Experts hope he is resting and building up blubber reserves before returning to Arctic to look for mate
When Wally the walrus disappeared after more than five months of appearances around the UK and Ireland, interspersed with visits to France and Spain, observers feared the worst.
But after about three weeks at sea he re-emerged in Iceland, looking skinnier but much closer to his Arctic home.
Continue reading...Katrín Jakobsdóttir’s future as PM in doubt as Left-Green Movement loses ground to rightwing partners
Iceland has become the first country in Europe to have more women than men in parliament, a day after a general election that left the future of the prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, in doubt despite her left-right coalition winning a clear majority.
Of the 63 seats in the Althing parliament, 33 – or 52% – were won by women, projections based on the final results showed on Sunday. No other European country has had more than 50% female lawmakers, with Sweden coming closest at 47%, according to data compiled by the World Bank.
Continue reading...Operators say the Orca plant can suck 4,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year and inject it deep into the ground to be mineralised
The world’s largest plant designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock started has running, the companies behind the project said on Wednesday.
The plant, named Orca after the Icelandic word “orka” meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes that look like shipping containers.
Continue reading...Digital documents to be used to cut post-Brexit paperwork under agreement hailed by Liz Truss as ‘massive boost’
A trade deal struck with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with provisions for digital paperwork to cut down the time and costs of post-Brexit border bureaucracy has been championed by the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, as a “major boost”.
After months of difficult talks, the comprehensive trade deal was hailed by both the UK and Norwegian governments as being pioneering in its scope and measures, with tariff-free trade in industrial goods secured.
Continue reading...The government has revealed the destinations to which quarantine-free holidays will be allowed
The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.
Related: England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know
Continue reading...Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus jab rolled out after backing from European Medicines Agency
EU member states are starting to administer Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine after Europe’s drug regulator this week backed the single-dose shot, with several expected to impose age restrictions, as with the AstraZeneca jab.
Spain’s regional health authorities began using the shot on Thursday for people aged 70 to 79, two days after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced a possible link to a rare clotting disorder but stressed the shot’s benefits outweighed the risks.
Continue reading...A volcanic eruption began in south-west Iceland near the capital, Reykjavik, on Friday. More than 40,000 earthquakes have occurred on the peninsula in the past four weeks, a huge jump from the 1,000-3,000 registered each year since 2014. Unlike the eruption in 2010 of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which halted approximately 900,000 flights and forced hundreds of Icelanders from their homes, this eruption is not expected to spew much ash or smoke into the atmosphere
Continue reading...A long-dormant volcano in Fagradalsfjall, near Reykjavik in south-west Iceland, flared to life on Friday night, spilling lava down two sides in the area's first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years. Initial aerial footage posted on social media by the Icelandic Meteorological Office showed a relatively small eruption so far, with two streams of lava running in opposite directions
Continue reading...No-fly zone established and public advised to stay away from area as red cloud lights up night sky
A volcano has erupted in Iceland near the capital Reykjavik after thousands of small earthquakes in the area in recent weeks, the Icelandic meteorological office has said.
A red cloud lit up the night sky after the eruption began in Fagradalsfjall on Friday about 40km (25 miles) from the capital Reykjavik. A no-fly zone has been established in the area.
Continue reading...Scientists call it an unprecedented seismic event – but residents dread an imminent volcanic eruption
Icelanders are yearning for some undisturbed shut-eye after tremors from tens of thousands of earthquakes have rattled their sleep for weeks in what scientists call an unprecedented seismic event, which might well end in a spectacular volcanic eruption.
“At the moment we’re feeling it constantly. It’s like you’re walking over a fragile suspension bridge,” said Rannveig Gudmundsdottir, a lifelong resident in the town of Grindavik.
Continue reading...Several countries suspend inoculations but regulator says vaccine benefits outweigh its risks
The European Medicines Agency has said the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine can continue to be used during an investigation into cases of blood clots that have prompted several European countries to pause their use of the shot.
The EMA said 30 cases of “thromboembolic events” or blood clots had been reported among 5 million people who had received the jab in Europe so far. “The vaccine’s benefits continue to outweigh its risks,” the regulator said in a statement.
Continue reading...Many politicians and diplomats from the 1980s lay claim to a pivotal role in ending the cold war, but the former US secretary of state George Shultz, who has died aged 100, had a better claim than most. And he was not shy in letting people know, as he did at length in his 1,184-page account of his years at the state department, Turmoil and Triumph (1993).
When he became secretary of state in 1982 – a job he was to hold for seven years – relations between the US and the Soviet Union were at a dangerous low. The administration of US president Ronald Reagan was packed with anti-Soviet hardliners. Reagan himself in 1983 dubbed the Soviet Union “the evil empire”.
Continue reading...Patient lost both arms in work accident 23 years ago and it took years to find suitable donors for the complex operation
An Icelandic man who got the world’s first double-shoulder-and-arm transplant is recovering well after the operation, two decades after the accident that cost him both limbs, doctors have said.
They said it was still uncertain how much mobility Felix Gretarsson, 48, will recover following the operation earlier this month in the southeastern French city of Lyon.
Continue reading...Plenty of countries with male leaders have also done well. But few with female leaders have done badly
On 1 April, the prime minister of Sint Maarten addressed her nation’s 41,500 people. Coronavirus cases were rising, and Silveria Jacobs knew the small island country, which welcomes 500,000 tourists a year, was at great risk: it had two ICU beds.
Jacobs did not want to impose a strict lockdown, but she did want physical distancing observed. So she spelled it out: “Simply. Stop. Moving,” she said. “If you don’t have the bread you like in your house, eat crackers. Eat cereal. Eat oats. Eat … sardines.”
Continue reading...Reykjanes peninsula’s last active period started in 10th century and lasted 300 years
Volcanic activity is escalating in a region of Iceland that has not erupted for 800 years, with scientists warning it could cause disruption for centuries to come.
Since 21 January, the Reykjanes peninsula south-west of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, has experienced more than 8,000 earthquakes and about 10cm of land uplift due to magma intrusions underground.
Continue reading...Germany was quick to see the threat while South Korea took an aggressive approach
Countries have approached coronavirus testing in different ways, and in some places there was far earlier recognition than in the UK of the need to develop tests and kits and to have sufficient numbers stockpiled. Here is how some countries got ahead of the curve.
Continue reading...I fear Thomas Eaton (Weekend Quiz, 12 October) is giving further credence to “fake news” from 1507, when a German cartographer was seeking the derivation of “America” and hit upon the name of Amerigo Vespucci, an obscure Florentine navigator. Derived from this single source, this made-up derivation has been copied ever after.
The fact is that Christopher Columbus visited Iceland in 1477-78, and learned of a western landmass named “Markland”. Seeking funds from King Ferdinand of Spain, he told the king that the western continent really did exist, it even had a name – and Columbus adapted “Markland” into the Spanish way of speaking, which requires an initial vowel “A-”, and dropped “-land” substituting “-ia”.
Continue reading...Nation commemorates the once huge Okjokull glacier with plaque that warns action is needed to prevent climate change
Iceland has marked its first-ever loss of a glacier to climate change as scientists warn that hundreds of other ice sheets on the subarctic island risk the same fate.
As the world recently marked the warmest July ever on record, a bronze plaque was mounted on a bare rock in a ceremony on the barren terrain once covered by the Okjokull glacier in western Iceland.
Continue reading...Plaque marking Okjökull, the first glacier lost to climate crisis, to be unveiled in August
The first of Iceland’s 400 glaciers to be lost to the climate crisis will be remembered with a memorial plaque – and a sombre warning for the future – to be unveiled by scientists and local people next month.
The former Okjökull glacier, which a century ago covered 15 sq km (5.8 sq miles) of mountainside in western Iceland and measured 50 metres thick, has shrunk to barely 1 sq km of ice less than 15 metres deep and lost its status as a glacier.
Continue reading...Female 12-year-old beluga whales Little Grey and Little White arrive at Klettsvik Bay
Two beluga whales from a Shanghai aquarium have arrived in Iceland to live out their days in a unique marine sanctuary that conservationists hope will become a model for rehoming 3,000 of the creatures currently in captivity.
Little Grey and Little White, two 12-year-old female belugas, left behind their previous lives entertaining visitors at the Changfeng Ocean World and were flown across the globe in specially tailored containers.
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