Swedish News:

Soaring above Stockholm. Swedish strawberry heist. A new chamber of secrets. Kidnapped Swede in new video. 

  • The Eclipse swing carousel (kättingflygare) soars above Stockholm at Gröna Lund amusement park.

  • Soaring above Stockholm
    Speaking of heights (see Globe Arena Airbnb article), Stockholm's 132-year-old amusement park Gröna Lund is home to one of the tallest attractions of its kind in the world: a swing. Eclipse, which gives unrivaled views from the height of 397 feet above Stockholm, shares its "world's tallest" title with the SkyScreamer swing carousel in Texas. The Star Flyer swing carousel (kättingflygare) requires riders to be at least 47 inches tall, and can spin 12 pairs of riders in seats that hang from 26-foot-long chains for two minutes — at 44 miles per hour when it reaches full speed.

  • Both 2015 and 2016 weren't so great for Sweden's favorite fruit, but this year it may be a bumper crop for strawberries, predicted to last well into August.

  • Swedish strawberry heist
    The fate of thousands of boxes of strawberries that went missing just ahead of the fruit’s big weekend became clearer this week after they missed their intended Midsummer celebrations all over Sweden. On Monday, as Swedes were recovering from their holiday weekend, the police recovered close to a third of the strawberries. Some 50 kilometres away from where they'd been stolen, they were found along a roadside, inedible. "Unfortunately we could not return them to the owner in the state they were in," police told Swedish news wire TT. The strawberries had been stolen from a farm in southern Sweden, and the search for the thieves had Sweden on high alert hours before their Midsummer festivities. Consumers and farmers alike were already scrambling to find enough fresh fruit since the cold spring weather has been really rough on the strawberry crop.

  • A new chamber of secrets
    A secret, underground chamber was recently discovered in central Stockholm. "When it was first discovered there was a person there, but he disappeared into a tunnel," reported an informant. Through a ventilation hole in the ground, it is possible for a person to get down into the tunnel system, where authorities were made aware of several new rooms. They don’t know how long this chamber has been in use, but the city police prostitution team says the sex trade has taken place in other parts of the underground tunnel system in the past. In this one was an inflatable mattress with piles of packages of contraceptives and underwear, and a makeshift shower was created near a water pipe. Police also seized suspected stolen goods but don’t have any suspects.

  • Kidnapped Swede in new video
    After nearly two years since a 2013 video, a desperately hoped for sign of life has come from Johan Gustafsson, kidnapped in 2011. The Swede, who turned 40 while in captivity earlier this year, appeared in a new 20-minute video posted by an al-Qaeda group in which he appeals for help from the Swedish government. Gustafsson and a few others from various countries were kidnapped by the terrorist group in Timbuktu while researching factory building options. In the June 2015 video, Gustafsson asks the Swedish government to do what it can for him and support his family. “We are in the world's largest prison, the Sahara. I love you and I hope you do not forget me,” he says.