NPR's Kathleen Schalch reports that the World Bank will not make a controversial loan to China to settle 58,000 poor farmers on land that Tibetans consider sacred. Pro-Tibetan activists hail the decision as a victory. The resettlement project was opposed by human rights groups as well as the United States. Bank directors let the loan die after refusing a recommendation from Bank president James Wolfensohn to further assess the project's social and environmental impact. China said it would finance the resettlement on its own.
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