The United States government has announced that it is to give back a large area of ancestral land to a native American tribe in Utah - the largest transfer of its kind in more than a hundred years.

More than three-thousand square kilometres of desert land were requisitioned from the Ute tribe during the First World War because it was said to contain oil deposits which could have been used to provide fuel for American battleships.

In the end, it was never used.

The Department of Energy said it had ruled out selling the land because of its cultural importance to the Native American people.

Ute leaders welcomed the decision saying it represented an important step in the right direction. The handover still needs congressional approval.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service