This may sound familiar: Russian and Chinese companies are among those interesting in buying the coal mining rights to a large tract of land near Longyearbyen, an attorney representing the holder of those rights is telling Norway’s government and media.
Unsurprisingly, headlines appear nationwide Wednesday about the prospect of a major advisory gaining a potentially large economic/political foothold in Svalbard after it was first reported by NRK. But the coverage also noted the issue has surfaced repeatedly beginning in 2014 when the family-owned company that owned the land announced it planned to sell it – and how that ended up being what many called essentially a “ransom demand” to pressure Norway’s government into paying a heightened price to buy the land.