RVK Newscast 162: Rage Against The Danes

Welcome to back to RVK Newscast with editor-in-chief of Reykjavík Grapevine, Valur Grettison, joined by his trusty Chief Morale Officer, Pollý. In Icelandic news today: Covid herd immunity plans, the third oldest Icelandic photograph discovered, and the god damn Danes!

Looser COVID-19 restrictions are expected to be announced tomorrow, but it will probably not be as radical as people want to see. The reason for the reduction in restrictions is that only 0.2% of the those who have contracted the Omicron variant end up at hospital, despite extremely high levels of infection in Iceland. Read our latest Covid-19 report here.

Win a signed copy of the new book by nature photographer RAX! Just sign up for our newsletter here before 1500 Icelandic time on Jan 28th, and answer the question in the next one.

The third-oldest photograph taken in Iceland has been found in the Danish Royal Photo album in Denmark. The photo was originally wrongly attributed to a different photographer and therefore considered to be much more recent, but a researcher discovered it was actually taken by French photographer Louis Rousseau, who traveled across the Arctic in 1856. Read more here.

And a Border Collie named Píla, who was lost after being scared by fireworks on the 6th of January, has been reunited with her family after a dramatic rescue. Read more here.

And finally, to the Danes! Icelanders are pretty pissed after the Danish men’s handball team lost their match to the French yesterday evening. If the Danes had won, the Icelandic team would have moved on to the semi-finals, whereas now they have to fight it out for fifth place with the Norwegians. Unrelated to this–or so we’re lead to believe–Pirate Party MP Björn Leví Gunnarsson has put forward a parliamentary proposal to have the Danish crown removed from the top of the Icelandic parliamentary building. Read more here.

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