Pristina, Kosovo (ANTARA News) - The world`s biggest copper producer, Phelps Dodge, has won a license to dig in Kosovo, the first such project in the UN-run Serbian province, the UN Mission (UNMIK) said Thursday.
Phelps was granted the exploration license for northeastern Kosovo by the Independent Commission for Mines and Minerals (ICMM), which is jointly run by international and local officials in the southern Serbian province.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since the end of 1998-99 war between Serbian troops and ethnic Albanian guerillas seeking independence of Kosovo.
Until now, no companies have mined for copper in Kosovo, but authorities have issued about 60 licenses since April, and the province is believed to contain a minimum of 13.5 billion euros (16 billion dollars) worth of minerals and metals, including copper, zinc and lead.
Phelps Dodge and its two divisions, Phelps Dodge Mining and Phelps Dodge Industries employ more than 15,500 people worldwide, said it was "prepared to directly invest some 500 million euros in Kosovo, should the deposit reveal itself substantial enough to warrant a mega-mine."
UNMIK noted that "the exploration license specifies that work must be started within 90 days."
ICMM official Alexander Valenta called the contract a "major development and the first of its kind in Kosovo.
"For years, we have suspected that the region was rich in copper resources," Valenta said.
He added that several other major mining firms "have expressed definite interest in Kosovo`s copper and other resources and more interest is expected over coming months."
Still technically part of Serbia, Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since a NATO bombing campaign ended a Serbian crackdown on separatists in 1999.
The UNMIK announcement came three days after UN special envoy Martti Ahtisari, charged with leading negotiations on the status of Kosovo, launched initial talks and shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina, AFP reported.(*)
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7 comments:
Very True indeed.
Lets hope the money and investment by these companies goes back to the Kosovar economy and people a not just a benefit to these big companies
Sure this is one of reasons.
You know what? Serbia’s Government doesn't care about the Serbians in Kosova, they care about Kosova’s territory and this was reason why they always tried to destabilize north of Mitrovica and also this was the only reason why they tried to make decentralization based on ethnical terms so in this way they could divide easy Mitrovica from the Kosova’s map and that’s just because for its vast mineral wealth.
Anyway this won’t be the last try from Serbian’s leaders for fulfilling their plan. We will see another try when the negotiations will start and for my meaning next request will be the Bosnia’s plan or any special autonomy for Serbs on that part, so in this way they will have again under control the North Mitrovica.
However something that Kosovars need to be careful is to don’t act under provocations. When I say this I refer the provocations like in March or like in Shterpce with destruction of the martyr’s monolith or when in the same place where is founded one bomb. That’s because Serbians will try to give us another shoot by repeating another March and if this happened the international community will lose trust on us and then they will try to find any solution by saying that Serbians in Kosova are not safe. And of course this solution will result with something that we don’t want to happen.
Mining pretty few people and since most of the inputs are imported, it will likely have few ripple effects in the economy. Maybe some tax revenue for the government, but that typically leads to increased corruption. So, it's anyones guess if if mining will have a positive or negative effect on Kosovo's economy.
I don't think Serbia is interested in Kosovo because of the mines. Not recognizing that it's a historical issue as well as an issue of Serb minorities is simply stupid, so please stop!
So I guess when the muslims become the majority of the population in the U.K, The Netherlands, and Belgium and they want to carve off pieces of territory for their savage culture then it will have to be given to them as well. Long live white christian Europe! They come to our countries and out breed us to use democracy as a weapon against us.
It`s Kosovo, not Kosova
J.P. Maher Ph. D. Professor Emeritus of Linguistics Northeastern Ilinois University Chicago
To the Editors of City.Net
‘’Kosovo’’ is a Serbian place name, more fully ‘’kosovo polje’’, meaning ‘field (or plain) of blackbirds’. ‘’Kosovo polje’’ lies just outside the city of Prishtina.
Ornithology lesson:
Among North Americans, Australians, and South Africans, only ornithologists can identify the species in question. Kosovo’s ‘’black bird’’ is no crow, nor raven, no starling nor grackle, but ‘’turdus merula’’, European cousin of the North American rusty-bellied thrush (‘’turdus migratorius’’), which Yanks call the ‘’robin’’.
In Britain and Ireland ‘’robin’’ is the name of another species, ‘’erithacus rubecula’’. (The ‘’four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, of the English rhyme, were of the species’’merula’’, in Serbian called ‘’kos’’. From this term ‘’kosovo’’ is derived possessive adjective. Like America’s harbinger of spring, the black bird called ‘’kos’’ in Serbian language sings sweetly in the springtime and early summer.
For North Americans the feel of the Serbian place name ‘’Kosovo’’ can only be from a translation, Field of Robins’’.
Albanians have borrowed the word from the Serbs, whose once overwhelming majority was driven down, especially since the Congress of Berlin, by savage aggression from Albanians incited then and in WW I by Austria-Hungary and Germany, in World War II by Musolini’s puppet Albanians, and after WW II by the discriminatory ethnic cleansing of the Stalinist dictator Josip Broz.
Native Indian place names in America have no meaning in English:
Eg. ‘’Michigan’’ means nothing in English. In Ojibwa ‘’Mishshikamaa’’ means ‘it is a big lake’.
Just so the place names of Ireland have transparent meaning in Gaelic but are meaningless tags in the colonialist English, eg. ‘’Dublin’’ is Gaelic ‘’dubh lin’’ ‘black pool’, and ‘’Kildare’’ is ‘’cildara’’ ‘church of the oak’.
Just so the name of the Serbian province of Kosovo are clear Serbian formations, but have no meaning in the Albanian language.
Proof of the Serbian origin of the name and the loanword status of the immigrant Albanian term is that the word ‘’Kosovo’’ has a clear etymology to anyone who knows a Slavic language, while Albanian ’’Kosova’’ is an opaque, meaningless place name in the Albanian language.
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