tv [untitled] December 9, 2012 1:30pm-2:00pm EST
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it spreads out into forty four levels under the earth is the oldest mine in colombia and the second deepest in latin america. it is two thousand five hundred meters deep and there are underground galleries of over four thousand meters in all the tunnels combined are over eight hundred kilometers long. else alessio is a giant underground labyrinth of complex tunnels here one thousand one hundred people work and you really have to know where you're going.
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this is the vein. here is where the gold is found from here on down and here on up. sometimes it is of interest sometimes not. because the concentration is low what really interests this is this the fact. that five hundred meters under the surface of the earth the atmosphere is us fixating heat humidity and thick dust make it hard to brief. level a team is the deepest you can get. from levels one thousand to forty four
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everything is that half the mine is under water and dozens of pumps are trying to pull the water up to the surface. even in this state however. produces about seven kilos of gold a month. this is considered to be a typical global gold the pause at the end at the present moment is one of the best in colombia. gold is the barometer of fear. in the midst of the two thousand and eleven coble economic crisis on the twenty second of august it hit a historic high of one thousand eight hundred eighty nine dollars an ounce.
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and almost unbelievable price considering that ten years ago this much gold cost only two hundred seventy one dollars. today colombia is one of the countries with the largest gold production in south america and one of the most important gold producers in the world. in two thousand and ten it produced approximately fifty four tons while it is estimated that there are still enormous unexplored reserves because in the. geological knowledge of the country is still limited. but according to research of national interest. talking about forty one thousand tonnes of gold bearing posits. in all of these can be developed it with. colombia is suffering from
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but there are people here who have come from all over the country not just from one of insurer but from the entire country but that is because gold is money it's wealth it's peace for the family it's food. how life has changed one hundred percent to go but at least for me the mine has changed my life one hundred percent because before i lived next to the national road you look at it. and at the moment of that what i see them and now i have a house in one of and tura bounds i go and now i don't depend on the government to send me five thousand pesos instead of them sending it i got to find gold and many
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are much bigger players beyond the ordinary gold diggers trying to survive. drawn by the high prices of gold they claim the lion's share of the country's legendary gold bearing deposits. they are made up of the multinationals in the government the guerrillas the former paramilitaries and the drug cartels. the hunt for gold in colombia along with cocaine fuels the country's civil war which has been raging for over forty years.
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work around the clock. grey waterfalls rushed down its slopes with water polluted by cyanide the waste product of processing poisoning the reverse. my motto is a rich yet filthy place hundreds of generations have dug up the ground here the first being the indigenous peoples of the pre-columbian period the spanish and slave them and put them to work in dark passages my motto is one of the oldest gold mining sites in south america. was the fourth oldest municipality in the country it was established in fifteen thirty six traditionally it has been a mining town. it is no exaggeration but the ten thousand
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citizens of this region live on top of a golden mountain. here on elbow estimates say that approximately nine point eight million ounces of the precious metal is hidden within its bowels. almost everyone here is from a family of gold diggers. people trying to make a living surviving as their ancestors did by digging with chisels and pickaxes deep into the earth. this is the oil we look for in the mine and it has pyrite in it and everything here in the mine you can see it but when it goes through the mill then the gold comes out. ruben is the owner of this mine along with thirty eight of his fellow countryman. he provides employment to forty five
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families. there are four hundred fifty mines and. some legal some illegal. our tradition is to become miners and we always like the money our work in the mines earns us money my wages are three hundred sixty thousand every fifteen days we live on this me and my wife thank god since we are poor we live well on this. but also my brother are involved in the mines. working in the mine i stated. i think a lot of. the news a secret laboratory to mccurry was able to build
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a new most sophisticated robot which fortunately dorna found anything tunes mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans in war. this is why you should care only on the. wealthy british style. markets find scandal find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to name two kinds of
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colombia gold and its subsidiary mentor resources. my name is jose oro and i am vice president of the company it honestly i have a commitment to the people to development for me this plan in my motto is very important because we must create jobs to give food to the people and this is part of our duty and our ethics yes we. will do it. the company's plan is to blow up the top of the gold mountain and create an open pit mine an order to have access to all the deposits from the top to the very bottom.
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in this way annual gold production could be as much as eight tons rather than the seven hundred twenty six kilos currently produced. according to today's price this would be worth about five hundred million dollars. it would have to be this is one of the alternative techniques you know as you know we had to but it could become an open pit mine very beautiful very modern. in
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a polling current and future environmental laws it's not that we're opening an enormous hole which looks like a giant volcano. where working plot by plot and restoring as we go along. there are parts which can't be restored well so there we make a nice little lake and add some fish when those other places we fix up with rock in the us a road is created for endangered species to pass through the bases. in other words you must have alternatives and be creative. when i have a can pit mines the holes a gigantic what this holds four hundred to one thousand one hundred meters deep which cover a large area is eat. when i open a hole i think i must make an artificial mountain have to break it of pollutants.
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see. if it's running a loss extend the pollution will spread to a much greater area. and you have more choice and many aquatic ecosystems a rivers lakes will be destroyed. and if i think that in this country gold medal as an environmental cost which is unacceptable. but in order for the company's plan to be implemented the town of moore motto which was declared in one thousand nine hundred two a national historic site of columbia must be a race from the map. and we're going to remove the tell must be moved we must move the town this is something very typical in metallurgy moody you know maybe. i'm seventy years old with it why should i leave here there is no one chasing me out. to live this down it doesn't just have
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material wealth like gold and silver but. that for us it symbolizes a lot just get bored and we don't believe that the economic ambitions of people who aren't even colombians we should disappear so they can come to mine the gold killing a town which has survived. as a bit be. him . it goes from there are people who are indigenous who are confused politically because they have been told that capitalism is coming in will destroy them above all we can't have a dialogue with the deaf. and. it's exactly like that it's a struggle of capital. capitalism will look good work against
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a people that do nothing else except work and contribute to the state is good it was in the multinationals do their work. without leaving the country anything. like that is when we must take into consideration that mining development that represents two percent of the g.d.p. and if we're talking about resources it's important revenues from foreign investments are important but even if. you knew. it and saw exports sport as units which bring revenues to the state. and allow the funding of programs for poverty. everything is part of a balancing act. in bozeman where in two thousand and nine state revenues from metallurgy one one point nine three billion pesos basis. tax breaks were one point seven five and fuel subsidies point two four billion.
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profits were less than the tax breaks and subsidies. and i think that's a given to the mining corporations so how much money is left over. but why develop the creation of an open pit mine and not prove the conditions for miners. it would come in people because it's slow economically room it's a question of cost it's a fantasy your goals. because you know what's happening. let's say we improve the conditions of small miners and they produce that one thousand two hundred dollars an ounce. when the prices fall it's all over. so they're like sleeping. with it once they see good mates when they attack. this happened but if they came to the gold towns to work saying they contribute to
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sustainable development they need and this sustainable development has destroyed towns and peoples i think the problem is we must talk to the people here we should have the direct presence of high level executives the able do so to baptize a kid one day so that we can say we love them look at them because our god made us all equal. because we should begin humanitarian work. and if they say no. new york times had no though except bill except logic is always imposed some of them will be more difficult than others. and some might even go to extremes. with the because they don't accept the laws of colombia must be applied. else alessio mind began operating in eight hundred fifty two. it was the year that
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the british company frontino gold mines was the stablished in the area bringing with it the steam engine and the telegraph. the workers of the company built their accommodation close to the mine creating a new town sigel via. today said go via has a population of forty thousand. it is a lively hot dirty and dangerous town.
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to go via lives by the rhythms of hundreds of metal mills operating nonstop. it is filled with casinos bars prostitutes and dozens of gold shops. much gold goes through your shop every day. a. woman is wrong five hundred to fifteen hundred grams student. see how much is that in terms of money. or. fifty thousand dollars. about one hundred million pace us.
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resources of latin america with a couple of women but if it is considered one of the largest gold reserves in south america. let's go to the state has long abandoned go via the new book but. also companies didn't help society here at all this business with road building this is the supply of water education i mean anything. with a. to speak your language such. as programs in documentaries in arabic in school here on. earth fourteen from the world's hot spots of a p.r. piece interviews intriguing stories for you to. see in
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a remarkable reminder of courage and selflessness. proof that beauty is of all people. it. can jump off the russian side on policy. get off sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. eleven.
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