A new database dedicated to Icelandic filmmaking has been opened at Kvikmyndavefurinn.is. It features more than 1,200 titles and eight thousand individuals, vísir.is reports.

“This has been a massive undertaking,” says Þór Tjörvi Þórsson at the Icelandic Film Centre, who developed the database in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. “We have been entering all the information and it has been quite a long process.”

The database is the most detailed on Icelandic film making. It also contains details on the cast and crew of each film, animated feature and TV program that has been produced in Iceland.

In addition, the site contains a variety of other information, including posters, trailers, premiere dates and so on.

The project was put in high gear two years ago, and people participating in an employment initiative organized by the Ministry of Welfare and the Directorate of Labor helped a great deal in getting the job done, Þór Tjörvi added.

ÁA

Article source: http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/New_Icelandic_Film_Database_Opens_0_387733.news.aspx

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“We have players playing all over the world but our manager always starts the
first meeting by saying ‘now we are going to do it the Dutch way’,” he says.

“I’m doing different things in England than I will do at the national team.
Van Persie is doing different things, the players in Germany are doing
different things. But for the national team, we do it the Dutch way. We play
football, starting from the goalkeeper.”

There was a period not too long ago when the Dutch were as notorious for total
disruption as much as total football. Divisions sabotaged numerous campaigns.

Liverpool’s
Dirk Kuyt says it is not a question of players being buddies now, but
acknowledges the mutual benefits of working together.

“It’s impossible to have 22 players who all friends with each other,” says
Kuyt. “But you can still make sure the spirit is there in the team. What is
most important is that everyone respects each other and works for the team.”

Heitinga admits there was a concerted effort for the Dutch to stop the
infighting.

He said: “Before the last World Cup the manager said to us it doesn’t matter
if you don’t like this or that person, you have to accept his quality and
work for each other.

“What’s going to happen on the pitch is you help each other. After the game,
if you don’t like each other, then don’t talk to each other, but on the
pitch it’s different. There is only one goal and you need all the players
working for together to win a trophy. That is always your best chance.

“The main thing for us in South Africa was that we were a team. Everyone was
fighting for each other. We knew who the stars were, who needed to work a
bit harder, but you need everyone working together if you’re going to reach
your goal.”

Article source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/holland/9109260/England-v-Holland-Dutch-defender-Johnny-Heitinga-says-ditching-Capello-has-damaged-Englands-Euro-hopes.html

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COLOGNE, Germany — Erland Josephson, the great Swedish actor best known for his many collaborations with director Ingmar Bergman, died Feb. 25 in Stockholm after a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 88.

Woody Allen Pays Tribute to Ingmar Bergman: ‘His Approach Was Poetic’Berlin 2012: Max von Sydow and Thomas Horn Share Rapturous Reception as ‘Extremely Loud Incredibly Close’ Debuts

Perhaps only Josephson’s contemporary, Extremely Loud Incredibly Close Oscar nominee Max von Sydow, loomed so large over Sweden’s film and theater scene as Josephson. In his long career, the self-trained actor appeared in nearly 100 films and TV series as well as countless stage productions.

His best-known work was with legendary Swedish director Bergman, whom he met during the late 1930s when Josephson, then just 16 years old, was cast in a production of The Merchant of Venice that the 21-year-old Bergman was directing.

It was the beginning of a lifelong collaboration that would see the actor and director work together on 40 films and stage plays, including such cinematic classics as Scenes From a Marriage (1973) and Fanny and Alexander (1982). Bergman’s films made Josephson an international star and, for the cine-literate of the time, something of a symbol of the 20th century Western man:  self-centered, introspective, aloof and, above all, neurotic.

Hollywood came calling, but Josephson preferred the European film and theater scene. He reportedly turned down Richard Dreyfuss’ role in Jaws 2, saying he’d prefer to have “intellectual battles with [Scenes From a Marriage co-star] Liv Ullmann than fight with some shark.”

He nevertheless became a familiar face in the European art house scene, with roles in Philip Kaufman‘s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), Peter Greenaway‘s Prospero’s Books (1991) and Ulysses’ Gaze (1996) from Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, who died in January.

While Josephson’s name will forever be linked with Bergman, he also had a fruitful collaboration with another giant of the European film scene: Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Josephson starred in Tarkovsky’s final two films: Nostalgia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986), the latter of which won the BAFTA for best foreign-language film.

In addition to his acting, Josephson was creative director of Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theater from 1966-75 — a position he took over from Bergman — and was a prolific writer of plays, novels and memoirs. He also directed the film Marmalade Revolution (1980), which screened in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Josephson is survived by his wife, Ulla Aberg, and five children.

Article source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/swedish-actor-erland-josephson-dead-295401

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AP Photo/Eric GayGOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is now
making waves on another hot-button social issue: doctor-assisted suicide.

Santorum is attracting media attention not only in the U.S.
but in the Netherlands after making several assertions about Dutch euthanasia practices that
critics say just don’t hold water.
Whatever the case, it’s enough to make you wonder if Oregon’s pioneering
“death with dignity” law will become an issue if Santorum makes it to the state’s
May 15 GOP primary.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who has also been the most
aggressive of the GOP candidates in taking on such issues as gay marriage and
insurance coverage for contraception, charged that 10 percent of the Dutch are
euthanized and that the elderly are afraid to go to hospitals in the
Netherlands. He said the elderly there wear bracelets asking not be euthanized.

Santorum made his comments in a Feb. 3 forum in Missouri,
but they’ve only started receiving wide attention in recent days as a video of
his remarks has circulated on the internet.

According to The Washington Post’s fact checker, Santorum’s
statistics are way off and he’s wrong about the elderly wearing such
bracelets. People there often do
have living wills that express their wishes regarding euthanasia, the Post
said.

A Dutch TV reporter who appeared on Rachel Maddow’s show on
MSNBC said Santorum’s remarks have become big news in Holland, where they have
been roundly denounce as untrue.
Santorum’s charges are “funny but insulting at the same time,” said Erik
Mouthan of RTL News.

Still, said Tim Worstall, a fellow at the Adam Smith
Institute in London, Santorum is “sorta right” about the problems with Dutch
euthanasia law. Although Santorum’s statistics
are off, Worstall said, Dutch doctors are euthanizing some patients who have not
expressly asked to die at that moment.

Oregon’s law (which has been copied in large part by
Washington and Montana) is  different. Terminally ill patients can
receive a lethal prescription from a doctor but they have to personally ingest
it. While the law has generated little
controversy in recent years, it’s not hard to imagine it being an issue if
Santorum is still a viable candidate in May.
There are many conservative voters who remain ardently opposed to the
law and it’s not hard to imagine them being a force in the GOP primary.

Article source: http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2012/02/santorum_attacks_dutch_euthana.html

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STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Swedish Royal Court has released the first close-up pictures of the Nordic country’s newborn princess and future monarch.

The royal court posted the pictures of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel’s daughter Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary on its website Monday.

The photos show the sleeping princess wearing a white cardigan and were taken when she was four days old at the royal couple’s residency at Haga Palace.

The princess was born in Stockholm on Thursday. As Victoria’s first-born child, she is second in line to the Swedish throne.

Sweden’s monarch is primarily a figurehead, representing the country as the head of state but with powers limited to ceremonial functions.

Article source: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Swedish-royals-release-first-pictures-of-princess-3363549.php

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February 27, 2012, 12:51 PM EST

By Omar R. Valdimarsson

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) — Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson said he may seek a fifth four-year term as head of state in elections due to take place in June.

Grimsson said he was responding to a petition signed by 30,000 Icelanders urging him to run. He spoke in a televised address from his residence outside Reykjavik.

Grimsson twice blocked a parliamentary accord on repaying British and Dutch depositor claims stemming from the failure of Landsbanki Islands hf in 2008. Icelandic voters subsequently rejected the agreement in a referendum last year and Iceland has yet to settle the dispute through an international court case.

–Editors: Tasneem Brogger.

To contact the reporter on this story: Omar R. Valdimarsson in Reykjavik valdimarsson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonas Bergman at jbergman@bloomberg.net

Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-27/iceland-president-may-seek-fifth-term-after-petition-from-voters.html

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(AFP)
–
5 hours ago 

COPENHAGEN — Danish shipping and petroleum group A.P. Moeller-Maersk posted Monday a sharp drop in 2011 net profit and warned that its transport unit expected a loss this year owing to excess capacity.

Net profit last year fell by 43 percent to 15.19 billion kroner (2.04 billion euros, $2.73 billion), a statement said, owing in large part to “low container freight rates on especially the Asia-Europe trades.”

Fuel costs were higher meanwhile, and more than offset a slight 2.0-percent increase in sales to 322.52 billion kroner.

For this year, the group forecast positive earnings “lower than the 2011 result” and warned that its shipping division “expects a negative result in 2012 as a consequence of excess capacity.”

The company’s activities break down roughly into two units, Maersk Oil and Maersk Liner Business.

The former expects a result that is significantly below the result for 2011 based on an expected 20 percent decline in oil and gas production at an average price of $105.00 per barrel, the statement said.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, A.P. Moeller-Maersk recorded stable sales of 14.97 billion dollars, but said net profit was just one third of the level earned a year earlier, at 273 million dollars.

Shares in the company sank in morning trades on the Copenhagen stock exchange, showing a loss of 2.8 percent.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.
More »

Article source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxZIOQ9N0nixmf9M5B_ptou2LKVw?docId=CNG.d4a3f70f7b7469fb07da6f41f13d037d.5e1

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27 February 2012
Last updated at 17:36

Chancellor Angela Merkel had the support of two opposition parties

German MPs have voted by 496 to 90 to back the second EU/IMF bailout for Greece.

Chancellor Angela Merkel had urged them to back the deal, while conceding there was “no 100% guarantee” it would work.

Several MPs in her party opposed the deal but it was not clear if they had voted against the government.

Germany will have to pay more than any other country for the 130bn euro ($173bn; £110bn) package, agreed by eurozone states last week.

Although the Bundestag (lower house) had the power to block the bailout, it was always expected to go through because of the support of two opposition parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens.

In the event, there was a large majority in favour of the deal, with five MPs abstaining in the vote.

The BBC’s Stephen Evans, in Berlin, says that despite the five-to-one majority, there is a great deal of scepticism about the bailout’s effectiveness both among politicians and the wider population.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, from the ruling Christian Democrats’ Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), had earlier argued that Greece’s chances of recovery would be better if it left the eurozone.

“I’m not talking about throwing Greece out, but rather about creating incentives for an exit that they can’t pass up,” he told Spiegel magazine on Sunday.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I’m not talking about throwing Greece out, but rather about creating incentives for an exit that they can’t pass up”

End Quote
Hans-Peter Friedrich
German Interior Minister

Under the front-page headline “Stop”, Germany’s mass circulation Bild newspaper made a direct appeal to parliament: “Don’t keep on going the wrong way.”

An opinion poll for Bild’s Sunday edition suggested that 62% of those surveyed wanted MPs to vote against the package.

‘Hopeless case’

Mrs Merkel told the Bundestag that she was aware that people were concerned that Greece was a “hopeless case” and that the eurozone would be better off without it. But she had come to the conclusion that “the opportunities of this new package outweighed the risks”.

“No-one can predict what the repercussions of a disorderly default would be for all of us and also for the people of Germany.”

Under the terms of the bailout, Greece has to approve 3.2bn euros in budget cuts and has already backed a debt swap with banks and private investors to wipe out 107bn euros of debt.

German’s mass circulation Bild appealed to MPs to stop “going the wrong way”

For the opposition SPD, former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told MPs that the government’s crisis management followed a motto of “too little, too late and above all too vague”.

But he said his party would support the deal as it was in Germany’s economic and national interest.

Left Party leader Gregor Gysi bitterly criticised the SPD and Green decision to back the coalition government, comparing the deal secured for Greece with the Treaty of Versailles that led to major German reparations and concessions after World War I.

“Greece needs a Marshall Plan, not a Versailles Treaty,” he said.

The chancellor also said that Germany was prepared to speed up the planned payment of capital into the new permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), with 11bn euros this year and a second portion next year.

Mrs Merkel said that she was resisting pressure to increase the size of the ESM from its 500bn euro capacity when it comes into existence in July.

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17176616

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Article source: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/finnish-consumer-morale-at-7-month-high-manufacturing-confidence-picks-up-20120227-00114

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New Delhi: Special envoy Madhusudhan Ganapathi has been rushed to Norway to convey India’s concerns in connection with the NRI children’s custody row and will meet the Norwegian Foreign Minister today.

The grandparents of the children held a protest outside the Norwegian embassy today demanding the return of the children. Screengrab of Sagarika Bhattacharya from CNN-IBN

Ganapathi, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, has been tasked to once again take up the matter and convey the government’s views on the issue to the Norwegian authorities, official sources said.

Ganapathi is scheduled to meet Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store to convey India’s concerns over the matter involving one-year-old Aishwarya and three-year-old Abhigyan who were taken away by the child welfare officials in Norway in May last year and placed in foster care.

The kids’ parents, NRI couple Sagarika and Anurup Bhattacharya, were accused of negligence by the Norwegian child welfare officials.

India has been exerting pressure on Norway to find an amicable solution to the problem.

India had said that it would make “all out” efforts to ensure early return of the two Indian children from Norway following attempts by authorities of that country to keep them in foster care after expiry of their visa next month.

“We will make all out efforts to achieve the goal of getting back the children to India where they belong,” External Affairs Minister S M Krishna had said recently.

The families of the NRI couple protested outside the Norwegian embassy in New Delhi today demanding that the two children be returned to India.

“We demand the Norway government send the children back by 8 March,” Manotosh Chakraborty, grandfather of the children told reporters outside the Norwegian embassy.

The children were not orphans and their Norwegian visas should not be extended beyond 8 March keeping them in foster care, he said.

BJP leader Sushma Swaraj and CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat also joined the protest and demanded the return of the children.

PTI

Article source: http://www.firstpost.com/india/norwegian-children-custody-row-india-sends-envoy-to-norway-226391.html

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