Made by China: Damming the world's rivers
January 15, 2008
In the past decade, companies and banks in China have greatly expanded their involvement in building and financing dams overseas. The cumulative social and environmental impacts of these projects is huge. This map shows just some of the proposed and ongoing dams that Chinese financiers and companies are involved in. [Full story]
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China bows to public over chemical plant
January 09, 2008
In an unprecedented move, the Chinese government appears to have bowed to public pressure to relocate a controversial chemical plant, reports Nature.
"This is the first time public opinion was properly expressed through official channels and had an impact on government policies," says Liu Jianqiang, a Beijing-based environment writer and TGP contributor. [Full story]
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Yangtze Power "profits" unhinged from Three Gorges’ spiraling environmental costs
January 08, 2008
China's Yangtze Power Company posted a 47 percent rise in “profit” last year, though critics, including Probe International, argue these profits would vanish if the company were forced to pay its share of the project’s rising environmental costs. [Full story]
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Xinhua: China to study pollution sources
January 06, 2008
China will conduct its first national survey of pollution sources in some of the world’s dirtiest cities [Full story]
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Xinhua: Three Gorges dam tourism hits record high in 2007
January 06, 2008
China's Three Gorges dam attracted a record high of 1.25 million tourists last year, according to state tourism developers. [Full story]
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China Minsheng teams up with Three Gorges Financial Company, Royal Bank of Canada
January 04, 2008
China Minsheng Banking Corporation has received state regulatory approval to set up a fund management company with Royal Bank of Canada and Three Gorges Financial Company. [Full story]
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Canada’s aid seeded China dam
December 31, 2007
"The problems at the Three Gorges aren't just a Chinese problem, as it's often portrayed," says Pat Adams of Probe International. "It's a world-wide issue, with responsibility in other countries, too." [Full story]
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China’s massive dam project causes worry
December 29, 2007
Residents in the Three Gorges area are concerned by an increase in landslides as the water level rises in the 410 mile-long reservoir.
“Almost all my fears have come true,” says Dai Qing. “The landslides and cracks have made people migrants once again." [Full story]
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China: New dam builder for the world
December 28, 2007
China has embarked on a push to export its dam-building know-how to developing countries—even as it contends with environmental damage and social upheaval at home from the massive Three Gorges Dam. [Full story]
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China’s environmental regulator may require listed firms to disclose environmental information
December 24, 2007
The State Environmental Protection Administration's (SEPA) new reporting system could could include key emission indexes for sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide and company targets to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions. [Full story]
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Dissent slows China's drive for massive dam projects
December 19, 2007
Criticism by Chinese citizens of the government’s relentless dam-building drive has emerged as one of the few legitimate subjects of public debate, slowing projects and testing the limits of the public’s role in shaping policy. [Full story]
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China to clear "1,000-year-old" trash from mega-dam
December 13, 2007
Three Gorges dam officials have promised to clean up a "1,000-year-old" mountain of garbage dating back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Reuters reports. [Full story]
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China's Sinohydro in MDB-backed road-and-rail megaproject
December 10, 2007
Eight countries have signed an agreement to spend $18.7 billion on roads and railways linking central Asia to China and Europe, Financial Times reports. [Full story]
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Three Gorges migrant victims decry corruption and abuse
December 10, 2007
Residents forced to make way for the Three Gorges dam have been denied resettlement funds, says The China Post. Probe International's executive director Patricia Adams said theft of funds and mistreatment of upstream residents remained "pervasive" and that "in most resettlement areas … the people have suffered it in silence." [Full story]
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Four more mega-dams to harness Yangtze
December 07, 2007
Another four mega-dams planned for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River will have the capacity to produce double the amount of hydropower created by the Three Gorges facility, Shanghai Daily reports. [Full story]
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Three Gorges dam increases discharge to aid dry-season navigation
December 07, 2007
Three Gorges dam has increased water discharge to aid navigation in the Yangtze, where water levels are at their lowest in 50 years, according to the China Three Gorges Project Corporation, Xinhua reports. [Full story]
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China's bond market under new management
December 06, 2007
Yangtze Power was not the first Chinese company to issue debt in the domestic market, but the US$540 million it raised through the sale of 10-year bonds—which started trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on October 12—marked the dawn of what could be a dynamic new age for corporate bonds, Newsweek reports. [Full story]
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Thirsty dragon at the Olympics
December 06, 2007
After the Olympics, how will Beijing's insatiable thirst for water be satisfied? asks Chinese environmentalist Dai Qing in this week's New York Review of Books. She warns that amidst China's newfound wealth, its plains, forests, and rivers are silently dying. "This is the silence of China today. It is a silence that speaks of the grave." [Full story]
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Landslide death toll rises to 34
December 03, 2007
The death toll in the landslide in central China's Hubei Province last month has risen to at least 34, after searchers pulled out one more body from the debris early on Monday. [Full story]
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BEIJING: Chinese suffering a new water torture
December 01, 2007
Beijing's dead waterways will be brought back to life—temporarily—in time for the Olympic Games, reports The Age. Officials will pump 3 billion cubic metres of water into the city from four dams in neighbouring Hebei province to replenish the water in the city's dirty canal system. Long-standing critic of the Three Gorges dam Dai Qing says, "I don't support having the Games in Beijing—we don't have enough water to support it." [Full story]
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