On November 30, the Election Court in Malaysia declared the results of the 14th general election last May in the Cameron Highlands district to be void due to corrupt practices. The High Court agreed on December 13 and a by-election was scheduled for January 26. The winner of the Cameron… Continue reading…
The Ju/’hoansi are working with land managers to protect the surrounding Kalahari Desert lands from hot-season fires that threaten their villages and their livelihoods. A news story in the online newspaper Namibia Economist last week reported that seasonal fires, especially in the summer in southern Africa, pose a serious environmental… Continue reading…
Last week the Mexican news website lanetanoticias.com published a cultural piece explaining why the art of tattooing became popular among the Ifaluk. The story of the adoption of tattooing on the island, tied in with a belief in the god Wolfat (also spelled Wolphat), is explained effectively by the journalist… Continue reading…
According to the closing credits of a six-minute video posted to YouTube last week, the marvelous footage of an Mbuti community suffering from discrimination in the Eastern Congo was prepared by the Survival Media Agency. The beauty of the scenery—and of the Mbuti people themselves—recommends the production but it is… Continue reading…
Canada’s CBC Radio rebroadcast a documentary on January 4 about Elisapee Ishulutaq, a renowned Inuit artist who died on December 9, 2018. The program had first been aired in June 2014 when she was in her late 80s and was appointed to the Order of Canada. As a child in… Continue reading…
A news report from December 2010 explained that about 30 years earlier, the Zapotec municipality of Ixtlán de Juárez had gained the right from the Mexican government to manage its forest resources themselves. Before then, outside interests had exploited the forests for their resources without much thought for the future…. Continue reading…
A veteran Malaysian politician was unexpectedly stranded in an isolated Semai community in the Cameron Highlands on New Year’s Eve. The sense of being trapped fostered feelings of sympathy for the poverty of the Orang Asli. According to one news report, Lim Kit Siang, a long-time leader of the Democratic… Continue reading…
A veteran Malaysian politician was unexpectedly stranded in an isolated Semai community in the Cameron Highlands on New Year’s Eve. The sense of being trapped fostered feelings of sympathy for the poverty of the Orang Asli. According to one news report, Lim Kit Siang, a long-time leader of the Democratic… Continue reading…
Superstitious beliefs are deterring some pregnant women in the Rukwa Region of Tanzania from going to health facilities when the time comes to deliver their babies. According to a news story dated December 27, women are ignoring the advice of medical personnel and drinking concoctions of herbal teas to reduce… Continue reading…
A news story published on the Tristan da Cunha website on December 23 has all the attributes of a nice yarn for the holiday season. It is an account by an Israeli man who won a contest and earned his dream: visiting the world’s most remote inhabited island. His narrative… Continue reading…
