

Footage>> Pollution • Ecuador/USA

I don’t want my fingerprints taken

The census, or the collection of citizen data, has been a fundamental aspect of governance for most modern nations.

Roles have reversed

Book>> Sacrificing People: Invasion of a Tribal Landscape • by Felix Padel • Orient Blackswan • Rs 395

A newspaper still handwritten

Discrimination started it

Patkar attacked

A public hearing on police atrocities in the naxal-hit Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh was called off after hundreds of tribals attacked activist Medha Patkar and Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey with rotten eggs and tomatoes on January 6. The tribals¤ mostly supporters of Salwa Judum¤ alleged Patkar and Pandey are supporting naxal sympathizers. Non-profit Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (vca) and several human rights organizations had organized the public hearing.

Western disturbance

A group of international campaigners has launched an online petition against Ethiopia’s Gibe III dam. The group wants to pressure Western donors and banks not to fund the dam, saying it would destroy the means of living of 500,000 people. Ethiopia’s government says the dam is needed to generate enough electricity for its population and to sell abroad. It has called the campaign, online at www.stopgibe3.org, the handiwork of patronizing people in the West.

Chiefs held to book

A coalition of African civil rights groups has asked the continents traditional rulers to apologize for the role they played in the slave trade. We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless, noted Civil Rights Congress in Lagos in an open letter to the traditional chiefs. This is the first time an African group has recognized the complicity of the continents chieftains in the slave trade.

News 360 - Briefs

indigenous peoples rights Lima offers soil, denies subsoil

Interpreter of myth

i hate travellers and explorers, Claude Levi-Strauss wrote in a 1955 work, Tristes Tropiques. It is regarded his most influential work. Perhaps the most influential anthropologist of our times, Levi-Strauss passed away in Paris on October 30.