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TOPIC: iceland

Green

She's The Best Hope Of Knowing When Iceland's Most Dangerous Volcano Will Erupt

Originally from Tuscany, Sara Barsotti has spent the past decade leading the task force monitoring Iceland's major volcanic eruption threat, following all the warning signs as her family evacuates the small town they've been calling home.

Updated Nov. 17, 2023 at 6:40 p.m.

REYKJAVÍK — "We haven't slept since Friday; we're extremely tired. We look at each other, colleagues with red eyes and contorted faces, forcing each other to go home and rest for a few hours. But then the phone never stops ringing, the situation keeps changing, and our minds are always there, trying to understand what is happening and what will happen."

When Sara Barsotti speaks, it's clear that she hasn't lost her Tuscan accent. It's ever-present as she coordinates the volcanic hazard task force from the operational center of the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) – Iceland's volcano observatory. It's the same accent with which she reassures her three children who have felt yet another earthquake in their Reykjavík home, advising them to go to the supermarket to get sushi for dinner because "mom will be very late, and the fridge is empty."

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While she communicates in English with other volcanologists, seismologists, and mathematical model experts in a seemingly endless series of meetings, she switches to Icelandic to update Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir on the evolution of the emergency.

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Occupied Ukraine Votes, Iceland Terror Attack Thwarted, Cancer-Killing Virus

👋 নমস্কার!*

Welcome to Friday, where annexed Ukrainian regions begin voting on joining Russia, Iceland arrests four in country’s first terror plot, and a cold sore virus shows promising results in the fight against cancer. Meanwhile, Firouzeh Nordstrom in Persian-language media Kayhan-London shows how the killing of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s “morality police” betrays a deeply violent and misogynistic society.

[*Nômôskar - Bengali]

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Friday's The New Saturday? Four-Day Work Week Tested Around Europe

As Britain begins the world's largest trial of the four-day work week, other European nations are experimenting with the idea too. Could a permanent three-day weekend be in reach for workers elsewhere?

PARIS - Since remote work has become part of normal life in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are now exploring other options to reduce the amount of time that employees spend in the office. One popular but controversial solution is the four-day work week. Europe is, not surprisingly, the first place to begin testing the feasibility of employees working one fewer day a week without sacrificing any of their pay.

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Why Iceland Is Fighting A COVID Surge Without Vaccine Mandates

Iceland has been one of Europe’s COVID-19 hot spots the past few months, but citizens' vaccination status doesn’t affect their access to public spaces. It is a conscious choice in a small nation to try to avoid conflict in society, and it seems to be working. But death rates are being kept down for one main reason: so many people were already vaccinated anyway.

REYKJAVIK — Iceland is one of the countries in Europe where, up until recently, everything seemed to be almost back to normal. The island nation celebrated its “Freedom Day” last autumn, and even before that was the envy of many other European countries, successfully navigating its way through various waves with relatively few restrictions and a low death rate.

Its isolated position in the North Atlantic wasn’t the only factor. Experts say the country’s effective contact-tracing system and testing strategy were key. Until Omicron arrived on the scene. The new variant sparked the country’s biggest wave since the start of the pandemic.

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Green
Carl Karlsson

Six Massive Clean Energy Projects That Offer A Shot Of Climate Hope

Last fall's COP26 climate summit showed the way to, not, move forward on tackling the climate crisis. But all's not lost. From the biggest solar farm in the world to a huge storage plant for C02, here are some of the largest renewable energy projects in the pipeline around the globe.

Following a decade-long fanfare of private and government pledges to combat the warming of the planet, last month’s United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow painted a grim picture of the world’s climate progress. The takeaway: the world is on course to overshoot the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Accords in all but the most optimistic scenario, which would require all announced targets to be fully implemented.

That scenario, however, seems distant today as the pivot to a sustainable energy market is unevenly distributed across the globe, with many fossil-fuel-dependent countries still struggling to close the energy gap as demand for power increases. What is worse, while some countries have improved their ambitions, others slipped backward at COP26 by retracting set climate targets.

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Russia
Carl-Johan Karlsson

How Climate Consensus Could Cool Appetite For Arctic Exploitation

As global warming melts the ice covering parts of the Arctic Ocean, new opportunities are opening up for the exploration of natural resources, including oil. But the accelerating cooperation on climate objectives could wind up saving the Arctic from both business and military interests.

Analysis

PARISMoscow is militarizing the North Pole ... China claims near-arctic state status ... Trump wants to buy Greenland ...

That sampling of headlines from the last few years is a testament to the emergence of the Arctic as a frosty point of potential conflict among the major geopolitical force reshaping our world. Most would still struggle to imagine why this distant place of drifting ice blocks and polar bears, historically considered a place too inaccessible and distant for governments to pay any mind, is suddenly emerging as a frontier of global power play.

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blog
Bertrand Hauger

The Quiet Capital

Reykjavik isn't only the world's northernmost capital, it's also one of the quietest. Overlooking Iceland"s beautiful Faxa Bay, the unassuming city of then 110,000 souls looked very peaceful all these years later, with its peculiar-looking church rising in the distance.

food / travel
Philippe Chassepot

The Coolest Set, A Local Eye On Hollywood's Iceland Invasion

DJUPAVIK — About a century ago, farmers from the remote region of Arneshreppur didn't know the value of money. In general, bartering was still the only source of survival in this northwestern region, largely cut off from the rest of the island nation. Then, in 1934, a herring factory was opened in the small village of Djupavik.

Eventually more than 300 more people settled in the area over the subsequent ten years, before the fish became scarce, and the factory's inevitable closing in 1954 that sank the fjord region back into despair.

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LGBTQ Plus
Sadia Rao

5 LGBT Prime Ministers Around The World

As Germany legalizes gay marriage and Ana Brnabic becomes Serbia's prime minister, Worldcrunch celebrates openly gay heads of government around the world.

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blog

Same Faith, Different Styles

The region I hail from in eastern France is a Lutheran Protestant enclave in a predominantly Catholic country. But the churches in my neck of the woods are considerably more subdued than Reykjavik's Lutheran Hallgrímskirkja in Iceland.

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blog

The Edge Of The World

Though definitely not the most impressive watefalls I got to see, the Gullfoss cataract (not far from other popular Icelandic landmarks like Þingvellir or the "father of all geysers") gives the eerie impression that the water disappears into the earth.

blog

No Bumps In Translation

A speed bump sign in Reykjavik, Iceland. When I don't understand the language, I'm always grateful to see road signs that translate across borders.