Indigenous Peoples

On November 30, 2016, a case will come before the Canadian Supreme Court that will have momentous and potentially global implications. In April 2016 the Canadian Supreme Court, which hears only 5 percent of referred cases, agreed to judge an appeal brought by the Inuit community of Clyde River, Nunavut, against a five-year plan to carry out seismic blasting in Baffin Bay. The people who live in Clyde River, situated on Baffin Island, use the waters and ice of the Bay for hunting, a central component of their culture and primary source of food.

The Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are engaged in a centuries-old fight to retain their culture and reestablish self-determination and genuine sovereignty. In particular, Inuit in the autonomous territory of Nunavut are resisting what American Indian studies scholar Daniel R. Wildcat has described as a "fourth removal attempt" of Indigenous people, coming on the heels of failed efforts at spatial, social and psycho-cultural deletion.

Audio recordings reveal how first responders struggled to get a clear picture of an unfolding disaster, reports Justine Hunter

VICTORIA The Globe and Mail Last updated: Friday, Nov. 04, 2016 12:38PM EDT

[audio available online]

Activists and tribal members Kandi Mossett, Dean Dedman, and Dallas Goldtooth are racing to release new footage of the protests against Energy Transfer Partners, which is building a controversial four-state oil pipeline from North Dakota to Indiana. They can’t get solid reception at Highway 1806 in North Dakota, where they’re calling me from, so they’re deciding how to upload the content quickly. Phone reception begins to break up.

Hundreds of Māori have taken to Facebook to show their solidarity for Native Americans protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Police departments around the country are sending reinforcements to North Dakota to support mining companies.

Police & Military Attack Oceti Sakowin Treaty Camp

Video: https://www.facebook.com/unicornriot.ninja/videos/364876927179868/

Morton County, ND – Over two hundred multi-state law enforcement and National Guard personnel attacked water protectors gathered on unceded 1851 Oceti Sakowin treaty land just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the late morning of Thursday, October 27th.

If it’s possible in this oversaturated age for a mass-protest movement to fly under the radar, the battle over the building of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline certainly qualifies. Just this past weekend in Morton County, North Dakota, 127 people were arrested during protests over renewed construction, which follows what protesters believed was relief from the federal government, in the form of a multi-agency letter to the pipeline builders, Energy Transfer Partners, asking them to halt building for tribal consultation and the preparation of environmental-impact statements.