People wonder why China is so adament in refusing any cooperation with Tibet. There are many reasons, including the very basic human mental disorder called greed. As the US plunders Iraq for oil, Canada hopes to gain favor with China with business deals which will destroy Tibet's ecology. Canadian friends, please spread the word!
Continental Minerals awaiting China's OK on Tibet mine
Reuters, 13/11/08
By Lucy Hornby
BEIJING, Continental Minerals (Profile) is awaiting central government approval for a planned $520 million copper and gold mine in Tibet, which will utilize a new railway to ship ores to a smelter in inland China.
Financing from underwriters Standard Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC, is still in the works despite a sharp global decrease in lending due to the financial crisis, said chief executive David Copeland.
The company has submitted final paperwork, including a reclamation plan, for the complex Xietongmen mine. The mine requires a series of tailing dams and water diversion engineering to prevent mining waste from contaminating the Yaluzangbu River, [my bold] in arid western Tibet, said Dickson Hall, vice president of business development.
"This project has all the elements. It will go ahead," Hall said on the sidelines of the China Mining conference.
Xietongmen is one of several new mining projects in Tibet made possible by the railroad to Lhasa, which began operations in July 2006. It will rely on a spur under construction to the town of Shigatze, due to be completed in 2010.
The railroad, denounced by pro-Tibetan activists as a means for Han Chinese migrants to flood into Tibet, has enabled the large-scale mining projects that China needs to feed its rapid economic growth.
"There's a lot of interest in Tibet from miners.[my bold] It's one of the few virgin territories left in China," said Xu Weiqin, who runs a clearing house for buying and selling mining stakes in Lhasa.
Chinese aluminium and copper giant Aluminum Corp of China, or Chinalco, in September set up a unit to explore in Tibet.
It joined fellow Chinese miners Western Mining Co (Profile) and Zijin Mining Group Co Ltd (Profile), which plan to begin production this month from Southeastern Tibet's Yulong copper deposit, which is the largest in China.
Ore from the Xietongmen mine will be transported thousands of miles to be processed by smelters owned by state-owned nickel and copper producer Jinchuan Group, which bought a 14 percent equity stake in Continental last year.
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