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| An election official holds a ballot paper for a referendum in Reykjavik March 6, 2010.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) |
REYKJAVIK, March 7 (Xinhua) -- The final official results released on Sunday confirmed that the so-called Icesave bill was rejected by huge "no" votes of Icelanders in a national referendum held on Saturday.
A total of 144,231 ballots were counted across the country, and 93.2 percent of them were against the bill, which was designed to compensate British and Dutch banking customers for their losses after the Icelandic Internet bank Icesave collapsed in the fall of 2008, said Iceland's public broadcaster RUV on Sunday evening.
It also pointed out that only 1.8 percent of the voters agreed with the bill. Totally, there're about 230,000 registered voters in the country, but only 62.7 percent of them took part in the referendum.
The government said at midnight Saturday it would continue in the coming days with strenuous efforts to achieve a satisfactory solution to the Icesave issue.
Icelanders were in shock after the financial crash of the Icesave bank in 2008. The bank had offered high interest rates before it failed along with its parent, Landsbanki.
The government agreed under intense international pressure to pay for the minimum insurance. The whole amount is close to 60 percent of its GNP, said a report of the local online newspaper Iceland Review.
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"The U.K. remains committed to reaching a final agreement with Iceland in due course. The result of the referendum is a matter for Iceland," a Treasury spokesman said. He issued the statement one day after Icelanders delivered an overwhelming rejection vote on the repayment of the money lent by Britain and the Netherlands to compensate depositors of the bankrupt Icelandic Internet bank Icesave. Full story
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REYKJAVIK, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Iceland's government vowed to work out a deal to repay debts to Britain and the Netherlands after Icelandic voters rejected the Icesave bill on foreign compensations in the national referendum on Saturday. Full story
Iceland's PM urges IMF to continue economic program
STOCKHOLM, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Prime Minister of Iceland Johanna Sigurdardottir on Thursday called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to continue its economic program in the country, according to reports reaching here from Reykjavik.
"I would like to emphasize that the economic program in co-operation with the IMF should continue without interruption, even though a solution to the Icesave matter will be postponed because of the planned national referendum," Sigurdardottir said in the letter to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of IMF.Full story
