The 7.0-magnitude earthquake in southwest China’s Sichuan province earlier this month, and a devastating 2008 quake in the same province, are likely linked to the region’s dam-building program, says expert.
Solid as a rock
Ensuring public stability has become even more of a priority for President Xi Jinping in the sensitive lead-up time to the CPC Central Committee’s 19th Party Congress scheduled for later this year. Law enforcement and local officials must guard against potential threats as never before, including the threat of disaster. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake in southwest China’s Sichuan province earlier this month saw “earthquake rumours” added to the growing list of bans in recent weeks.
The rule of silence
Will the death of China’s best-known pro-democracy activist in state custody embolden the country’s dissident movement despite efforts to erase his memory?
How megaprojects bankrupt utilities
Brady Yauch, executive director of Consumer Policy Institute, describes the looming threat to public institutions – and to our pocketbooks.
Chinese dissident Hu Jia ‘critically ill’ in Beijing hospital
Veteran dissident Hu Jia hospitalized for acute illness under watch of China’s state security police.
You look like an enemy of the state
China’s expanding surveillance, censorship, and suppression of dissent have forged an invisible prison of enforced silence, eroding freedoms under the pretext of socialist stability.
International lawyers, judges call on Beijing to release detained rights lawyer Xie Yang
“Lawyers in China like Xie Yang are indispensable in ensuring human rights protection and upholding the rule of law in China” reads a statement issued by the International Commission of Jurists calling on Beijing to release Xie, who has reported torture during his incarceration.
China tightens its grip over which journalists can report news online
It’s World Press Freedom Day and in China that means more restrictions have been announced.
The U.S. keeps a list of trade beefs with Canada – and booze, property rights and Can-con are all on it
There is a hefty document published each year listing foreign trade policies the U.S. either doesn’t like, or that could pose a problem for U.S. exporters. So that begs the question: What Canadian trade policies annoy the U.S.?
What rivers with rights mean for the Mekong
What does the decision to recognize the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers as living entities mean for the construction of the controversial Xayaburi and Don Sahong dams on the Mekong River?
They’re watching you
Canadian leading cyber sleuth, Ron Deibert, discusses the use of technology to censor, hack and spy. Trevor Cole for The Globe & Mail.
Rights lawyer Xie Yang’s trial postponed
The trial of Chinese rights lawyer, Xie Yang, who is facing charges for inciting subversion and disrupting court order, was postponed this week after a crowd of supporters, including diplomats, gathered outside the courtroom. China Digital Times reports on Xie’s case – a case which drew international attention after Xie’s account of torture was circulated via worldwide news outlets.
China pressures Trump to keep Obama’s global warming pledge
China has a good reason for pushing compliance with the Paris agreement — they don’t have to make any emissions cuts. The Daily Caller quotes Probe International’s Patricia Adams for this report on China’s new “leader” stance in the fight against global warming.
Why overthrowing Assad won’t solve Syria’s crisis
The Western goal of keeping Syria whole, with its devout Muslims harmoniously living side by side with Alawite tribes they consider heretical, as well as with Syria’s pro-Assad Christian minority, is delusional and guaranteed to fail.
Leaked records show Shell’s complicity in massive oil corruption scandal
On the heels of the U.S. reversing an anti-corruption “resource extraction rule,” new revelations concerning Shell’s complicity in one of the largest corruption scandals in Big Oil’s history illustrate how resource-rich countries fall victim to the “resource curse” – corrupt officials making off with the revenue from sales of natural resources at the expense of the masses. Foreign Policy reports.
Probe International 