Free Republic

Department store cancels sale of Swedish jeans made in N.Korea Jeans confiscated because of 'working conditions in North Korea'. -AFP Sun, Dec 06, 2009 AFP STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - A Swedish department store on Saturday cancelled what was to be the sale of the "first ever" brand of jeans made in North Korea, the Swedish company behind the communist-made dark denims said. "Apparently PUB has censored our exhibition/store by shutting it down and 'confiscating' the jeans because of the 'working conditions in North Korea'," Jakob Ohlsson of company Noko Jeans told AFP in an email. "At first i thought it was...

The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (Svenska Freds) has classified as "shameful" the decision by the Nobel Committee in Oslo to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 to Barack Obama. "The choice of Barack Obama as the recipient of the world's foremost peace prize is shocking," said the group's chairwoman Anna Ek in a statement. Ek conceded that the US president had sent "positive signals" with regard to his future commitment to global peace. "But at the same time Obama is the president of the biggest military power in the world and is waging two wars in the world....

The article in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet accusing Israeli soldiers of stealing and selling the organs of Palestinians is not a surprise or isolated aberration, but rather the result of a long campaign of anti-Israeli demonization, based on manufactured "evidence" repeated by Palestinian "eyewitnesses". A screen capture showing the... A screen capture showing the article in Aftonbladet, with a picture of a dead Palestinian next to a picture of a New Jersey rabbi. Applying the strategy adopted at the NGO forum of the 2001 UN Durban conference, the well-financed network of radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) plays a major role in this...

A Swedish newspaper provoked outrage in Israel and drew condemnation from Sweden's ambassador on Wednesday after it ran a story on transplant organ theft, a report an Israeli official branded anti-Semitic "hate porn". The editor of Aftonbladet, Sweden's largest daily newspaper, hit back hard, at both Israel and at the Swedish envoy for attacking his paper's coverage.

Health authorities in Sweden have decided not to punish two doctors who mistakenly stitched a 65-year-old patient’s bladder to his large intestine. The faulty operation took place in January at Malmö University Hospital on a patient who had previously had surgery for an inflamed rectum following treatment for prostate cancer.

Note: The following text is a quote: Swedish National Charged with Hacking and Theft of Trade Secrets Related to Alleged Computer Intrusions at NASA and Cisco Philip Gabriel Pettersson, aka "Stakkato," 21, a Swedish national, was indicted today on intrusion and trade secret theft charges. The five-count indictment includes one intrusion count and two trade secret misappropriation counts involving Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco), of San Jose, Calif., which is a provider of computer network equipment and producer of Internet routers. According to the allegations in the indictment Pettersson intentionally committed an intrusion between May 12, 2004, and May 13, 2004,...

Oussama Abdullah Kassir, 43, who was extradited from the Czech Republic on terrorism charges in 2007, faces multiple charges including supporting al-Qaeda by attempting to set up the camp in rural Oregon from 1999 to early 2000 and later setting up websites on explosives and poisons.

(IsraelNN.com) Islamists reached new heights of audacity in a face-off with pro-Israel demonstrators in Malmö, Sweden on Sunday, firing rockets and throwing pipe bombs at the pro-Israel group in broad daylight and under police's noses. No one was hurt. The incident was videotaped by Swedish blogger Ted Ekeroth, whose blog contains videos showing the attack. Between 400 and 500 people gathered in Stortorget Square for a peaceful pro-Israeli protest. The police sealed off the entire square and only allowed in the protesters, as well as a smaller group of Islamists, and separated the two groups from each other. Blogger Ekeroth...

Immigrants to Sweden should be able to become citizens within two years if they learn Swedish quickly, a new report has proposed. While current regulations stipulate a five year minimum for anyone wishing to become a citizen, researchers Dan-Olof Rooth and Per Strömblad recommend shortening the waiting period for newcomers who manage to become proficient in Swedish at an earlier stage. In a report commissioned by the government's Globalisation Council, the researchers stress that the proposal would not lead to stricter rules for anyone seeking a passport, but would provide an incentive for those wishing to speed up the process....

"More teenage girls than boys have had sex with someone of the same gender, according to a new dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg. ... Altogether 440 girls and boys aged 17 were questioned for the study. “It was 6.1 percent of the girls who answered that they had had sex with someone of the same gender, while 1.7 percent of boys said the same thing,” Rembeck explained."

"Women will continue to be barred from bathing topless at an indoor pool in the central Swedish town of Enköping following a decision by the town council’s recreation committee on Tuesday. Prior to the decision, committee member Stefan Brandberg cited concerns about the health of young girls in his opposition to the proposed lifting of the ban. “We believe that it can contribute to anorexia—there is a risk for that,” he said to the newspaper Expressen. Monica Hällgren, chair of the Enköping recreation committee, confirmed that one of the central arguments for leaving the ban in place was concern over...

"A teenage student in possession of sexually explicit photos of his Swedish school teacher claims the woman was trying to seduce him, reports the Göteborgs Tidning (GT) newspaper. The photos, which depict the teacher in sexually provocative positions, have now been circulated to several students at a school in Kungsbacka outside of Gothenburg, landing the teacher at the centre of a school-wide sex scandal. The woman denies accusations that she sent the photos to the student or that she was trying to seduce him, claiming that the boy could have easily downloaded the pictures himself."

Financial crisis rocks Swedish military Published: 12 Jan 08 10:35 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/9635/ Sweden's armed forces are mulling extensive cutbacks as a deepening economic crisis looms in 2008. The cost of running the Armed Forces is expected to exceed the military budget by between 1 and 1.5 billion kronor, Svenska Dagbladet reports. Lietenant General Jan Salestrand confirmed that the military was experiencing considerable financial problems. "I want to underline the fact that we are sticking to our allocation and looking after our finances - but this also means that we have to put measures in place to reduce our ambitions...

PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- A Swedish citizen wanted in the U.S. on suspicion of plotting to set up a terrorist camp there was extradited Tuesday from the Czech Republic, officials said. Czech Justice minister Jiri Pospisil ruled on Sept 18 there was no reason to refuse a U.S. extradition request for Oussama Kassir, spokeswoman Zuzana Kuncova said. Kassir left the country by plane on Tuesday bound for the United States, said Kuncova. Kassir was arrested on Dec. 11, 2005, at Prague's Ruzyne international airport while flying from Stockholm, Sweden, to Beirut, Lebanon. He has been held in a Czech prison...

CAIRO — The Sweden's Muslim Council has lodged a lawsuit against an illustrator and a local newspaper that recently published an offensive Prophet Muhammad cartoon, which has inflamed Muslims worldwide. "Our (legal) action is targeting the newspaper; the Swedish government is not party in this crisis," Sheikh Zuhri Barhamon, the Secretary General of the Muslim Association of Sweden, told IslamOnline.net Sunday, September 2, over the phone from Stockholm. Barhamon said relevant Swedish laws do not criminalize the publication of cartoons. "But judges could rule in our favor if they found the caption offensive or immoral," he added. On August 18,...

Darwin's theory of evolution has been dealt a stinging blow by a group of Swedish-Norwegian researchers. The group, led by Professor Per Jensen from Linköping University, has launched a challenge to Darwin's notion that behaviour cannot be inherited. In a study published by scientific journal PLoS ONE, the group found that the young of domestic hens exposed to high levels of stress displayed similar behavioral anomalies despite growing up in a stress free environment. Furthermore, genetic modifications in the young chickens' brains were similar to those developed by their parents as a result of stress. Per Jensen is keen to...

"A 44-year-old woman is suspected of having set fire to the bed she shared with her 28-year-old girlfriend after she found the younger woman having sex with a male acquaintance. Later on the night of February 16th, the 28-year-old awoke to find their bed engulfed in flames. The 44-year-old woman has spent the last two weeks in police custody in Mjölby in southern Sweden. She denies the charge of arson. "

Let me start black history month a few weeks early. Barack Obama has plans of running for President of the United States, But will he be the first Black President or the 8th Black President? I know this posting will stir controversty but George Washington was not the first President of the U.S. Let's take a look at history. A "Black" Man, A Moor, John Hanson Was the First President of the United States! 1781-1782 A.D.??? George Washington was really the 8th President of the United States! George Washington was not the first President of the United States. In fact,...

The newspaper “Aftonbladet� reports that Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip was taken in for questioning by American immigration officials when he arrived in Miami recently. The 27 year old prince has been working with a Swedish documentary team, and after filming in Venezuela, they flew to the United States. The prince’s security police guards reportedly decided the U.S. was safe, and returned to Sweden, while Prince Carl Philip not only flew on a separate flight from the other members of the film team, he also left his passport behind at a Venezuelan hotel. When he arrived in Miami he presented a...

"A woman who filmed while her husband raped their teenage daughter has been sentenced to two years imprisonment by Helsingborg district court. The woman was found guilty of being an accessory to child rape and sexual exploitation of a child. "

Benefits agency closes 309 offices The Swedish Social Insurance Administration, which handles all Swedish pension and sick benefit payments, plans to close 309 of its 330 offices. Customers are to be encouraged to use the Internet and telephone to communicate with the organization. "Many of our customers have been dissatisfied with long telephone waiting times and long waits for their cases to be dealt with," said Maivor Isaksson, production director at the organization, known in Swedish as Försäkringskassan. It is planned for Försäkringskassan to cooperate with other state authorities in many 280 communities in Sweden, in order to provide some...

"Swedish glam pop star Ola Salo rubbed Washington up the wrong way when performing at the gala opening of Sweden's new US embassy on Sunday. When The Ark's lead singer caught sight of some planes preparing to land at the nearby airport, he decided to remind the audience of the events of 9/11. "In this country, you don't know where those planes are headed," he said. According to Expressen Salo then added: "I hope they fly into the White House rather than here". "

Swedish centre-right alliance wins wafer-thin election victory Sweden's centre-right opposition secured a narrow victory in yesterday's general election, ending 12 years of rule by the Social Democrats, who have governed for 65 of the last 74 years. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the next prime minister, declared victory shortly before 11pm after a nail-biting finish which gave his four-party Alliance for Sweden a wafer-thin parliamentary majority. His group was on course to win 178 seats in the 349-seat parliament - seven ahead of the Social Democrats and its allies on the left. With 99.7% of Sweden's districts counted, Mr Reinfeldt's alliance led with...

Alliance wins - Persson concedes Fredrik Reinfeldt is to be Sweden's new prime minister. He has declared victory, Göran Persson has said he will resign as prime minister and as leader of the Social Democrats. Reinfeldt claimed victory in his first adress to the crowds gathered at the Moderates' election party. Arriving on stage at 10.50 to a rousing first-name chorus, chants and flag-waving. It was an emphatic speech where he did all but declare himself as Sweden's new Prime Minister. "The Swedish people have voted," he began. "We have won as the new Moderates; we dared to challenge ourselves,...

Sweden's centre-right opposition bloc has defeated the ruling Social Democrat party in the country's closest-fought general election for decades. Moderate party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt gave a jubilant declaration of victory as near-complete results gave him a 1% lead. Prime Minister Goran Persson conceded defeat, saying he and his government would resign. The Social Democrat party has ruled for all but 10 of the past 89 years.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) Sweden's center-right opposition alliance has declared victory after nearly complete official results show it narrowly defeating the governing Social Democrats.

Exit poll: Alliance on the path to victory Exit polls released by Swedish TV companies predict that the centre-right Alliance is on its way to power, ending Göran Persson's 12-year period as prime minister SVT's poll gave the Alliance the bigger lead, with 49.7 percent against 45.6 percent for the Social Democrats' and allies. TV4's poll showed the Social Democrats and allies slightly closer behind the Alliance, with figures at 48.6 against 46.7 percent. "This sounds fantastic, and it's a result of a strong campaign which we are proud of. The way things look, it could well be that the...

A young, right-wing politician emerges from nowhere, captures the centre ground and ousts a discredited government after more than a decade in power. On Sunday, the dream of every conservative may be realised, not in Britain but in Sweden. The land of Volvo, Ikea and the much-vaunted Swedish social model may be on the threshold of a political earthquake. For the past 10 years, Göran Persson has been Prime Minister, leading one of the most formidable vote-winning machines in democratic politics. But opinion polls show Sunday's election is on a knife-edge. The remodelled, centrist, Swedish conservative party, known as the...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The letter 'W' has entered the mainstream of the Swedish language, getting its own section for the first time in the country's most respected dictionary. While 'W' has long been a letter in its own right in other Nordic languages, Swedish linguists have always viewed it as a lesser sibling of the letter 'V,' as the two letters are pronounced identically in Swedish. The few Swedish words that use 'W' have generally been borrowed from other languages — such as "watt," "walkie-talkie" and the "World Wide Web" — and have so far always been lumped under the...

Swedish automobiles have long been known as safe and steady, not fast and furious. It's no accident you've never heard the phrase "Swede speed." Right now, you're thinking about boxy, safe Volvo wagons, handy in the snow and adept with the kids and groceries, not high performance roadsters. Enter Christian von Koenigsegg, a 33-year-old Swede with fast dreams. And he's got a former fighter jet assembly plant to bring them to life. Clocking in at 245 miles per hour, Koenigsegg Automotive broke the world speed record for a production car last year with the Koenigsegg CCR. Since the first production...

Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it? In a new...

WILMINGTON, N.Y. - Swedish snowboarder Jonatan Johansson died Sunday after falling during a snowboardcross run down Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. The 26-year-old Turin Olympics competitor lost control on one of his jumps during training for an International Ski Federation World Cup competition, according to U.S. Ski and Snowboarding Association spokesman Tom Kelly. A state police report said Johansson tried to correct himself but landed hard. An autopsy found the cause of death to be multiple internal injuries. Officials said Johansson landed within the course boundaries and was wearing a helmet. Olympic Regional Development Authority spokesman Sandy Caligiore said he...

DAMASCUS, Syria - Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam's revered prophet torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday — the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets, storming European buildings and burning German and Danish flags. Protesters smashed the windows of the German cultural center and threw stones at the European Commission building, police said. Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the European Union, and the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas called the cartoons "an...

The Swedish parliament ceased all bilateral contacts with the Iranian parliament Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The move follows a letter Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin sent asking parliaments worldwide to express their support for Israel. The letter, which was sent to more than 80 parliaments, called for an international response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call in October to "wipe Israel off the map." "In recent years Iran has not merely settled for verbal attacks on Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people. It has been unrelenting in its efforts to achieve nuclear military capability and has funded, supplied and...

"A 39-year-old Swede accused of terrorism by the United States has been arrested in Prague, Swedish tabloid Expressen reported on Tuesday. The man, who was not identified, is wanted by the US CIA spy agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which accuse him of being terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden's "man in Sweden", Expressen wrote. The US has tried to obtain his extradition for several years, accusing him of setting up Al Qaeda training camps in the US state of Oregon in 1999, but Sweden has refused to hand him over, the paper said. The man was on a...

One of four Swedish peacekeepers wounded in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan has died of his injuries, the Swedish military said late on Friday. The four Swedish troops, two of whom were said to be seriously injured in Friday's explosion in Mazar-i-Sharif, were from the NATO-led ISAF, which was set up in 2001, and were part of a British provincial reconstruction team. "Shortly after midnight local time (2100 Stockholm time) ISAF's military hospital in Kabul announced that one of the two seriously injured Swedes had died," the statement said. "The soldier was seriously injured in a bomb attack in Mazar-i-Sharif...

Swedish girls design anti-rape belt A group of Swedish teenage girls has designed a belt that requires two hands to remove and which they hope will deter would-be rapists, one of the creators told AFP on Tuesday. "It's like a reverse chastity belt," one of the creators, 19-year-old Nadja Björk, told AFP, meaning that the wearer is in control, instead of being controlled. The military-style buckle has a latch that the wearer has to move through a labyrinth into the correct position in order to unlock the belt. "You need two hands to open it, so the rapist can't hold...

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2005 with one half to Roy J. Glauber Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence" and one half jointly to John L. Hall JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA and Theodor W. Hänsch Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique". New light on modern optics As long as humans have populated...

"In what he thought was private chat with a colleague on Monday evening, Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister, Bosse Ringholm, called the country's police force "so bloody idle". "I apologise," he later told news agency TT. The frank statement about the police came after a telephone interview with the programme Nyheterna on the theme of illegal gambling machines. During the interview itself, Ringholm said that the police are doing what they can in the fight against illegal gambling. After the interview Ringholm let slip a somewhat different view of the Swedish police. " and... "The opposition parties also leapt upon Ringholm's...

TWO years ago, after decimating the music industry with internet song-swapping service Kazaa, Niklas Zennstrom turned his attention towards the telecoms industry. The young Swede’s plan was a new internet voice service called Skype that would allow ordinary consumers to use their PCs to make free phone calls anywhere in the world. Using this technology Zennstrom has taken the world by storm and made a fortune in the process. Last week, Skype, the company he founded with a few millions in seed capital, was sold to eBay for just over $4bn (£2.16bn, E3.4bn). More significantly, the deal signalled the coming...

Published: 17th April 2005 11:48 BST+1 Pompei discovery for Swedish archeologists (AFP) Swedish archeologists have discovered a Stone Age settlement covered in ash under the ruins of the ancient city of Pompei, indicating that the volcano Vesuvius engulfed the area in lava more than 3,500 years before the famous 79 AD eruption. The archeologists recently found burnt wood and grains of corn in the earth under Pompei, Anne-Marie Leander Touati, a professor of archeology at Stockholm University who led the team, told AFP. "Carbon dating shows that the finds are from prehistoric times, that is, from 3,500 years BC," Leander...

Tiger Woods kisses his wife Elin Nordegren after winning the 2005 Masters at Augusta National National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., Sunday, April 10, 2005. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal Constitution, Curtis Compton)

STOCKHOLM, Sweden-- A painting depicting a couple making love while covered in Quranic verses was removed from a Swedish museum this week after hundreds of complaints, some threatening, from Muslims who found it offensive, officials said Thursday. The painting, "Scene d'Amour," by Louzla Darabi, was removed Monday from an exhibit about AIDS at the World Culture Museum in Goteborg in southern Sweden. More than 400,000 of Sweden's 9 million residents are Muslim, and the museum received some 700 complaints about the painting, including some that were threatening. Museum director Jette Sandahl said the painting was removed because it was detracting...

Fathers in Sweden are discriminated against while mothers cash in on child benefit says Berit Andnor, Swedish Minister for Social Affairs. And now it’s high time to rewrite the rules. As reported in Thursday’s newspapers, Andnor has asked the Swedish Social Insurance Office (Försäkringskassan) to investigate a change in the child benefit system and a report is expected in March this year. "It’s important that all legislation is equal between the sexes," she told Swedish news agency TT. "It’s a matter of principle." Sweden’s child benefit legislation dates from 1947 at a time when, according to Andnor, "one assumed that...

The suffering of “filthy, faggot Swedes” in the South East Asia disaster was punishment from God for Sweden’s tolerant attitude toward homosexuality. This is how a website owned by an influential Christian extremist movement in Kansas has reported Swedes’ suffering in the tsunami disaster. Now a pastor in the Pentacostalist Church in Sweden who is hailed as a hero on the site has condemned it as appalling. Åke Green, a pastor in Borgholm on Öland, is currently appealing a ruling by a court in Kalmar, which sentenced him to one month in prison under Swedish hate crimes legislation. Green had...

Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, distinguished himself earlier today by being the only leader from a Western nation to attend the Cairo funeral service for Arafat. A full list of funeral guests can be found here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1355719_1,00.html You can contact Mr. Persson (ironically, known to many as "The Pig") at the URL above. Click on "e-post" under his name and write your Meddelande (message) and click "Skicka". Other fields are not required (namn = name, ärande = subject) . Please be patient as it seems a bit slow just now.

KIRUNA, Sweden (Reuters) - Alice Eriksson calls herself a "Russian grandmother" and seems an unlikely threat to Sweden's Left Party, a vital partner for the country's ruling Social Democrats. But the 79-year-old's story of emigration to Stalin's Russia and life in the gulags has brought to its knees a party on which Sweden's minority government -- facing a strong challenge from the center-right in 2006 elections -- depends in parliament. In 1933, Eriksson's father Ernst, a miner, fled poverty and unemployment in northern Sweden to help build a Soviet workers' paradise, along with about 1,500 other Swedes, with the blessing...

September 09, 2004 Muslims rule major Swedish city An exclusive series of translations from the Swedish press, made for Jihad Watch by Ali Dashti, who writes: Sweden is one of the worst hit countries in Europe of Muslim immigration and Political Correctness. Now, the police themselves have publicly admitted that they no longer control one of Sweden's major cities. I have made some exclusive translations from Swedish media. They show the future of Eurabia unless Europeans wake up. I’ve seen the future of Eurabia, and it’s called 'Sweden.' Malmø is Sweden’s third largest city, after Stockholm and Gothenburg. Once-peaceful Sweden,...

ISLAMABAD: After refusing to sell the Gripen fighter planes to Pakistan, Sweden has reportedly given its nod to provide it with the Airborne Early Warning and Control System which, Pakistan Air Force claimed, would counter-balance the Indian acquisition of the Israeli Phalcon surveillance system. Sweden has given its 'nod' to sell the system along with 14 SAB 2000 aircraft, which costs about $1.7 billion, The News said. The defence deal was negotiated during a recent trip to Stockholm by President Pervez Musharraf, and PAF marshal Safadat Kaleem would be visiting Sweden shortly to clinch it, it said.