Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.12.2019, Síða 4

What Are Icelanders
Talkin! About?
The headlines explodin! the
comments sections
Words: Andie Fontaine Photos: Andie Fontaine & Art Bicnick
The single most impor-
tant story of the past
month has been the Fishrot
Files, or as they call it in Iceland,
the Samherji case. 30,000 docu-
ments provided by Wikileaks—
and subsequently reported on by
RÚV, Stundin, The Namibian and
Al Jazeera—showed that Iceland’s
largest fishing company, Samherji,
bribed Namibian officials in order
to secure massive fishing quotas.
Making matters more shady,
Samherji then funneled much of
the proceeds from their haul into
a shell company registered in the
Marshall Islands, a tax haven. Since
this story broke, the differences
between how Namibian and Icelan-
dic officials have responded have
been striking. And by that we mean
that while Namibian authorities
have been slapping handcuffs on
suspects, Icelandic authorities have
been busy downplaying, deflecting,
or outright blaming Namibia for
the whole mess. Read all about it
on page 10.
In happier news, two Icelandic
women are amongst those nomi-
nated for the 2020 Grammy Awards.
Specifically, Anna "orvaldsdóttir
has been nominated for Best Engi-
neered Album in the classical genre
for her album ‘Aequa,’ while Hildur
Gu#nadóttir has been nominated
for Best Score Soundtrack for
Visual Media for her composition
of the 'Chernobyl' score. It bears
mentioning that she has already
secured an Emmy win for the score
for episode two of the series, “Please
Remain Calm.” It’s a historic first
for Iceland, and even if they don’t
nab a win (though they really ought
to), it’s still a remarkable achieve-
ment for our tiny island nation.
Once again, the beautiful but
foreboding South Iceland beach of
Reynisfjara has been making head-
lines. First, a tourist was injured
when knocked over by one of Reyn-
isfjara’s notorious sneaker waves.
Then Minister of Tourism "órdís
Kolbrún R. Gylfadóttir announced
that she would be working on a
new response plan for Reynisf-
jara, establishing better monitor-
ing of weather conditions there
and giving police greater authority
to close it down when conditions
are potentially dangerous. Lastly,
Reykjavík District Court found
in favour of a tourist who sued a
tour company for taking her and
others to Reynisfjara during bad
weather, where she was subse-
quently injured by high winds. If
you do visit Reynisfjara, stay on the
main beach and as far from the surf
as possible.

Lastly, Chinese airline Juneyao
Airlines announced they will begin
direct flights between Reykjavík
and Shanghai by the end of March
2020. A round-trip economy ticket
will be an astonishingly low 68,000
ISK (about $500), while business
class will be a much higher 204,000
ISK, or around $1,500.
4The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 21— 2019First
NEWS
A protest. Presumably people are upset that not more Icelanders got Grammy noms.
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