Eideard

British photographer, James Appleton from Cambridge, has spent the past seven years capturing the volatile landscapes of Iceland – and was rewarded with shots of an erupting volcano and the northern lights. He says: “I became aware of the Fimmvörðuháls volcano through a friend of mine who is an Icelandic vulcanologist. I knew immediately I had to try and get out to see it. On the plane flying over to Iceland I had in my mind’s eye the perfect image I wanted to see, which was exactly this combination of an erupting volcano and the Aurora Borealis. I never dared to hope it might actually happen, but seeing it for real put all the hairs on the back of my neck up. When I saw the photographs come through the camera I was jumping around with excitement.”

Wow!

Ireland and Iceland are seeking to fuel their hard-hit economies and exploit their position on the western edge of Europe with new data centers to be connected via a new, $300 million transatlantic telecoms cable by 2013.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny unveiled the project — which Ireland hopes will help in its ambition in becoming a global hub for cloud computing — on Thursday at Dublin Castle. “This will give great connectivity around the whole country, which is vitally important for attracting high tech investment in the future,” Irish government spokesman Tom McLoughlin said.

Demand for remote data centers is increasing, boosted by the rising trend of so-called cloud computing, where information is stored and processed at massive remote data centers. Ireland’s temperate climate suits the centers, which require huge amounts of power to run and to prevent from overheating.

Iceland, located between North America and northern Europe, and recovering from its own economic crisis, hopes the new, larger cable will help it to benefit from its renewable hydro and geothermal energy resources for data centers…

U.S.-based startup Emerald Networks on Thursday joined a race to build the first new transatlantic telecommunication cable since 2003, linking Ireland and Iceland to North America…

It has picked TE SubCom, a unit of U.S. firm TE Connectivity, to supply the cable and install it. As existing cables in the Atlantic are aging, Emerald is seeking to first grab a share of their data traffic and then focus on growing through serving data centers…

Sembler said a few dozen Forbes 500 companies have already studied setting up a data center in Iceland. One of the first global players to move there has been Norway’s Opera Software, maker of world’s most-used mobile browser, which opened its Iceland data center last year…

Internet groups are trying to use Nordic locations to benefit from natural cooling, with Facebook building a center in Sweden and Google opening a data center in Finland on the site of an old paper mill.

Keep on rocking in the [cooler, temperate, northern] Free World.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde has appeared at a special court on charges of “failures of ministerial responsibility” in his handling of the 2008 financial crisis.

The country’s three main banks collapsed amid economic turmoil.

The failure of Icesave, which hit thousands of savers in the UK and Netherlands, led to a dispute over compensation, which remains unresolved…

The two-hour hearing finished at midday, and a decision is expected within three weeks.

Mr Haarde, who pleaded not guilty, said as he left the courthouse: “My conscience is clear. And now I wait for the result of the court whether it comes in a few weeks or next year with a verdict.”

The hearing was held before the Landsdomur court, a special body to try cabinet ministers, which has never before heard a case.

Public opinion is divided, with some people seeing the trial of Mr Haarde as scapegoating, and others arguing that public accountability is essential following the country’s financial collapse.

Iceland was plunged into a deep recession following the collapse of its three leading banks, including Icesave’s parent company Landsbanki, in autumn 2008.

Mr Haarde, 60, led the Independence Party government at the time…

The charges carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

One would expect the defendant in any trial as serious as this to protest its worthiness to be heard. Yet there is sufficient respect for law and justice to have it proceed, treated as a legal proceeding should be dealt with.

Clinton’s impeachment for being silly and stupid about sex was rococo enough. Bush accepting, his Oil Patch handlers accepting – the right of the nation to put his incompetence and corruption on trial would still be going on – with no end in sight.

Iceland’s interior ministry said Thursday it had received a request from a Chinese investor and property developer for permission to buy a tract of Icelandic land for a tourist resort.

Huang Nubo is seeking an exemption to an Icelandic law that bans the sale of land to citizens outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

“This request will be taken into consideration in the ministry, like all other requests, since the purchase is illegal unless there is a special exemption,” Icelandic Interior Minister Oegmundur Jonasson told AFP…

Oegmundur has previously said that the future of natural resources, such as water, on the land in question would have to be taken into account. The piece of land is located on the northeastern part of the island.

According to the Financial Times, Huang Nubo, a former Chinese government official, plans to buy 300 square kilometres of land and invest a total of $100 million to build a luxury resort with a hotel, golf course and sports facilities…

Forbes ranked Huang as China’s 161st richest man in 2010, with a net worth of $890 million. His company, Zhongkun Group, owns resorts and tourist facilities across China and around the world.

I wonder if Huang Nubo has ever been in Iceland. A golf course would be a trip – given typical wind conditions in Iceland.

Most islands tend to be a bit windy. Iceland tends to be “lot” windy. The usual instruction for casting a salmon lure on one of the better angling rivers is to pick a spot with the wind behind you – hold fast to your fishing rod and toss the lure up into the air directly overhead. It will travel dozens of meters before landing on the river’s surface.

In the global war against smoking, Europe remains a difficult battlefront. Despite ad campaigns featuring grisly images of rotting lungs and crumbling teeth, “the beautiful continent” continues to have the highest smoking rate in the world.

So forgive Iceland for considering something truly radical — prescription-only cigarettes. Under proposed legislation, only those with valid medical certificates would be permitted to buy cigarettes from pharmacies.

“I think Iceland can be a test tube to try out progressive things because we are a small country and we don’t have a massive lobby for tobacco,” said Thorarinn Gudnason, a cardiologist at Landspitali University Hospital in Rejkyavik. ”We are taking care of people who are dying of this disease in their 40s and we’re fed up with it.”

Iceland’s smoking rate is already one of the lowest in Europe. Just 15 per cent of the population lights up compared to an average of 31 per cent across the continent. However, the story among young Icelanders is more worrisome: 20 per cent of children and teenagers smoke. Dr. Gudnason hopes the new plan will dramatically reduce that figure and cut overall smoking rates to less than 10 per cent…

Tobacco and nicotine would be classified as addictive drugs and second-hand smoke would be treated and controlled like other carcinogenic substances. Lighting up in public places such as parks and in cars with children would be outlawed.

Eventually, smokers who are unable to kick the habit through treatment and various addiction programs — or those smokers who simply refuse to quit — may get a prescription for tobacco from their doctors. Once cigarettes become available only through physicians, the price will go down again — as it would be unfair to tax those unable to quit supporters of the plan say.

“Tobacco is very addictive and we would recognize them as addicts,” said Ms. Fridleifsdottir.

Bravo! Once again the political side of Iceland is willing to experiment with a daring approach to a disgusting problem. It would force a lot of people with lazy personal ethics to confront a personal problem. They can still maintain their addiction if they wish.

Saving their lives is a side effect.

President Olafur Grimsson
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Icelanders rejected a depositor claims accord with the U.K. and Netherlands, forcing an international court battle that the island’s government said will probably last a year.

A final count showed 59.7 percent of voters said no to the so-called Icesave agreement, while 40.1 percent said yes, with voter turnout estimated at 75 percent…

… Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said in an interview with broadcaster RUV, immediately after the first results were published. “We will, of course, defend Iceland’s interests vigorously in this matter.”

The government had hoped an Icesave deal would restore investor and diplomatic relations and end the financial isolation that has stalled Iceland’s resurrection from its 2008 banking collapse. The failure of Landsbanki Islands hf, which offered the high-yielding Icesave accounts over the internet, threatened to leave 350,000 British and Dutch depositors in the lurch. They were repaid by their governments, which are now turning to the Icelandic state for compensation…

President Olafur R. Grimsson said the referendum “enabled the nation to regain its democratic self-confidence and to express sovereign authority in its own affairs,” in a speech yesterday. Three days after his veto, he said he rejected the accord because Iceland’s legal obligation to pay is “unclear,” adding the matter shows that European banking laws haven’t been “thoroughly thought out.”

The result of the Icesave referendum shows most voters agree…

The latest estimates of Landsbanki’s assets “indicate that the estate will be able to pay over 90 percent of claims for deposits,” the government said in a statement. Some estimates even put the coverage ratio at 100 percent, it said.

“Hence, the Netherlands and the U.K. will receive a refund of the funds spent to compensate depositors, regardless of the judicial process which will now be launched,” Iceland Finance Ministry spokeswoman Rosa Bjork Brynjolfsdottir said.

Bravo to the people of Iceland for sticking to their guns. Bailouts, nationalization,TARP programs all had different goals and dramatically different contexts from each other. The people of Iceland see a difference that the bankers and politicians of the Netherlands and the UK don’t see – or don’t care about.

Iceland is a nation I love not only for the natural wonders of the nation; but, their history of fighting for peoples’ rights. They have the longest-sitting democratic parliament in the world – and could offer about a hundred lessons to the Killer Klowns in Kongress.

Demonstrators gathered outside Parliament in Reykjavik

Iceland emerged from recession in the third quarter, official data showed Tuesday, returning to growth for the first time since its financial system collapsed at the height of the crisis in 2008.

Iceland’s real gross domestic product grew by 1.2 percent in the July-September period from the previous quarter, the first quarterly increase since the same period in 2008. Iceland entered a slump after its overleveraged financial sector collapsed in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy.

Like Ireland and Greece, Iceland has taken a large dose of austerity measures to rebuild its economy. Unlike Ireland and Greece, however, Iceland allowed private banks to fail, and its currency, the krona, has declined by about 46 percent against the dollar since the start of 2008.

“Excluding the financial system, the real economy is doing well,” Arsaell Valfells, a professor of business and finance at the University of Iceland, said in telephone interview. Retail spending was still shrinking, he said, but the export sector, consisting mainly of fish, aluminum and tourism, was improving.

“We’ve basically gone back to 2003 in terms of the level of standard of living,” he said. The worst has been felt by younger people who borrowed at the height of the bubble and are now having to reduce their debt, he said. “But they’ll come through this,” he added…

The three biggest Icelandic banks, which had expanded aggressively during the credit bubble, all failed and were nationalized in October 2008. Cleaning up the mess left by one of those, the Icesave unit of Landsbanki, has soured relations with Britain and the Netherlands and delayed international aid…

Mr. Valfells said that within a few years Iceland should be able to exit the I.M.F. agreement, and that because of the determination of the Icelandic people, the Icesave problem would be “only a minor issue for the long-term outlook.”

“We will grow out of this,” he said, “and could start now to finance our way out of it.”

Nice to see that sort of pride and determination. I think if there was a government in Eire with more backbone than our own – here in the United States – they could do much the same as Iceland.

Regardless – I know that economists calculating the end of a recession still doesn’t feel like the end. We’re sneaking up on holiday feasts and I for one will be certain to buy some Iceland lamb and Iceland hake.

At 4 a.m. last Thursday, at the end of an all-night session, Iceland’s Parliament, the Althing, voted unanimously in favor of a package of legislation aimed at making the country a haven for freedom of expression by offering legal protection to whistle-blower Web sites like WikiLeaks, which helped to craft the proposal…

…Iceland hoped to become “the inverse of a tax haven,” by offering journalists and publishers some of the most aggressive protections for free speech and investigative journalism in the world. “They are trying to make everything opaque,” she said. “We are trying to make it transparent…”

The plan to make Iceland a world leader in journalism protection took shape in December with the assistance of two leaders of the whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks.org, Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt, whose publish-nearly-anything ideology has given them personal experience with news media laws around the globe…

Monroe Price, who runs a program in comparative media law at the University of Oxford, told The Independent in London, “As an exercise in aspirations, it’s a bold and important endeavor.” But, he added, “if it’s a significant issue like a national security question, then the charging jurisdiction will figure out ways of asserting its power.”

Does he really mean that bastions of Free Speech and Liberty like the UK and US might be willing to break or band the law in pursuit of preserving their political will?

You betcha!

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Iceland, the only country in the world to have an openly gay head of state, has passed a law allowing same-sex partners to get married in a vote which met with no political resistance.

The Althingi parliament voted 49 to zero to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between “man and man, woman and woman,” in addition to unions between men and women.

The longest-lived democratic parliament in the world, BTW. Meeting since the year 930.

Iceland, a socially tolerant island nation of about 320,000 people, became the first country to elect an openly gay head of state in 2009 when Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir became prime minister after being nominated by her party.

“The attitude in Iceland is fairly pragmatic,” said Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, a political scientist at the University of Iceland. “It (gay marriage) has not been a big issue in national politics — it’s not been controversial…”

Iceland’s protestant church has yet to decide whether to allow same-sex marriages in church, although the law says “ministers will always be free to perform (gay) marriage ceremonies, but never obliged to.”

Too bad that here in “the land of the free”, civil rights are still constrained by churches, political parties, state and federal governments – generally for one or another piece-of-crap superstition.

A party that calls itself “the Best” has won local elections in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik.

The Best Party, founded by comedian Jon Gnarr, secured 34.7% of the vote, ahead of the Independence Party’s 33.6%.

Its campaign video featured candidates singing to the tune of Tina Turner’s “Simply The Best”.

Key pledges included “sustainable transparency”, free towels at all swimming pools and a new polar bear for the city zoo.

The party also called for a Disneyland at the airport and a “drug-free parliament” by 2020…

Commentators suggest it has benefited from voters’ loss of trust in government and the establishment in the wake of the country’s banking collapse in 2008.

Can we get John Stewart to campaign for Chairman of the Teabaggers?