AI Robots, Dragons, Faith, More School Days and Political Party Elections

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: 

✨ Three AI robots have started “working” for the Icelandic container company. Their job is to sort garbage. 
✨ Morgunblaðið has been  going nuts about the profitability of drilling for oil on the ocean floor north east of Iceland, in an area generally referred to as “Drekasvæðið” or the Dragon Zone. What do you guys think is driving this discussion, and does it really make sense to drill for oil — underwater — at this point in history?
✨ Four out of ten Icelanders say they have faith. Down from just over half of the population 10 years ago. 25% claim to be atheist, compared to about 15% in 2014. We see the trend of young men being more religious that women, with a third of men saying they have faith, while only a fifth of women report the same. 
✨ A Reykjavík city council member of Viðreisn, suggested during a city council meeting last week, that the school summer recess would be shortened. The minister of education announced he’d be willing to discuss the proposition. 
✨ On Friday, Estonia announced they were putting article 4 of the NATO charter into effect, initiating a consultation among the member states. This happened after Russian airplanes entered Estonian airspace.
✨ Political parties meet over the weekend. Viðreisn, one of the three political parties of the majority coalition government was re-elected chairman of that party over the weekend. The Pirate party also met over, decided to take up the status of chair and co-chairman as a part of their party’s hierarchy, but nobody really seemed interested in becoming chairman of the party.








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The Reykjavík Grapevine is an alternative monthly magazine, bringing you all the news and views on Ice

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SHOW SUPPORT

Support the Grapevine's reporting by becoming a member of our High Five Club: https://steadyhq.com/en/rvkgrapevine/

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This is a Reykjavík Grapevine podcast.
The Reykjavík Grapevine is a free alternative magazine in English published 18 times per year, biweekly during the spring and summer, and monthly during the autumn and winter.

The magazine covers everything Iceland-related, with a special focus culture, music, food and travel. The Reykjavík Grapevine’s goal is to serve as a trustworthy and reliable source of information for those living in Iceland, visiting Iceland or interested in Iceland. Thanks to our dedicated readership and excellent distribution network, the Reykjavík Grapevine is Iceland’s most read English-language publication.

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