The resettlement of about 92,000 residents originally living around the Danjiangkou Reservoir in central China's Hubei Province, a source of the south-north water diversion project's middle route, has been completed.

The water diversion project will take water from China's longest river, the Yangtze, to supply drought-prone areas in the north from 2014. Water will flow north via eastern, middle and western routes. Construction of the eastern and middle routes started in 2002 and 2003, respectively. Pre-construction evaluations of the western route will begin soon.

The construction of the middle route involved the relocation of 330,000 people from Hubei and Henan provinces. The relocated residents have been settled in new communities in other parts of the two provinces.

Green Targets

Minister of Environmental Protection Zhou Shengxian signed agreements on emission reduction targets with provincial-level governments and major state-owned enterprises on December 20.

The agreements, which were endorsed by the State Council, specify mandatory emission reduction targets and pollution control targets that these local governments and enterprises must meet during the 12th Five- Year Plan period (2011-15). Signatories are also obliged to complete a series of emission reduction projects within a designated time frame.

According to the projects listed for 2011-15, China will build at least 1,184 new sewage treatment plants that will be able to treat 45.7 million tons of sewage daily, and equip thermal power plants with a total generating capacity of 400 million kw with desulfurizing facilities.

Settling Disputes

The Guangdong Provincial Government set up a special work team on December 20 to deal with land disputes and other issues in Wukan, a village overwhelmed with demonstrators.

On September 21 and 22 some villagers in Wukan vented their anger against village authorities over issues related to land use, financing and the election of local officials, and on November 21 and 22, large-scale protests occurred in the village. Another demonstration took place on December 11 after Xue Jinbo, who was suspected of leading the demonstrations, died suddenly in police custody.

"The major demands of the Wukan villagers are reasonable. There were some mistakes made by grassroots Party committees and government organizations," said Zhu Mingguo, head of the team. Zhu said that corruption amongst involved officials would be severely punished.