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The streets of Toronto have become a battleground for gun-toting street youth gangs, Detective Cst. Doug Minor told a March 17 gathering. "It's organized crime," said Minor, a member of the Guns and Gangs Task Force.

The 13-year veteran of the Metropolitan Toronto Police told a group of Native and non-Native teens at the new Tumivut youth shelter on Vaughan Rd. that there are 200 to 300 actual gangs in Toronto.

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Library and Archives Canada has introduced a new online guide to help people trace their heritage in its virtual Canadian Genealogy Centre. Launched Feb. 23, the guide Researching Your Aboriginal Ancestry provides tips on genealogy searching and suggests links to government records.

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The first Aboriginal art curator in this country, the highly acclaimed Tom Hill, became one of the Governor General's laureates last month when it was announced he had been selected to receive the annual award in the category of Visual and Media Arts.

For more than 20 years Hill has been director of the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brampton, a job he still enjoys so much that he wants to remain associated in a volunteer capacity after he retires in a couple of years.

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The National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation set up shop in Calgary April 4 to pay tribute to 14 accomplished members of the Native community in Canada.

The foundation's annual achievement awards gala was a lavish affair, bringing together a who's who of the Aboriginal elite and the corporate connected.

Playing host to the foundation's guests were legendary Tennessee singer Rita Coolidge and musician/actor Tom Jackson, a veteran of six of the 11 award shows the foundation has held.

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While the blockade at the Grassy Narrows First Nation in Northern Ontario has gathered massive support from all over the world, the chainsaws are still winning the battle.

But a group of determined Native teens vows to stop the clear-cutting taking place on their reserve.

Six Ojibwa teens from Grassy Narrows were recent guests of the self-described warrior society, the Toronto Youth Movement (TYM), at a demonstration in Toronto.

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The first Aboriginal art curator in this country, the highly acclaimed Tom Hill, became one of the Governor General's laureates last month when it was announced he had been selected to receive the annual award in the category of Visual and Media Arts.

For more than 20 years Hill has been director of the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brampton, a job he still enjoys so much that he wants to remain associated in a volunteer capacity after he retires in a couple of years.

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Abby Duncan, a member of Soda Creek First Nation, is passionate about bringing computer technology to Aboriginal people nationwide.

More than that, having a businesswoman's sense of a unique idea, she is pursuing the notion that simply offering people computer training isn't always enough. As the owner of CFN Learning, which provides all levels of on-site computer training to Aboriginal people, she wants to leave them with the computer they learn on too.

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In 2003 a handful of youths walked across Canada and saved three lives. If that was the only measure of the Suicide Prevention Walk's success, that would be more than adequate, says walk organizer and president Vincent Watts. But the walk did more than that.

"People realized that we don't have an international youth suicide prevention program. The United States has one and we don't have one."

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An all-First Nations crew in heli-logging, the only one of it's kind in Canada, calls Vancouver Island home. The crew of 12 is in demand these days. The workers, who were trained by Coulson Forest Products in 2000, are from several bands belonging to the Nuu' chah-nulth Tribal Council.

In 1999, Ehattesaht First Nation councillor Lyle Billy visited the communities of Zeballos, Campbell River, Nuchatlaht and Gold River, to make people aware of heli-logging training and begin the recruitment process.

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On a visit to Nanaimo on April 15 Environment Minister David Anderson expressed no enthusiasm for offshore oil and gas exploration, but said he was not averse to drilling for coalbed methane gas on Vancouver Island.

The Nanaimo Daily News reported Anderson as saying, "Onshore drilling for methane would be a very interesting proposition." He added that he had no concerns for drilling on land for coalbed methane because the technology is proven and the environmental effects are minimal.