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Local Sweden
7 days ago
- Climate
- Local Sweden
Number of drownings spikes as Swedes cool off in hot weather
In the last two weeks, Sweden has seen on average one drowning accident a day. Advertisement Warm temperatures over the last two weeks have led many Swedes to head to the nearest lake or beach to cool off. Unfortunately, this has led to some gloomy statistics ‒ drownings have increased, with on average one per day occurring in the last fortnight, according to the Swedish Lifesaving Society. "We can see that the number of drownings has increased a lot, and the reason behind that is the nice weather we've seen across the country," Göran Bertilsson, from the Lifesaving Society, told public broadcaster Ekot. He added that boats and paddleboards have also become more common, which increases the risk of swimming accidents. Bertilsson advised swimmers to keep an eye on each other, especially children who can't swim. "You need to keep an eye on your children all the time, especially when there are a lot of people swimming," he said. "If you're looking at your phone you can't watch your kids at the same time." ESSENTIAL READING:
Local Sweden
17-07-2025
- Business
- Local Sweden
More than half of non-European immigrants leaving Sweden have university education
More than half of the non-European immigrants who left Sweden last year had tertiary education, new figures have shown. Advertisement New figures collected by Statistics Sweden on behalf of Swedish public broadcaster Ekot show that the majority of non-European immigrants leaving the country last year had completed studies beyond upper secondary school. Of the 17,000 non-European immigrants between 25 and 65 years old who were registered as having left Sweden last year, 57 percent had post-upper secondary qualifications, essentially equivalent to a university or college education. READ ALSO: Why you could land a job in Sweden but still leave within a year There is little research available as to why people leave Sweden, but Andrea Monti, doctor in sociological demographics at Mälardalens University, said that it could be due to the fact that many struggle to find work that matches their qualifications. 'Maybe you can't use your qualifications, or you don't get the same job or income you expected,' she told Ekot, adding that previous studies have indicated this is one of the reasons many leave the country. Advertisement Patrick Joyce, chief economist of the employer's organisation Almega, told Ekot that the country "definitely underutilised the group of highly educated migrants living in Sweden". He added that the housing situation ‒ particularly in Stockholm ‒ the falling quality of schools, low salaries and a weak krona are all contributing factors to why people leave the country.
Euronews
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Swedish suspect arrested on spying grounds reportedly senior diplomat
Sweden's security services (Säpo) are reportedly investigating a potential link between a diplomat arrested over suspected espionage and the abrupt resignation of the government's national security adviser in embarrassing circumstances last week. Säpo said on Tuesday it had arrested an individual in the Stockholm area on suspicion of spying. Local media has identified the person as a high-ranking Swedish diplomat who has been posted to a number of embassies around the world. In a statement, the prosecutor in the case said the unnamed individual was released from custody on Wednesday, but remained a suspect in a crime which occurred between the 1 and 11 May. According to the Swedish national broadcaster SVT, Säpo is investigating whether the individual is connected to the sudden resignation of Tobias Thyberg as the country's national security adviser. Thyberg took up the job on Thursday but resigned on Friday morning after sensitive photos of him on the dating app Grindr were sent anonymously to the government. Thyberg — who previously served as an ambassador in Ukraine and Afghanistan — is not suspected of any crime, SVT reported. Public radio station Ekot reported that Säpo had recently raided the home of a diplomat who worked at the foreign ministry for several years. A Säpo spokesperson told Euronews that an investigation was ongoing and that it was unable to provide "any further details or comment on the media reports at this point". Thyberg's predecessor as national security adviser, Henrik Landerholm, resigned in January after he allegedly left classified documents at a conference hotel in 2023. Landerholm has since been charged with negligent handling of classified information.
Local Sweden
10-03-2025
- Business
- Local Sweden
Sweden sees strongest support for joining the Euro in 15 years
Almost a third of Swedes ‒ 32 percent ‒ answered that switching to the Euro was a "good proposal", Swedish public radio Ekot reports, compared with 41 percent who thought it was a "bad proposal". That's the highest number in favour of the Euro since the autumn of 2009, in the middle of the international financial crisis. Researchers believe the increase may be because of the more unstable geopolitical situation. "In that kind of situation you want to join other institutions, for example the EU, as a kind of counterweight," research communicator Daniel Jansson, from the SOM institute, told Ekot. "The data presented here was collected in autumn and winter, before Donald Trump was sworn in as president and before the increased political instability we've seen during the spring. My guess is that we'll be even more positive towards the EU in the next survey in the autumn." Another important factor to take into account is the fact that the krona was performing worse when the survey was carried out than it is now ‒ on Sunday, Bloomberg reported that the Swedish krona was the best performing of all 11 G10 currencies, the most traded currencies in the world. The SOM institute ‒ which stands for samhälle, opinion, medier or "society, opinion, media," has carried out a national survey each year since 1986 looking at a wide range of different topics, ranging from attitudes to screen time among children and belief in God to attitudes towards a shorter working week or willingness to defend Sweden in the case of an attack.
