Archive for June, 2007

Two Gothenburg football executives jailed

Miscellaneous: June 30th, 2007 by PO

Gothenburg District Court has found two former executives from IFK Göteborg guilty of tax evasion. Footballer Stefan Selakovic was cleared of the charges against him.

The International Herald Tribune has more.

Swedish cars face carbon battle

Climate: June 30th, 2007 by PO

The International Herald Tribune traveled to the Stockholm suburb of Danderyd to observe at close quarters the problem with big Swedish cars and high carbon emissions.

The most recent available EU statistics show that Sweden, a country of nine million people, has the highest-emitting cars in Western Europe on a per capita basis.

Family linked to breast cancer survival

Miscellaneous: June 30th, 2007 by PO

New research from the Karolinska Institute suggests that women who develop breast cancer can estimate their chances of survival by looking to their mothers and sisters.

This Swedish study, published in the online issue of Breast Cancer Research, found that if a woman succumbs to breast cancer, her daughters or sisters have a 60 percent increased risk of dying from the disease if they develop it.

The Washington Post reports.

Pornography for sex offenders

Miscellaneous: June 30th, 2007 by PO

The Washington Post draws conclusions from Sweden’s decision to allow sex offenders access to pornography.

From now on, it’s going to be a lot harder to get Swedish inmates to leave their cells.

Exercise and antidepressants good for the brain

Miscellaneous: June 30th, 2007 by PO

UPI has an article on new research from the Karolinska Institute:

The study conducted by Dr. Astrid Bjornebekk, of the Karolinska Institute, in Stockhom, Sweden, indicates both exercise and antidepressants increase the formation of new cells in an area of the brain that is important to memory and learning.

Where Sweden is your oyster

Miscellaneous: June 30th, 2007 by PR

Nicholas Roe, writing in the UK’s Times, describes the Nordic Oyster Opening Championships, being held in Grebbestad, north of Gothenburg. The event “sounds like a joke, but is, in fact, exactly the kind of festival that matters around here”.

Roe came seeking molluscs but found much more:

Outside, all was tranquil. Inside, a blonde with a mike was shouting at 200 mild, but cheery, seafood enthusiasts as 20 oystermen psyched themselves up for crustacean wars, sinking beer and cradling wicked knives. Speakers boomed the strains of Chariots of Fire. I had found the Swedish soul at play.

Expressen graciously admits error

Media: June 29th, 2007 by PO

On Wednesday, The Local was first in Sweden with fresh details of CIA activity in Sweden at the time of the Vietnam War.

As James Savage has already written in a previous blog post, we were somewhat irritated when Expressen’s website published the story late on Thursday under the headline ‘Expressen reveals…’

But credit where it’s due…

Shortly after trade paper Resumé published an article dealing with Expressen’s blunder, two staff members from Expressen phoned The Local to apologize for the mistake.

Web editor Joakim Svensson and reporter Joel Holm both very graciously admitted that there had been an error of of omission, and Expressen has now changed its engaging series of articles accordingly.

We can’t ask for more than that.

Expressen ‘reveals’ CIA spy story – really?

Media, Newsbites, Politics, Sweden abroad: June 28th, 2007 by JS

Now, I don’t usually think that bashing other media in Sweden, big or small, gets anyone very far, but just for the record I think it’s worth pointing out that Expressen.se is currently leading with a story that The Local was the first to break in Sweden yesterday.

The story, that US spies infiltrated the Swedish anti-Vietnam War movement, was revealed in newly declassified CIA documents. We know Expressen found it through us because Expressen’s reporter contacted our reporter, Paul O’Mahony, after seeing our story, to get a link to the document. Paul gave him the link.

When they published today, not only was there no reference to The Local (bad manners, but we’ll live), but the article was prefaced by the claim that ‘Expressen revealed’ the story. They have done their own interviews and gathered material, but their claim that they ‘revealed’ the story is inaccurate. As we know that they saw it on The Local first, it is more than inaccurate: it’s a deliberate untruth.

Pro-boxing back on its feet in Sweden

Sport: June 26th, 2007 by PO

The BBC goes ringside to observe the initial effects of the removal of Sweden’s ban on pro-boxing:

Jenni [Johannsen] scoffs at the concerns for boxers’ health. “Speedway racing is much more dangerous than boxing,” she laughs.

Mirroring The Local

Media: June 26th, 2007 by PO

The story of Roger Tullgren, he of heavy metal disability fame, has made the news the world over. Here is The Mirror‘s take, with some strangely familiar quotes. For example:

“I think it’s extremely strange. If someone has has a gambling addiction you don’t send them down the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction, not encourage it.”

The booze debate: No lush pastures

Opinion, Swedish Life: June 26th, 2007 by PO

John Herbert of Hernando Today has a thing or two to say about midsummer traditions and the vagaries of Swedish alcohol policy.

Booze may be a real problem for many Swedes, but free sex and the world suicide championships are strictly myths perpetuated on the pages of Readers’ Digest decades ago.

On the other hand, if I saw many more old Ingmar Bergman movies, I might be depressed enough to kill myself, too.

Carl Bildt and hate speech laws

Politics, Society: June 26th, 2007 by PO

The good people of Slashdot debate the news that Carl Bildt is being investigated by a prosecutor because of inflammatory remarks made by others in the comments section of his blog.

Says one Slashdot commenter:

Pay attention everyone; expecially those of you who support hate crime and speech laws. This is what happens when you regulate certain “unacceptable” kinds of speech with the intent of “correcting” unpopular beliefs.

“Thoughtcrime” won’t be relegated to fiction for long.

Swede talk from headline writers

Miscellaneous: June 25th, 2007 by PR

Being a Swede is an invitation for headline writers to sharpen their puns and several have been at it today.

There’s a ‘Swede smell of success’ for golfer Linda Wessberg whose closing round of 65 won her the Vediorbis Open de France Dames, as reported in Sporting Life.

Meanwhile the Brunei Times spends ‘One Swede Day’ with tennis player Mats Wilander.

Back at Sporting Life, it’s ‘Swede and sour for City’. Manchester City, that is, the English football club which appears to be on the verge of appointing Sven-Göran Eriksson as boss.

Opinions are divided on the matter. While Eriksson’s club record over the years is excellent, England fans have bitter-swede memories of his time as national club boss.

Sweden a model for handling nuclear waste

Miscellaneous: June 24th, 2007 by PR

Sweden is “decades ahead of the UK” in terms of handling nuclear waste, according to a report in Britain’s Independent on Sunday.

At the Oskarshamn site, the nuclear waste joint venture SKB has built the world’s largest underground laboratory to test conditions for the permanent storage of nuclear waste. Named the Hard Rock Laboratory (no relation to the celebrity hamburger chain), it meanders 450 metres underground. Branching off from the main tunnel, which is large enough to park a coach, dozens of horizontal chambers have been excavated. Here scientists experiment with different types of rock to discover how best to bury copper-encased, spent-fuel canisters.

Swedish women’s football team can’t stop scoring

Sport: June 21st, 2007 by PO

The Swedish women’s football team has now scored 14 goals in its last two games. Seven of the goals have been scored by top striker Victoria Svensson.

Home coach Thomas Dennerby said: “We promised ourselves we would go out there and do a good job straight from the start and that was exactly what we did. It looks good after three games played!”

UEFA has a match report from the demolition of Hungary.

Sweden loses vodka fight

Newsbites, Politics: June 21st, 2007 by PO

Sweden was among a group of countries disappointed by the European Parliament’s decision not to limit the definition of what constitutes vodka.

The so-called “vodka belt” countries wanted to restrict the term to spirits made only from potatoes or grain.

But a majority of members voted in favour of a looser definition.

Faces stuffed with Swedish pie in Illinois

Offbeat, Sweden abroad: June 21st, 2007 by PO

There can be few people in this world who love a lingonberry pie as much as Martin Cedillo from Illinois:

Cedillo, of Wayne, had his face so deep into the pie that when he came up for air there was purpleish filling between his eyebrows. When he looked satisfied that his pan was clean, he stood up and shouted “I love lingonberries!”

The Daily Herald reports that he had to fight off some stiff opposition before emerging as winner of the Swedish Days pie-eating contest:

Nobody got sick, but Jessica Barbeau, who works at Jitterbug’s in Geneva, said she came close, but it was worth it.

“I wanted to puke, but I kept going,” she said. “I wanted to beat them all. I just kept going.”

Russia to lift Swedish poultry ban

Business, Politics: June 21st, 2007 by PO

Following a meeting with Agriculture Minister Eskil Erlandsson, Russian authorities are expected to lift a three year ban on imports of animal feed and poultry products from Sweden.

The discussion revolved around the safety of animal feed and poultry products that have been banned since 2004 following an outbreak of Newcastle disease in Sweden. The new agreement will also allow the export of poultry breeding stock into Russia.

Parliament clears privatization plans

Business, Politics: June 21st, 2007 by PO

The Swedish parliament has given the go-ahead for the state to sell its shares in state-owned companies such as drinks maker Vin & Sprit.

Sweden’s largest-ever privatisation push is expected to raise at least 150 billion Swedish crowns ($21.67 billion) over three years to pay down debt.

Vin & Sprit, which analysts see fetching $5-$6 billion, has so far been the star of the sales catalogue, drawing interest on both sides of the Atlantic.

‘All the fun of the fair – it must be Iraq’

Business, Society: June 20th, 2007 by PO

This deadpan headline comes courtesy of The Guardian, who travelled to the Pank resort in Kurdistan to meet Hazem Kurda, an Iraqi Kurd intent on building up the region’s tourist industry after 30 years in Swedish exile.

Once complete the site will boast a five-star hotel, restaurants, swimming pools, saunas, tennis courts, helipads and mini golf. A cable car will be also constructed across the spectacular gorge where only eagles dare.

“It is the first such tourist investment in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein,” says its proud owner.

Hazem Kurda made a very good living for himself in Sweden when, in 1997, he set up the successful import company Swedish Rice Production.

In 2006 he was ranked 32nd on a list of Sweden’s wealthiest immigrants complied by by Dagens PS.