A GRAVEL road winds up in snowy switchbacks, past the tree line, to a model of efficiency rare in this impoverished Central Asian nation. At the gate, 4km (13,000 feet) above sea level, busloads of workers have their bags X-rayed for booze coming in or nuggets going out. Since 1997 they have pulled about 270 tonnes of gold from an open pit in the Tian Shan mountains near the Chinese border. In a ...
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