Swedish News:

'Stig Vig dies' Max von Sydow Oscar nominated. Olof Palme Prize winners 2011. Breakfast rich in fibers = better memory. Stockholm in GNP top. 

  • Stig Vig dies
    The singer Per Odeltorp, best known under his artistic name Stig Vig, was found dead in his apartment in Stockholm. Vig was the singer of the band Dag Vag, founded in 1978 and popular throughout the 1980’s. Odeltorp was born in 1948 in Överluleå and mixed reggae, blues, punk and progg music with a touch of the Swedish cultural heritage like Elsa Beskow, Dan Andersson, Evert Taube, and Thore Skogman. He also made music for the theater and movies. Odeltorp was close to death in 2003, after having suffered a kidney disease and done dialysis. He was 64 years old.

  • Tzar’s plate
    A colorful plate was presented at Antikrundan (the Swedish version of the British original Antique Roadshow). Before it went back into the owner’s plastic bag, the experts put a value on it: 40 000 SEK (close to $6000). The plate had once belonged to the Russian Tzar Alexander II, who ruled from 1855 to 1881. A stamp on the back made it possible for the experts to trace the plate to the tzar’s luxury yacht Derzhava, which was put to sea in 1871. The current owner said she had received the plate from an old friend who had lived in Latvia. The plate belongs to a set that Tzar Nicholas II shared with his personnel in 1910, and this is possibly how the plate left Russia. The owner had no clue about the origins of her plate, but she said she was more careful in packing it after being told the plate’s story.

  • Swedish actor Max von Sydow Oscar nominated
    Actor Max von Sydow has been nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in Stephen Daldry’s film “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”, in which von Sydow plays a man who communicates by writing on his tablet and by the use of his hands. This is the second Academy Award nomination for von Sydow, in 1988 he was nominated for Best Actor for his performance in the Danish film “Pelle the Conqueror”. Von Sydow appropriately thanked the Academy with a written note.

  • Olof Palme Prize winners 2011
    Italian writer Roberto Saviano and Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho are the co-winners of the $75,000 Olof Palme Prize 2011 for their efforts to expose criminal networks despite great personal risk. Cacho was charged with libel and received death threats after publishing a book about a child sex abuse ring involving business figures in Cancun in 2005, and Saviano's 2006 book "Gomorrah" exposed the reach and ruthless methods of Naples' criminal underworld. It forced Saviano to live in hiding with round-the-clock police protection. Olof Palme, a Swedish Prime Minister, was murdered in 1986, and this prize was set up to honor efforts carried out in his spirit.

  • A breakfast rich in fibers enhances memory
    Breakfast on whole grain bread and you'll have a better memory and a mental focus that will last till lunch, according to experiments executed by the researcher Anne Nilsson and her colleagues at Lunds tekniska högskola (LTH - Faculty of Engineering). Forty women and men had to perform two types of tests after having consumed white bread and whole grain bread. On an average they performed 8% better after having consumed the whole grain bread.

  • Stockholm in GNP top
    A new international ranking from the Brookings Institute shows that Stockholm has the 8th highest GNP (Gross National Product) per capita in the world. That means that Stockholmers, for instance, enjoy a higher GNP than New Yorkers. The city of Hartford in Connecticut tops the list. The average GNP in Stockholm is 418 700 SEK ($61,373), compared to that of Hartford, where the average GNP is 511 000 SEK ($75,000). After Hartford, comes Oslo (2), then San Jose (3), Abu Dhabi (4), Bridgeport (5), Zurich (6), Washington (7), Boston (9) and New York (10). Worst off on the list (on the bottom of the 200) is Cairo with 13 550 SEK ($1,985). Joining Cairo at the bottom is Mumbai, Alexandria, Colombo, Chongqing, Casablanca, Jakarta, and Manila.