Burmese villagers forced to move for a Chinese dam

With permission from the Burmese junta, a Chinese electricity giant is building seven hydro-electric dams in Burma's northern region of Kachin. The biggest of them - the Myitsone Dam - will see the forced displacement of 15,000 people from surrounding villages.

After seven years of negotiation and assessment, construction on the Myitsone damn began on December 21 2009. At 150 metres in both height and width, the dam will produce between 3,600 and 6,000 megawatts of electricity (the world's biggest dam - the Three Gorges in China - produces 18,200). It will also generate up to 500 million USD (368 million euros) per year for the Burmese junta. A local pro-autonomy political organisation called the Kachin Development Networking Group says that 47 villages, located in the world's eighth most bio-diverse region of the world, will be flooded because of the dam.