(December 16, 2013) A 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck a mountainous and populous area of China’s Hubei Province today, 100 kilometres from the Three Gorges Dam site. Officials have been quick to reassure the public that the dam has remained intact and is operating normally after the event, which occurred at 1:04 p.m. in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Badong County. Aftershocks and quake-triggered landslides are expected. What more could there be to this story?
Why China’s renewables industry is headed for collapse
(December 10, 2013) Bankruptcies abound as China’s central planners struggle to keep its green industry from rotting.
Is foreign aid to Africa making matters worse?
(December 9, 2013) Travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux believes that decades of foreign aid to Africa has hampered the continent’s development.
December 2013 Campaign Letter
Contrary to Canada’s boy-scout image, Canadian companies have been among the Western world’s worst offenders.
SNC-Lavalin corruption case in India twists and turns
(November 26, 2013) A corruption trial in India involving Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin has taken another turn.
From Chinese labor camp inmates to you: Help!
(November 20, 2013) How did Halloween decorations made by inmates at a notorious Chinese labor camp end up on US store shelves?
China’s pollution woes fuelled by corruption — Gwyn Morgan
(November 18, 2013) China’s “basic dictatorship” system — controversially praised by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as some sort of green action plan model — has created an environmental crisis for China, says former SNC-Lavalin chairman Gwyn Morgan.
China’s great dam boom: A major assault on its rivers
(November 12, 2013) China’s current fever for hydro development is such that even its unparalleled Three Gorges mega-dam now ranks as a mere fraction of its long-term dam agenda, reports Charles Lewis for Yale Environment 360. While China’s need for energy is undisputed, its emphasis on dam construction risks an irreversible legacy of damage the country may never recover from and flies in the face of its present Five Year Plan to develop clean energy, reduce pollution, and protect the environment, says Lewis. Echoing Probe International’s coverage of the innumerable threats posed by construction on such an unprecedented scale, Lewis presents here a valuable and succinct overview of the dangers China’s dam fever represents to its waterways, ecosystems, agriculture and fisheries, traditional livelihoods, species survival and even to its geological stability, as Probe International’s alarming 2012 findings revealed.
Why foreign aid to Zimbabwe won’t work
(November 5, 2013) A Zimbabwe-based newspaper says greater accountability and transparency will help the country’s struggling economy, not foreign aid.
How Canada encourages corrupt companies
(November 5, 2013) The alleged “culture of corruption” by SNC-Lavalin and others was encouraged by the government’s willingness to turn a blind eye.
Home at all costs
(October 30, 2013) In April 2012, Liu Bai, a retired journalist dedicated to exposing the plight of Three Gorges Dam migrants and the project’s resettlement legacy of shattered lives, set out to discover what had happened to the first group of migrants who were moved from their homes in the ancient town of Dachang, in Wushan County, Chongqing Municipality, and resettled elsewhere around 11 years ago to make way for the world’s largest dam. What Liu Bai did not expect to find at the other end was that the resettlement of these migrants had not stuck! The majority of this first group of migrants had in fact returned home.
China’s South-to-North Water Diversion project threatens flood of problems
(October 28, 2013) This excellent report by Agence France-Presse looks at the growing number of drawbacks posed by China’s South-to-North Water Diversion project and asks whether the $80-billion geo-engineering giant is creating more problems than it is supposed to solve. For example, the strong risk of collecting and distributing tainted water from the supply waterways it draws from, which would render the water carried unusable; the energy required to move water uphill for long sections; the displacement of entire communities in large numbers for reservoir construction, as well as the construction feats required to pull off certain aspects of the project’s plans – such as blasting channels through mountains in earthquake zones on the Tibetan plateau. Not to mention the threat posed by construction of this scale in seismically active zones.
A shrinking United Nations
(October 24, 2013) Moves by Stephen Harper and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia have diminished the stature of the UN – and deservedly so.
Canada’s taxpayers are giving billions to a national embarrassment
(October 23, 2013) Don’t count on any government in Canada to hold SNC-Lavalin’s feet to the fire. Blinders on and taxpayers’ cash in hand, they’re willing to reward allegations of corruption with big, fat contracts, says Huffington Post’s Daniel Tencer.
Seeing in the Dark: How porpoises hear in one of the world’s busiest rivers
(October 21, 2013) Scientists are using medical technology to study the endangered Yangtze finless porpoise and their critical sense of hearing, used for navigation, to understand how these mammals are managing in the very busy and loud waters of China’s high-traffic Yangtze River. “In a noisy environment, they’d have a hard time hearing their prey or their friend. It makes it more difficult for them to conduct basic biological activities such as foraging, communicating, and navigating in the river,” said biologist and lead author of the survey, Aran Mooney.
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