You cant see it but these children have poison in their blood the director of the Primary School instead of the pasco in peru says learning and concentration difficulties are usually the 1st sign to this money when they sneeze the blood often comes out of their noses. You know the struggle to Pay Attention for longer stretches of time so flat im sure its due to the lead in their blood thats on. The school is right next to a gigantic open cast mine. The crater dominates the town of saturday possibly. The Global Economy is hungry for wrong materials. But this comes at a high cost 1. 00 that many south americans have to pay. Some even with their lives. Saturday pasco is a town in the heart of the peruvian andes in 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 so today pasco lies in an altitude of 4300 meters locals absorb heavy metals into their blood stream through the tap water. On the side of the lead makes us telling it like that especially if its children what. Maintains that my stomach hurts my head aches a bitching enlistee view on life when i ask my children to solve a problem if they could take it tell it. To come from shop you know youre looking. Next door as a Health Center with a poster that reads led campaign. Everyone can get tested for heavy metals there. Doesnt that. We are measuring elevated values for all heavy metals lead cadmium potassium and mercury all residents have levels that clearly exceed the World Health Organizations limits. Look the end. Peruvian journalists have documented the worst cases. Children confined to wheelchairs because their lead levels are more times too high. Cars from operation. Dr fernando sorries has researched heavy metal exposure his study revealed alarming results. And i made up if you think the important thing for sept i meant this was a student mean us even when i found the most heavy metals in children and pregnant women. Will tell us what it means but received. 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. And tough is when they literally several youll look up a little i have also discovered levels of arsenic which is carcinogenic. I mean if you not feel equal. Thats not just my opinion the World Health Organization says that to. Assume that. These diseases are directly linked to peruse worthless exploitation of Natural Resources for export. The whole country is in its grip. Were 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. But entire families are in thrall to gold fever sifting through the waste from the mines to find tiny fragments of gold dust. None of the mines or official. Everyone in town or for 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 salatin 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 its hard but ive stayed with you ive been here almost 24 years now. The Mining Companies have complete power if you dont play by their rules you get fired still fortunato held out soon hell have earned enough to leave lauding kanada for good but working in the shops has left its mark on the 59 year old. You know theres particulate matter everywhere in the mines. Many colleagues die of pneumonia or from gas poisoning caused by one of the underground explosions us. Once a month or 2 not a sells his gold to a trader its usually worth about a 1000 euro. Thats 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 bus. The house in a 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 gulp 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 i didnt emerge and see 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 dont you for police well stay here until we find out what happened muscle soem engine only one moment that they say is whats happened is terrible this is negligence this and my small phasing in the jet 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 thats when we came here with our i. D. s since then weve been waiting and still have no information that by loudly. The police blocked off a bridge and the main road of 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 a hardship i think it would be even worse if there were more casualties thats why theyre sealing off the area. The rescuers had to stop their work because of concerns that another dam above could collapse. The delay anger the families desperately waiting for news of their loved ones. Every moment was precious. It. Was nothing but ive had no information about my husband its been 2 days now it is now the 8 hours later they finally received the all clear signal for the 2nd dam the rescue work could 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. He went to work and never came back but i do want to know is lying and. Its incredibly sad to hear you might yet. People prayed for the missing at the Church Next Door but 4 days after the disaster sorrow was turning to anger at mine operator vali. This was no accident it was a crime. No amount of financial compensation will bring our friends back to conspire god and vali is now under investigation by brazils Justice Department which has frozen over 2000000000 euros of the companys assets. So whos in with a virgin this is a human tragedy because it involves such a large number of victims. You reach moves. Environmental activists protesting outside the company headquarters. They say the commodities giant invested too little in safety and oversight. Is one of the worlds 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 doesnt own no 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 fleet of ships. Vala 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 alis subsidiaries collapsed 1000 people were killed and volleys operations came under increasing scrutiny still in the. Home with us where they want us in the as a so often the case and brazil regulations and controls may be moving in the right direction to solicit them but 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 was he just got his out the this was the oh you can hardly say that my sils really takes environmental regulation seriously but is that just just what the authorities had said 3 days before the accident and that was these years although its laws are right no government has neither left nor right has actually implemented its principle van decision will be in just give the g. G. A simple public on. After the bruma deano tragedy the authorities suspected that a brazilian subsidiary of germanys 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 in c. Issue 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 activist from the disaster area accuses the mine operator of negligence. Here or. 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. Since. Environmental groups are calling for more rigorous state oversight was each of them said i knew best and she at the had all we can see theres less oversight because the environmental authorities have been massively on to cuss you know this is almost by the blaze martin you figure the skills base is implemented most even with the laws that clear the control authority is to not have the resources to enforce them. Its. Hardly any checks are carried out. Because companies are accessing enormous pressure to prevent that. Means to me to change the market is still in the army this is going to bring jimmy the vinaigrette as has been making donations to politicians for a long time going to be we started coming but i. Thought i. Was anger about this has been rising in broome again you know where they are also aware this wasnt 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 of the fall then the company knew that wasnt was hittite they should have fixed it but they only think about the process of not about us. Yeah. 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 its 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. Its a disaster with both human and environmental dimensions a lot of questions still havent 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 on 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. And. It never bothered us we never left oh yeah anyway so we thought everywhere looked like this it doesnt get told will it i know 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 os upper limits pablo has serious neurological complaints but he still supports your londa and her fight for better Environmental Standards if you. At 1st they called us never used. To but that never bothered me because people like you londa also supported. Your community. The Catholic Church and International Organizations helped us to get the peruvian state to finally recognize the poisoning that affects us as well as our diseases. To continue as you get the name of the newsgroup were losing but even if you think. Thats why operations in the la oroya smelter have been scaled back although the complex hasnt been shut down completely and continues to contaminate the area. Heavy metals yolanda says the smelters legacy will be felt for years to come shes meeting Constantine Bittner who works for the german n. G. O. S that he or 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 peruvian imports year to them for its a lot of Raw Materials especially convertor lead silver or gold mallette dinner. 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 the pollution caused by the supply chain a rare. Mention of ice to the basin. So almost there are more efforts to push things in the other direction. Of the 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 the stuff in the cinemas 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. Disgusting and. We need to find a balance when the field goes the smelting complex needs better filters to reduce contamination means continuous you know and i guess he began to swear lighter well yes i will they do but my main concern is the health of my children will be clear i even argue with my husband about this and the miniature boats work in the mining industry. I expect the mine operators to act more responsibly. One person in la jolla whos been on the side of the victim since the very beginning is Cardinal Pedro about 80 who also comes from a mining region. For years he has witnessed the many deaths caused by the ruthless exploitation of mineral resources. And a listen most think that i mean india is thank god that is she in the church is not against. This that but we are against irresponsible market but hes 6 of 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 and the environment. 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. The scientists wanted to find out how people had adapted to these extreme conditions which. Was just a normal person that no level. About 40 percent here we measured a lot of people above 80 percent which is a huge amount of red blood cells in the broad and this helps them to bring much more into the organs for incense to get to the brain to meso. The results indicated the miners bodies had adapted to the altitude their blood 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 weve so few oxygen. To think how to manage people patients having respiratory disease and also suffering from my navel. Im only able to deal with such low levels of oxygen with the help of coca leaves. The leaves soul is about one euro 20 without them i wouldnt be able to do anything at 5100. 00 metres. You can either prepare them as tea or even better chew them. A 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 its hard work even for a fit 21 year old like eric. Its pretty tough out here in the cold. But i think im lucky because were finding a lot of coal and we can buy furniture and stuff. Mercury plays a key role in the process its used to separate the gold from the rock but that requires repeated rinsing in the Cold Mountain air. Im going to move on so were 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. Thats how we get the gold out of the rock. As if it was some of the money in. The prospect heirs then pour the mix into metal pans and sift out the little clumps of gold unlike his father eric doesnt intend to work like this forever. If im starting on the side and when i finish i dont want to come back here again im going to when i come to get what your dream is to be united and i want to be a teacher. That almost everyone here once had dreams but most of them have been shattered. Many gold diggers get stuck in a 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 even though that still doesnt have Running Water or a sewage system. But theres a cemetery. With gold prospectors last resting place. The cold the poisons in the garbage each takes its toll on people in the worlds highest town. We travel a bit further into the peruvian amazon. We come upon the eduardo the 3rd aging cargo ship loaded with pigs. Loading the ship is hard work but ludwig is still glad to have a job as a porter at least until he starts to work out how much hes been carrying. Member was his thats not a sack of rice weighs 50 kilos so thats 100 kilos for 2 sacks. Yeah there every day we unload a truck full which adds up to several times. 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 ship 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 peruvian brazilian and all the other boats will soon be able to pass through all year round and carry more cargo do. I the harbormaster is hoping for a dramatic increase in exports of brawl materials to china. And india is the heathrow via a sprawling Infrastructure Project involving the dredging of 3 major tributaries of the amazon and to create 3000 kilometers of deep 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. Were 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 night this project will greatly improve transportation links. But thats still all in the future for the time being traders and passengers remain dependent on boats like the water the 3rd. It will take 3 days and 3 nights to make it to you keep those assuming nothing goes wrong. Sign as is the ships captain hes been sailing the amazon for 25 years. For him its not just a job but a calling. The world cup i mean another navigating your way along these rivers is a real art. I inherited the talent from my father for a little im the only one of his sons to have carried on the tradition and i hope that the generation after me will continue it too. You can have a president you love they. Say you it means a lot to me that youre good but i really think im which i. Think. These days the captain doesnt spend much time at the helm. He now has other people to do that task for him. Like Walter Salles whos also been on the job for decades. Sailing in such shallow waters takes a great deal of experience. To say i was busy but i. Have to be familiar with the river and keep a lookout for shifting sand banks. And you know theyre really dangerous. If you run into one honey thing can happen the ship can even capsize when the. Smaller boats are used to move along the tributaries to the villages where many inhabitants opposed to he drove project. Relations between locals and the Central Government are strained many local people are part of the Indigenous Community or have Indigenous Roots theyve suffered a long history of persecution and injustice and are still discriminated against. A member of the ku comma people is one of the last who can still speak the common language even the kind of my neck you baby. Market the market free now what it. Is they put it what that means how are you and where are you from they need them. Today they are neither has a visitor i said that been ches an activist whos committed to preserving cool calm a culture she fears that the new Infrastructure Projects will do lasting damage. I think almost didnt he was a kid in the new technology and the machines theyll bring in will have a devastating impact mocking us it will destroy a lot of things when the cynicism of this big show. Im only. A river means life for us and for the animals Little Things and i mean mine. Is that with eat with them in the most receiver thing they will be just empty its as important as having a supreme being light in. The rivers and lakes of the amazon are central to the calmest culture they believe theres 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 with threaten the balance of the spiritual realm. Will be in the. Home but the protests against the new water highway also have a very practical dimension. Still that runs of 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. So it is almost see the river here is constantly changing older people here will tell you that 2 streams appear and disappear get us on the list and we are 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 Abbas Veyron mental engineer who has spent 2 years researching the amazon. He says the network of waterways here has shifted constantly for millions of years. We have plenty of i think even in very very small event life events a lot of transport more saving that more there. Were no make that more there that we never had the. Kind of things that you know that. We dont know now thats why hes begun evaluating samples satellite images and other measurements but a survey like this takes time and he says the government doesnt want to wait at the same time the governments own surveys are inadequate are the commercial interests involved simply too powerful. Basically i mean what i believe that the the black. Saturday thing what you mean black because you know weve left really nice to say yes that may be showing that maybe you dont need to pay for it maybe not really believe it but you know i think you know somebody said. 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. This group of young filmmakers are shooting a documentary on the current environmental problems traveling through the Amazon Region to talk to local people and get evidence of environmental pollution on film. Or the extraction is a major polluter many of the pipelines leak pager wants his video footage to show that Pipeline Maintenance and cleanup operations arent working anywhere near as well as the government claims. It was the year in the middle of my country in the middle of peru the reality is theres nothing other than pollution and. Theres no Drinking Water that makes me afraid. You can die if you drink the water here with me you. Know because you know. Pedro accuses the government of putting profit before people in the region and he doesnt believe the amazon Infrastructure Project will change anything. Seen i have a difference here because 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 thats not how things will be. Nobodys going to stop here to buy our fish its all dissin for mission. The government rejects these accusations saying that they had rovio will also benefit local communities where you are then going to get the benefit of you. That 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. On this unit but we will have a lot of work to do explaining the project to the people thank god weve been brilliant. 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 and. All this isnt 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. At the moment he bought about we arrived safely at the moment but i mean the ship it securely mord and what about your. Nothing bad happened. And thats the most important thing for me i think what im going. Back and said are they pasco mazetti or staffer Constantine Bittner meets a local activist. Louise silva ponce publicizes the Health Problems caused by elevated blood levels and childrens blood. He has been criticizing the lack of protective measures for years and. The c. B. D. As young as can we see too few dollars to sit we have been identifying excessively high blood levels for years now weve even had help from international institutes. Maybe thats what the ministry of health still hasnt done anything to alleviate chronic heavy metal poisoning and children. Because you could only get those missiles what is it really be i was a few of the students. I may shows us a film of children describing their headaches and nosebleeds. Both symptoms are linked to the constant toxicity and said oh they pasco. But to date the activists have seen little response to their protests. In those facilities which you see the music when you put these these in 2017 we protested in front of the ministry of health for 10 days following that they signed declarations of intent its like the treatment of the hundreds of thousands of children who have to live with heavy metal toxicity is only progressing slowly and its still inadequate. For now children still have to live with it and as you can see the environmental problems and saturday pasko havent been eliminated either. 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 for the city most will be does this face here that we feel forgotten or put it out of state battered to other cities but as weve given a lot to peru and our government but weve got nothing back to us that were much more softened other places is that they always kick you out the sudan. But center there 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 peoples bodies. Sandor spreading ever father across morocco. Away sees in the sahara used to sustain prosperity even in the deserts. Climate change is hastening this terrifying transformation. Of people here and desperate to find a solution. Moroccos endangered oases close up. In 30 minutes on d w. R r. Armstrong really walk on the moon. Isnt the earth really flat how strong. Does the government use planes to. Conspiracy theories spread like wildfire on the internet. On the cause of small groups who shout louder than us and profit from a lack of interest among reasonable. Conspiracy fairness can provide comfort you dont like reality create another. Film about knowledge and belief trust and deception democracy of the gullible starts july 1st on t w. This is g w news live from berlin tonight the virus and the money the leaders of germany and france tried to walk in step and secure prepares for the post Pandemic Recovery at their 1st face to face talking once the german chancellor and the french president meet here in berlin can they convince the skeptics that a multibillion euro coronavirus rescue package is a must to secure the future of the European Union also coming up a militant attack in the commercial heart of Pakistan Government targets