A fledging organization that promises to combine the best programming of western Canada's Aboriginal broadcast stations has an exciting vision. Barry Walls, general manager for station CFNR in British Columbia, which plays classic rock to 30,000 people in Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert areas, said that the four western provinces have a wealth of Aboriginal programming.

Of course the teams participating in the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) wanted to win as many medals as they could for their regions, but athletes, coaches and supporters say there is much more to the games than the hardware.

The excitement of the thousands of spectators gathered for the ceremonies that would kick off the 2006 North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) in Denver intensified as the 7,000-plus athletes representing 31 delegations from across Canada and the United States streamed on to INVESCO Field on July 2.

As emcees Waneek Horn-Miller and Drew Lacapa welcomed each team into the 1.8-million sq. ft stadium, the crowd roared their appreciation as athletes proudly waved and shouted their team names with enthusiasm.

The First Nations University of Canada (FNUC) is set to commemorate 30 years of operations this fall-three years spent in its present form as a university and 27 as the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College'but only time will tell how much the institution will have to celebrate.

That's because this fall the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) is set to conduct a review of FNUC, where ongoing problems have thrown its membership in the association into question.

Jubilant supporters of National Chief Phil Fontaine are claiming that history was made at Vancouver's Canada Place on July 12. It was a short workday for the delegates on day two of the 27th Assembly of First Nations (AFN) annual general assembly as the incumbent made short work of his lone challenger, Chief Bill Wilson. At shortly after 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time, the results of the first ballot were announced by AFN chief electoral officer Bob Johnson. Of the 493 ballots cast that morning, Fontaine picked up 373. That works out to 75.66 per cent.

As resource companies line up to pay multi-million dollar royalty fees to the provincial government for the right to harvest the vast untapped resource wealth of northern Ontario, First Nations have served notice that their interests can no longer be ignored.

Two remote Ontario First Nations find themselves at ground zero in the battle to bring a halt to the jurisdictional ping pong game that gets played between federal and provincial governments when Aboriginal land rights are involved.

After more than a decade of international intrigue, the United Nations draft declaration on Indigenous rights will finally go before the UN general assembly for ratification later this year, despite the efforts of Canadian government representatives.

The June 29 vote of the new 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council, which replaces the much criticized UN Human Rights Commission, was 30 in favor and two against, with 12 abstentions and three countries absent.

An open letter to Vice-Chief Morley Watson:

The Free Trade Agreement and fantastic globalized trade improvements have given Canada greater prosperity. So say our Canadian corporate heads and our government leaders of the last 20 years. And that is true for about the 20 per cent upper-income part of our population.

Hi. I am an inmate doing time in the Northern Treatment Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. I am writing to you to voice my opinion and let others know of how our ceremonies are being dishonored. Is it not bad enough that when doing the sweat we have to heat our grandfathers with propane on a barbecue-like surface with no sacred fire, but then also to dishonor the ceremony by not smoking the pipe? It is to my knowledge and belief that without the smoking of the pipe, the ceremony is incomplete and means nothing. The pipe is like our eucharist.