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By Dev Kumar Sunuwar 

On June 26, 2019, after over a month of continuous and massive movements by Indigenous Peoples, especially by Newar Peoples in Kathmandu Valley, the Nepalese government finally was forced to withdraw the Guthi Bill. This Bill would have permitted the regulation of customary land trusts in the National Assembly, the supreme legislative body of Nepal.

By Katherine Hamilton

On May 20, 2019, 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez died in a Texas Border Patrol station, after being diagnosed with influenza and waiting a week in holding facilities. He was the fifth Indigenous child to die on the border since December.

In September 2018, the first migrant child to die in federal custody since 2010 passed away due to heart complications. Since then, five more minors have died at Border Patrol, all of them from Guatemala, a country whose population is majority Indigenous.

Diana Pastor (Maya K'iche), Media Coordinator, holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Work from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala and studied Collaborative Community Leadership at California State University, Monterey Bay, USA. As an Indigenous woman from the diaspora, she is passionate about promoting her culture globally and engaging in conversations around the evolving dynamics of Indigenous Peoples. Diana has worked as a communications coordinator and consultant for local and international NGOs for the past nine years. She served as editor of EntreMundos (between worlds), a magazine focused on development, culture and human rights in Guatemala. She is pursuing a Master's in International Media Studies at the Deutsche Welle Akademie in Bonn, Germany. She speaks Spanish, English, and some German. Contact Diana at: diana.pastor@cs.org

Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Koĩts-Sunuwar), Community Media Program Coordinator, comes from Nepal. Dev holds Master’s degrees in journalism and mass communication, political science, and law, specializing in international law and human rights from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. He has worked in different media for more than 15 years, including print, radio, TV, and digital. He also has worked as an investigative reporter for Centre for Investigative Journalism, Nepal (CIJ-Nepal), and as a column writer on Indigenous Peoples and minority groups for mainstream newspapers. Together with his colleagues, Dev founded several community radio stations, an association of 21 Indigenous community stations, and Nepal’s and South Asia’s first and only Indigenous community television station. Contact Dev at dev.kumar@cs.org.

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