Delegates to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues – one of the largest annual gatherings at UN headquarters in New York City – may decide to move future meetings outside the United States because of the current political climate.

Fears about treatment of international visitors and difficulty or delays in gaining visas to travel into the U.S. are already reducing attendance at this year’s meeting, which is set to start Monday and run through May 2.

Now members are considering moving the event altogether.

“We're concerned about the ability of Indigenous people from around the world to actually make it in the country and not be harassed,” Geoffrey Roth, Standing Rock Sioux, one of 16 members of the Permanent Forum, told ICT Friday.

“Considering the safety of Indigenous peoples and their ability to actually make it to meetings and participate in a meaningful way,” he said, “I think it's time to move, and that's my personal opinion.”

Roth has heard from delegat

Mary Annette Pember will publish her first book, Medicine River, on Tuesday. She signed to write it in 2022 but feels she really started work more than 50 years ago, “before I could even write, when I was under the table as a kid, making these symbols that were sort of my own”.

A citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe, Pember is a national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today. In Medicine River, she tells two stories: of the Indian boarding schools, which operated in the US between the 1860s and the 1960s, and of her mother, her time in such a school and the toll it took.

“My mother kind of put me on this quest from my earliest memory,” Pember said. “I’ve always known I would somehow tell her story.”

More than 400 Indian boarding schools operated on US soil. Vehicles for policies of assimilation, perhaps better described as cultural annihilation, the schools were brutal by design. Children were not allowed to speak their own language or practice r

Our reporter Rowan Glass went deep inside one of the world’s most enduring anti-capitalist movements, offering a rare and intimate glimpse into a community that has defied militarisation, marginalisation, and globalisation. Granted exclusive access to the 30th anniversary of the Zapatistas' 1994 uprising, our team captured the group’s commemorations, their political education programs, and their vision of self-governance – built from the ground up by Indigenous communities.

"¡Ya Basta! 30 Years of Zapatista Autonomy" explores the legacy and future of the EZLN, reflecting on how a masked, rural rebellion reshaped Mexico’s political landscape and inspired activists across the globe.

What does revolution look like when it refuses to seize state power? And what can the world learn from a community that continues to build its own system from the ground up?

Consider supporting our independent journalism at www.patreon.com/moderninsurgent.

Find the rest of our work at www.moderninsur

• Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren was in Washington earlier in April to watch President Donald Trump sign an order aimed at revitalizing the coal industry.
• Coal mines and coal-fired power plants were once steady income sources for the Navajo Nation, but the money dried up with the closure of a key plant and the mines that supplied it.
• Some Navajo organizers say Nygren's support for coal ignores the effects of fossil fuels on the climate and on human health. One expert said Nygren exaggerated the importance of coal.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier in April to watch President Donald Trump sign an executive order aimed at deregulating coal production on federal lands and revitalizing the mining industry, signaling what appears to be the tribal leader's support for coal.

In the executive order, Trump asserted that coal is vital to the nation’s economic and national security. He declared that removing federal regulatory barriers to co

Israel resumed its genocidal attacks on the Gaza Strip on 18 March, issuing evacuation orders for nearly 37 percent of the territory and designating these areas as combat zones.

This escalation followed Israel’s complete closure of the Rafah crossing in early March, cutting off essential supplies – food, medicine and fuel – pushing Gaza’s already dire humanitarian crisis to the edge of catastrophe. By late March, the situation had worsened, with Israel ordering the full evacuation of Palestinians from Rafah, a city devastated by invasion since May 2024, albeit briefly interrupted by a ceasefire.

According to Axios, citing a senior Israeli official’s comments to the media, the Israeli military has intensified its ground offensive, aiming to occupy 25 percent of Gaza within weeks as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to force Hamas to release hostages. Thousands who already lost their homes may never return, as entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble in previous attacks are now be

Since October 7, 2023, the situation in Israeli prisons has been the worst it has ever been since the beginning of the Israeli occupation. Prisoners say that whoever had been detained before October 7 had never truly seen prison. Just as the Israeli occupation carries out a genocide in Gaza, it is aslo carrying it out behind bars, using torture, deliberate starvation, sexual assault, humiliation, and SA. Even Israeli doctors have notoriously assisted in the torture of Palestinian detainees, sharing prisoners’ medical information with interrogators to “greenlight” torture, teaching interrogators how to inflict pain without leaving physical marks, and sometimes directly engaging in torture themselves.

Prisoners released from the occupation’s jails are the clearest evidence of the conditions inside. A large number of them are released having lost significant weight, or suffer from serious health conditions such as scabies, requiring immediate transfer to hospitals.

In recent months,

On March 31, the Supreme Court of B.C. released its decision on a historic case with implications for the future of resource management in Canada.

The judge sided with the Haida Gwaii Management Council and Province of British Columbia against logging giant Teal Cedar Products Inc., which argued its profitability had unjustly diminished due to the former’s sustainability regulations and improved forestry stewardship standards. In its defence, Haida Gwaii Management Council and the province pointed to Teal’s careless logging and business practices, which it continued despite expert, repeated advice from Haida and Crown governments. Proceedings involved numerous expert witnesses and took place over the course of 64 days in 2023. Almost exactly two years later, the judge dismissed Teal’s claims.

In a statement, Skil Hiilans (Allan Davidson), hereditary title holder of St’lang Laanaas and chair and founding member of the council, said, “We welcome this judgment that strongly affirms t

The affected communities are lashing out at their own leaders for signing land leases worth thousands of dollars with a nonexistent nation that had attempted similar moves in Ecuador and Paraguay

In September 2024, three Irish citizens arrived in the Bolivian Amazon city of Beni posing as Hindu monks. Dressed in orange robes, they presented themselves as protectors of nature, expressing concern over the wildfires that had destroyed more than 10 million hectares the previous year in the Chiquitanía and the Amazon regions. They settled in the municipality of Exaltación, where they offered free yoga therapy and meditation sessions to both urban and rural residents.

A few weeks later, another 17 individuals — of Indian and Chinese origin— followed, entering the community with herbal remedies and promises of food aid. Their strategy, as self-proclaimed delegates of a so-called nation called Kailasa, was to win the trust of locals. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they were signing lease a

The Tebughna Foundation threw a big celebration in February after the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the nonprofit $20 million to renovate or replace 20 homes contaminated with asbestos and lead for the Native Village of Tyonek in Alaska. The project, which would also connect the homes to solar panels, aimed to upgrade houses built in the 1960s.

" We were all just so happy about this grant that's going to literally change some people's lives," says Vide Kroto, the foundation's executive director.

But within a matter of weeks, the Trump administration froze the funding. When Kroto logged onto the federal payment system on March 7, the status of her grant said "suspended."

She wasn't alone.

More than 22 tribes and nonprofits across the country from Alaska to the Midwest, have had around $350 million in federal funding for key infrastructure projects frozen, often without notice. NPR spoke with 11 of them who say some have found out their funds were suspended when they l

In front of descendants of Sand Creek Massacre survivors, Colorado lawmakers unanimously greenlighted a memorial sculpture Monday to commemorate the 1864 atrocity at the State Capitol.

The memorial will comprise of a massive, 24-foot-tall sculpture of an Arapaho chief, a Cheyenne chief and a Native American woman holding a child.

The current plan is for the sculpture replace a Civil War statue that was pulled down by protestors in 2020. The location, right in front of the iconic Capitol building, has been boarded off since.

The 1864 Sand Creek Massacre is possibly the worst atrocity in Colorado history. About 250 Arapaho and Cheyenne civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly, were killed by U.S. troops along Colorado's eastern plains, near the modern day town of Eads.

Otto Braided Hair is a representative for the Northern Cheyenne and a descendant of Sand Creek Massacre victims. He was on the Senate floor during Monday's vote on the resolution.

Braided Hair and other

To escape the federal election in Montreal, all you have to do is cross the Mercier Bridge. In Kahnawà:ke, a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) reserve along the St. Lawrence River, there is a notable absence of candidate posters and electoral events.

Most people in Kahnawà:ke choose not to vote in Canadian elections.

That doesn’t mean that no one cares about politics in Kahnawà:ke. On the contrary - Kahnawà:ke is home to two distinct forms of government: the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) band office, whose leaders are elected by voting, and traditional Longhouse governance, whose leaders are chosen by Clan Mothers and community consensus. Mohawk people are part of the Haudenosaunee confederacy comprising six nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. ‍ “No one in this room votes”

Right now, Taiaiake Alfred, a specialist in Kanien'kehá:ka politics and history, is leading the Kahnawà:ke Governance Project (Kgov), bringing community members together to discuss

While Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, militarily and diplomatically supported by the U.S. and Western powers, imperialist rhetoric shapes the ongoing slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. And although it was written decades ago, Ghassan Kanafani’s impeccable and distinguished writing still articulates the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle with amazing clarity.

Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings (Pluto Press) was published in October 2024, a year after Israel’s genocide in Gaza began. Through a translated selection of Kanafani’s political writings, the reader is able to understand Palestinian anti-colonial resistance through his analysis. In the words of editors Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamdi from the book’s introduction, this resistance is “a confrontation between imperialism and an anti-imperialist liberation movement against brutal settler-colonialism.”

The writings are grouped into five main themes, each chapter distinctively showing how language i

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Mexico City, April 8, 2025. More than 15 Mayan communities from Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and allies from Mexico, Belize, and Colombia met on March 29 and 30 on Isla Arena, Campeche, to analyze common threats to their territories and articulate defense strategies. Participants included representatives from Cherán (Michoacán), Mixtec communities, Binizá, and even the Inga community of Colombia, sharing experiences of autonomy.

“These threats put our existence as Mayan peoples at risk,” the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) stated in a statement. Faced with projects such as pig farms, mega-tourism developments, mining, and carbon offsets, they agreed to create the Mayan Assembly for Autonomy and a Mayan Council to coordinate actions.

The document emphasizes that problems such as land dispossession, agribusiness, and expropriations will no longer be addressed in isolation: “We are convening, meeting, and organizi

A First Nation chief in northwestern Ontario says political rhetoric about running roughshod over Indigenous consultation to fast-track mining and other extraction projects is emboldening an abusive approach to resource engagement.

Onigaming Chief Jeff Copenace says his community “fundamentally opposes” a proposed gold mine and warns that the development “will be opposed at any cost necessary including peaceful protest and direct action.”

In a March 22 email, Golden Rapture Mining president Richard Rivet sent an email to Onigaming First Nation leaders, informing them that Ontario officials would soon deliver the company’s “enviro-friendly exploration plan” for its Phillips Township Gold Property.

Copenace said a number of representatives from the junior mining company had reached out over the past month regarding exploration and development on the proposed 10-000-acre mine site, located between Sioux Narrows and Nestor Falls

If approved, the eight-site project would re-ignite

Palestinians across the West Bank observed a general strike on Monday protesting the renewed Israeli genocide in Gaza. The strike was observed in all West Bank cities and towns and joined by all civil society bodies. The Palestinian Teachers’ Union announced the halt of all classes, while the Palestinian Bar Association announced that all lawyers and judges were called to abstain from attending court hearings. The “national and Islamic forces,” the coalition of all Palestinian political parties, also called for the general strike. It was observed by all of Palestinian society in the West Bank, including businesses and public transportation.

The strike echoed a global call for a general strike in solidarity with Gaza. Although no central entity called for the strike in Palestine, different Palestinian entities consecutively announced that they would join the global strike a day ahead of when it was set to take place.

But despite the broad participation of all Palestinians in the We

When Solomon Kahoʻohalahala arrived in Jamaica in mid-March to attend a meeting of the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, he felt the weight of the moment on his shoulders.

The United Nations agency is in the midst of crafting regulations to govern a new industry for deep-sea mining that involves scraping mineral deposits from the ocean floor, often referred to as nodules. But after three years of advocating on behalf of Indigenous peoples, none of Kahoʻohalahala’s or his colleagues’ recommendations had been incorporated into the latest draft proposal.

“It was disheartening and discouraging for us to be absolutely dismissed,” said Kahoʻohalahala, who is Native Hawaiian from the island of Lanaʻi in Hawaiʻi. “There was no option for us except to make our best case.”

On the first day of the two-week gathering, Kahoʻohalahala urged the nation-state representatives gathered at the International Seabed Authority headquarters to consider Indigenous peoples’ perspectives. And to