| In Vietnam, residents in Hanoi are threatened by the Red River development project., a large scale urban development scheme being delivered through a public-private partnership involving Dai Quang Minh Real Estate Investment Corporation, THACO Group and Hoa Phat Group. Residents have raised concerns over planned demolitions, inadequate compensation and potential displacement, with estimates suggesting that around 250,000 people could be affected. |
Official World Cup sponsor Hyundai has been accused of “greenwashing through sports”, because of its ties with steel supplier Ternium over concerns linked to environmental damage and community rights. Ternium has faced criticism over its Las Encinas iron ore mine in Michoacán, where Indigenous Nahua community members have raised concerns about impacts on ecosystems and water resources. In 2023of two Nahua community defenders. Community members alleged that the two had been threatened by Ternium executives amid disputes connected to the companies’ mining activities.
In tandem Israel’s Defence and Finance Ministers announced plans for three illegal settlements in Gaza. The y will be military communities called nahal and be in receipt of hefty budgets. The Israeli military commander for northern Gaza has described such violent outposts as hid “security partners”. At the same time another budget was announced for dozens of new Israeli Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
As reported in this column polar grab recently saw a Chinese exploration fleet of ships to the Antarctic region. Needless to say they were tracked by ships of the USA Coast Guiard.
The pollution of the soils of Norther Laos in the interests of Chinese capital leased land for bananas for export to China plantations has threatened the life-cycles of bats. They have been found to harbour the SARS-CoV-2 virus and are now forced to travel further for food by pesticide levels in the mono-crop plantations. The risk of zoonotic disease transmission with other species had already been heightened by the effects of deforestation in the same area.
Indonesia’s environment ministry has issued a new approval for a controversial zinc and lead mine in an earthquake-prone region of Sumatra Island, less than a year after a Supreme Court ruling forced it to rescind its earlier approval. The new approval was issued for an environmental impact assessment that updates the previous assessment produced by PT Dairi Prima Mineral (DPM).That earlier impact assessment, known as an Amdal in Indonesian, was faulted by nearby residents and experts for a plan to hold mining waste sludge behind a dam. The updated Amdal does away with the proposed permanent tailings dam, and instead proposes mixing the mining waste with cement and water and injecting it into mined-out voids underground, a process known as cemented paste backfill. But residents say the new one changes nothing in terms of minimizing the risk that the mine and its waste will pose to nearby communities.
For Water Grabs see WATER 20.07.2026