China considers new law aimed at crackdown on foreign NGO operations and funding of activities feared threatening to Communist rule. Probe International, named as one of several international foundations in a recent criminal investigation, told the New York Times: “From our perspective in Canada, it is perplexing that such activities [researching and writing articles and reports, and giving university lectures] would be considered illegal.”
Beijing police recommend charges against civil society advocates
Amid China’s fiercely renewed attack on civil society and free speech advocates, Probe International is one of several international foundations named in a police indictment targeting two leading members of a Beijing-based independent economics and education think tank.
Let’s give more to Nepal, not to corrupt African regimes
Most of Ireland’s foreign aid budget goes to just seven African countries. The Irish Independent asks why is there little debate over whether these funds are going where they should, following high-profile […]
Ottawa’s promised changes to federal integrity rules gives SNC Lavalin a boost
Things are looking less sour for graft-tainted engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, which received a boost Monday when an analyst upgraded his rating and price estimate for the company’s stock following changes to the federal government’s procurement policy, announced in last week’s budget.
Lawsuit over banned memoir asks China to explain censorship
A lawsuit filed by the daughter of retired Communist Party official, Li Rui, challenges the legality of airport seizures in China after a book by her father — an unvarnished account of his experiences in the leadership — was confiscated by customs officials. The country’s border controls have sharpened dramatically in recent years, making it much riskier to bring banned books to mainland China, say publishers and authors. The New York Times reports.
Chinese activist Hu Jia breaches Xi Jingping’s wall
Chinese activist, Hu Jia, has been under strict police monitor since his release from jail four years ago. Here, he talks to The Weekend Australian about his life in Beijing living in an apartment building — ironically named Freedom City — under constant surveillance.
Cities in China’s north resist tapping water piped from south
China’s massive South-to-North Water Diversion project, created to relieve a water crisis in the country’s parched north by tapping its more water-rich south, has produced an unexpected outcome: many cities in north China aren’t using the water. The Wall Street Journal looks at why.
China targets dirty businesses in water pollution action plan
China orders the closure of small plants in 10 polluting industries and a curb on the tapping of aquifers in an effort to reign in contamination of its water supply. Probe International Fellow, activist and journalist Dai Qing is quoted for this article by the Financial Times.
Ten years later: China’s golf course crackdown gets serious
On March 30, China’s National Development and Reform Commission ordered the immediate closure of 66 golf courses across the country — the first sign of follow-up on a 10-year moratorium on new courses that a report by Beijing Today describes as “an admission of the failure” of that ban. During the past decade, instead of declining, the number of golf courses on the Chinese mainland exploded from 178 in 2004 to 528 in 2013. How did that happen in the face of a government crackdown?
Scientists question environmental impact of China’s Winter Olympics bid
According to Beijing’s bid to hold the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the environmental impact of the Games will be “ecofriendly” and “sustainable”. Experts say otherwise: providing snow for events will be tough in a city where “it just doesn’t snow” and “a Martian-like plan” will be needed to create artificial cover. Conservationists worry about moves to build Olympic ski resorts in national parks and protected nature reserves. Ski resorts, meanwhile, require water and lots of it but Beijing doesn’t have water.
Bo Xilai’s pet project blocked … for now
Construction of a controversial hydropower project that would flood one of the last remaining unaltered stretches along China’s famed Yangtze River has been blocked by the country’s environmental regulators — a surprise defeat in the face of an unrestrained dam-building boom that many opponents worry will cause an irreversible legacy of damage.
Did China profit from corrupt Sri Lanka deals?
Sri Lanka’s new government is reviewing all investment projects signed by the previous administration. Chinese companies, awarded the majority of those deals, are at the center of the storm. Sri Lanka’s new finance minister, Ravi Karunanayake, says Chinese firms “used the opportunity of a corrupt regime to crowd out other companies”. CNNMoney and Business Insider report.
If you know where the missing $6 million is, please tell Sierra Leone
A third of the $18 million slated to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone may have gone to pay non-existent “ghost” workers, a government audit finds.
MDB “knowledge” banks
Former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff says “far too little attention has been devoted to understanding why multilateral development lending has so often failed”. In his experience, MDBs are most valuable as “knowledge” banks — sharing soft development infrastructure such as experience and best practices rather than financial muscle. The latter, he says, has led to their “greatest failures”.
China’s blind “barefoot lawyer”
Blind human rights activist, and self-taught lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, gives an extraordinary interview here with the British broadcaster Matthew Bannister, detailing his very dramatic escape from China to the U.S., as well as his difficult childhood as part of a misunderstood and mistreated disabled community, where he first began speaking out to demand change.
Probe International 