YAOUNDE -- Two-thirds of the forests in the Congo River Basin could disappear within 50 years if logging and mineral exploitation continues at current rates, environmental group WWF said in a report.

The United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations is accepting applications for financial assistance for any representatives of indigenous communities who wish to participate in the 2007 deliberations of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, or the Working Group on the Draft United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Applications must be submitted by October 1, and must be in English, French, or Spanish. The U.N.

On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.

 Budapest, Hungary. 

The European Roma Rights Centre filed today an application with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on behalf of 184 Romani residents of camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in northern Kosovo.

On December 18, 2005 Bolivians made history at the polls, as 54 percent of the country’s voters chose Evo Morales, an indigenous Aimara leader of the combative coca-growers’ unions, to become president.

Morales and his party, the Movement to Socialism (MAS), swept the elections in the first round with an absolute majority, trouncing competitors on the right: one a cement mogul and fast food franchise owner, the other a businessman-economist cultivated by the United States as its preferred choice.

The International Training Center of Indigenous Peoples is currently seeking indigenous applicants for its July training in Nuuk, Greenland. The two-week intensive session, conducted entirely in English, will be focused on strengthening participants’ deeper understanding of the many international legal instruments, covenants, and organizations that impact indigenous peoples. Limited funding is available for international travel, however each participant is responsible for funding their own visa and travel within their home country.

On January 26, 2005 the Damara community issued a press statement asking Germany to be held accountable for the lives of 17,000 Damara killed in the Namibian genocide between 1904 and 1907. Damara feel that they need to make their voices heard because discussions of the German genocide in Namibia have largely focused on the Herero. The statement also called on the German government to return the head of Damara warrior /Haihab //Guruseb for reburial.

On October 4, Amnesty International released a report that accuses Canadian officials of being unable to protect aboriginal women from violent attacks in Canada. According to Canadian government statistics, indigenous Canadian women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than all other Canadian women to die of violence. The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), an aggregate of organizations representing First Nations and Métis women, estimates that 500 aboriginal women have gone missing over the past 30 years in Canada.

More than 1,000 indigenous people and indigenous rights advocates are gathered at the United Nations in New York City for the third session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

An important forum entitled “Mapping for Indigenous Advocacy and Empowerment” is to be held in Vancouver, Canada from March 11-14. The International Forum on Indigenous Mapping is aimed primarily at indigenous leaders, elders, communityrepresentatives, and technicians who produce maps to secure the control, use, and protection of their land and resources, and to maintain centuries-old cultural knowledge.