‘Retaliation attack’ comes within 36 hours of killing of 7 villagers
Guwahati,
Nov 7 : Five policemen were killed and their arms snatched away when a group of
heavily armed militants belonging to the outlawed Garo National
Liberation Army (GNLA) ambushed them in South Garo Hills district of
Meghalaya Tuesday.
The incident occurred less than 36 hours of the same rebel group
gunning down seven innocent villagers in the adjoining Goalpara district
in Assam. Meghalaya DGP Peter James Pynrope Hanaman, who confirmed that
the militants belonged to the GNLA, described it as an act of
retaliation of the rebels against the ongoing operations against them.
"It is definitely a retaliatory attack by the GNLA in view of the
operations that the security forces have launched against them in the
past few days. But I must admit there was some degree of complacency on
the part of the policemen killed in the attack," DGP Hanaman told The
Indian Express over the telephone from Shillong.
The police vehicle was on its way from Baghmara police station in
South Garo Hills district to Tura (in West Garo Hills district) to
bring an accused when it came under heavy fire at Bangjakona near
Kapasipara, the DGP said. The incident occurred in the hilly area at
around 11 am.
While all the five police personnel including the driver were
killed on the spot before they could retaliate, the militants also
snatched away their weapons that included three AK-series rifles and one
carbine, the DGP said.
The victims have been identified as havaldar Dondiram Marak and
constables Rakki Sangma, Lekichyne Ryngklem, Bipul Rabha and Marshanstar
Nongdhar.
Security forces meanwhile have launched a massive operation in
the area, but no breakthrough was made till late Tuesday evening. "The
militant outfit has been in a disarray due to intensified operations by
security forces in the past few months, and today's ambush was in
retaliation to these operations," the DGP said.
Meanwhile, the police and security forces have also intensified
operations along the Assam-Meghalaya border in Goalpara and adjoining
districts of the Garo Hills in view of Sunday's attack by suspected GNLA
militants in a village on the Assam side leaving seven persons dead.
A new tour service in Manipur revisits the forgotten Battle of Imphal through its historical sites.
The
year was 1944. A battle was raging across Manipur, with the British-led
Allies defending themselves against the Japanese invasion. The ultimate
defeat of the Japanese at Imphal and Kohima, halted their progress to
Delhi and proved to be a turning point in the Burma Campaign in World
War II. For Japan, this loss marked the end of its invincible era and
imperialist ambitions.
The battle of Imphal, which will complete
70 years next year, and the battle of Kohima, were recently voted
“Britain’s Greatest Battles” in a contest run by Britain’s National Army
Museum. And yet many Indians are unaware of these battles, which
involved soldiers of the Indian National Army (INA). To change this,
Eastern Heritage Trails (EHT), founded by Hemant Singh Katoch and his
friends, introduced the Battle of Imphal and four other tours. “It is a
half or full- day tour that takes you to all the important sites in and
around Imphal that are related to the Battle,” shares Katoch.
The Victoria Cross Tour
takes you to the battlefields where five Victoria Crosses (the highest
British military award for bravery) were won in Manipur, and includes
stories of the men who displayed outstanding courage. It ends with a
visit to the graves of two Victoria Cross recipients in Second World
War.
Govindajee Temple in Kangla Fort Complex
The Imphal Walk goes through Mapal Kangjeibung, the world’s oldest polo ground where the game is still played.
Pottery seller at KhwairambandKeithel_Ima Mothers Market
Khwairamband
Keithel or Ima Market, one of Asia’s largest markets run entirely by
women; the Kangla Fort, seat of an ancient Manipuri kingdom for 2000
years; and the lanes of Paona Bazaar. Loktak freshwater lake
The Tiddim Road Tour
visits the only Japanese War Memorial in India, battlefields such as
Ningthoukhong’s where two Victoria Crosses were awarded in June 1944;
Loktak Lake, the largest freshwater lake in north east India; Keibul
Lamjao National Park, the only floating national park in the world, and
INA’s only Memorial Complex in the world at Moirang. Ranjit Moirangthem Nungshigum_WW2battlefield near Imphal
The Battle of Imphal Tour
is a half-day excursion that covers a Second World War-era airfield
(Koirengei or Imphal Main), two war cemeteries, a battlefield
(Nunshigum) and the colonial-era Slim Cottage, which was once the
headquarters of the British 14th Army in charge of operations in Burma. War Cemetery on the Battle of Imphal Tour
The Shenam Saddle Tour
treats people to trenches and spectacular views from Saddle, a series
of hills, between the villages of Shenam (Sinam) and Tengnoupal, along
the road on which British forces had established defensive positions to
prevent the Japanese from advancing towards the Imphal Valley.
Also included are the Kakching Garden and a visit to the Khongjom War Memorial.
Katoch,
previously a project manager in a research organization, is the only
guide and has permanently moved to Manipur from Delhi.
He
researched about Manipur and the battle for years, poring over dozens of
books related to the state, and visited all the places to see their
current condition. The research made him realise the enormity of the war
and inspired him to start the tour. He says, “It seemed like the right
time to put a spotlight on it, and a heritage tour in Imphal has
enormous advantages because the battle was mostly in the countryside and
the hills still look the same. Trees maybe fewer and one may sight the
odd mobile phone tower, but the sites are largely untouched.”
EHT
has conducted nine Battle of Imphal tours, for 50 people, including a
man whose brother fought in Kohima and an old Japanese man who was
knowledgeable about their side of the war.
Katoch plans to
encourage and train more locals to carry out the tours. At present,
Leishangthem Chengleinganba Meetei, pursuing Masters in History, takes
people for the Imphal Walks.
If you know of someone linked to the battle, Katoch will try and “retrace their steps.”
As the BJP and Congress campaign for the 2014 elections in
India, what is clearly missing from both party’s platforms is an agenda
for the North-East.
This is evidenced by the fact that the current attention of both
political parties is heavily focused on four states heading for assembly
polls: Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. While the
results of the Delhi election will preview national sentiment, the other
three states are important from the point of view of the upcoming Lok
Sabha elections. Rajasthan is an especially important battlefield – a
victory in the assembly election there tends to translate into a
national victory. A triumph for the BJP in the state could lead to a
massive gain in the Lok Sabha elections.
Mizoram, the fifth state soon to hold elections, receives little
attention from politicians or the media.
This lack of attention given to
the politics of the North-East is nothing new or unusual. While
regional satraps elsewhere are given prominence, three-time Chief
Ministers (CM) from the North-East, such as Tarun Gogoi of Assam, or
Manik Sarkar of Tripura, do not receive similar coverage for their
successive triumphs. Even bomb blasts or terrorist attacks in the region
receive scarce coverage –– a perfect example being the recent blast in
Imphal, not far from the Manipur Chief Minister’s office.
One of the key reasons for not giving the North-East a high priority,
many argue, is the fact that it only sends 24 Members of Parlament to
the Lok Sabha, out of which Assam alone sends 14. A perfect illustration
of political numbers making the difference is the fact that Mamata
Banerjee, Chair of the Trinamool Congress and CM of West Bengal,
receives much more coverage for her strong stand on issues like the Teesta agreement and
the land agreement, while Sarkar, who has been keen to play a
constructive role in improving ties with Bangladesh, seldom gets any
focus.
In economic terms too, the North-East has not been able to perform
desirably. This is due to the security challenges plaguing the region as
well as its neglect by the national leadership.
The government of India has tried to ensure that the North-East gets
its due and for this purpose set up the Ministry for the Development of
The North-Eastern region (DONER). Despite this, precious little has been
done to actually give the region its due, in spite of its strategic location,
abundance of natural resources and great sporting potential.
Incidentally, with the region producing more and more sports
personalities, like Gold-winning Olympian Mary Kom, things are beginning
to change.
It is time, that both national parties changed this attitude. Both
Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi need to hold more campaign rallies in the
North-East and spell out their visions for the region. Modi, who is
trying to emerge as an alternative to the existing establishment, could
actually send a very positive signal by giving priority to a region
where his party is not particularly strong. While Modi and his party
often comment on security issues plaguing the North-East, and the weak approach of the central government towards Chinese incursions there,
they rarely address the development issue head-on. Addressing these
challenges in terms of India’s Look-East Policy may be beneficial as
well.
Even Rahul Gandhi, who talks about inclusive growth and uplifting
neglected sections of society, would do well to speak about the
North-East.
Apart from the BJP and Congress, it is also the duty of the CMs of
relatively powerful Eastern states like Orissa and West Bengal, who have
been speaking of forming an Eastern club, to incorporate the agendas of
North-Eastern states. The North-Eastern states in return should also
form a similar group of their own so that they can pressurize the
central government to address the region more robustly.
It is time that New Delhi stopped pointing fingers at outside forces
for the problems in the North-East. It is time to look within, and a
good start would be some serious debates between the two national
parties on their respective visions for the North-East.
Tridivesh Singh Maini is a New Delhi based columnist
Mizo National Front
(MNF) chief Zoramthanga announced on Monday that he would contest from
from the Tuipui seat for the November 25 assembly election.
The MDA comprises the MNF, Mizoram People's Conference (MPC) and the
Maraland Democratic Front (MDF). Zoramthanga, former Mizoram chief
minister would contest from the Mizoram-Myanmar border East Tuipui seat
in Champhai district, MDA sources said.
He would be pitted against the ruling Congress nominee - T Sangkunga,
former president of the powerful central committee of the Young Mizo
Association (YMA).
Mizoram: Opposition MDA names common candidates for upcoming Assembly
polls
Mizoram: Opposition MDA names common candidates for upcoming Assembly
polls
Senior Vice President of the MNF Tawnluia would contest from Aizawl
South - III seat while Vice President of the party R Tlanghmingthanga
would be pitted against the Congress sitting legislator Lt Col Z S Zuala
in the prestigious Aizawl South-II seat.
Other prominent contestants included former Lok Sabha member H
Lallungmuana who would contest from Tuichang constituency against the
Health Minister Lalrinliana Sailo.
Lalhmangaiha Sailo, President of the MPC and son of former chief
minister Brig Thenphunga Sailo would be contesting from Aizawl East - I
while another MPC top leader and former Speaker Kenneth Chawngliana is
contesting from Tuirial seat and former Deputy Speaker Vanlalhlana is
contesting from Aizawl North - I seat.
Aizawl, Nov 4 : In a protest to overhaul and amend the Aizawl Municipal Council (AMC) Licensing Regulations, 2012, the Mizoram Merchant Association (MIMA) has burned the copy of AMC Licensing Regulations, 2012 at New Market (Sobji Bazar), Aizawl blaming the regulation as not having the provision for protection of 'Mizo nation' and that it can harm the security of Mizo tribes in general and Mizo merchants in particular with the possibility of being assimilated them by the non-Mizo merchants.
The AMC Licensing Regulations that was drafted by AMC and published recently in Mizoram Gazette mentions several guidelines for the establishment of commercial shops in Mizoram.
In FORM No.1 the particulars to be filled up by the applicant is mentioned as 1.Name of Applicant, 2.Name of Shop/Farm, 3.Name of Trade, 4.Location, 5.Proprietor/Private Ltd., 6.Residential Address, 7.Phone No., 8.Mobile No., 9.Email ID, 10.Tin No.(if any), 11.CST No.(if any), 12.PAN No.(if any), 13.Whether premises owned / leased?, 14.Details of business, 15.Date of establishment (if any).
And list of the documents to be attached with application form are 1.NOC from the house/land owner where the business is intended to be run, 2.NOC from Local Council (where the business is intended to be run), 3.EPIC, 4.Residential Certificate, 5.Two (2) copies of passport size photos, 6.License/ Registration Certificate from Licensing Authority,H&FW Dept.,(for selling eatable items),7.Receipt of Application Form from AMC .
Terming it as dominantly dangerous rules or Tiger law(dan sakei), the AMC Licensing Regulations received a severe criticism from MIMA as it does not lay down either special provision for restriction of non permanent Mizoram residents or protection of Mizo merchants.
Criticizing the regulations, PC Laldinthara, president MIMA said the Non-Mizo merchant of course may not apply for business or shop establish at once, but the legislations can apprehensively proved dangerous in the long run as it can bring the economically and educationally poor Mizo people under domination by economically and logically civilized plain people (Non-Mizo) .
He said that all the requisite documents as demanded by AMC for the application of business establishment are no doubt can be easily obtain by every applicant and as far as EPIC is concerned, all Indian citizen who has attained the minimum required aged can get it with ease.
As regard Residential certificate, the president also said that the residential certificate of any Indian state is applicable and valid as the regulation does not clearly indicate the demand of 'Permanent Residential Certificate' only in Mizoram.
According to P.C Laldinthara the leaders of AMC and MIMA had already discussed over the regulations for four times in which MIMA asked the leaders of AMC to include provision for the protection of permanent residents or 'sons of soil' by making the possession of Permanent Residential Certificate (Mizoram) and ILP that is continuously renewed 4/5 times as mandatory.
The leaders of AMC however, turned down the request of MIMA and accordingly the demand for Permanent Residential Certificate(Mizoram) and ILP was unfortunately not included in the amendments(2013) .
"As such we do not find any relevant of safeguarding or protection of Mizo nation with the regulations," the president added.
"Since the regulations made by AMC specifically indicated 'Trade License' by stating clearly in it clause -Regulation 2(M) that 'LICENSE' issued by the Aizawl Municipality Council for the purpose of trade and Regulation-3 'the authority to issue license in respect of trade and business shall be the chairman of Aizawl Municipal Council, if once issued to non-Mizo, it is not cancellable by the authority of Aizawl Municipal Council," said PC Laldinthara adding incase the licensee go to the Court for renewal, the Court must surely direct the authority to renew the license as existed in the Supreme Court ruling.
It is also worth mentioning that in Article 14,19 (g), 301 and 304 of Indian constitution it is apparent that this Licensing Regulation can greatly harm the security of the permanent settler(sons of soil) and keep them in a precarious state, the MIMA president said.
Shillong, Nov 4 : Health authorities in Meghalaya Sunday sounded a dengue alert after 18 people from Tura, the district headquarters of West Garo Hills, tested positive for the virus in about the last four days.
"We have sounded a dengue alert in the district after 18 people, who were down with flu-like symptoms for the past few days, tested positive for dengue," Pravin Bakshi, the district magistrate of West Garo Hills, told IANS.
Initially, the patients were admitted to the Tura civil hospital. They were later discharged, but are still under medication, the official said.
Bakshi said health officials have been issuing public notices to alert the people on the disease, while a team of medical officials from Shillong, Meghalaya state capital, rushed in to Tura to monitor the situation.
"A team of epidemiologists will also visit the district to study the pattern of the disease," Bakshi, who is also the chairman of the district health society, said.
Health officials will also undertake fogging in various localities to ensure that aedes mosquitoes, which are responsible for the outbreak of dengue, do not find breeding ground.
Bakshi said that he has directed hospital authorities across the state to provide adequate treatment and medicines to those suffering from the disease.
Dengue is a tropical disease. Common symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains and skin rash. There is no vaccine for dengue and the only way to reduce infections is to improve hygiene levels so as to prevent mosquito bites and stop mosquitoes from breeding.
It is particularly difficult to create a vaccine because the disease is caused by different viruses and there are no animal models available for testing.
The disease kills over 5,000 Indians every year, and remains a seasonal threat, particularly during the monsoon.
When
a film student from Arunachal Pradesh decided to make a film about
home, his village volunteered to be the cast and crew. Yolande D'Mello
reports.
When 33-year-old filmmaker Sange Dorjee began work on his first film,
he had his entire family, including his wife and in-laws, pitching in.
“We had a little money that my dad contributed, so we tried to cut
costs. I had members of my family playing the roles of drivers, cooks,
cleaners, etc,” says Dorjee who screened Crossing Bridges, his first
feature film at the Mumbai Film Festival.
The 100-minute drama about Tashi, a protagonist who mirrors the
director’s emotions, was shot in his native village of Shertukpen in
Arunachal Pradesh and aims to immortalise the rich culture of the
community that is eroding with time. “Young people leave the village for
education or employment and then become infrequent visitors in their
own home,” says Dorjee.
Not much has changed in Shertukpen. The main occupation is agriculture
and in the last three years, natives have taken to growing cash crops
like tomatoes. Two years ago, the first mobile network tower was set up
in Shertukpen, five years ago the village got electricity (it lasts for
4-5 hours a day) and in the last seven years, three schools have been
built in the two villages that house the tribe with a population of
3,000.
“I’m fluent in my mother tongue,” admits Dorjee, who studied in
Itanagar and Delhi and then graduated from Satyajit Ray Film &
Television Institute in Kolkata.
The dialect of Shertukpen does not have a written script. Stories and
songs must be passed on orally. “But when I sat down with the village
elders, I realised that they were starting to forget the songs and there
were disagreements about what the songs meant,” explains Dorjee. Other
aspects are already fading even in the homeland. These include dances
that last the length of the day, prayers that invoke rainfall and
shamans who are taught about medicine from spirits. The filmmaker wanted
to capture this “on film because it is forever”.
To do so, Dorjee employed the help of the entire village, where he
prepared and shot for four months. Members of the community were chosen
to act, Dorjee provided the amateur actors with the situation and the
actors wrote the dialogues.
The director’s next film will address social issues in the northeast.
According to him, the region has enough issues to feed film scripts for
several lifetimes. However with the current state of apathy towards
issues in the region, it would be more than helpful to filmmakers like
Dorjee if there was a dance to secure funding as well just like the rain
dance.
The director
Crossing Bridges was shot in the hilly villages of Arunachal Pradesh
using a Canon 5D. The film will be showcased at the upcoming
International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) in December.
This is the director’s first film since he graduated from Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute in Kolkata.
Sange Dorjee is also working on preparing a database of songs and
folklore by recording them on film. He has identified and translated 20
such sogns and 40 stories so far.
In this excerpt from the forthcoming Junkyard Planet, author Adam Minter explores China's central role in the world's vast global recycling trade.
By Adam Minter
A Shanghai scrap yard (Adam Minter) China’s
reputation as the “world's factory” is well-established. But what
happens to everything the world throws away? Since 2002, the
Shanghai-based journalist Adam Minter has sought to find out. The son
and grandson of scrap metalists, Minter traveled throughout the world to
investigate how what we discard—and reuse—helps drive the global
economy.
Minter, who has written for a variety of publications (including both the print and digital versions of The Atlantic), now writes a weekly column on China for Bloomberg. In this excerpt from his forthcoming book Junkyard Planet, which will be published by Bloomsbury Press on November 12, Minter travels to the epicenter of the global scrape trade: southern China.
I remember the first time I reported in Foshan, China, population 7 million.
I flew into Guangzhou Airport, where I was met by a scrap dealer, his
sleek BMW, and a fresh-from-the-countryside driver. It was 2002, and
Foshan wasn’t much more than a spread-out set of underdeveloped villages
somewhere west of a Chinese wherever. I’d only been in-country a couple
of weeks at that point, and I’d had trouble finding Foshan on a map.
This all seemed like a bad idea.The drive from the airport traversed
newly built highways and not so newly built country roads lined with
high-voltage power lines that sagged to a few feet off the ground.
Overloaded delivery trucks were the dominant means of transportation,
jamming up the roads and—when there were shoulders—the shoulders, too.
Back then it took almost two hours to reach the faux-rococo
Fontainebleau Hotel, a yellowed porcelain doily in the heart of Foshan’s
Nanhai District.
Cigar-chomping scrap dealers from around
the world sat in baroque chairs and discussed where they’d get a decent
hamburger when they made it up to Shanghai on the weekend.
By then, Nanhai was already one of the world’s biggest processors
of scrap metal, and you only needed to walk into the lobby to know it.
Set amid lush, manicured landscapes that would make Louis XIV
blush, cigar-chomping scrap dealers from around the world sat in
baroque chairs and discussed where they’d get a decent hamburger when
they made it up to Shanghai on the weekend. But that wasn’t all: at any
hour of the day, you could walk into the lobby of that hotel and find at
least a couple of Caucasian scrap exporters having tea, coffee, or
whiskey with a couple of Chinese scrap importers while some of Guangdong
Province’s finest prostitutes sashayed by, on the way to visit clients
upstairs. If you needed to know the price of insulated copper wire—well, the global market was being made right there, all day and all night long.
Jet lag defined much of what happened in the Fontainebleau in those
days. I remember seeing scrap guys consuming breakfast at midnight,
steaks at 7:30 a.m., and poorly mixed cocktails any time at all. But that
was just as well, because scrap processing was (and often still is) a 24-
hour-a-day activity in southern China. It had to be: Two decades into
the country’s modern development, everything was starting to
accelerate: airports, highways, apartments, cars. And everything,
needless to say, needs metal.
Take, for example, subways: On the day I moved to Shanghai, it
had precisely three subway lines. Ten years later it’s the world’s
largest system, with 11 lines and 270 miles of tracks. However, China
lacks ready access to sufficient raw materials of its own to build all
those subways, so in very short order it’s become a net importer of
scrap copper, aluminum, steel, and the other metals needed in the
infrastructure of a modernizing society.
Back then, if you were jet-lagged and had an amenable scrap-metal host
(and they were all amenable if it meant access to American scrap metal),
you could head out to the scrapyards in the dead of night. You’d arrive
in the processing zones via expensive cars that zigzagged down a narrow
brick-lined alley, out into a boulevard with murky, poorly lit signs,
back into an alley, finally pulling up at some metal gate
indistinguishable from other metal gates. The driver would honk, the
owner would roll down his window so the guard could see him, and a
worker would push aside the gate. Then you’d drive into a wide lamplit
space, the headlights bouncing off piles of metal fragments, giant bales
of wire, and, off to the side, a shed where two or three men—it was
mostly men—fed scrap cables into machines that ran an incision along the
insulation. Nearby, another team—often female—used that incision to pull away the insulation and expose the copper wire.
What I saw was so alien—except for all of that scrap. I knew
what that was. It looked like what we used to send to China, only now it
was in China. Automobile scrap (Adam Minter) Meanwhile, over in the farthest corner of the yard, the flicker of flames
might send black smoke into the not-quite-as-dark night. The smell
would be noxious (and, depending on the wire, dioxin-laced), but the
goal would be anything but: profit. Wires too small to run through the
stripping machines were a favorite item to burn, but anything would do
if copper demand was strong; in the morning, the copper could be swept
out of the ashes. One night, I recall clearly, I saw a row of a
halfdozen electrical transformers—the big cylinders that hang on
power lines and regulate the power—smoking into the night. When I
realized what they were, I backed off: older transformers contain highly
toxic PCBs. But nobody seemed to mention that to the workers who,
through the evening, poked at the flames. I didn’t like it, but there’s
not much to be said when you’re standing in the middle of a scrapyard in
a village you’ve never heard of in a province you’ve just barely heard
of, as the guest of somebody you’ve just met. I wasn’t sure that I was
in much position to be complaining, anyway: I’m a child of the industry
too.
To be honest, I was shocked by the number of people who worked in these
scrapyards, and by their low pay. But I was not shocked by the menial
jobs, and I was not surprised by the pollution. After all, my
grandmother and her siblings cleaned metal into adulthood, and her
younger brother, Leonard, told me that he knew how to “break” a
motor—that is, take it apart with hammers and pliers, and extract the
copper—as well as anybody in the Twin Cities. That’s what you do when
you’ve got nothing else— and their generation didn’t have much else.
That wasn’t the only thing the Chinese and my family had in common.
For example, I’m not ashamed to admit that my family often
paid contractors to burn our wire in farm fields outside Minneapolis (we
also ran an aluminum smelter with an open smokestack—arguably a
worse off ense). If it couldn’t be burned, it would’ve been landfilled,
and so we were doing what countless other scrapyards were doing in those
days: using the cheapest means available to clean up other people’s
messes.Those days are over (for my family, at least) but I know of
people who still do it in North Dakota— and there isn’t an impoverished Chinese farmer among them.
To be sure, Foshan in the early 2000s was far more polluted than anything I saw in the United States while growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, and surely more polluted than what my great-grandfather knew in his early years. But from my perspective, that difference was a matter of scale, concentration, and history. For better or worse, they weren’t doing anything in 2002 that we didn’t (or wouldn’t) do in 1962. They were just doing much, much more of it. And as dirty as it might have looked at times, I didn’t get the sense that the people around Foshan felt that scrap was “dumped” on them. Instead, they actively imported it, or they migrated from other provinces to work on it.
The pay, after all, couldn’t be beat, especially if you were
uneducated and illiterate. Depending on the scrapyard, salaries might be
anywhere from 10 to 20 percent higher than what the local high-tech
factory might pay. By U.S. standards, though, it wasn’t much: maybe $100
per month plus room and board. Still, if your prospects were limited to
a life of subsistence farming, that was more than enough money to
send home to pay school fees. The next generation would have a better
life, and the negative health consequences of scrapyard conditions could
be worried about later.
***
In 2011 I fly into Guangzhou on one of my twice-yearly trips to its scrapyards,
and lo, there’s a subway that will take me to Foshan in less than an
hour. Nanhai, which had once felt to me like a Wild West
outpost divorced from all non-scrap-metal reality, is now another suburb
of yet another Chinese megalopolis (Guangzhou: population 20 million
plus). As I climb out of the station, I glance around me: I’m at the
intersection of two busy, newly paved roads and four pieces of entirely
empty farmland. Two blocks away, however, is the incoming wave of
wealth: dozens of construction cranes hovering over dozens of
high-rises, some as tall as 30 stories, each taking a bite out of open
space recently home to farms. I roll my suitcase in their direction,
through crabgrass and dirt littered with paper instant noodle bowls, to
the front door of a new five-star Intercontinental Hotel, next to a new
three-block-long shopping mall.
When people ask me why China needs all the scrap metal Americans send
to them, I wish I could show them the view from my hotel room that day.
20 stories below is that shopping mall, as big as anything I grew up
visiting in suburban Minneapolis. It required steel for the structure,
copper and aluminum for the wiring, brass for bathroom fixtures, and
stainless steel for all of the sinks and railings. And that’s just the
start.
Then there’s this: On the other side of the mall, in all directions,
are dozens of new high-rises—all under construction—that weren’t
visible from the subway and my walk. Those new towers reach 20 and 30
stories, and they’re covered in windows that require aluminum
frames, filled with bathrooms accessorized with brass and zinc fixtures,
stocked with stainless steel appliances, and—for the tech- savvy
households—outfitted with iPhones and iPads assembled with aluminum
backs. No surprise, China leads the world in the consumption of
steel, copper, aluminum, lead, stainless steel, gold, silver, palladium,
zinc, platinum, rare earth compounds, and pretty much anything else
labeled “metal.” But China is desperately short of metal resources of
its own. For example, in 2012 China produced 5.6 million tons of copper,
of which
2.75 million tons was made from scrap. Of that scrap copper, 70
percent was imported, with most coming from the United States. In other
words, just under half of China’s copper supply is imported as scrap
metal. That’s not a trivial matter: Copper, more than any other metal,
is essential to modern life. It is the means by which we transmit power
and information. So what would happen if that supply of copper were cut off ? What if Europe
and the United States decided to embargo all recycling to China, India,
and other developing countries? What if, instead of importing scrap
paper, plastic, and metal, China had to find it somewhere else? Some
Chinese industries would substitute other metals for the ones that it
couldn’t obtain via recycling—that’s technically doable in many
cases—but for some applications (like the copper used in sensitive
electronics) substitutions are not possible. That leaves mining. To make
up the loss of imported scrap metal, there’d need to be a lot of holes
in the ground: even the best copper ore deposits require one hundred
tons of ore to obtain one ton of the red metal. What would the
environmental cost of all that digging be? Would it exceed the
environmental cost of recycling the developed world’s throwaways? What’s
worse?
***
In October 2012 I drive north on Minnesota’s Highway 53 into the so
called Iron Range, which once supplied the American steel industry with
some of the world’s purest ore. As I approach Virginia, Minnesota, I
begin to see the high, looming walls of dirt excavated from pits as
deep as 450 feet, and as wide as 3.5 miles. They look like crater walls
from the highway, left by meteor impacts and defining the landscape for
miles. If you climb one (I did), you’ll look out at a lifeless gray
moonscape. This is what’s left behind when steel is made from iron ore,
and not scrap metal. I continue north for nearly an hour and then take a
right turn just outside the town of Ely, onto Highway 1. It’s beautiful
out here, green, lush, and uninterrupted. I see only two other cars on
the road for the first 10 miles; I stop my car on bridges over the
shimmering blue Kawishiwa River without fear of being hit; I close my
eyes down by the water, the only thing cutting the heavy blanket of
silence the individual
lapping waves.
Foshan, China, is the living, breathing
alternative to the mine that will one day be dug somewhere near Spruce
Road. It’s not the cleanest industrial town I’ve ever seen, but it
doesn’t leave me with a feeling of intense personal loss.
I follow directions given to me earlier that morning and take a
sharp left on to Spruce Road. There, at the intersection, is a
bumper-sticker festooned minivan that belongs to Ian Kimmer, staff
member with Friends of the Boundary Waters, a group that aims to
protect, preserve, and restore the federally designated million-acre
Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), one of the largest
unspoiled regions in the United States.
Ian has a big job. From the time the BWCAW was established in 1978 until now, the communities that surround it have expressed considerable hostility to the idea of an unexploitable wilderness in their midst. From their perspective, wilderness inhibits growth and the resource extraction industries that their towns and families were built upon. So far, they haven’t made much progress in turning back or damaging the mostly pristine status of those million acres. But that’s likely to change, and the single factor responsible for the shift is one that scrap-metal men know well: the price of copper.
For decades, geologists, mining companies, and miners have
known that the land around the BWCAW contains deposits of copper ore.
But those ore deposits are of such low quality that nobody could figure
out how to mine them profitably. Then, in the 2000s, China entered
the market for copper. What had once been worth 60 cents per pound
became an occasionally $4-per-pound commodity, and a low-grade,
unprofitable ore deposit became a mother lode that mining executives
speculate might be the largest untapped extractable copper reserve in
the world, worth around $100 billion.
Ian shakes my hand, takes a seat in the front seat of my Saturn,
and sends me down the rutted dirt lane that is Spruce Road. On the left
side, he notes, is the BWCAW. On the right, he says, pointing, is where
the mining companies are doing test drilling.
“It’s that cut-and-dried?” I ask.
“Yep.” He asks me to stop, and we walk up a hill. Near the top, we
reach a crumbling gray and red rock outcropping. It contains copper ore,
he explains, as well as something called sulfides. When rain or snow
comes into contact with sulfide ore like this, Ian explains, it produces
caustic sulfuric acid. “That’s why the rock is so crumbly.”
Ian points at the base of the outcropping, where a
several-foot-long streak of dirt is completely devoid of vegetation.
“That’s where the acid leaches out and down the hill,” he explains,
killing the vegetation. The phenomenon is not unique to northern
Minnesota. Sulfide ores are mined around the world, and the left over
rock—the tailings—have become a long-standing environmental problem,
contaminating rivers and lakes, and killing vegetation and the wildlife
that depends on a clean environment.
According to Twin Metals, the mining company that controls the rights to
the ore on this side of Spruce Road, Ian and I are standing atop 13.7
billion pounds of copper, 4.4 billion pounds of nickel (used to
make stainless steel), and some of the world’s richest untapped precious
metal reserves outside of South Africa. Twin Metals hasn’t received the
permits to mine, yet, but if and when they do, each ton of copper will
require the processing of as much as 100 tons of ore. Multiply 100 tons
of sulfur-bearing ore by the 13.7 billion tons of copper beneath my
feet, and the scale of the problem becomes epic.
What will happen to the 99 tons of sulfite rock once the copper has been
extracted from it? Some will go back into the ground, Twin Metals
claims, but an unknown percentage of those billions of tons will need to
remain on the surface, exposed to rain and snow.
But that’s not the only surface impact of this proposed project.
Twin Metals is promising an underground mine—an “underground city”—using
a method called “block caving.” Superficially, at least, block
caving sounds like a great compromise: the miners get the ore, and the
wilderness remains untouched. But that’s not how things work in reality.
At some point, the surface will subside into all of the space left
behind by the excavated ore, leaving a landscape substantially different
from the one that was there before the mine. Rivers and creeks might be
redirected; new lakes might be created. But that’s the thing: nobody
knows for sure. The one thing everyone knows, though, is that the unique
character of this natural landscape will forever be altered.
Ian and I get back into the car, and he directs me down Spruce Road and
an in-progress logging operation just off the BWCAW boundary. Trucks are
loading freshly cut logs onto flatbeds, leaving behind little more than
scrub. But Ian wants me to look past the logging, to two chest-high
pipes painted red and sticking out of the ground like pins. “That’s a
test drilling site,” he tells me. “There’s hundreds of them all over the
place. They’re looking for the richest places to run the mine.”
No Chinese company is involved in the Twin Metals project (the company
is a joint venture between Canadian and Chilean firms), but Chinese
demand is what makes the mine a virtual certainty. While Twin Metals
investigates northern Minnesota, the Chinese are already digging some of
the biggest and most controversial copper mines in the world today. In
Afghanistan, the Aynak mine threatens ancient Buddhist sculptures. In
Burma, a copper mine run by the Chinese military is destroying ancient
farmland and causing mass protests.
Let me be clear: a doubling of U.S. copper scrap exports to
China wouldn’t halt this destructive trend. But it might just reduce
some of the demand for that virgin copper.
In any event, when it comes out of the ground, all of that Chinese
mined virgin copper will have competition—from imported scrap metal, as
well as from the scrap metal that the Chinese are generating in
greater volumes at home. But cut off access to imported scrap copper,
and the demand for mined copper will only grow— including the demand to
allow mining in more places like Spruce Road.
Foshan, China, is the living, breathing alternative to the mine
that will one day be dug somewhere near Spruce Road. It’s not the
cleanest industrial town I’ve ever seen, but unlike Spruce Road and its
test drilling sites, it doesn’t leave me with a feeling of intense
personal loss. If anything, I always leave Foshan energized.
***
Abandoned cars near the Great Salt Lake in 1974 (US Environmental Protection Agency)
For the last two decades, much of the U.S.-and European-generated scrap
metal exported to China flowed into Foshan, home of the
Fontainebleau Hotel. But these days, if you’re riding on the elevated
highway that cuts through and above most of Foshan, you won’t see any
piles of metal, much less the smoke of burning wire and unvented
furnaces. The people who live in Foshan’s expensive new high-rises won’t
tolerate it. Instead, you’ll just see under-construction buildings and
long strip malls filled with restaurants and small workshops that sell
construction-related supplies.
These days you need to turn off the highway, down the narrow city
streets, and then into the even narrower lanes and alleys of
Nanhai. The buildings are one and two stories high, and every one sits
behind a high brick wall. But if you’re lucky or—even better—invited, a
gate will open here or there, and you’ll see piles of baseball-and golf
ball-sized metal chunks; neat stacks of baled-up wire; machinery that
takes fistsized chunks of shredded automobiles and sorts them by size;
and workers slowly combing through those same chunks, sorting them by
metal type. It’s a cleaner and wealthier Foshan, where worker salaries
have quadrupled in a decade and many of the earliest and biggest
recyclers sit
on fortunes worth hundreds of millions.
I saw workers in little more than
T-shirts, cotton slacks, and sandals working around open furnaces; I saw
other workers using cutting machines and acetylene torches with their
bare hands; and even today I’m not surprised to see scrapyard employees
going about their work in flip-flops.
‘Retaliation attack’ comes within 36 hours of killing of 7 villagers
Indian National Army Memorial Complex, Moirang
Govindajee Temple in Kangla Fort Complex
Pottery seller at KhwairambandKeithel_Ima Mothers Market
Loktak freshwater lake
Ranjit Moirangthem Nungshigum_WW2battlefield near Imphal
War Cemetery on the Battle of Imphal Tour
