Since it was first identified 25 years ago, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, hasclaimed the lives of around 25 million people worldwide. And, each day, an estimated 8,000 people are added to the list of the dead.

From Aug. 13 to 18, scientists, educators, policy makers, service organizers, community leaders and people living with AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, the virus that causes AIDS) from around the world came together in Toronto to take part in the 16th International AIDS

It has been six years since the city of Vancouver, the province of British Columbia and the federal government announced a plan to improve the conditions of those living on the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, but despite ambitious proposals concerning housing, health and safety, some organizations say little is being done for members of Canada's poorest community.

Nearly half of the

recommendations in the

recently released Highway of

Tears symposium report are

focused on prevention,

including one that proposes that

a unique free shuttle system

operate between Prince Rupert

and Prince George.

The report, which is the

result of a gathering held in

late March in Prince George

Two years ago Sheila Swasson had a dream of cycling across Canada to raise awareness about family violence in First Nations communities. On May 28, her dream was set into motion as Aboriginal Women on the Move Cross-Canada Cycle departed Vancouver en-route to St. John's, Nfld.

Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre Vancouver reached out to urban Aboriginal communities in the Lower Mainland to strengthen relationships and recruit urban Aboriginal youth during a one-day open house.

Andrea Hardman, 18, an aspiring First Nations artist, who is one of six recipients of this year's YVR Art Foundation Scholarship, has always been drawn to the creative, from finger painting as a child to her preferred medium of photography as a young adult.

Aboriginal people in Canada are three times more likely to be victims of violence than are non-Aboriginal Canadians, according to Victimization and Offending Among the Aboriginal Population in Canada, a report released by Statistics Canada on June 6.

The report, which bases many of its findings on a general social survey conducted in 2004, showed that the risk of becoming a victim of violence was highest among Aboriginal youth, with individuals between the ages of 15 and 34 nearly two-and-a-half times more likely to be victims than individuals over the age of 34.

Aboriginal people in Canada are three times more likely to be victims of violence than are non-Aboriginal Canadians, according to Victimization and Offending Among the Aboriginal Population in Canada, a report released by Statistics Canada on June 6.

The report, which bases many of its findings on a general social survey conducted in 2004, showed that the risk of becoming a victim of violence was highest among Aboriginal youth, with individuals between the ages of 15 and 34 nearly two-and-a-half times more likely to be victims than individuals over the age of 34.

In a unanimous decision on June 8, the BC. Court of Appeal stated that the federal Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy is not a race-based fishery. The news was greeted positively by the First Nations Summit and with a promise to appeal to the Supreme Court by the BC Fisheries Survival Coalition. The court decided the communal license of the Musqueam-Burrard and Tsawwassen nations was not a separate fishery but simply a method of allocation of the resource.

The Allied Tsimshian Tribes (ATT) brought just one message when their representatives visited Norway in June, and it was a clear and emphatic one: Fish farms are not welcome in their territory.

That message was heard by a wide range of prominent people in the country, home to the world's leading fish farm corporations, and it was backed by delegates from southern B.C., the United States and Chile.