Swedish News:

Belgians love Göteborg. The royal family needs more money. Mysterious Soviet submarine found outside Gotland. 12 cats and a seagull 

  • Belgians love Göteborg
    Natives of Göteborg love to complain about their public transportation (dangerously worn tires on the buses and Italian tramways that never work) and parking spaces disappearing. Now these same things – public transportation and access to parking spaces – are being praised on Belgian TV. The French-language TV channel RTL TV1 (which airs in Belgium and Luxemburg), visited Göteborg and interviewed Jean-Dominique Rugeiro, who has lived in the city the past 12 years, they also interviewed Anneli Hulthén, chairwoman of the municipal executive board. The TV reporter compared Göteborg with Brussels, where the traffic is more chaotic and the bike lanes not as many. The Belgian TV-team discovered a city with an infrastructure that prioritizes public transportation and bicyclists rather than cars. And Jean-Dominique Rugeiro told the reporter he often takes the tramway because it is convenient and always on time. He explained that when new neighborhoods are being planned and built in Göteborg, notions like accessibility and flexibility are on top of the list. Said Anneli Hulthén about the visit from Belgium: “I think it’s great that the work we do with public transportation receives attention. And that we are good compared with other cities. There are of course places where they are even better.”

  • The royal family needs more money
    The Swedish king needs 5.5 million SEK ($873,669.68) more in salary if he is to be able to take care of his expenses. According to an official letter to the finance department, the Swedish monarch is suffering the effects of the costly royal wedding last summer between his daughter Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel. Add to that the fact that he now also has to finance Haga Palace (where the young couple now lives) and Prince Daniel’s special education. “There are many areas into which a new member of the royal family has to be introduced,” explains Jan Lidman, director of the royal Swedish court, about this education. “It’s a wide introductory program.” However, the Swedish royal family has received 8 million SEK ($1,270,760.04) more per year the last two years in order for the Crown Princess to represent properly and for the upkeep of Haga Palace. Evidently that wasn’t enough. If the King gets what he wants, his salary will come to 127.7 million SEK ($20,283,167.41).

  • Mysterious Soviet submarine found outside Gotland
    A previously unknown Soviet submarine has been found outside the island of Gotland. It appears to have been there for decades, and Swedish military is not interested in examining the wreck. It is a so called whiskey-class submarine (built in the Soviet Union in the early Cold War period), it is 76 meters long (249 feet), which means it is of the same kind as the submarine that ran aground outside Karlskrona in 1981. This submarine is damaged, and part of its sheet metal split open. Yet Bo Rask, department director at the Marine tactical staff says there are no signs that the submarine was sunk with weapons. “The pictures we’ve seen show no such signs.” There are several theories as to why the Soviet sub ended up in these waters, one of them is that it is a Polish submarine that was dropped on its way to the junkyard. Another theory is that it is a submarine created by the Swedish marine in the early 1980’s. According to former Supreme Commander Bengt Gustafsson, it could be the same submarine that was hit badly during a subway hunt outside Utö in 1980. “It is interesting if we should find a foreign submarine that has been damaged by weapons.,” he says. “In Sweden we only used weapons against invading submarines during the 1980’s and early 1990’s.”

  • 12 cats and a seagull
    A woman in Halmstad had more than 12 cats in her apartment, there was also a seagull locked up in a cat carrier. The woman’s pets were discovered by controllers from the county administrative board, who were calling on the woman after she had been reported. The woman, her cats and the seagull were living among garbage and a strong stench of urine, writes daily Hallandsposten. The county administrative board has decided that the seagull must be put to sleep and that the woman is not allowed to keep more than two cats.