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2016 Icelandic Presidential Election
Presidential elections were held in Iceland on 25 June 2016. President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, elected in 1996, stepped down after serving five consecutive terms. The history professor Guðni Th. Jóhannesson was elected after receiving a plurality of 39.1% of the vote. He took office on 1 August, as the first new president of Iceland in twenty years. Electoral system The President of Iceland is elected by plurality in a single round of voting. Candidates must be Icelandic citizens and at least 35 years of age on election day. Campaign On 1 January 2016, incumbent president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson announced that he would not seek a sixth term in the office, wanting "to transfer the responsibilities of the president onto other shoulders". He later retracted and decided to run in April, citing political unrest after the fallout of the Panama Papers leak, which implicated Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and forced him to resign after large anti-government prot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panama Papers
The Panama Papers ( es, Papeles de Panamá) are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) that were published beginning on April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, former Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca. The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials that had previously been kept private. The publication of these documents made it possible to establish the prosecution of Jan Marsalek, who is still a person of interest to a number of European governments due to his revealed links with Russian intelligence, and international financial fraudsters David and Josh Baazov. While offshore business entities are legal (see Offshore Magic Circle), reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prime Minister Of Iceland
The prime minister of Iceland ( is, Forsætisráðherra Íslands) is Iceland's head of government. The prime minister is appointed formally by the president and exercises executive authority along with the cabinet subject to parliamentary support. Constitutional basis The prime minister is appointed by the president under the Constitution of Iceland, Section II Article 17, and chairs the Cabinet of Iceland: : ' : The abinetmeetings shall be presided over by the Minister called upon by the President of the Republic to do so, who is designated Prime Minister. Locations The prime minister's office is located in Stjórnarráðið, Reykjavik, where their secretariat is based and where cabinet meetings are held. The prime minister has a summer residence, Þingvallabær in Þingvellir. The prime minister also has a reception house at Tjarnargata, Reykjavik, which was the prime ministerial residence until 1943. Image:Iceland-Reykjavik-Stjornarrad-1.jpg, Stjórnarráðið in Reykjav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., and news bureaus in 151 countries in 201 locations. AFP transmits stories, videos, photos and graphics in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and German. History Agence France-Presse has its origins in the Agence Havas, founded in 1835 in Paris by Charles-Louis Havas, making it the world's oldest news service. The agency pioneered the collection and dissemination of news as a commodity, and had established itself as a fully global concern by the late 19th century. Two Havas employees, Paul Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, set up their own news agencies in London and Berlin respectively. In 1940, when German forces occupied France during World War II, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed "Office fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Democracy
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracy, representative democracies. The theory and practice of direct democracy and participation as its common characteristic was the core of work of many theorists, philosophers, politicians, and social critics, among whom the most important are Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and G. D. H. Cole, G.D.H. Cole. Overview In direct democracy, the people decide on policies without any intermediary or representative, whereas in a representative democracy people vote for representatives who then enact policy initiatives. Depending on the particular system in use, direct democracy might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing offici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Economic Area
The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Association. The EEA links the EU member states and three EFTA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) into an internal market governed by the same basic rules. These rules aim to enable free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital within the European single market, including the freedom to choose residence in any country within this area. The EEA was established on 1 January 1994 upon entry into force of the EEA Agreement. The contracting parties are the EU, its member states, and Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. The EEA Treaty is a commercial treaty and differs from the EU Treaties in certain key respects. According to Article 1 its purpose is to "promote a continuous and balanced strengthening of trade and economic relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2016 United Kingdom European Union Membership Referendum
The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country should remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). It was organised and facilitated through the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The referendum resulted in 51.9% of the votes cast being in favour of leaving the EU. Although the referendum was legally non-binding, the government of the time promised to implement the result. Membership of the EU had long been a topic of debate in the United Kingdom. The country joined the European Communities (EC), principally the European Economic Community (EEC) or Common Market, the forerunner to the European Union, in 1973, along with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been described as a '' sui generis'' political entity (without precedent or comparison) combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation. Containing 5.8per cent of the world population in 2020, the EU generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around trillion in 2021, constituting approximately 18per cent of global nominal GDP. Additionally, all EU states but Bulgaria have a very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme. Its cornerstone, the Customs Union, paved the way to establishing an internal single market based on standardised legal framework and legislation that applies in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where the states have agreed to act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UEFA Euro 2016
The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organised by UEFA. It was held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain were the two-time defending champions, having won the 2008 and 2012 tournaments, but were eliminated in the round of 16 by Italy. Portugal won the tournament for the first time, following a 1–0 victory after extra time over the host team, France, in the final played at the Stade de France. For the first time, the European Championship final tournament was contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996. Under the new format, the finalists contested a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout phase including three rounds and the final. Nineteen teams – the top two from each of the nine qualif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iceland National Football Team
The Iceland national football team (in ) represents Iceland in men's international football. The team is controlled by the Football Association of Iceland, and have been a FIFA member since 1947 and an UEFA member since 1957. The team's nickname is ''Strákarnir okkar'', which means ''Our Boys'' in Icelandic. The team has enjoyed success in the second half of the 2010s. In the qualifying rounds for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Iceland reached the playoffs before losing to Croatia. Iceland reached its first major tournament, UEFA Euro 2016, after a qualification campaign which included home and away wins over the Netherlands. After advancing to the knockout stages of Euro 2016, Iceland defeated England in the Round of 16, advancing to the quarter-finals, where they lost to host nation France 5–2. They became the smallest nation by population to ever clinch a FIFA World Cup berth when they qualified for the 2018 tournament on 9 October 2017. They drew with Argentina in their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icesave
The Icesave dispute was a diplomatic dispute between Iceland, and the Netherlands and the United Kingdom that began after the privately owned Icelandic bank Landsbanki was placed in receivership on 7 October 2008. As ''Landsbanki'' was one of three systemically important financial institutions in Iceland to go bankrupt within a few days, the Icelandic Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund (''Tryggingarsjóður'') had no remaining funds to make good on deposit guarantees to foreign ''Landsbanki'' depositors who held savings in the Icesave branch of the bank. When ''Landsbanki'' was placed into receivership by the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority (FME), 343,306 retail depositors in the UK and Netherlands that held accounts in the "Icesave" branch of ''Landsbanki'' lost a total of €6.7bn of savings. Because no immediate repayment was expected by any Icelandic institutions, the Dutch and British ''national deposit guarantee schemes'' covered repayment up to the ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cod Wars
The Cod Wars ( is, Þorskastríðin; also known as , ; german: Kabeljaukriege) were a series of 20th-century confrontations between the United Kingdom (with aid from West Germany) and Iceland about fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with an Icelandic victory. Some Icelandic historians view the history of Iceland's struggle for control of its maritime resources in ten episodes, or ten cod wars. Fishing boats from Britain have been sailing to waters near Iceland in search of their catch since the 14th century. Agreements struck during the 15th century started a centuries-long series of intermittent disputes between the two countries. Demand for seafood and consequent competition for fish stocks grew rapidly in the 19th century. The modern disputes or wars began in 1952 after Iceland expanded its territorial waters from 3 to based on a decision by the International Court of Justice. The United Kingdom responded by banning Icelandic ships landing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
