Scientists from the Icelandic Meteorological Office and the Institute of Earth Sciences, together with representatives of the Civil Protection in Iceland, met today to discuss the on-going unrest at the Bárðarbunga volcano. These are the conclusions of the meeting: • Intense seismicity continues. Over 700 earthquakes have been recorded since midnight. Earthquakes are occurring mostly […]...
The free trade agreement (FTA) between Iceland and China, which was signed last month, will officially begin on 1 July. It is the first time China has agreed an FTA with a European country. Talks first started in December 2006, but were put on hold in 2009. However, in April 2012, the respective leaders of […]...
Sweden forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic has spoken of his concern about the national side’s future because of the lack of first-team action young players are getting in the Swedish league and Swedes overseas are getting in foreign leagues. The Paris Saint-Germain man, 32, said that the country will not qualify for major tournaments if the policy […]...
A Swedish Lego enthusiast is to try and sell his 300kg collection in a bid to save his marriage. The man, from Varberg in western Sweden, posted an advert on buy-sell website Blocket, titled ‘300kg Lego – save my marriage’. He explained underneath that if someone buys the collection they could make a difference and […]...
Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has insisted that failed bank LBI hf will not be exempt to the country’s capital controls. Speaking to reporters in the capital Reykjavik, he said that relieving the controls for one bank without having a solution that allows a general lifting was “out of the question”. He said it […]...
Iceland and Norway have signed up to join the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. In doing so, the Scandinavian nations have become the first countries outside the EU to associate with the seven-year initiative. The decision, which was made at a European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Committee meeting, allows companies and researchers from […]...
Stockholm municipality has said a soup kitchen that has fed the city’s homeless for two years has to move on before it turns the city square “into a zoo”. Soup Kitchen Stockholm’s Elin Jakobsson reacted angrily to the news, saying that water is thrown over beggars and Nazis can march freely, but to create a […]...
Norwegian yachtsman Thomas Tangvald, who was en route from French Guiana to the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, is lost at sea somewhere off the Amazon. The 37-year-old boating enthusiast, who lost his mother to a pirate attack in the Philippines in 1979 and his father in a shipwreck off the Netherlands Antilles in […]...
Hope is building at Rauna in Lapland about the prospect of polar bear cubs being born in the town’s zoo. Zookeepers have revealed that two of the polar bears – Manasse and Venus – mated recently, increasing hopes that some baby bears could be on the way later in the year. Mari Heikkila, a worker […]...
Norway has been named the most gay-friendly country in the Nordics, according to an index that notes whether legislation respects the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) community’s rights. In 2013, Sweden was named as the world’s most gay-friendly holiday destination, with Norway coming back in 10th place. However, the latest index from the […]...
Six peacekeepers left Finland for the Central African Republic (CAR) capital Bangui on Monday, carrying 68 tonnes of cargo, and a further 24 will join them by the end of the week. The Nordic country had to send the cargo in a 747 jet because the troubled African country is landlocked so it could not […]...
It has been noted that the safest way for visitors looking to travel off road in Iceland are via 4×4 buses, as those who are unfamiliar with Iceland’s landscape can often find themselves hitting complications when it comes to river-crossing and other challenges. Safetravel.is states that the driving conditions in Iceland are often quite unlike […]...
A Swedish store manager has been charged with two counts of harassment for soaking a beggar with water outside his Gothenburg shop in March. The first charge was in connection with an incident on 10 March when the Hemköp supermarket manager threw a warm bucket of water over his own window and soaked the beggar […]...
Danish-Iranian artist Firoozeh Bazrafkan has posed nude while Quran passages are read out, despite the threats her work is causing. The artist and blogger is renowned for including nudity, shredded Qurans, blasphemy and Nazi hymns in her work, but these themes are the reason she now lives a life in which she threatened and harassed […]...
Baltasar Kormákur, the renowned Icelandic filmmaker, is in talks to direct the drama Reykjavik. The movie is about the Reykjavik Summit in 1986 between Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan in the Icelandic capital that brought an end to the Cold War. With talk of a nuclear war breaking out, the […]...
New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that Iceland’s men have the longest life expectancy. New research and studies have shown that the life expectancy all around the world is growing, with Iceland home to the oldest males and Japan to the oldest females. The World Health Organization researchers said that the […]...
Denmark should withdraw from next year’s Eurovision Song Contest after Austrian drag singer Conchita Wurst won this year’s contest in Copenhagen, according to Christian party Kristendemokraterne leader Stig Grenov. Grenov said this year’s contest was “against Christian values”, noting that it has been labelled as a victory for tolerance but it wasn’t that at all. […]...
Iceland says it has launched a debt cancellation initiative for mortgage holders which is likely to benefit half the households in the country. Each debt could see as much as 26,000 euros knocked off the total due. On Sunday, the country’s tax authorities launched the leidretting.is website, where homeowners can file their application. Some 5,000 […]...
The sale of alcohol to underage drinkers in spring is keeping police in Finland busy as they hand out fines to both the sellers and their young customers. It is now the busiest time of year for police to enforce alcohol laws as bars start opening their terraces after the snow melts and the […]...
Greenland has revealed that it is to give 52 per cent of its total mackerel quota to domestic vessels. Greenland has a total allowable catch of 100,000 metric tonnes this year and, to date, 37 applications have been handed in for the fishery, totaling over 300,000 tonnes of mackerel catches, revealed the country’s department […]...