Headline: Global News Dispatches: 5 Stories

By Saurav Sarkar

Author Bio: Saurav Sarkar is a freelance writer and editor who covers political activism and labor movements. They live in Long Island, New York, and have also lived in New York City, New Delhi, London, and Washington, D.C. Follow them on Twitter @sauravthewriter and at sauravsarkar.com.

Credit Line: from the Globetrotter News Service

Note to Editors: This is a selection of news wire reports that have been edited to be relevant for audiences for the next two weeks. You are welcome to select and publish individual items or the whole stack.

Headlines in This News Package:

• Top Brazilian Court Rules in Favor of Indigenous Rights
• Canada Accuses Indian Government of Carrying out Assassination on Canadian Soil
• Azerbaijan Militarily Reclaims Ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh Area
• Incidents of US State Violence Come to Light
• First African Climate Summit Held

Top Brazilian Court Rules in Favor of Indigenous Rights

“Democracy Now!” reported that Brazi’ s Supreme Court ruled in favor of Indigenous claims to land occupied before 1988. The case had been brought by “agribusiness-backed lawmakers,” the outlet said, and argued that Indigenous people had to have either occupied or made claims to land by the date Brazil’s constitution went into effect for them to now claim it. The court ruled against the lawmakers and for Indigenous groups.

“Areas occupied by Indigenous people and areas that are linked to the ancestry and tradition of Indigenous peoples have constitutional protection, even if they are not demarcated,” said Justice Luiz Fux, reported the Associated Press (AP).

Under the previous president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, Indigenous lands had come under increased attack, said the AP. Current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been more friendly to Indigenous groups. The proposed 1988 deadline was seen as a crucial issue because many Indigenous groups were displaced from their lands prior to that date. The ruling recognizes the basis for them to make claims to those traditionally occupied lands.

Many Indigenous people and groups waited with bated breath for the decision. “I’m shaking. It took a while, but we did it. It’s a very beautiful and strong feeling,” said Jéssica Nghe Mum Priprá from the Xokleng-Laklano Indigenous people to the Associated Press. “Our ancestors are present – no doubt about it,” she said.

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Canada Accuses Indian Government of Carrying out Assassination on Canadian Soil

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has directly accused the Indian government of carrying out the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh Canadian of Indian descent, in June 2023.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open, and democratic societies conduct themselves,” Trudeau said to the House of Commons, reported the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC).

Nijjar was reportedly a supporter of a separate country for Sikhs, making him part of the Khalistani movement. The Indian government, which is run by the Hindu-fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, is hostile to the Khalistan movement. It claimed Nijjar was a “terrorist,” said the CBC even as it denied involvement.

In response to the killing, Trudeau’s government expelled Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai, who it says is the head of India’s intelligence agency in Canada. The Indian government played tit-for-tat, ordering a Canadian official to leave India within five days. “Democracy Now!” reported that it has also suspended visas for Canadian nationals.

“Today, the prime minister of Canada has publicly said what Sikhs in Canada have known for decades”. India actively targets Sikhs in Canada,” the World Sikh Organization of Canada said to the CBC.

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Azerbaijan Militarily Reclaims Ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh Area

Al Jazeera reported that Azerbaijan has retaken the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had declared independence as “the Republic of Artsakh.””

“People here fear that we are still under high risk of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and that’s why an overwhelming majority is thinking of fleeing the country,” said Artak Beglaryan, an ex-minister of the Artsakh government, to Al Jazeera.

Control of the region has changed hands countless times over the centuries, including since the collapse of the USSR, and it has seen ethnic cleansing and displacement in both directions in recent years.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a heavily Armenian-majority area that will now be re-incorporated into Azerbaijan unless the facts on the ground shift again. It was already internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan by most countries.

***

Incidents of US State Violence Against People of Color Come to Light

Democracy Now! reported on September 22 on multiple separate incidents of state violence by the US government against people of color. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers are accused of operating a warehouse as a black site to torture people they deemed crime suspects. And along the U.S.-Mexico riverine border on the Rio Grande, a three-year-old child was found dead near floating barriers known as “border buoys” that Texas has installed to prevent migrants from crossing into the U.S. without proper documents.

Despite massive marches for racial justice and immigrant rights in 2020 and 2006 respectively, the U.S. has continued to subject working-class people of color to disproportionate state violence. According to a study by the medical journal The Lancet, Black and Latino people are most likely to have been killed by the police in the U.S. between 1980 and 2018. Black people are significantly more likely to be incarcerated in state prisons than whites are, according to the Sentencing Project. The United States also notoriously invaded and occupied multiple countries in the 21st century whose citizenry is predominantly people of color as part of what has been labeled its “Forever War.””

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First African Climate Summit Held

Global Voices reported that over a dozen African leaders attended the first-ever continental climate summit in September 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya. Among the countries represented were Egypt, Sierra Leone, Congo, Djibouti, Comoros, Ethiopia, and Senegal.

“Africa’s carbon footprint remains small. But the human toll of climate change [on the continent] is disproportionately high,”” said Kenyan President William Ruto.

The conference was co-hosted by the government of Kenya and the African Union. According to Global Voices, the African leaders “called for radical action, the mobilization of Africa’s own resources, and streamlined access to international climate finance.””

However, as Africa Feeds reported, many African climate activists opposed the approach promoted at the summit, to rely on carbon credits and other market-based mechanisms. “Africa needs funding from countries that have got rich off our suffering. They owe a climate debt,” said Mohamed Adow of the think tank Power Shift Africa to Africa Feeds.

Industrialized countries like the United States have historically generatedmost of the emissions that have contributed to global warming. Meanwhile, according to Africa Feeds, only about 3 percent of global emissions are currently generated by Africa. In contrast, China, the U.S., and India account today for more than half of all emissions by themselves.