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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FYI: News Items of Interest, December 28, 2006 (3 items) Compiled by Joanne Robertson Additional information about sources available at the end of the message. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [1] "Many Rural Alaska Villages Still Without Water," Tamar Ben-Yosef, Alaska Newspapers Inc., The Associated Press State & Local Wire, December 27, 2006. Copyright 2006, Associated Press, All Rights Reserved. ["As 2006 closes, 34 percent of Alaskan Native villages still do not have modern water and sewer services....While building the infrastructure for modern water services in rural villages has been an ongoing effort for some time now, it has taken on a new urgency given the results of a recently completed study that links lack of water service to infectious diseases. The study, in which researchers surveyed the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, examined the relationship between proximity to potable water and wastewater disposal and the risk of infectious diseases. The Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Alaska is the least developed in terms of modern water services and highest for rates of hospitalization due to infectious diseases. For the study, modern water services refers to pressurized water systems in the home, meaning the ability to turn on a faucet...[A]ll villages have a purified water point a small treatment facility where villagers can go with a bucket to get water...This means that while access to drinking water is a lesser issue, it is not the case with simple actions such as hand-washing and disposing of wastewater....The main problem is a lack of awareness in these communities about the importance of hygiene. For instance, many people may reuse the same water bowl for washing their hands....The majority of villages that do not have modern water services are either built on permafrost ground or on swampy tundra areas. That creates difficulty and higher costs for building the necessary pipe systems...Efforts to get running water to rural Alaskan villages have been ongoing, with several agencies involved, among them tribal health organizations..."] [2] "Stories of 'Mother Earth'; Oneidas Dig to See What Europeans Left," Glenn Coin, The Post Standard (Syracuse, New York), December 27, 2006, p. B1. Copyright 2006, Post Standard, All Rights Reserved. ["It's not uncommon for archaeologists to uncover artifacts used long ago by American Indians. But for Indians to uncover - and preserve - artifacts left by European-Americans is a bit more unusual. That's what the Oneida Indian Nation did recently while researching the land around an old house in Verona slated for demolition. The nation's own archaeologist and a team of consultants found a variety of artifacts that gave insight into the life of a German-American family in the late 19th century...The soil around the former Smith...farmhouse was full of artifacts, including nails, ceramic shards and animal bones. The dig is just one of many the nation has conducted since it began buying property in Madison and Oneida counties in the early 1990s. Nation leaders say they conduct archaeological surveys in accordance with federal and state laws - and with their own cultural beliefs...The dig happened over the summer, but nation officials are still reviewing the consultant's report to determine what to do next. At other sites, areas where artifacts were found were roped off to keep heavy machinery away. The nation's archaeology program also has uncovered ancient sites. To illustrate, Bergevin last week removed a handful of rock flakes from a clear plastic bag and laid them on a table in his office in Oneida. They were chert flakes, the pieces of rock chipped away to make small, sharpened tools used for scraping meat from bones or loosening fibers for baskets...[dating ]...to 600 to 200 B.C...."] [3] "Province Told to Butt Out in Illegal Cigarrettes Trial,' Jane Seyd, North Shore News (British Columbia), December 27, 2006, p. 1. Copyright 2006, North Shore News. All Rights Reserved. ["A member of the Squamish Indian band whose business was raided by provincial investigators last year for selling illegal cigarettes has argued in court that the province has no business telling natives how they can sell tobacco on native land. Donald Joe saw his cigarette business go up in smoke last February after he was raided by provincial investigators who carted away more than 880 cartons, the entire $60,000 inventory of his Big Chief's Discount Smokes...A year after the raid, Joe was charged under the provincial Tobacco Tax Act with five offences that include selling the cigarettes without a provincial permit and with failing to submit the required tax to provincial authorities. If he's found guilty, Joe could potentially be facing fines of more than triple the tax that authorities say he should have paid. But Joe -- who also goes by the name of Don Mathias -- has pleaded not guilty and is fighting the case as an infringement on his native rights. In North Vancouver provincial court last week, Joe's defence lawyer Glen Bell told Judge Carol Baird Ellan the provincial Tobacco Tax Act shouldn't apply to Joe because 'tobacco sales he made to Indians were not subject to taxation.' Bell argued the federal government alone has jurisdiction over native reserves and Indians and the only provincial laws that should apply there are those that have nothing to do with native issues....Crown counsel lawyers have disagreed with that and argued the case is simply a matter of Joe breaking provincial tax laws....A decision on the case is expected in March."] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FYI: News Items of Interest is a daily resource compiled by the H-AMINDIAN staff. It features a sampling of news stories concerning Native issues in Canada, the United States and Mexico. In order to comply with Academic Fair Use and copyright laws, only a summary of the news articles is offered here. We will not reproduce articles in whole. Only stories from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) offer a direct link to the article in question (the link follows immediately after the summary). However, online links to all of our sources are available at our website: http://www.asu.edu/clas/history/h-amindian/list.html. Your college, university, or public library may provide access to online data bases and services (such as Lexis-Nexis, ProQuest, or Dialog) with full-text versions of these and other stories. H-AMINDIAN is part of the H-NET family and is housed in the Department of History, Arizona State University. Visit our website at http://www.asu.edu/clas/history/h-amindian/
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