Saving Iceland

This weekend a new documentary about the Reykjavík Nine will be premiered in Iceland. The film, called A9aginst (Ge9n in Icelandic), is directed by author, philosopher and filmmaker Haukur Már Helgason and will be shown at the documentary film festival Skjaldborg, in Patreksfjörður (on the Westfjords), on June 11th. According to the film’s website, “this feature-length documentary is a portrait, or rather nine portraits, of people charged and prosecuted in Iceland for ‘attacking parliament’ in December 2008.”

In a conversation with online newspaper Róstur, the director explained briefly his motivation for making the film:

I make the film… well, I guess because there one catches a glimpse of some potential, some possibility, a will for another kind of society, in the minds of a group of people who the state power has, by charging them, defined as a certain set. The charges basically call for an investigation about who these people, defined as enemies, are, and which thoughts someone somewhere can find so dangerous – because it was clear from the beginning that it was not the “action” in the parliament that was considered so dangerous. Read More

Our good friends, Reverend Billy and Savitri D, from the Church of Life After Shopping!, are about to release a book that covers the last few years of their work, includes campaigns in NYC and around the world, including Iceland, organizing they have done with many of you and stories from the field. The book, titled The Reverend Billy Project: From Rehearsal Hall to Super Mall with the Church of Life After Shopping, will come out this summer and on June 13th, Reverend Billy, Savitri D. & The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir will perform “radical fun, fresh musical offerings and damn the mono culture polemics” in Housing Works Bookstore & Cafe, New York.

In July 2007 Reverend Billy and Savitri D joined Saving Iceland’s international conference, titled Global Consequences of Heavy Industry and Large Dams, which Billy presided. A few days later Billy, Savitri and Saving Iceland exorcised heavy industry in Iceland during a ceremony in shopping mall Kringlan, Reykjavík. A year later Billy sent Saving Iceland a letter, inspired by his participation in 2007, which can be read here. Read More

In the video above, Indian author Arundhati Roy talks about her recently published book, Broken Republic: Three Essays, and how the Indian government is, along with international mining corporations, violating the indigenous of India, destroying their lands and displacing them, leading to a constantly increasing gap between the rich and the poor. One of the book’s essays, titled “Mr Chidambaram’s War”, focuses on the Dongria Kondh tribe in Odisha, who have fought against Vedanta’s and ALCAN’s bauxite mining for aluminium production over the last decades.

The following text explains Broken Republic’s content briefly:

War has spread from the borders of India to the forests in the very heart of the country. Combining brilliant analysis and reportage by one of India’s iconic writers, Broken Republic examines the nature of progress and development in the emerging global superpower, and asks fundamental questions about modern civilization itself.

For the last two years, a horse-farmer close to the Norðurál/Century aluminium smelter in Grundartangi, Hvalfjörður, has tried to get supervisory bodies to investigate mysterious sickness, which her horses suffer from. According to recent studies, a great amount of fluoride has been found in the bones of horses close to Grundartangi, much more than in horses in the north of Iceland. In an interview with RÚV (Iceland’s state-owned TV station) last week, the farmer, Ragnheiður Þorgrímsdóttir, said that since June 2007, one horse after another has become sick; their movements are stiff and their hoofs seem to grow unnaturally. Read More

From Miriam Rose

On 16th May after heavy rain, toxic red mud poured from a breach in one of Vedanta’s Lanjigarh refinery red mud ponds, spilling onto the village below. The next day landless people displaced by the project held two blockades demanding adequate compensation; a five day walking protest ended with a meeting of 500 people on the threatened Niyamgiri hills; and the funeral of a tribal movement leader, killed by factory pollution, was held. Two months before Vedanta’s often-subverted AGM this will be bad news for the company. This is a direct report from the scene. Read More

Landsvirkjun, Iceland’s national energy company, plans to build fourteen power plants in the next 15 years; ten hydro dams and four geothermal plants, costing between 4,5 and 5 billion US dollars. If the plans go ahead Landsvirkjun will increase its electricity production by eleven terawatt hours (TWh), resulting in annual production of 40 TWh. “A new Kárahnjúkar dam is on the cards,” said Katrín Júlíusdóttir, minster of industry, when discussing  energy plans in parliament recently.

Landsvirkjun’s new plan was presented at the company’s annual general meeting, which took place on April 15th. According to the company’s director, Hörður Árnason, the planned power plants are to be built in several rivers, including Þjórsá, Tungnaá and Hólmsá, as well as geothermal areas in the north of Iceland. The construction of Búðarháls Dam in Tungnaá has already started and Landsvirkjun plans to start energy production there in 2013, whereas all the other options are still being looked at in the making of a framework programme concerning the use and protection of Iceland natural resources. Read More

By Magnús Sveinn Helgason

By mid March, the case against the Reykjavík Nine (who had been accused of conspiracy to attack Alþingi with the intent of compromising its “independence and sanctity”) finally came to a close when the state prosecutor decided not to appeal the Reykjavík district court ruling in the case. The nine had been acquitted of all the major charges of the prosecution.

Not for lack of evidence or because the nine were able to slip through legal loopholes. No, the court found that there was absolutely no evidence to support the case of the prosecution; that there was absolutely nothing that indicated the group had ever intended to do anything but exercise its constitutional right to protest peacefully in a public space. The court did, however, find four protesters guilty of relatively minor offences: disobeying police orders and obstructing public officials performing their duties. Read More

Iceland’s government’s majority in parliament stands and falls with one particular parliament member from the Left Green party (VG), Guðfríður Lilja Grétarsdóttir, who is strongly opposed to the planned triple damming of Lower Þjórsá river. This became clear last week, on April 13th, when a motion of no confidence, proposed by the right wing conservative party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn), was discussed in parliament. Read More

Recently it was revealed that ten billionaires from Canada and the US are seeking Icelandic citizenship to ease their access to invest in geothermal and hydro energy in Iceland. These two news articles were published on the Reykjavík Grapevine website (1 and 2).

Wealthy Individuals Seeking To Buy Icelandic Citizenship

Ten people promising to invest millions in Iceland’s renewable energy field have applied for citizenship directly with parliament. The reaction from within parliament has been one of both bewilderment and suspicion.

The ten individuals are apparently from outside the Schengen area. By Icelandic law, this would normally mean they would need to live here, work, not leave the country for more than six months at a time and remain a resident of Iceland for seven years before they could even qualify for citizenship. However, Iceland has made exceptions in the past for those applying directly to parliament – most notably with certain athletes and chess player Bobby Fischer. Read More

The Los Angeles Times
Henry Chu, Reporting from Grundartangi, Iceland

Some say aluminum is vital to Iceland’s budding economic recovery. Others say the industry was at the root of the nation’s 2008 economic collapse.

Part of the cure — or cause — of Iceland’s spectacular economic meltdown sits here on a rugged fiord backed by frigid blue waters and snowcapped mountains. Read More