‘A Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas’ by Brent E. Huffman, Film-maker

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Brent E. Huffman

An Afghan archaeologist examined Buddha statues inside an ancient
monastery at Mes Aynak, in eastern Logar Province, in 2010.

AFGHANISTAN---In 2007, the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (M.C.C.) won the rights to mine copper at a site called Mes Aynak. Situated in volatile Logar Province, Mes Aynak is home to one of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits — worth more than $100 billion. Yet, as this Op-Doc video shows, the site also houses the astonishing remains of an ancient Buddhist city, which archaeologists are now racing to save. An international team has only until June to finish the excavations, which began in 2009. Yet perhaps 90 percent of the site remains underground and unseen. To finish the job could take decades. In all likelihood, the destruction of the Buddhist sites will begin later this year. [link]