Aboriginal rights campaigners yesterday condemned the government for having not carried out a promise to reinstate traditional Aboriginal territories, and they demanded that an independent agency be established to restore Aboriginal rights to land and transitional justice.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 1 last year delivered a landmark apology to Taiwan’s Aborigines for their deprivation of rights in the hundreds of years since the mass migration of Han people began.

Hoedspruit - It was a hard-fought victory for South Africa's black community seeking to reclaim land, and for the Moletele ethnic group it has become a surprising model of wider racial cooperation.

After a 10-year legal battle, the Moletele have taken back the land from which they were evicted by members of the white minority nearly a century ago.

The area, a picturesque range at the foot of mountains near Hoedspruit is dotted with trees heavy with fruit.

Dignity restored

Lagos state government has disclosed that it has disbursed the sum of N8 billion as compensation to individuals and groups whose properties were affected by ongoing construction projects in the state in the last one year.

Special Adviser on Urban Development, Mrs. Yetunde Onabule, who made this known at the weekend, at a one-day seminar on ,” Urban Tinkers Campus-The City We Need”, stressed that the government does not indulge in forced eviction of people arbitrarily without taking into consideration the welfare of the evictees.

A storm of protest greeted the 19 July announcement that Brazilian President Michel Temer has approved a recommendation made by the Attorney General’s office (AGU), that federal government bodies should adopt new criteria for setting the boundaries of indigenous land. Respected lawyer Dalmo de Abreu Dallari, who headed the University of São Paulo’s legal faculty for many years, said that the recommendation was a “legal farce,” with the objective of “extorting from the indigenous communities their right to the land they have traditionally occupied.” But the bancada ruralista rural caucus in Congress is triumphant. Federal deputy Luiz Carlos Heinze, a leading member of the caucus, celebrated the AGU recommendation, saying in a video circulated on social media that it will lead to a reassessment of more than 700 cases, resulting ultimately in the dismissal of 90 percent of ongoing indigenous territory land claims.

Since Uganda’s February 2016 elections, there has been widespread speculation that the government would try to change the constitution to entrench the power of ruling elites. The focus has been the possible removal of presidential age limits, paving the way for President Yoweri Museveni – in power for 31 years – to run again.

Public Statement

New York, 10 July 2017 – Fifteen indigenous peoples’ representatives from various Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Malaysia are participating in the HLPF this year taking place at the UN Headquarters in New York from 10 to 19 July 2017 under the theme “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world”. They are among the 2000-plus participants from various sectors, including governments, private sector and civil society.

In April, three bus loads of men carrying sticks and machetes arrived in the village with the bulldozer - angry residents fought back

BUGABO, Uganda June 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - "This land is peaceful," said Abdul Seryazi, standing in his family fields in Bugabo, a village in central Uganda.

But a charred bulldozer alongside tells a different story.

In April, three bus loads of men carrying sticks and machetes arrived in the village with the bulldozer.

23 June 2017 – Whether they are single, married, separated or widowed, women must be able to enjoy the inviolable right that they are not dependent on anyone, the United Nations has said, marking International Widow's Day.

Many cash-strapped Maasai have become landless after subdividing and selling swathes of land to the south of Nairobi

NAIROBI, June 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenya's opposition leader has raised tensions weeks ahead of elections by criticising the Maasai community's sale of ancestral land to other ethnic groups in an area hit by political violence in the 1990s, land rights experts said.

NEW DELHI, Jun 12 2017 (IPS) - In Meghalaya, India’s northeastern biodiversity hotspot, all three major tribes are matrilineal. Children take the mother’s family name, while daughters inherit the family lands.

Because women own land and have always decided what is grown on it and what is conserved, the state not only has a strong climate-resistant food system but also some of the rarest edible and medicinal plants, researchers said.

Malian men control access to land and decide which parts women are allowed to farm - that's a problem for women as erratic weather increases competition for land and harvests

BOGOSSONI, Mali, May 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Anthio Mounkoro has been farming land in Bogossoni for as long as she can remember – but none of it was ever hers.

"The land I've been cultivating my whole life is my father's," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation while meticulously watering a batch of shallots, careful not to waste one drop from the hose.

The Civil Society Organization Working Group on Land Reform on Monday told the Legislature that they remain optimistic that the land reform bill, when passed into law, will empower rural communities through the recognition of customary land rights and other issues across the country.

The CSO working group said the passage of the land rights act will also support communities to self-identify and manage their land in line with the new law, going as far as providing legal assistance where needed.