- Boeing exploring sale of space business: report
- G20 affirms commitment to transition from fossil fuels
- Shami misses India's tour of Australia as Easwaran named as potential Rohit cover
- 75 sickened as McDonald's severe E. Coli outbreak expands
- Turkmenistan's 'Gateway to Hell' lit gas pit faces closure
- Kickboxing takes Senegal by storm despite tight funds
- Waymo ramps up robotaxi push with $5.6 bn in funding
- Elon Musk all-in for Trump as Moscow denies secret Putin talks
- Covid lessons learned? UN summit mulls plan for healthy planet, and humans
- Borthwick unveils new contracts for leading England players
- Sexual assault scandal rocks Spain's 'most feminist' govt
- France must make 'credible' progress on deficit: finance minister
- BHP, Vale agree to pay $30bn compensation for Brazil dam disaster
- Verstappen says 'definitely' his intention to remain at Red Bull
- Mbappe can launch Madrid career in first Clasico
- A monumental dump and Obama the rapper: an offbeat US campaign week
- Biden to apologize for abusive Native American boarding schools
- Pressure is part of manager's life, says troubled West Ham boss Lopetegui
- Gaza ministry says Israel forces detaining hundreds at hospital
- Hirscher confirms return from retirement at World Cup opener
- IMF raises concerns about effects of Sudan conflict on neighbors
- Seoul slams Russian treaty with N. Korea, Zelensky urges 'tangible pressure'
- De Zerbi hails Greenwood as Marseille await Paris Saint-Germain
- Under-fire Ten Hag blames injuries for derailing Man Utd
- Wounded Arsenal must show 'ruthless mentality' against Liverpool: Arteta
- Howe challenges Newcastle stars to step up
- UK's Labour govt prepares to unveil its first budget
- Guardiola backs Man City's Foden to emerge from slump
- Pakistan judicial reforms see next top judge passed over
- Germany promises more visas for Indians during Scholz visit
- Postecoglou says hype will not affect teenage star Moore
- PSG reject league order to pay Mbappe 55 mn euros in back pay
- Olympic champion Zheng finds mojo to reach Tokyo semis
- Tropical storm leaves towns submerged, 76 dead in Philippines
- Ancelotti 'not losing sleep' over improved Barca ahead of Clasico
- UK climate strategy ruled lawful in landmark court case
- Lebanon says Israeli strike that killed media workers a 'war crime'
- Slot targets Arsenal scalp after flying start for Liverpool
- Shakeel's gritty century lifts Pakistan to parity in third Test
- Uganda court sentences former LRA commander to 40 years
- Marc Marquez clocks lap record to go fastest in Thai MotoGP practice
- Smog in Pakistan megacity ends outdoor play for schoolkids
- 'End of an era' for Hezbollah after Israel's killed its leader
- Lebanon minister says Israel strike puts second Syria crossing out of service
- Ahmed triple strike leaves Pakistan 187-7 in third Test
- Tunisian freediver Walid Boudhiaf eyes records and developing the sport
- Schauffele makes up ground in Japan after opening-day nightmare
- Lebanon says Israeli strike kills 3 journalists
- Beyonce v Joe Rogan: stars power up US election
- Locals fume as Lisbon's historic trams become tourist 'toy'
RBGPF | -0.05% | 62.97 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.04% | 24.63 | $ | |
RYCEF | 0% | 7.2 | $ | |
BP | 0.75% | 31.535 | $ | |
GSK | -0.44% | 37.575 | $ | |
RIO | 0.9% | 65.195 | $ | |
BTI | -0.26% | 34.56 | $ | |
RELX | 0.7% | 47.43 | $ | |
SCS | -0.56% | 12.52 | $ | |
AZN | -0.96% | 75.18 | $ | |
NGG | -1.67% | 65.25 | $ | |
BCC | -0.54% | 136.24 | $ | |
VOD | -0.26% | 9.485 | $ | |
JRI | 0.92% | 13.09 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.16% | 24.86 | $ | |
BCE | -1.05% | 32.795 | $ |
Biden to apologize for abusive Native American boarding schools
US President Joe Biden was set on Thursday to deliver a historic apology for one of the country's "darkest chapters": the abduction of Native American children from their families and placement in abusive boarding schools aimed at erasing their culture.
From the early 1800s until the 1970s, the United States ran hundreds of Indian boarding schools across the country to forcibly assimilate Native children into European settler culture, including conversion to Christianity.
A recent government report revealed harrowing instances of physical, mental, and sexual abuse, along with the deaths of nearly a thousand children.
"The Federal Indian Boarding School Era is one of the darkest chapters of American history," Biden wrote on X Thursday, ahead of the apology he plans to deliver at the Gila River Indian Community in Laveen Village, Arizona.
"Today, I'm in Arizona to issue a long overdue presidential apology for this era," he added. "We must remember our full history, even when it's painful. That's what great nations do. And we are a great nation."
The White House will stream Biden's address live at 1730 GMT.
Biden will be joined by US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary.
- Rare presidential apology -
Under Biden's administration, there has been a significant investment in Native American communities, with executive actions expanding Tribal autonomy and designating monuments to protect sacred ancestral sites.
In all, there were more than 400 schools, often church run, across 37 states or then-territories.
Native children were forcibly taken under a policy of cultural genocide to "civilize" them, a brutal agenda summed up in the phrase "Kill the Indian, Save the Man."
Emerson Gorman, a Navajo Nation elder and healer, told AFP in a 2020 interview that he was taken from his family at just five years old.
At the boarding school, boys were forced to cut their long braids, forbidden to speak their language, told their religion was "evil," and pressured to convert to Catholicism.
Official apologies for the nation's past sins are rare.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to compensate over 100,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated in internment camps during World War II.
President Bill Clinton in 1997 formally apologized for the infamous mid-20th-century medical experiment in which hundreds of Black men were intentionally left untreated for syphilis.
And in 2016, Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, although he stopped short of a formal apology.
The US House of Representatives apologized for 246 years of African American slavery and the oppressive Jim Crow laws that followed in 2008, with the Senate passing a similar resolution the next year.
But the Congressional apologies did not offer compensation to the descendants of slaves.
J.V.Jacinto--PC