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Click on the picture to watch this audio slideshow about bird watching at Óshólmar, an area at the mouth of Eyjafjardará river just outside Akureyri in north Iceland, the largest Icelandic town outside the capital region. Not many tourists know about this attraction, which is perfect for a walk in the sun.
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Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
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If the equality regulation of the EEA would apply to the interest rates of the loans the Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund of Iceland is being granted by the British and Dutch states to repay Landsbanki’s Icesave deposits, ISK 185 billion (USD 1.5 billion, EUR 1 billion) could be saved.
Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
That is the conclusion of a new report, written by economist Daniel Gros, who is a member of the board of the Central Bank of Iceland, Morgunbladid reports.
The UK and the Netherlands have granted Iceland loans worth nearly EUR 4 billion (USD 6 billion) at 5.55 percent annual interest rates.
Gros poses the question of whether British and Dutch authorities are not entitled to give Iceland’s Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund the same credit terms as their own funds based on the EEA’s regulations.
Gros points out that the governments of the UK and the Netherlands used the EEA equality regulation to prove that Iceland is obligated to cover deposits in Icelandic banks abroad as well as in Iceland.
At the same time, their depositors’ and investors’ guarantee funds are categorized as “ex post,” which means that they haven’t accumulated sufficient funds and must rely on loans from their respective governments to finance disbursements, Gros argues.
In the UK, the depositors’ and investors’ guarantee fund is given a loan on LIBOR interest with 30 additional basic points, which translates as 1.5 percent interest—four percent lower interest than the loans Iceland is granted.
Furthermore, the British HM Treasury has decided that in the next three years, British financial institutions won’t pay more than GBP 1 billion (USD 1.7 billion, EUR 1.1 billion) in annual interest from loans, which the British Depositors’ and Investors’ Guarantee Fund receives from the HM Treasury.
That would coincide with the maximum annual payment from the Icelandic state to be EUR 5 million (USD 7 million), considering that the British economy is approximately 200 times larger than that of Iceland.
Click here to read more about Icesave.
The human being will be on display for the first time in its natural environment in the Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo next weekend. Visitors can observe three men and one woman in a cage after 10 am on Saturday and Sunday.
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The formal Videy island swim took place yesterday and there were three participants, two men and one woman, Thórdís Hrönn Pálsdóttir, who is the first woman to participate in the Videy swim since 1959.
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The Environment Agency intends to investigate whether the Heath Protection Authority handled the situation in Eskifjördur, east Iceland, in the correct manner when contaminated water from a trawler was carried into the town’s drinking water system.
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One hundred and forty million cubic meters of ash is estimated to have fallen in Iceland during the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull last spring. That excludes all the ash that fell into the ocean and in other countries.
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The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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REVIEWS
Hendrikka Waage is an accomplished jewellery designer whose first children’s book Rikka and Her Magic Ring in Iceland, takes readers on an enchanted and educational journey through the country. It’s beautifully illustrated and a good lesson in geography, but the plot could have been better thought through and the moral of the story is a bit too prominent.
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On the third day of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption we drove from Skógar to Hvolsvöllur in total darkness, a distance of 18 kilometers. It was frightening, the darkness being so impenetrable that we could hardly see out the windows of the car. We could see faint lights from the farm standing right next to the highway.
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Ásmundur Sveinsson is among the foremost Icelandic sculptors. The current exhibition in the Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum in Reykjavík is entitled “I choose women who thrive…” and features women as symbols in the sculptor’s art. The works in the exhibition are selected from his entire career.
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