Posts tagged as:

Steingrímur J. Sigfússon

Meanwhile back in Iceland we have political scandal

August 13, 2010

From my vantage point here in Bulgaria, I’ve been loosely following the news back home. Seems Minister of Economic Affairs Gylfi Magnússon is in deep doo-doo. Apparently he knew about the illegality of the FX loans more than a year ago, but chose not only to keep mum, but to lie about it to members [...]

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93.2%

March 7, 2010

… Was the percentage of the Icelandic electorate that said NO to the Icesave bill yesterday. The NO result was a foregone conclusion – the only thing of interest, really, was how large a margin would be by which the bill would be voted down. Mind you, at noon today, not all the votes were [...]

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Referendum rundown

March 6, 2010

It’s been a rather gray and gloomy day, this day of the first national referendum since the founding of the Republic of Iceland. I got up [relatively] early and headed for the gym. It was packed and I was slightly surprised that I did not hear the word “Icesave” mentioned once. Not in the fitness [...]

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Temperature rising

March 4, 2010

What strange days we are experiencing up here in the Land of the Nice. Thursday evening, and the government is STILL saying that a new deal with UK/Holland by Saturday cannot be ruled out. Yet we’re set to vote in a referendum in two days’ time. The mind boggles. Make no mistake: there is a [...]

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Icesave talks break down and UK/Holland leak a document

February 25, 2010

So, Icesave talks between Iceland and the UK/Holland broke down this evening. The Brits accuse the Icelanders of walking out, as per this report from Channel 4 in the UK, which quotes a Treasury spokesman: The UK and Dutch Governments are disappointed that despite their best efforts over the past year and a half that [...]

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Classified Icesave document leaked from US Embassy

February 18, 2010

Curious development this evening. A classified document was leaked from the American Embassy in Reykjavík describing a meeting between Icelandic officials from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs with Embassy officials. The Icelanders’ agenda was to secure support from the US government in the Icesave matter. The US was, by all appearances, rather blasé about the [...]

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Icesave, starring THE BLOB

February 16, 2010

So, Iceland has a new Icesave negotiating committee that headed over to London today for talks. The Ministry of Finance sent out a press release so dry it crackles. Subject: The Icesave issue discussed in London Press release No. 5/2010 The negotiation committee representing the Icelandic government met today with representatives of the UK and [...]

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The mystery of the excluded parties

January 28, 2010

The most bizarre news item of the day was that our Finance Minister Steingrímur J. Sigfússon has gone off to the UK and Holland to discuss the Icesave monster with high ranking officials — along with the leaders of the Independence and Progressive Parties [Bjarni Benediktsson and Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson]. I suppose it’s designed to [...]

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And so, all the animals in the forest decided to be friends

January 12, 2010

Yesterday, our fearless leaders [Jóhanna and Steingrímur] decided to call a meeting of the heads of all the political parties in Iceland’s parliament. At the meeting, all of them – including the Independence and Progressive Parties – agreed to join forces in order to work towards a solution to the Icesave mess – to present [...]

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A rundown of the Assembly results

November 15, 2009

I’ve been going through the results from yesterday’s National Assembly and am well and truly inspired by what I see. Granted, all the work needed to implement these things still remains, and there are not many concrete suggestions — but the vision is there, and there are many of us who consider that vitally important. [...]

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