Swedish News

Christian Democrats considers name change. Minister wants healthcare for illegal immigrants. Anna Lindh’s hospital care under investigation. Swedes charged in terror plot. Obama allies doomed according to Swedish study.  

  • Christian Democrats considers name change
    Kristdemokraterna (The Christian Democratic Party) has during the last four elections lost more than half of their voter support. Now there are voices from within the party who want to scrap the party name. The issue of a name change was discussed at the last meeting of the party executive board and the youth league KDU has appointed a crisis commission, which is to present their opinion about a change of party name on Tuesday. The Christian Democratic Party was founded in 1964 but did not enter parliament until 1985 in an electoral cooperation with the Center Party and on the Christian Democrats' own accord in 1991. The leader since April 3, 2004 is Göran Hägglund. He succeeded Alf Svensson, who had been the party's leader since 1973.

  • Minister wants healthcare for illegal immigrants
    Newly appointed Minister for Immigration, Erik Ullenhag (Liberals), wants to give illegal immigrants the right to free public healthcare, something he also believes the Alliance government can agree upon. “I think we will get both care for the hidden and schooling for children in hiding. All children are entitled to schooling," he said in a radio interview. The Moderate Party, largest in the government coalition, has opposed free healthcare to illegal immigrants, but Ullenhag believes that the proposal could be pushed through anyway.

  • Anna Lindh’s hospital care under investigation
    Seven years after her death, investigations are made into the emergency care for former minister for foreign affairs, Anna Lindh. Anonymous sources claim that Lindh did not receive best possible care, and that surgery took too long. On September 12th 2003, Anna Lindh was stabbed at the department store NK in Stockholm. She was brought to the hospital “Karolinska institutet” where an extensive, eight hour operation took place. According to anonymous sources, insufficient techniques were used to stop the bleeding. The operation took too long and was too demanding for the patient. Criticism has also been aimed at the fact that it was four hours into the operation before the leading surgeons on trauma arrived. This 
according to Svenska Dagbladet and its source.

The accusations gain support from American trauma expert and professor of surgery Donald Trunkey. After reading the report from the trials following Anna Lindh's death, he believes that the minister could have been saved had another, less demanding, method been used.

 Surgeons involved in the operation are unwilling to openly comment on the issue, with regard to patient secrecy. According to the hospital’s own reports, there were too many doctors assisting at the operation, which might have caused trauma. But Stefan Engqvist, chief of staff at Karolinska, says to Svenska Dagbladet that the accusations brought forth by the TV-program “Kalla Fakta” (Cold Facts) are built on rumors and sensation-seeking. He insists that the operation was done according to standard procedures, with highest available expertise. The hospital has once again investigated the case, and found no reason for criticism. It is now up to the board of social services to assess the situation.

  • Swedes charged in terror plot
    Two Swedish citizens of Somali origin, have been charged with “planning terrorist crimes” in Somalia. They were charged on Friday at the Göteborg District Court for plotting to commit suicide attacks with the aim of "murder" or "maiming" a large number of people and causing "massive damage to property". The charge sheet said that there was a significant likelihood that the crimes would have been carried out had they not been intercepted. Investigators said the men, Mohamoud Jama, 22, and Bille Ilias Mohamed, 26, are supporters of al-Shabab, which is fighting the Somali government and controls most of southern and central Somalia. Police arrested the suspects in May and June as part of an investigation into what they call Somalia-linked terrorism activities in Sweden. The prosecution, which based its case on interrogations of the two suspects, witness accounts and tapped telephone conversations, claimed to have proof the two men had been in contact with Yassin Ismail Ahmed, an al-Shabab leader. The recorded telephone conversations also showed that Mohamed had attended an al-Shabab training camp in Somalia and that he aimed to "return to Somalia and wanted to become a martyr", the charge sheet said. Both suspects have denied the allegations. A clerk at the Göteborg court said a verdict was likely to be reached by the end of November. Since 2006, about 20 Swedish citizens have been traveling to Somalia to join armed groups. The Swedish government has entrusted the intelligence service with investigating "Islamic extremism" in the country. Last year, Swedish radio reported that a leader at a community youth center linked to a mosque in a Stockholm suburb was recruiting young men to fight for al-Shabab. Mujahideen Youth Movement or "Movement of Warrior Youth", more commonly known as al-Shabaab is an Islamist insurgency group in the ongoing war in Somalia. As of summer 2010 the group is said to control most of the southern and central parts of Somalia, including "a large swath" of the capital, Mogadishu, where it is said to have imposed its own "harsh" form of Sharia law.

  • Obama allies doomed according to Swedish study
    Although there are still two weeks to go before US voters head to the polls for local elections, the fate of President Barack Obama's allies may already be cast, at least according to a Swedish study published Friday.

 If history is any guide Obama's allies will lose, in part, thanks to a painfully slow rise in Americans' disposable income according to a model built by Sweden-based researcher Douglas Hibbs.

 The Göteborg University affiliated researcher who studied data from elections dating from 1950 to 2006, predicts Democrats will lose 45 seats in the House of Representatives, putting them in the minority and badly stymieing Obama's ability to govern. 

Hibbs found that 50-plus years of elections had shown that the incumbent party usually retains 62 seats, plus a number of seats equal to about 62 percent of those won at the previous major election.

 The party also loses 1.4 seats for every percentage point of the sitting president's win margin in the previous election, for Obama 7.4 percentage points.

 Crucially for the president he could claw back "10 seats for every percentage point of growth in per capita real disposable personal income over the congressional term. "

But unfortunately for Obama retaining the majority would still need disposable income to increase by 0.8 % over the first seven quarters of this Congress. Over the first six quarters it increased by only 0.6 %.

The good news for Obama is that Hibbs admits his method might not be foolproof.

 His model, he says, is designed to explain what outside factors impact mid-term elections, rather than "deliver optimal predictions.”