(November 30, 1999) One year before mexico touched off the Third World’s debt crisis by suspending payments to foreign creditors, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rose proudly to announce in the House of Commons that her government had just committed millions to the Mexican government to build the $2 billion Sicartsa steel plant:
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Mekong press backgrounders
(November 30, 1999) Power Company Off the Hook for Damaging Fisheries in Lao PDR Government or Foreign Aid Should Pay for Restoration, ADB Says
Givers and takers
(November 30, 1999) Most Taxpayers in the rich industrialized countries believe, as the Pearson Commission inquiry into foreign aid believed, that “it is only right for those who have to share with those who have not.” Much of the Western World’s sharing, though, has been in the form of loans, not gifts. The Third World has borrowed about one-third of the $400 billion in foreign aid that it has received from the rich countries’ national aid agencies.
Development trends in the Mekong Region
(November 30, 1999) To promote economic growth in the Mekong region, the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (MDBs), are encouraging large-scale, capital-intensive infrastructure development with private sector participation.
Corrupt companies should be suspended from WB contracts
(November 29, 1999) Dam-building companies charged with corruption in a Lesotho court should be suspended from receiving World Bank contracts while they are under investigation, says International Rivers Network.
Three Gorges dam will turn the fast-flowing Yangtze into stagnant, polluted reservoir
(November 29, 1999) Wei Ming, writing under a pseudonym, is a Chinese sociologist who recently visited five of the 22 Yangtze river counties that are slated for flooding by the Three Gorges dam.
Outspoken chief economist leaving World Bank
(November 25, 1999) Joseph E. Stiglitz said Wednesday that he would resign as the World Bank’s chief economist after using the position for nearly three years to raise pointed questions about the effectiveness of conventional approaches to helping poor countries.
China’s longest river ‘cancerous’ with pollution
(November 19, 1999) China’s longest river is "cancerous" with pollution and rapidly dying, threatening drinking water supplies in 186 cities along its banks, state media said on Tuesday. Chinese environmental experts fear worsening pollution could kill the Yangtze river within five years, Xinhua news agency said, calling for an urgent clean-up.
Water power in Asia : The dry facts about dams
(November 19, 1999) Look across Asia, and you might think that the Big Dam is alive and well. The region is home to much of the world’s dam building, including two of its most ambitious projects: those in India’s Narmada valley and China’s Three Gorges.
EDC is buying off its opponents public-private collusion to create export cartel
(November 18, 1999) In 1993, the federal government greatly expanded the powers of the Export Development Corp. by allowing it to move into the private sector’s turf and finance Canadian firms’ activity in Canada. As a sop to the banking and insurance industries, which cried foul upon learning that they would soon face unfair competition from this Crown corporation, the government promised to review the new EDC legislation five years hence. That review, conducted by the law firm of Gowling Strathy & Henderson and now before the standing committee on foreign affairs and international trade, fails utterly to address EDC’s fundamental problems.
Wolfensohn will lose face if he gives nod to dirty dozen
(November 17, 1999) The simple issue on the agenda at a World Bank meeting in Pretoria is corruption – specifically the padding of Katse Dam construction costs by a "dirty dozen" of multinational corporations.
The Three Gorges Project: an error in ‘democratic decision-making’
(November 16, 1999) After eleven and a half years, the construction of Three Gorges Dam located on the Yangtze River at Sandouping of Yichang City, Hubei Province was officially completed on the morning of May 20, 2006.
Crisis as Yangtze evacuees rise to 4m
China is to move 700,000 people from low-lying areas along the Yangtze River before next summer’s flood season, the official China Daily newspaper reported yesterday.
Statement to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade on the Review of the Export Development Act
(November 16, 1999) Patricia Adams’s Statement to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Drought worsens China water woes
(November 10, 1999) Parts of China are suffering their worst drought in over 50 years. But in the cities, demand for water is increasing as China’s economic boom continues..
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
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Probe International 