China plans to destroy an ancient Buddhist city to get the copper buried there

A recently excavated Buddhist stupa, or shrine, at Mes Aynak, 35 km south of Kabul. 2011 photo by Jerome Starkey, from Wikimedia Commons.

Two Chinese state-owned mining companies plan to destroy an ancient Buddhist city in Afghanistan in order to get the copper underneath it, according to a new documentary. According to the film "Saving Mes Aynak," Metallurgical Group Corp. (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper are in the initial stages of building an open-pit copper mine 25 miles southeast of Kabul. The location is home to a walled Buddhist city that dates back 5,000 years.

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