Free Republic

Fewer people are seeking asylum in Sweden, with the number of applications dropping 33 percent last year, according to new statistics. "During 2008, 24,342 persons sought asylum in Sweden, which is a decrease of 11,865 applications compared to 2007," Statistics Sweden (SCB) said in a statement on Friday. Two-thirds of applicants were men and one-third were women, a common proportion since 2000, it added. Over 100 nationalities were represented among the asylum seekers. The largest group was Iraqis who accounted for a quarter of applications. However, SCB noted that the number of Iraqi asylum seekers was down dramatically. "Iraqis represented...

Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, "Delay, Denial and Dilution," written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. Twelve percent of specialists surveyed admitted refusing kidney dialysis to patients suffering...

Sweden's Court of Appeal has issued a lifetime deportation order to a man who has lived in Sweden for 27 years. The man, who came to Sweden from Croatia in 1981 and received a permanent residency permit in 1985, has 18 criminal convictions on his record. His latest arrest came in 2007, when a divided Court of Appeal sentenced him to several years in jail followed by permanent expulsion from the country. With four children and one grandchild in Sweden, all of whom are Swedish citizens, the man called on the Supreme Court to rip up the deportation order and...

My granpa over here in Sweden worked as a salesman in the 1950's. I never experienced the 1950's myself (too young, unfortunately), but I can tell people here in Sweden were thrilled over the cars coming from across the Atlantic at that time. My granpa bought a brand new Ford Customline around 1950. Not a flashy car, but a very decent vehicle for being Sweden (nearly) 60 years ago. At that time, middle class Swedes were poorer than average Americans of those days. The 1950's are gone, for better or for worse, but the spirit remains. When it comes to...

The times they are a-changing. However, in some parts of the world, the winds are blowin' in quite a different direction than they are in the US. At least in terms of political support for Conservatism vs Socialism they are (no offense, as a Scandinavian I sure don't mean any malice towards America!). Scandinavia (and Finland) still is more PC, Liberal and Socialist than America, but people are beginning to wake up. The article: "The opposition Social Democrats are now at their lowest level of voter support since the 2006 general election, according to a new poll. "The gap is...

New documents have emerged that Swedish finance minister, Ernst Wigforss, approved secret Swedish bank credits to Nazi Germany in 1941. The documents were recently uncovered in a filing cabinet at the finance ministry. Historian and ambassador Krister Wahlbäck and cabinet office archivist Bo Hammarlund reveal the existence of the documents, which indicate Wigforss' approval of loans to Hitler's Germany, in a full page debate article in Dagens Nyheter on Sunday. The loans served to increase Swedish exports to Nazi Germany, of far greater importance, the pair argue, than opening the country's borders and train lines for the use of German...

Background: Volvo Cars (owned by Ford Motor Company) claims their all new Volvo XC 60 to be the world's safest car. The consequence: The Toyota people have worked themselves into a rage and now take legal actions. (The following is a translation of a Swedish article. My English isn't perfect, but I hope what follows at least is comprehensible:) "Toyota disapproves of Volvo's claims of the new XC60 to be the world's safest car. Toyota now sues Volvo in the Swedish Market Court (Marknadsdomstolen). In their application to the court, Toyota argues that there indeed are cars around the Globe...

With today's economy, wouldn't it be nice if we knew how to make an economy grow? To know what works and what doesn't? Well, we do. We just prefer to ignore the truth.What works is economic freedom. What doesn't work is more government. I'm sorry that those words sound simplistic and like Republican "ideology" (or at least what used to be Republican ideology - before the Bailout Fairy arrived). But they have the benefit of being true. If you were to start from scratch, ignoring all ideology and going simply by the evidence of what produces prosperity, you would come...

Power Sources: Our new energy secretary predicts dire consequences due to global warming. Meanwhile, Sweden ends its 30-year ban on nuclear plant construction to curb carbon emissions. Something to Chu on.In his first interview since becoming energy secretary, Nobel-prize winner Steven Chu painted an apocalyptic picture of California's future if climate change proceeds unchecked. California's farms, he told the Los Angeles Times, could be wiped out by the end of the century as a result of the destruction of up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack that supplies water to the nation's top agriculture state. "I don't think the American...

America has lost a true friend, Sweden a true champion and my home city, Gothenburg, mourns a great son. Although the quote below is fiction (as far as I know), I think this scene from a certain tv-series depicting the flower power-generation (by Peter Birro, Swedish author/playwriter) says a lot about the spirit of Ingemar Johansson and - not the least - his feelings towards America: Anno domino 1968. Mr Johansson, sitting in a café, notices a bunch of hippie protesters shouting anti-American slogans in the street. Johansson walks out of the café, halting the group with the question: "-...

The biannual Bocuse d'Or culinary competition in Lyon, France, ended on a familiar note Wednesday: A chef from Norway won again. It was a disappointment for U.S. contestant Timothy Hollingsworth, who placed sixth.

Please allow me to pose a question besides posting this article. If you really don't have the time, just skip all of the text preceding the below sentence reading "The article:". --- "The mind is a powerful tool", it is commonly said. There sure are several things which we humans can not accomplish assisted by our sheer intelligence and power of will, but there are much fewer things we are unable of achieving by using these gifts. This insight is not merely inspirational. It also is intrinsic to understanding the development of world history since the days of the Renaissance....

Mobile broadband users in Stockholm will soon be able to surf the internet on a new high speed 4G network, following the signing of a deal between Ericsson and TeliaSonera. The order from Finnish-Swedish telecom provider TeliaSonera marks the first commercial deployment of Ericsson’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) network technology and will provide mobile internet users with data speeds up to ten times faster than those offered on current networks. "LTE brings the highest possible performance and network capacity, which is needed to meet the needs of the fast growing group of mobile broadband users around the world,” said Ericsson’s...

- And so many Christian ones? The institution of the Nobel Prize is one of the few things that's just as big outside Scandinavia as it is within the old land of the Vikings. (There will probably never be a McLutefisk, I guess..) In similarity with most members of this forum, I don't think people like Al Gore belong in the company of (other Nobel laureates) like Einstein, Fermi, Wałęsa, Hemingway, Marconi, Bohr, and Churchill. The older and wiser I have become, the more I've realized we Europeans often look up to the wrong kind of Americans (- but we...

Democrats like Obama and Billary claim the US has got a lot to learn from the Nordic countries (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden) in terms of organizing health care systems in a cost efficient manner etc. In one way, they're right. Healing a broken bone usually does not involve consulting a lawyer or an insurance company in the Nordic countries. Personally, I'm Swedish and I don't hesitate to say life in my country IS very good and that we Scandinavians DO enjoy a standard of living that is unparalleled. BUT, just about how easy is it to alter the...

Low-cost airline Ryanair has responded to 'anti-fun' opponents of its advertising by sending its raunchy 2009 cabin crew calendar to select Swedish politicians. Top of their mailing list is feminist Liberal Party politician Birgitta Ohlsson, who last month urged consumers to boycott the budget carrier over its “old-fashioned” response to complaints about an advert featuring a young woman in a skimpy school uniform. "We're expecting her usual 'anti-fun' response,' Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara told The Local. Entitled 'The Girls of Ryanair', the airline's new 2009 calendar features liberally oiled and scantily clad female cabin crew. "I can't see what the...

Guns N' Roses fans looking to be among the first to buy the band’s newest album should plan on coming to Gothenburg, Sweden by November 21st to attend a unique “pre-listening” party to be held at a local bar. Organized by the founders of the Sweden-based GnrDaily.com fan website, the event has the backing of Universal Music Sweden and will allow fans to buy the long anticipated Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy ahead of its official release in retail outlets. “If you want to be the first person to buy the album you need to come to our party,”...

Now are rough times. For all of us. This is where we stand: Liechtenstein/Saudi Arabia: Business as usual, minor sources of irritation Venuzuela: INRI - IN a moRon CommunIst we trust, that'll do the trick! Germany/Switzerland/Austria: High tax, some captial, medium sized car, can't afford fuel, decent house, nothing left of our former empires. USA: Moderate tax, nice eating out, nice car, heavy debt, some capital, some fuel, no home. Japan: Small tax, microscopic car, no future Italy, Spain: Heavy tax, small car + vespas, Fascist tradition, government debt, Catholicism, nice food Norway: Heavy tax, small car, dried cod (lutefisk),...

A Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) employee with 20 years' experience sued his employers alleging that he was demoted due to his pro-Israel political views. The board's counsel in the hearing has courted controversy by calling Hamas 'a liberation movement.' The Local reported back in February 2008 that Lennart Eriksson, 51, after a 'long and relatively happy' career at the Migration Board (Migrationsverket), had been demoted from his post as head of an asylum assessment unit. Eriksson alleged that he was moved to a lower ranking position when his supervisor, Eugene Palmer, learned of his pro-Israel views expressed on his blog,...

Imagine the unimaginable: Todd Palin picking out curtain patterns for the vice-presidential mansion. In such an eventuality, whither shall we flee? Four years ago, Democrats made a lot of noise about Canada, but as political statements go, there's not much sting to "I'm so mad at America I'm going to move a few degrees of latitude northward." Tina Fey has suggested we leave Earth altogether, but at the risk of reviving a discredited rubric, I'd like to propose a "third way." Actually, I'll let sociologist Phil Zuckerman propose it. In "Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell...