Iceland

Scandal of the day: Financial Services Authority knew that foreign currency loans were illegal

March 14, 2010

About a month ago, I mentioned that a ruling had been passed in a district court declaring that all Icelandic car loans tied to foreign currencies were [are] illegal. As many readers will know, these loans are among the most serious consequences of the kreppa for normal citizens in Iceland. Car dealerships pushed them incessantly [...]

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Final stretch for the Future of Hope

March 13, 2010

Know what I love? A success story! Remember the people who are trying to finish that film called Future of Hope, which shows Iceland’s predicament in a positive light? They launched their project on Kickstarter [what an ingenious website and idea that is!] a couple of months ago, with the goal of raising USD 10,000 [...]

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Oligarchs with hats

March 12, 2010

Last Saturday I had occasion to visit the supermarket. Hagkaup on Seltjarnarnes, to be exact. As I stood there, picking out oranges, I noticed a rather shifty-looking individual standing opposite me, picking over the apples. He was wearing a big parka and a hat pulled down around his ears, and looked decidedly furtive. I did [...]

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Of human trafficking in the Land of the Nice

March 10, 2010

Last Monday, March 8, one of the most monumental sentences in Iceland’s history was passed in Reykjanes District Court. Five Lithuanians were found guilty of human trafficking and each sentenced to five years in prison. In October last year, Icelandic police issued a missing person report for a young Lithuanian woman who had been arrested [...]

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On the plight of the Irish

March 8, 2010

A fascinating comment was posted a short while ago as a response to this post. It’s from a reader named Alan, who gives a succinct and pretty scary rundown of what happened in Ireland. [You remember the joke: Q: What's the difference between Iceland and Ireland. A: One letter and six months.] Some of the [...]

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Sixteen years

March 3, 2010

Today marks sixteen years since AAH and I moved to Iceland. It was 1994. The Internet didn’t even exist yet – at least not as a normal part of life. A few months after arriving I started working at Iceland Review as a journalist and translator, and about a year after that the IR website [...]

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The Financial Times has its say

February 27, 2010

The FT slams UK/Holland over their handling of the Icesave affair today: The British and Dutch governments’ incessant bullying of Iceland over Landsbanki’s Icesave acounts seems motivated by the bully’s usual reason – there is little to fear from picking on those sufficiently smaller than oneself. That premise is about to be tested now that [...]

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“This is where Iceland could be very useful”

February 26, 2010

An article that appeared on The Guardian website yesterday has a pretty astute take on the Iceland-EU situation. Surely of interest to anyone who wonders what on earth the EU could possibly want with Iceland. Despite the banking dispute, many leaders across Europe are keen to see Iceland in the union because of its strategic [...]

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Of the EU, Special Prosecutor, and musical chairs in the media

February 24, 2010

Fairly meaty news day today. EUROPEAN UNION First, the EU has declared that Iceland is fit to join their club provided we tweak our policies and administrative structure a bit. If we do, they will kindly allow us to discuss potential accession. They have a few, um, criticisms about how things are done here. [I'm [...]

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Speaking of turf houses

February 23, 2010

In 1906, my great-grandfather Stefán drowned. In those years, widows and their children automatically became wards of the district council. My great-grandmother Þórdís was sent away to work on a farm in the vicinity and one of her children – her daughter Guðrún – went there with her. The other three children were all sent [...]

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