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.

Valdimar told Vísir.is that he thinks it is worrying how little research has been done into the sea’s potential energy around Iceland. Most marine research in Iceland seems to be about aquaculture (fish farming) and harbour construction, he says.

He adds, however, that there is a extremely large amount of exploitable energy in the sea which is not yet being tapped. “The Irish have made a good estimate of the total amount of energy they have. They believe they could generate 240 terawatt hours a year and if we translate that over to Iceland by size that that would make 330 terawatt hours a year. That is around twenty-times the amount of energy we are using today,” Valdimar says.

Valorka has conducted pre-tests on its turbine and plans more this summer; probably off the Snæfellsnes peninsula. If the trials go well then a prototype will be made of a completely underwater turbine design. According to its owner, “Valorka is a world leader in trying to harness offshore ocean currents”.

Police want to battle the growing trend of citizens tipping off news outlets in return for rewards, by providing better information services to the media themselves, according to the Keskisuomalainen newspaper.

“Citizens often first report a disturbance to the media or put a video up on YouTube before they even think that maybe they should inform the authorities,” Inspector Tuomo Korhonen of the Central Finland police told Keskisuomalainen.

In an effort to get back in the loop, officers asked journalists for feedback on their communication skills and were told that they are somewhat non-responsive in fast-breaking situations.

In a bid to ensure that information is made more readily available to the media, three new communication units are now being set up within the force. Videos, photos and reports will soon be posted onto police websites by the new units, making the information available to journalists worldwide.

There are also plans to post real-time updates on crimes and emergencies via social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The plans will be finalised and announced by the national police administration by the beginning of March.

The ‘Skara Cannibal’, who killed and ate parts of his girlfriend, and the ‘Vampire Woman’, who stabbed a father of four to death, met in Karsuddens psychiatric facility near Katrineholm and found plenty in common after chatting online.

”We got together on November 13th,” ‘Vampire Woman’ Michelle Gustafsson told Expressen. “’Do you want to be my girlfriend?’ he asked on MSN. Then we decided to get engaged, which we did on December 9th,” she added.

Both of the inmates made headlines in Sweden for their highly unusual crimes. Gustafsson claimed she did not remember murdering a father of four in Stockholm in 2010, but wrote on her personal blog about killing people and posed for pictures with a bloody mouth and weapons.

Isakin Jonsson, the ‘Skara Cannibal’, was convicted in 2011 for stabbing his girlfriend to death, cutting off her head and then eating parts of her body. He showed no remorse during his trial and could not explain why he had killed her.

“That’s something I also wonder about. I trust the doctors. There was no motive whatsoever. We were a couple with a future together. I’ve never felt this way with a girl before,” Expressen reported him saying during the trial. However, he apparently told the newspaper later that he only ate his ex to secure psychiatric treatment instead of jail time.

Speaking about his new romance, Jonsson said, “I love Michelle. I have never met anyone like her. I’d like to lead a non-criminal life.”

The engagement may be a long one, as both inmates are serving non-fixed sentences, but the uncertainty has not prevented the couple from planning their future. “We want to get to live together, keep dogs and spend time on our hobbies, piercing and tattoos,” Gustafsson told Expressen.

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)

The dispute is thought to surround Blod, sved og T-Shirts (Blood, Sweat and T-shirts), a programme which followed a group of young Danes as they struggled to survive while working in clothes factories in India.

Confirming reports of the ban to Jyllands-Posten newspaper, the Indian Embassy in Copenhagen said, “We had a very bad experience with DR, so they are excluded. All other Danish journalists are welcome.”

In a similar vain to documentaries produced by the BBC, Blod, sved og T-Shirts showed the group arguing with employers in order to receive their pay, living in squalid conditions and struggling a buy even a few pieces a fruit each day.

Although the BBC has not been banned from reporting in the country, the un-named source at the embassy suggested that the DR ban is unlikely to end soon.”It will take some time. At the moment, we have not decided to let them back in,” he told Jyllands-Posten.

According to the conservative Danish foreign affairs spokesman Stig Møller, the move is undemocratic and violates an agreement between the two countries. “We must protest. It must be made clear to India that they do not have the right to impede the freedom of the press,” he said.

“They have a right to be dissatisfied, but they should either refute DR’s claims or report them to the Pressenævnet [Danish press council],” he added.

Several attempts have been made to correct the unusual vibration in one of the Rolls Royce engines aboard Þór. Engineers from Rolls Royce have been working on the ship in Iceland to rectify the problem without success.

It now seems likely the ship will have to go to Norway for repairs, according to a recent statement on the Icelandic Coastguard’s website.

It first came to light in December that vibration from one of the ship’s main engines was at a higher level than Rolls Royce recommends. The engines are still under manufacturer’s guarantee, as Þór was only handed over to the Icelandic Coastguard last autumn. Attempts to correct the problem in Iceland have so far failed.

If Þór is sent to Norway for repairs, the ship can expect to be absent for several weeks.

Thanks to the open sign language website SignWiki, Icelandic sign language is finally available to everyone in the world with a computer, smartphone or tablet. The website contains a signing dictionary where users can look up the meaning of signs or see videos of sign language.

There are also short lessons on the language, as well as articles about it, and much more.

As the site is made on the open Wikimedia network, it means anyone in the Icelandic sign language community is free to contribute and edit material. The site marks the first time Icelandic sign language is available for study to all.

Head of the deaf people’s communication centre, Valgerður Stefánsdóttir, told RÚV that it is always fun and lively in sign language classes; but that many students have no opportunity to practice anywhere else. Children, for example, who need a lot of practice, have not had good enough access to materials up until now.

It is not actually known how many individual signs are in Icelandic sign language. There are some 1,200 on the website already and the number is steadily growing. The education and culture minister added the signs for ‘education’ and ‘culture’ onto the website when she formally launched it. The website is already gaining attention overseas.

Valgerður says that the Norwegians, who have an excellent deaf people’s communication centre, intend to visit Iceland at the end of the month to study and that it is also planned to make use of the site in Africa, among the people already being helped by the Icelandic Deaf Association.

A section of the street near to the Prime Minister’s office remains cordoned off; although following the controlled explosion reporters have been allowed nearer as the danger level is believed to have dropped.

Bomb disposal teams from the police and the coastguard jointly disposed of the package in a controlled explosion. The package was found at 06.00. At around that time a security guard at the Prime Ministry reports hearing a bang.

Other people nearby also report hearing a loud bang, Vísir.is reports. It appears that pictures or placards with political messages were stuck to the outside of the Prime Ministry this morning just before the bang was heard and before the package was discovered. Similar placards were also put outside the Ministry of the Interior.

Police decided then to search for suspicious objects in other nearby government ministries, but none were found. A cabinet meeting has been allowed to proceed inside the Prime Ministry as police now believe the area to be safe.

UPDATE: The latest news is that the building next to the Prime Ministry where the package was found and destroyed is the Icelandic base of the IMF and that police were not only reacting to a suspicious box, but to a suspicious item inside the suspicious box.

Air Media Center is a new media streaming and live conversion application that allows users to access movies, personal videos, DVDs, photos and music stored on their Mac or PC from their iPhones and iPads. Air Media Center has already outperformed its heavily marketed competitors, AirVideo and StreamToMe, in App Store rankings.

This isn’t the first time App Dynamic ehf. has made international headlines with its innovative software. A string of successful applications such as Remote HD, Air Frame and AirServer caught the attention of Samsung. The IT-giant then approached App Dynamic ehf. to co-design and build a media streaming application for their new line of smartphones. At first, Air Media Center was released exclusively for Samsung’s bada platform but has now reached a wider audience with the newly released iOS application. Air Media Center for other platforms such as Android and Samsung’s Smart TV will be released soon, the company reports.

“Since we’re the only software company in the world, outside of Apple, that specialises in comprehensive AirPlay streaming, it made sense for us to continue developing media-on-demand services,” App Dynamic’s CEO, Pratik Kumar told IceNews. “Air Media Center is a sneak peek at things to come. With Apple dominating smartphone and tablet sales, there was a huge demand for an app like this on iOS’ platform.
People are always looking for apps that help streamline their lifestyles and support multiple platforms. The top media streaming apps were only filling a fraction of the demand; despite the fact that they were being heavily recommended by Apple, so we decided to step up and give people a complete solution with Air Media Center,” he says.