WSJ

10th April, 2011

See also: The Icesave dispute: the view from Iceland

(Associated Press)REYKJAVIK, Iceland—Voters in Iceland have rejected a government-approved deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands $5 billion for their citizens’ deposits in the failed online bank Icesave, referendum results showed Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

Ice News

11th February, 2011

Iceland’s Special Prosecutor into the banking crisis says that well over a hundred people are being investigated by his office.

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The desultory nature of this protest does come across in the video- it does look a bit like resignation. This is understandable because the phase of exuberant consumerism and individualism in Iceland , and in the west as a whole, is over. That will never return, no matter how much we demonstrate and people, on one level, may be grieving for that. The point is not to return to the past but to prevent the descent in a kind of dark age, to stop the rot and to reaffirm certain fundamental values, to rebuild a real economy, real community and solidarity: to defend national sovereignty and democracy. This is a moment to draw the bottom line: none without shelter, none without food, none without the possibility of work. Everything in this crisis is about quantities, usually mind-boggling figures for debt or fraud, but behind just numbers there is a qualitative shift and we will become more positive as we realize the potential in all this.

See also:

The European Revolution begins

Iceland Weather Report

5th October, 2010

EPI and I headed down to the demonstration this evening in Austurvöllur square.

There were lots of people there [around 8,000 I’m told] and it was very noisy.

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Rady Ananda

Global Research

5th October, 2010

As proceedings begin against Iceland’s former Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, for the banking crisis of 2008, at least two thousand Icelanders took to the streets in two days of protest this weekend.  Iceland joins over a dozen other nations protesting economic measures taken out on the public while banks and large corporations receive bailouts. Class war is on, and it’s gone global.

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Huffington Post

28th September, 2010

Iceland’s former Prime Minister Geir Haarde has been referred to a special court in a move that could make him the first world leader to be charged in connection with the global financial crisis.

After a heated debate Tuesday, lawmakers voted 33-30 to refer charges to the court against Haarde for allegedly failing to prevent Iceland’s 2008 financial crash – a crisis that sparked protests, toppled the government and brought the economy to a standstill by collapsing its currency.

Haarde faces up to two years in jail if found guilty. The court, which could dismiss the charges, has never before convened in Iceland’s history. A hearing date has not yet been set.

Haarde, ex-leader of the Independence Party, is no longer in parliament and stepped down from office last year following widespread protests and treatment for esophageal cancer.

“I will answer all charges before the court and I will be vindicated.” Haarde, 59, told the Icelandic Broadcaster RUV. “I have a clean slate. This charge borders on political persecution.”

Iceland, a volcanic island with a population of just 320,000, went from economic wunderkind to fiscal basket case almost overnight when the credit crunch took hold.

After dizzying economic growth that saw banks and companies in this tiny Nordic nation snap up assets around the world for a decade, the global financial crisis wreaked political and economic havoc in Iceland. Its banks collapsed in October 2008.

Unemployment has soared since then and the country has lurched from crisis to crisis.

In April, an eruption at Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano triggered a giant ash cloud that disrupted global air travel for weeks and later restricted travel to and from the island nation.

Bloomberg

12th September, 2010

Iceland’s parliament must decide whether to charge leading members of the country’s 2008 cabinet with negligence that contributed to the island’s banking collapse after a committee recommended they be indicted.

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Iceland after the Fall

27/07/10

Monthly Review

by Sam Knight

Financial crises and uncertainty go hand in hand; some make sacrifices and others plan on having to.  But how many countries stricken by the global crisis actually feel existentially threatened?

Iceland does.  Since the start of the kreppa (“catastrophe” in Icelandic) in the fall of 2008, the small island nation of 320,000 has had to contend with the serious possibility of mass migration.  IMF intervention and private debt gone public galore has left the country with a grim future.  Knee-deep in kreppa, it could be slim pickings for Icelanders for years to come.

Thankfully, this crisis has taught Icelanders that they don’t have to put up with all this kreppa and should question their new-found debt.  A popular revolt called the Kitchenware Revolution occurred in January 2009, forcing the resignation of the government that privatized Iceland’s financial system, let it implode, then refused to take responsibility.  A generation of Icelanders learned that democracy, sometimes, means grabbing the system by the horns. Read the rest of this entry »