The wife of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, whose detention sparked an international outcry, has urged lawmakers to reject draft legislation that would cement in law police powers to hold dissidents in secret locations without telling their families. And Hu Jia, recently released from imprisonment on charges of subversion, has called for the “KGB secret police-style Red Terror methods” to be rejected.
Water shortage in Chinese cities – what the public thinks
(September 5, 2011) City-dwellers in China say they have an urban water crisis with shortages and pollution posing the gravest threats, a new survey reveals.
Ai Weiwei ‘speaks out’ – in writing
Even a gag order can’t silence dissident artist Ai Weiwei on the dark subject of human rights in China.
Dams gone wrong: Is danger lurking in China’s dams?
(August 24, 2011) One of China’s premier investigative news agencies reveals China’s dams “are like ticking time bombs:” beset by disaster, flaws, poor construction, neglect, and fraud.
Pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi urges Burma to save the Irrawaddy
(August 16, 2011) Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, has called for a reassessment of Burma’s massive 6,000 MW Irrawaddy Myitsone dam project.
China human rights and Canadian companies
(July 4, 2011) Probe International’s Patricia Adams joined a Business News Network (BNN) panel to discuss the dangers of corporations wishing to do business in China given its poor human rights record.
Face changing sea
(June 29, 2011) Rongcheng is one of China’s loveliest cities, surrounded by both the Yellow and Bhai seas. When writer Yang Furui pays a visit, he finds economic gains have taken a severe toll on not only Rongcheng’s seashore, but China’s southeastern shoreline in general.
Nationalizing China
(June 24, 2011) China is heading for a degree of government ownership and central planning unseen since Mao’s passing. This Financial Post article by Probe International’s Patricia Adams looks at the advance of the state at the expense of China’s private sector and its foreign competition. In fact, she notes, western companies – feeling unwanted – are beginning to pull up stakes in China. And that suits China just fine.
Mao Yushi’s economic criticism of Three Gorges Dam
(June 20, 2011) Economist Mao Yushi’s criticism of the Three Gorges Dam in Dai Qing’s 1988 Yangtze! Yangtze! proves accurate more than two decades later in the wake of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s acknowledgement of problems.
Lu Qinkan’s Three Gorges warnings were unheeded, dire consequences now toll
(June 16, 2011) Lu Qinkan warned against construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Now his predictions have come to pass as the Yangtze river basin lurches from floods to drought.
Dammed if they do
(June 15, 2011) Low water levels in Poyang Lake, due to the Three Gorges reservoir withholding vital water supplies, encourage the Jiangxi government to consider building yet another dam to mitigate water shortages.
China’s real estate market: pulling the rug out from under the citizenry
(June 8, 2011) In China, owning a home is a dream and keeping a home from being destroyed, near impossible.
Zhanghe
(June 8, 2011) A brief reminiscence of a once free-flowing and bountiful river from the author’s youth is now a tragedy writ large: a microcosm of the woes – many of which are preventable – that currently beset China’s waterways.
Return of the dambusters
The latest controversy over the Three Gorges Dam puts the lie to the notion that the advantages of a one-party autocracy trump political gridlock.
Three Gorges aggravates downstream water shortage
(May 25, 2011) Contradicting official claims that the Three Gorges reservoir plays no part in exacerbating the drought in the Yangtze River basin, Ma Jun of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-government organization, told Reuters: “Without the Three Gorges Dam, the water level in the Yangtze would not be that low.” Faced with the downstream drought crisis, Three Gorges officials have been ordered to release water, thus hampering their ability to generate power. Added Ma: “Fundamentally there is a conflict between hydropower generation and water supply, irrigation, and navigation.”
Probe International 