Word: icelandic
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...REYKJAVÍK, ICELAND Frozen Assets In the Icelandic language the words for money and sheep are the same. But under Iceland's current economic conditions, goes a joke doing the rounds, only one will put food on the table and a coat on your back (as long as you eat mutton and wear wool). With a flagging currency and a crippled banking industry, Icelanders are fast losing their jobs, savings and businesses. The government fears that some may even be losing their minds: a few days ago, the Icelandic Ministry of Health set up an emergency mental-health center...
Reykjavík, Iceland In the Icelandic language the words for "money" and "sheep" are the same. But under Iceland's current economic conditions, goes a joke doing the rounds, only one will put food on the table and a coat on your back - as long as you eat mutton and wear wool. With a flagging currency and a crippled banking sector, Icelanders are fast losing their jobs, savings and businesses. The government fears that some may even be losing their minds: the Icelandic Ministry of Health has set up an emergency mental-health center in downtown Reykjav...
Minister of Health Gudlaugur Thór Thórdarson agrees that Iceland has sustained a blow to its psyche - "especially when Gordon Brown uses antiterrorism laws against Iceland," he says, referring to the British Prime Minister's move to invoke an antiterrorism law to freeze Icelandic companies' assets in the U.K. "The people here not only suffer financially - it also makes us feel bad." Indeed, says psychologist Ólafsson, "Icelanders have always seen themselves as an independent people, and now we simply can't be as self-sufficient...
Need to start a war? No problem. While stock markets gyrate and financial institutions (and even whole countries, like Iceland) teeter on bankruptcy, one global industry is still drawing plenty of high-end trades and profits: weapons...
...would Russia promise $5.4 billion to bail out Iceland, when Iceland's traditional allies weren't offering the money? After all, Russia has its own grave financial issues to deal with. Does the country really expect to be paid back in "the famous Icelandic herring, popular in Russia since Soviet times?" as Victor Tatarintsev, Russian ambassador to Iceland, noted in an interview on Russian television. More likely, this act of benevolence is being viewed as a way for Russia to help secure a bridgehead for an advance into the Arctic regions to claim the vast hydrocarbon and other mineral deposits...