Greenland government falls as voters send warning to mining companies
Source: Guardian
Greenland government falls as voters send warning to mining companies
Siumut party, led by Aleqa Hammond, to form coalition government in place of Kuupik Kleist's administration
Terry Macalister
The Guardian, Friday 15 March 2013 18.00 EDT
The race for resources in the frozen wastes of the Arctic has brought down its first national government, leaving foreign oil and mining companies shivering about the future. Voters in Greenland feared that ministers were surrendering their country's interests to China and foreign multinationals and called an end this week to the government of prime minister Kuupik Kleist.
London Mining, which has a former British foreign minister, Sir Nicholas Bonsor, on the board, has been at the centre of a row in the country after speculation it could bring in 2,000 Chinese workers to build one of the world's biggest iron ore mines expressly to serve steel mills in Beijing.
The activities of Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy, which drilled for oil off Greenland's south-west coast in 2011, had also polarised opinion between those who welcomed the potential for a hydrocarbon strike bringing huge economic wealth and those worried about spills.
The Siumut party in Greenland, led by Aleqa Hammond, has just won 42% of the vote, allowing it to form a coalition government in place of the current ruling party led by Kleist.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/15/greenland-government-oil-mining-resources
= new reply since forum marked as read
I wish we had that here!
In recent polls (2005!!!) by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic Party:
1. 65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.
2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives"
.
3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.
4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.
6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.
7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."
http://alternet.org/story/29788/
9. 92% of ALL Americans support TRANSPARENT, VERIFIABLE elections!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446445
10. Over 70% of the American People OPPOSE Mandated Insurance without a Public Option.
11. Over 65% of the American People OPPOSE ANY cuts to Medicare or Social Security
What does it take?
You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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I've got to stop confusing Greenland with Iceland and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh too. 
