“A new study by the World Bank had confirmed that indigenous people, making up 5 per cent of the world’s population, were still among the poorest of the poor, although findings indicated that indigenous peoples in Asia were closing the gap faster than indigenous peoples in other parts of the world. Addressing journalists at a [...]

Senator Sam Brownback, R-KS, has been introducing an apology resolution to American Indians in the Senate since 2004. It was nothing more than just a general statement of apology and did not create any potential for lawsuits oor offer to pay any form of reparations. Still, it took until December 2009 for the resolution to [...]

There are many significant benefits that arise from American Indian tribes improving their financial situations and raising their citizens out of poverty. One excellent example is that many tribal governments are using excess monies to rebuy land within their own reservations and to buy land even outside the boundaries of their reservations. A Washington newspaper [...]

I just saw Avatar last Friday night. I knew that there was a Native American theme to the movie, but I was overwhelmed and moved by the “real history” portrayed in the “movie story.” The history of European exploitation and domination of the Indigneous Peoples of the world is plain for anyone to study and [...]

There has been an enormous amount of attention put on the issues of criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country in the past couple of years. The U.S. Senate has held hearings on this subject, for example. The fact that tribal government and police do not have criminal jurisdiction over every person who enters tribal reservations and [...]

American Indian leaders asked Congress to streamline the development of energy projects on tribal lands by curbing some federal oversight and providing incentives for companies to work on reservations. Reservations from Oklahoma to Montana and Alaska sit atop large amounts of oil, natural gas and coal. Others in wind-swept regions of the Northern Plains and [...]

Kimberly Teehee, the White House’s Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs, addressed the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on April 22. She said in part: “I want to acknowledge that the United States has a unique legal and political relationship with 564 federally recognized Indian tribes, established through and confirmed by the [...]

For the past several years, various unions have tried to organize in Indian country. A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C Circuit in about 2008, held that federal labor laws applied to tribal employers and they had to allow unions. In an interesting twist, an engineers’ union that is trying to organize [...]

The New York Times reports today on a long running case about the alleged misuse of the DNA of many Havasupai Indians. The Tribe and many of its citiznes live deep in the Grand Canyon. Citizens of the Tribe had given DNA samples to Arizona State University researchers beginning in 1990, in the hope that [...]

There’s an old joke about water in the arid west – whiskey is for drinkin’ and water is for fightin’ An interesting example of that canard is the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision on Tuesday that questioned a federal district court order in the Truckee Nevada water case. The federal judge had ordered [...]