Afghanistan's gold rush upends lives and landscapes⁣ ⁣ In Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province, dozens of excavators operate day and night to extract gold from the mountains where villagers and their livestock once roamed.⁣ Thousands of miners are deployed across the Shiwa area, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of the provincial capital Faizabad, extracting gold for investors nationwide.⁣ ⁣ Some residents in the area have profited from the gold rush, only to regret it later, such as farmer Muhammad Amin.⁣ Since mining got underway, "the water of the river is not drinkable; you can't even wash your body with that water", he told AFP.⁣ With tears in his eyes, Amin said the grass along the riverbank "has all gone" and farming is no longer possible due to "the wind and dust".⁣ Now he can only feed up to 15 goats, compared with as many as 40 previously.⁣ Amin said he was paid half the $20,000 for which he agreed to lease his land to a mining firm that failed to fulfil a pr...