“Why do earthquakes keep happening in that area?” In the wake of China’s 6.1 magnitude quake in Yunnan Province and a number of smaller quakes in the region, questions are once again being asked about the country’s rush to build big dams in its southwestern mountains, an area already vulnerable to seismic hazard.
Education scam: Ghost teachers from ghost schools receive ghost training
A CIDA-funded teacher-training project based in Pakistan’s Sindh province has been revealed as nothing more than a cash cow by a former project leader who claims teacher training took place only on paper and that while those registered were often unaware they were signed up to the programme, their training expenses were pocketed by officials.
Ukraine’s odious debts
Ukraine’s national news agency, Ukrinform, asked Probe International’s Patricia Adams to weigh in on Ukraine’s multibillion-dollar debt to Russia and whether Ukraine could challenge the enforceability of the US$3 billion Eurobond using an odious debts argument.
A new cold war? Hardly
Talk of a new Cold War is not only overblown but counterproductive to the West’s security interests.
West not blameless in Flight 17 disaster over Ukraine
The EU and especially the U.S. gave Putin fertile ground with which to exploit the ensuing mayhem of months of orchestrated anarchy.
The biggest victim of the Three Gorges Dam: Shanghai?
Shanghai will suffer Three Gorges Dam impacts the most, says report.
The Middle East’s three-way war
How to make sense of the different factions and forces now fighting in Syria and Iraq?
Argentina’s cronies are fair game
Argentineans would not need to suffer if assets hidden from creditors could be recovered.
Ten years of the Three Gorges Dam: a call for policy overhaul
An urgent overhaul of Three Gorges’ Dam management policy to enforce relevant regulations is needed to save various endangered species, improve the environment, and encourage economic development, say the authors of this paper. Xiankun Yang and X X Lu of the National University of Singapore discuss what we’ve learned from this controversial megadam over the past decade.
China flattening mountains to build more ghost cities?
A mind-boggling new twist on the road to urbanization.
Powerful, must-see photographs commemorating Tiananmen Square
(June 4, 2014) On the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown today, we recommend a visit to the Twitter page of Patrick Chovanec and the tremendous photographs he has posted commemorating the events of June 4, 1989. Patrick is an adjunct professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a former business professor at Tsinghua
Quake strikes Three Gorges Dam area again
(May 28, 2014) Another earthquake has struck the Three Gorges Dam reservoir region in central China’s Zigui County. No casualties have been reported so far and officials say the dam is operating normally. The 3.4 magnitude tremor which hit early Monday morning, some 23 km from the dam, follows two earthquakes of magnitude above 4.0 and hundreds of aftershocks which shook the same region in late March of this year. The events rank as significant according to Chinese geologist and environmentalist Fan Xiao, who says they are signals that the seismic threat posed by Three Gorges Dam is at its most critical stage now.
More and more, poor countries are holding elections to qualify for foreign aid
(May 27, 2014) Aid agencies are coming to realize that foreign aid itself may undermine democracy.
Questions arise about wisdom of huge China water project
(May 27, 2014) Another excellent entry in a growing number of critiques examining China’s South-to-North Water Diversion project and the controversial geo-engineering giant’s large-scale problems.
Is the Three Gorges Dam to blame for extreme drought in the Lake Poyang area?
(May 16, 2014) Lake Poyang, the largest freshwater lake in China, has in the past decade suffered record low water levels and its worst drought in 60 years. Although uneven rainfall patterns and industry on the lake are partly behind the decline in volume, the Three Gorges Dam has emerged as a major cause of the lake’s shocking dry-up. On a recent trip to China, Mu Lan, the editor of Probe International’s Chinese Three Gorges Probe news service, explored the link between Poyang’s crisis and the country’s hydro colossus.
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Mu Lan
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