Tag Archives: greenland

Observations of an Expat – Consequences of Greenland

By Tom Arms | Sat 10th April 2021 - 9:30 am

Greenland is not usually a world election hotspot. This is because most of the time the biggest issue for the 57,000 inhabitants is filling the pothole on Nuuk’s high street or the siting of a new streetlight to illuminate the long cold winter nights.

Not this time. The issue at stake—mining—will have consequences well beyond the shores of the misnamed Danish possession involving the environment, world shipping, defence, economic development and tectonic shifts in global power.

The election was won by the Inuit Ataqatigiit or Community of the People Party on the platform of stopping development of the uranium and rare earths mine at Kvanefjeld. The increasingly sought after rare earth minerals are essential for the running of computers and various medical treatments. Eighty percent of the world’s rare earths are found in China who are keen to keep their virtual monopoly. Greenland has the world’s second largest deposit, which is why a Chinese company is behind the Kvanefjeld mine.

Posted in Europe / International and News | 8 Comments

David Steel, bombing Greenland and regulating cats

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th November 2011 - 3:15 pm

It being over four years since I last read David Steel’s speech to the Liberal Party Assembly of 1976, I thought it was time I did so again. As you do.

And yes, once again, it is the bombing of Greenland and the cats which caught my attention: