Swedish News:

Cyber attack on Swedish dailies. Swedish diplomat assists the U.S. Maine lobster, no thanks! Keanu Reeves joins Viaplay production. Swedish CEO of Autovaz steps down. 

  • Cyber attack on Swedish dailies
    The online editions of Sweden's main newspapers were knocked out for several hours by unidentified hackers on March 19, police said as they launched an investigation the day after. The attack was "extremely dangerous and serious," the head of the Swedish Media Publishers' Association, Jeanette Gustafsdotter, told Swedish news agency TT. "To threaten access to news coverage is a threat to democracy," she said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which either partially or totally shut down the sites of Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Aftonbladet, Dagens Industri, Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad on Saturday evening from about 8 p.m. until about 11 p.m. local time. Cyberattackers often use distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to direct a wave of falsified web traffic at a single or small number of sites, overwhelming them with traffic for hours or days.

  • Swedish diplomat assists the U.S.
    A Swedish diplomat acting on behalf of the United States has visited a U.S. student who has been held by North Korea since early January, the U.S. State Department said. According to North Korean official media, Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was detained for trying to steal a propaganda slogan from his Pyongyang hotel and has confessed to "severe crimes" against the state. The Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which acts as the "protecting power" representing U.S. interests in North Korea, has visited Warmbier in prison. "We are in regular, close coordination with the Swedes," a spokesperson for the State Department said. The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations.

  • Maine lobster, no thanks!
    The Swedish environment ministry has asked the EU to list the Maine lobster as an invasive species and ban the import of the live creatures. The ministry said more than 30 American lobsters have been found along Sweden’s west coast in recent years and that they can carry diseases and parasites that could spread to the European lobster and result in extremely high mortality. Some experts agree; the larger and differently colored Maine lobster could potentially bring problems to its European relative. It’s not a small matter either: The export of lobsters to the EU is worth $134 million annually according to the Massachussetts Lobstermen’s Association.

  • Keanu Reeves joins Viaplay production
    Viaplay, a major Nordic streaming service and part of the MTG-group, has announced that Matrix star Keanu Reeves is confirmed for the first Viaplay original series — Swedish Dicks. Swedish Dicks is a comedy series set in downtown Los Angeles and entirely produced in the United States. The first 10-episode season centers around Ingmar (Peter Stormare), an ex-stuntman now trying to survive as a small time private detective. One day his miserable life takes a new turn when he stumbles into Axel (Swedish comedian Johan Glans), formerly a somewhat successful DJ. Together they partner up and start their own private investigator firm, Swedish Dicks. They become a great team taking on the strangest and wildest cases in LA, but when Ingmar’s past catches up with them they have to solve the murder mystery of Ingmar's former stunt buddy Tex (Reeves). Reeves appears in a number of episodes in the comedy series, which is currently shooting in Los Angeles and will premiere exclusively on Viaplay in the fall.

  • Swedish CEO of Autovaz steps down
    Former Detroit native Swedish executive Bo Andersson has stepped down as CEO of Russia's biggest carmaker Avtovaz, majority owned by Renault-Nissan, after major losses. Hit hard by Russia's economic crisis, the company, which makes Lada cars, has been battling with bankruptcy fears since reporting a tripling of net losses for 2015 in February. Andersson, a former General Motors executive, had been on a drive to improve efficiency at Avtovaz's Soviet-era facilities and slashed thousands of jobs from the bloated workforce in 2014. Rostec's Chemezov, a close ally of The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that President Vladimir Putin praised Andersson for cutting costs but also said he had relied too heavily on foreign suppliers instead of Russian ones and that layoffs had caused local tension.