(September 14, 2001) Radio Free Asia reported that up to one thousand migrants from the Three Gorges area, slated for resettlement in Hunan Province’s Yongzhou City, were gathering to block the city’s railway station and highway bridge in an attempt to secure a return passage to their place of origin.

(September 11, 2001) A new survey will assess Three Gorges dam migrants’ human rights situation, reports Zhongguo xinwen she (China News Service). Described as an "empirical survey," to be conducted jointly by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Resettlement Bureau of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee, the study will examine whether migrants’ human rights conditions have improved or deteriorated, what migrants’ rights and responsibilities are, and how forced resettlement has affected migrants’ employment, cultural, educational and political rights.

(July 19, 2001) Hong Kong journal ZhengMing used Probe International news coverage in its June issue to openly question charges against three farmers arrested in Beijing earlier this year after trying to expose corruption over the Three Gorges dam to Chinese authorities.

(June 27, 2001) With only two years left before the water level is scheduled to rise behind the massive Three Gorges dam, Chongqing municipality has pledged to spend more than one billion dollars cleaning up the heavily polluted Yangtze River to prevent the dam’s 600-kilometre reservoir from becoming a cesspool.

Beijing: China has warned local environmental protection officials that they will be punished if they allow or cover up damage to the environment in favour of economic growth, state media said on Tuesday.