Thanks to all of you who read and comment on my blog. It is now just over two years since I began blogging on American Indian and international indigenous issues. I have enjoyed doing this work and selecting for you what I think are the most important news items. Happy New Year to you all [...]

Check out Tim Giago’s latest editoral about reviving tribal language on Indianz.com Here’s part of what he wrote: “A young Lakota man, maybe seventeen years old, approached me as I waited in line at a local fast food joint to get a cup of coffee. . . . I asked him if they had Lakota [...]

An editorial in the Twin Falls Idaho newspaper criticizes ex-Idaho Governor and Senator Dick Kempthorne for ruling over a problematic U.S. Department of Interior. Here’s part of the editorial: “The former Idaho governor and U.S. senator and his predecessor, Gale Norton, presided over the most corrupt period in the agency since Albert Fall and the [...]

The day after Gov. David Paterson signed a cigarette tax bill in the state’s latest attempt to get tax revenues from the Indian tobacco trade, tribal leaders said they will fight the proposal in every way they can. Harry Wallace, the chief of the Unkechaug Indian Nation summed up the tribes’ position: “Our position is [...]

Indian Country Today reports on a ruling by the BIA that appears to have decided the outcome of a tribal rift. On Dec. 1, for the second time, the BIA ruled that the enrollment committee of the San Pasqual Band of Diegueno Mission Indians failed to prove that Marcus R. Alto’s enrollment was a mistake. [...]

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., will be reappointed to a second term as chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. But committee membership and ratios have yet to be resolved, according to a Senate press release. Dorgan offered his thoughts on his upcoming plans in a recent editorial he wrote for Indian Country Today: “I intend [...]

An editorial in a Connecticut newspaper highlights one federal employee’s role in allegedly politicizing the Department of Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service. “Julie MacDonald’s reign of malfeasance at the Interior Department ended 1½ years ago. But her legacy of politically tainted decisions survived, and owes much to an agency culture that cries out for an [...]

Tim Giago writes on tribal colleges on Indianz.com. Read the entire piece. “Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), stumbled across a great disparity while seeking appropriations for the Native American colleges. “It was appropriations time and I was frankly shocked to discover that a federally chartered college like Howard University, a school for African American students, was [...]

In August 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights rendered a historic decision in the case of Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua. The court is the legal tribunal of the Organization of American States. The Court found that Nicaragua had violated the rights of the community by granting logging concessions within its traditional lands and failing [...]

The California Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that payday loan companies owned by tribes are protected by tribal sovereign immunity. Five companies owned by the Miami Nation of Oklahoma and the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska do business over the Internet. The California Department of Corporations tried to enforce various provisions of state law [...]