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 that Icelandic law prohibits bringing pets to Iceland—  even pets as adorable as greasy, hissing, crawling cockroaches the size of your thumb.

Speaking of pets, an Akureyri man recently found himself on the wrong end of the law for burying his beloved, deceased pet chihuahua, Prins, in his backyard. This is apparently illegal, as health authorities phoned him, demanding he disinter the body and bury it somewhere else. He told reporters that he has no intention of doing this. And good on him for that. We saw ‘Pet Sematary’. We know what happens.

Remember that smarmy bellend with the orange Range Rover who was double-parking across disabled spaces, and how he bragged that he pays less in fines than he would for legal parking? Well, Mr. Range Rover’s bragging days are over, if the City of Reykjavík has anything to say about it. They recently doubled fines for parking illegally. Now leaving your car in a disabled space could run you 20,000 ISK. That’s like, two weeks of groceries right there. Think about it!

It is possible that we may soon have a court decision on the legal definition of a Facebook “Like.” The defence team for former Minister of the Interior assistant Gísli Freyr Valdórsson has argued that the prosecution of their client is prejudicially motivated, on the evidence of the fact that said prosecutor “Liked” a less-than-flattering news story about Gísli Freyr. While the court is unlikely to agree, this may be because they are currently backlogged with rulings about whether “Pokes” are harassment and if “See Friendship” constitutes stalking.

Despite what you may have seen on television, farming is a profession fraught with peril: foul weather, pests, and of course, sheep-eating ravens are all hazards the Icelandic farmer must contend with. Farmer Indriði Aðalsteinsson discovered the latter himself, when two ravens murdered his spotted ewe during the night. He has plotted revenge, which is to be expected. Less expected: he was reportedly so angry at the ravens that he composed a poem about them. Let that be a lesson to any other ravens reading this right now.

In probably the best news we’ve heard all year, Afghan asylum seeker Ghasem Mohammadi has finally been granted asylum in Iceland. The process was very simple, really. All he had to do was come here; wait two years without being allowed to work; go on a hunger strike, inspiring people to hold protests and distribute a petition; and put continuous legal pressure on the Ministry of the Interior to grant him the privilege of living in Iceland. Easy peasy! (Seriously, congratulations, Ghasem, and welcome to your new home.)

Meanwhile the volcanic eruption at Holuhraun rages on with no end in sight. There is a steady stream of lava, tons of earthquakes happening every day, and loads of gas pollution, some of which has made its way to the South West of Iceland. But don’t worry, you’re relatively safe unless you try going to the eruption site itself. That didn’t stop super-wealthy Kazakh fashion icon Goga Ashkenazi flying to eruption and dancing there with her entourage—not cool, Goga, totally not cool.

The upset of the month has to be Rick “The Horror” Story’s victory over Icelandic mixed martial artist Gunnar Nelson, who was until then undefeated. Their match in Sweden was meant to showcase Gunnar’s fighting prowess and move him into the top ten ranking of his weight class—Gunnar instead showed that he was as humble as ever in defeat.