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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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Alex Jurshevski, an expert in the debt problems of nations, advised Icelandic authorities not to accept further loans from the International Monetary Fund in an interview on RÚV’s political chat program Silfur Egils yesterday.
Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
Jurshevski claimed that chaos reigned in Iceland and criticized authorities for not handling the situation of Iceland’s debt to other states professionally. He said it had been a costly mistake to agree to repay the Icesave debt, ruv.is reports.
Then Jurshevski warned Icelandic authorities against accepting further loans from the IMF as they would only be used to pay out glacier bonds.
He argued that the interest payments from these loans would be too much for the Icelandic nation to handle and would lead to further cutbacks in the public sector.
Iceland’s Minister of Economic Affairs Gylfi Magnússon does not agree with Jurshevski, stating that Iceland’s debts are average compared to other Western states. He reasoned it is necessary to have access to foreign loan capital as debts haven’t been repaid.
Not to accept loans from the IMF is the “stupidest idea” he has heard in a long time, Magnússon said, because, along with the Icesave loans, they are the most advantageous loans Iceland has been offered.
The minister called it “preposterous nonsense” to reject the IMF loans because if so, Iceland can’t afford to pay its debts.
Magnússon said it is only half the truth to say that the IMF loans will be used to pay out glacier bonds.
Foreigners no longer have glacier bonds in Iceland but claims in ISK, a couple of hundred billion. They are bound to take them out of the country at some point.
However, in all likelihood, others are prepared to buy those claims at some point in the future, the minister concluded.
Click here to watch the interview with Jurshevski and here to read more about Iceland and the IMF.
A skeleton from a person who suffered from the Paget’s disease of bone was unearthed this week during an archeological excavation project at Skriduklaustur in east Iceland, where a monastery was once operated.
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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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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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