China smiles.
From Reuters, April 7:
Left-wing party wins Greenland election, opposes big mining project
Greenland’s left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party pledged its opposition to a large rare earth mining project on Wednesday after winning a parliamentary election with more than a third of the votes.
The result of Tuesday’s election casts doubt on the mining complex at Kvanefjeld in the south of the Arctic island and sends a strong signal to international mining companies wanting to exploit Greenland’s vast untapped mineral resources.
Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) won 37% of votes, compared to 26% in the last election, overtaking the ruling social democratic Siumut party which secured 29% of votes, according to official results.
The pro-mining Siumut party has been in power most of the time since 1979.
Though not opposed outright to mining, IA has a strong environmental focus. It has campaigned to halt the Kvanefjeld project, which aside from rare earths including neodymium - which is used in wind turbines, electric vehicles and combat aircraft - also contains uranium.
“The people have spoken,” IA leader Mute Egede, 34, told broadcaster DR when asked about Kvanefjeld. “It won’t happen.”....
....MUCH MORE
How about sand? Is Inuit Ataqatigiit okay with sand dredging?
"Commodity Traders Could Be a Key Beneficiary of Climate Change"
Greenland's sand barons as well.*
Good grief, I sound like Adam Smith in the cocoa story, "On the Trail of Cocoa: The Dark Goddess":
......If only torrential rains would burst from the heavens over Ghana, we had a chance for a Black Pod epidemic and sixty-cent cocoa. It was so much on my mind that I introduced myself to a Ghanaian diplomat at a cocktail party:
"Tell me sir, is it raining in your country now?"
"It always rains in August", he said.
"I know," I said but is it raining hard? Torrentially?"
The Ghanaian diplomat stared at me as if I were some kind of nut and walked away....
