Free Republic

link only in comments due to posting restriction. Strange there is almost no coverage on this story outside of iceland other than this one i found

The world’s largest viking ship has arrived in North America after crossing the North Atlantic Ocean on a journey from its homeport in Haugesund, Norway. The Viking ship, named Draken Harald Hårfagre, set sail from Norway with its approximately 32 crew members in late April and made stops in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland, Canada, before making its way through the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Toronto for the Tall Ships Challenge Great Lakes 2016 festival this weekend. Future stops for the Viking ship include Chicago, Green Bay and Duluth, before heading to U.S. east coast with stops in New York City...

Reykjavik (AFP) - History professor Gudni Johannesson won Iceland's presidential election after riding a wave of anti-establishment sentiment, final results showed Sunday, although the vote was eclipsed by the country's eagerly-anticipated Euro football match. The political newcomer, who won with 39.1 percent of votes, was trailed by businesswoman Halla Tomasdottir, also without party affiliation, who took 29.4 percent, according to results announced on public television channel RUV. Johannesson only decided to run for the presidency after the so-called Panama Papers leak in April which detailed offshore accounts and implicated several senior Icelandic politicians, including the prime minister who was forced...

The U.S. military must rebuild in Europe to face a more aggressive Russia, whose advanced submarines, weapons systems and geographic advantage have the U.S. “playing zone defense,” the top U.S. commander in Europe said Thursday. “We have about 20 years of a different paradigm to correct,” Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command, said during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Breedlove, who has led EUCOM during the command’s biggest transformation in a generation, said he did not foresee a need to return to a Cold War-style military posture. But the era of trying to make a partner...

The bell from HMS Hood has been unveiled by the Princess Royal to mark the 75th anniversary of the Royal Navy's largest loss of life from a single vessel. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen - who funded the expedition to retrieve the bell from the seabed of the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland - attended the event at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard where the bell has gone on display. Anne struck eight bells at midday during the ceremony, held with HMS Victory as a backdrop, watched by descendants of some of the 1,415 sailors who died when the battleship was hit...

Norwegian researches opened a tomb containing the remains of descendants of Viking leader Rollo in Normandy, France on Monday with the aim of putting an end to a centuries-long debate: was Rollo Danish or Norwegian? Norwegian researchers opened a tomb containing the remains of descendants of Viking leader Rollo in Normandy, France on Monday with the aim of putting an end to a centuries-long debate: was Rollo Danish or Norwegian? “We have worked on investigating this for about seven years, so to finally obtain material that we can test for DNA is huge,” historian Sturla Ellingvåg told NTB. Rollo was...

For months, Scandinavian countries have accused Russian military planes and ships of slipping into their waters without permission. It’s made many Nordic governments wary of the Kremlin’s intentions in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Russia’s assertive behavior is driving Sweden and Finland — two countries that have never been part of NATO — closer to the alliance. At present, Norway, Denmark and Iceland make up NATO’s Nordic members. According to Anna Wieslander at the Atlantic Council: Denmark has played a key role, with some support from the United Kingdom, putting Baltic Sea security and the perspective of relevant...

Submitted by Ingrid Carlqvist via The Gatestone Institute, The library in Arvika surprised patrons by offering Arabic language courses. Many Swedes wondered if offering courses in Swedish to the Arabic-speaking immigrants would not be more productive. The library, however, does not offer any such service. The Immigration Service released a new report on April 8, entitled "Are You Married?", which showed how its own case officers allow child marriages. Swedish authorities have approved hundreds of polygamous marriages among immigrants, law professor Göran Lind revealed on April 4. An asylum seeker was arrested April 23 for kicking his wife in the...

Pres. Obama said that Nordic countries would make the world “more secure and more prosperous” if "we" would just let them run things. Welcoming the leaders of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland to the White House on Friday, Obama said that, if “we” let Nordic countries control the world, that “they could clean things up”: “So I really do believe that the world would be more secure and more prosperous if we just had more partners like our Nordic countries. There have been times where I’ve said, why don’t we just put all these small countries in charge for...

… Obama welcomed the leaders of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark to the White House on Friday morning. At a simple indoor ceremony, Obama says the countries are a “model of cooperation” and “punch above their weight” particularly on humanitarian and environmental efforts. …

Several years back, I visited Iceland in the dead of winter. I was researching a book on global happiness, and the small Nordic nation intrigued me. What was this country, adrift in the freezing North Atlantic, doing perched atop the world’s happiness rankings? In pursuit of answers, I buttonholed anyone willing to talk, dined on harkl (rotten shark), drank excessively, and, of course, took a dip in the Blue Lagoon, the otherworldly geothermal waters that have become synonymous with Icelandic bliss. Shortly after I left, Iceland’s largest banks went belly up and the nation’s economy teetered on the verge of...

Reykjavik, Iceland — Monday night, thousands of impassioned college students took to the streets of Villanova, Pennsylvania, to take a stand for what they believe in. Thousands gathered, many of whom clashed with police to stand up for their cause — NCAA basketball. Had these college students, been at the wildlife refuge in Oregon to protest BLM land grabs, they would have been called terrorists. Had they been in Ferguson, Missouri to protest police killings, they would have been called thugs. Instead, these inebriated individuals who started fires, assaulted cops, and caused other people injuries — are called “revelers.” It...

Barack Obama has called for international tax reform in the wake of the revelations contained in the Panama Papers. “There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally is a huge problem,” he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal.” The US president said the leak from Panama illustrated the scale of tax avoidance involving Fortune 500 companies and running into trillions of dollars worldwide. “We shouldn’t make it legal to engage in transactions just to avoid taxes,” he added, praising instead “the...

he prime minister of Iceland resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to political pressure two days after an enormous leak of documents from a secretive Panamanian law firm about offshore shell companies and tax shelters. The resignation of the prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, was the first prominent political fallout from the document leaks known as the Panama Papers, which have shed a harsh light on the private financial activities of many rich and powerful people.

A storm is coming By Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer The interrogation room in which Iceland’s recent history was rewritten is sparse, furnished only with a table, some chairs, and a computer. A camera is fixed to the wall, and the frosted, double-glazed windows have completely blocked out the sound of the gale-force winds in Reykjavik’s Faxafloi Bay. It was in this room that some of Iceland’s most powerful bankers, executives, and investors had to answer to special investigator Olaf Hauksson. A tall man with a heavy build, Haukkson has spent the past six years investigating the transactions that brought...

… The White House says the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden will meet with Obama at the White House on May 13. The summit will include talks on environmental initiatives, nuclear security and countering violent extremism. …

Explanation: All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am in Iceland, on a quiet night last September, much of that night's auroras had died down. Suddenly though, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once again. This time, unexpectedly, pareidoliacally, they created an amazing shape reminiscent of a giant phoenix. With camera equipment at the ready, two quick sky images were taken, followed immediately by a third of the land. The mountain in the background is Helgafell, while the small foreground river is called Kaldá, both located about 30...

The “ridiculous waste” of Christmas beer was the subject of discussion at Alþingi, the Icelandic parliament, today, mbl.is reports. Member of Parliament Brynhildur Pétursdóttir, Bright Future, used those words when deploring the fact that regulations require for perfectly good, unsold beer to be discarded right after Christmas or Easter if it’s labeled as Christmas beer or Easter beer. The regulations originate in the Ministry of Finance. Thus, she asked Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson whether those could be changed. Bjarni responded, “Of course these are rules which should be reevaluated, as are rules regarding where liquor can be sold. And it’s...

Iceland seems to be on its way to becoming an even more secular nation, according to a new poll. Less than half of Icelanders claim they are religious and more than 40% of young Icelanders identify as atheist. Remarkably the poll failed to find young Icelanders who accept the creation story of the Bible. 93.9% of Icelanders younger than 25 believed the world was created in the big bang, 6.1% either had no opinion or thought it had come into existence through some other means and 0.0% believed it had been created by God. The poll, which was conducted by...

Former Vice President Al Gore shocked Americans in "An Inconvenient Truth" when he said polar bears were drowning because global warming was melting Arctic sea ice, but now a new study shows that polar bears did just fine even when there was no ice covering the Arctic. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks released a study claiming the "stratigraphic record of the last 1.5 (million years) indicates that no marine species' extinction events occurred despite major climate oscillations," including periods where the Arctic was completely ice-free in summertime. "Some species thought to be...