From TorStar, "Beijing Games water policy troubling",
"There's just no water," she [Fan Xiangnu, straight-talking grandmother of 63] says bluntly, squinting into the sunshine. "So there's no wheat."
As she speaks, just 300 metres away a legion of labourers is hard at work building a broad canal to transport desperately needed water supplies.
But the canal won't supply her family – or those of the other parched peasants in this community.
Instead, the canal will take 300 million cubic metres of Hebei's remaining waters and rush them some 300 kilometres north to Beijing.
It's all part of the national effort to prepare for the Olympic Games.
The central government wants Beijing green and gleaming come August.
Green and gleaming it will be – even if it means others may have to go without.
A government slogan painted on a nearby wall trumpets the goal, urging everyone to support the project to "guarantee a secure water supply for the Olympics."
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