Reykjavík’s concert hall and conference center, Harpa, was buzzing as Sónar, international festival of advanced music, was held there for the second time. Icenews covers the highlights. Sónar, international festival of advanced music and new media art, was held in Reykjavík for the second time. The festival started February 13th and took guests on a […]...
A dragon appears as the Northern Lights dance across the Arctic sky. ...
The Finnish Invention Foundation finances around 150 new inventions each year, with enthusiastic Finns coming up with a whopping 15,000 new ideas annually. The organisation’s director Juha Jutila said the number of inventions shows Finnish people’s ability to solve problems. He noted that every Monday his team looks through the new ideas and almost every […]...
On the back of three failed attempts to give an unused car park in Copenhagen an LGBT-themed name, the City Council has finally agreed to name it Regnbuepladsen (Rainbow Square). Morten Kabell, Copenhagen’s deputy mayor for technical and environmental affairs, said he is pleased they have reached a broad political agreement to support the liberal […]...
t reached into my wallet to get out a single krona note. Even the coat check at a nightclub in Reykjavik breezily handed over a payment machine for the 250ISK (£1.30) fee. The buses don't take cash; taxis assume you are paying by card; coffee shops expect you to wave the plastic for the merest Americano. Iceland is on the way to becoming the first cashless society in the world, although Sweden is giving...
British city financier Edi Truell has spoken of his ambitious plans to develop the longest undersea power cable in the world, in an attempt to power two million UK homes with electricity from Iceland. Truell has spoken to US and Canadian investors about financing the £4bn needed for such a project, named IceLink, which would […]...
Finnish ski jumper Janne Ahonen has criticised the lack of support received by his countrymen. Ahonen, who recently came out of retirement in order to compete at the Sochi Winter Olympics, is his country’s main medal hope in the ski jumping. In an amazing career, he has won five World Championships gold medals, and claimed […]...
Despite around 13,000 people from other countries being granted Norwegian citizenship last year, record high numbers are getting denied. Head of the UDI residence permit department Karl Erik Sjøholt explained that the record number of rejections is not necessarily down to a greater number of forged documents, but rather to the Norwegian authorities becoming better […]...
A Swedish Social Democrat has quit after being caught stealing a bottle of whiskey from a state-run liquor Systembolaget store. Stockholm shadow deputy mayor Tomas Rudin was caught in possession of the unpaid for whiskey bottle by a female security guard on 1 February. The guard had spotted Rudin place the bottle in his jacket […]...
A Swedish landlord is under investigation after police were told he demanded sex from a tenant in exchange for a flat he was renting out. The man, from the southern city of Malmö, is being investigated for blackmail and sexual molestation when contacting a 24-year-old girl about renting the apartment. He is alleged to have […]...
Finn Jyri Reinikka has completed his 800km run in Africa to raise awareness about the plight of the mountain gorilla. The Hameenlinna resident said he planned to run as many kilometres as there were of the endangered gorillas left in the world. He had vowed to run 800 kilometres in 21 days, and stayed true to […]...
s happiness, its restaurants, or TV dramas; Sweden's gender equality, crime novels and retail giants; Finland's schools; Norway's oil wealth and weird songs about foxes; or Iceland's bounce-back from the financial abyss, we have an insatiable appetite for positive Nordic news stories. After decades dreaming of life among olive trees and vineyards, these days for some reason, we Brits are now projecting...
Lapland loses out on millions of euros in tourism money each year because of poor flight connections, a Lapland Regional Council study has shown. The regional council surveyed tour operators across Finland and discovered that four in five had lost sales during the last two years because of poor flight connections. Hanne Junnilainen, an engineer […]...
Norway’s biggest energy company Statoil is considering quitting west Greenland in an effort to cut costs. The exploration licences are something the company is thinking about giving up as they are extremely expensive. Head of exploration Tim Dodson explained that Statoil plans to be pickier about where it explores in the future because of factors such […]...
Icelandic trawler Helga Maria has returned to sea in its new role as a fresh fish catcher. The trawler, which was previously named the Haraldur Kristjánsson, and sister ship Sjöli HF, were Iceland’s first freezer trawlers when they arrived at the North Atlantic nation 25 years ago. However, their owners HB Grandi made the decision to […]...
s live review of the New Mendicants Particularly assiduous fans of singer-songwriter John Grant will already know about Iceland's hottest new export, Ásgeir Trausti Einarsson , and his debut album. Grant, a confirmed polyglot, was asked to do the English translations of the lyrics on Ásgeir's Dýrð í Dauðaþögn , which came out in Iceland last year. At the time, Grant was in Iceland working on his most...
A fire at Norway’s heritage village of Lærdalsøyri has destroyed dozens of buildings last Saturday night and left scores of people needing hospital treatment. The heritage village, which is famous for its wooden buildings, is located in Lærdal, on the southern Sognefjord fjord, and home to around 1,150 people. Many people had to be evacuated as […]...
Environmentalists have welcomed the news that a controversial whale meal beer has been banned by Icelandic authorities. The idea for the beer was dreamt up by local brewery Steðji and whaling company Hvalur. The beverage contained whale meal, something produced when reducing the whales’ bones and meat to oil. Dolphin Conservation spokesman Danny Groves noted […]...
Denmark is set to reopen its embassy in the Philippines capital Manila in August after closing its doors back in 2002, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed. Denmark’s non-resident ambassador to the Philippines, Ambassador Nicolai Ruge, who is based in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, passed the news on to the DFA’s Assistant Secretary […]...
Forty-eight reindeer in northern Sweden have been killed after being hit by a train they were trying to outrun, according to transport officials. The reindeer, which are important for many people’s livelihoods in the remote north of the country, were killed on Saturday just outside the village of Kaitum in Laponia. A reindeer rancher from […]...