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The fourth Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report has revealed some improvements in Indigenous income levels, employment and infant mortality but a big jump in substantiated Indigenous child abuse cases. However, Productivity Commission chair Gary Banks said insufficient data made it impossible to say if there'd been improvements in about half of the indicators.

DANCE group Zogo Tudi, from Warraber Island in the Torres Strait, had the crowd enthralled during a performance at the Gab Titui Indigenous Art Award, held at the region’s cultural centre on Thursday Island. The awards attracted an impressive range of local artworks. See page 52 for our report.

ABORIGINAL and Torres Strait Islander communities are bracing themselves for swine flu, after health experts warned that people with chronic underlying illnesses would be most vulnerable to the potentially deadly H1N1 virus. Authorities have begun rolling out supplies of anti-viral prescription drugs to remote communities but say they’ll only be prescribed on a case-by-case basis to people who present with flu-like symptoms.
 

OUR mobs have plenty of reasons to feel proud at any time of the year but NAIDOC Week always brings out the best of days. This year, the national NAIDOC committee and the Federal Government are calling on all Australians to celebrate this year’s theme of ‘Honouring our Elders, Nurturing our Youth’.
 

MORE than 1500 people crowded into a mall in Perth city on 20 June to demand justice for the family of Ngaanyatjarra Elder Mr Ward and the full implementation of the West Australian Coroner’s report into his death. In other developments, one of the prison guards who transported the Elder on the day of his death has apologised for her role in the fatal incident, and a prison officer in Queensland has spoken of the horrific transport conditions in that state.
 

THE two-year anniversary of the Federal intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities sparked protests around the country. Protestors gathered in all major capital cities demanding an end to the intervention, which has involved controversial policies such as mandatory income quarantining and leases over Aboriginal land.
 

THE NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) has welcomed legislation aimed at establishing a more reliable and transparent regime for land dealings by local Aboriginal land councils, NSWALC and third parties. The legislation proposes to amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (ALRA) following a major review.
 

THE Cooramah Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Glen Innes, on the NSW Northern Tablelands, is set to re-open this month with a new organising committee at the helm. The centre, in the heart of Ngoorabul country, closed in late 2006 after the collapse of the Glen Innes CDEP scheme.
 

 IT CAME much later than predicted, but Australian point guard Patty Mills was finally selected, by the Portland Trailblazers, last Friday with the 55th overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft.

THE Indigenous Australian cricket team had mixed results in the early stages of its tour of the United Kingdom, losing the first game and winning the next.

WEST Coast Fever netballer Josie Janz is emerging as one of Australia’s exciting young defenders. After getting on to the court in just two games in the 2008 ANZ championship season with the Perth-based Fever, Janz has gone on to recieve received greater opportunities as goal defence this season.

Young Indigenous sportswoman, 12-year-old Amanda Fowler, of Blaxland in the NSW Blue Mountains boasts skills in a variety of sports - swimming, athletics, triathlon, water polo and soccer. She was recently named the NSW Department of Housing Sportsperson of the Year.

A MIDNIGHT basketball competition is set to start in Townsville this month, with one major aim being for a representative game to be played against Cairns as a curtain-raiser to a Crocodiles versus Taipans NBL game.

A GROUP of Aboriginal cricketers hope their re-tracing of the famous 1868 tour of Britain will raise the sport’s profile in Indigenous Australia. A squad of 14 players aged 16-26 left Brisbane on 20 June and will play 11 matches inside a month against county and club sides, some at the grounds where the tourists of 141 years ago visited.

Queensland campaigner Bob Weatherall says Australian governments have shown a lack of respect, moral commitment and vision in their care and management of thousands of unprovenanced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains and sacred ceremonial materials. Mr Weatherall wants an overhaul of Australia's overseas and domestic repatriation programs and policies.

The Seattle Art Museum has become the first American collecting institution to independently initiate the return of a secret/ sacred object to Australia. It will return an important central Australian Aboriginal object, which was first colleted in 1970.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) has lodged a complaint with the state's Anti-Discrimination Commission alleging that that government policy discriminates against Aboriginal clients. TAC Adviser Michael Mansell says it takes longer for Aboriginal people to be housed, the process is more difficult and Aboriginal applications have been sidelined.