Friday, September 27, 2013

GREENLAND URANIUM MINING


  • I received an email this morning from Greenland. Kuupik Kleist, the premier of Greenland from 2009 - 2013, wrote to ask for Global Network support as people there struggle to stop uranium mining on their lands.  Kleist attended and spoke at our Global Network space conference in 2002 that was held in Leeds, England.  Unfortunately there is not yet much information about all of this available in English.  Activists in Greenland have started a Facebook page called "Naamik qujaannarpunga".  Kleist writes:
"I wanted to draw your attention to a movement against lifting Greenland's zero tolerance towards excavation and export of uranium in Greenland. The government will present a bill for the Parliament on lifting the 0-tolerance in few days, October 8. The company holding the license to the project which potentially could be one of the largest uranium mines (open pitch) in the world is Australian - 'Greenland Minerals and Energy' (GME) - a subsidiary of another larger company. Their license is actually not for uranium but for Rare Earth Elements (REE) - but the deposit in question is a mix of both REE's and Uranium. The company now claims that it will not be feasible to go only for the REE's if they do not get a permit for including the uranium, as a bi-product. But we do suspect that uranium will be the main product over time."
  • Our efforts here in Bath, Maine to oppose more tax breaks (corporate welfare) for General Dynamics continue to blossom.  Because I am so busy working on the Maine Drone Peace Walk others in the community have picked up the effort and are doing tremendous outreach across the community.  I might have previously mentioned this but it is worth saying again, we recently learned from a city worker that the Bath City Council was hearing "overwhelming" opposition from city residents to any further tax breaks for General Dynamics.  

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