The future of Greenland’s remote settlements has come under scrutiny after the Democratic Party’s Palle Chritiansen questioned the feasibility of villages with fewer than 100 residents. Read the full story

According to Iceland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the current budget plan foresees a 25 percent cut to spending on third-world development projects next year, amounting to around a billion kronur (USD 7,936,510). The cut will reduce the proportion of Icelandic GDP spent on international development to 0.23 percent. The EU benchmark figure is 0.35 percent. Read the full story

Iceland’s stability pact between representatives of employers, the Federation of State and Municipal Employees, the national government and local governments is due to be signed today at 13.00 after long delays and bitter wrangling. Read the full story

Despite President Robert Mugabe’s continued misrule of Zimbabwe, Norway has decided it will resume cash aid to the desperate African nation that it cut off back in 2000. Norway admits that Mugabe has brought little more than “years of misrule, embezzlement and hyperinflation” to Zimbabwe, but the nation is set to receive NOK 58 million from the Norwegian government. Read the full story

The global economic crisis is beginning to extend into more entrenched facets of public life such as higher education. Denmark’s government has stated that several of the nation’s top universities are planning to shorten the length of their semesters and lower the required number of classes for certain degree programs. Read the full story

Denmark’s Art Council has initiated a two-year project designed to attract talented foreign artists to live and work in the country. DKK 6 million (USD 1,188,059 EUR 804,169) have been allocated for the plan, which is hoped will inject some creative energy into Denmark’s art scene.

The chairman of the Art Council, Mads Ovilsen, told the Politiken newspaper that the project will hopefully lure exciting Read the full story

The Swedish government plans to fund pornography through a series of cultural subsidies valued at SEK 350,000 according to reports in The Local, a Swedish newspaper. A female director will be shooting “queer, feminist pornography” using mobile phones as part of a Swedish cultural initiative.

The film will be entitled Dirty Diaries and was inspired by Mia Engberg, a feminist documentary film maker. Engberg was responsible for the films Manhood, Bitch & Butch and Selma & Sofie.

Manhood, which came out in 1999, is a film set in San Francisco which looks at gender bending. Bitch & Butch, released in 2003 explored the possibility of feminist pornography, a concept made real with the new grant from the Swedish government.

Engberg has some experience in the erotic film industry, having filmed Selma & Sofie in 2001, the first erotic film made in Sweden by women.

Anne-Marie Söhrman Ferm advised the Swedish Film Institute on which films to fund this year. “For me it’s an examination of erotic film from a totally different perspective; a feminist perspective,” she said. “I think it’s a very exciting project with clearly artistic ambitions.”

Six other films received funding from the Swedish Film Institute in addition to Dirty Diaries. The subsidies totalled SEK 2.1 million.

Engberg, who was born in Stockholm and who is known for her work playing with Vagina Grande, a feminist ska/punk band, was unable to comment on the grant as she was working on a film in Paris.