Iceland president to decide on snap

REYKJAVIK: Iceland's President Halla Tomasdottir said on Monday she would decide this week whether to call snap elections and dissolve parliament, a day after a fractious coalition government collapsed. Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson on Sunday announced the government's resignation over deep divisions within the three-party left-right coalition on issues ranging from foreign policy to asylum seekers and energy. The coalition had been made up of Benediktsson's Independence Party, the Left-Green Movement and the centre-right Progressive Party. Benediktsson met with Tomasdottir on Monday to formally ask her to dissolve parliament and call new elections for late November. The president, a former businesswoman who has been in power for less than three months, said she would consult the leaders of all political parties in parliament before making her decision. Theoretically, she could ask another party leader to form a government. 'After those meetings, I will assess the status of the matter before I take a position on the proposal,' Tomasdottir told reporters. — AFP