well here hope they won't have to pay for peace with their freedom. he watching the news from berlin up next our documentary series doc films more news coming at the top of the hour and don't forget you can get all the latest news and information around the clock on our web site that's g.w. dot com this year in 45 minutes. the school is right next to a gigantic opencast mine. the crater dominates the town of saturday possibly. the global economy is hungry for raw materials. but this comes at a high cost $1.00 that many south americans have to pay. some even with their lives.

saturday pasko is a town in the heart of the peruvian andes and peru and the sight of a huge open cast mine extracting zinc silver and lead for global markets. the mine is now owned by a swiss commodities giant glencore glencore recently paid several $100000000.00 for it but the people who live here pay an even higher price said today pasco lies in an altitude of 4300 meters locals absorb heavy metals into their bloodstream through the tap water. on the side of the lead makes this time it has a special effects children. maintains that my stomach hurts my head aches even string a list if you like when i ask my children to some. the problem is they quickly get

tie it. to come from. next door is a health center with a poster that reads lead campaign. everyone can get tested for heavy metals there. are measuring elevated values for all having that'll lead cadmium potassium and mercury all residents have levels that clearly exceed the world health organizations limits. giving. looked in. european journalists have documented the worst cases. children confined to wheelchairs because their lead levels are more times too high. cars from operation. dr fernando or sorries has researched heavy metal exposure his study revealed alarming results. and i made up

if you think the. government this is a mean us even when i found the most heavy metals in children and pregnant women. tell us what you mean but we feel if. the children have lead in their blood which means they have problems with nervous system development from a young age and reduced i.q. is as they get older. that half is when they're little or several you'll. have also discovered levels of arsenic which is carcinogenic always i mean if you not feel equal. a wealth and actually that's not just my opinion the world health organization says that to. us and that if. these diseases are directly linked to peruse worthless exploitation of natural resources for export. the whole country is in its grip.

we're on our way through a barren landscape to the highest town in the world. you can smell the garbage long before you even reach. hundreds of tons of waste surround the town in a ring several kilometers deep. the locals say the state has little power in this town of 50000 people perched 5100 meters up in the andes. if you are originally from this inhospitable region. they came to this place to find gold. there is more gold here than anywhere else.

entire families are in thrall to gold fever sifting through the waste from the mine to find tiny fragments of gold dosh. none of the mines are official. everyone jennifer themselves. nobody has a permit. not even the gold diggers who have driven their miles long shafts into the mountains. 10 years ago the gold boom attracted thousands of impoverished peruvian solving kanada. when fortunato to k. 1st arrived just a few 100 people were living in the town where nighttime temperatures can drop to minus 20 degrees celsius. someone told me back then that

a lot in kanada had a future where it's hard but i'm staying i've been here almost 24 years now. the mining companies have complete power if you don't play by their rules you get fired still fortunato held out soon he'll have earned enough to leave lauding kanada for good but working in the shops has left its mark on the 59 year old. there's particulate matter everywhere in the mines so many colleagues die of pneumonia or from gas poisoning caused by one of the underground explosions us. once a month fortunato sells his gold to a trader it's usually worth about a 1000 euro so that's a pretty good income for peru. here in the wild west people can at least scrape

a living but elsewhere they are paying for raw material exports with their lives. a burst dam in bruma denio in brazil in early 2019 had fatal consequences. bali it was the mining company responsible for the disaster. rescue workers dug desperately through the mud and sludge to find survivors among the 300 people reported missing. more often than not they only found bodies. some had even been buried in a boss. who helped us so something blue shimmering he dug with his hands and found the tire of the bus. it was

noon when the dam of the iron ore mine collapsed without warning. an employee recorded this video where he says all workers were sitting at the lunch table. to to the mudslide and bolt hundreds of workers and residents below the reservoir. brown red possibly toxic mud flooded the valley. the emergency services saved one young couple in the nick of time. and this woman also escaped from the ruins i think. it took just one hour to devastate the entire valley. distraught relatives gathered at an emergency response center many received trauma counseling. most had to learn that their brothers fathers or uncles were still

missing so they waited even as hope of finding survivors way. and. you point 3 inches don't you follow we'll stay here until we find out what happened muscle some huge and only one moment that they see is what's happened is terrible this is negligence this and miasma phasing in the shit ice. the morning after the disaster warning sirens sounded again people were scared a 2nd mudslide was imminent and fled to higher ground. we heard the sirens at 530 that's when we came here with our i.d.'s since then we've been waiting and still have no information that that adding. the police blocked off a bridge and the main road up through monday the moment nobody knew exactly what was going on but it was gradually becoming clear that the mining company of ali could no longer guarantee bruma deano was safe this is. one thought it would be

even worse if there were more casualties that's why they're sealing off the area. the rescuers had to stop their work because of concerns that another dam above could collapse. the delay angered the families desperately waiting for news of their loved ones. every moment was precious. it. was nothing but i've had no information about my husband it's been 2 days now it is not the 8 hours later they finally received the all clear signal for the 2nd dam the rescue workers continue. meanwhile the people of dino were trying to come to terms with the sheer scale of the disaster. on a ritas 28 year old nephew was in the canteen when the mudslide hit home. he went to work and never came back but i'm the one now is lying and. it's incredibly sad to

see you my dear. people prayed for the missing at the church next door but 4 days after the disaster sorrow was turning to anger at mine operator of ali. this was no accident it was a crime. no amount of financial compensation will bring our friends back. to volley is now under investigation by brazil's justice department which has frozen over 2000000000 euros of the company's assets. so who's in with the video this is a human tragedy because it involves such a large number of victims britain's you've each of us. environmental activists protesting outside the company headquarters. they say the commodities giant invested too little in safety and oversight. is one of the world's biggest iron ore

exporters. many people have accused the company of deliberately flirting with disaster in order to be able to meet the increased global demand for iron ore. body doesn't don't know land the company only has licenses to mine there and if they can even do that without making mistakes contaminating rivers and killing people. in bali is now facing probably the biggest crisis since it was founded 77 years ago. he used to be state owned. the growth of the global demand for iron ore led to a rapid expansion in the 1970 s. and even operates its own pleat of ships. volley grew to be so powerful during the brazilian military dictatorship that it was privatized in the 1990 s. but the state is still the majority shareholder of. the 2009 economic crisis hit volley hard the company which is dependent on global demand had to layoff many workers. but the past few years have seen

a marked turnaround baalei was able to cash in on increased demand for iron ore in china and europe and has become a heavyweight in the brazilian stock index. the company has massively expanded its mining activities and generates billions in profits then in november 2015 a dam belonging to one of ali's subsidiaries collapsed 1000 people were killed and volleys operations came under increasing scrutiny is that on the. home where this was 1000 as a so often the case and brazil regulations and controls may be moving in the right direction as the might according to the law there should have been 3 times as many inspectors in the disaster area to effectively inspect the reservoirs as there actually were. is up to this bhajans was that until you can hardly say that my sil's really takes environmental regulation seriously but is that just just what the authorities had said 3 days before the accident was that these years although

its laws are right it no government neither left nor right has actually implemented if it is will be in decision will be just give the g.d. as it would public on. after the bruma deano tragedy the authorities suspected that a brazilian subsidiary of germany's took may have been partly to blame and arrested 2 of its employees. documents show that the 2 men had certified the dam as safe just a few months earlier and the investigators wanted to know why. but the dam may have burst due to factors that had only come into play after the inspection. in december 20. 8th and see issued the volley group with a permit classifying the dam as a level 4 in other words medium safety risk. but the minutes of an earlier environmental commission show that the risk level had previously been a 6 heightened risk. in by. metal agency also approved an expansion of

mining activity this was significant because it also involved work around the dam. media reports cited this as an express permit it was issued just a few weeks before the accident and for saw a 70 percent increase in production. and environmental activists from the disaster area accuses the mine operator of negligence. here. the valley group must have noticed that something in the dam was out of whack because of its illegal activities and then a month before the accident tried to get retrospective approval. environmental groups are calling for more rigorous state oversight what does each of those and i do best and shut the had all we can see there's less oversight because the environmental authorities have been massively on to cuss you know is almost by the lazy magnificus skills but his employment miss even with the law is

not clear at the control of farce he's do not have the resources to enforce them. hardly any checks are carried out. because companies are accessing enormous pressure to prevent them. means to me to change them up is still in the offing this is going to bring him into the van i agree it has been making donations to politicians for a long time going to be we started coming but i. thought i was the old anger about this has been rising in bruma denio where they are also aware this wasn't the 1st mining disaster. on a rita the aunt of the 28 year old who died there is scathing about the lack of oversight because. then the company knew that wasn't was a tight they should have fixed it but they only think about the profit of not about us yet. meanwhile locals. are left facing the

environmental impact reddish brown tailing slurry has contaminated the water. we used to use this river but now there is no river anymore it's finished. the locals like the tour who rely on tourism are worried about making ends meet it will take months before the whole area is decontaminated. it's a disaster with both human and environmental dimensions a lot of questions still haven't been answered especially about lax oversight and whether it was tolerated to increase profit margins. back instead of the pasco peru. experts say a fine layer of toxic particles has settled over these mountains. they come from a nearby metal smelting plant. chimney at the smelter now releases fewer sulphur dioxide lead and arsenic fumes into the air than

it used to. just a few years ago it was still running at full blast. at . it never bothered us. never left oh yeah anyway so we thought everywhere looked like this. all. the consequences of the air pollution still haunt the residents many of whom suffer from chronic diseases blood lead levels are 4 times higher than the w h o's upper limits pablo has serious neurological complaints but he still supports your londa and her fight for better environmental standards if you. look at 1st the call to somebody who's. going to lose it but that never bothered me because people like you londo also supported. your loan the community. the catholic church and

international organizations helped us to get the proving and state to finally recognize the poisoning that affects us as well as our diseases. to continue as you get the name of what we lose in putting this gift and. that's why operations in the law oroya smelter have been scaled back although the complex hasn't been shut down completely and continues to contaminate the area with heavy metals. yolanda says the smelters legacy will be felt for years to come she's meeting constantine bittner who works for the german n.g.o.s. he spent years tracking the way german companies continue to import raw materials from peru in spite of environmental problems. but. when it comes to raw materials germany is very dependent on peru much on imports year to the imports a lot of raw materials especially copper lead silver or gold mallette dinner. in and it would have

a huge problem if the peruvian supply chain were to break down. concerted efforts to expose the human rights abuses in terms of pollution caused by the supply chain a rare. mention of those to the place and. so almost there are more efforts to push things in the other direction. people writing that things are pretty good just highlighting a couple of sustainable projects like that but when you visit places like this things look a bit different than just a few minutes almost from. the future of the smelter is a sensitive issue in la jolla one that even divides families. some want more operations to create jobs others take a different view. is destined to be we need to find a balance when this field goes the smelting complex needs better filters to reduce

contamination means antoninus i don't see that in this one liter well yes i will they go but my main concern is the health of my children i even argue with my husband about this 100 the miniature boats work in the mining industry. i expect the mine operators to act more responsibly. one person in la jolla who's been on the side of the victim since the very beginning is cardinal pedro baritone who also comes from a mining region for years he has witnessed the many deaths caused by the ruthless exploitation of mineral resources. and they listen and must think. look is thank god that is in the church is not against. this but we are against your responsible market but he said 6 that hit us for the peruvian state allows foreign companies to basically earn their weight in gold here while at the same time causing such regrettable consequences for the peruvian people in the environment

one of them. but living at altitudes as high as perils and days already poses health risks especially for the dreamers and schemers enlarging kanada. a team of french scientists in 2019 set out to find out how the backbreaking labor here at 5100 meters altitude is affecting the miners bodies. they took blood samples from the gold miners to measure the number of red blood cells the blood cells that transport oxygen. there is less oxygen in the thin air up here than at sea level if. the scientists wanted to find out how people had adapted to these extreme conditions which. was just a normal person that the level at sea level it's about 40 percent here we measured a lot of people above 80 percent which is

a huge amount of red blood cells in the blood and this helps them to bring much more oxygen to the organs for incense to get to the brain to the nestles the results indicated the miners body. these had adapted to the altitude. it was then or the normal and stress tests revealed their hearts were working at a maximum capacity. the study was also intended to help people living at sea level . so learning how these people here. can manage to leave we've so few oxygen it's the way to think how to manage people patients having respiratory disease and also suffering from my navel. i'm only able to deal with such low levels of oxygen with the help of coca leaves. believes the soul is about one euro 20 without them i wouldn't be able to do anything at $5100.00 metres out and you can either prepare them as tea or even better chew them

. gold digger fortunato shows me how to do it even after all these years he still feels the need to chew coca leaves as do most of the miners here. seems like a ghost town to me but eric ramos chooses to spend his university became here laboring to extract the coveted precious metal from the ground. for this he and his relatives begin by washing the earth and rocks. further downstream the gold falls through the gratings and gets caught in mats. with temperatures only around 5 degrees celsius it's hard work even for a fit 21 year old like eric. it's pretty tough out here in the cold. but i think i'm lucky because we're finding

a lot of gold and we can buy furniture and stuff and. mercury plays a key role in the process it's used to separate the gold from the rock but that requires repeated rinsing in the cold mountain air. so we're mixing it here like this by adding mercury to the slurry of rock and gold . in the end i get a mixture of golden rick yury. that's how we get the gold out of the rock. whence if it was some other $1000000.00 you're going to the prospectors then pour the mix into metal pans and sift out the little clumps of gold unlike his father eric doesn't intend to work like this forever. and i mean if i'm studying on the side and when i finish i don't want to come back here. when i've got them if you get what your dream through you tube and i want to be

a teacher. almost everyone here once had dreams but most of them have been shattered. many gold diggers get stuck in lot in kanada somewhere between bars and brothels. under the spell of gold. and. before we leave we see women in the town searching for gold specks and puddles of ice run off and urine. not in ca now that still doesn't have running water or a sewage system. but there's a cemetery. a gold prospectors last resting place. the cold the poisons the garbage each takes its toll on people in the world's highest town.

we travel a bit further into the peruvian amazon. we come upon the end water of the 3rd aging cargo ship loaded with pegs. loading the ship is hard work but load wake is still glad to have a job as a porter. at least until he starts to work out how much he's been carrying. roses that it's not a sack of rice weighs 50 kilos so that's $100.00 kilos for 2 sacks. yeah there's every day we unload a truck full which adds up to several tons. ludwig and his colleagues spend about 3 hours loading and unloading the ship then they have to take a break. but their jobs may soon be obsolete anyway. the

peruvian government is planning to build a modern and fully automated transshipment terminal in the port town of unity among us. there are a few roads in the peruvian amazon so nearly everything has to be transported along the river. boxes sacks parcels and livestock boats as small as the other water the 3rd are a logistical nightmare it takes hours before everything is stowed on board. the harbor master is already looking forward to a new container terminal it promises to make things simpler faster and better. we'll soon see some progress here through our young brazilian and all the other boats will soon be able to pass through all year round and carry more cargo do. the harbormaster is hoping for a dramatic increase in exports of raw materials to china. arsenals and livestock.

boats as small as the other water the 3rd are a logistical nightmare it takes hours before everything is stowed on board. the harbor master is already looking forward to a new container terminal it promises to make things simpler faster and better. see some progress here through our young brazilian and all the other boats will soon be able to pass through all year round and carry more cargo do. the harbormaster is hoping for a dramatic increase in exports of raw materials to china. and he. played the role via a sprawling infrastructure project involving the dredging of 3 major tributaries of the amazon aims to create 3000 kilometers of deep draft channels along the river wide enough for larger ships. a peruvian chinese consortium has been

set up to manage the project which is due to start soon you. will get most and we're building an extensive system of waterways that will open up new opportunities right now when the water level is low ships can only operate during the day not at night this project will greatly improve transportation links. but that's still all in the future for the time being traders and passengers remain dependent on boats like the other water the 3rd. it will take 3 days and 3 nights to make it to you keep those assuming nothing goes wrong. sign perez says the ship's captain he's been sailing the amazon for 25 years. for him it's not just a job but a calling in the world cup but i mean another navigating your way along these

rivers is a real art. i inherited the talent from my father. and the little girl i'm the only one of his sons to have carried on the tradition and i hope that the generation after me will continue it to. me and i will be ended up as a them what they. say is it means a lot to me. you have to put them in if you don't which are. these days the captain doesn't spend much time at the helm. he now has other people to do that task for him. like. who's also been on the job for decades. sailing in such shallow waters takes a great deal of experience. that i say i wouldn't say what. we have to be familiar with the river. and keep

a lookout for shifting sand banks oh yes but you know they're really dangerous. if you run into one honey thing can happen the ship can even capsize the. smaller boats are used to move along the tributaries to the villages where many inhabitants supposed to hit roe v a project. relations between locals in the central government are strained many local people are part of the indigenous community or have indigenous roots they've suffered a long history of persecution and injustice and are still discriminated against they any of that because a member of the ku comma people is one of the last to can still speak the common language you know that kind of on my neck to be the. mark of the mark of 3 now woody. if they put it one that means how are you and where are you from me

neither. today they're neither has a visitor has said the pinch is an activist who's committed to preserving cool calm a culture she fears that the new infrastructure projects will do lasting damage. i think. it could in the new technology and the machines they'll bring in will have a devastating impact it will destroy a lot of things. some of the speech. live in river means life for us and for the animals i don't think i mean mine. is that with even the me the loser is everything going to be sunday it's as important as having a supreme being in light of. the rivers and lakes of the amazon are central to the coup camas culture they believe there's another world under the water where their ancestors gather and where people spirits and animals all live together.

for the comma any harm to the rivers and lakes would threaten the balance of the spiritual realm. do you believe. but the protests against the new water highway also have a very practical dimension. still that runs a painting school. she says you only have to look at the course of the river to see that dredging and channeling are a bad idea. going to. see this going and seeing the river here is constantly changing older people here will tell you that 2 streams appear and disappear give us a little theme but we're not meant to interfere. still this point is one leading scientists are raising as well. many of them have

reservations about the project one is jorge a bob barr mental engineer who has spent years researching the amazon. he says the network of waterways here has shifted constantly for millions of years. we've got plenty of i think even people who want a better life even a. lot of time put more faith in that more than a. lot more may not make them or they're not we never have done. that and they think you. know we don't know enough that's why he's begun evaluating samples satellite images and other measurements but a survey like this takes time and he says the government doesn't want to wait at the same time the government's own surveys are inadequate are the commercial interests involved simply too powerful. basically i mean what i believe that the last. time bank i think they want to remain blind.

we've learned to be nice to think that maybe during that maybe you don't need to pay what it may be that the it is going to you know i think you don't buy them. dredging the river at the wrong place could have disastrous consequences he says it could upset the ecological balance and in danger of local biodiversity even if existing waterways are expanded and no new roads are built it still carries high risks. and. this group of young filmmakers are shooting a documentary on the current environmental problems travelling through the amazon region to talk to local people and get evidence of environmental pollution on film . oil extraction is a major polluter many of the pipelines leak pager wants his video footage to show that pipeline maintenance and cleanup operations aren't working anywhere near as

well as the government claims. were. it was on the radio here in the middle of my country in the middle of peru the reality is there's nothing other than pollution and then i think there's no drinking water that makes me afraid you can die if you drink the water here with me you. can go in you know the casino. pedro accuses the government of putting profit before people in the region and he doesn't believe the amazon infrastructure project will change anything. seymour avenue for. sure they tell us how things will improve the government says the big ships from other countries coming up here will buy our products. but that's not how things will be. nobody is going to stop here to buy our fish it's all dissin from

ation. the government rejects these accusations saying that the heads rovio will also benefit local communities where you are but i was just there to give you. the indigenous people will benefit enormously it will help them get around quicker to the dr for example the new infrastructure will make a lot of things easier. but we will have a lot of work to do explaining the project to the people thank god we need to bring them. so it seems the government still has some convincing to do if it wants to push through its controversial plans to increase exports of raw materials. all this isn't relevant to the eduardo of the thirds operators right now. they just want to move their cargo as fast as possible get it unloaded and continue on their way.

but sign perez still hopes to captain bigger and more modern ships up and down the river one day. he and his crew once again mastered the tricky currents and are welcomed with music. the porters quickly begin to unload the much needed cargo. in a few days they will leave again with a fresh load of people cargo and stories on his next journey along the lifeline the peruvian amazon. you've got to hold it up. and the moment before we arrive safely at the moment the want to meet the ship to securely mord equitably and. i think. that's the most important thing for me when i think about it.

back and said are they pasco missouri or staffer constantine bittner meets a local activist. louise showed up on say publicizes the health problems caused by elevated blood levels and children's blood. but. he has been criticizing the lack of protective measures for years. and most of the c.b.c. i was going to see too few dollars to sit we have been identifying excessively high blood levels for years now we've even had help from international institutes. but maybe that's what the ministry of health still hasn't done anything to alleviate chronic heavy metal poisoning on children. because you could only get them with those missiles but is it only b.s. if you're a student news. shows us a film of children describing their headaches and nosebleeds.

both symptoms are linked to the constant toxicity and sadder they pasco. but to date the activists have seen little response to their protest. and those soldiers when you see the music when you put it is that in 2017 we protested in front of the ministry of health for 10 days following that they signed declarations of intent. but the treatment of the hundreds of thousands of children who have to live with heavy metal toxicity is only progressing slowly and it's still inadequate. for now children still have to live with it and as you can see the environmental problems and saturday pasco haven't been eliminated either.

glencore released a written statement saying the company was doing everything within its power to keep the human impact to a minimum and that it will take further protective measures. for many children however these could come too late the city will still be does this fish here that we feel forgotten or put it out of there to other cities but as we've given a lot to peru and our government in sudan but we've got nothing back. where much more soft and other places is that they always get you what the sudan. but sort of the pasco is just one of many places in south america caught in the stranglehold of the global greed for raw materials places where bulldozers rip open the earth and poisons eat their way through people's bodies.

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this is deja news a lot from berlin and a growing humanitarian and political crisis at turkey's borders with the european union priest police have used tear gas and water cannons to drive back my dreams that one crossing point thousands of people are pushing toward the borders after turkey said it would no longer prevent migrants from trying to reach the e.u. . u.s. president trump imposes new restrictions to stop the new coronavirus as health officials announced america's 1st.