Swedish medical university warns of shortage of corpses 

The Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenburg University has said it needs the number of people donating their bodies for medical research to double for it to be able to train future surgeons.

“Surgeons who operate need to have good manual craftmanship. It’s an important part of the profession,” said Magnus Braide, Professor of Anatomy. “It’s good to be able to train on corpses, as it’s risk-free.” 

He said that people in Sweden knew about donating their organs but that not enough people were aware that they could go one step further and donate their entire bodies.

Sweden proposes ban on new religious free schools

Sweden’s education ministry has proposed a ban on the establishment of new schools and after-school activities centres, with a religious orientation. 

The compromise proposal will allow existing Christian, Muslim and Jewish schools to continue their operations, but prevent new ones from being established. 

The ban on new religious schools is now being sent out to consultation, with the government hoping that it can come into force by June 2024. 

Swedish woman who joined Islamic State found ‘not guilty’ 

 A court in Gothenburg has found a Swedish woman who joined the Islamic State terror group in Syria not guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and violations of international law, after which all cases against her have been closed. 

The woman left Gothenburg in 2013 to join the terror group and was held in the al-Hol och Camp Roj prison camps until October, when she was returned to Sweden with her two small children. 

“It’s hard to investigate crimes in Syria, hard to get evidence, hard to know what the person did or didn’t do, hard to get to the bottom of what happened there,” the prosecutor Peter Larsson told the GP newspaper. 

Fewer than expected Ukrainian refugees: border police 

The number of new refugees coming to Sweden has reduced rapidly in recent days, with only between 100 and 200 coming a day, compared to 1,000 in the early stages of the Russian invasion, according to Swedish border police. 

“We never expected such a rapid decrease,” Mats Bergren, head of the border police in southern Sweden, told state broadcaster SR. 

Sweden gives 300m more kronor to Lund neutron accelerator

The Swedish government announced plans on Tuesday to grant 300 million Swedish kronor extra to the ESS research institute in Lund, southern Sweden.

“ESS is a strategically important investment for Swedish and European research, and the facility will contribute within climate research, life science, new materials and clean energy, areas where we see several of the world’s major societal challenges,” education minister Anna Ekström said on a visit to the facility. “ESS strengthens Sweden’s position as a leading research nation.”

In December, ESS – the European Spallation Source – announced that the research site would not be fully functional until 2027, four years after originally planned, while they simultaneously noted a substantial increase to the cost of the project.