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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Nordic customs officials have arrested a truck driver after he tried to illegally import 28 tons of Chinese garlic into the European Union. The driver was intercepted last month as he drove the pungent truckload from Norway, which is outside the EU and where garlic is exempt from customs' duties, into Sweden, where garlic is subject to a 9.6 percent EU-wide duty. Smuggling of cheaply produced Chinese garlic into the EU is on the rise, with around 1,200 tons brought into the 27-nation bloc via Norway since 2009, according to the European Anti-Fraud Office, known as OLAF.

SNIPPET: "The Swedes being held in Pakistan include Mehdi Ghezali, who spent two years in Guantánamo Bay following his 2001 arrest in Afghanistan, as well as 28-year-old Munir Awad and 19-year-old Safia Benaouda, and their two and a half-year-old boy. Awad and Benaouda, who was pregnant at the time, were arrested in Kenya in 2007 after fleeing Somalia following the invasion of troops from Ethiopia. They were held in an Ethiopian prison for three months on suspicions of being connected with Somali jihadists fighting against Ethiopia, but no formal charges were ever brought against them." SNIPPET: "Police say they got...

Bloomberg - link and headline only due to copywrite complaint http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aXZiXY1MAoQ0&refer=exclusive

Firefighters in Malmö in southern Sweden are demanding police escorts on calls. The firefighters have had enough of threats and violence in some of the city's rougher areas. After being attacked by stones on a recent call, they are threatening not to take calls to Rosengård without a police escort. They are also demanding shatterproof windows and surveillance cameras on their vehicles. Bertil Ahlgren, a spokesman at Jägersros fire station where two of the men worked, told TT that their work situation was "completely unacceptable". The firemen were attacked twice last week during calls in the city's Rosengård suburb. In...

Holy cow - giant Friesian may be tallest in UK By Richard Savill Last Updated: 2:08PM BST 12/05/2008   Weighing 1.25 tons, and towering 6ft 6in at the shoulder, Chilli, dwarfs most horses, is the same height as a small elephant, and could provide enough steaks to feed an army. BNPS The owners of Chilli, a black and white Friesian steer, believe he may be the tallest bovine in Britain. Naomi Clarke, care manager of the Ferne Animal Sanctuary in Chard, Somerset, who raised the bullock, said: “As he was growing up we began noticing that he was bigger...

Swedes find Viking-era Arab coinsThe Arab coins reveal where they were minted and the date Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport. About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely. There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s. Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor. The team from the Swedish...

Holocaust: Sweden's complex legacy On 27th January 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz, an event commemorated around the world on Holocaust Memorial Day. David Stavrou looks at the complex legacy of the Holocaust in Sweden, where the battle to promote tolerance still rages. Chavka Folman-Raban is a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz who arrived in Sweden a few days before the end of the Second World War. Like many other survivors, she was liberated by the Red Cross and found refuge in Sweden. "I'm not sure I can describe with absolute certainty the transition from being a prisoner in a concentration...

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,529910,00.html Malmø, Sweden. The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations's third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengård, Malmø, for twenty years, and still don't know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort. The immigrants also spit at them when they come to help. Recently, an Albanian youth was stabbed...

STOCKHOLM, April 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A top Muslim scholar said the minority would abide by the Swedish law in confronting a Christian preacher who insulted Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), urging his fellow Swedish Muslims not to take the law into their own hands or commit any violent acts to avenge the repulsive remarks of the Christian cleric. “We beg those who threatened (Runar) Sogaard, in the name of Islam, to let Swedish law judge between him and us,” Hassan Moussa, the head of Sweden’s council of imams, wrote in the Expressen newspaper, according to Reuters Friday, April...

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...

PATONG, Thailand (AFP) - A second surge of tsunami terror is hitting southern Thailand, but this time it is a wave of foreign ghosts terrifying locals in what health experts described as an outpouring of delayed mass trauma. AFP Photo AP Photo Slideshow: Asian Tsunami Disaster Tales of ghost sightings in the six worst hit southern provinces have become endemic, with many locals saying they are too terrified to venture near the beach or into the ocean. Spooked volunteer body searchers on the resort areas of Phi Phi island and Khao Lak are reported to have looked for tourists heard...

Forthwith, a grab bag of facts about the 2005 Legislature. This version of Minnesota's citizen Legislature has: • Five Johnsons: Reps. Jeff, R-Plymouth; Ruth, DFL-St. Peter; Sheldon, DFL-St. Paul; Sens. Dean, DFL-Willmar; Debbie, R-Ham Lake. • Three Andersons: Reps. Irv, DFL-International Falls; Bruce, R-Buffalo Township; Sen. Ellen, DFL-St. Paul. • Three Petersons: Reps. Aaron, DFL-Madison; Neil, R-Bloomington; Sandra, DFL-New Hope. • Two Larsons: Rep. Dan, DFL-Bloomington; Sen. Cal, R-Fergus Falls. • Two Murphys: Rep. Mary, DFL-Hermantown; Sen. Steve, DFL-Red Wing. • Two Nelsons: Reps. Michael, DFL-Brooklyn Park; Peter, R-Lindstrom. • Two Olsons: Rep. Mark, R-Big Lake; Sen. Gen, R-Minnetrista. •...

Swedish and German deaths soaring By Connie Levett, Herald Correspondent in Phuket December 30, 2004 Page Tools Email to a friend Printer format More than 1000 Swedes and Germans are missing, feared dead, as the death toll in Thailand continues to mount. One Swedish tour company, Fritidsresor, has 600 people it cannot account for. Another, MyTravel, has 297 Swedes missing, according to Swedish newspaper reports. Hundreds of German tourists are also missing. The devastated Khao Lak area, 90 minutes north of Phuket, had a strong representation of both nationalities. Many of the resorts were old-style bungalows on the beach that...

Swedes urged to pull fillings from corpses May 19 2004 at 07:33PM Stockholm - Amalgam tooth fillings made with mercury should be pulled out before people are cremated to cut emissions of the highly toxic metal, a Swedish government agency report proposed on Wednesday. Mercury, also known as quicksilver, has been linked to neurological problems and is especially harmful to young children and foetuses. It would be "difficult from the ethical point of view, but it it is nevertheless desirable to be able to decrease the emission of quicksilver", the Chemical Inspectorate report said. It calculated that since three quarters...

Four suspected terrorists were arrested yesterday in Stockholm and Malmoe. The Swedish Police Special International Unit raided several addresses in Sweden. The terrorists are accused of helping the Iraq resistance commit acts of terror against the US forces in Iraq. The Swedish Police Special International Unit raided three different addresses in Stockholm, and one address in Malmoe yesterday. - The four suspects are connected to terrorist activities, islamic extremism that takes place outside of Europe, says investigator, Lars Bellmann. Anti-USA According to what this newspapers knows, the raids were conducted upon intelligence shared by the U.S. government. - These are...