Swedish News:

Swedes: More educated than ever. Sweden: a model for, hmmm.. well, urination. Sweden's Green party would like to see a meat free day in Swedish schools. 

  • Swedes: More educated
    The number of highly educated people has increased in every municipality in Sweden since the turn of the century. Swedes choose to continue studying after high school. Statistics (from Statistics Sweden) show that the number of inhabitants with a post-high school education has increased with 8% in three years, from 16% to 24%. Places like Stockholm, Uppsala, Lund and Malmö still dominate as to where the more educated people live.

  • Sweden – a model for urination
    Public restrooms in Taiwan will soon have signs with a request for men to sit down when they urinate. Sweden and Japan is being showed as model countries when it comes to this particular issue. The initiative comes from Taiwan’s Environmental Minister Stephen Shen. According to Shen sitting down at the toilet makes for a cleaner restroom. And he gets full support from the highest-ranking official at the Environmental Protection Department. “We want to learn from Japan and Sweden,” says Director General Yuan Shaw-jing. “We’ve heard that in Japan 30% of the men sit down.” According to the BBC, many Taiwanese women have expressed their support for this “toilet reform”, while most men have commented of the difficulty in changing old habits. The agency emphasizes that they cannot force men to change how they pee. But word has it that the Minister himself, Stephen Shen, practices what he preaches – both at home and in public restrooms.

  • Greens want meat free day
    Miljöpartiet (the Green Party) won’t give up their fight for meat free school lunches, and are now demanding one meat free day a week. Meat, according to the party, is everything that’s not vegetarian. It is not the first time the issue of meat free meals is coming up in Stadshuset (the City Hall in Stockholm). Back in the winter of 2010, commissioner Ulla Hamilton (of the Moderate Party) answered a couple of motions regarding meat free days and a decreased meat consumption in schools and nursing homes. “To completely or partly remove meat from the menus for our young and old is not an issue that ought to be decided by municipal council, but a choice these people ought to make for themselves,” she said. But the Greens’ group leader Åsa Jernberg is trying again: “We will put in a motion for the municipal council this fall for all schools to introduce one meatless day a week,” she says. The Greens’ definition of meatless also means no fish or chicken. That most schools already offer a vegetarian alternative is not enough, according to Jernberg: “Our point of departure is that we are facing enormous climate changes and that the meat consumption has increased a lot, according to Jordbruksverket (The Swedish Board of Agriculture) is had increased with 41% since 1990.” The meat production and thus also the meat consumption has proved to have huge negative effects on the environment. “One meatless day a week would mean Stockholm took responsibility. If we are going to meet the challenges of the climate changes we must work on a broad front, there’s no quick fix,” Jernberg continues. Many schools in Stockholm today, particularly on Södermalm, have already introduced meat free days. “There’s a great interest among the students, many want to be involved and take responsibility,” Jernberg says. She also adds that even though the majority of politicians don’t seem too interested, she tries to stay positive.