As of last week, The Iceland Weather Report, Iceland’s most frequently-visited English-language blog by journalist/writer/translator Alda Sigmundsdóttir, who was nominated for a Bloggie last year, is featuring regular interviews with Icelanders who are making significant contributions to the discourse on how to build a “New Iceland.”
The objective, Sigmundsdóttir says, is to give non-Icelandic speakers some insight into the current debate in Iceland and how Icelanders themselves view their current predicament and the changes they would like to see implemented.
“Iceland at the present time is a boiling cauldron of ideas, energy and debate. There is great dissatisfaction with the government, which many people see as impotent and lacking in direction, and grassroots organizations have sprung up widely in order to address the important issues at hand,” Sigmundsdóttir describes. “Individuals from all walks of life are speaking out and many are presenting fascinating, creative, and even brilliant solutions and ideas on how to facilitate change.”
The first interview features Thorvaldur Gylfason, one of Iceland’s most respected economists and one of the most cogent contributors to the current debate, discussing why the Icelandic government needs to resign, why Iceland should join the European Union, and what he sees as the most serious mistakes made by the Icelandic Central Bank and Icelandic government in the lead-up to Iceland’s economic collapse.
Click here to read the interview.
