Iceland Roundup: Woke Flags, Woke Towers, Stupid Crime, Tesla Cat, AMOC Collapse

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Grapevine journalist Jóhannes Bjarkason and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to round up the stories making headlines in recent weeks.

In this episode, we cover several stories: Independence Party members in Reykjavík City Council have suggested that Reykjavík design its own “Peace Flag” to use instead of flags such as the Ukrainian or Palestinian flags when condemning war and expressing solidarity. Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir, chair of Efling, Iceland’s largest union, called the idea “woke” and “useless,” also dismissing Yoko Ono’s Peace Tower artwork on Viðey Island as equally “woke” and “useless”; The ATM heist in Mosfellsbær has been solved. The perpetrator — a man in his forties — has confessed to stealing the machine, which was found late last week near its original location in Hólmsheiði. The 22 million ISK in cash inside was still there. The man also admitted to stealing cash bags in Kópavogur last year and is a witness in the so-called Þorlákshöfn case; The Independence Party has appointed a new chairman of its parliamentary group: Ólafur Adolfsson, a newly elected MP, who replaces Hildur Sverrisdóttir, known for overseeing this spring’s historic filibuster. Members of the ruling coalition publicly welcomed the change. Ólafur has said the public is “tired of filibustering”; In Seltjarnarnes, police rescued a cat locked inside a Tesla this weekend. The car’s owner had accidentally locked himself out, and when officers arrived, he was attempting to open the vehicle by various means. Police removed parts of the car’s front to access the front trunk, calmed the cat with dried fish, and successfully freed it; Also on Saturday, the Coast Guard helicopter evacuated a woman with a broken bone near Glymur waterfall in Hvalfjörður, while ICE-SAR conducted an extensive search in Grímsnes for a 12-year-old boy visiting Iceland with his family. He was found safe; Meanwhile, scientists have renewed warnings about the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the Atlantic Ocean current system that brings warm water northwards, making Iceland’s climate habitable. A collapse would dramatically cool Iceland while accelerating global warming. A new study suggests such a collapse is more likely than previously thought, though not expected this century.

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