Swedish News:

Failed according to the EU bathing report: Eleven Swedish beaches. No way to go, Prince Daniel! Graffiti on Palme’s tombstone. 

  • Failed: Eleven Swedish beaches
    The water by the Swedish beaches is getting worse. Though still [barely] above the average of Europe, it doesn’t look good for the Swedish beaches. According to the European Union’s Commission’s annual bathing water report (which measures the levels of E.coli bacteria and salmonella), 11 of the 461 tested beaches (254 by the coast and 207 inland) were found non-acceptable during 2010. In 2009, only three Swedish beaches were failed. Of the failed beaches, nine are coastal and all are in Skåne and Blekinge, while two are lake beaches in Central Sweden. The best beaches in Europe are found on the island of Cyprus, followed by Croatia, Malta, Greece, Ireland, Bulgaria, Portugal, Finland, England and Latvia. The worst are in Belgium and the Netherlands.

  • No way to go, Prince Daniel!
    When 0.1 at the högskoleprovet (the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test) wasn’t enough to get Prince Daniel the education he needed in physiology, money from the taxpayers came in handy. Prince Daniel is currently studying physiology at Karolinska Institutet, but the way he got there is a bit suspicious. Since his grades were insufficient to get him accepted, the Royal Swedish Court ordered a so-called commissioned education (uppdragsutbildning), which costs taxpayers 200 000 SEK ($30,000) through the royal appanage. The problem is that a commissioned education only covers the education of the personnel, and Prince Daniel isn’t employed by the Royal Court. “If he cannot be an employee, then you cannot say it’s a commissioned education. This is an interesting issue. We have to figure out what Prince Daniel’s work-related status is and it seems awfully complicated,” says Joakim Nergelius, Professor of constitutional rights at Örebro University to Aftonbladet. A private person has now reported this particular education to Högskoleverket (the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education), and they will investigate the case.

  • Graffiti on Palme’s tombstone
    The grave of murdered Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was gunned down on a Stockholm sidewalk 25 years ago, has been vandalized. A black graffiti tag had been scrawled across the simple granite tombstone bearing only Palme's signature, the only visible sign of vandalism at the Adolf Fredrik Church cemetery in central Stockholm. "The motive must have been ill will ... towards the policies of the Social Democrats (Palme's party which today leads the leftwing opposition) or to Olof Palme as a person," Ted Harris, the acting head of the church, told daily Expressen. "What do you gain from vandalizing someone's tombstone? This must be an expression of deep-seated aggression," he added. Police said a complaint had been filed and that they were investigating the matter, but refused to provide any further details.