articles-July07

Brazilian Indians defend homeland
Massacre over diamond rush
The Associated Press

July 7, 2004

ROOSEVELT INDIAN RESERVATION, Brazil · The diamond lode deep in the Amazon rain forest promised riches, that it was in a reservation belonging to a fierce warrior tribe seemed a mere detail to Antonio Jose Alves dos Santos.

He braved the Roosevelt River's swift currents, his gear tied tight in a sack, to slip past federal agents guarding the reservation. He hiked through the jungle for five days, carrying two weeks' worth of food on his back.

But something snapped with the reservation's Indians. They massacred 29 garimpeiros, as prospectors are known. full article

Graham inferno overruns towers

The Arizona Republic
Jul. 7, 2004 12:00 AM

SAFFORD - Fire swept over a $2 million cluster of communication towers in the Pinaleno Mountains on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to keep flames from reaching more than 100 summer cabins and a multimillion dollar observatory atop Mount Graham.

Fire management officers were unable to assess the damage to the towers and buildings atop Heliograph Peak late Tuesday night because of the heat but said pilots flying overhead reported they appeared to be standing. full article

Ottawa Hills to have new mascot

Wednesday, July 07, 2004
The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- Ottawa Hills High School is expected to have a new mascot by the end of the month.

Grand Rapids Public Schools Superintendent Bert Bleke on Tuesday told board members Ottawa Hills Principal Martha Williams was continuing to talk with alumni and staff about a new name to replace Indians. full article

Maternal Mortality is Higher for Indigenous Groups

Washington, July 7, 2004
(PAHO)—Rates of infant and maternal mortality in indigenous communities are among the highest in the Americas, according to a new bulletin published by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

In its most recent edition, "Healing our Spirit Worldwide"—PAHO's bulletin on indigenous health—notes that national averages often mask significant regional differences in these rates, citing the examples of Bolivia, Honduras and Guatemala. While overall maternal mortality in Bolivia, for example, stands at 390 per every 100,000 live births, in the department of Potosí, which has a larger indigenous population, the figure climbs to 496 per 100,000. full article

India-Research project to protect indigenous knowledge launched

New Delhi, July 7. (PTI): Delhi-based NGO Gene Campaign today launched a project to protect the indigenous knowledge (IK) of the local communities in India and said the intellectual rights of the tribal communities were in serious threat from the neglect visible in national and international policies.

"IK developed about biodiversity is the mainstay of the food and livelihood security of rural and tribal people and the key to sustainable growth. This is under serious threat today from the callous neglect visible in national and international policies," participants during the launch of 'Protection of Indigenous Knowledge of Biodiversity' said. full article

The way we were

In the Driver's Seat
By Tom Engelhardt

Here we are just past our Independence Day, past that moment in memory when the United States was, by active example, a "beacon of freedom" to the world, past the moment in memory when, as Barbara Ehrenreich reminded us in the New York Times on July 4th, the signers of the Declaration of Independence penned their names to the following line (Their George and Ours): "And for the support of this Declaration… we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." She adds:

"Today, those who believe that the war on terror requires the sacrifice of our liberties like to argue that 'the Constitution is not a suicide pact.' In a sense, however, the Declaration of Independence was precisely that. By signing Jefferson's text, the signers of the declaration were putting their lives on the line… If the rebel American militias were beaten on the battlefield, their ringleaders could expect to be hanged as traitors. They signed anyway, thereby stating to the world that there is something worth more than life, and that is liberty."

Now, let's leap a couple of centuries-plus and consider another group of Americans who signed onto what's looking more and more like an inadvertent (political) suicide pact. Our media washes over us like some mind-cleansing drug, so today, in the shambles of Bush administration Iraq policy, in the wake of Abu Ghraib, just beyond the "transition to Iraqi rule," it's difficult to recall what life was like back when the press was simply a lapdog; CBS's Dan Rather was burbling, "George Bush is the President, he makes the decisions and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where"; war was a swift, smiting blow (when was the last time you heard the phrase "shock and awe"?), and we were about to be anointed as the New Rome. full article

Translator in Eye of Storm on Retroactive Classification
By Anne E. Kornblut
Boston Globe

Monday 05 July 2004

Washington - Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English.

    Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her division, she was fired. Now, after more than two years of investigations and congressional inquiries, Edmonds is at the center of an extraordinary storm over US classification rules that sheds new light on the secrecy imperative supported by members of the Bush administration. full article