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The Hidden Cost of Gold: Birth Defects and Brain Damage
CIDAHU, Indonesia — Thousands of children with crippling birth defects. Half a million people poisoned. A toxic chemical found in the food supply. Accusations of a government cover-up and police officers on the take.
This is the legacy of Indonesia's mercury trade, a business intertwined with the lucrative and illegal production of gold.
More than a hundred nations have joined a global campaign to reduce the international trade in mercury, an element so toxic there is "no known safe level of exposure," according to health experts.
But that effort has backfired in Indonesia, where illicit backyard manufacturers have sprung up to supply wildcat miners and replace mercury that was previously imported from abroad. Now, Indonesia produces so much black-market mercury that it has become a major global supplier, surreptitiously shipping thousands of tons to other parts of the world.
Much of the mercury is destined for use in gold mining in Africa and Asia, passing through hubs such as Dubai and Singapore, according to court records — and the trade has deadly consequences.
"It is a public health crisis," said Yuyun Ismawati, a co-founder of an Indonesian environmental group, Nexus3 Foundation, and a recipient of the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize. She has called for a worldwide ban on using mercury in gold mining.
Mercury can be highly dangerous as it accumulates up the food chain, causing a wide range of disorders, including birth defects, neurological problems and even death.
Today, despite the risks, small-scale miners using mercury operate in about 80 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas. They produce up to 25 percent of all gold sold.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilPapa on Monday November 11 2019, @05:44AM (27 children)
There will always be those who will gladly exploit people and destroy their lives for a profit. The US economic system has been based on that fact long before we were a country. Our Constitution was mainly designed to preserve and enhance slavery and oligarchy, and a surprising amount of the actual text of that document is directly the result of that simple fact.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11 2019, @05:52AM (16 children)
This is hardly limited to the USA, my friend.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @06:17AM (15 children)
Be as it may, but USA really perfected the art of greed.
See? They even call it democracy now - just look in their political life and tell me with a straight face it ain't so. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Monday November 11 2019, @06:27AM (14 children)
"Developed country" - a term to describe the profitability and state of organization for exploitation of others and the environment.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Captival on Monday November 11 2019, @06:52AM (13 children)
Oh and also widespread literacy, technical innovation, live-extending advances, and freedom of speech. For some reason you Commies hate all those things. Just look at the backwards hellholes you guys champion. Only in righteous Venezuela can an oil-rich nation turn into a starving wasteland.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @02:16PM (11 children)
Oh, yes. I reckon you'd simply hate to live in the social-democratic hellhole that is Norway. Just think about it: 42% GDP is collected in taxes, extremely unfriendly corporate taxation - 23% of profit but going into 51%-78% in some industries [wikipedia.org], social security contributions at 53% of the total labor costs [wikipedia.org]. On the bring of collapse it must be.
No tuition fees for public education, even tertiary [wikipedia.org] and the population is really abusing it, with 32% of the population holding a tertiary degree [www.ssb.no] or better (US at 25% [voanews.com] with college or better)
Public health cost covering almost all expenses a patient would have [wikipedia.org] (what? only USD $6,647 per head per year? How can that be? The bastion of freedom, had $10,224/head in 2017) and paying nurses and midwifes to about 1.7% of population - what a waste!
Labor force participation rate of 74% [tradingeconomics.com] (US economy is "booming" at a 63% [investopedia.com]) - they must be using forced labor, right?
I mean, let's look at the incarceration rate... say, what? 3933 from a population of 5.3 mil [wikipedia.org] (< 0.07%) in 54 prisons? What the heck! The idiots must be running holiday villages, not prisons, that's surely an incentive to reoffend (the recidivism rate is actually 1 in 5 - so less than 1000 reoffenders).
Surely the bankruptcy is near, right? The government-ran pension fund has, for every of its citizens alive, about $195000 [wikipedia.org], with over $1T in assets and controls 1.4% of the entire world stocks and shares.
Fecking hellhole, I tell yea!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 11 2019, @08:23PM (8 children)
Captival seems to be spouting the US right-wing talking point that there are only two possibilities here:
Unfettered capitalism, with minimal government oversight and minimal corporate taxation. (preferably none at all). This will bring about maximum freedom.
Venezuela. Ignoring for the moment the sanctions that have crippled their economy, and the reasons for those. Also ignoring Cuba, Iran, Chile and any other country that has dared to reject all that freedom the US has tried to give them over the years.
I am pretty sure he is another American that has never traveled outside the US, but somehow is an expert on how other people should live their lives.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:22PM (7 children)
Doesn't seem that way to me. Have you checked to see if your straw man is plugged in?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11 2019, @09:28PM (1 child)
Eye of beholder. Nobody as blind as the one who doesn't want to see.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:41PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 11 2019, @10:20PM (1 child)
Absolutely presenting an either/or situation.
I don't think strawman means what you think it means.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:14AM
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @11:14PM (2 children)
Enlighten us, oh, khallow. How exactly does it seem to you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:14AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @10:56PM
Oh, so you think we didn't understand captival was being sarcastic? You really do think you're the smartest cookie in the mayonnaise jar huh?
(Score: 2) by Captival on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:17AM (1 child)
And guess what Norway DOESN'T have? You get three tries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:32AM
A president.
Poor them they don't know what they miss; like, no trillions and two years wasted in the electoral circus and ending with an orange monkey [pinimg.com] at the helm. Or a chimpanzee [wp.com].
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday November 12 2019, @03:24AM
Venezuela is an example of extreme corruption.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @01:32PM (9 children)
If that were true, then why bother with the exercise? You don't need things like balance of power, freedom of speech, or due process.
And I think you great underestimate the virtue of systems that are aware of and come up with rules for dealing with people who "will gladly exploit people and destroy their lives for profit" rather than pretend they don't exist.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @02:22PM (5 children)
And I think you grossly overestimate the value of that awareness and the existence of those rules so full of loopholes that they don't actually stop whoever is powerful enough to use lawyers.
How can it be otherwise when the US political class is producing the finest politicians money can buy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:08PM (4 children)
Depends on the metric - workplace injuries and deaths have gone down for decades despite the alleged loopholes. So has pollution per capita. Loopholes don't seem to be working for the "powerful enough" there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @09:26PM (3 children)
In vase you didn't notice, so did the manufacturing and chem ind.
I'll let you guess where and evaluate the pollution level there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:35PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @10:39PM (1 child)
I just pointed your argument is inconclusive due to the disputable causal relationship (even if one accepts the metrics - which I didn't. Nor did I reject them, mind you)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:16AM
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday November 11 2019, @08:14PM (2 children)
None of those things exist in real life. They are fugazi. There is no balance of power if you have a lawless executive and his captive party operating completely without good faith and honor. Freedom of speech? It's funny that you think such a thing exists. Due process? Ask the hundreds of thousands of voters in Georgia who had their voting rights revoked because they live in black districts and were not notified.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:19PM (1 child)
Sounds rather like your argument doesn't exist in real life.
Not even wrong. There is no such thing as a lawless executive because their very existence is predicated on a whole lot of laws. Nor is "good faith and honor" relevant to a balance of power. If you're even thinking of relying on those things to provide a balance of power, then you're doing it wrong.
Right to vote is not relevant to due process which is about what is done to people who are accused of breaking laws.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Wednesday November 13 2019, @05:55AM
It is if the right to vote is revoked without due process.
And where did you get the idea that due process only applies in cases of law breaking? That's the least of it. Due process is required by the Constitution whenever someone is deprived of their rights.
You are still welcome on my lawn.