The wine marketed under the Motörhead name and logo will therefore not be for sale in ÁTVR’s Vínbúðin stores across Iceland. In defence of the move the company cited the fact that the branding is not relevant because the band does not make the wine itself; but that the branding does inevitably promote an unhealthy lifestyle.

The information comes from an article written for Fréttablaðið by Hjörleifur Árnason, the wine’s Icelandic importer. In his article he says he has now appealed the case to the parliamentary ombudsman. Although ÁTVR has a monopoly on alcohol retail in Iceland, importers and distributors are able to deal directly with bars, restaurants and cafés; meaning the Motörhead brand could still be sold in the country and can now expect a higher profile following this controversy.

The rock band, which has been going for 37 years, loaned its name to Motörhead Shiraz, as well as to several other products including vodka and rosé wine.

Last March Hjörleifur decided to import a case of the wine through the company Rokk slf. and apply for a licence to sell it in Vínbúðin outlets. The application was rejected by ÁTVR on the grounds that the band Motörhead had nothing directly to do with the wine and that the message accompanying the product was not a positive one.

The English word ‘Motorhead’ is a slang term for an amphetamine addict and furthermore the band sings about war, abuse of power, irresponsible sex and substance abuse, ÁTVR said.

On the grounds the the band did not make the wine themselves, the importer says he fears that means all celebrity wines will be banned, such as wines by the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Elvis Presley and others.

The interest rate of 4.75 percent will not change this period, despite continuing inflational pressure calling for rate rises. The last rate decision was in December, when the Central Bank also decided to keep the rate the same. The Bank warned it will likely have to raise the rate slightly soon if economic conditions remain the same.

The Central Bank of Iceland predicts 2.5 percent economic growth in the country this year and for the next two years. The global economic situation continues to worsen and as a result the terms of trade will be worse this year than had previously been thought.

The Icelandic exports market remains lively, though; and continues to beat expectations. The Bank’s economic forecast is similar to the one it gave out in November.

If the forecast proves correct, inflation in Iceland will reach a peak of around six percent in the first quarter of this year before falling back again. The Bank’s inflation target is 2.5 percent and the forecast predicts the country will reach that rate again early in 2014. It predicts and average annual inflation rate of 4.6 percent this year — which is half-a-percent higher than in the November forecast.

Jón brought the case after the Data Protection Authority requested information from the Central Bank of Iceland about how personal information on currency purchases was being dealt with; including how the information was processed, who had access to the information, how securely it was held and how long it would be held for.

In a Fréttablaðið interview in October, Jón said: “The Data Protection Authority allowed the Central Bank of Iceland to look at international transfers by credit card made by everyone in Iceland. That was done with no sort of minimum or provisos. I believe that that is a breach of my rights to permit unreasonable prying into my personal affairs.”

He added that he did not want “Big Brother” sticking its nose into all his business and said he would start proceedings against the governor of the Central Bank and other people to draw attention to the matter.

It is now clear that that will not happen — but it is clear, on the other hand, that Jón has to pay ISK 100,000 (EUR 617) to the Data Protection Authority in legal fees.

The buildings will be assembled in an area by the sea shore in the village and the project is the biggest project by the heritage preservation company Minjavernd outside of the capital region. The project involves rebuilding and/or renovating all the main buildings associated with serving the French fishermen whose presence still lingers strongly in local culture today. The centrepiece of the new heritage ‘village’ will be the French Hospital.

The ‘village’ within a village will become a tourist attraction, organisers hope — and they hope to help by opening a museum about Fáskrúðsfjörður’s French ties, as well as a hotel, RÚV reports.

The French Hospital was built in 1903 and later moved to Hafnarnes, outside of the village. The building has stood on that site for several decades and was in a considerable state of disrepair when it was taken apart and returned to the village for renovation.

The planned opening of the new project is spring 2014 and the planned cost is in the region of ISK 580 million (EUR 3.57 million).

The National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) believes the number of workplace drug checks has now hit 100,000 a year.

The practice is particularly popular in the transport sector and in jobs within the healthcare, security or surveillance industries.

The law surrounding drug testing in the workplace, which has been in force since 2004, permits both the screening of new recruits as well as of long-term employees if there is reason for suspicion.

When the practice was first made legal, only around 10,000 workers a year were tested. However, this number has now shot up tenfold according to Kimmo Kuoppasalmi, Chief Physician at THL’s Drug Research Unit.

He believes the current rate has almost reached its peak, however. “I think that the number will not increase much from this point. A very small proportion of these tests turn up positive in practice—about 1-2 percent. The preventive effect and the message that the workplace does not tolerate substance abuse are perhaps the most important factors,” Kuoppasalmi said in a YLE report.

The deadline to submit purchase offers for Iceland ran out on Wednesday night and since then the Landsbanki resolution committee has been going over the bids with advisers. Old Landsbanki holds 67 percent of Iceland Foods and the bankrupt estate of Glitnir Bank holds ten percent of the company. The two companies are bidding on the combined shares of the two old banks.

At least two offers were received from two investment funds; BC Partners, a British company, on the one hand and Bain Capital, which is based in Boston, USA, on the other. No word has yet been released about the precise value of the offers, but they are thought to be around the GBP 1.5 billion that Landsbanki was hoping for. That is around ISK 300 billion.

The sale proceeds will largely be spent on repaying the British and Dutch governments for the money they lost in Icesave.

One of the founders of Bain Capital is Mitt Romney – who is now seen as one of the most likely Republican presidential candidates for the US election this autumn. Romney headed Bail Capital until 1999, before turning his attention to other projects. He still receives a cut of the company’s profits and has been paid millions of dollars from the company in recent years. Mitt Romney is one of the richest men ever to have tried to become President. His personal assets are reckoned to be as high as USD 250 million.

“We have made up two types of stickers for those who want them,” says Guðrún María Guðmundsdóttir, editor and department chief at Já, makers of the Icelandic phone book.

Já commissioned the design of the stickers to put on the phone book’s front cover because it features a prominent picture of a shirtless Egill Einarsson surrounded by the gymnastic girls of the Gerpla club. Two types of sticker are on offer for those wishing to change the look of their phone books. On features the gymnasts from the background and the other is designed to look like Egill has been ripped out of the page.

Guðrún María refused to comment further on the stickers. “They are, however, here and available for everybody who wants them,” she told Vísir. She would not say how many people have contacted Já asking for a solution along the lines of the new stickers.

Egill has been accused of two separate rapes in recent months and the eventual outcome is not yet clear. One of the cases, which is against both him and his girlfriend, was recently sent back from the state prosecutor to the police for further investigation, while the other case is still under initial investigation.

Já’s decision to feature Egill on its 2011 front cover was controversial at the time, even before the crime allegations arose.

The new phone book comes out in May and this year it is Reykjavík’s Borgarleikhúsið theatre which has been awarded the honorary editorship and will design the cover.

The stickers are available at the Já headquarters at Álfheimar.

Staff members at Willy’s supermarket in Vara confronted the pair last Sunday, but were taken by surprise when they suddenly jumped from their chairs and ran for the door.

After the thieves made their speedy getaway leaving one of the wheelchairs behind, a secret compartment packed with stolen coffee was discovered. It is not clear whether the men escaped with other concealed goods.

“We are labelling this as robbery; a very sophisticated attempt,” Ulf Lörstad, spokesman of Vara county, told the Göteborgsposten (GP) newspaper.

Police are confident that the men, believed to be in the thirties, will still be caught thanks to evidence left behind in the form of the jettisoned wheelchair.

“We’ll be making a forensic investigation. Hopefully there will be traces, and if the men are in our register, then it will be hard for them to deny this crime,” Lörstad told the paper.

He added, however, that the unusually large exhibit was complicated to process. “The wheelchair didn’t fit into our response car, so the youngest member of our force was given the task of wheeling it back to the station,” Lörstad said.

He made his comments as a keynote speaker at the Social Democratic Party’s European Movement conference, alongside Styrmir Gunnarsson, former editor of Morgunblaðið.

Styrmir said that for his part he does not feel there is a battle in progress for Iceland’s natural resources. He says that fears around land control by foreigners probably stems from the Cold War when Icelanders were nervous of foreign military bases being built in their country.

“I was no bloody teenager when I spent four years of my life negotiating the European Economic Area contract,” Jón Baldvin retorted. He said that arguments against Icelandic EEA membership were much the same in his time as arguments against EU membership are now: “That the fishing grounds would fill with the Spanish fleet, Portuguese workers would flood the Icelandic market and that German millionaires would buy everything in the country,” Jón Baldvin said.

Styrmir said that nobody has done more to transfer natural resources to the rich than the left-wing government which allowed the individual transferable quota system. He said that at the time nobody said anything about the important fact that resources were being placed in the hands of the few. The changes created a slew of fisheries millionaires in Iceland.

Cartographers for the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, last released in September 2011, have admitted they were wrong to omit around 300,000 square kilometres of polar ice from sea surrounding Greenland.

British Publishers HarperCollins originally defended the accuracy of the map, which was released with promotional material about the fast acceleration of global warming. The blunder was exposed by scientists however, who said that the chart contradicted the most recent satellite images.

Publishing editor Jethro Lennox told the Scotsman, “After publication of the 13th edition of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, it became apparent that we had not represented the permanent ice cover in Greenland fully and clearly.

“In failing to do that, this section of the map did not meet the usual high standards of accuracy and reliability that the atlas strives to uphold. To correct this, we decided to produce a new, more detailed map using the latest information available,” he added.

The updated section, which will be inserted into any remaining copies, was put together after consultation with a number of experts. Liz Morris from the Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University said, “This was a really bad mapping error. If 15 percent of ice was lost, then sea levels would have risen by one metre, and that hasn’t happened.”

(Photo: Anders Peter Amsnæs)