Disgruntled Icelanders recently forced their prime minister to quit, and are threatening to hand power to self-styled pirates at an early election. However, whereas other European voters are culling traditional parties out of weakness, Reykjavik’s are rebelling out of strength.
After the Global Recession in 2008, Iceland suffered enormous losses in its financial sector. Loose regulations and lack of oversight led to a situation in which three failed banks had more than 10 times the Icelandic economic output in assets at the time of their collapse. To prevent a complete tailspin, the government froze foreign investments in the country and reneged on guarantees to pay back savers from the UK and the Netherlands.
Iceland’s former Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde,
the first government leader to be indicted for economic mismanagement during the financial crisis,
said he is the victim of political revenge and blamed the island’s banks for the collapse.
Haarde called the charges “absurd” and predicted he will be “vindicated at the end of the day,” in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Mark Crumpton.
Forbes Largest 2000 public companies of the world are ranked on the basis of various parameters like score for the sales and profits, assets and the market value and some normalcy conditions.
Here the companies are shown country wise along with its industry types which are as follows:
A polar bear display for the zoo. Free towels at public swimming pools. A “drug-free Parliament by 2020.”
Iceland’s Best Party, founded in December by a comedian, Jon Gnarr, to satirize his country’s political system, ran a campaign that was one big joke.
Or was it?
Last month, in the depressed aftermath of the country’s financial collapse, the Best Party emerged as the biggest winner in Reykjavik’s elections, with 34.7 percent of the vote,
