News in Brief
A roundup of the main news stories from the past weeks
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NEWS IN BRIEF: LATE SEPTEMBER EDITION
Things have taken a turn for the better where Iceland’s acceptance of Syrian refugees is concerned. The Icelandic government voted in favour of offering 2 billion ISK in assistance to go towards welcoming the refugees brought to Iceland, assisting refugee relief efforts…
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News In Brief: End Of August 2015
The end of the summer is upon us, and concluded as per tradition with the festivities at Culture Night, which had a reported 120,000 attendees. That’s almost half the country, so we imagine that any part of Iceland that wasn’t Reykjavík was…
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News In Brief: Early August
Don’t believe the hype. Despite plenty of news coverage detailing dangerous stunts by tourists in the past few months, Icelanders still love you guys! According to a new poll from Market and Media Research, 80% of Icelanders feel good about tourists in…
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News In Brief: End of July 2015
Complaints about Iceland’s tourism industry being poorly organised are hardly new at this point, but this July was particularly shitty. Some tourists at Þingvellir couldn’t find any outdoor toilets, and resorted to pooing close to the graves of famed poets Einar Benediktsson…
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News In Brief: Mid-July 2015
Icelanders’ persistence in hunting fin whales continues to enrage the outside world, most recently attracting the ire of a group of activists, a celebrity and, potentially, a ruthless world leader. Late June, activist group Hard To Port commenced direct action against whalers, kayaking…
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News In Brief: Early June 2015
While the Akureyri town council is busy setting up a one-day women-only council, and Reykjavík city council is putting on a series of events to celebrate the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage, the national government decided to put an end to the…
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News In Brief: May 2015
It’s that time of year again: time to argue about whale hunting! An umbrella organisation of numerous whale-watching companies have criticised whale hunting just outside the Faxaflói Bay area, where a whole lot of whale-watching takes place. Their main argument is that…
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News In Brief: May
As per hallowed Icelandic media tradition, Grapevine joined in the fun of kicking off the month of April with fake news. In fact, all our news on April Fool’s was fake, except for one story. In this case, that the government was…
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News In Brief: March
March saw an epic battle against misogyny in Iceland when the hashtag #FreeTheNipple took social media, the country and eventually the world by storm. Shortly after an Icelandic girl was cyber-bullied by a troll on Twitter for a photograph in which her…
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News In Brief: January 2015
January was just chock full of fun and surprises, news-wise. Well, more surprises than fun, but you take what you can get. One of the more refreshing surprises came shortly after Björk announced her new album, ‘Vulnicura’, would be coming out this…
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News In Brief: December
Last month Norway may have jumped the gun with its gift giving—or rather, by asking the Coast Guard to actually pay for those submachine guns. Despite general public opposition to the militarization of the Icelandic police force, those guys still haven’t given…
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News In Brief: November
Icelanders have once again grown fed up with their elected representatives, staging a massive protest demonstration in front of Alþingi last Monday. Thousands stood at Austurvöllur, Reykjavík’s hip spot for protest meetings, to denounce a veritable cornucopia of bad policy decisions (police…
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News In Brief: October
Anyone with a favourite pet knows how hard it is to be apart when travelling. One man who tried to enter Iceland with three Madagascar hissing cockroaches can attest to this. Despite his professed love for the creatures, customs authorities informed him…
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News In Brief: Late September
Fortunately for us, the Holurhraun eruption (discussed here and here) has not produced airplane-choking ash clouds nor led to devastating glacial flooding. There have, however, been continuous plumes of sulphur dioxide wafting through mostly North and East Iceland from the site of…
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News In Brief: Early September
Remember last issue when we complained that the Bárðarbunga volcano was a huge disappointment for not having the decency to erupt? Well, apparently the volcano gods read the Grapevine, because a huge fissure opened up in Holuhraun and began spewing forth some…
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News In Brief Late August
Unless you’ve been literally living in a cave for the past two weeks, chances are that you’ve heard of the possible eruption at Bárðarbunga peak. In the end (at the time of writing), this insufferable geological formation didn’t have the decency to…
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News In Brief Early August
A whole new angle on the ever-brewing Ministry of the Interior scandal came to light when it was reported that Interior Minister Hanna Birna had contacted then-Commissioner of the Capital Area Police Stefán Eiríksson, in person and by phone, in part to…
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News In Brief Late July
Reykjavík’s streets have seen a lot of marching in the last two weeks. An estimated 11,000 Icelanders participated in the annual SlutWalk which helped to inspire a parliamentary proposal that calls for the improvement of the handling and litigation of sexual assault…
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News In Brief: Late June, 2014
Former prime minister and first openly gay head of state Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir delivered a moving speech about LGBT rights at Toronto’s WorldPride Human Rights Conference last week. In her speech, Jóhanna expressed gratitude for LGBT activists and told the audience that she…
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News In Brief Early June
With a heavy heart Reykjavík waves goodbye to Mayor Jón Gnarr who concluded his four years in office this week. The parting is bittersweet though as the city welcomes Dagur B. Eggertsson in his place. Dagur, no stranger to being mayor of…
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News in Brief Late May
With the municipal elections on June 1, many politicians scrambled at the end of May to tilt public approval in their favour, even if it meant appealing to some voters’ worst tendencies. Five days before the elections, polls showed that the Progressive…
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News in Brief Early May 2014
So, summer has officially begun here in Iceland, which means it’s whaling season again. Whaling is currently permitted in Reykjavík’s Faxaflói Bay—the same waters in which tourists go on whale-watching expeditions. This grim irony has led many whale watching companies to call for a larger “no…
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News In Brief
We’re #1! We’re #1! At what, you ask? Did Iceland finally win Eurovision? No—that hasn’t happened yet (and honestly, our chances aren’t so good). At the Crossfit Games? No, that hasn’t happened yet (although Icelandic contenders, including two-time winner Anníe Mist, represent…