Bethel police officer Jerry Herrod follows up on an assault complaint recently in Bethel, Alaska. He says nearly all of his calls involve alcohol (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News)
Alaskan town rethinks booze sales in wake of crime wave
Bethel, Alaska, has set another vote on alcohol sales for Jan. 19. Last year, Bethel lifted a decades-old booze ban, but authorities in surrounding Alaska Native villages have complained of skyrocketing crime ever since, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Winona LaDuke faces misdemeanor traffic charges
Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke, who has twice run for vice president, faces misdemeanor charges for driving without an insurance card, according to the Wadena (Minn.) Pioneer Journal. The Harvard-educated economist and the founding director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project ran twice as presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s running mate.
Mi’kmaq community holds annual forgiveness ceremony
Residents of the First Nation of Membetou, in Nova Scotia, held their annual ceremony of forgiveness, known as Mawmijisultimk, started decades ago by Ben Christmas, the first chief of Membertou. This year, the ceremony had special significance, as it kicked off the 400th anniversary of Grand Chief Henri Membertou’s baptism, according to the Chronicle Herald of Novia Scotia.
A farmer walks with her son during a potato harvest in Huancavelica, southern Peru. Photograph: (Martin Mejia/Associated Press)
We’ve been blogging a lot about the effect of this severe weather on the Oglala Lakota people who live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Down at the other end of the hemisphere, the Quechua-speaking people in Peru’s Huancavelica region, also are suffering from a cold winter, so cold that their children are dying, according to this report by the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper. The people, who live in Andean villages as high as 13,000 feet above sea level, are suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia, and weather forecasters say the worst is yet to come. So many people have died, says the Guardian, that there is talk of a national crisis.
Eight arrested during First Nations Olympic torch protest
First Nations protesters blocked the Trans-Canada Highway, briefly delaying the Olympic Torch relay in Ontario yesterday. They object to what they say is the environmental damage caused by the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, scheduled to start next month, and also the displacement of homeless people in Vancouver, according to this Canadian Press report.
Gwen Florio
Tags: 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Alaska, Alcohol regulations, Bethel, First Nations, Huancavelica, Mawmijisultimk, Membertou, Mi'kmaq, Olympic torch relay, Peru, Quechua, Ralph Nader, White Earth Land Recovery Project, Winona LaDuke