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.

At least 70 workers on the Camisea natural gas pipeline in Ayacucho were kidnapped early Monday morning by unidentified assailants and held for a ransom of one million dollars and assorted communications equipment. On Tuesday the army led a raid on the kidnappers, freeing the captives. The whereabouts of the kidnappers are unknown. President Alejandro Toledo said afterward that he believed the kidnappers were remnants of the Maoist Shining Path, whose insurgency led to an extremely violent civil war that killed over 35,000 during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Over 1,500 delegates converged on the New York headquarters of the United Nations this week for the second session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Indigenous representatives, representatives of member states, and officials from international institutions such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization met daily in Conference Room Two for six hours each day to wrestle with the issues of economic and social development, the environment and the methods of work of the Forum itself.

The Western Australia government announced that it would be closing the Swan Valley Nyoongah camp. This decision comes after five suspicious deaths and a number of allegations of abuse against women and children. Premier Geoff Gallop said the risk of keeping the camp open was unacceptable. The opposition is saying Gallop should go further and call for mandatory reporting of abuse cases, as other states in Australia do. Among the dead was 15-year-old Susan Taylor, who was found dead by hanging in 1999.

An investigation performed by Refugees International earlier this year has found that Burma’s soldiers are “systematically using rape as a weapon of war”. Hundreds of women from five different ethnic minority groups have reported being victimized. Women have been raped while being used as forced labor for the military, while farming, in their homes, and while trying to escape to Thailand. Many of the rapes occur in villages close to military bases.

A Landmark Agreement Recognizing the San’s Intellectual Property Rights

On March 24, 2003, a small group of people gathered in the Kalahari Desert of far northern South Africa to observe a momentous occasion. After years of negotiations and uncertainty, representatives of the San peoples of southern Africa joined representatives from South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to celebrate the signing of a benefit-sharing agreement for a drug being developed from a traditional mainstay of the San diet – the seemingly humble Hoodia plant.

Officials of Western governments and international donor agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank will gather in Dhaka next month for the Bangladesh Development Forum. As they forge, and weigh, past and potential commitments to the country, the Peace Campaign Group hopes to draw their attention to the dire situation of the Jumma, the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh.