Indigenous

Nov. 4 (UPI) — Indigenous communities in the Yurúa district, on the remote border between Peru and Brazil, have raised the alarm over the growing presence of members of Brazil’s Comando Vermelho criminal organization in their territory.

They say the group is exploiting what they describe as a “state vacuum” that leaves those living there unprotected against the advance of organized crime.

The armed Brazilian group has been crossing from Brazil into the Peruvian Amazon, taking part in drug-trafficking routes, illegal logging and other illicit activities that threaten the physical, cultural and territorial integrity of the Amazonian peoples, according to reports.

Those reports come from the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, the Regional Organization AIDESEP Ucayali and the Association of Native Communities of the Yurúa-Sheshea District.

In the Yurúa and Breu river basins, residents have reported sightings of small planes landing on improvised airstrips in the early morning hours, establishment of unfamiliar camps inside Indigenous reserves and movement of boats carrying cargo without government oversight.

The situation has reinforced perceptions that Comando Vermelho and allied criminal networks are operating with relative impunity in the region.

After a large-scale operation at the end of October against organized crime in Rio de Janeiro, the Comando Vermelho’s main base of operations, alarms sounded over possible attempts by senior members of the criminal organization to seek refuge in neighboring countries.

Indigenous organizations are not only denouncing the problem but also demanding immediate and coordinated action from the Peruvian government, La República reported.

To that end, they have outlined five key areas for response: maintaining a permanent security presence, coordinating efforts between the Interior and Defense ministries, protecting Indigenous leaders, promoting alternative development for local communities and granting legal recognition to a “Transborder Indigenous Guard” to monitor the frontier with Brazil.

Former Interior Minister Rubén Vargas warned in an interview with Radio Exitosa that Comando Vermelho is conducting criminal operations in Peru, mainly along the Amazon River route, reinforcing community warnings in Yurúa and surrounding areas.

And the reach of this criminal network has expanded into the regions of Pasco and Huánuco, in the area known as Puerto Inca, a hub for drug trafficking and illegal mining.

“There are two businesses that interest Comando Vermelho: cocaine and illegal mining,” Vargas said.

Although press reports dating to 2019 have documented the activities of the criminal organization in Peru’s Amazon territories, many details about Comando Vermelho’s operations along the Peru-Brazil border remain unclear because of the region’s inaccessibility, lack of disaggregated official data and clandestine nature of the networks.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is expected to soon announce that it will return a few dozen artifacts to Indigenous communities in Canada as part of its reckoning with the Catholic Church’s troubled role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas, officials said Wednesday.

The items, including an Inuit kayak, are part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of controversy for the Vatican amid the broader museum debate over the restitution of cultural goods taken from Indigenous peoples during colonial periods.

Negotiations on returning the Vatican items accelerated after Pope Francis in 2022 met with Indigenous leaders who had traveled to the Vatican to receive his apology for the church’s role in running Canada’s disastrous residential schools. During their visit, they were shown some objects in the collection, including wampum belts, war clubs and masks, and asked for them to be returned.

Francis later said he was in favor of returning the items and others in the Vatican collection on a case-by-case basis, saying: “In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Wednesday it has been working with Indigenous groups on returning the items to their “originating communities.” It said it expected the Holy See to announce the return. Vatican and Canadian officials said they expected an announcement in the coming weeks, and that the items could arrive on Canadian soil before the end of the year.

The Globe and Mail newspaper first reported on the progress in the restitution negotiations.

Doubt cast on whether the items were freely given

Most of the items in the Vatican collection were sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens that was a highlight of that year’s Holy Year.

The Vatican insists the items were “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized.

But historians, Indigenous groups and experts have long questioned whether the items could really have been offered freely, given the power imbalances at play in Catholic missions at the time. In those years, Catholic religious orders were helping to enforce the Canadian government’s forced assimilation policy of eliminating Indigenous traditions, which Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”

Part of that policy included confiscating items used in Indigenous spiritual and traditional rituals, such as the 1885 potlatch ban that prohibited the integral First Nations ceremony. Those confiscated items ended up in museums in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as well as private collections.

The return of the items in the Vatican collection will follow the “church-to-church” model the Holy See used in 2023, when it gave its Parthenon Marbles to the Orthodox Christian Church in Greece. The three fragments were described by the Vatican as a “donation” to the Orthodox church, not a state-to-state repatriation to the Greek government.

In this case, the Vatican is expected to hand over the items to the Canadian bishops conference, with the explicit understanding that the ultimate keepers will be the Indigenous communities, a Canadian official said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are not concluded.

What happens after the items are returned

The items, accompanied by whatever provenance information the Vatican has, will be taken first to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. There, experts and Indigenous groups will try to identify where the items originated, down to the specific community, and what should be done with them, the official said.

The official declined to say how many items were under negotiation or who decided what would be returned, but said the total numbered “a few dozen.” The aim is to get the items back this year, the official said, noting the 2025 Jubilee which celebrates hope but is also a time for repentance.

This year’s Jubilee comes on the centenary of the 1925 Holy Year and missionary exhibit, which is now so controversial that its 100th anniversary has been virtually ignored by the Vatican, which celebrates a lot of anniversaries.

The Assembly of First Nations said some logistical issues need to be finalized before the objects can be returned, including establishing protocols.

“For First Nations, these items are not artifacts. They are living, sacred pieces of our cultures and ceremonies and must be treated as the invaluable objects that they are,” National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told Canadian Press.

Gloria Bell, associate professor of art history at McGill University who has conducted extensive research on the 1925 exhibit, said the items were acquired during an era of “Catholic Imperialism” by a pope who “praised missionaries and their genocidal labors in Indigenous communities as ‘heroes of the faith.’”

“This planned return marks a significant shift in the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and perhaps the beginning of healing,” said Bell, who is of Metis ancestry and wrote about the 1925 exhibit in “Eternal Sovereigns: Indigenous Artists, Activists, and Travelers Reframing Rome.”

Winfield writes for the Associated Press.

“We have to die so people can keep working.” Canada’s Grassy Narrows First Nation is taking on the government over a local employer’s poisoning of their water.

Skardu, Pakistan – When Wasiyat Khan was woken up by a loud explosion in the middle of the night, he thought “the mountains had burst” and a landslide was on its way.

Accompanied by his family, Wasiyat, a shepherd from Roshan valley of Ghizer, in northern Pakistan’s mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region, had taken his livestock to elevated land for grazing on a sojourn during the warmer months.

Soon enough, as the family sought immediate safety, he realised the explosion was the sound of a glacier bursting. As their temporary accommodation was being swept away by the floodwaters, Wasiyat thought of the villages which lay in the water’s path.

At more than 3,000 metres in the darkness of the night, outside help was impossible to get. He immediately jumped across boulders and reached a designated spot where he could get mobile phone signals and alerted the villagers, who numbered about 300.

“Within 30 minutes, we got a call back saying the villagers had evacuated safely and no lives were lost,” Wasiyat told local media. “While they were safe, we were left with nothing, not even a matchstick to keep us warm near the glaciers. It was very cold and we were suffering.

“When we were rescued hours later and taken back to the village, we found out that all our houses and land were covered by mud, but no lives were lost.”

The glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) is a common occurrence in northern Pakistan, home to an estimated 13,000 glaciers. As global warming worsens, the effect of more glaciers melting is “likely to be significant” this year, Pakistan’s disaster management authority, NDMA, had said in March.

In its latest assessment, the NDMA says snowfall across Pakistan in the coming months is projected to be less than average, particularly in areas like Gilgit-Baltistan, reducing overall snow accumulation. A reduced snow cover, it fears, would accelerate glacier retreat by exposing ice earlier in the season, making high-altitude regions more vulnerable to GLOFs.

To prevent such occurrences, the government mainly relies on its early warning systems (EWS), which help in reducing loss of life and injury, economic losses, protecting critical infrastructure, and enhancing climate resilience. 

An EWS functions through an interconnected process made up of sensors and gauges that collect real-time data monitored by meteorologists and experts to not only warn of a current hazard, but also predict a disaster. Dozens of EWS sites across the most climate-vulnerable valleys in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are currently transmitting real-time data to the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

‘Human EWS’

But residents in northern Pakistan say they are more reliant on Indigenous human knowledge instead of the EWS technology.

Mohammad Hussain, a shepherd in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Skardu Valley, told Al Jazeera about an incident when he was inside his stone hut during the summer. After nearly an hour of rainfall, he witnessed strong lightning followed by an unusual roaring sound.

As he stepped out of the hut to gather his cattle, he saw a powerful flash flood, carrying enormous boulders and uprooting large trees. Acting quickly, he alerted the villagers, which ensured safe evacuation before the floodwaters reached.

He recounted stories shared by his grandfather, who said people relied on large signal fires, gunfire or specific sound patterns to alert others. Natural signs such as sudden heavy rainfall, cloud formations, unusual animal behaviour, and distinct roaring sounds are still being used to predict flash floods in the absence of the EWS.

In one incident, he attempted to light a fire to alert villagers below, but, due to daylight and heavy rain, it was ineffective. He then fired his gun three times, a pre-agreed signal indicating danger. Villagers who heard the gunfire raised alarms through the mosque’s loudspeaker, initiating a rapid evacuation.

Although there were significant economic losses, there were no casualties, demonstrating the effectiveness of this “human EWS”.

Pakistan ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations, even though it contributes less than 1 percent of global emissions. The World Bank said in 2023 that the mean temperature in Pakistan since the 1950s has risen by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.34 degrees Fahrenheit), which is twice as fast as the global mean change.

The country’s climate change minister, Musadiq Malik, recently told Al Jazeera that “when these [glacial] floods hit, they cause immense mortality, morbidity and widespread displacement,” adding that “it’s a harsh reality we face.” Pakistan faced nearly 90 such floods between 2019 and 2022.

‘Technology alone won’t save lives’

Despite spending millions on EWS and its implementation, there has been widespread lack of trust placed in it by a number of communities, due to frequent reports of malfunctioning of equipment and lack of follow-ups by the concerned agencies.

A report in Pakistan’s Friday Times in June this year said “despite launching the $37m GLOF-II project in 2017, with new gauges, sirens, and local training, no real-time link connects human sensors in villages to official rescue teams.”

The report warned that “technology alone won’t save lives if SOPs sit buried, rescue checklists gather dust, and trust is missing on the ground.”

Some villagers Al Jazeera spoke to in Gilgit-Baltistan echoed that sentiment, speaking of their lack of trust in the equipment, questioning its effectiveness, and sharing concerns that these systems have not worked. They also slammed officials for falsely taking credit for the system’s effectiveness in saving lives.

“Residents say the EWS in Gilgit-Baltistan have been installed without taking the local authorities and communities into confidence, which was the reason they could not play an effective role,” Zaki Abbas, an Islamabad-based journalist who writes on climate change, told Al Jazeera.

“Last year, I was told by a local activist that up to 20 systems had been installed at various spots, but they had not been operational for different reasons. This controversy surrounding this issue had also echoed in the GB legislative assembly, with the opposition leaders in the region most recently demanding an investigation into the failure of these systems. However, no such probe was ordered.

“Their ineffectiveness can be gauged by the fact that warnings about GLOFs have come from people, most recently a shepherd whose timely call saved an entire village, instead of these systems on which billions of rupees have been spent.”

Addressing the challenges remains a task for the government and partners involved in the implementation of EWS. The UNDP said in February this year that “limited financial resources, technical capacity, data gaps and uncertainties, communication barriers, weak institutional capacities, and complex and evolving climate risks” are just some of the issues facing EWS globally.

When Wasiyat and two other shepherds from Ghizer were given $28,000 each in August by Pakistan’s prime minister as rewards for saving hundreds of lives, they were told that “this act of courage and responsibility will be written in golden words.”

As unpredictable rains, snow patterns and melting glaciers continue to affect Pakistan, especially the northern areas, it seems residents are more likely to rely on these “heroes” in the absence of widespread EWS and the community’s trust in them.

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

Returning home

About 70 percent of the Nukak population remains displaced from their ancestral lands, according to the FCDS.

Most families have been pushed into sedentary lifestyles, settling in makeshift camps on the edge of towns, where addiction and child sexual exploitation became widespread.

Others have settled on small plots in rural areas, where tensions with settlers flared over land disputes.

“The settlers took over the land as if it were vacant. They say there were no Nukak, but what happened was that the Nukak got sick and left,” said Njibe.

In the most remote reaches of the Amazon, where the Nukak reservation is located, the Colombian government has little presence.

The Nukak, therefore, have few legal protections from settler violence when they try to reclaim their lands.

But in recent years, Nukak members like Njibe, tired of waiting for government action, resolved to return on their own.

The idea gained traction in 2020, when several clans retreated into the jungle for fear of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But after returning to their relative isolation, the clans considered staying for good. They called on nongovernmental organisations like FCDS for support.

At that time, Njibe was living on a small farm inside the limits of the Nukak Maku reservation.

Even within the reservation, decades of colonisation had razed large swaths of the forest. Grassy pastures dotted with cows had replaced the Amazon’s towering palm trees.

Deforestation had increased in the wake of a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC. The rebel group previously limited deforestation in the Amazon in order to use its dense canopies as cover against air surveillance.

But, as part of the deal, FARC — the largest armed rebel group at the time — agreed to demobilise. A power vacuum emerged in its place.

According to FCDS, powerful landowners quickly moved into areas formerly controlled by the FARC, converting the land into cattle pastures.

Armed dissident groups who rejected the peace deal also remained active in the area, charging extortion fees per cow.

“The colonisation process has caused many [Nukak] sites to be either destroyed or absorbed by settler farms,” said a FCDS expert who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

Still, in 2022, the FCDS forged ahead with a pilot programme to support seven Nukak communities as they settled deeper into the reservation, where the lush forest still remained. There, the Nukak hoped they could revive a more traditional, if not completely nomadic, way of life.

But many of the expeditions to identify permanent relocation sites failed.

Initially, Njibe hoped to move to a sacred lake inside the reservation that he recalled from his childhood, but once he arrived at the site, he found that it was now part of a ranch.

When he asked the settler who ran the ranch for permission to stay there, the rancher rejected his request, and Njibe was forced to choose another place to live.

He considered returning to a forested area — about 24 hectares (59 acres) wide, roughly the size of 33 football fields — that he considered his childhood home.

But that too lay within a ranch. This time, however, the settler in question, who Njibe said was more sympathetic to his land claims, allowed him to stay.

As the Nepali night takes on the texture of velvet, the party naturally divides. The men sway in a circle, singing plaintively. The women surround an elderly lady who smokes tobacco rolled in writing paper. And I settle into swapping stories with the girls. Alina and her younger cousins Miching and Blinka may be draped in the silks and heavy jewellery of the Indigenous Aath Pahariya Rai community, but they’re as keen to talk love and travel as any young women. “I’m too independent to get married until I’m very old,” declares 21-year-old Alina. “When I graduate, I want to go to Paris – and then come home to Sipting. Life’s peaceful here and the air is clear.”

Melbourne, Australia – A far-right “anti-immigration” march escalated into a violent attack on a sacred Indigenous site in Melbourne last weekend, raising serious questions about police conduct and institutional responses to neo-Nazi groups in Australia.

The march on Sunday, which saw members of the self-described neo-Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN) lead chants of “Australia for the white man”, culminated in a group of 50 men storming Camp Sovereignty – the site of a historic Aboriginal burial ground in the city.

The attack left four people injured, with two hospitalised for severe head wounds.

The “March for Australia” protest against mass immigration came just one week after more than 350,000 people marched across Australia in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

Far-right and neo-Nazi connections were evident in the organisation of the march.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), prominent far-right figure Hugo Lennon, an associate of the neo-Nazi NSN, was listed as an original organiser before being quietly removed from the event’s Facebook page days prior.

In a statement released a day before the march, Thomas Sewell, leader of the NSN, declared, “March for Australia is about stopping immigration. No illegal actions or gestures will be performed by our members on the day.”

For some, the ensuing violence at Camp Sovereignty made clear the event’s underlying intentions.

“The rally was never about immigration but an excuse to parade white supremacist ideas in Australia,” said Ilo Diaz from the Centre Against Racial Profiling.

‘We knew they were coming back’: The assault on Camp Sovereignty

The Camp Sovereignty protest site occupies the “Kings Domain” parkland area in central Melbourne.

The camp is considered a sovereign embassy of Australia’s First Nation people and a sacred space dedicated to honouring Indigenous ancestors and healing generational trauma within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, particularly the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

Established in 2006 by elders Robbie and Marg Thorpe, Camp Sovereignty marks the site of an Indigenous ceremonial place and burial ground, and has come to symbolise ongoing Indigenous resistance in Australia, advocating for an end to genocide and recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and land rights.

Nathalie Farah, who said she was kicked in the stomach during the attack on the camp, said the threat from the far right was evident hours before the violence took place.

“Earlier that morning, Tom [Sewell] and a couple of his mates walked through Camp Sovereignty,” Farah told Al Jazeera.

“They wanted to walk through the sacred fire. We knew that they were going to come back. The police knew they were coming back,” Farah said.

At approximately 5pm local time, a large group, led by Sewell, armed with poles and pipes, charged the camp.

Video footage shared on social media showed the attackers, most dressed entirely in black, charging towards the camp and assaulting anyone in their path as they tore down First Nation flags and inflicted damage to the site.

The Black Peoples Union, an Indigenous political organisation, said the attackers chanted “white power” and racial slurs while stamping on the camp’s sacred fire – which is kept burning to honour the Indigenous ancestors buried at the site – and trampling on the Aboriginal flag.

Video clips of the attack showed the men and younger youths specifically targeting women at the camp.

“I had what looked like a 15-year-old boy rip my hair, throw me to the ground and smash into my face with his fists. He did it with a smile on his face,” a 30-year-old teacher said in a witness statement to the Black Peoples Union.

Naarm Frontline Medics, a volunteer medical group, alleged police arrived at the camp only after the attackers fled, and claimed officers “came with pepper spray drawn on the victims of the assault, not the attackers”.

The medics also accused officers of having “actively obstructed the victims ‘ access to emergency medical care”.

Victoria Police confirmed they made no arrests at the site.

A ‘globally networked’ threat

Researchers note the attack on Camp Sovereignty was not an isolated incident but part of a growing, internationally connected, far-right threat.

The White Rose Society, which monitors far-right extremism, told Al Jazeera the neo-Nazi NSN group is “heavily networked with the international far right” through groups such as Terrorgram and 764/COM, with leaders “playing a prominent role in the international active club network”.

“Australian fascists and neo-Nazis have extensive reach on social media to an international audience, contributing to neo-Nazi news sites that promote anti-Semitic content,” the group said.

The NSN did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

The group’s Telegram channel displays multiple videos showing members training in combat techniques and chanting “white men fight back”, content that is also promoted across their TikTok accounts and official website.

The camp attack has highlighted concerns among some regarding the selective condemnation of far-right violence from official institutions in Australia.

Australia’s special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, Jillian Segal, who was appointed to lead efforts against anti-Semitic actions in Australia, has yet to issue a statement addressing the neo-Nazi violence.

Segal also declined to address the role of neo-Nazis in the “March for Australia” protest, telling reporters at a conference: “I don’t want to comment on any particular incidents as I think this goes beyond any particular incident.”

In July, Segal said she had no involvement in a major donation by a company co-directed by her husband to Advance Australia – a conservative lobby group that rails against immigration, pro-Palestinian protests, and the Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Aboriginal Senator Lidia Thorpe, a Djab Wurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman, condemned what she called institutional hypocrisy in dealing with the far-right in Australia.

“Why are the authorities allowing this to happen? Why is the prime minister allowing this to happen?” Senator Thorpe said.

Thorpe has demanded a full investigation into the attack on Camp Sovereignty and has directly linked the slow police response to systemic racism in Australian society.

“We see how the Victorian Police treat Aboriginal people every day on the streets. There needs to be a full investigation on the infiltration of the neo-Nazi movement into not only the Victorian police force, but every so-called police force in this country,” Thorpe said.

“I’m sure there’s a lot more members of the NSN that wear badges amongst the police force,” she added.

The March for Australia rally proceeded with a significant police presence last weekend. Videos and witness accounts show police officers walking alongside the demonstrators.

When counter-protesters attempted to block NSN members from joining the main rally, video footage shared by the NSN and anti-fascist organisers showed police using pepper spray, but only on counter-protesters.

Political commentator Tom Tanuki said this selectivity fitted a pattern of police conduct that “invariably” sides with the far right.

“I wasn’t surprised to see them, as depicted in my video, defending NSN’s entry into the rally and pepper-spraying people out of the way,” Tanuki said.

A statement released before the march by Victoria Police declared, “Anyone thinking of coming into the city to cause trouble, display hateful behaviour, breach the peace or confront others will be met with a strong police response.”

A measure of accountability

More than 48 hours after the attack on Camp Sovereignty, NSN leader Sewell was arrested and charged. On Friday, he was denied bail by a court in Melbourne. Five other NSN members were arrested and released on bail.

Despite the arrests, authorities have not classified the attack on Camp Sovereignty as a racially motivated hate crime, which has prompted condemnation from Aboriginal leaders.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Senator Thorpe stated unequivocally: “Camp Sovereignty is our place of worship. For the authorities, even the federal parliament and the prime minister, not to see this as a hate crime, to refuse to name it and treat it as one, shows we have a serious problem in this country.

“It’s racism in itself not to call it what it is,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe connected the violence to Australia’s colonial legacy.

“The war has not ended for our people,” she added.

“We have over 600 Aboriginal deaths in custody with no one held accountable. 24,000 of our children have been taken from their mothers’ arms. They’re locking up our babies from age 10; 93 percent of the child prison population are our children. The genocide continues.”

Despite the attack, Camp Sovereignty remains, and a nationwide day of action has been called by Aboriginal resistance organisation The Blak Caucus on September 13, to show solidarity with the camp.

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay,, Aug. 26 (UPI) — Paraguay unveiled one of the region’s most ambitious cultural preservation projects with the launch of Proyecto Guaraní-Revista Ysyry, a digital archive and bilingual anthology that safeguards more than 14,000 poems, songs and writings in Guaraní, Spanish and Jopará.

Revista Ysyry, a Paraguayan literary magazine that ran from 1942 to 1995, publishing over 20,000 poems and songs in Guaraní, Spanish, and Jopará (a blend of the two languages).

The initiative, launched in 2023 and presented Monday, combines a free online library called Oremba’e, or What Is Ours, with the printed bilingual volume Che Ñe’ẽ, Che Purahei (“My word, my song”), which includes nearly 200 selected works.

The collection was entrusted to former U.S. ambassador to Paraguay James Cason, a longtime advocate of Guaraní culture.

“Paraguay is the only bilingual country in Latin America,” Cason said. “Everyone speaks Guaraní. It is the soul of the country. Guaraní is Paraguay.”

That is the most widely spoken of the Tupian languages, a family of indigenous tongues once used by native communities across much of South America. Today, it is one of the few spoken broadly, even by people who do not identify as Indigenous, and serves as the first or second language for millions.

According to Paraguay’s 2024 Household Survey, 38.7% of the population over age 5 speaks both Guaraní and Spanish at home, 30% communicate primarily in Guaraní and 28.5% use Spanish. Another 2.4% relies on other languages, such as English, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Korean or Arabic.

Cason explained that he began to study the language before arriving in Asunción, surprising audiences when he delivered his first speech entirely in Guaraní. He later received a vast archive of works from the daughter of Ysyry magazine’s late editor, who asked him to ensure its preservation.

For 17 years, Cason sought support to protect the material until the Global Peace Foundation and Instituto Patria Soñada agreed to take on the task.

“This is more than music and poetry,” he said. “It is a sociological and historical record of what people were thinking when these works were written.”

Carmen Giménez, director of the Guarani Project and member of Instituto Patria Soñada, stressed that the language’s vitality goes beyond its Indigenous roots.

“Guaraní is spoken by Indigenous and mestizo populations alike, across rural and urban sectors and even among cultural and political elites,” she said. “It has become a unifying element in a diverse society, a symbol of national identity and resilience in the face of historical attempts to sideline it.

“The Paraguayan case is considered exemplary in Latin America. While in countries such as Argentina, Brazil or Chile Indigenous languages became confined to small communities and many risked extinction, in Paraguay, Guarani evolved into a national and co-official language.”

The National Secretariat of Culture has declared the project of cultural interest. Organizers say the archive will give researchers, musicians and new generations unprecedented access to Paraguay’s literary and musical heritage.

Coroner’s finding comes five years after acquitted policeman Zachary Rolfe fatally shot 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker.

An Australian police officer who shot dead an Indigenous teenager was a racist drawn to “high adrenaline policing”, a landmark coronial inquiry has found.

Racist behaviour was also “normalised” in Zachary Rolfe’s Alice Springs police station, said the 682-page findings released in a ceremony in the remote outback town of Yuendumu in central Australia on Monday.

The findings were delivered five years after the shooting of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker, leading to protests around the country. But Rolfe was found not guilty of murder in a trial in the Northern Territory capital of Darwin in 2022.

Walker was shot three times during the attempted arrest in Yuendumu – one of 598 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have died in custody since 1991 when detailed records began.

“I found that Mr Rolfe was racist,” said Northern Territory coroner Elisabeth Armitage, delivering her conclusions after a nearly three-year inquiry.

Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage has handed down her Findings into the death of Kumanjayi Walker #auslaw https://t.co/4uAEzIkwhd pic.twitter.com/hNb6UPnDUT

— NT Courts (@CourtsinNT) July 7, 2025

Rolfe, who was dismissed from the police force in 2023 for reasons not directly related to the shooting, worked in an organisation with the hallmarks of “institutional racism”, she said.

There was a “significant risk” that Rolfe’s racism and other attitudes affected his response “in a way that increased the likelihood of a fatal outcome”, she said.

Walker’s family and community will always believe racism played an “integral part” in his death, the coroner said. “It is a taint that may stain the [Northern Territory] police.”

The coroner cited offensive language used in a so-called awards ceremony for the territory’s tactical police, describing them as “grotesque examples of racism”.

“Over the decade the awards were given, no complaint was ever made about them,” she said.

The policeman’s text messages also showed his attraction to “high adrenaline policing”, and his “contempt” for some more senior officers as well as remote policing. These attitudes “had the potential to increase the likelihood of a fatal encounter with Kumanjayi”, she said.

In a statement shared before the coroner released her findings, Walker’s family said the inquest had exposed “deep systemic racism within the NT police”.

“Hearing the inquest testimony confirmed our family’s belief that Rolfe is not a ‘bad egg’ in the NT Police force, but a symptom of a system that disregards and brutalises our people,” the family said in the statement shared on social media.

“Crucially, the inquest heard evidence backing a return to full community-control, stating what yapa have always known: when we can self-determine our futures and self-govern our communities, our people are stronger, our outcomes are better, our culture thrives,” the statement said, referring to the Warlpiri people, also known as Yapa.

Armitage’s presentation was postponed last month after 24-year-old Warlpiri man Kumanjayi White, who was also from Yuendumu, died in police custody in a supermarket in Alice Springs.

White’s death also prompted protests and calls for an independent investigation into his death.

RICHMOND, Calif. — An oil tanker sat docked at Chevron’s sprawling refinery in Richmond, Calif., on Thursday — a visible link between California’s appetite for Amazon crude and the remote rainforest territories where it’s extracted. Just offshore, bundled in puffy jackets against the Bay wind, Indigenous leaders from Ecuador’s Amazon paddled kayaks through choppy waters, calling attention to the oil expansion threatening their lands.

Their visit to California helped prompt the state Senate to introduce a landmark resolution urging officials to examine the state’s role in importing crude from the Amazon. The move comes as Ecuador’s government prepares to auction off 14 new oil blocks — covering more than 2 million hectares of rainforest, much of it Indigenous territory — in a 2026 bidding round known as “Sur Oriente.”

The Indigenous leaders say the move goes against the spirit of a national referendum in which Ecuadorians voted to leave crude oil permanently underground in Yasuni National Park.

The preservation push in Ecuador comes as another South American country that includes part of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil, is moving ahead with plans to further develop oil resources. On Tuesday, Brazil auctioned off several land and offshore potential oil sites near the Amazon River as it aims to expand production in untapped regions despite protests from environmental and Indigenous groups.

Indigenous voices

Juan Bay, president of the Waorani people of Ecuador, said that his delegation’s coming to California was “important so that our voices, our stance, and our struggle can be elevated” and urged Californians to reexamine the source of their crude from the Amazon — ”from Waorani Indigenous territory.”

On Thursday, the Indigenous delegation joined local Californians in Richmond for a kayaking trip near a Chevron refinery, sharing stories about the Amazon and perspectives on climate threats.

For Nadino Calapucha, a spokesperson for the Kichwa Pakkiru people, the visit to California’s Bay Area was deeply moving. Spotting seals in the water and a bird’s nest nearby felt “like a gesture of solidarity from nature itself,” he told the Associated Press on a kayak.

“It was as if the animals were welcoming us,” he said.

The connection between the Amazon and California — both facing environmental threats — was palpable, Calapucha said.

“Being here with our brothers and sisters, with the local communities also fighting — in the end, we feel that the struggle is the same,” he said.

California is the largest global consumer of Amazon oil, with much of it refined and used in the state as fuel. Ecuador is the region’s top producer of onshore crude.

Bay highlighted a March ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found that Ecuador had violated the rights of the area’s Indigenous groups by allowing oil operations in and around a site known as Block 43.

The court ordered the government to halt extraction in protected areas and uphold the 2023 referendum banning drilling in Yasuni National Park, where the country’s largest crude reserve lies, estimated around 1.7 billion barrels.

Bay appealed to the California government to reconsider if it “should continue receiving crude from the Amazon” — or continue to be “complicit in the violation of rights” happening on Indigenous territory.

Defending Indigenous rights

State Sen. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park), who introduced the new resolution, praised the visiting leaders for defending their land and the global climate.

“Their communities are on the front lines asserting their rights and resisting oil extraction,” Becker said on the Senate floor on Monday. “They are defenders of a living rainforest that stores carbon, regulates the global climate, and sustains life.”

Long criticized by environmental justice advocates, the refinery has processed millions of barrels of Amazon crude, fueling concerns over pollution, public health, and the state’s role in rainforest destruction.

The delegation also helped launch a new report by Amazon Watch, an Oakland-based nonprofit dedicated to the protection of the Amazon Basin, which outlines the climate, legal and financial risks of operating in Indigenous territories without consent.

‘Addiction to Amazon crude’

Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch’s director for climate, energy and extraction industry, said the effects of Amazon crude extend far beyond Ecuador. He joined the Ecuadorian delegation on the kayaking trip Thursday.

“The Golden State, if it wants to be a climate leader, needs to take action,” he told AP. “California has an addiction to Amazon crude.”

Californians need to “recognize their responsibility and their complicity in driving demand for Amazon crude and the impact that that is having on Indigenous people, on their rights, on the biodiversity and the climate,” he added.

California’s future is closely tied to the Amazon’s — the state relies on the rainforest’s role in climate regulation and rainfall, Koenig said, warning that continued Amazon crude imports contribute to the destruction increasing California’s vulnerability to drought and wildfires.

He said environmental and public health damage tied to oil drilling is not confined to South America.

“We’re seeing the same impacts from the oil well to the wheel here in California, where communities are suffering from contamination, health impacts, dirty water,” he said. “It’s time that California lead an energy transition.”

California, one of the world’s largest economies and a major importer of Amazon crude, must take stronger climate action, Koenig added, and called on the state to phase out its reliance on oil linked to deforestation, human rights abuses, pollution and climate damage.

The resolution commends the Indigenous communities of Ecuador for their struggle in defending the rainforest and Indigenous rights.

It also marks the first time California would examine how its energy consumption may contribute to the region’s deforestation and cultural loss. The resolution is expected to be up for a vote within a few weeks, according to Koenig.

Grattan and Vasquez write for the Associated Press.

The high court has declined to hear a bid to block a project that Indigenous groups say would destroy a site of religious significance.

The United States Supreme Court has declined to weigh a bid from a Native American advocacy group to block the construction of a large copper mine on land that many Apache people consider sacred.

The court turned down an appeal by the group Apache Stronghold on Tuesday, keeping in place a lower court’s ruling that would allow the project to move forward.

At the heart of the case is a stretch of federal land in the Tonto National Forest, part of the western state of Arizona.

The San Carlos Apache tribe know the land as Oak Flat — or Chi’chil Bildagoteel in the Apache language. Members of the tribe point out that the land, with its ancient groves of oak, has long been used as a site for prayer, ceremony and burial.

But Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the mining conglomerates Rio Tinto and BHP, believes the site sits atop the second largest copper deposit in the world.

In 2014, under former President Barack Obama, the US Congress approved a land swap that gave Resolution Copper 9.71sq km (3.75sq miles) of the Oak Flat forest in exchange for other parcels of land in Arizona.

That, in turn, triggered a years-long legal showdown, with members of Arizona’s San Carlos Apache tribe arguing that construction on the Oak Flat site would violate their religious rights. In their petition to the Supreme Court, they described Oak Flat as a “direct corridor to the Creator”.

“Since time immemorial, Western Apaches and other Native peoples have gathered at Oak Flat, outside of present-day Superior, Arizona, for sacred religious ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else,” Apache Stronghold said in a news release in early May.

The group has also argued that the project would violate an 1852 treaty between the US government and the Apaches, promising that the government would protect the land to “secure the permanent prosperity and happiness” of the tribe.

The administration of President Donald Trump, however, has promised to push through the land transfer. The US Forest Service estimates the mining project could produce nearly 40 billion pounds of copper — or more than 18 billion kilogrammes.

But critics anticipate the result would be a crater as wide as 3km (2 miles) and nearly 304 metres (1,000ft) deep.

By refusing to review the Apache Stronghold’s appeal, the Supreme Court is allowing a decision to stand from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco.

In March 2024, that appeals court ruled along ideological lines to allow the land transfer to proceed: Six judges voted in favour, and five against.

But on May 9, a federal judge in Arizona temporarily blocked the government from transferring the land, while the Apache Stronghold pursued its appeal to the highest court.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in Tuesday’s decision, likely due to his financial ties to the companies involved. But two justices, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, issued a dissent calling the Supreme Court’s decision not to weigh in “a grave mistake”.

“While this Court enjoys the power to choose which cases it will hear, its decision to shuffle this case off our docket
without a full airing is a grievous mistake — one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations,” Gorsuch wrote.

“Just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning. I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time.”

The land swap was approved as part of a 2014 defence spending bill. A required environmental impact statement was issued during the final days of Trump’s first term in office in January 2021.