Probe International

(October 9, 2007) Recent revelations about the problems at the Three Gorges Dam may be part of an attempt by senior Chinese officials to distance themselves from the controversial hydropower project, say Probe International’s executive director, Patricia Adams, and Probe International Fellow, Dai Qing.

(October 6, 2007) Probe International Fellow Dai Qing is due to take up a year-long fellowship at the Australian National University, where she hopes to finish a book about dictatorships and liberal intellectuals. The Sydney Morning Herald outlines her unique history as an activist.

(October 2, 2007) The Three Gorges Dam — contested symbol of the Chinese economic miracle — provides the epic backdrop for Up the Yangtze, a dramatic feature documentary on life inside the 21st century Chinese dream.

(October 2, 2007) Fourteen senior members of China’s Academy of Sciences and Academy of Engineering called for tougher laws and regulations on resource conservation in the Yangtze river basin, according to a statement issued at the "Yangtze Life Protection Forum" in Shanghai on September 16, 2007.

(September 27, 2007) Probe International Fellow Dai Qing told The Times “We have never stopped talking about the problems but our voice was too weak. The system does not listen to the voices of civic activists or dissidents. But now, at last, they are starting to hear. … The Government knows it has made a mistake. Now they are afraid that the environmental catastrophe that they cannot prevent will spark civil unrest. So they want to go public before the troubles start.

(September 27, 2007) For environmental activists such as the journalist Dai Qing, whose book Yangtze! Yangtze! earned her 10 months in a maximum security prison and the threat of the death sentence, the official admission that the Three Gorges dam is a potential environmental disaster was received with bitter irony. (The Independent UK)