Government expected to announce plans for removing restrictions

The Swedish government announced plans to remove the majority of restrictions against Covid-19 at a press conference on Thursday morning.

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, Health Minister Lena Hallengren and Director General of the Public Health Agency, Karin Tegmark Wisell, announced that almost all restrictions will be removed on February 9th, and that those working from home should prepare to return to work.

Hallengren had previously said that a “majority” of restrictions could be removed on February 9th, if the peak of Covid-19 infections had been reached and people continued to get vaccinated.

Swedish vocabulary: kulmen – peak, highest point

Over half of all courses at Swedish universities held in English

A new report from the Swedish Language Council analysing the language of education and publication in higher education and research in Sweden describes developments in recent years. The study covers the whole country and covers all universities and higher education institutes with data on the language of instruction – 40 institutions.

“If we look at the last fifteen years, it’s gone from 38 percent to 64 percent of programmes offered at an advanced level,” Hans Malmström, author of the report, told TT.

And the greatest increase occured after 2007, when a new education and exam structure was introduced in Sweden following the Bologna process – an agreement between European countries aimed to increase movement and employability and increase European competitiveness.

“That’s where it took off, that’s where higher education in Sweden began seriously to internationalise to be able to accept more incoming students and needed teachers who could teach in English,” Malmström told TT.

Nowadays, around ten percent of students at Swedish universities and higher education institutes come from outside Sweden, with fees for students outside the EU representing an important source of income.

Swedish vocabulary: kursspråk – language of instruction

Increase in paying members for Spotify amid controversy

Swedish music streaming service Spotify now has 180 million paying members, an increase by 16 procent in the last year, the company’s quarterly report states.

At the same time, income increased to 2,689 million euros, around 28 billion kronor.

This means that 2021 was the first year Spotify made a profit – but stocks have fallen despite this after worse-than-predicted performance in the first quarter of 2022.

Spotify has had a controversial few weeks, with the hashtag “cancelspotify” trending on Twitter after artists such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their work from the platform in protest at Covid-19 misinformation.

The artists demanded that Spotify remove their music or drop podcaster Joe Rogan after a call from medical professionals to prevent Rogan from promoting “several falsehoods about Covid-19 vaccines”.

Swedish vocabulary: medlemmar – members