Thóra Arnórsdóttir | |
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| Born | 18 February 1975 Reykjavík, Iceland |
| Alma mater | University of Iceland Johns Hopkins University |
| Partner | Svavar Halldórsson |
Thóra Arnórsdóttir (Þóra Arnórnsdóttir; born 18 February 1975), is an Icelandic documentary film maker, media personality and a candidate for the presidential election in June 2012. [1]
She has worked as a journalist and news editor at the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service and is currently the managing editor of Kveikur, an investigative journalism TV program on the station. [2] At Kveikur, Thora was responsible for reporting on the Panama Papers which ultimately led to the resignation of the then prime minister of Iceland [3] and the Fishrot Files that exposed corrupt links between the Namibian government and Samherji, one of Iceland's largest fishing companies. [4]
Thora was elected as a Yale World Fellow in 2014. [5] She has also been a lecturer at the University of Iceland on International Relations and Globalization and works internationally as moderator and MC at various events. [6]
Thora is also founder and owner of Hugveitan, a documentary production company that has created films including Hrunið (The Crash), [7] a TV-series on the economic crash in Iceland in 2008, At the Bottom of the Fiord: The Last Farmers in Ísafjardardjup [8] and Pioneers [9] – a series on the women that paved the road in Iceland in various fields. [10] All were nominated to an Edda-prize, Iceland's TV and Film awards. [11] [ circular reference ] She was the host of Útsvar, Iceland’s most popular quiz show for a decade, from 2007-2017. She was nominated as TV-personality of the Year in 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and won the “Peoples´ Choice Award” in 2012 – and nominated for the Journalist Awards in 2009 and 2010.
On 4 April 2012 she announced would stand against the incumbent, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, for the Presidency of Iceland. The president is elected directly by the public and traditionally, the incumbent would not be challenged. This changed in 2012 because of widespread dissatisfaction with the president after 16 years in office, with five candidates challenging him. Thora Arnorsdottir got a third of the votes and was a strong runner-up, despite being pregnant with her third child and giving birth to a daughter during the campaign. [12] [13] [ circular reference ]
She has a B.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Iceland, an MA degree in international and development economics from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna, Italy, and Washington, DC, USA, where she studied on a Fulbright Scholarship. [14] She was also elected for the prestigious Yale World Fellowship for mid-career global leaders in 2014. [15] [16]
She has three children with her partner Svavar Halldórsson, who is also a reporter with RUV, and three step-daughters from her partner's previous marriage. [17]
Her father Arnór Hannibalsson was a philosopher, and professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland. Her grandfather Hannibal Valdimarsson, was a trade union leader, member of parliament and government minister. Her uncle is Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson, former Finance Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs. Her mother was Nína S. Sveinsdóttir (1935-2018), a business administration graduate from the University of Iceland and a lifelong teacher. She has four older brothers. [18] One of her brothers is comicbook artist Kjartan 'Karno' Arnorsson.
Vigdís Finnbogadóttir is an Icelandic politician who served as the fourth president of Iceland from 1980 to 1996. She was the world's first woman who was democratically elected as president. With a presidency of exactly sixteen years, she also remains longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date. Currently, she is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, and a member of the Club of Madrid. She is also to-date Iceland's only female president.
Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir is an Icelandic politician, who has been chairman of the Liberal Reform Party since 2017.
Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson is an Icelandic politician and diplomat. He was Minister of Finance from 1987 to 1988 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1988 to 1995.
Samherji hf. is a fishing and fish processing company in Iceland. It is the largest fishing company in Iceland, and one of the largest in Europe. It was founded in Grindavík in 1972. Its current headquarters are in Akureyri, but the company operates in many locations in Iceland and throughout the world. The company employs approximately 800 staff in Iceland, and 800 staff abroad. One of its companies is the sales company Seagold Ltd. in England, led by Gústaf Baldvinsson.
RÚV is the main television channel of RÚV, the Icelandic public broadcaster, launched in 1966. The free-to-air channel broadcasts primarily news, sports, entertainment, cultural programs, children's material, original Icelandic programming as well as American, British and Nordic content. Among its highest-rated programs are the comedy sketch show Spaugstofan, mystery drama Ófærð (Trapped) and Fréttir (News).
Björgólfur Guðmundsson is an Icelandic businessman and former chairman and owner of West Ham United. Björgólfur was Iceland's second wealthiest businessman worth more than a billion dollars — his son, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson being the first. He was at one time the majority owner and chairman of the now nationalised Icelandic bank Landsbanki, the second largest company in Iceland. He was ranked by Forbes magazine in March 2008 as the 1014th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $1.1 billion. In December of the same year Forbes revalued his net worth to $0, and on 31 July 2009 he was declared bankrupt by the Icelandic courts with debts of almost £500 million.
Iceland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with the song "Is It True?" written by Óskar Páll Sveinsson, Tinatin Japaridze and Christopher Neil. The song was performed by Yohanna, which is the artistic name of singer Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir. The Icelandic entry for the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia was selected through the national final Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins 2009, organised by the Icelandic broadcaster Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV). The selection consisted of four semi-finals and a final, held on 10 January, 17 January, 24 January, 31 January and 14 February 2009, respectively. Four songs competed in each semi-final with the top two as selected by a public televote advancing to the final. In the final, "Is It True?" performed by Yohanna emerged as the winner exclusively through public televoting.
The Icelandic financial crisis was a major economic and political event in Iceland that involved the default of all three of the country's major privately owned commercial banks in late 2008, following their difficulties in refinancing their short-term debt and a run on deposits in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Relative to the size of its economy, Iceland's systemic banking collapse was the largest experienced by any country in economic history. The crisis led to a severe economic slump in 2008–2010 and significant political unrest.
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is an Icelandic politician, who served as prime minister of Iceland from 2009 to 2013. She became active in the trade union movement, serving as an officer.
Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili is an economic policy expert, an advocate for transparency, accountability, good governance and human capital development, a humanitarian and an activist. She is a former vice president for the World Bank's Africa region, co-founder and founding director of Transparency International, co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and has served twice as Federal Minister in Nigeria. She is also the founder of #FixPolitics Initiative, a research-based citizen-led initiative, the School of Politics Policy and Governance (SPPG), and Human Capital Africa.
Þóra Björg Helgadóttir, commonly Anglicised as Thora Helgadottir, is an Icelandic footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Trained at university level in the United States, she formerly played for four seasons with Duke University's women's soccer team. She most recently played for Damallsvenskan club Malmö and had previously represented clubs in Iceland, Belgium, Norway and Australia.
Edda Garðarsdóttir is an Icelandic football coach and former player who last managed Úrvalsdeild club KR. Since her debut in 1997 she has accrued over 100 caps for Iceland's national team and competed at the UEFA Women's Euro 2009 finals in Finland.
Presidential elections were held in Iceland on 30 June 2012. The result was a victory for the incumbent Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who defeated his nearest rival Thóra Arnórsdóttir by nearly 20% of the vote, and went on to serve a record fifth term as president of Iceland.
Björgólfur Jóhannsson is an Icelandic business executive, former President and CEO of Icelandair Group, the holding company of Icelandair, the flag carrier of Iceland. Björgólfur resigned as the Company's President & CEO on 27 August 2018 and Bogi Nils Bogason, the Company's CFO, became interim President & CEO of the Company Björgólfur was also the chairman of the board of the Confederation of Icelandic Employers but stepped down On 7 March 2017
Sigrún Davíðsdóttir is an Icelandic journalist and writer. She became the London correspondent for the Icelandic national broadcaster RÚV in 2000 and has been nominated as RÚV's Reporter of the Year. She is particularly noted for her coverage, since the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis, of financial crime, tax avoidance, and corruption, documented through her blog Icelog. She has, however, published a wide variety of books alongside her journalism.
Stundin was an Icelandic bi-weekly newspaper known for investigative journalism. It took the form of both an online newspaper and a news magazine. It was founded in 2015 by former staff of DV after a hostile takeover of the paper. It was funded through the Karolina Fund platform and reached its goal of five million Icelandic krónas in two days. The chief editors of the paper where Ingibjörg Dögg Kjartansdóttir and Jón Trausti Reynisson. They each owned a 12 percent share in the company, and no single shareholder was allowed to own more than a 15 percent share. In January 2023, it merged with Kjarninn to form Heimildin.
Birna Brjánsdóttir (1996–2017) was an Icelandic woman who disappeared at the age of 20 on the morning of 14 January 2017 after leaving a club in central Reykjavík. She was found dead on 22 January 2017 after an extensive search operation, with her having been dropped into the ocean. A Greenlandic fisherman, Thomas Møller Olsen, was found guilty of her murder and received a 19-year prison sentence for that crime in addition to narcotics smuggling.
Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir is an Icelandic actress and musician. She graduated from the drama department of the Iceland Academy of the Arts in the spring of 2007.
Marga Ingeborg Thome is a German-Icelandic nursing scholar. She is a professor emerita at the University of Iceland. In 2010, Marga was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Icelandic Order of the Falcon.
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