Free Republic

Fellow Icelanders I have requested the opportunity to address you at this time when the Icelandic nation faces major difficulties. The entire world is experiencing a major economic crisis, which can be likened in its effects on the world’s banking systems, to an economic natural disaster. Large and well established banks on both sides of the Atlantic have become victims of the recession and governments in many countries are rowing for all they are worth to save whatever can be saved. In such circumstances every nation thinks, of course, first and foremost of its own interests. Even the biggest economies...

Almost overnight, its population became the wealthiest on Earth. Tracy McVeigh in Reykjavik finds that the credit crunch is making the cash disappear. Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send...

The Icelandic government has taken control of the country's third-largest bank, Glitnir, after the company faced short-term funding problems. The government has bought a 75% stake in the bank for ($860m) to ensure stability of the bank during the current financial turmoil. Glitner is expected to operate as normal and the government said it did not intend to hold the stake for long. It is the first Icelandic banking nationalisation of the current crisis. The rescue plan follows meetings between Glitnir and the Central Bank of Iceland to discuss a solution to the bank's problems after the deterioration of its...

I always post these to the Arts/Photography group, even though I check to see if they're in the Science group. I decided to emphasize art for a couple of weeks. So don't get bored with the pictures from this site. I won't. (Note: current events may influence my choices). Rock formations and sea surf at Dyrholaey, Iceland

The US debt rescue plan has sought inspiration from the work to tackle the Swedish banking crisis at the beginning of the 1990s. "I have been in the USA several times this year to explain what we did," said Bo Lundgren at the Swedish National Debt Office. "There can be significant similarities," Lundgren added. Lundgren was finance minister in the 1991 right-wing government and, together with current and former Riksbank heads Stefan Ingves and Urban Bäckström, was the architect behind the bank support committee (Bankstödsnämnden or Bankakuten) which did much to alleviate the crisis that raged in the Swedish banking...

GENEVA (AFP) — Palestinian refugees stranded for two years in desperate conditions on the Iraq-Syria border will be resettled in Iceland and Sweden in the coming weeks, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday. More than two dozen vulnerable Palestinians from the Al Waleed camp will be leaving for Iceland while another group of 155 refugees from the Al Tanf camp are bound for Sweden, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists. Redmond said that an estimated 2,300 Palestinians were living in camps along the border amid "dire" health conditions, unable to return to Iraq or...

Aug 5, 2008 14:08 | Updated Aug 5, 2008 15:51 Iceland, Sweden to absorb Palestinians

I think this is the biggest moment in Icelandic sport history." - Iceland President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. It's hard to explain just how monumental was Iceland's win over Spain was in today's men's handball semifinals. Spain--with more than 40 million residents--had probably played stronger than any team in the tournament. Iceland has 300,000 residents, and has never won Summer Olympic gold. And yet Iceland never trailed in a 36-30 win, and breezed into Sunday's final against France. But that's too dry. When we asked Iceland's Sigfus Sigurdsson to explain what the scene would be like back home right now, he...

Viking Farms Tell Cautionary Climate Tale Boundary walls built by Iceland's Viking farmers run through Unnsteinn Ingason's land. At some point, farmers stopped repairing the walls, and a climate change may help explain why. Ingason's land had been farmed for hundreds of years prior to his family's ownership. Here, ruins of a stone farm house with a turf roof on a hill behind Ingason's home. Archaeologist Adolf Fridriksson stands near the ruins of an early Viking farm. The farm was long ago abandoned, and its soil heavily eroded. Icelandic farmers bring their sheep down from the hills for the winter....

A polar bear that swam more than 200 miles through near-freezing water to reach Iceland was shot by local police - just in case it posed a danger to humans. The death of the bear, thought to be the first to reach Iceland in about 15 years, caused a public outcry from animal lovers, the Guardian reported. A police spokesperson said that it would not have been possible to sedate the bear. "There was fog up in the hills and we took the decision to kill the bear before it could disappear into the fog," police spokesman Petur Bjornsson. Iceland’s...

The signs of the super rich in Reykjavik are as clear as the snow on the black volcanic mountains beyond its harbour.

By GUDJON HELGASON, Associated Press Writer Thu May 29, 4:22 PM ET REYKJAVIK, Iceland - A strong earthquake shook southern Iceland on Thursday, causing more than a dozen injuries as it rocked buildings in the capital, touched off landslides and forced evacuations in outlying towns, officials and local media said. Government officials reported that 15 to 20 people from Selfoss, 30 miles southeast of the capital of Reykjavik, were injured in the quake, none of them seriously. They were taken to a local health center for treatment. The U.S. Geological Survey said Selfoss was near the epicenter of the magnitude...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday. The "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world. The United States slipped from 96th last year, but was still ahead of foe Iran which ranked 105th. It, however, lagged Belarus, Cuba, South Korea, Chile, Libya and others which were listed as more peaceful. Iraq, which the United...

There is no New Cold War, the world keeps getting told, and that's nice news. Still and all, on May 5, four French Mirage 2000 interceptors will move to Iceland with a mission to meet and not-quite-greet Russian bombers penetrating the neighborhood airspace. France, which is deploying the jets until late June, is the first country to send combat aircraft to the Iceland Air Policing Area under a rotating NATO plan that will involve the United States, Denmark, Poland and Spain in the next two years. The Russian bombers, whose most recent appearance near Iceland dates from March 19, fly...

Yes there is. Read on and you'll find out about it. Capitalist paradise exists here on Earth. However, it comes with a price tag called "competence". Most of the world lacks this "competence" and will have a hard time aquiring it, because it is a matter of spirit, a spirit that I'm convinced most parts of the world ever will fail to aquire. In my opinion, Scandinavia leads the world in true Capitalist endeavour (check out how many multinationals we possess in realation to population size). The explanation for this tradition of entrepreneurship is not Scandinavian "Socialism". Sooner, it is...

REYKJAVIK (AFP) - Icelandic men have the longest life expectancy in the world, living an average of 79.4 years in 2007, Statistics Iceland said on Thursday. "This is a world record. They live even longer than Japanese men," Oloef Gardarsdottir, a spokeswoman for the agency, told AFP. Japanese men live on average 78.6 years. "We don't have an explanation. It's really difficult to give a reason why," she said. Icelandic women meanwhile have a life expectancy of 82.9 years, among the highest in the world. Japanese women have an average life expectancy of nearly 86 years, according to United Nations...

Iceland is prepared to order direct intervention in the currency and stock markets in an attempt to punish international hedge funds that it claims are attacking its financial system. Geir Haarde, the country’s prime minister, said: “We would like to see these people off our backs and we are considering all the options available.” Mr Haarde declined to be specific, saying “a bear trap needs to be a surprise”. Action was needed, he said, because the country’s financial system and currency were being unfairly and perhaps illegally weakened by hedge funds “who just want to make a profit by hook...

"EXIT Festival has never cancelled any artist's performance because of their political point-of-view or statements." Photo by Bernhard Kristin/ILC Following the shake-up last week surrounding Björk's politically-charged Kosovo song dedication and the subsequent (and, apparently, consequent) cancellation of a purported appearance at the EXIT Festival in Serbia, festival organizers have stepped forward with a statement. To recap: Björk dedicated her song "Declare Independence" to Kosovo-- which recently declared its own independence from Serbia-- at a pair of Tokyo concerts in February. The singer rather plainly suggested the EXIT cancellation was the result of her remarks when she told Icelandic newspaper...

Third Cousins Have Greatest Number Of Offspring, Data From Iceland Shows ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2008) — DeCODE scientists have established a substantial and consistent positive correlation between the kinship of couples and the number of children and grandchildren they have. The study, which analyzes more than 200 years of deCODE's comprehensive define genealogical data on the population of Iceland, shows that couples related at the level of third cousins have the greatest number of offspring. For example, for women born between 1800 and 1824, those with a mate related at the level of a third cousin had an average of...

Chess Champion Bobby Fischer Washington DC, Jan 23, 2008 / 04:39 pm (CNA).- Legendary chess player Bobby Fischer, who made history by dethroning the Soviet chess king Boris Spassky in 1972, asked to be buried as a Catholic, according to officials of the Catholic Church in Iceland, where he had been living since 1992.The famous and eccentric chess player, who died last Thursday at the age of 64, was buried Tuesday in Iceland during a private Catholic ceremony.The French news agency AFP reported that Fischer, who was born into a Jewish family in New York, expressly asked to be...

One of the world's greatest chess geniuses, Bobby Fischer, has died at the age of 64. A spokesman for Fischer said the former world chess champion passed away in a Reykjavik hospital yesterday. The US-born former world chess champion, who became famous around the world for beating the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in 1972, had been seriously ill for some time. Rest in Peace, Bobby

The 2007 Human Development Report says Iceland now leads annual United Nations Index. Iceland has narrowly passed Norway to take the top spot on the Human Development Index (HDI), according to the 2007/2008 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today. Norway had held the number one ranking for the previous six years. This change in ranking is a result of new estimates of life expectancy and updated GDP per capita figures, stress the Report authors. Introduced with the first HDR in 1990, the HDI assesses the state of human development through life expectancy, adult...

Stockholm is the world's greenest, most livable city, according to a survey carried out by the Reader's Digest magazine. Using a range of sources, environmental economist Matthew Kahn, from UCLA's Institute of the Environment, ranked 72 major international in terms of how 'green and livable' they are. Environmental legislation, energy prices, waste production and disposal and available parkland were among the factors considered. Stockholm was ranked number one, followed by Oslo in second place. "You shouldn't boast, but Stockholm is the world's most beautiful city," said mayor Kristina Axén Olin . "I get happy every time I come back to...

Scandinavia has been rated as the best place to live, that’s according to a ranking by Reader’s Digest. Using a range of environmental and social indicators based in part on the UN’s Human Development Index, the survey rates countries on care of the environment and quality of life for their citizens. Finland tops the 141-nation list, followed by Nordic neighbours Iceland and Norway, with Sweden coming in at fourth place. And the Swedish capital comes top of the Reader’s Digest ranking of 72 world cities when it comes to quality of life. Cities were rated according to quality of public...

09/21/2007 | 11:13 Two Russian Bombers Spotted near Iceland Two far-reaching Russian Tupolev 95 bombers entered the Icelandic air observation zone north of the country yesterday morning. British military jets flew towards the bombers and followed them to the northern limits of the observation zone. The Russian aircrafts circled Iceland and flew as close as 43 nautical miles offshore, but without entering Icelandic airspace, ruv.is reports. According to a statement from Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it received information from Russia about the flight on Wednesday night. Iceland’s Radar Agency monitored the bombers during the entire flight and exchanged information...

PARIS (AFP) - Nordic countries take the greatest care of their environment and their people, according to a ranking published on Thursday by the publication Reader's Digest. An aerial picture shows the port in Helsinki in 2006. Nordic countries take the greatest care of their environment and their people, according to a ranking published on Thursday by the publication Reader's Digest.(AFP/File/Pekka Sakki) Finland comes top of the 141-nation list, followed by Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and then Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and Australia. At the bottom of the list is Ethiopia, preceded by Niger, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Chad. The...

Sweden and Norway’s military chiefs have called for stronger cooperation between the two Nordic countries, arguing that it will reduce overall expenditure. In an article published in the daily ”Dagens Nyhter”, Sweden and Norway’s top military leaders are proposing closer military ties including cooperation in the purchase of submarines and tanks and other military equipment. They’d also like to see joint training and education initiatives. Sweden’s Håkan Syren and Norway’s Sverre Diesen are presenting the proposals to their respective Defence Ministries. Swedish Minister of Defence Mikael Odenberg told the newspaper ”Svenska Dagbladet” that he is positive about the idea. The...

Source: University of Chicago Date: July 20, 2007 Ice Age Survivors Found In Iceland Science Daily — Many scientists believe that the ice ages exterminated all life on land and in freshwater in large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, especially on ocean islands such as Iceland. Crymostygius thingvallensis, the only species in a recently described family of groundwater amphipods Crymostygidae. (Credit: photograph by Thorkell Heidarsson) Scientists at Holar University College and the University of Iceland have challenged that belief, at least when looking at groundwater animals. They have discovered two species of groundwater amphipods in Iceland that are the only...

Norwegians have the highest job loyalty in Europe, and all of the Nordic countries are happy at work. The European Employee Index (EEI) survey carried out by Danish consultancy Ennova, covered 20 European nations. The EEI showed that besides being loyal, in terms of job enjoyment Norwegians were second only to Danes. "We are part of a Nordic tradition of cooperative relations in the work place that is completely unique in an international context," said *Even Bolstad, head of HR Norway, Ennova's cooperative partner in the survey. "The five Nordic nations are all in the top ten in all categories...

France 24 ICELAND - ELECTION Iceland's government retains majority Sunday, May 13, 2007 Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde's Independence Party has won general elections by remaining the biggest party but it is unclear whether his coalition government will stay in power. Sunday, May 20, 2007 Iceland's government clings to majority By  Reuters REYKJAVIK, May 13 (Reuters) - Iceland's pro-business government coalition held onto its majority by a single seat on Sunday after a cliff-hanger election in the island nation that pitted economic against environmental interests.   With 98 percent of the vote counted, Prime Minister Geir Haarde's Independence Party had...

Iceland goes to the polls in general election AFP Published: Saturday May 12, 2007 Iceland votes in a general election Saturday with the ruling centre-right Independence Party tipped to win the most seats on the back of its strong economic record. But no single party has won an absolute majority in Iceland since its independence from Denmark in 1944, and the six parties contesting the election are all in the running for coalition places in the next government. Some 220,000 voters of this island nation in the North Atlantic are being called upon to elect the 63 members of the...

May 02, 2007, 9:00 a.m. A New Era of Freedom What about a League of Democracies? An NRO Primary Document Editor’s note: Arizona Senator John McCain, Republican candidate for president, delivered these remarks at the Hoover Institution on Tuesday. Since the dawn of our republic, Americans have believed our nation was created for a purpose. We were, as Alexander Hamilton said, a people of great destinies.' In the Revolution, the Civil War, in World Wars One and Two, and in the many struggles of the Cold War, our forebears met and overcame threats to our nation's survival and to our...

The conservative press, and reportedly the White House, are chomping at the bit to bomb Iran. A much better idea would be to bomb Iceland instead, in a "shock and awe" spectacular that could be staged as a win-win-win deal all around, even for Icelanders. "Why Iceland of all places?" you might ask? "Why not some other country, like, say, Pakistan or Nepal?" Let me count the reasons. First, Iceland is an ideal target. You either hit it, or you hit the ocean. Not so if we bomb in regions where all countries look the same from above. Accidentally bombing...

Iceland's Unwritten Saga Volume 60 Number 2, March/April 2007 by Zach Zorich Did Viking settlers pillage their environment? Birch and willow forests like this one at Lake Mývatn used to cover much of Iceland's interior. Viking settlers cleared the forest for their pastures and burned the trees to make charcoal. The forests have never recovered. It is estimated that 90 percent of Iceland's pre-settlement forest is gone. (Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson) Even when the weather is clear, gusts of wind lash the hillsides overlooking the Viking-age farm at Hrísheimar leaving the land raw and strewn with pebbles. A few miles east the...

Followers of the weekly Geopic will know that Iceland has quite a few picturesque waterfalls. But this one just makes my eyes widen a bit. Two pictures for demonstration. The first is a reduced-size desktop; click for full size. I guess they won't mind advertising.

The sun was not necessary for Vikings to navigate, say researchers Vikings may have used a special crystal called a sunstone to help navigate the seas even when the sun was obscured by fog or cloud, a study has suggested. Researchers from Hungary ran a test with sunstones in the Arctic ocean, and found that the crystals can reveal the sun's position even in bad weather. This would have allowed the Vikings to navigate successfully, they say. The sunstone theory has been around for 40 years, but some academics have treated it with extreme scepticism. Researcher Gabor Horvath from...

FISH merchants on the Humber may be throwing up their hands in frustration at the worrying decline in fish supplies from Iceland since the beginning of the year. But the underlying cause is something they would never have guessed at - a massive deep freeze around the west coast of the country. While the rest of the world shudders at the prospect of global warming and all that it threatens to bring in the form of floods and soaring temperatures, Iceland has been bucking the trend - and it is having a dramatic effect on fishing activity around the island....

Iceland fears bears that go with the floe By Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:46am GMT 04/02/2007 The oceans may be warming and air temperatures rising, but in recent days Iceland has bucked the global climate trend. Thick pack ice, the like of which has not been seen for decades, stretched into the western fjords as temperatures plummeted and a bitter wind blew in from -Greenland. The ice has proved a headache for fishermen, who have been unable to put to sea, but it is what comes with pack ice that has caused most concern: polar bears. People living...

12/15/2006 | 12:37 Iceland torn in two I used to speculate whether the continental plates that meet underneath Iceland will tear it apart one day. Now I worry about political forces causing a rift. The European and American continental plates are responsible for Iceland having volcanic activity; volcanoes erupt and the earth rattles when the two plates that meet underneath the island pull away from each other. The power of the two plates is vividly displayed at Thingvellir, Iceland's holy shrine. There, a rift, called Almannagjá, was formed in the gap between the plates and is a popular tourist attraction....

German kids like their sex. A survey of European teen sex habits has found that only pubescents from Iceland are quicker to jump in the sack. But when it comes to safety, the Dutch are tops. The casual observer in Germany might be forgiven for thinking the Germans are oversexed. Pornographic cinemas and blush-inducing sex shops are a familiar part of the urban landscape, while exposed breasts are a common sight on advertising billboards and magazine covers. With all that stimulating material around, it's not surprising that young Germans apparently have sex on the brain. A newly-released World Health Organization...

Here are the basics of the history of Iceland. With a special emphasis of US - Icelandic connections and the US military presence here and its end in this year, and the disillusionment of many Icelanders, specially on the right, because of this towards the US wich they have supported for long time. 874: Scandinavian/british isles vikings and their celtic slaves began settling the country. 930: Mostly settled, the Icelandic Free State was established, a governing system without a king or any executive branch whatsoever. A very individualistic system of governance, that ensured peace and prosperity here for 300 years....

An environmental drama played out on the world stage in the late 18th century when a volcano killed 9,000 Icelanders and brought a famine to Egypt that reduced the population of the Nile valley by a sixth. A study by three scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a collaborator from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, demonstrates a connection between these two widely separated events. The investigators used a computer model developed by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies to trace atmospheric changes that followed the 1783 eruption of Laki in southern Iceland back to their point...

The Pagan Society in Iceland, Ásatrúarfélagid, has objected to the State Church offering school children social support in form of so-called “soul watch interviews.” The interviews are part of an initiative called Vinaleid (“Path of Friends”), which is open to all school-age children. The program enables students to visit the deacon in the local church to talk about their problems, and do not need allowance from parents to do so, as reported in Fréttabladid. Jóhanna Hardardóttir, a pagan priest on Kjalarnes peninsula, southwest Iceland, told Fréttabladid that she has noticed considerable discontent among parents with Vinaleid. She says children who...

1. I had not been paying attention to how active the Etna summit is again. "Etna Volcan Sicilien" covers it well (the link above to the November 2006 activity page has a 14-picture compilation). Two excerpts from it: 2. I accidentally discovered a picture of Haifoss, Iceland's 2nd highest waterfall. While the fall is nice, the view looking down the Thorjsa valley (headed by the waterfall) is amazing.

Bism'Allah al-Rahman al-Raheem I'll try my best to be clear and hopefully not bore those that read this too much. I'll start at the beginning... I was born Anna Linda Traustadóttir to Icelandic/Danish parents in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1966 and baptised into the Lutheran Church. My family moved to Vancouver, Canada and then to New York City when I was young. I finished high school at 16. In 1988, I got my B.A. from McGill University, Montréal, Canada. Since then I have been travelling around the world, studying and working. Denmark has been my base since 1990. In 1997, while...

Muslim’s association ‘surprised’ at absence of land The Muslim’s Association of Iceland has sent out a press release in which it expresses its surprise at not having been awarded land to build a mosque in Reykjavík, while the Reykjavík District Council has signed a declaration of intent to award the Russian Orthodox Church and the Pagan Society of Iceland land to build places of worship. This is reported in the main online media. The Muslim’s Association first applied for land to build a mosque seven years ago, but has received no definitive answer from the city. While the Association would...

United States authorities have expressed their disappointment in Iceland’s decision to resume commercial whaling, citing that it will increase division and disputes within the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The statement is part of the formal declaration of protest that the US Ambassador to Iceland has presented to Minister of Fisheries Einar K. Gudfinnsson. US authorities pointed out that when Iceland rejoined the IWC it announced that it would under no circumstances resume commercial whaling without strong scientific criteria, and unless management and surveillance systems were in place. The US says it has pointed out that the IWC’s scientific committee has...

Iceland has prompted international outrage by breaking a global ban on commercial whaling, ending a 20-year-old moratorium on the practice. Environmentalists have long insisted that whaling is not only barbarous but unjustified on any commercial grounds. However, the Icelanders, who launched a limited “scientific” whaling program in 2003, are undeterred, and the government has set an annual quota for both the fin whale and the more numerous minkes. Earlier this week hunters killed their first fin whale, which is officially listed an endangered species by the World Conservation Union. The hunters’ principal champion is the High North Alliance, a Norwegian-based...

Iceland has announced it is to resume commercial hunting of whales.Icelandic ships will take nine fin whales, an endangered species, and 30 minke whales each year. In a statement, the fisheries ministry said the nation was dependent on living marine resources, and would keep catches within sustainable limits. Norway is the only other country to hunt commercially; most are bound by a 20-year moratorium. Currently Iceland hunts minkes for "scientific research". The scientific plan will conclude at the end of the 2007 season, the government said. The announcement has angered conservation groups and anti-whaling nations, with some talking of a...

10/13/2006 | 12:07 US military returns to Iceland The USS WASP, a 40,000-ton US navy multipurpose amphibious assault ship, pulled a shore in Reykjavík harbor yesterday. “The purpose of this visit is to show support,â€� Lt. Commander George Segal told icelandreview.com. Phil Kosnett, of the US Embassy in Iceland, added that the visit is in junction with the agreement between the two countries, signed last Wednesday in Washington. Lt. Commander Segal said Icelanders could expect more visits in the future to show that the US military will protect the country even in the absence of a military base.  The USS...