A British government minister has criticized the London authorities for deciding to strip Uber of its taxi license, a major setback to the U.S. technology firm that has become a big player in the city’s transport system.

The British capital’s transport regulator deemed Uber unfit to run a tax service and said its license would not be renewed when it expires Sept. 30. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a member of the opposition Labour Party, backed the move.

“At the flick of a pen Sadiq Khan is threatening to put 40,000 people out of work and leave 3.5 million users of Uber stranded,” Greg Hands, the government minister for London, wrote on Twitter late on Friday.

He said Uber had to address safety concerns and it was important that there was a level playing field across the private hire market.

In backing the decision to strip Uber of its license, Khan said: “All private-hire operators in London need to play by the rules. The safety and security of customers must be paramount.”

Uber has said it will contest the decision. Regulator Transport for London (TfL) said it would let Uber operate until the appeals process is exhausted, which could take months.

Uber has turned to customers to help defend itself in other battles around the world, and an online petition to support Uber in London gathered nearly 430,000 signatures by early Saturday.

In Friday’s announcement, TfL cited concerns about Uber’s approach to reporting serious criminal offenses, background checks on drivers and software that could be used to block regulators from gaining full access to the app.
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From: MeNeedIt

An Egyptian ultraconservative Muslim preacher hears on his car radio news of the death of Michael Jackson, the pop singer he idolized in his teens, and he becomes so distraught he crashes his car.

The news of the passing of the King of Pop is the start of a crisis of conscience for Sheikh Khalid Hani, the main character of the movie Sheikh Jackson, Egypt’s first feature film to focus on the religious movement known as Salafis, followers of one of the strictest interpretations of Islam.

It follows Sheikh Hani, a Salafi, as his love for Michael Jackson throws him onto a bumpy journey to discover his own identity, mirroring how Egypt’s conservative society is torn between its Islamic and Arab traditions and Western culture in an age when television, telecommunications and social media bring together people and cultures from all corners of the world.

Humanity and identity

“I no longer cry while I am praying. That means my faith is faltering,” Hani confides to a female psychiatrist in one scene. Crying while praying, he explains, reflects his fear of God.

The film goes beyond examining Salafis, says the director, Amr Salama. 

“It’s about humanity. … It tells you that one’s identity is not a single dimension or an unchangeable thing,” he told The Associated Press just days before Sheikh Jackson premiered in the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month. 

It’s a journey Salama has some experience in: He was a huge Jackson fan in his teens and then became Salafi during his university years, before moving away from the movement. 

What is Salafism?

Salafism is one of the most closed, uncompromising visions of Islam. Its doctrine is primarily built around what its followers believe is emulation of the actions the Prophet Muhammad. They are easily recognized by their chest-long beards and robes that reach to just below the knees. They shun music, film and dance and outside influences seen as decadent. Salafi women wear the all-covering niqab, including veils over their faces.

Followers view life as a little more than a transitional phase and are contemptuous of worldly pleasures. Immortality in heaven is their chief goal.

When Hani goes to the psychiatrist, whom he thought by her ambiguous name was a man, he asks her to put on a headscarf during their sessions. She refuses, and throughout their talk, he can’t look at her. When she asks him the last thing that made him feel alive, his response comes from Salafi doctrine: “I bought my shroud and wrote my will.” He occasionally sleeps under his bed, convinced that it is the closest thing to being inside a grave, thus a reminder of his mortality.

Connection to Jackson

But Jackson’s death revives in Hani the obsession with the singer he had in his teens, when he imitated the star’s look and dance moves. It earned him the nickname “Jackson,” but also the disapproval of his macho father.

“He is effeminate,” the father says of Jackson. But Hani’s mother whispers to him, “He is the world’s best singer. But keep that as our little secret.” When the mother dies young, Hani’s father turns into a serial womanizer and becomes violent, beating Hani for imitating his idol.

When the adult Hani discovers his own daughter, at age 6 or 7, watching videos of Beyonce, he tears out the Wifi and denounces “dancing to the devil’s tune.”

Delicate territory

The film, which is to be released in Egyptian cinemas later this month and which Egypt has put forward as a candidate for a best foreign film Oscar nomination, goes into delicate territory. 

Thousands of Islamists have been jailed under the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who was elected after leading the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 and who has faced a fierce militant insurgency. Depicting Islamists with even a hint of positivity can bring questions from authorities and security agencies.

Still, while some Salafis have been jailed in the crackdown, the government has tolerated parts of the movement, in part because some Salafi political parties lined up behind el-Sissi after the Brotherhood’s ouster. 

Salafism has been the fastest growing Islamist movement in Egypt for the past decade, and it covers a spectrum. Some Salafis are relatively engaged with other parts of society, often as successful businessmen; some separate themselves to avoid sinful influences; others denounce society outright as “kafir,” or non-believing. A militant fringe embraces jihad against “infidels” and tyrants. 

The film risks a backlash from the public, either by viewers who see as it as too sympathetic to Islamists or, from the other side, as mocking religious beliefs. 

“I have neither glorified nor dissed the Salafis,” Salama said. “They are just human beings like us.”

Touching moments

That extends to depictions of Salafi family that almost never show up in films. Hani’s wife understands his turmoil after Jackson’s death. At one point, Hani tells her he loves her because she loves God more than she loves him.

In a scene many parents could sympathize with, their young daughter watches her parents with disapproving bemusement as they drive her to school, joyously singing a religious hymn they heard on the day they met. Embarrassed, she asks her father to drop her off far from the school gate.

The movie builds Salama’s reputation as a director willing to take on some of Egypt’s thorniest issues. His 2014 Excuse My French dealt with the forms of subtle discrimination that Egypt’s minority Christians face, while the 2011 Asmaa portrayed the social stigma endured by those who are HIV positive.

Still, neither of the previous films was a box office hit, despite critical acclaim. Sheikh Jackson is unlikely to fare better in a country where comedies and action movies the only sure winners. 

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The U.S. Justice Department has announced it is putting nearly $59 million toward fighting the epidemic of opioid drug addiction.

In a news release Friday, the department cited preliminary figures from the National Center for Health Statistics showing that drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 21 percent from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, a record high of around 65,000 people died from drug overdoses, driven by the opioid crisis.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new figures Thursday, blaming opioid painkiller addiction for the rise.

The 2016 estimate “would be the highest drug death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history,” Sessions said. “And every day this crisis continues to grow, as more than 5,000 Americans abuse painkillers for the first time [daily].”

Opioids such as heroin and the synthetic drug fentanyl were responsible for most of the fatal overdoses, killing more than 33,000 Americans — quadruple the number from 20 years ago.

The Justice Department said about $24 million in federal grants would be awarded to 50 cities, counties and public health departments for creation of “comprehensive diversion and alternatives to incarceration programs” for people impacted by the epidemic.

An additional $3.1 million will be awarded by the National Institute of Justice for research and evaluation on drugs and crime, prioritizing heroin and other opioids and synthetic drugs.

Also, $22 million is being awarded to 53 jurisdictions to support implementation of adult drug courts and veterans’ services.

And $9.5 million is going to juvenile and family treatment to “build effective family drug treatment courts and ensure current juvenile drug treatment courts follow established guidelines.”

In March, U.S. President Donald Trump named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former presidential candidate, to head the newly formed President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Last month, the commission urged the administration to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency.

“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks,” the commission said in an interim report.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that no declaration was necessary to combat the crisis, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said Trump was taking the idea “absolutely seriously.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Inside a converted port terminal, thousands of tech entrepreneurs gathered this week to pitch their ideas at TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual event that focuses on emerging technologies.

But this is no ordinary time for the tech industry, which finds itself under increasing scrutiny from Washington over how Russia used social media to influence the U.S. elections.

This week, Facebook announced that it would give U.S. lawmakers access to ads linked to Russia that were placed on the site leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

“We are in a new world,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook live event on Thursday. “It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion.”

For the entrepreneurs at Disrupt, the tech industry’s troubles in Washington seemed a sideshow to the technology they are working on.

Spurred on by their own sense of idealism, the startup founders said technology is mostly a force for good, connecting the world and helping information flow freely.

But concerns over how Russia has apparently exploited these modern tools of communication for propaganda gave some entrepreneurs pause. Can they control how their technology is used? Should the government provide more oversight?

Technology is “allowing people to have more freedom to create and more freedom to communicate,” said Lachlan Phillips, whose company, AdRobot, helps businesses make video ads and distribute them on social media.

But he acknowledged that “a malevolent message might have been quiet in the past, and that can be quite loud now.”

The traditional Silicon Valley view has long been that technology is just a tool, and that any problem caused by a new innovation would be solved by more technology.

That’s what Amy Chen is betting on. She has created a site — 99 Voices — for users to rate businesses and political leaders. But she isn’t sure that people aren’t rigging the votes. Chen is hoping that making people register with a U.S. mobile phone number will help ensure who is on her site.

“I don’t know if technology can solve this issue,” she said. “It would be nice if each person gets one vote and one say, and that’s the platform [on which] you can judge what is public opinion.”

Dylan Sidoo’s company, Disappears.com, focuses on encrypted messaging. Like SnapChat, his firm offers a messaging app called Vanish.

For Sidoo, communications security is a social good, even if some might use his service for nefarious purposes.

“People say there are drawbacks about this kind of security, that different personnel can use it for different things, maybe not the most positive things in the world,” he said. “If the company has good intentions, initially, that’s fine from there.”

This week, Facebook also announced that it would add more humans to review its automated ad-buying process. Reports showed that some advertisers were able to target people who expressed anti-Jewish ideas.

Phillips, of AdRobot, said companies have a moral responsibility to know how their technology is used, something that computer algorithms, no matter how well designed, can’t get right on their own.

“My belief is that we are still a human society,” he said. “And we need that human layer to ensure that we are people talking to people.”

Deana Mitchell contributed to this report.
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From: MeNeedIt

Britain’s Prince Harry is in Toronto ahead of his Invictus Games for wounded veterans

The founder of the games left the Royal York hotel and arrived at a Toronto office building for a symposium about veteran issues on Friday.

Harry wore a blue blazer as he greeted and posed for photographs with athletes ahead of the symposium. His girlfriend Meghan Markle is a Toronto resident, but did not appear.

At least 550 competitors from 17 countries are slated to compete in 12 sports. U.S. first lady Melania Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with Harry on Saturday.

The opening ceremony is Saturday night and will feature a performance by Sarah McLachlan.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Britain’s division of the Indian subcontinent into two countries 70 years ago led to the largest mass migration in modern history, with more than 12 million people displaced and more than half a million killed.

The traumatic legacy of the birth of India and Pakistan is the focus of a new museum that opened in Amritsar in Punjab, the northern state that witnessed the worst frenzy of violence after its western portions went to Pakistan and the eastern ones to India in 1947.

This violent chapter of history had been almost forgotten, said Mallika Ahluwalia, co-founder of the Partition Museum.

​Telling their stories

Although fiction and cinema have reflected that troubled time, there was until now no memorial or museum to millions of people caught in partition.

“We found that so many people we talked to say to us that finally someone is hearing their story. For a long time there was no space, either metaphorical or physical, where their story could be told,” Ahluwalia said.

An initiative of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, the museum opened in Amritsar’s restored, British-era Town Hall.

Exhibiting ordinary items that people carried as they fled, as well as photos, newspaper clippings and audio recordings, the museum recreates the time when slaughtering mobs and bloody riots ravaged both sides of the newly created border.

The exhibits tell tales of ruined homes, lives shattered and rebuilt, loved ones lost and found as tens of thousands of Sikhs and Hindus crossed to India and Muslims to Pakistan. They crammed into overcrowded trains, trucks or even crossed rivers clutching whatever they could salvage.

Some displays depict the functional and mundane, such as a sewing machine and boxes. Many had emotional value. A woman carried her wedding sari. A heavy embroidered jacket and a briefcase belonged to a woman and her fiancé, who were separated amid the looting and carnage, but were happily reunited at a refugee camp. A woman has donated a box that as an 8-year-old girl, she pulled out of the rubble of a house hoping to put into it new dolls to replace the ones she left behind.

Violence bore by women

In a section devoted to women, who largely bore the brunt of the violence, the central exhibit is a water well, a tribute to thousands who either jumped into wells or were pushed by their families to keep them from being raped or abducted.

But an embroidered fabric strung on the well exemplifies the many instances of humanity found amid the carnage. 

“That phulkari (embroidered fabric) belonged to a woman who jumped into the well along with all her family members when they were attacked, but she was rescued. She was rescued by someone from another community,” Ahluwalia said.

A jute cot, carried by a family, symbolizes the endless stream of refugees, including tens of thousands of affluent families, that huddled in sprawling camps.

​Cherished possession

One of them is Jagat Singh, now 90, who traveled from the neighboring city of Jullundur to Amritsar to relate his story.

He escaped the massacre in his village by crossing the Ravi River on a boat when he was a 19-year-old student. Singh still struggles to understand how the harmony between Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, who lived together in neighboring villages and towns, deteriorated into horrific bloodshed.

“In my hostel, we had friendly and affectionate relations with Muslim students. We used to visit each other’s homes. I don’t know why this turned into violence,” he said.

He has donated his most cherished possession — the documents of an $8 student loan that enabled him to graduate and rebuild his life after he arrived as a penniless refugee.

From stories, understanding

Such stories are helping visitors, especially those of younger generations, understand that it was not just leaders of the freedom struggle from British rule, but also countless ordinary people who paid a heavy price for independence.

Praniti, a law student, said the museum left a deep impression on her. 

“It makes me feel so free and so privileged and so aware of how unaware I was,” she said.

It was not just people who were victims. Objects in museums in Punjab also had to be divided between both nations, Ahluwalia said. She points to a necklace dating back to an ancient civilization that had to be split.

“We have come across files which have said half of the beads need to go to Pakistan and half to India. Our entire history in a sense they were trying to divide it in a way that is sad — how do you divide a shared heritage?” she asked.

The answer to that question still eludes the South Asian nations that, 70 years on, remain bitter rivals. But even as the scars of partition continue to fester, for many, the exhibit keeps the hope of reconciliation alive.
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From: MeNeedIt

On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured, including Jeff Bauman, who lost both his legs. Hours later, when he awoke from surgery, Bauman helped identify one of the terrorists. Now, the film Stronger, based on Bauman’s memoir by the same name, recounts how that terrorist attack changed Bauman’s life and for the better. Jake Gyllenhaal portrays Bauman; they spoke to VOA’s Penelope Poulou.
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From: MeNeedIt

At their low point in the late 1980s, there were 22 California condors left in the world. But in 1992, after dedicated efforts to save them, the condors began rebounding. Today, these magnificent raptors are coming back. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Standard & Poor’s rating agency cut China’s credit rating Thursday due to its rising debts, highlighting challenges faced by Communist leaders as they cope with slowing economic growth.

The downgrade added to mounting warnings about the dangers of increasing Chinese debt, which has fueled fears of a banking crisis or a drag on economic growth. Moody’s Investors Service cut its own rating for China in May.

S&P lowered its rating on China’s sovereign debt by one notch from AA- to A+, still among its highest ratings. The agency had given a warning sign of a possible downgrade in March 2016 when it changed China’s outlook to negative.

“A prolonged period of strong credit growth has increased China’s economic and financial risks,” S&P said in a statement. “Although this credit growth had contributed to strong real GDP growth and higher asset prices, we believe it has also diminished financial stability to some extent.”

The ratings cut, announced after Chinese financial markets closed for the day, could raise Beijing’s borrowing costs slightly, but the more significant impact is on investor sentiment.

Phone calls to the Chinese Finance Ministry were not answered. After the Moody’s downgrade in May, the ministry said the agency had used improper methods and misunderstood China’s economic difficulties and financial strength.

Communist leaders have cited reducing financial risk as a priority this year. They have launched initiatives to reduce debts owed by state companies, including by allowing banks to accept stock as repayment on loans. But private sector analysts say they are moving too slowly.

Beijing relied on repeated infusions of credit to prop up growth after the 2008 global crisis.

That helped propel total nongovernment debt to the equivalent of 257 percent of annual economic output by the end of last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements. That is unusually high for a developing country and up from 143 percent in 2008.

Chinese economic growth fell from 14.2 percent in 2007 to 6.7 percent last year, though that still was among the world’s strongest.

The government is trying to make the economy more productive by giving market forces a bigger role. It is trying to shrink bloated industries such as steel and cement in which supply exceeds demand, which has depressed prices and led to financial losses.

Beijing is trying to steer the economy to slower, more sustainable growth based on domestic consumption instead of investment and exports. But growth has dipped faster than planners wanted, raising the risk of politically dangerous job losses. Beijing has responded by flooding the economy with credit.

Official efforts to rein in debt “could stabilize the trend of financial risk in the medium term,” S&P said. “However, we foresee that credit growth in the next two to three years will remain at levels that will increase financial risks gradually.”

S&P kept its outlook for China stable. It said that reflected expectations the country will “maintain robust economic performance over the next three to four years.”

“We may raise our ratings on China if credit growth slows significantly and is sustained well below the current rates while maintaining real GDP growth at healthy levels,” S&P said. “A downgrade could ensue if we see a higher likelihood that China will ease its efforts to stem growing financial risk and allow credit growth to accelerate to support economic growth.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, business and political leaders around the world met to urge cooperation on such issues as trade, investment and international technology to help boost globalization. Without integration between nations, such issues as the environment, economic development and the well-being of societies suffer. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from New York.
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From: MeNeedIt

A chief gripe with Apple Watch is that it requires you to keep an iPhone with you for most tasks. The inclusion of GPS last year helped on runs and bike rides, but you’re still missing calls and messages without the phone nearby.

A new model with its own cellular-network connection is Apple’s next step toward an untethered world. Now you can make and receive calls and messages on the watch while leaving your phone at home.

But the watch still needs regular contact with an iPhone, and for most tasks, the phone needs to be on and connected, even if it’s nowhere nearby. So, you can’t get away with ditching the iPhone altogether. (Android users have their own wristwear options, including Samsung Gear and Android Wear watches, some of which can already manage their own network connections.)

The new Apple Watch Series 3, distinguished by a red crown, comes out Friday starting at about $400. You can forgo cellular, and the red crown, for $70 less. Or get a first-generation model, without GPS, for about $250.

Where it helps

You might not want to bring your phone on a short jog; the watch can still keep you in touch. Or you can leave the phone home while walking the dog or performing a quick errand.

You need a data add-on from the same wireless provider as your phone. It typically costs $5 or $10 a month and uses the phone’s data allotment.

While the watch technically has its own phone number, the major carriers have worked out number syncing. Calls to your phone will go to the watch, and calls from the watch will appear on caller ID with your regular number. Same goes for texts and iMessage chats.

Calls use the watch’s speaker and microphone, or wireless earphones. Colleagues say call quality was fine. It came in handy for sneaking in runs during conference calls (though if you’re my boss, just kidding! Now, about that raise …).

Phone calls and iMessage chats work on the watch even if your phone is off, as do turn-by-turn maps and queries to the Siri voice assistant. For texts, the phone needs to be on — somewhere. With the phone on, you can perform a variety of other tasks, including checking weather apps, Yelp recommendations and notifications that go to the phone.

Coming soon: the ability to stream Apple Music, even with the phone off. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to rival music services or Apple’s podcast app.

Limitations

Because the watch screen is small, many apps offer only a sliver of information and refer you back to the phone to view more. That was little more than an annoyance when the phone was in the same room. If you’ve left the phone behind, though, you’ll be left hanging.

You can also run into trouble while roaming, particularly internationally. For one thing, engineers weren’t able to squeeze in support for cellular frequencies around the world. And outside the U.S., only a handful of carriers are supporting the cellular watch. In any case, don’t forget to switch to airplane mode on flights.

Cellular data also drains the battery quicker. Apple’s promised 18 hours of battery life includes about four hours of such use. An hour of phone calls over LTE will drain the battery completely.

I got dropped from two conference calls because the battery was low to begin with. Plan ahead. A spare watch charger at your desk helps for those days you’re dumb enough to leave your phone on the kitchen counter.

Embracing the tether

It can be handy to untether the watch at times, but it’s not always necessary. Even when tied to the phone, Series 3 offers improvement such as tracking elevation, so you get credit for climbing stairs or jogging up a hill. And you can now hear Siri responses on the watch speaker, something enabled by the new version’s faster processor.

Software update

For owners of past models, a software update out this week, watchOS 4, will bring easier access to music playback controls when exercising — just swipe left. There are more prompts when reaching or nearing daily goals, and options for multiple sports in a single workout.

A new heart rate app now shows heart rate at rest and averages when walking or recovering from exercise. These can help you gauge your overall fitness.

And if your heart rate is high without any signs of exercise, you’ll get an alert. You enable this when you first open the heart rate app. It can signal health problems, though Apple is stopping short of telling you to see a doctor or visit the emergency room, as the watch isn’t marketed — or certified — as a medical device.
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From: MeNeedIt

The collapse of a prominent Native American media network has triggered debate over how Native media can best serve the interests of communities across Indian Country and counter stereotypes and misinformation in the mainstream press.

Native American journalism dates back to the Cherokee Phoenix, founded in 1828 to advocate against the U.S. government policy of assimilation and forced removal. Many newspapers have since come and gone, victims of high costs and low revenue.

The most recent casualty was Indian Country Today Media Network (ICTMN), whose publisher, Ray Halbritter of the Oneida Indian Nation, this month announced that after 36 years in business, the network would take a break to explore “alternative business models.”

The news disappointed many, who surmised that the venture was too costly to support.

“This is a really tough environment for anyone that’s in the advertising side, and Indian Country Today was selling advertising,” said independent journalist and blogger Mark Trahant.

Others suggest ICTMN failed because it lost touch with the audience it intended to serve.

Humble beginnings

ICTMN began as the Lakota Times, founded in 1981 by Oglala Lakota journalist and editor Tim Giago, serving South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. A weekly community newspaper, independently owned, it gradually expanded its coverage to national issues and was renamed Indian Country Today.

New York State’s Oneida Nation, a tribe which has profited through the gaming industry, bought the paper in 1998. They later renamed it ICTMN and moved operations to New York City. In 2013, they ended the print edition and shifted online. Last April, ICTMN launched a glossy, bimonthly magazine, Indian Country, at considerable expense.

“One of the things I think they forgot was all these folks here in Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Crow Creek or Standing Rock reservations,” said Giago, now publisher of Native Sun News Today. “They live way out in the middle of nowhere. A lot of them don’t have money to buy computers, least of all to hook up to the internet.”

Giago and others have also criticized ICTMN for hiring non-Native American writers and editors.

“Most of the other Native publications over the past couple of generations were written and edited by people who were deeply involved in their respective communities,” said Mohawk journalist Doug George-Kanentiio, vice president of the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge and a former editor of the now-defunct newspaper Akwesasne Notes.

He also questioned whether a network owned and funded by a tribal government could guarantee editorial independence.

“Whoever is writing the checks by and large determines the content,” he said.

‘Crabs in a bucket’

ICTMN op/ed editor Raymond Cook bristles at the criticisms.

“People always poke at success,” he said, citing the analogy of crabs in a bucket, “where one crab is trying to get out of the bucket, and then the others pull him down.”

First, he explained why ICTMN shut down.

“The state of New York recently handed out several gaming licenses, and now these non-tribal entities are trying to creep into the casino market,” he said. “So, the Oneida had to readjust its revenue projections. And reluctantly, with tears in their eyes, they put us on hiatus.”

He denies ICTMN lost touch with tribes.

“New York City has a larger Native American population than any other U.S. city,” he said. “So we never moved out of Indian Country. If we had stayed in South Dakota, we’d still be waiting for internet connection.”

He defends ICTMN for hiring non-native writers, whom he calls ‘indigenous identifiers,’ as well as targeting non-Native audiences.

“’Cause we can’t talk to ourselves only,” he said.

The paper regularly interviewed prominent U.S. politicians, including President Barack Obama.

“We not only educated our readers on the views of these politicians on Indian-focused issues, but we also helped ensure that Native America was on the radar of many of the top power brokers in our country and beyond,” said ICTMN’s Washington bureau chief Rob Capriccioso, a member of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

Looking forward

At their recent annual meeting, members of the Native American Journalists Association discussed setting up a national Native American wire service to serve both tribal and mainstream media.

“Instead of trying to create a new vehicle, we’d just create a new driver,” journalist Trahant said.

In the meantime, ICTMN’s Cook said his network is looking for a qualified party to take over operations, something that would require an annual investment of $2.5 million to $3 million until 2021.

“Basically, we’d sell it to them for $10, and they can take over operations, as long as they can guarantee our journalistic standards,” he said. “It could be a tribe, a business, a government — anything, as long as it’s based in Indian Country and it’s run by Natives.”
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From: MeNeedIt