Yet another fracas centering around a dam: the Malaysian government is going ahead with its plans to construct the Bakun hydro- electric dam on the island of Borneo. While the Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the benefits of the dam in a seminar held recently on the project, the World Wide Fund for Nature has demanded that the authorities should not proceed with the work on the dam while negotiations with non-governmental organisations and local communities were on. Work on the dam and power station is slated to begin in May. A 650 km cable under the South China Sea will carry electricity from Borneo to peninsular Malaysia. The us $6 billion project on the Rejang river tributary will inundate 70,000 ha - an area the size of Singapore in the interior of Malaysia's timber-rich Sarawak state on Borneo island and displace 9,000 tribals. Environmental activists said consultations with local residents about resettlement plans were insufficient.