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An 86-year old Sioux elder at the Sacred Stone Camp near Cannonball, North Dakota.

More than 1 million people have "checked in" at Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota on Facebook on October 31. The mass "check in" was in response to a viral post calling for help to protect activists in North Dakota protesting against the Dakota Access oil pipeline from police surveillance through the Facebook feature.

"The Morton County Sheriff's Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps,鈥 the text of the viral Facebook post said.

Christian Schmidt, Germany's Agricultural Minister, announced on October 20 that 鈥渃hick shredding鈥 will be banned from 2017, making Germany the first country in the world to stop the practice. Every year, millions of tiny male chicks are ground up alive shortly after hatching because as males they don't lay eggs. Now there is hope that this brutal practice could come to an end. Previously egg producers had to wait until the chick hatched to tell if it was male or female. But new technology will enable the sex of each fertilised egg to be determined before the chick inside develops.
Tracks By Channa Wickremesekera Samayawardhana Printers 156 pages, paperback Class, family, lust, the need to fit in and hero worship are the recurrent tropes in Sri Lankan-born Melbourne-based author Channa Wickremesekera's latest novel Tracks. He explores the sexual confusion of a young middle-class boy of Sri Lankan descent (Sheehan) who develops a huge crush on one of the more rebellious 鈥淎nglo鈥 boys (Robbie) in his school.
The author of the Harry Potter series of novels, JK Rowling, has disappointed many of her fans by signing a letter opposing a boycott of Israel. The letter, which was also signed by other British cultural figures, such as TV presenter Melvyn Bragg, popular historian Tom Holland and author Hilary Mantel, proclaims its support for what it called 鈥渁n independent UK network鈥 called Culture for Coexistence.
Melbourne-based author and community radio presenter Iain McIntyre has been documenting and celebrating Australian radical history since the 1990s. A series of zines he created entitled How To Make Trouble And Influence People were compiled into an expanded edition by Breakdown Press in 2009 with a second edition released in conjunction with US publisher PM Press in 2013.
Members of an Australia Palestine Advocacy Network study tour in front of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank in January last year. Photo from APAN.org.au.
Hundreds of university professors in Britain have declared a boycott of Israeli schools in an effort to draw attention to the Israeli government's many human rights offenses against Palestinians and violations of international law, on October 28. The petition, titled 鈥淎 Commitment by U.K. Scholars to the Rights of Palestinians鈥, was printed as a full-page advertisement in the October 27 Guardian.
October marked 50 years since the start of the campaign of mass killing of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members and sympathisers in Indonesia. It is estimated as many as 1 million people were killed or jailed during 1965-1966, carried out as part of Suharto's Western-backed military coup.
Aftermath of Saudi bombing of MSF hospital. The Saudi-led coalition bombed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) clinic in Yemen, the charity鈥檚 mission head said. The that Hassan Boucenine said two air raids hit the facility in northern Saada province at about 11pm on October 26. 鈥淚t鈥檚 completely destroyed,鈥 he said.
The has launched an appeal for funds, in conjunction with , to assist relief work in the Western Sahara refugee camps where week-long torrential rains have devastated homes, hospitals and schools and destroyed food stores.
Bedouins living in Israel's southern Negev region protesting.

Bedouins living in Israel's southern Negev region protest against government plans to confiscate their land.

A Cuban girl is being deprived of urgently needed cancer treatment due to the United States' blockade, doctors said on October 28, .