September 2009

Will the government collapse over the Icesave agreement?

September 30, 2009

Big news today: our Minister of Health Ögmundur Jónasson has resigned over the Icesave issue. Apparently the pressure is on to make everyone in government walk in step concerning Icesave – and he’s just not behaving. So instead of being pressured into going against his own convictions he’s decided to bow out. There has subsequently [...]

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The kreppa according to Doddsson

September 29, 2009

So, old Davíð Oddsson is now happily installed as the new Editor-in-Chief of Morgunblaðið. I haven’t seen the paper since I cancelled my subscription last Friday [- oops, a lie! I saw it Saturday because clearly there was a lag in the system and it was delivered to us], but according to Iceland’s most popular [...]

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Just don’t look up at the glacier

September 28, 2009

Just to alert you to a new post I’ve written on how climate change is manifesting in Iceland, over on the THINK site: This past weekend, Iceland’s foreign minister gave a speech at the United Nations in New York. Amazingly, only a small part of the speech dealt with Iceland’s current economic woes – the [...]

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The White Book

September 27, 2009

I’m reading such a great book right now – Hvíta bókin [The White Book] by Einar Már Guðmundsson. Einar Már – one of Iceland’s foremost writers – has been one of the most vocal critics in this country since the economic collapse a year ago. He has given speeches [one of which I translated here] [...]

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The return of Doddsson

September 25, 2009

Late last week it was announced that the editor of Morgunblaðið – one of Iceland’s two main dailies – had been let go. The reason given was conflicting opinions on the direction and operations of the paper. Morgunblaðið is an Icelandic institution. It has been published since 1913 or thereabouts and has traditionally been a [...]

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Saving the planet in Dyssekilde

September 24, 2009

Last Tuesday, all of the 91 bloggers taking part in the TH!NK initiative headed to Dyssekilde, a Danish eco-village north of Copenhagen. It was such a great day – really fascinating, with great people and [let me say it] excellent food! Dyssekilde is an eco-experiment in the form of a small village north of Copenhagen [...]

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Warming up for climate change reporting

September 22, 2009

So after two days of intense frustration, having schlepped my laptop all the way to the WakeUp Copenhagen Hotel and finding that the Wi-Fi was f*cked, this evening – by some miraculously inspired configuration – I managed to get online.* I have no idea what I did, but that doesn’t matter because now I don’t [...]

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Can’t think of a good title for this one, but it’s about eco stuff and bad Wi-Fi

September 21, 2009

So my ambitious plans to post consistently while here in Copenhagen have not transpired, although through no fault of my own – the wireless connection that I was promised [two days before leaving home] “in the whole hotel” has turned out to be the most fickle Wi-Fi I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering. It’s almost never available in [...]

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Off to TH!NK in Copenhagen

September 19, 2009

In the wee hours of tomorrow I’m heading off to Copenhagen for the TH!NK initiative that I blogged about here. Quick recap for anyone who has just joined us: TH!NK is run by the European Journalism Centre and takes the form of a competition. This is the second round of TH!NK – the first focused [...]

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As household debt shoots through the roof, some people are going on strike

September 18, 2009

Icelandic households are in serious trouble. When the economy melted down last year, the krona plummeted and loans that people had taken in foreign currencies [they were all the rage here in 2006-2008] went through the roof. Initially the government responded by allowing people to freeze their loan payments for the time being. That freezing [...]

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