Swedish News:

Henning Sjöström dead. Better buying local? Police called to Ullared. 

  • Henning Sjöström dead
    Well-known Swedish lawyer Henning Sjöström has passed away. Sjöström was, among many other things, the defense lawyer of Kurt Haijby in the 1950s, when Haijby was accused of blackmailing King Gustaf V after having said the two had a relationship. Many lawyers, including Leif Silbersky, got their training with Sjöström. Henning Sjöström was born in Burträsk on the outskirts of Skellefteå in 1922 and was an elite sportsman. In 1948 he was awarded his candidate of law (the jur.kand). Apart from being a lawyer in the limelight, Sjöström also wrote books, fiction as well as law books. After visiting a convent in Sri Lanka, he became a Buddhist, and in 1967 he wrote the book “Vägen till Buddha” (The path to the Buddha). He was married to Kerstin Sandels-Sjöström. “We had 44 fine years together,” she said. “We had a lot of fun together. Henning was a very, very good man.”

  • Better buying local?
    You believe it is better to buy local, right? Well, that’s a myth. “From a climate perspective local produce isn’t better,” says Lena Ekelund Adeclson, professor of Horticultural Economy at Sveriges lantbruksunviersitet (Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences). Locally produced products put in focus the shorter transport route, but in order to try to save the environment it is better to buy ecological food from far away, than buy something conventionally produced in the neighborhood. Researchers at KTH (Royal Institute of Technology) have found that the transportation of local produce is often done with small, inefficient vehicles that cause the same kind of environmental damage as faraway transportation does. Also, “locally produced” has still to be defined. Producers and buyers may call something “locally produced” when it was really produced miles away. “It’s an evasive conception,” says Lars Nellmer, managing director at the association Krav, a member of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. “From an environmental perspective it is much more important how something is produced than where. Which is why Krav has a global perspective. Many of our products are imported.” If you want to do something good for the environment, the best thing to do is to eat less meat. “Vegetables and fruit have 50 percent less impact on the environment than meat,” says Emelie Hansson, an agronomist at Naturskyddsföreningen (The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation). But of course, you may choose to buy local in order to support local businesses.

  • Police called to Ullared
    After a shopping cart collision at Gekås in Ullared (an enormous department store), police were called. Two female shoppers and their daughters were at each others’ throats. One shopping cart was used to ram down one of the daughters, while another woman received a kick to her back. One mother-daughter team filed an assault and battery report to the police.