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Greenland Opens Door to Mining

Moves Come With Many Caveats but Has Potential to Alter Arctic

Oct. 25, 2013 12:37 p.m. ET

Greenland opened its doors to mining with two major government decisions that could eventually alter the world's largest island, and perhaps the entire Arctic region, in fundamental ways—environmentally, economically and politically.

The government of the semiautonomous Danish island on Thursday dropped a law that prohibited the mining of radioactive substances like uranium and rare-earth minerals in a narrow parliamentary vote. In a separate decision, Greenland awarded London Mining PLC, a British company that has worked...

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