FAROE FRIDAY: FINANCIAL SAFE HAVEN?

(In case you're wondering, that's a picture of a bank. I really don't have all that many visuals to use for finance stories, so I'm using the bank picture again.)

With the tough economic times stretching to almost every corner of the globe, people are looking for a place where things aren't so bad. A news site in India searched the globe and found the Faroe Islands at the top of the list of relatively safe places during the financial crisis.

The story cites the Faroe's low unemployment rate and lack of a mortgage meltdown as factors that put the islands on top. They may have overstated things just a bit, though. As we reported a few weeks ago, there have been layoffs in Faroese media and the government isn't isolated from budget concerns.

But the article did call the Faroes "heaven on earth," so I'm inclined to believe most of what it has to say. (In case you're wondering, the other places on the list were Bhutan, Washington, DC, Antarctica, and somewhere called Nagorno Karabakh.)

This week's Faroe Photo is of sheep near the village of Hvalba. It's a town of about 600 on the Faroe's southernmost island. Hvalba has a coal mine nearby. A Danish website says the village was sacked by pirates in the 17th century.

The story continues: "Thirty women and children were taken away to be sold as slaves in North Africa. On the Faroe Islands a collection was organized to raise enough money to by back the people. They did not succeed though and the people never returned to the islands."

A sad fate, indeed