Swedish News:

Nativity numbers at stake: Fennel deliveries stopped. Wasn’t allowed to look for child. Man arrested after Stockholm riot. Burger came with swastika. 

  • Nativity numbers at stake: Fennel deliveries stopped
    Livsmedelsverket (the National Food Administration) has discovered linuron in fennel from Scania. Linuron, a residual herbicide which acts in the soil, is prohibited in Sweden. Now the wholesale company Sydgrönt in Helsingborg stops all its deliveries of fennel to chain stores like Ica and Axfood. “We don’t deliver fennel from our assortment,” says Ted Stenshed, Sydgrönt’s Managing Director. “We have stopped it altogether. We carry a large quantity of the Swedish production of fennel and there’s a lot of money at stake, but we won’t take any chances.” Cellular studies have shown linuron to have negative effects on the male reproduction system. Sydgrönt is one of Sweden’s largest suppliers of vegetables. It was Livsmedelsverket that in collaboration with Jordbruksverket (the Swedish Board of Agriculture), discovered linuron in fennel at one of Ica’s distribution centers, Ica had received the fennel from Sydgrönt. According to Livsmedelsverket, the amount of linuron was low, 0.1 milligram per kilo (a kilo equals 2.2 lbs). Linuron is permitted in some European countries.

  • Wasn’t allowed to look for child
    Lova Johansson, an 11-year old girl, was traveling to Halmstad by train but fell asleep and missed her stop. Meanwhile, her mother was waiting on the platform in Halmstad, and got panicky. “I tried to look through the train, but the personnel stopped me. They said they had to stick to their timetable,” she says. “I said ‘I have to find my child’, but the woman told me the train had to leave.” The train left before Lova’s mom had had time to comb through all the cars. She called 112 (SOS alarm in Sweden) and twenty minutes later she was told Lova had been found onboard and was on her way back to Halmstad with the help of train personnel. “I was grateful she was alive then,” her mother says. “But today I’m angry that they didn’t keep the train while I looked for my daughter.”

  • Man arrested after Stockholm riot
    A man in his 20’s was arrested by police in conjunction with a violent riot at Hässelby gård in western Stockholm. He is previously known to police. “It seems there’s a gang of youngsters who has nothing better to do,” says Västerortspolisens press officer Diana Sundin. “That it could be inspired by the riots in London seems unlikely.” It was Monday night before 9 pm, that police was called to the subway stop Hässelby gård. A gang of about 20 to 30 young men had then hit and broke the ticket collector’s booth with a fire extinguisher and then emptied its content inside the booth. The surveillance camera caught the event and police will now try to identify the rest of the men. The gang threw stones as police when they arrived and also at parked cars.

  • Burger came with swastika
    When 8-year old Eddie got his burger meal in Umeå, his parents couldn’t believe their eyes: Inside the box they found the hamburger along with a temporary kiddie tattoo featuring a swastika. “Not exactly what we expected,” says mom Malin Hägglund to local media. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.” The owner of the burger joint regretted what happened, believing the tattoo was sent from China by mistake.