Whaling cancelled, ATM blown up, lost car, EU defence talks

The Reykjavík Grapevine's Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin journalist Aðalsteinn Kjartansson, and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to roundup the stories making headlines in recent weeks. On the docket this week are: 

✨ Iceland’s (more or less) only whaling company Hvalur hf. (Whale ltd.) will not be doing any whaling this year, even though they were recently issued permits to do so. According to the companies CEO, Kristján Loftsson, the “price development of our products in our main market, Japan, has been unfavourable lately and is getting worse, which makes the price of our products so low that it is not justifiable to continue fishing,” Mr. Loftsson also pointed to the market uncertainty brought about by the USA’s tariffs. We discuss.

✨ Last Friday, Iceland formally opened discussions with the EU on defence and security cooperation when Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, met with the EU’s Andrius Kubilisu and Kaja Kallas. We discuss that, and questions about whether the USA might simply “veto” such cooperation.

✨ A car owner in Kópavogur reported his car stolen on Thursday night. The car had not been stolen, the owner had simply forgotten where it was parked.

✨ On Tuesday, an unidentified male tried to blow up an ATM in Hafnarfjörður. This failed. In December a couple of masked perpetrators on a stolen car tried to steal that same ATM by attaching it to the car and pulling it out of the building. That also failed. 

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