A mining group says a warning to incoming US President Barack Obama about Australia´s coal industry is an unfounded exaggeration.

NATIONAL -- Aboriginal groups could apply to jointly manage all Crown land under the most radical overhaul of native title settlement proposed in Victoria.

Four years of intense lobby work by indigenous representatives convinced the government of Mongolia to officially recognize the reindeer-herding Dukha people as a distinct culture.

On a recent late morning in Nicaragua I landed in a Soviet-made helicopter (a remnant of the revolutionary Sandinistas’ 1980s past) in the remote community of Awas Tingni to witness a historic event, the handing over of the long sought after title to the community’s traditional territory, an area of some 74,000 hectares, or 285 square miles.

WASHINGTON –- The Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the Department of the Interior, in early December eliminated a regulation that gave two congressional committees the power to require the secretary of interior to set aside public lands from uranium mining and other extractive activities. The action, coupled with renewed federal interest in uranium mining, is causing concern for some Western tribes, reports Indian Country Today.

AIZAWL -- The Human Rights Network of Indigenous-Tribal Peoples North East Chapter has vehemently opposed the proposed gas pipeline through Mizoram by South Korea´s Daewoo International Company and the Gas Authority of India Ltd in view of the ecological damage that the laying of the pipeline would do in the state.

CERRO DE PASCO, Peru -- An immense open-pit mine located 4380 metres above sea level is swallowing up the centre of the city of Cerro de Pasco in Peru’s central highlands, while the damages, in the form of toxic waste, spread to nearby villages.

KAUTOKEINO/ GUOVDAGEAIDNU -- The Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley travelled to the Arctic parts of Norway earlier this year to realise her life-long ambition to see the Northern Lights in a documentary for BBC One. Now other famous TV Channels are heading to Samiland and Sami people.

MURMANSK -- Shafig Amrahov, editor of the Regional News Agency in Murmansk, was severely wounded after he got several gunshots in the head when entering his apartment house.

KUALA LUMPUR -- A raging debate over mandatory HIV screening has exposed fear and ignorance within government, despite years of awareness campaigns to eradicate prejudice against people living with the virus and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) it is said to cause.

KÁRÁŠJOHKA -- New Year´s Speech given by Sami president Egil Olli (only in Sami and Norwegian).

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama wasn’t the only one making history this election year. One of the most exciting developments for many Native Americans in 2008 centered on national politics – and the increasing influence of tribes and Native individuals within the American political process, reports Indian Country Today.

MOSCOW -- This year, in 2008, our Motherland had to go through some very dramatic tests. It lived through them with confidence and decency, for which you, its citizens take the credit.

NATIONAL -- Motor vehicle crashes and falls cause most of the unintentional child and teen injuries and deaths in the United States, a new government report shows.

WASHINGTON –- Following the centuries-long tradition of delegations of American Indians traveling to nation’s capitol to meet the “Great White Father,” a group of Canadian indigenous leaders plan to seek the support from President-elect Barack Obama on oil and human rights issues.

BATTLE GROUND -- A state law that took effect today has shifted the tax revenue generated by sales of Indiana´s Native American license plate away from Prophetstown State Park near Lafayette and into a fund for a state commission.

BOSTON -- Warm ocean currents may have confused some 2,500 penguins from Argentina´s Patagonia region that washed up -- dead and alive -- on Brazil´s northern coast.

The U.S. Justice Department announced it will side with the State of Hawai‘i in its claim that Native Hawaiians have no ownership rights to land that belonged to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i before it was overthrown in 1893.

MELBOURNE -- Refugee rights organisations have criticised the Rudd government’s decision to hold suspected asylum seekers in a controversial detention centre on an isolated Australian island in the Indian Ocean.

One day in the spring of 1898, New York City photographer Gertrude Käsebier glanced out the window of her studio and saw an unusual sight: cowboys and Indians riding down Fifth Avenue.

A Wellington university professor, Ngatata Love, has received the top award in the 2009 New Year Honours list out this morning.

YUKON -- Dave Joe, the Yukon’s first aboriginal lawyer, was named today as an Officer of the Order of Canada.

JUNÍN, Peru -- "Without coffee there is no future," say coffee growers in the Selva Alta, in the central Peruvian region of Junín, where they are setting up schools near their farms so that their children don´t abandon their studies.

Peru´s indigenous populations can be broadly divided between the highland Quechua and Aymara-speaking peoples and the more than 50 lowland Amazonian linguistic groups. Watch the documentary "Zorros de Arriba" on our website.

MEXICO CITY -- Up to 40 million natives who speak 420 different native languages are now living on the vast continent of Latin America, local media said Monday citing a recent UNICEF survey.

OTTAWA -- The Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians, today announced three new measures that will improve access to commercial financing for Aboriginal entrepreneurs and communities.

FLAGSTAFF -– Office of Surface Mining have granted a permit to Peabody Coal Company to expand their mining operations on Navajo and Hopi lands, despite opposition from local communities and problems with the permitting process.

An industry group says kava exports could surpass sugar cane and boost Fiji’s economy, Fiji Live reports.

HAVASUPAI -- Arizona´s Havasupai American Indian tribe has completed the installation of flood warning gauges to allow more time for canyon evacuations, officials said.

Five people died in Samoa over the Christmas holiday as a result of fights fueled by alcohol, the Samoa Observer reports.