Swedish News:

Worry over summer alcohol consumption. Danish Crown Prince a success in Sweden. Actor Stellan Skarsgård welcomes baby number 8. Nobody wants to be a police in Lappland. Young believe cancer is contagious. Better child care for Stockholm night workers. Film about Arne Weise. 

• Worry over summer alcohol consumption
  Summer's over and it's time to get back to work. That's when many Swedes worry how they are to handle their increased summer alcohol consumption. After summer, there’s been a steady stream coming to clinics offering help as well as Alkohollinjen (a help line for alcohol-related issued). According to statistics from an online self-test offered by a company affiliated by Systembolaget, there’s an increased worry among alcohol abusers at the end of summer. “Many have been drinking daily during the summer, and that doesn’t work when you have a job to do,” says Håkan Leifman, Director of Centralförbundet för alcohol- och narkotikaupplysning (The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs).

• Danish Crown Prince a success in Sweden
  Not only is he popular and successful back home in Denmark, Crown Prince Frederik, he's pretty successful in Sweden, too. During the weekend, Prince Frederik won one of the heats in the 2012 Nordic Dragon Sailing Masters, held in Båstad, Sweden. All in all 32 dragon boats participated in the competition, the weather was fine albeit with a few difficult breezes. The Crown Prince arrived in Båstad on Friday with the royal Danish family’s yacht Dannebrog, which he anchored a bit outside the fashionable resort. Onboard Dannebrog was also Crown Princess Mary and the couple’s oldest child Christian. Crown Prince Frederik is an experienced sailor in general, and has since a couple of years also been acknowledged as a skilled dragon sailor. A dragon boat puts high demands on how the crew deals with the boat, it’s not only about the quality of the boat itself. Last year the Danish prince participated in the Swedish masters in dragon sailing, in spite of his Danish citizenship, and ended up second. The organizers behind the competition were happy to receive some royal glamour, and they were even happier when White Lady and the Danish prince won the second race. “In the first heat White Lady came in on 16th spot, and in the third they ended up on the 22nd spot,” says Secretary of Press Sofie Magnusson. This means that the prince and his two-man team Theis Palm and Kasper Rosengaard are on the 9th spot as they prepare for the next heats. Topping the competition are three Swedish boats: Stefan Löhr’s Linda on first, followed by Patrik Salén’s Lumme and Lasse Molse’s Da Capo XXV. It will be a tough fight for White Lady and Crown Prince Frederik to get ahead of the Swedes.

• Actor Stellan Skarsgard welcomes baby number 8
  Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, 61, welcomes baby number 8 into his fold. Stellan's wife, Megan Everett, (who is said to be the same age as the actor’s son Alexander - 36) gave birth to the baby boy in Stockholm. The couple shares one other child, son Ossian, 3. The actor's other six children - Alexander, Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Valter and Eija - come from Skarsgård's previous marriage to My Skarsgård.

• Nobody wants to be a police in Lapland
  Being a policeman in Lapland, Sweden, doesn’t seem to be too appealing. In spite of the fact that jobs in Kiruna, Gällivare, and Jokkmokk are being advertised daily, nobody applies for them, according to the local TV news Nordnytt. Police authorities in Norrbotten are now sending out police from the coastal areas to the inland for duty. In total some ten policemen are needed for the area.

• Young believe cancer is contagious
  Only little over 50 percent of all Swedish high school students were aware of the fact that cancer is not contagious. That's what a study done by the organization Ung Cancer (Young Cancer) shows. Ung Cancer feels that schools have an important role to fill bringing about information. “It’s odd that a lot of high school students have missed that cancer isn’t contagious,” says Julia Mjörnstedt, Secretary General at Ung Cancer. 945 students at 13 high schools in Västra Götaland and Skåne answered the poll last spring. 46% thought that leukemia (a type of cancer of the blood) is something you get through open wounds. Seven per mil knew alcohol may increase the risk of cancer. 1% was aware of vaccinations against cervical cancer. “We focused on finding out what the students knew about prevention, and what they can do themselves about preventing getting cancer,” says Mjörnstedt. The most well known fact among the students was that smoking is a risk factor. 70% answered that smoking can increase cancer. That sun tanning increases the risk for skin cancer was known among half of those who answered the poll. However, 24% believed that tanning was only dangerous if you got burnt. It’s important to point out that the gap in knowledge about cancer is not due to the students not having been in contact with the disease. Only 18% said they didn’t know someone who had or had had cancer or had had cancer. One percent of the students has or has had cancer themselves and 15% had experienced cancer through a close family member. Says Mjörnstedt: “We hope that the schools are interested in reaching out with some easily accessible information. Unfortunately very few talk about cancer and cancer prevention to young people today. It doesn’t seem to be any room for it in high school education.” Ung Cancer is a non-profit organization for young sufferers of cancer (ages 16-30) and they conducted the poll in collaboration with the Cancer Society and the Regionalt Cancercentrum Väst.

• Better child care for Stockholm night workers
  In 2014 in will become easier for parents in Stockholm who work night shifts to get care for their children. “Many people work shifts or have irregular work hours. There’s today a means tested child care for those with irregular hours, but I’ve received signals that it’s not enough,” Commissioner of Finance Sten Nordin announced earlier this week. The different areas of Stockholm have now been asked to map out the needs. Apart from figuring out how many children might need care during irregular hours, the different areas will also decide what shape this care ought to take. There are today 130 children eligible for round the clock care in Stockholm, but Nordin thinks the need in reality might be greater than that. “It may be that the need is increasing dramatically or that the need that’s there is finally coming into light,” he says. “Perhaps many parents today don’t even care to apply.” There are already night care centers in other parts of Sweden, and in Stockholm’s surrounding municipalities. But in Stockholm there’s only one child care center that operates at night, it’s located on Södermalm – and it’s private. Says Lena Appelkvist, who has a son at that center: “You can fight till you draw blood in order to get your hours approved by utbildningsförvaltningen (the Education Department). It takes me a week to figure out day by day how many hours I work every semester, which they ask of me to do.” Though Appelkvist is all for an investigation, she feels change is slow. “Stockholm is the city with most single households, and people who move here can not use their parents for help. To talk about doing something in 2014, I think that’s very weak. Something ought to be done now.”

• Film about Arne Weise
  For many of us, Arne Weise was part and parcel of Christmas as we grew up. He was the one who introduced, every year on Christmas Eve at the same time, “Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul” (“From All of US to All of You”, an animated television Christmas special, produced by Walt Disney Productions). When Weise quit this Christmas gig in 2002, and Swedish Television wanted to discontinue broadcasting the program, Swedish TV-viewers got so upset, that the program was reinstated thanks to a new, expensive contract with The Walt Disney Company. Anyway, Weise has done more than presenting Donald Duck, he has in fact presented a number of TV programs, and is a beloved television personality. And now we’ll get to know even more about the Malmö-born Weise, as he’s preparing to make a film about himself. “A documentary about this strange man Weise,” is how he describes it himself. “I can say this much, it’s about my TV-life from cradle to grave. And I’ve done so much, worn so many hats. Project leader, producer, TV presenter, and boss. All of it will be illustrated using our enormous archives,” he says to TT Spektra. The film will be around an hour long, and will be built on images from SVT (Swedish Television) as well as newly taken photos from Weise’s daily life and interviews with people he’s met through his career in TV. “I’ve met so many people through my life in TV, but I don’t want any saint’s glory over myself with this film, I want only the naked truth.” The initiative to make the film came from producer and director Jokum Sommer and Weise himself, it will be produced by Sommer’s company, but the two hope it will be shown on Swedish television. “This is a project we work on in bits and pieces depending on how Arne feels,” says Sommer.