A picture of the Noble Drew Ali, North Carolina-born Prophet of the Moorish Science Temple of America, adorns a page on the progressive Muslim Wake Up! website featuring a story by Laury Silvers, who has taken note of our contention that Moorish Science, a little-known but highly influential precursor to the Black Muslim movement, represents an indigenous American form of Islam (see Moorish Science in the news, Sept. 21). Silvers calls for a more inclusive view of this tradition on the part of "mainstream" or orthodox Islam, while acknowledging stark doctrinal divisions.

Nourished by the Waters of Indigenous Islam

By Laury Slivers

Simply said, American Indigenous Islam in all its forms should be properly honored and respected by the Muslim community as part of the history and life of Islam globally. I do not mean simply Indigenous American Islam in the sense of the Islam of the slaves. I mean all of Indigenous American Islam, even the forms that are difficult for the “mainstream

Ten years after Niger's government and insurgents signed an accord to end the Tuareg rebellion, authorities have launched an economic assistance program for more than 3,000 ex-combatants in the country's north—the final phase as laid out in the peace pact. Under the project, 3,160 former combatants will be granted around US $300 each in the form of micro-loans for projects in animal husbandry, local crafts and vegetable gardening, said Michele Falavigna, Niger representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

On Oct. 11, unidentified gunmen shot dead Francisco Antonio Cuchillo Baltazar, a 57-year indigenous governor of Ginebra municipality of the southwestern Colombian department of Valle del Cauca, the authorities said. Cuchillo was hit by three bullets when he was waiting for a bus to return home. His daughter, Lili Cuchillo, said her father "was shot three times, one in the head and two in the chest, by an assault rifle. To this moment we do not have information about which armed group committed this crime." She said this murder "represents an attack on our communities. They took a leader away from us." On Sept. 5, Jorge Eduardo Cuchillo Baltazar, the governor's brother, was kidnapped and shot dead. His body was found near Ginebra. (Xinhua, Oct. 13)

On Oct. 8, Maryam Namazie of the Organization of Women's Liberation in Iran (OWLI) , was awarded the National Secular Society's first Irwin Prize for "Secularist of the Year" in London . The £5,000 annual prize, sponsored by NSS member Dr. Michael Irwin, was presented by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee at a lunch at London's Montcalm Hotel. The event also featured cabaret from stand-up comedian Stewart Lee, who is co-author of the controversial "Jerry Springer — the Opera," considered blasphemous by fundamentalist Christians.

For years, apologists for Israeli policy in the occupied territories, such as CAMERA, have claimed the system of "Jewish-only" roads did not exist, since they are intermittently open to Palestinian traffic. The system has been de facto and not de jure. According to the Israeli paper Ma'ariv, that may be about to change and become official Israeli policy, with a set of little-travelled Jewish-only superhighways scarring the West Bank, whilst Palestinians are consigned to use a system of smaller roundabout roads.

More than 1,000 people marched in the western Puerto Rican town of Hormigueros on Oct. 8 to protest the killing of nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios there on Sept. 23 by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The march was organized by pro-independence groups, including the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, but participants included people who want Puerto Rico to join the US as a state. Some marchers were local residents who knew Ojeda as "Don Luis" during the time he lived in Hormigueros clandestinely. "He was a beautiful person; he lived quietly on his little farm," said store owner Luis Garcia, who remembered Ojeda occasionally coming by to get a beer. (El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico, Oct. 9)

On Oct. 10 interim Haitian prime minister Gerard Latortue announced that the first round of this year's presidential and legislative elections will be rescheduled from Nov. 20 to a date several weeks later, probably the second week of December. "We've had problems," he said. "We've accumulated sizeable delays in implementing the logistics and in finalizing the list of candidates." Latortue insisted that the postponement won't prevent the next president from taking office on Feb. 7, as required by the Constitution. (Haiti en Marche, Miami, Oct. 12 from AFP)

On Oct. 10 in Santiago, Chile, nearly 4,000 people took part in a "Dignity March" called by Meli Wixan Mapu and other Mapuche organizations. The marchers called for the release of Mapuche political prisoners, and for Mapuche unity in the continued struggle for land and self-determination and against violations of indigenous rights by the Chilean and Argentine governments and by business interests. (Campana Continental Contra el ALCA, Oct. 12)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 16