Swedish telecom network giant Ericsson plans to shut down all its remaining production plants in Sweden, Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) reports in a front-page exclusive Thursday. The Stockholm daily cites internal documents, which would confirm the end to the Swedish company’s more than 140-year-old tradition to keep at least part of its production at home, a […]
Tag: sweden
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To Fallen Vikings
Sweden boasts about 1,700 such runestones that feature the old Scandinavian runic alphabet. This one, outside of Gripsholm Castle near Stockholm, was erected in memory of fallen Vikings.
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This Is How IKEA’s Tax Scheme Works
LEIDEN — Over the years, several journalists have dug into the corporate structure of Swedish furniture giant IKEA and the business dealings of founder and CEO Ingmar Kamprad. But the probes have turned up little dirt. But now, the European Parliament’s Green Party group say they have managed to map out IKEA’s complex revenue scheme […]
Gotland is Sweden’s largest island, home to some 57,000 people and a popular tourist destination during the short Swedish summers for its many beaches and hiking trails. During the Cold War, the island also served as a key military base in Sweden’s defense against the Soviet threat, which loomed just 80 miles away to the […]
STOCKHOLM — If you’re not careful, the so-called “sharing economy” can turn your home into a temporary brothel. Swedish police report a growing number of pimps and prostitutes in Stockholm using long-term rentals on the home-sharing website Airbnb without the owner’s knowledge.”We estimate that there are currently about 200 apartments in Stockholm that are used […]
SWEDEN — Stockholm-based daily Aftonbladet has identified and mapped an extensive list of Swedish citizens who have traveled abroad to support the terror group ISIS. “The Swedes Who Wanted To Die For Terror,” reads the front page of Scandinavia’s most read daily. Aftonbladet said it chose to publish the list, complete with names and photos […]
STOCKHOLM — Kari Rosvall was 64 years old when she found out she had been bred as part of a Nazi program, with the purpose of creating a supposed Aryan elite. “I was seen as a product, like a pig bred in an animal factory,” she says in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens […]
Tensions rise between northern European neighbors. Sweden is second only to Germany for hosting the most refugees, while Denmark is dubbed Hungary of Scandinavia.
STOCKHOLM — Ing-Britt Akerberg, 70, receives us in front of paintings of nymphs and a beautiful Persian carpet. A swaggering spaniel licks her toes. “I live in the apartment below,” she explains. “But I’m keeping my friend’s three dogs; she went to town to do a bit of shopping.” The apartment building is squeezed between […]
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Scandinavian Scene
From the park adjacent to Stockholm’s City Hall, we had one of the best views on Riddarholmen, one of the very picturesque islets that surround Gamla stan, the Old Town.
“Pictures: the mystical submarine discovery on the Swedish seabed,” reads Tuesday’s headline in Kvällsposten, a Southern Swedish daily. Icelandic salvage hunting company Ocean X says it has found a small sunken Russian submarine, 20 meters long (65 feet) and 3.5 meters wide (11 feet), some 1.7 miles away from the coast of central Sweden. Swedish […]
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Eurovision Contestants 2015: Sweden
Having won five times, Sweden is one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1974, a song about Napoleon’s defeat meant victory for the first time for the Scandinavian nation. And three years ago, Loreen gave Sweden its fifth win with the song “Euphoria” — which did not exactly trigger the […]
STOCKHOLM — Tove likes math because it’s so logical, the sixth grader says. If she doesn’t understand a question, the boy who sits next to her, Viggo, repeats it for her. Tove is deaf and wears a hearing aid, though it’s not visible under her long blonde hair. But it’s the reason that during class […]
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Road Confusion
On Sept. 3, 1967, traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. Our daughter Cécile was understandably puzzled by the overlapping lane markings on the road, just a couple of months before the big change — and frankly, I find it somewhat of a miracle that no […]
The October 2013 shipwreck that killed 366 off the Italian coast moved the world to the plight of Africa’s desperate migrants. A survivor from Eritrea tries to start a new life in Sweden.
You’ve been with the professors, and they all like your looks… A group of five Swedish scientists of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have revealed that they have been inserting Bob Dylan lyrics and song titles into research articles for the past 17 years as part of a bet. The scientist who winds up quoting […]
As white supremacists proliferate in Sweden, a reformed neo-Nazi has been dissuading youths from following his own former path. Now he’s trying to stem growing Islamic radicalism.
Sweden has long been a haven for Christians from the Middle East. Will it show the same humanitarian spirit for Muslims fleeing Iraq? The debate heats up before national elections.
DAMASCUS — As part of a collaboration between Syria Deeply and Rookie, we’re publishing the memoirs of a teenage girl living in the midst of Syria’s war. Marah, a teenage girl from one of Syria’s besieged cities, shares her stories of life in the war. She recently moved to Damascus to continue her education, in the face of the ongoing war that has destroyed her local schools. Her father was killed in the violence and she now lives with distant relatives in the capital. Earlier installments can be read here and here. He is a handsome man in his 50s, […]
If it weren’t for his name discreetly written on the cover of his new album, you’d think Bror Gunnar Jansson’s Moan Snake Moan might be the lost recordings of a 1920’s American delta bluesman. But no, it’s 2014, Jansson is Swedish, and he’s playing gigs around Europe. With his raw, dark and diabolical blues, the […]
The two Nordic countries, one of which shares a long border with Russia, have so far been carefully neutral as Moscow flexes its muscles. Could NATO membership be the answer?
GÄVLE — Under the dark of a freezing arctic night, Jimi arrived at his destination. They welcomed him with a plate of Swedish meatballs, before showing him to a soft, white bed in a room that sleeps eight. “Welcome to Sweden,” says a man of African origins, shaking his hand. Jimi, 25, who is from […]
After Sweden failed to qualify for the soccer World Cup, Zlatan Ibrahimovic doesn’t disappoint; Nazi-era art mystery revealed; The red line for Iran in nuclear talks; and more newsworthy quotes of the past week.
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11 Smart Cities Around The World
There is a long and healthy tradition of “sister cities,” where municipal leaders from different countries build ongoing relationships and exchange ideas. The same spirit drives this Smarter Cities series, the second installment of our Worldcrunch Impact solutions journalism initiative. For experts in the field, a “smart city” may refer to those using the latest […]
LAMPEDUSA — Two brothers, both with the same dream: escaping the violence and chaos of Eritrea. One has already spent nine years living that dream; the other still hasn’t been rescued from the sea that swallowed him last Thursday. Desperation and grief are in the eyes and voice of Adel, who emigrated to Sweden nine […]
Exactly 40 years after a hostage situation in a Stockholm bank, the now 72-year-old ex-convict recalls the bond formed with his captives. The psychiatrist who coined the term helps explain.
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Homes Are Us: The World According To Ikea
In seven decades, Ikea has spread to 41 countries, shaping the globe’s domestic habits. But looking closer at the Swedish standard also shows national cultural differences holding strong.
Though the country spends less per pupil than many other developed nations, students here consistently test better than nearly all their global counterparts. Here’s why.
A vast number of planet music’s cash cows – including a little act named Madonna – originated on the synthesizer keyboards of Swedish songwriters, but can the country hold its high note?
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Sweden Pays The Price Of Segregation
Even if the urban riots in Sweden last week took many by surprise, the signs were all around.
DAGENS NYHETER (Sweden), SVENSKA DAGBLADET (Sweden), THE LOCAL (Sweden), THE FINANCIAL TIMES (US) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – The Swedish capital suffered through a fourth night of violence, with firefighters reporting at least 90 different incidents around the city by early Thursday. The Financial Times’ correspondent in Stockholm reports that cars were set on fire in 15 […]
Imagine your child’s school is always open — and serves breakfast, and takeaway meals at pickup. It exists, affordably, in Sweden, where the private sector pushes education innovation.
Known for its gender equality, Sweden has begun to turn ugly. Some point to a “Breivik effect” spreading through Scandinavia since the 2011 massacre in Norway by a right-wing extremist.
STOCKHOLM – “This is happening right now in Homs, Syria…” Hans Eriksson shows a shaky video of column of smoke just after a bombing from Bashar al-Assad’s troops. Bambuser is the name of the service launched by this 44-year-old Swede, which allows any smartphone user to broadcast live what’s happening in front of him – […]
Worldcrunch Maybe it was inevitable that Europe’s worst false-advertising scandal in memory would wind up hoofing through the front door of the Old Continent’s best-marketed, most clean-scrubbed, low-cost brand of home furnishings and other you-can-count-on-us modern life supplies. Yes, that’s right: horsemeat in IKEA’s scrumptiously affordable Swedish meatballs. Outrage is bound to follow, but those […]
DAGENS NYHETER, ABBA THE MUSEUM (Sweden), COURRIER INTERNATIONAL (France) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – Thirty years after the broke up, iconic Swedish pop band ABBA is still making headlines, writes Courrier International. On May 7, a huge ABBA museum will open in on Djurgarden island, in Stockholm. Tickets have already gone on sale, says ABBA The Museum. […]
Worldcrunch PARIS – Call it “Horsegate” or just a really bad case of un-authentic Italian food, but the story of horse meat winding up in one of Europe’s most popular brands of “all beef” frozen lasagne has been galloping on for four days. We have Romanian meat in question? And also e-questrian. You see where […]
SWEDEN – Sagas are epic tales full of symbolic details, and the IKEA saga is no exception. The story of the Swedish furniture giant, founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, who is now 86 years old, definitely qualifies as a saga. It combines successes, setbacks and the carefully maintained mythology around the patriarch, who even […]
NOBELPRIZE.ORG (Sweden) Worldcrunch STOCKHOLM – The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2012 was awarded on Monday to Alvin Roth of Harvard University and Lloyd Shapely of UCLA “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.” The work concerns a central economic problem, explained the […]