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.

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 general rule in Iceland when pension funds lose money is either that lower pension payments to members will follow in the future, or that  higher employee contributions are demanded in the present to close the gap; but there are exceptions, as the LSR case demonstrates.

RÚV reports that LSR is a state-guaranteed pension fund, meaning that if it loses money the taxpayer will bear the cost of replacing it. According to a report into the pension funds, LSR lost around ISK 100 billion (EUR 621.3 million) in the financial crash and the State has not helped the situation – having not always paid its employer’s contribution to the fund as it should.

The pension fund has a massive shortfall, according to economist Ólafur Ísleifsson in a new article for a political studies magazine. He declares that the bill will fall on the Icelandic public to pay back, and a parliamentary answer from the Minister of Finance backs this up: LSR needs around ISK 7.8 billion (EUR 48.4 million) per year for the next 40 years in order to get back up to zero.

There are many indications that LSR’s losses could have been much smaller if its managers had been more careful, the research report into the pension funds states.

“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.

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.

Mikael Davud, a Norwegian from China’s ethnic Uighur minority, was jailed for seven years, while Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd, was given a three-and-a-half year sentence. A third man, David Jakobsen, was cleared of terrorism charges.

Davud conspired with al-Qaeda to attack the offices of Jyllands-Posten newspaper after it published controversial cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in 2005. Prosecutors said he was taught about explosives at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan before plotting with Bujak to launch an attack.

Although Davud admitted to planning hits against Chinese interests in Norway in retaliation to their treatment of the Uighur minority, he and all the other defendants denied that Jyllands-Posten was a target. The men were also accused of plotting to kill one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, but said they had only spoken about punishing him and had not taken any further action.

Jakobesen was cleared of terror charges but found guilty of helping the others secure explosives, even though he alerted the police after buying the chemical hydrogen peroxide in 2009. He has been freed after already serving a four-month sentence.

The convictions of Davud and Bujak are the first to be brought under Norway’s anti-terrorism legislation.

The 11 year-old boy is a student at Melaskóli in the Icelandic capital and returned armed from his lunch break yesterday.

According to DV sources the boy threatened to cut a teacher at the school’s throat with the knife and also threatened others nearby with the weapon.

Police officers were called to the school and succeeded in talking the boy down and taking the knife away. The case is to be referred to child protection authorities.

According to DV, students at the school were called in early from their afternoon break and counselled by teachers. Staff and students alike are understandably shaken by the unusual event; but it was reportedly dealt with in an appropriate and professional manner.

The administrator, who has worked for Migrationsverket for 30 years, also admits assaulting a female colleague after she reported him for making racist remarks.

The first incident came when the proud asylum-seeking parents asked the Swede who he thought their newborn baby looked like during an interview. Rather than picking either the mother or the father as expected, the man replied “Saddam Hussein,” according to a report by The Local.

On another occasion, the administrator was apparently perturbed by a woman wearing a headscarf in the reception area, and afterwards asked the female colleague who dealt with her, “How does it feel to talk to ‘one of those’?”

The co-worker, who the man had also boasted to about his quip to the Iraqi parents, reported him for both incidents. After he received a reprimand from the bosses for his actions, the administrator then deliberately pushed the woman twice in front of other shocked employees as he passed her in the corridor.

The man has admitted to all the accusations but claims the Saddam Hussein comment was meant as a joke. He apparently acknowledges that it was inappropriate, but maintains that women conducting business with authorities should not be wearing headscarves.

Supervisors have had numerous other conversations with the man about his attitude towards asylum seekers and his colleagues since 2007, according to a report from the disciplinary committee obtained by The Local.

“The incidents described above show, according to the judgement of the section head, that the reprimands have had no effect,” the section head wrote in his report, adding that “under no circumstances can violent behaviour and the like be tolerated in the workplace”.

The man has been transferred to a role where he has no public contact while disciplinary measures are considered.

The bus trip, organised by Allt åt Alla (Everything for Everyone), aims to debunk the myth that Sweden is a classless nation by driving through the capital’s most densely populated area, Fisksätra, before taking their passengers to Saltsjöbaden to see how the other half live.

Not all of Saltsjöbaden’s well-to-do residents are happy about being a tourist attraction, however, and one has apparently filed an official complaint with the local police.

Not feeling much sympathy for the well-to-do, Ulla Krogh of Nacka Police told the local newspaper, Näcka-Värmdö Posten, that “Anyone is free to organise something like this”.

Highlights of the tour include a visit to the Grand Hotel, an ogle at the sea views from “Oscar’s” house, which featured in the comedy series Solsidan, and an audience with Rolf, the owner of Sweden’s most expensive home.

On its website, Allt åt Alla describes itself as a “revolutionary organisation” with an aim of developing a hate of the class system in sightseers. The Saltsjöbaden tours are proving popular and selling out quickly, according to the group.