January 2009

A crazy, exhausting week

January 24, 2009

MONDAY – things are relatively calm. TUESDAY – major protests begin. People gather in front of the parliament buildings at 1.30 pm and bang pots and pans and drums and generally make as much noise as possible in order to disrupt parliament and get MPs to listen to the people. Rather than dissipating after an [...]

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Breaking news: Elections called, PM seriously ill

January 23, 2009

It’s just been announced that elections have been called for May 9th. It’s also been announced that our Prime Minister will not be seeking re-election as he has been diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the esophagus. I think we’re all kind of stunned. More anon.

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We’re a finalist in The Bloggies!

January 23, 2009

Everyone – The Iceland Weather Report is a finalist in the 2009 Weblog Awards, in the Best European Weblog category. wOOt!! For those who don’t know, The Weblog Awards [aka The Bloggies] are the premier awards for blogs worldwide. They started in 2001 and their reputation has grown year by year. Needless to say, this [...]

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Introducing our shiny new online forums!!

January 22, 2009

I am so thrilled to present The Iceland Weather Report Online Forums!! I can’t tell you how delighted I am to finally be able to do this. It’s been in the pipelines for a while, and we’ve been working fairly intensively on it behind the scenes for about two weeks. As far as I can [...]

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As the canyon widens between the government and the people

January 22, 2009

Have just spent the evening in the company of three investigative journalists from Norway, having dinner in a restaurant next to the parliament buildings. The protests have continued today and this evening. Demonstrators surrounded the car of the Prime Minister and pelted it with eggs and skyr. They were in front of the parliament buildings [...]

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Icelandic democracy is dead

January 21, 2009

In our second in a series of interviews, we speak with Njörður P. Njarðvík, writer and professor emeritus at the University of Iceland. He has written a number of articles in Icelandic newspapers recently harshly criticizing Iceland’s government and parliament, and calling for a new constitution. Note that the interview was taken before the most [...]

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It’s 10 pm and the protests are intensifying

January 20, 2009

The number of protesters in front of the parliament buildings has grown steadily this evening and there are now between 2,000 and 3,000 people there. Windows have been broken in the building and paint has been thrown. A bonfire is burning in front of the building and people have fetched things to add to it [...]

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Disrupting parliament with noise

January 20, 2009

Today I headed down to Austurvöllur where there was a demonstration called at 1.30 pm. The idea was to disrupt the first session of parliament since the Christmas recess, which began at the same time. People showed up with noisemakers, pots, pans, drums, honked car horns – you name it, anything that made noise. I [...]

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A death foretold

January 19, 2009

Here’s a link to an interview with two economists who predicted the economic crash in Iceland months before it happened. They are the authors of the report that the Central Bank and Icelandic government hushed up because the information was deemed “too sensitive”. I know we’ve all heard the details a million times over [the [...]

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The good, the bad, and the busy

January 18, 2009

It’s been a good weekend for … Iceland’s President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. After campaigning for weeks to have his salary lowered by 15 percent [because, you know, everybody's doing it] he was successful last Friday when the Minister of Finance took pity on him and agreed to his terms. Previously the state Salary Council had [...]

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