Icesave

On the occasion of the opening of the Harpa concert hall

May 13, 2011

This evening will see the official opening of Harpa, Iceland’s new concert hall. The story of Harpa is the stuff of legend – somewhere during the boom years its construction was usurped by one Björgólfur Guðmundsson, former owner and Chairman of the Board of Landsbanki [also former owner of West Ham FC], who planned to [...]

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Icesave back on

July 2, 2010

No doubt many of you have been gnawing your nails lately, wondering what’s happening with everyone’s favourite topic: The Icesave Negotiations. Well, you can relax now and turn your attention to frosted cocktails, sun loungers and the World Cup, because — whew! — they’re back on. Icelandic, British and Dutch representatives met here in Reykjavík [...]

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Iceland, the EU and that pesky rebellious streak

June 23, 2010

The Financial Times has a good piece today on Iceland’s potential [or more likely non, according to the article] membership to the European Union. So Icelandic entry into the EU is far from automatic.  It is a well-off, well-organised, law-abiding, creative society, and in this sense Iceland is far ahead of other countries queuing up to [...]

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The IMF relaxes its Icesave demands

April 10, 2010

So, the International Monetary Fund has decided to relax its stringent stance against Iceland and go ahead with the review of Iceland’s economic program. This is the prerequisite to Iceland receiving more aid from the IMF and also from other European countries [although Norway broke ranks a few weeks ago, as some of you may [...]

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Ta ta strip clubs!

March 26, 2010

So, I had planned to blog about the new ban on strip clubs just passed in parliament, but the Grauniad beat me to it: While activists in Britain battle on in an attempt to regulate lapdance clubs – the number of which has been growing at an alarming rate during the last decade – Iceland [...]

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Black economy existed within the banks

March 17, 2010

The government called a press conference yesterday to announce that an investigation has been launched into large-scale tax evasion by the [old] Icelandic banks, which apparently had their own “black economy”. Over 1,000 cases are being investigated as it is suspected that hundreds of billions of ISK were funneled past tax authorities. The alleged tax [...]

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Leakedy leak

March 15, 2010

So WikiLeaks today publishes Kaupthing’s claim book in its entirety, all 28,167 claims and 520 pages of it. To quote WikiLeaks: This document contains a list of 28167 claims, totally 40 billion euro, lodged against the failed Icelandic bank Kaupthing Bank hf. The document is important because it reveals billions in cash, bonds and other [...]

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More loans the “kiss of death” for Iceland

March 14, 2010

Well, it’s Sunday, and Sunday means Silfur Egils.* There were four guests today, all with fascinating things to say [as usual]. I won’t get into specifics of the first three, but rather talk briefly about the fourth, Alex Jurshevski, a specialist in debt management who apparently is here to speak to the Icelandic government about [...]

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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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Turnaround in Norway

March 11, 2010

Somewhat unexpectedly, the Norwegian Foreign Minister announced today that Norway is no longer making the IMF’s review of their aid plan a condition for awarding loans to Iceland. This is reported by RÚV. Norway and all the other Scandinavian countries have, until now, made potential aid to Iceland conditional on the IMF plan. The IMF [...]

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