hi tech plane developed by greg as nerve from the carnegie institution's department of global ecology. what is it about these mining activities that are so destructive from let's say from an environmental perspective 1st gold miners not only remove the forest to go down below the soil surface down into what would be called the mineral soil below the biologically active part of the soil so deep in the soil that there isn't a science to tell us that there's forest could ever recover. the devastation exposed from above was dramatic but it was also only part of the story the aircraft but south fitted with all sorts of cool technology but how did you use some of that technology to 0 in on what was happening in terms of gold mining yeah one of the key technologies on board the plane is a laser imaging system and what it does is we fire laser beams out of the plane the lasers can penetrate all the way down to the forest floor and so what we end up

doing is we end up imaging the forest in very high fidelity 3 d. most of the work that has been done on this gold mining problem was using satellites that see some of the larger mines we started finding that there was a much larger contribution from thousands of small mining operations that weren't known and suddenly we had a problem to report the rate of gold mining expansion tripled after the 2008 global recession if you are on a typical amazon river before seems like it's intact all around you but this is that same river that we just were on in the boat. when we peel the forest back we reveal the ground which is shown on the right here and what we see here are gold mining operations there are by and large they're said back from the river's edge so that they're being executed clandestinely. the observatory also has a one of

a kind spectrometer which can detect chemicals in the forest below including mercury our system is unique that it can measure $420.00 channels of light all at the same time from the ultraviolet to the visible part of the spectrum that we see in to the infrared into the shortwave infrared its ability to do that gives us access to a key scientific breakthrough which is the ability to measure chemicals in the environment because chemicals shine in different wavelengths of the spectrum. this video from the observatory shows one of the large mining areas in the tunnel part a buffer zone here's how the spectrometer sees that same mining area so where it's blood red that's where the mercury pollution is the most intense so it's basically like a signature of contamination of severe contamination and then these blue areas are

porous that have no mercury in them and these are also illegal mining activities these large cleared areas all of this is illegal while the spectrometer can see mercury contamination from the sky luis ferdinand is studying where mercury goes on the ground. where else is mercury and up because the mercury is dumped into the rivers and lakes then gets into the food chain bacteria in the water convert the mercury into something even more talks like an organic compound called methylmercury which is easily absorbed in the digestive system mercury unlike many other pollutants magnifies every time it goes from one link in that food chain to the next so a fish at the top of the food chain in a contaminated region can have mercury levels millions or tens of millions of times higher than the water in which they swim where does that fish and up and many.

cases it ends up on the dinner plate of people that live hundreds of miles downstream of. the east for him and his and his team attested hair samples of more than a 1000 people throughout the model of videos more than 75 percent had levels above the limits considered safe by the environmental protection agency some as high as 33 times the limit. who took us in the studio. one only has a legal case pending. they. can look at this one most. of the indian at the time if you can very little but. over time mercury impacts the central nervous system it could cause problems with vision hearing and memory at high levels it can cause brain damage to unborn babies

if you talk to minors you say hey this is a problem how do they usually respond usually they don't believe us they don't see the immediate effects because the type of exposure that you see here is a chronic one. by 2012 the price of gold was over $1500.00 an ounce in illegal mining headin away more than 100000 acres of proven rain forest in moderate videos alone. the proven government decided to get tough troops went into mining areas and camps and equipment the strikes were part of a mall type wrong strategy according to her nest today as luna a former advisor to proof ministry of the environment the study g involved police operations and the prosecution of the orse offenders and it involved.

financial intelligence to connect the dots in follow the money in see who are the big bosses the crackdown led to violent clashes between miners and police but it didn't stop illegal mining they sent in the military thousands of police what impact to that it's been a very temporary. it's so profitable that you can loose cover $1000000.00 in machinery and 2 weeks later join back in business it is that profitable this strategy also includes a process of legalizing some mining operations outside of protected areas but only if miners can prove they have proper permits and a plan to deal with the environmental impact it is impossible for many of them and that's the other part if people are never going to be able to be formal you want to tell them and start dealing with the. techno also visited prue's ministry of the

environment in lima so there is this formalization process how are the miners responded to this in some way well in some not so would because sure it is more easy to work outside of the world for because it's more a trip that is why we need to have very clear ways ford will describe to me this interdiction to crack down on some of these areas how was it how does it go in some way good but on the other hand with these very difficult to maintain that kind of interdiction because we cannot do it every day so sometimes we pull out these people from the 4 b. and so on in 2 or 3 weeks there are coming back to the same place why can't you do it every day why can't you come back every 3 weeks because they are also do see some ways to our boy. for example in some places in the temple. they were there working by night is inside the tumble part of buffer zone. it has

been the target of more than one military interdiction yet our cameras caught this current mining operation at the pompa in broad daylight many of the real notable remains are allies of my knee in the rug not the corruption in the air when the tory was to grow by seeing the fulfillment of the role in the service we need to show to good people but there was subsidies ne day for miserably failed to put enough sheen even small parts of the start the the government self approved at the moment of a total abandonment of the need should i left the ministry over 6 months ago why did you leave the ministry i love the ministry because of a buck tong. from government in terms of environmental standards they approved a new law that weakens the ability of the ministry of environment to both create protected areas in go after a moment of transformations i was there to help not to be part of the reasons oil

left techno also travelled into the hearts of the tumble pot to national reserve it's a place so protected that we had to register at to control stations on the way. yet even the part guards seemed overwhelmed. no us at least him but i asked about what. we saw miners working the river just a short distance away from the 2nd control station yuri torres was our guide on this journey into the reserves he now makes his living by helping people experience the breathtaking beauty of the rain forest as he knows the rain forest so well he spots a saddleback tamarind monkey with a baby on its back during our interview but torres used to make his living off the jungle as a gold mine or one of the my there you don't really care about 40. 03 torres's

father and his brothers still make their living as illegal gold miners and you talk to them about the dangers about the environment yes they do it's a big big deal do you worry about your father and your brothers as minors yes yes they do or 11 real ones to a family if they don't mind what i did. was very sad it's beyond words we're talking to some of the most biological a diverse forests there are places where you could spin to for our worse what she just what's taking place in one branch of one tree in the way the light of the sun shines some different things as time passes by in the school way. become bitter because of that i am absolutely convinced the human beings of a right to nature makes a stronger. so

phil you've traveled a lot and done a lot of research in that region but this was the 1st time that you had seen this and been to these areas how did it affect you emotionally i've seen it from the plane and you tell my flying to this area and i've always heard about it but to actually see it 1st hand was unbelievable really made me want to do something and make sure that people know how big of an issue this is i have to tell you to feel i mean just learning about this strikes a very emotional chord for me too because this is my part of the world not peru but bolivia and bolivia is part of this equation here i mean there is a lot of mining activity gold mining in bolivia as well but the issues that are going on with the magnitude of the illegal activity in peru has been spilling over into bolivia so there's a lot of gold contraband that's going through people to get water and we're getting export it kind of under the radar which is really really crazy it's

a huge issue about cars about $3000000000.00 an ounce of gold going through believe you huge amount is this similar to or more complicated than say blood diamonds like as a consumer what can i do to make sure i'm not contributing to the problem if i wear gold jewelry you know the advantage of the diamond problem it is just this dress to go on the ground but you can actually track it down and you can figure out based on its chemistry where it came from with gold it's a lot more difficult to do because a lot of the gold gets exported it gets all melted together so you could have gold from prove mixed with gold from croatia and all of that could make a necklace found that story really opened my eyes so thank you for that really sobering but important be sure to check this out next time during techno is we bring you more. stories from the field of science dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at al-jazeera dot com slash techno all in our expert

contributors on twitter facebook instagram google plus and more. hello there are some very strong weather across certain parts of europe in particular into southern poland. at the touch of mountains where we've seen these deadly thunderstorms caused by a lightning severe lining a lightning bolt storms in the forecast ahead of this in the southeast and across much of central europe it will stay fine and dry temperatures are on the increase all comes out in just a moment but as we go through saturday we would have some warnings in place across the line of the ouse really you can see here we've got more rain in the fall cause this is where we could see more of those thunderstorms and then we've got kara conditions further to the east and warming up 27 kids at a bit cooler in moscow 23 and there's some rain in cloud very close by northern europe there's a new line of cloud working its way in but as i say ahead of that and in between

these thunderstorms we've got some very nice weather conditions indeed 21 in poland 31 in paris. and by sunday those temperatures in some cases going up even further $33.00 celsius in paris that's about 9 degrees above the average for this time of year about 7 degrees above in london so it's almost as if summer has come back and then we had further to the south into northern africa and we could see some showers here particularly the coast. into tunisia very light does not effect at 30 celsius in tunis. and new perspectives can change a wild. to launch an indian what began as a hobby has grown into a question a way of life. teaching the next generation to strive for a higher level. and so instilling in his country and sense of freedom and strength

. heights mine to newseum on al-jazeera. now all jews iraq. and for you. taking the trade war with china to a new level donald trump rises tariffs again and tells us companies to pull out.

from doha everyone i'm kemal santa maria and this is the world news from al-jazeera . the new standoff in hong kong between protesters and police tear gas has been fired to disperse the anti-government demonstrations. also brazil's president orders troops into the amazon to fight the rain forest fires labeled an international crisis. and taking the fight to the kidnappers nigeria's crime crisis where even traveling on trains is not safe. so the u.s. president has stepped up his country's trade war with china and outsing 2 new tariff increases each of 5 percent that's because of beijing's decision to impose tariffs of its own on $75000000000.00 worth of american goods also donald trump ordered american companies to leave china but it's hard to construe reports from washington he doesn't actually have the power to do that. the trade war between the

world's 2 largest economies just boiled over in the span of 280 characters on friday just after u.s. stock markets closed u.s. president donald trump announced via twitter starting on october 1st the $250000000000.00 of goods and products from china currently being taxed at 25 percent will be taxed at 30 percent additionally the remaining $300000000000.00 of goods and products from china that was being taxed from september 1st at 10 percent will now be taxed at 15 percent this was trump's retaliation after beijing announced a few hours earlier that china will tax an additional $75000000000.00 worth of u.s. goods also starting next month that came at the end of an already tumultuous day earlier friday the u.s. president tweeted and order to american businesses move supply chains out of china

immediately trump does not in fact have the power to command u.s. businesses to leave china but he does have leverage he can encourage them he cannot give them government contracts for example that if they're buying things from the government or strine a sell things through the government but no he can't he can't stop that the tweet still spooked investors the dow jones closed more than 2 percent down the tech heavy nasdaq index was off by 3 percent both signs of the importance of the chinese market to u.s. companies all of this comes at a particularly vulnerable time in trump's presidency a growing number of economists forecast a u.s. recession on the horizon driven partly by the white house trade policies trump has responded by blaming everyone but himself i think the word recession is a word that's inappropriate because it's just a word that the. the church people are going to be kind of certain. people in the

media are trying to build up because they'd love to see a recession trump also took unprecedented aim at the chairman of the u.s. federal reserve the central bank lowered interest rates last month but not as much as trump hoped that earned its chairman this comparison from trump who is our bigger enemy jay powell or chairman c. the chinese leader president trump will spend the weekend in france at the g. 7 meeting with fellow leaders of major industrialized nations the white house has asked concerns of a global recession to be front and center and no doubt the us china trade escalation will dominate those discussions castro al-jazeera washington let's hear from chris garcia no who served in the u.s. commerce department under president trump he blames china for the escalation of a trade war between the world's 2 biggest economies. it comes down to who the real

culprit is here who has been the bad actor in this trading relationship between the united states and china all signs point to china frankly it has been china who is engaged in intellectual property theft in forced technology transfer subsidizing state owned industries to make unfair competition really the norm between the free market traders that trade with them this is an imbalanced trading relationship that president trump has been frankly the 1st in history to try to correct it diplomatic talks unfortunately have not worked and if we look at president trump's trade tariffs threats in the past he's followed through on those terror threats and so i think it's very clear now that the gloves are off and the president will follow through on those tariff threats but frankly it's not the trade uncertainty that is leading to this this type of negative reaction in the markets it's the fact that really we're not getting any support from the fed which is which is supposed to be acting in the u.s. is interest that's what the president was elected to do to look out for not just

wall street but also look out for main street what's really going on here is what we really have to be concerned about it's the national security it's whether or not we allow china to continue to take advantage of the american people to take advantage of american businesses and frankly as a free market nation who we pride ourselves we pride ourselves on this free market system where you can compete fairly. let's move to other news and protesters in hong kong have destroyed surveillance equipment put up barricades on the streets once again riot police responded with tear gas this is the latest round of rallies that began in june over the extradition bill that was later shelved of the demonstrations of why didn't you demand why the political reforms his age are in the middle of things for his age and bring us up to date. adrian it's come out here and can you hear me. ok we've lost

our link with brown unfortunately but you can see there's plenty going on behind him and here is some of the other shots we're getting through live pictures. bricks a chain perhaps building up the barricade again the usual signs we see of hard hats of gas masks the black clothing bay where you see the umbrella as well. and as that human chain of bricks goes along there let's see if we can talk to agent brought adrian kemal here can you hear me. why yes carl i can hear all right bring us up to date with what's happening where you are. welcome all i'm in a part of calhoun known as quantum gets an industrial working class district it must be happening in the last few minutes of the police have been slowly clearing the streets following a large peaceful protest the protesters were allowed to gather between $1.00 and 4 pm local time after that they were told to disperse they didn't so the police

moved in so far there is a bit of a standoff going on between the police you can see behind me and some protesters a handful of protesters in the far distance i just walk you down the pavement now towards them as i say it has been largely peaceful but it's a reminder kemal that you know after 12 consecutive weeks of protests the streets of hong kong still in some places resemble a bit of a battleground now the protests as i say today wasn't as large as the one we saw on sunday when organizers say about 1700000 people took part but it was again a very solid reminder i think that this protest movement is not quite running out of steam i spoke to several of the protesters saying look you know after 3 months you still haven't to sensually achieve your aims haven't you in a way failed he said no we will keep on until kerry land withdraws this

controversial extradition bill of course they have other you know demands as well including universal suffrage an inquiry into what they say has been a police violence and also a request that they stop before going to the testers as rioters well most of those demands are not going to be met so what we have at the moment really 3 months on is this dangerous stalemate on the other side of hong kong. on hong kong island carrie lee has been meeting with 20 people she has selected to stop what she calls a platform of dialogue this is her way to try to build you know reconciliation after all that's happened here but that dialogue of course didn't include anybody from the camp which is sort of aligned to the protesters at the other end of the street so it's doubtful that platform of dialogue is actually going to achieve in the coming days and weeks earlier on today. the protest movement did its best to try to disrupt operations once more hong kong international airport in that

endeavor they failed they were going to basically try to overcrowd trains and buses and also make it difficult for traffic to move on the main expressway to the airport but in the end flights flew in out of out of hong kong airport as normal but the authorities have had to close down as you can see a number of roads in this area and also a number of subway stations that was a preemptive action after the violence we've seen on subways during recent days come out ok adrian brown with a comprehensive report on what's going on in hong kong and we'll be back with him later if things do increase there to other news related to an employee of the british consulate in hong kong has been released by mainland china after being detained for more than 2 weeks simon chang disappeared on the 8th of all the store in a business trip to shenzhen just near the border with hong kong chinese police say chang was punished for violating public safety laws his detention came as relations

between beijing and london soured over the ongoing protests in what is of course a former british territory. now brazil's president has ordered the military to help contain the fires in the amazon the world's largest rain forest. responded to the crisis after facing growing international criticism he is blaming unusually warm temperatures for the unprecedented blaze. the annual reports now from the states of one of the worst affected regions. forest fires happen every year in brazil but it was the sheer scale this year that shocked the world the so-called world's lungs were on fire strong criticism firstly from within brazil and the rest of the world forced president. to respond. forest fires happen all over the world so this is no reason to impose international sanctions brazil will continue to be as it is now a country that is friendly with everyone and is responsible in protecting its

amazon forest. he's been accused by many of creating the very conditions he's now trying to control but there's a defiance from the president and resentment from his supporters and other countries telling brazil what to do. or don't agree that other countries should come here to presume we don't go to other countries to upset them you don't see brazilians they're causing problems on the working to scene money home to invest here this is pioneering country brazil's made population centers also nardo had a message that resonated here. i'm 63 years old and i'm never seen a president as honest as this one who confronts the problems and says what has to be seed is defending brazil these are people who came to tame the forest to cut a bird to carve a future from what they consider to be a wilderness this particular blaze may not be huge but is one of tens of thousands .