It is thanks to new immigrants and babies that Stockholm is still a growing city – otherwise, SvD writes, there are more people moving out of the city than in. For the last few years, suburban areas that have gained in population thanks to people in Stockholm who decide they want more space / a garden / open windows and, if you’re Swedish-born, kids. The price of apartments in Stockholm, as well as the new mortgage requirements are additional reasons for moving out.
Does this mean an end to Stockholm city? Hardly. There just isn’t much room to grow, one researcher says: there is a limit to how tight you can build buildings, and Stockholm’s islands can’t get bigger. Manhattan builds upwards though, so maybe that will be the next step here too.
After two years of both open and behind closed doors debate, Sweden will not – repeat, not – be signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Somewhere around 20 countries have signed it, and Sweden was considered by many to be a sure thing, in particular because Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström leaned heavily in that direction.
However, there were plenty of people who thought the whole idea was not only quixotic, but even damaging: the Treaty would have thrown into question and very possibly undermined the landmark and arguably effective NPT, Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, from 1970. (The NPT is not only a binding arms limitation treaty but it has a whopping 191 signatories: It’s not something you want to undermine.)
Since there were two divergent opinions on the usefulness of the new prohibition treaty (one cynical and one hopeful? One idiotic and one helpful? One hopeless and one realistic? opinions vary), Sweden (per usual) assigned an special investigator to do a deep dive on the issue for Sweden. He came out against signing. Also the USA and other Nato countries pressed hard for Sweden not to sign, arguing it would seriously hurt Sweden’s standing in international contexts.
Although Wallström has now said no, Sweden won’t sign, in typical Swedish fashion she isn’t committing to not signing in the future, if the treaty becomes more feasable/popular. At the same time as she said “not now (though I really really, really wanted to)” Wallström signed Sweden up for being a treaty “observer” who would help develop the treaty and monitor it being followed. The catch here is that at least 50 countries need to have signed it for Sweden to take this watchdog role, and that doesn’t seem to be happening for the moment.
A previous American ambassador to Sweden, Mark Brzezinski, has written to the King, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström, and Sweden’s ambassador to the United States Karin Olofsdotter regarding the detention of hiphop star ASAP Rocky (dn.se). Brzezinski believes Sweden’s treatment of Rocky reflects extremely negatively on Sweden, particularly when the motivation behind the incident appears to be race-related. (Videos of the incident are all over the net.)
The incident took place near Hötorget in Stockholm on the 30th of June, DN.se reports. Two days later Rocky ASAP voluntarily came in to the police to answer questions. On June 3rd, a detention order was sent in by the prosecutor’s office and on the 5th he was detained on suspicion of assault (sannolika skäl misstänkta för misshandel av normalgraden). Two others are also detained, and all three proclaim their innocence. They can be detained until July 19th, or even longer if the court so decides.
By the way, apparently only the Royal family got back to Brzezinski – but what they said, he’s not saying.
Now that suddenly Ursala von der Leyen (a German politician from the Christian Democratic Union party) is the leading candidate for presidency of the EU commission, the fight is on for the position of first vice-president. On-site for the Center party, Frederick Federley is pushing for the Liberal candidacy of Danish Margrethe Vestager, while the Social Democrats in Brussels are working hard for their candidate, Dutchman Frans Timmermans. Swedish radio (sr.se) reports that Helene Fritzon, the top Social Democrat from Sweden, believes Sweden extracted a promise from von der Leyen that Timmermans would get it, but since the meeting was behind closed doors and there’s nothing on paper, who knows.
Both of these candidates were leading in the race for the presidency but were knocked out by the sudden appearance of von der Leyen, a compromise candidate that everyone thought they could get behind. Now, the fight is just as bad for the second-in-command position.
In typical diplomatic fashion, the solution might be to name the one “first vice-president,” and the other just “vice-president.” But a compromise like that might just compromise the position even more. Does anyone even know who the current vice-president is? No, not actually.
SvD writes that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Kriminalvården) has sent in a request to the government to change the law in order to be able to make Swedish prisons smoke-free. No smoking for either prisoners/clients or for employees. This is actually already the case in Great Britain, Iceland as well as in several states in the US, but KRIS, a nationwide support group for those who have served time, are concerned that life will now only become even harder for inmates.
The government will soon be putting together a commission to investigate forbidding plastic mugs and other single-use plastic food packaging items, Isabella Lövin of the Environment party announced yesterday. This is on top of the 3 kr tax on plastic bags Per Bolund (also Environment party) announced last month and the phasing out of plastic utensils and plates by 2021 required by the EU.
Not everyone is
breaking out it adulation. Expressen’s op/ed page (“plastic in, sense
out”) argues it’s not about the environment at all, it’s about more money
for the government. A ban on fishing nets, on the other hand, (that make up
over half the plastic waste in the ocean according to Expressen), would
actually do something – but no one is talking about that.
In solidarity for fellow hiphop artist ASAP Rocky, artist Tyler, the Creator tweeted yesterday ”no more Sweden for me, ever.” It seems that also artist Schoolboy Q will be joining the boycott. What did Sweden do? ASAP Rocky is facing up to six years in prison for assault after an altercation with several fans, according to complex.com. (We know that won’t happen, ever.) ASAP was then denied bail as he was considered a flight risk (like the guy could slip out unnoticed?)
ASAP, and a slew
of other hiphop giants, were in Stockholm for the Smash music festival. His
concert was described as the festival’s high point.
Sweden won third place in the Women’s Soccer World Cup yesterday, beating England 2-1. Names to know from the season: goalie Hedvig Lindahl (who, besides being great in general, made a massive save on a penalty kick in the game against Canada. SvD thinks it would make a good stamp.) Kosovare Asllani who scored three goals, and Sofia Jakobsson who scored two goals, both when they were desperately needed. Oh and Nilla Fischer, who head-butted a ball away that otherwise would have been sure goal. That girl has a head on her.
Jumping on
Trump’s bandwagon, Jimmie Åkesson of the Sweden Democrats suggested cutting aid
to countries that discriminate against HBTQ people. As Göran Eriksson of SvD notes,
it is in many cases muslim and African countries that discriminate against
homosexuals, so this fits right in with their generally xenophobic rhetoric.
Later in his Almedalen speech, Åkesson quoted Sweden’s revered Wilhelm Moberg’s
text called Endeavor (”Strävan”) which, in calling for Sweden to unite against
forces trying to tear it apart, was written as a call for Sweden to stand up to
Germany’s nazism in WWII. Raise your hand if you hear Moberg turning in his
grave.
All the ”moose crossing” signs posted on Swedish roads, warning drivers regarding the prevalence of moose in the area, have become a little less relevant. SvD writes that the Swedish moose, and for that matter, the Swedish forest hare, could soon land on the list of threatened wildlife. For the rabbit, warmer winters are to blame but for the moose it’s less clear (wolves have also been upgraded to strongly threatened themselves). Not to worry though, moose disappearance isn’t on the books in any future; the Swedish identity is too tied up in it. What would all the souvenir shops do?!
