Sweden Today:

Government extends border controls / Swedish company offers jobs to Americans / Swedish teachers in training want challenges / Boxing their way to integration / Scottish lawyer seeks to reignite Olof Palme law 

• Government extends border controls
  (National) The government decided on Nov. 11 that border controls will be extended at Öresundsbron and in the ports of Trelleborg, Malmö, Helsingborg and Göteborg. Border control in Sweden was introduced last autumn in response to the overwhelming numbers of refugees seeking asylum in the country. The extension will run until February 11, 2017.

• Swedish company offers jobs to Americans
  (Business) A Swedish advertising agency has issued an open call to creative Americans wishing to escape the next four years of a Trump administration: "You are looking for a new country. We are looking for new talent.” Round and Round, one of the leading agencies for Swedish brands, has international clients and is looking for native English speakers; they have created thegreattrumpescape.com for those wishing to submit portfolios for a new life in the Nordic nation.

• Boxing their way to integration
  (Immigration) Newcomers to Sweden are getting into shape, managing stress, and learning Swedish culture and the language by joining a new boxing club recently opened in Karlskrona. While awaiting the status of their residence permits, asylum seekers get to work out for free but the training is designed so they learn the Swedish language as well. “They become more social because they have to work out in pairs,” Armen Darbinyan told SVT.

• Swedish teachers in training want challenges
  (National) Approximately 1000 student teachers reveal that more demands and challenges need to be applied to their curriculum. According to the National Union of Teachers, four out of 10 students believe the eligibility requirements for teaching admission are too low, and 40 percent of those studying full-time say their studies do not take up enough of their time. Most report the training program does prepare them for the job, yet improvement is needed.

• Scottish lawyer seeks to reignite Olof Palme law
  (Environment) Polly Higgins, international lawyer and environmental crusader, visited Stockholm to further her fight to make ecocide a crime. She defines ecocide as “the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes,” reports Swedish Radio. Sweden, which is at the forefront of environment issues, welcomed Higgins to Parliament to meet with officials, and on Thursday she was awarded the Polarbröd Utstickar prize for her “pioneering leadership for the future of our planet.” Higgins has so far visited 48 countries and told Radio Sweden, “We’re putting back in place the missing law that Olof Palme called for all those years ago.”