(March 7, 2009) China should keep potential polluters away from the industry-heavy Yangtze river, the country’s longest, by raising threshold and readjusting industrial layout, a political advisor said in Beijing today.

(March 2, 2009) Rumours have begun to circulate that Li Peng, the now 80 year-old former Premier of China who was the major driving force behind the Three Gorges project, may be seriously ill. An NGO worker in China recently told John Bishop of the China Economic Review that if the ex-leader, seen by many as the ‘Father’ of Three Gorges, were to die that critics would be able to “more openly express negative views about the project.”

(February 10, 2009) When the Chinese state media reported last week that China’s wheat-producing provinces have been hit by the worst drought in 50 years, the story immediately went global. But when we checked official Chinese news sites we noticed something odd. Many of the photos and video clips popping up under the “worst drought in 50 years” banner showed soldiers and farmers hosing down wheat fields with water. Lots of water.

(March 1, 2009) Besides posing a major risk to dams, scientists are increasingly certain that earthquakes can be triggered by the dams themselves. Globally, scientists believe that there are over 100 instances, strewn over six continents, of dam reservoirs inducing earthquakes. The most serious case could be the magnitude-7.9 Sichuan earthquake in China in May 2008, which some experts believe may have been induced by the Zipingpu Dam.

Part 4

Part 3