Iceland

Iceland Elects Three Pirate Party MPs

Scott Neuman — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:07:00 +0000

Iceland has become the first country to elect members of parliament from the Pirate Party — an international online freedom movement.

Three Pirate Party MPs will take seats following historic polls in Iceland that saw a new coalition come to power on a promise of easing economic austerity measures.

According to The Associated Press:

"The conservative Independence Party and rural-based Progressive Party — who governed Iceland for decades before the 2008 [economic] crash — each had 19 seats in Iceland's 63-seat parliament, the Althingi.

App Helps Icelanders Avoid Dating Family

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:08:00 +0000

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm David Greene.

Dating can be tough in a small country like Iceland. There are only 320,000 people and many of them are distant relatives. So the government came up with an idea. They created a genealogy Web site. There's even a Smartphone app. Just tap phones with your date. And if you happen to share a grandparent, you'll get an alert. If a date is out of the question, the app does also track relatives' birthdays and so you can send them a card.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Iceland's Plan To Ban Online Porn Spurs Outrage

Krishnadev Calamur — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:53:00 +0000

File this one under Sisyphean tasks: The government of Iceland is drafting plans to ban pornography both online and in print.

Supporters of the ban, proposed by Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson, says it will shield children from harm.

Writing in the Guardian, Halla Gunnarsdottir, political adviser to Jonasson, said:

"The ministry's initiative emerges from an extensive consultation process on sexual violence, encompassing police, child protection specialists, lawyers and academic

Icelandic Herring Had A Tough Winter, But There's Still Herring Ice Cream

Audrey Carlsen — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:43:00 +0000

Icelandic herring have been having a very bad winter. But that may be just a blip in the fish's reinvention as a trendy Nordic nosh.

On Feb. 1, an estimated 22,000 tons of herring were found dead in West Iceland's Kolgrafafjordur fjord.

An International Battle Over One Of The Most Boring Things In Finance

David Kestenbaum — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:38:00 +0000

This week saw the end of a years-long, international, multi-billion-dollar battle over one of the most boring things in finance: savings accounts.

At the center of the battle was Iceland, a tiny country where the banks grew into international behemoths during the credit bubble.

The banks got so big partly by convincing foreigners to open up online savings accounts. In particular, lots of people in England and Netherlands opened up "ICESAVE accounts" with a bank called Landsbanki.