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Islands may seek independence from UK and Scotland

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Monday 24 March 2014 22.32

Residents of three groups of remote Scottish islands, some of which straddle oil and gas fields northeast of Britain, are calling for their own breakaway votes and greater autonomy.

Islanders from Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles have lodged a petition with the Scottish parliament asking for a vote on 25 September.

That vote would comea week after a referendum on whether Scotland should end its ties with the United Kingdom after 307 years.

Local councils in the three island groups have also launched a campaign called "Our Islands, Our Future" to seek more powers after the 18 September vote, whatever the result.

New powers could include control of the sea bed around the islands.

The moves follow debate over the powers that Shetland and Orkney would have if Scotland became independent, with local officials saying that around 67% of North Sea reserves lie within their coastal waters.

Nationalists argue Scotland can be a prosperous nation with oil money to offset its relatively higher state spending and forecasts of oil and gas revenue of between 31bn and 57bn between 2012-2013 to 2017-2018.

But islanders, wary of governments in both London and Edinburgh that they accuse of ignoring their needs, are keen to control their own resources.

Tavish Scott, Shetland's representative in the devolved Scottish parliament, said Scotland does not have an economy without oil and gas, giving Shetland some leverage.

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Islands may seek independence from UK and Scotland

Shetland Islands, Place of Vikings and Oil, Question Scottish Independence

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The Scottish referendum of independence scheduled for September leaves the Shetland Islands with a question. Go to with Scotland, stay with Britain, or become independent? A petition went online recently on the Scottish Parliament website asking to hold a referendum of this very question.

29.2% of Shetlanders are direct descendants of Vikings according to a study by BritainsDNA, the U.K. Huffington Post reported. The islands were part of Norway until the 15th century and hold important oil reserves for Scotland. Catriona Murray, secretary of the group Referenda On The Islands told the Telegraph We believe that it is up to islanders to decide, and that now is the time to do so. Our own group includes supporters of all three options.

The 23,000 people who live in the Shetland Islands may not have much of an impact on the September referendum. But they do play an important role in Scottish economy. Since the 1960s, the Islands have gained strategic importantance, especially in the construction of Sullom Voe, one of Europes largest energy terminals, according to the Associated Press. Baron Lamont of Lerwick told the BBC Scottish oil would go out of the window if the islands left the country.

Meanwhile, Shetlanders continue to embrace their Viking heritage. The Up Helly Aa Viking fire festival takes place in the late winter dusk, hundreds of Vikings are marching down to the beach, bearing flaming torches, as Associated Press Jill Lawless described, Their studded leather breastplates glint in the firelight as they roar and sing. Its a scene that would have struck terror into the hearts of Dark Age Britons.

Whether Shetland stays with Britain, goes with Scotland, or becomes independent, it seems it will remain a place of Vikings.

Image via STV Scotland, YouTube

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Shetland Islands, Place of Vikings and Oil, Question Scottish Independence

Why I fly ! A Manual Airbus Approach from the Cockpit – Amazing view into the FAroe Islands – Video

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Why I fly ! A Manual Airbus Approach from the Cockpit - Amazing view into the FAroe Islands
An RNP-AR Approach converted into a Manual Visual approach into the amazing Faroe Islands 🙂 Enjoy the scenery. Welcome to join up in our facebook group " SI...

By: Thomas Bo Petersen

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Why I fly ! A Manual Airbus Approach from the Cockpit - Amazing view into the FAroe Islands - Video

Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms

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Future Islands in New York City, February 2014 Photo by Rebecca Smeyne for SPIN

It's a very cold February night in Baltimore and Future Islands frontman Sam Herring is shuffling across the Floristree stage like a cranked-up Elvis impersonator. Exuding memory-haunted menace, he stalks around as if he were hunting prey, pauses, finds a fan's eyes and stares into them, stopping mid-dance move. Dozens of diehard fans in the front become one swaying, sweaty clump of pumping fists and pogo-ing legs with the occasional crowd surfer poking out. Not quite a mosh pit more like the moves and grooves of a rave dancing its pain away, mindfully concentrated. Most of the people in the front of this legendary (and quasi-legal) DIY performance space were raised on patron saint of B'more spaz-out, Dan Deacon, and his one, simple rule for going nuts at a show: Jump up and down, not side to side, so nobody falls down and gets fucking hurt.

"It was bonkers," Herring proudly brays the next day. It's early in the afternoon and Future Islands are gathered in their rehearsal space, a tiny room in the basement of Baltimore's Current Space Gallery. Last night was the group's sixth time playing Floristree since 2007, though they've been there plenty more times if you count side-project gigs and, as Herring fondly recalls, watching Ravens football games with friends. "There's a spirit at Floristree," Herring says. "It's a living space. Like, this is also somebody's home."

Here in Baltimore, Future Islands are local heroes, with a wider, more populist appeal than they have elsewhere, which means plenty of people at Floristree were there for the first time after encountering the band at, say, 2012's Virgin Free Fest or the city's more conventional rock clubs. But that night was an important moment for the band bringing old and new fans into (or back to) a personally special space just before the release of what will certainly be their most high-profile record to date. This month marks the release of the four-piece's fourth album, Singles, a major indie-rock release (on fabled indie label, 4AD) that will finally push the trio rounded out by bassist/guitarist William Cashion and multi-instrumentalist producer Gerrit Welmers to a much higher level of visibility, but still on their own terms.

Nearly one month after their hometown Floristree show, the group performs Singles' "Seasons (Waiting On You)" on the Late Show With David Letterman in New York, becoming mini-memes in the process. Herring, blindly grooving on the stage, pounding his chest hard enough for it to pop on the mic, boldly sold the drama of their bittersweet single. "Buddy, come on!" Letterman yelled, as he strode over to thank them afterwards. "How about that? I'll take all of that you've got!" The performance itself was the Floristree show writ large: a DIY victory lap for longtime fans and a commanding introduction for the previously uninitiated, the moment when people outside of Baltimore and the Acela DIY corridor they've long traveled finally got around to realizing how special these hyper-sincere synth-punks truly are. In short, Future Islands went on national television and did exactly what they've been doing at venues all over the country for the past eight or so years. And people responded in turn.

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In 2006, Future Islands formed in Greenville, North Carolina out of a high concept, high-drama, Devo-esque group called Art Lord & the Self-Portraits. As arch as Future Islands are heart-on-the-sleeve, Art Lord which swirled around Herring, who played the role of a pretentious German art rocker imploring everyone to love his music, improvising lyrics live around previously written hooks and shambling synth-pop foreshadowed the caustic charisma and earnest theatrics that would define their next project. Theatrics were a part of their DNA from the start. "We were 18-year-old kids and we wanted to throw a party," Herring says of the Art Lord days.

With Future Islands, though, they threw compelling fragility into the middle of the party. With this approach, they would quickly became an integral part of Baltimore's Wham City collective, and the fractured, sugar-rush party music the scene proffered. Their debut EP, 2006's Little Advances, was full of relentless, rinky-dinky beats and frenetic screams. (Seek out the frustrated utopianism of "Nu Autobahn.") It was and is, paradoxically and simultaneously, their least characteristic release and the recording that most closely matches their manic onstage presence. Their follow-up, 2008's Wave Like Home, released after the band relocated to Baltimore, introduced their more explicitly maudlin side by way of "Little Dreamer," which often closes their shows to this day.

But Future Islands made their name by consistently and aggressively touring behind a generous live show that balanced, precariously, both club-friendly and collapse-to-the-ground-and-cry catharsis. And until 2010's In Evening Air, their first for Chicago label Thrill Jockey, the band's live show overwhelmed their recorded output. Though that record was the furthest they'd come yet to striking a balance between extremes on tape, On The Water, a simmering break-up album that followed the next year, made it clear that they maintained a healthy contrarian streak as well. "With On The Water, we knew people were gonna be like, 'What the hell is this," Herring admits. "In Evening Air brought us a lot of new fans and people expected an In Evening Air 2, and we gave them a slow-burning record." Releasing a subtle bummer of a record like On The Water though, "allowed [the group] to never have to deal with expectations ever again."

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Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms

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March 21, 2014

Theyre jewels of the oceans, small paradisiacal islands and atolls that rise up in the middle of the sea often developed for the pleasure of holidaymakers seeking tropical getaways. But they wont last long.

Hyperbole? Not for the scientists whove been sounding the alarm for years on the dangers of rising sea levels; the locals whove already borne weather-related disasters on their islands; or the families whove already been uprooted from their homes and been relocated the worlds first climate change refugees.

Last year, presidents and leaders of small island nations assembled before the United Nations pleading with the worlds most powerful nations to save their countries from the threat of extinction.

We are disastrously off course, said President Anote Tong of Kiribati, a string of 33 islands in the central Pacific Ocean about 4,000 km (2,500 miles) southwest of Hawaii.

Already, families on the Carteret Islands in the South Pacific have had to abandon their homes and be relocated to neighboring islands due to rising sea levels that have slowly swallowed parts of their island.

With World Water Day set for March 22, heres a look at some tropical island destinations you may want to visit, before rising sea levels threaten to bury them forever.

Maldives As the lowest lying country on the planet, the Maldives is particularly vulnerable to the threat of rising sea levels. Pleasure seekers may know the destination for its thatched-roofed huts, luxury hotels like the Conrad Maldives and its underwater restaurant, but underneath the fantastical extravagance lies a grim reality that threatens to put the island under.

Seychelles Set in the Indian Ocean, 1,600 km from the east coast of Africa, the Seychelles is another island destination well-frequented by pleasure seekers. Comprised of 115 islands, luxury hotel brands like the Four Seasons and Hilton set up locations on this remote tropical outpost for their well-heeled clientele. What the holidaymakers may fail to see above their spa treatments and beach vacation, however, is that the country has experienced the worst coral die-off in the world, and worrying spans of drought.

Marshall Islands History buffs may be particularly drawn to the Marshall Islands for its marine graveyard of sunken ships following the Second World War. Tourist activities include diving trips to the shipwrecks and big-game fishing. But island president Christopher J. Loeak has been vocal about the plight of his nation, saying that in recent months his country was ravaged by an unprecedented drought and a few weeks later a giant king tide that flooded the capital unusual phenomenon unseen during his lifetime, he said. In the Marshall Islands, like elsewhere in the Pacific, climate change is no longer a distant threat, nor at the doorstep. Climate change is here.

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Video Proof That Future Islands' Singer Is Good at Rapping

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Future Islands have been on a tear as of late. They were one of the breakout acts at SXSW (seeSPIN's Stubb's party),wowedLettermanviewers with incredible dance moves,and their new albumSingles is due out via 4AD on March 25. We also learned in our new profile of the Baltimore synth-pop group that frontman Sam Herring is a true hip-hop head who composes his songs by freestyle rhyming over the band's musical ideas. But Herring's rap skills don't end there a few months back, he recorded a VHS video for lo-fi rap projectTime Spent under his Hemlock Ernst moniker, and the results are damn impressive. Taped to, um, tape, the clip shows Herring casually walking into a room, sitting on a bed, and rhyming his life's story with ease. Though we're already psyched about Singles, we'd love to see more of Herring's hip-hop.

Actually, here's some:

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Dance Like No One's Watching: Future Islands Break Out On Their Own Terms

The 40 Best Things We Saw at SXSW 2014

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Video Proof That Future Islands' Singer Is Good at Rapping


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