Worldcrunch
👋 Hyvää päivää!* Welcome to Thursday, where a ceasefire in Syria appears to be holding after government soldiers clashed with Druze minority forces, Ukraine gets a new prime minister and our daily quiz question is about a festival in Belgium. Meanwhile, Marcelo Cantelmi for Argentine daily Clarín looks at why Trump’s threats against Brazil aren’t […]
A superhero debut, a pivotal military operation, and the birth of a legendary city.
David Thomas, Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, has been studying dunes for the past 40 years. And no, they’re not “just sand” — far from it.
Originally from Tuscany, Sara Barsotti has spent the past decade leading the task force monitoring Iceland’s major volcanic eruption threat. Evacuations may have saved lives after a major eruption Monday night.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
As Germany legalizes gay marriage and Ana Brnabic becomes Serbia’s prime minister, Worldcrunch celebrates openly gay heads of government around the world.
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. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.
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.
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.
Jornal de Notícias, July 11th “IT’S OURS!” reads Monday’s front page of Lisbon daily Jornal de Notícias, featuring Portugal’s national soccer team celebrating their victory at the Euro 2016 tournament, with coach Fernando Santos lifting the cup. Claiming its first ever European title, Portugal beat host country France 1-0 at Paris’s Stade de France, on […]
Tuesday’s edition of Icelandic daily Fréttablaðið features the national soccer team celebrating their historic win over England in the European Championship: “Iceland 2 – 1 England, where will this end?” Monday night’s victory sends Iceland to the quarterfinals, where they’ll face host nation France. The Icelandic victory against one of the iconic football teams continues […]
The Þingvellir rift valley, in southwestern Iceland, marks the the separation between the Eurasian and North American Plates, clearly visible in the canyon-like Almannagjá fault.
No matter where we went or how long, my wife and I would always take the time to write a couple of postcards to family and friends. And as far as I can tell, there’s no fixed rule for how many days it’d take for them to arrive.
Wednesday’s front page of Icelandic-language daily Fréttablaðið shows Iceland’s embattled Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson being asked questions by journalists in Reykjavik’s Althing, the national parliament, as the future of the ruling coalition is uncertain in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal. Gunnlaugsson had apparently resigned yesterday amid the uproar of the Panama Papers […]
These gaunt, alien-like musicians overlook Reykjavik, near the iconic Perlan observatory, giving an eerie feel to an already otherwordly landscape.
Before going there, I imagined Iceland“s roads to be in a rather rough state. But its main ring road was actually in good condition: Not a dot was missing from its center line.
The Nordic country’s annual sheep transfer is a generations-old tradition that has returned to fashion since the financial crisis, a chance to discover the Jökulgil River canyon and its surreal landscapes.
In this year’s edition of the Eurovison Song Contest, Iceland will be represented by the 22-year-old singer and actress María Ólafsdóttir. In 2009, María played the role of Louisa von Trapp in an adaptation of “The Sound of Music”, one of her favorite plays. She will perform “Unbroken”, a song about — we think so […]
REYKJAVIK — “Welcome to the Bloody Gate …” The solemn announcement is made by Asthor Agustsson, a local tour guide who could easily pass for a Viking warrior. The ten tourists with Agustsson appear awestruck, walking along a path that traverses two abrupt cliffs, covered in snow, with a large frozen lake in the distance. […]
The expressionist style of Reykjavik’s Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland’s biggest church, can be initially unsettling. But it actually suits this land of volcanoes and geysers.
Don’t be fooled by the apparent peacefulness of this Icelandic plain — lots of things happened there. Not only is this valley the birthplace of the oldest parliament in the world, the Althing, but it is also located right on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, meaning that major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can basically happen anytime.
Not only is the Geysir geyser in southwestern Iceland one of the most impressive we’ve ever seen (sorry, Old Faithful …) but, as you may have guessed, it gave its name to the geological phenomenon.
KEFLAVIK — The first thing that strikes you on landing at Keflavik International Airport is the weather. It’s raining. The clouds hang so low that it looks like you could reach out and touch them. Welcome to Iceland. A land mass covering 103,000 square kilometers, Iceland is a little larger than Hungary, but at 330,000 […]
Moscow allowed for observer status for additional countries that don’t border the Arctic, but will grant them virtually no voice whatsoever on policy.
REYKJAVIK – Mid-February this year, British tabloids published the news that Iceland’s leftwing-green Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson wanted to limit access to online porn on the island. Ways of doing that, according to the minister, could be to block certain IP addresses, or to make it impossible to pay certain sites with an […]
NEWS OF ICELAND (Iceland) Worldcrunch REYKJAVIK – Iceland is an island in the far north of Europe, just south of the Arctic Circle, known for musical talents Bjork and Sigur Ros and popular crime writer Arnaldur Indridason. Not much else. Aside maybe for the fact that everyone in Iceland is related. Yes, everyone in Iceland […]
BBC, THE GUARDIAN (U.K.), IRISH INDEPENDENT, IRISH TIMES (Ireland) Worldcrunch DUBLIN– Horse meat has been found in some beef products on sale in the UK and Ireland according to the FSAI (Food Safety Authority Ireland). Although it poses no risk to public health, for many people it is an ethical question. In fact, that’s almost […]
The 2008 economic crisis struck particularly hard in Iceland, where banks went bust and the currency value evaporated. But a hard line both at home and abroad has helped turn things around. But can the model be copied?
Worldcrunch ICELAND REVIEW, LE FIGARO MADAME (France) REYKJAVIK – This Sunday, when Iceland goes to the polls to elect its next president, the choice is rather stark. There is the white-haired incumbent, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson,69, and there is Thora Arnórsdóttir, who is not only a 37-year-old newcomer to politics, but also just gave birth last […]
Mounting debt in Greece, Italy and elsewhere in the EU are raising serious questions about the future of the single currency. Things look different in Iceland, after a grave banking crash in 2008 makes the tarnished euro still look like a shiny replacemen
Although their numbers have been halved by the recent economic meltdown, Poles – who now number an estimated 10,000 – continue to be Iceland’s largest ethnic minority.