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tv   South Africa Toxic City  Al Jazeera  April 20, 2020 9:00am-10:00am +03

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dramatic story of the assassination of major p.l.o. figure was a year in a secret israeli operation assassination in tunis on al-jazeera. hello i'm daryn jordan and the top stories here on the number of people killed by coronavirus across the united states has exceeded 40000 new york state accounts for many hoff of the state tell it is reported another drop in delhi deaths on saturday al-jazeera and the gallagher has been monitoring the president's daily briefing from miami he says donald trump's reassurances do not match the situation on the ground at this point he's repeating the same points over and over again saying look we're testing more than any other country we have manufacturing more ventilators
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that are needed we've built more hospitals that are needed but when you look at the picture on the ground particularly in states like new york and louisiana and even here in florida where the corner virus is yet to peak those kind of posturings from the president don't really aren't really grounded in reality the death toll in new york may be dropping but from $700.00 in a day to $500.00 a day is still around as europe's to worst affected countries pain in italy have recorded the lowest daily death tolls from the virus in about a month spain's top health official says its latest tally of 433 fatalities shows it's on the right path italy recorded 410 deaths on sunday spain has some of the strictest lockdown measures in europe that are due to be extended until the 9th of may the prime minister has said children will be allowed outside for next week. in bangladesh more than 100000 people have defied orders to attend the funeral of a muslim cleric
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a government public gatherings of more than 5 people to stop the spread of the virus but health officials are struggling to enforce rules and other news at least 16 people have been killed in a shooting in eastern canada police say a 51 year old male suspect is dead after a series of attacks in towns in the province of nova scotia is the worst single mass shooting in canadian history has done you lack. the most horrifying crime scene in this quiet part of canada just before midnight saturday a gunman was reported in portland pick a remote seaside village where the suspect 51 year old gabriel borkman owned property for the next 12 hours along nearly 100 kilometers of highway police fielded dozens of emergency calls about house fires gunshots and other incidents heavily armed officers pursued the suspect who at one point was dressed as a policeman and driving and apparently homemade police car just before noon sunday
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i witness is said they saw the suspect lying on the ground surrounded by police at a petrol station near nova scotia's international airport visibly shocked senior officers said one of their own a 23 year veteran of the royal canadian mounted police was among the victims countless families are in mourning today each person who lost their family and friends and they too will need their support the impact of this incident will extend to one end of the province to the other. police expect more victims will be found as multiple crime scenes along the highway and elsewhere are investigated several other police forces are involved in this massive operation we're not fully aware. because. as we're standing here the investigation continues in the areas that we've not yet. export across. these sorts of mass shootings are rare in canada which has much stricter gun control than the neighboring us police
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say they have no idea yet about motive and that many of the victims appear to have been targeted at random it will take days possibly weeks for a full explanation to emerge about one of the worst mass shootings canada has ever seen daniel lak al-jazeera u.s. oil prices have dropped to the lowest level for 2 decades as concerns of a coronavirus eclipse the deal to cut output the benchmark dropped below $15.00 a barrel before crawling its way back up global demand has plummeted in the lockdown of travel restrictions. australia has become the 1st country to make it compulsory for web giants google and facebook to pay for news content the competition watchdog says it will release draft details of a payment plan in the future. but those were the headlines the news continues here on the al-jazeera south africa toxic city state and that's a lot. at
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1st glance they could be the remains of an ancient civilization. an eye catching natural phenomenon. these strange hills surround johanna's back. the largest city in south africa. but their beauty is deceptive and toxic. in fact the dudes are made up of mining waste. and left to visit south africa is the most profitable industry. and within the line some disturbing secrets. now it seems that $100.00 journalists must time to do has uncovered the shocking truth of exactly
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what's in these mind taps and just how deadly a maybe. sunrise america river basin. one of south africa's largest freshwater reserves. bridget corrigan is a botanist. and a specialist in the region's biodiversity. this is a very special catchment for a lot of reasons if it's a unique but a very city from not just the terrestrial but also the 1st one of our diversity is very special it's got about 14 species of fish and
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a lot of really and demick species of invertebrates and quite insects that contribute to the health of the sort of this river system. there are 200 trees species in america. that's 17 of them. and about $400.00 in the bed spaces. it is a national treasure and the north west doesn't have a lot of these river systems a lot of the systems in this province are heavily degraded. the crown jewel of this natural treasure lies just a few paddle strokes upstream. a sanctuary hidden at the heart of the reserve. this is america i we're at the source of america river. and the water levels up from the underground what to kevin's at that point of the day the
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water is clear is anything very low conduct city which means there's no salt is not pollutants in the in the system it's really very very pure. the water is crystal clear but it might not stay that way. recently the mining industry has become interested in the areas subsoil. which is full of precious minerals regarded as a tin mining payments for things like. cup a silver or gold in the region so does pose a risk yeah this place is different at risk and it's you know we would like to see those places as an absolute no guy for mining if you pollute the this area the underground aquifer. you can't just get that back it's not going to come back. so could the america river basin one day resemble the of a desolate landscapes left behind by the south african mining industry.
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like these flat lands dyed red by chemicals. or these mined tailings in the midst of south africa's forestalling and. some of them date back to 886 when gold was 1st discovered and understood motown culture comes back. from that point on the mining industry began to deposit its to breed all around the city . more and more ways to piles of heads often only a few dozen meters from residents homes. some of the may look as innocent to sandy use but they are mine tailings the slag heaps of years of extraction and digging for gold i don't go over there to scare. away. the data comes in as he had a whole different approach as was the day i. suppose i was out to disable the p.c.'s which will. be pretty awkward for
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a former server i don't even trust president just. sort of at the plutocrats who want to destroy his daughter from the cost of those who decide to tear him to do. so what does it mean for those living next to these dunes. like here at snake. so does the wind come from the mine 30 was it closed this rose this side or the side just like tiny dylan is a mother of 5 she spent all her life in the shadow of one of the largest mining dumps in the country its residue is everywhere. john the neighborhood has become one huge sign. to you a quote from the. sun times your eyes become ok this
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is not if you go to the to this is some make some chemical. so i'm advising you today not to go today because it's too big it's unhealthy at the same time. you must think it or. leave it to go 'd. a few months ago tiny dylan merely wanted to find out how many people in her neighborhood of over a 1000 residents were unwell so she knocked on almost every duel this house had as keith. this house here the model the owner of this house every chest full of this when you come here often here each and every man or women or child around here is coughing has appropriate of coughing as appropriate his skin some of them up only to. the man who. says. he them
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i want to. question that needs. over one and a half 1000000 south africans live in townships like this. at the foot of mine tailings mountains. that itself it gets into off one week this past week think this that so that is why so many people are here this is the silent heat. this dust doesn't just make people vomit or cough several children in the neighborhood suffer from severe neurological disorders. or who i believe you know for years you know you know. that if. you returned to 6 years old. she suffers from a paralyzing brain disease are you doing well lately however her family saying the
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tondo was born perfectly healthy the problems arose soon after the roof of the house was under repair at the time and the dust from the mine cotton freshly this dust you pull your kid in the piece. before you sleep you must face. that and everyone kids oh yeah a few weeks later the 1st signs of illness appeared in the years since the tundra has been unable to. communicate with her. when she she was to be changed. yeah and then she she kicks it is ok arrow maybe when she wants you to go i say ricci she kisses him and she screams you know. they you know she has to go out say you want to. poverty has always prevented the family from being able to prove a link between attenders illness and the mind dust but they are no doubt if there
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are other peers like under her own i was the same symptoms same health issues yeah i do know and there's there's a pinch out there it's going to go down the only problem is that they are ashamed of their kids all and here they don't want anybody knowing our kids and the situation there's 2 of them open houses in the in the same street for them to have them for many of them you know personally personally strange is something that have made you only find them here this is actually centered it in my injury to them like today taking them to do today they don't think so but if you go of any distance from here in leave you me never find this key. to find out whether the just from the nearby mine tailings really is the cause of peace illnesses. must climb snake park hill. it has been abandoned ever since the
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mine was closed. access is supposedly forbidden there's nobody guarding the site which extends over 4 square kilometers while i'm out of the all succeeding the farmers was rich. but then dimia turned the dishes on it. was similar. to. the price and. takes 500 grams of the sun. the dust that's blowing over the village below. on the way down he finds a green lake at the foot of the slope. it's used mostly to area gate adjacent farmland or residents also give it to their lifestyle sometimes their children even bay the net this was all. ok or if i can put in will do.
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for the. paws on the screen you have put it. frankly linda is professor of environmental studies at northwestern university in south africa can see me. linda is also an expert on mining illusion the government the world health organization who writes with his help has developed a scientific her took a test kit for different wood to pollutants yes so i'm at the bottom of the mine turnings there's some water all around i was wondering which parameters fish do you think i should analyze 1st in the water finding. tricks translate to. elevate. ok. i.
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thought it would be recently gone by. missouri. it turns out that in the us you're going to get arsenic which is a metal. cream you can. see. if you put it back. just so you know it was. says although. the maximum they were going to continue to pose for them. it's impossible to analyze everything there and then so must takes another sample to check for more pollutants later. but the tests have already
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thrown out some serious questions. after some convincing one of the country's top 3 gold produces agrees to a meeting. the 1st of the. goldfields 8750 kilograms of gold was mined at the site last year. the team can't go underground into the mine itself the company will only allow them to film surface operations we get all from from the stuff. but at night you will see on the front back there's numbers. coming. out including we are doing a plus minus $5500.00 times. a day i mean we have reaching out on $300.00 tons per hour depends on the order of viability and how many times on there. so there or that you see on the straw poll is what i mean at the plus minus 5 days
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but done that's always currently. only 5 grams of gold for each ton of coal mind that's a remarkable ratio. and it means a huge amount of residue to be disposed of. the precious metal is separated from the rest of the and then heated in these killings. i think to make goes a little here we used to i'm i sit in the sun that's your free my i can make those you know rising quarter mega nice and silly golf. occurrences that see the are so you add all of these together with these with the fall of. the last stages the cost at $800.00 degrees celsius for 40 minutes.
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the end result gold was. at 82 percent purity each weighs in at just over 16 kilograms and is worth around $538000.00. goldfields makes 5 of these gold balls a week. producing 16200 tons of residue you equivalent to the weight of 2 of france's eiffel towers. the company has wasted human lives here on this he said constantly 24 hours a day by these pipelines connected to the factory. within a few years this hill will become another steep mountain of debris reaching up to 70 meters high. andrew passons and stephen joseph are it's grand architects. what's in there. what is it's. well it's it's what's left over from there from the
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extraction process it's the rock that. held the gold. and what's left behind off the gold has been removed so it's silica and other materials it's the sand. and other metals but many silica is there any other metals for example there. could be trace amounts but but very small concentrations. and some of the gold always there is your random sauce deep has very little you're on your minutes or so. there's very little uranium. in the us in the stomach you. can really. not offhand i think the numbers around about 40 to 50 grams of time 50 annually south african mining companies extract 10 times more uranium than gold the uranium is then abandoned leaving behind radioactive mined tailings so the kind of control
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you do the samples you are talking about is on daily basis the gold from both of them. but the radiation 15 would probably be. ok. over time the waste produced by south africa's gold industry has formed increasingly large radioactive heaps dumped outside in the open at. according to official estimates the mine tailings surrounding johannesburg now contain an astounding 600000 tons of uranium the quantities are so high that in reality the mountains of waste should be classified by the state as nuclear installations they should be confined and secured and kept at least 500 meters away from any residential area but those rules are routinely ignored as here into the shaft a township with over 20000 residents.
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of. oil bruno sherry ron is an engineer in nuclear physics and an expert from korea ratched a research association in radioactivity when i was i was government only. going to . go who. knows when i visit us. that commercial school shaken too much was. to feel they would be a little bit. also paul not just on the well you know office all the moves you want to take to sort of you know i make sure the group on television i mean to depict the president i know my point of view to see not just their young men get him up it even to be able. to do is a you that you're in you do risk. deployed in your she told us of a young mom and she's. going to join an. i don't is wrong
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but you don't want to do this with this point 300-0000 because you know. and you cannot sell gounder. in a zone with a country let's throw up on the us for. i just don't. know i guess you want to force me to try. and they said. to you confront us. do think it was only one tree for. 100 wanted to close on a letter that. master has discovered that radioactivity levels here are close to those in the exclusion zone around the site of the 1986
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nuclear disaster he follows the grazing animals to eric from gomez nearby farm. era keeps around 40 goats and a few sheep none of which seem to live very long linen above all if they last week last week. one month one months of all yeah yeah and do you do you have a lot of baby though most because of your. writings show then said as for success this is a. eric wants to show us the most common symptom amongst his flock. they want to. know as well and. know what you must. but this is the fungible one it is. mine so. i want to learn. it. and i met. so when you
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see these every day what do you think. was the motion and. i would go and talk about to you but it's just the bins. it seems as though eric's goats have radiation sickness but evidence is needed. we are close to the mine tailings in a form that. look really sick i mean according to you do you own or do you think we should do some hair sample of the animals. just like you. have to take 5 samples from 2 goats intended to be used for meat consumption including one who is blind he was looking.
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i come up with the results of the china factor i think strong thanks for you but i . must turn takes the samples to be tested at south africa's council the scientific and industrial research. here's the water from the tailings just across the. it is used as a recursive water jesus integration and also for almost a drink we also do some more small samples train job was done with a saw it was come to me to look at me competitors and so what can you what can you look for years almost all day that i have and the man goes by did i and then couldn't i was like oh you know now i'm your lead you know what i see in the gui shop and in talks and can basically we if we don't expect to get them in order once
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we get them then and trays and go right. as he waits for the analysis must time returns to the investigation in part 2. of the shocking results come in he shares the news with some of those affected and comes face to face with an industry insider what i found particularly scandals to take the worst possible material which is you're a me i'm grinding it into dust comparable to flour and make a hill out of it and put it into a place where people live if he's a colossal bad idea. medieval western society was a feudal society so to jail if you keep the lot above and as soon as the pope ended his speech some people stood up and said god will sit down and the entrance to the city was horrific they killed people in the streets in their houses and in heaven.
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the crusades an arab perspective that this old one shot. on a jersey or. a history of guerrilla warfare. placed on the political stage. the people are getting strength their revolutionary zeal knowing no bounds does a series of fine spy their splinter groups damage the palestinian cause or ensure its survival chronicling the turbulent story of the struggle for a palestinian homeland p.l.o. history of a revolution on al-jazeera. reporting in the field means i often get to witness not just the news as a breaking but also history as it's unfolding crossing from serbia into hungary the refugee there might be covering politics of angel in the next i might become like protests. what's most important to me just talking to people understanding what
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they are going through so that i can convey the headlines in the most human way cost. here at al-jazeera we believe everyone has a story worth hearing. hello i'm daryn jordan doha the quick reminder of the top stories here on al-jazeera the number of people killed by coronavirus across the united states has exceeded 40000 new york state accounts for nearly hoff of the faith talent is but it reported another drop in deadly deaths on the south of that al-jazeera is on the gallagher has been monitoring the president's daily briefing from miami he says donald trump's reassurances do not match the situation on the ground. at this point he's repeating the same points over and over again saying look we're testing more than any other country we were manufacturing more ventilators in and needed we've built
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more hospitals that are needed but when you look at the picture on the ground particularly in states like new york and louisiana and even here in florida where the corner virus is yet to peak those kind of. posturings from the president don't really aren't really grounded in reality the death toll in new york may be dropping but from 700 in a day to 500 a day is still around us europe's 2 worst affected countries spain and italy have recorded their lowest daily death tolls from the virus in about a month spain's top health official says its latest tally of $433.00 fatal it is shows it's on the right path in bangladesh more than 100000 people have defied lockdown orders to attend the funeral of a popular muslim cleric the government's banned public gatherings of more than 5 people but health officials are struggling to enforce social distancing rules brazil's president j. both america has backed protesters calling for military intervention as his
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standoff with state governors continues over how to deal with a pandemic critics say he's repeatedly undermined efforts to contain the virus calling for the economy to be reopened at least 16 people have been killed in a mass shooting in eastern canada police say a 51 year old male suspect is dead after a series of attacks in the province of nova scotia was the worst single my shooting in canadian history. u.s. or prices have dropped to the lowest level for 2 decades as concerns over coronavirus eclipse the deal to cut output the benchmark dropped below $15.00 a barrel before crowing its way back up on australia has become the 1st country to make it compulsory for web giants google and facebook to pay for news content the government released a draft detail of a payment plan in july those were the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after south africa toxic city station.
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hundreds of strange mounds lie scattered around johannesburg south africa's most populous city but they aren't a natural phenomenon they are mine tailings waste heaps left over from south africa's hugely profitable gold industry. many are also said to be dangerously toxic awash with heavy metals and poisons and radioactive debris. with expert help french journalists must time to do is getting that content scientifically analyzed. but one night while he waits for the results he gets a mysterious voicemail message along i heard that your interest. money where your around. in a month well i worked at an environmental geologist me up for a while and i would really much appreciate you you know you're going to come around and we're going to have a word about it thank you very much. the message is from
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a geologist eagle club chick after a 20 year career in the mining industry he's now left it disgusted by the industry's failure to have his warnings about dealing with its waste i'll tell you what i found particularly scandals to take the worst possible material which is you radium grinding into dust comparable to flour and make a hill out of it and put it into place where people live that is a cause colossally bad idea when you when you said what was the only way you doing reports where you listened at that time i will have written lots of reports i must have some sort of a record in emails probably over the over 100 so after a while you know i was explained look what you are proposing costs money i mean 1st of all you have to decode the contaminate. the land that is number one number 2 you can actually pump tailings all the way back where you got them from creeks the wood
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up just a few percent of cement and you can get rid of tailings this way is it basically put it to normal you put it back to where it was how does it make you feel when you see it is local communities complaining about that or their health problem doesn't make you fear makes you feel like a murderer. what we have done like i said we have created an enormous and we're mental disaster if we were you know growing potatoes and we made and what a mental disaster along the side it would be different we would say ok we're feeding the nation or the gold mining industry do it in a reached a small percentage of people so we have produced gold which is the most useless thing you know whole world it feeds human greed it has no uses and yet we have made in probably one of the biggest and one mental disasters in the world. so yes i do i
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do feel like like a murderer as eagles disturbing rising head knocked out heads back to sea from everett from goma. his current century possible signs of radioactive poisoning now the test results for the animals are being delivered and person by frank bender the janice but professor of studies also one of the vote we're joined by name is frank frank and. the professor has come to see eric's livestock for himself. in. the test results a clear material from the nearby mine tailings has contaminated erik's foam and uranium isn't the only problem. for example manganese would be quite significantly elevated in your and you'll want to sample over 2 cells times what would what one would find in natural water sources we do have we do have an ego being elevated to
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solace in times of authentic this elevated 50 times as opposed to 500 ok the most let's say indicative mental form binding impact and that is you are a new in those tailings that is about 10 times what you would see in a natural environment 10 times as much so what you what you analyzed in your water you did about 100 times more than one would find it on polluted actual pristine water source of. the farm surrounded by pollution which just. it's animals badly contaminated and. it's disturbing news. the health of your goat yeah shows the highest level or songbook. you see uranium is 60 times for elevated but all the lead is that elevated to 80 times meaning almost $100.00 times above what's normal that's the
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same was cobalt that's the same was also in a 3 and a 600 times one nickel but maybe you didn't know if you're just going to say ok all right i can have all of the yes you can have. my was out of 4 now living in doubt right for you fly me. a farm when livestock die prematurely townships which children have neurological disorders and suffer from terrible coughing fits. but all the medical links between poor health and mining conditions so clear cut. stoff at this read open health clinic might have some on since. among their patients is. it's the 3rd time this month that my youngest son has 10 and.
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i don't know i think this is. legal but he knew. too much of the stuff it was ages of us and mike is not seen to be good at this that left this one which goes numb don't know. so how he's going to yours. their baby has called brocade she's. i was just in to squint both science sometimes we see worse you get a child with a cough like the one that i just saw. she was having chest in drawings cuts in the dust because of the dust this is something that you will see
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on daily average yes you have been hearing here but number of clues is not really there should be a study like you are mentioning is that everybody who are living lives through their minds if we get a lot of those patients i think definitely we have to do real estate. astonishingly the south african state has never conducted a study to understand the impact of mine tailings on the population. but can. you catch up with to listen to again. back in her township at the foot of the mine down and out collecting we try to. get as go oh it's. very heavy so you have to do this every day. this is your house ok to leash as the small child with her 4 children.
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is again as a single i live by is a dad who played and says i'm up or. is it a corner quinola feel good telepictures and they were this tiny cabin provide some shelter from the rain but not from the pollution. and her children live only a few doesn't need his from the mine dumps where earlier i had measured radioactivity levels 28 times higher than the norm. she agrees to provide has samples to test what level of contamination but the response to. the greed of a group. long song pinay director of the institute for research and scientific expertise and streisand comes online. i mean you know. his cover will come on though you come and then he's commotion to pull. it in you know if you walk or security and you're gale norton i'm just you know me you. know me i
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don't. know she. is one of the sort. of i want to put it maybe it will. see what i'm going to do yes you could fall and then there is this food kind of move. you put in culture get your lucky breaks yourself. lester should look back look at hobart's love that they don't pay you well that's. right if you turn. it all right that should be more than enough. for us and then. the more i mean you would put it. we got to be more. like this i want to. go next.
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or a perfect. master has also taken to has song from the time to whom we matched. the little girl suffering from year old to suit a. look. this is one of a lot of thinking so done as does it. is to look beautiful. ah. and then more 10 in total from other residents living near the mine tailings and sent them via express mail to professor penny in france. once again they'll be a few days of waiting for the results. in the meantime goes looking for gold. some of south africa's most profitable export is used in the electronics industry some of it is used for investment but most of it ends up as drury yet to the
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websites of the world's major luxury brands a curiously silent about the sources of the gold. on the boat you know jennifer was full of those that are. nor any of them seem to respond to questions show that there's one of them called just how to yell matilda clearly because you don't know how good the flow of their lives can for the job business on this one the more this one is of utmost importance you have sort of going to communicate by leaving don't you know from the mother was one time was a good moment when the mongia federal police each of them to come from the city to indeed not one jewelry brand agrees to provide details of whether gold comes from. medicare and then who can you compose one question that always an. italian brand is the 3rd largest jeweler in the world and it certainly seems to be using a lot of gold. it's time to go shopping. to greece
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headquarters in. johannesburg located in sand and city among some of the most expensive real estate on the african continent in a luxurious shopping mall made by the company displays one of its finest pieces a gold and diamond necklace costing almost $78700.00. but again no one hand seems to know where that gold had been sourced by and we wanted to know whether. you're in an area of the jury you knew of the gold comes from if you can talk about it it's a bold move to go to the gold using your jewelry. knowing you know the ones here that are ok don't you think it is kind of a surprising that you don't know where to go comes from the directors are your readers. are you know ok i've heard of the. of the consequences of my own minds as i think out of for example the mind savings this is what you learned
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in your is better environment to learn a job or that's just are is a major step by product of the western world where you know. her thank you very much for you i'll come. back in a world overshadowed by the waste dumps of south africa's a vast gold mining industry. people are gathering in a church hall. tiny the activist has come to see or to exist by their drugs on people with you. so to have all the children whose has something smashed on has taken for testing.
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much has spread and even the national media present. everyone wants to know what the scientists have concluded. for thank you so much again for being here today i really appreciate the fact that you've come quite a long way to be here must all run through the results gleaned from soil water and pellets samples and then you cools off and sap the name and stress plant in charge of analyzing the levels of heavy metal spout in the human head that's been gathered moreover somewhat only we don't know it and i suppose a huge tree i think you're totally belsen was really sure who. was a very good as you don't know it was a. yes you will. surely it was a residual job or always will be you should tell you who it. was issued to you will
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do it don't do. it. said something just don't do do this for us all for it when you would expose your post and go this was on when you were exposed to it with people. that cough it up to 10 don't go and no one has yet to see them as in the preview i don't think. the x. was rule yet it really orders. yard you know these findings could help south african doctors give me a tandem that's a diagnosis for her disease. all down the. charts all people just one question only looked at people which. i don't think and all those who will focus on it get more civilians if you need to. more talk to you next time since it's you and i don't need ok taken together the result
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a deeply disturbing. the soil gathered by my. from the mine tailings is full of heavy metals the level of all snake for example is $330.00 times higher than the norm the water is full of uranium $100.00 times the international limit the goats are infected their fur contains 83 times more lead than those living far away from the mine tailings and as for the residents some of the children show 64 times more exposure to lead 5 times more exposure to your ania and 4 times more exposure to us nick than the average french person even gees and easy to get mean we eat is dangerous for it. can cause celeb can we do. it. but usually we don't. even know she'd miss it you know you can feel.
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them in the. moment and. i think you know what. is this one norm and this is not all those people that are really. blows minds are seriously the scientists who can be sending us things we've had enough of this man's exposing a source of beauty now to elude you once again from a shortage of the vision there was an important piece you know we've lost because of insufficient evidence and by now we're dead documented in the you're doing now
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so you'd lose the universe. will know what's. then you very much want to see him. as residents begin planning their next move. including a possible legal claim against the mining companies. matha obtains an interview with the chamber of mines. the industry's association for some of south africa's most powerful mining concerns. o'neill says with really pretty dull success if that's what they mean to look at them in an effort just with someone just the same as your eminence extend to put on the you sometimes no. almost 120 years later stefano moved out runs that we're going to his asians
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anti-pollution department on string for those issues because the gold producing families do not want to address individually or getting the environmental impact of the mining industry. do you think it's it's going in there on the right track on the gridley. yes there is significant progress achieved this fall in terms of my main companies dealing effectively with environmental impediments how's the chamber of mine ever conducted human health impact assessment regarding the tailings to mine 2 things not it's not that i'm way off ok so we don't some. then shows the same scientific analysis that he has shared with the residents back in the township we never heard about that and i don't know. what does that make you think now it's quite concerning for me and i think something should be done do you think that the mining industry that you represent have
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a responsibility in this numbers. i think in areas where our member company is mind he is we do have the responsibility. do you leave close to the mind. why not even me. i'm in most of the it's i mean most of the i mean those guys they follow the table as not the other way around they choose to go and stay there thing the people that live around the table huge paintings are on drugs producing they're safe they're not safe. at all there's a lot of. environmental risks as well a safety of risks and why do you think you've been clean over all these years of yes to something should be done for the tailings that our own. when when you say something do you think it's something way of what is it about eating the media and
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the we have built in of those should get rid of the yes i think we need in all that all management strategy is the industry and obviously in putting up with government . so what does the government have to say. south africa's environment minister declines to be interviewed. and his office says that the subject is not his area of expertise. but the ministry of health on the other hand is very interested. in leave a book. is director of the national institute for occupational health $1000.00. fundamentally this is of great importance to demonstrate that the levels are so
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much higher and that there would be negative health effects on the children and really one of the real tragedies that the study said and why the money has not been prioritized we need to make sure that mines and other workplaces don't continue to contaminate the living environment for communities and so on. you know what would you like a copy we would absolutely love to have a copy for because you see we don't have this we don't have it in and then we can go in with our medical teams and perhaps have a sample of those who have got high levels. of these different. heavy metals and you raney and and go in more physical examination do blood tests do unit tests and monitor there. the
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south african government will soon begin a major study on the health impacts of mining pollution. but time is of the essence in 2017 mining companies extracted 130 tons of gold from south african soil. producing 27000000 600000 tons of supplementary waste. more ways to be produced next year and the next one and the one after that. there are still 35 years remaining of exploitable gold reserves in south africa. how many move it dims will have to be in that time the food people realize that life is more precious than gold.
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however most people consider this a big desert so to see cried and rain over it is maybe unusual it's been hanging around eye for what seems like weeks in the last couple days and the next couple days will be quite noticeable the blue bits here are suggestions of where the showers will be so that middle of saudi arabia stretches your bar into qatar again where there's higher ground in yemen and in western side you do get thunderstorms and flash flooding we see. flooding in summer recently as well there was this continues it's dry in iraq it might be cloudy of a little bit in syria but generally speaking the event is far and the temperatures are rising as even true in southern turkey now you follow a system down actually from yemen through the horn of africa to what is developing knows the on the shore breezes the seas no rain has produced recent flooding and landslides in kenya will do again it's tanzania kenya ethiopia and somalia the normally involved with countries to the west getting equally seasonal rains but
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mogadishu could be involved here as well and it doesn't rain that often in mogadishu tanzania is how the worst of it and kenya more recently and i think that will continue to be the case further south is a generally dry picture evening but on monday there could be a few showers. but . subzero temperatures extreme altitudes. this is where the hard part is the extraordinary journey from the to tajikistan right ordinary joy that. we do high out that there's no oxygen. just to experience life simple pleasure. risking it all in kurdistan on al-jazeera. the way disease outbreaks have impacted dense urban areas like during the flu pandemic in the early 1900 has played
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a role in how our cities look and run urban planners reacted to that flu and other outbreaks changing how cities were zoned and led to updated infrastructure like ventilation and improved sanitation but after what's been learned from pandemics and there includes on our skylines and way of life we also need to keep pace and adapt it's easy to assume that cities are fertile ground for spreading viruses and diseases millions living working and commuting in such tight conditions but one expert says it's about much more than just density it's about how all this was put together and how it's run. bigger and potentially more dangerous that's the best way to describe what's happening with the smoking alternatives no one has faith that i enjoyed the taste of it and not because the harmful effects of what smoking does between 2013 in 2014 alone we start tripling and use among us high school students and head to head comparison ysaye versus conventional cigarette which one do you think has helped my opinion i think they're both dangerous take notes on
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al-jazeera. investigating the use and abuse of power across the globe on down to see. the number of people have died from coronavirus pastas 40000 in the united states divisions a deepening over the stay at home awards and the pandemics playing more havoc in energy markets to drag us the crude oil prices below $15.00 a barrel.

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