From the Wikileaks documents. Interesting comments from the US Embassy on the situation in Iceland in October and November 2008. Russia, Independence Party, IMF, Icelandic politics and the  EU. The old guard of the Independence Party is working hard at discrediting these leaks stating that “foreigners know nothing about things work in Iceland”. But according [...]

Musings on China’s expanding role in Africa and the US’s declining role as a hegemonial power: Times are changing in the world of development assistance. Agents and institutions with their roots in Western liberal democracy have traditionally lead the way in global development , but nations  of emerging market economies are now playing a larger [...]

Why does Iceland need the EU? A comment from this post expressed wonder at the current situation in Iceland. Somehow many people expected things to be much worse for the general population by now. People are still going to coffee shops even if the latte is approaching the price of a pre-crash beer, there are [...]

Protester arrested following demonstrations outside the IMF’s temporary office in Reykjavik today

Remember this man. He is one of the faces of Iceland who has been cast aside by his society. The District Court of Reykjavik yesterday declared that the borrower of a currency loan was responsible for paying his loan fully, even if it had doubled in one year. The Court really had few other options, [...]

Third, regarding the origins of Iceland’s crisis. I agree that they lie in the financial sector. Banks took outsized risks, and supervision and regulation failed to rise to the challenge. Privatization did set the stage for this, but this was not a matter of following IMF policy: we did not then and do not now [...]

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF has told a group of Icelanders who requested a meeting with him that the IMF had not made any demands regarding a solution to IceSave, but the Nordic countries had made it a condition before committing loans to Iceland. There is a a grave misunderstanding in Iceland [...]

A good question from Lara Hanna’s blog, one of the most active ones in pointing out corruption in Iceland. What on earth are Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and Hoskuldur Thorhallsson of the Progressive Party, doing in Norway? The official spin is that they are explaining the economic situation in Iceland, and perhaps fishing for a loan [...]

Ms Sigurdardottir said that it was “unfair” that the IMF and Nordic donors had made access to additional aid conditional on Iceland’s resolving the Icesave issue. But the prime minister voiced hope that the IMF review would start “within the next few weeks”. In written answers to FT questions, she said that the UK and [...]