Swedish News:

Donya Feuer has passed away. Few know their blood type. Zlatan’s book – a best seller. Message in a bottle - 22 years later. 

  • Donya Feuer has passed away
    Choreographer and director Donya Feuer has died at 77. Feuer was born in the US, and educated at Juilliard School in New York City. For a few years in the 1950's she danced with Martha Graham. In the 1960's she came to Sweden, where at first she was a teacher but later became a choreographer and director. Feuer is mostly known for her work with Ingmar Bergman, but she also worked with others, such as film director Alf Sjöberg. In her later years she worked almost exclusively with film and TV. Her awarded documentary film “Dansaren” (“The Dancer”) from 1996, attracted much attention. "I've always been interested in and inspired by the meeting of an individual with his destiny," said Feuer about the making of that movie. "When this one body, this person, is a dancer, then it's something, for me, almost holy - because the body becomes itself an instrument.”

  • Few know their blood type
    It is not life-saving knowledge so maybe it comes as no surprise that only around 50% of all Swedes know what blood type they have. If you are taken to a hospital bleeding profusely, nobody will ask about your blood type: “You’ll get tested and in the meantime there will be products keeping you alive,” says Lottie Furugård, Informaiton Officer at Stockholm’s Blodcentralen. “If you need red blood cells, then you’re given those from the group O, from which everybody can receive.” Blodcentralen did a survey to see how many Swedes knew their blood type, and the result shows that only 4 in 10 know. “It’s not that important as long as you’re in Sweden,” Furugård continues. “But if you go abroad, their procedures might be different and it could be good to know.” The same survey reveals that 100% of Swedes expect blood to be there in case they need it for an operation. Especially university hospitals need great supplies of blood, as they are the ones where the biggest surgeries are conducted.

  • Zlatan's book – a best seller
    Swedish soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic's biography is on its way to becoming a best seller in Sweden. The interest in his book (which is called "Jag är Zlatan Ibrahimovic") is greater than in the Harry Potter books. And sales will make the already wealthy star even wealthier. According to Dagens Industri’s equation, Zlatan and his co-author David Lagercrantz will make six million SEK ($901 500) on the sales of the book in Sweden alone. At the same time the book was launched in Sweden (this passed Wednesday) it could also be purchased in Norway and Italy. The first edition was for 100 000 prints and it has already been sold out, another 100 000 books are expected to be printed soon.

  • Message in a bottle - 22 years later
    A belated message of sorts: The bottle that Josefin Grund threw in the water when she was a little girl, was recently found - 22 years later. "It's hard to believe it"s true," says Josefin, who is now 31 years old. When she was 9, she wrote a note, put it in a bottle and threw the bottle into the waters at Solumshamn, south of Härnösand. Annika Windhagen found it four miles north at Bönhamn. “Send me a letter,” the note said. Well, in keeping with the changing times, Annika sent a text message instead. According to Guinness World Records, the oldest message in a bottle spent 92 years 229 days at sea. A bottom drift bottle, numbered 423B, was released at 60º 50'N 00º 38'W (about halfway between Aberdeen, Scotland and the coast of Denmark) on April 25, 1914 and recovered by fisherman Mark Anderson of Bixter, Shetland, UK, on December 10, 2006.