"Thieves steal Swedish royal jewels, escape by speedboat" by Jan M. Olsen and Barry Hatton Associated Press August 01, 2018
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Thieves in Sweden walked into a small town’s medieval cathedral in broad daylight and stole priceless crown jewels dating back to the early 1600s before escaping by speedboat, police said Wednesday.
Two men vanished after the noon heist Tuesday into a vast patchwork of lakes around Strangnas, 37 miles west of the capital of Stockholm, police said.
As did any more pre$$ interest in this.
The thieves snatched two gold crowns and an orb made for King Karl IX and Queen Kristina in the daring robbery. One of the crowns is encrusted with precious stones. The stolen items were on display at an exhibition in the cathedral, and visitors were inside at the time.
‘‘The alarm went off when the burglars smashed the security glass and stole the artifacts,’’ Catharina Frojd, a spokeswoman for the 14th-century Strangnas cathedral, told The Associated Press.
The church wrote on its website that the stolen items were kept ‘‘in accordance with the prevailing safety regulations in locked and alarmed displays in the cathedral.’’ It gave no further details.
Police sent out a helicopter and boat to hunt for the thieves but found nothing. Authorities said no one was hurt in the robbery, but didn’t provide further details.
Tom Rowell, a visitor who was eating lunch outside, said he saw two men running from the cathedral toward a small nearby jetty where a motorboat was moored.
‘‘The two men hurriedly jumped on board and it sped off,’’ Rowell said, adding that they ‘‘appeared non-Nordic.’’ He didn’t elaborate.
The men appeared to have escaped using two black bicycles — which they likely stole ahead of the heist — to race to the waiting boat, said police spokesman Stefan Dangardt.
It was not immediately clear if there was a driver waiting in the speedboat for the thieves.
On Wednesday, divers were looking for clues in and along the shores of Lake Malaren. Sweden’s third-largest freshwater lake. Police said the thieves could have fled further on jet skis, adding it was only a theory.
I haven't wanted to say it, but this story stinks. The event stinks, the reporting stinks, and the so-called investigation stinks.
While the items are of great historic and cultural value, police expressed doubt whether the burglary would bring the perpetrators financial gain.
The theft would be logged at Interpol, enabling an international search, TT said.
They have turned up some leads.
Strangnas is a small, quiet town with a population of about 13,000. It’s popular with Stockholm commuters and tourists, who come to see the cathedral and a street that has been called the prettiest in Sweden.
The Gothic-style cathedral, built between 1291 and 1340, is in the heart of the town. The cathedral’s red-brick tower with a black top can be seen from kilometers (miles) around.
The cathedral was closed Wednesday, and a grassy area by the jetty was cordoned off as police inspected the ground for clues. Police also questioned witnesses who were inside the church at the time of the theft and people outside who saw the suspects get away.
In 2013, 16th-century copies of King Johan III’s crown, orb and scepter were stolen from the cathedral in the central Swedish city of Vasteras, 60 miles west of the capital Stockholm, during a nighttime burglary. They were eventually found and returned to the cathedral. No one was arrested.
Can you say hoax?
Rowell, the witness, is getting married at the cathedral next weekend.
‘‘It’s despicable that people would steal from a holy building,’’ he said.....
Considering what other evil may have occurred there, maybe not.
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The turned up the heat and did a roundup, but it was all nothing but hot air.
Gotta keep your eyes on the prize:
"Nobel literature prize will not be awarded this year" Associated Press May 04, 2018
COPENHAGEN — The Nobel Prize in literature will not be awarded this year because sex abuse allegations and other issues have affected the public image of the Swedish Academy, which selects the winner.
The academy said Friday that the 2018 prize will be given in 2019. The decision was made at a meeting in Stockholm, on the grounds that the academy is in no shape to pick a winner after a string of sex abuse allegations and financial scandals.
‘‘We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the academy before the next laureate can be announced,’’ said Anders Olsson, the academy’s permanent secretary.
The feud within the academy was triggered by an abuse scandal linked to Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural figure in Sweden who is also the husband of poet Katarina Frostenson, an academy member.
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I would say that's absurd, but.....
Rape Charges Filed in Scandal Tied to Nobel Literature Prize
More to make you angry, although he has been jailed:
"Central figure in Nobel scandal is jailed for rape" by Christina Anderson New York Times October 02, 2018
STOCKHOLM — A Swedish court on Monday found Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the center of a scandal that led to the cancellation of this year’s Nobel Prize in literature, guilty of raping a woman in 2011.
The court sentenced Arnault to two years in prison, the minimum term for rape.
Arnault’s lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, told Swedish news media that his client would appeal the verdict. He had previously denied the allegations against Arnault, describing them as a “witch hunt.”
The charges against Arnault, 72, stemmed from a scandal that severely damaged the reputation of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in literature, and set off a series of recriminations and power struggles there.
Like I give a damn regarding that self-aggrandizing, self-adulating, elitist organization.
Arnault, a French photographer, was long seen in Sweden as someone who could make or break a career in the arts. He and his wife, a member of the Swedish Academy, owned the Forum, a popular cultural venue that received support from the academy.
The Swedish Academy declined to comment on the verdict.
In November last year, the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported that 18 women had accused Arnault of sexual assault or harassment. Many said they had been mistreated at the Forum or at academy-owned properties in Stockholm and Paris. The accusations covered a period of 20 years.
Unlike a certain judge up for nomination to certain court.
In many cases, too much time had passed for criminal charges to be considered under Swedish law, but in June, prosecutors charged Arnault with two counts of rape, both involving the same woman, in relation to separate episodes in 2011. The woman, a writer and academic, went to the police a few days after the Dagens Nyheter report was published, telling them she had not come forward earlier because Arnault was a close friend of her boss.
At a three-day trial in Stockholm District Court that ended on Sept. 24, prosecutors said that Arnault had forced the woman to perform oral sex and to have intercourse in October 2011, and raped her as she slept in December 2011.
I'm kind of glad my print paper spared me the salacious details.
The four-person panel who heard the case — Judge Gudrun Antemar and three lay judges — found him guilty only of the forced oral sex.
Only?
Antemar said in a statement released by the court that the evidence showed beyond a reasonable doubt that Arnault had gripped the woman by the neck to prevent her from moving away.
The court acquitted him of the other charges. The verdicts were unanimous.
“The evidence in this case has mainly consisted of statements made during the trial by the injured party and several witnesses,” Antemar said in a statement released by the court. “The court has made a thorough evaluation of the evidence and the court’s conclusion is that the evidence is enough to find the defendant guilty of one of the events for which the prosecutor has brought charges.”
If only Democrats could have gotten Kavanaugh before them.
Though Arnault could have received a sentence of up to six years, two years “is a reasonable penalty,” Christina Voigt, the prosecutor, said in a telephone interview. In addition to the prison term, the court awarded unspecified damages to the victim.
Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for the victim, called the verdict “a big relief for my client” and “a victory for justice.” She said it should undermine “the culture of silence that surrounds rapes and sex crimes.”
The verdict was announced as the 2018 Nobel season opened, the first without a literature prize in nearly 70 years. The first prize, for physiology or medicine, was announced minutes after the court announced its decision on Arnault.
Also see: Nobel Prize in chemistry is awarded
Do you see what I see?
Torn apart by an acrimonious fight over its affiliation with Arnault, the Swedish Academy, which has handed out the award since 1901, announced in May that it would instead name two winners in 2019.
Following the revelations, the academy cut its ties with the Forum, Arnault’s cultural club, but it refused to expel Arnault’s wife, Katarina Frostenson, a well-known poet. Instead, members who wanted to play down the crisis ousted Sara Danius, the first woman to lead the academy. Several members resigned in disgust.
Lars Heikensten, director of the Nobel Foundation, has said there might not be a literature prize next year, either.
Heikensten told the public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio in May that the prize would “be awarded when the Swedish Academy has won back the public’s trust.”
What if they never do?
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Related:
"Sweden has adopted a law requiring people to get explicit consent before sexual contact. Otherwise it will be considered as rape. In December, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said that if sex is not voluntary ‘‘it’s illegal.’’ His deputy Minister Isabella Lovin said the recent #metoo antiharassment campaign has shown the need for new legislation. Critics say the changes won’t lead to more convictions....."
Maybe you should just stick with the same sex:
"A music festival without cisgender men? That’s the aim of what’s being called the world’s first music festival exclusively for women and transgender and nonbinary people, in Gothenburg. Called the Statement Festival, the event began Friday and runs through Sunday, and it has the unequivocal goal of creating a safe space for women. That means, in the eyes of the organizers, no cisgender men are allowed (AP)."
I didn't want to go anyway.
"Swedish study notes surge in automated Twitter accounts" Associated Press August 31, 2018
COPENHAGEN — A Swedish government study says there’s been a recent surge in the number of automated Twitter accounts ahead of the Sept. 9 election, noting that 40 percent of them are more likely to support the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party, expected to make gains.
Let me guess, it's the Russians.
So what is the other 60% of meddling, huh?
The study by Sweden’s defense research agency comes amid broader concerns over misinformation ahead of the election.
The biggest liars in any society, the MIC, are worried about misinformation? Heck, without that and their mouthpiece media, they would never get a war off the ground!
Researcher Johan Fernquist said the number of so-called Twitter bots discussing politics nearly doubled from July to August.
The report published Wednesday said users ‘‘may be led to believe that this content [is] more widely accepted or more mainstream than it actually is.’’
The agency noted that ‘‘it is 40 percent more common that the bots express support for the Swedish Democrats compared to what genuine accounts do.’’
The agency, which analyzed almost 600,000 tweets from more than 45,000 accounts, did not say who might be behind the Twitter bots.
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And that is the end of that.
"Sweden was long seen as a ‘moral superpower.’ That may be changing" New York Times September 03, 2018
STOCKHOLM — In a civic center in Rinkeby, a heavily immigrant district of northwest Stockholm, several hundred people gathered recently for a forum on Sweden’s coming election and the future of the country.
The conversation, about the nature of Sweden’s democracy and the importance of voting, was sophisticated and passionate, but it was frustrating for one participant, Ahmed Ali, a Somali immigrant, who thought people were dancing around the main issue.
“The stakes are really high in this election,” he said in an interview. “There are more extremists in the country, and they have more influence. They don’t have a real political agenda. They just hate immigrants. And this xenophobia is happening all over Europe.”
I didn't know Sweden had a Zionist Lobby like AIPAC.
As an angry and divided Sweden prepares to vote Sunday, the shape of the next Swedish government is utterly unclear, because of the rapid rise of the anti-immigration, anti-Europe Sweden Democrats, a populist nationalist party that is expected to win a fifth of the vote.
“This election is very important to us,” said Kahin Ahmed, 48, who is running for a local seat, but complains that none of the Swedish parties put immigrants or black people high enough on their party lists to get elected in proportionate numbers, even in areas like this one. “There is a racist party moving forward fast, and we have to stop them.”
They have identity politics, too!
Sweden, long considered “a moral superpower,” as political scientist Lars Tragardh put it, has traditionally welcomed immigrants, but that is changing under the pressure of globalization, immigration, and anxiety about national and cultural identity. As in Germany and France, parties of the extremes, of the left and especially of the right, are increasing support at the expense of those that have traditionally dominated.
Sweden “is joining the rest of Europe,” Carl Bildt, a former prime minister from the center-right Moderate Party, said with evident sadness. “And the myth of the Sweden model is melting away.”
The melting was in evidence recently in Sergels Square in central Stockholm, where Martin Westmont, a candidate for the Stockholm regional council, made the Sweden Democrats’ case to the voters.
“We’re the new wave,” he said. The election “will be a revolution.” He predicted that the Social Democrats, the party who built the famous Swedish welfare state, would collapse, “even if not this time,” and “we will become the largest party.” Many voters were still reluctant to tell pollsters that they would vote for the Sweden Democrats, Westmont suggested.
Populism has shifted the political discourse to the right and raised the temperature, even among the traditionally phlegmatic Swedes. Political support is fragmenting, with the long-dominant Social Democrats heading for their worst showing in a century.
Maybe that, and not climate change, is what caused the summer heat wave.
They are losing voters to the Left Party and the Greens, especially after this summer of extensive forest fires, but also some working-class voters to the far-right Sweden Democrats. The Moderates have lost even more to the far right.
The migrant wave of 2015 flowed mostly to Germany and Sweden, regarded as Europe’s most welcoming. Germany took in more than 1 million, while Sweden accepted 163,000, a large number in a country of 10.1 million. If the panic in Sweden has been less than in Germany, the political impact has been similar — the rise of a far-right, anti-immigrant, nationalist party — Alternative for Germany in one case, and the Sweden Democrats in the other — that is upending old certainties.
Political elites here as elsewhere “underestimated how much people still live in national democracies,” not some global stew, said Tragardh, who teaches at Ersta Skondal Bracke University College.
As in Germany, stiffer border controls were quickly introduced in Sweden and the numbers of new immigrants fell steeply, to about 23,000 this year, but the political damage had been done, and despite a thriving economy and low unemployment, the Sweden Democrats argue that immigration should stop and that resources should go to refurbishing the welfare state strained by an aging population, gang violence, and the challenge of taking on migrants.
Integration of newcomers takes up to seven years, because of tough labor market requirements, insisted upon by Sweden’s trade unions, and the challenges of the country’s language and of its culture, which is more comfortable opening its borders than its homes.
“This election really matters, and it is pretty much up in the air,” said Jonas Hinnfors, a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg. Welfare, health, and taxes are, as ever, top issues, as is climate change, he said, but “to an unprecedented extent, you have immigration and crime, and also unprecedented is the way the Social Democrats are campaigning on these issues and proposing more police and tougher border controls.”
The rise of the Sweden Democrats masks the decline of the Social Democrats, who are synonymous with social democracy in Europe and have come first in nearly every Swedish election since 1917, but while they got more than 50 percent of the vote in 1968 and more than 45 percent in 1994, their support has dwindled steadily to about 25 percent, reflecting declines in support for socialist and left-center parties elsewhere in Europe.
That's what happens when you fail.
They became $ociali$ts in service to bankers.
If the Sweden Democrats, as expected, get around 20 percent of the vote, that will make it impossible for either the center-left or center-right bloc to form a majority government. The other parties insist that they will not do any deals with the Sweden Democrats, but the question has already cost the Moderates one leader and is bound to come up again in the days after the election, no matter which bloc ends up larger.
The surge of the Sweden Democrats, with their roots in Swedish fascism and neo-Nazism, has astounded many. Under a young, articulate leader, Jimmie Akesson, the party has moved to expel its most extreme members and soften its message, symbolized by the switch of its logo from a flaming torch to a floppy version of the blue anemone, one of Sweden’s favorite flowers and a harbinger of spring.
The strategy seems to be working. The party crossed the 4 percent threshold for parliamentary seats in 2010, getting 5.7 percent of the vote; in 2014, it won 12.9 percent. It could now become Sweden’s second-largest party, with all the complications that could bring.
The Sweden Democrats have not abandoned their traditional slogan, “Keep Sweden Swedish,” but have downplayed it in favor of “Security and Tradition.” What they are selling, most people agree, is nostalgia for a mythic Sweden of the 1950s, safe, prosperous, and white.
They vow to protect the civil religion of the welfare state and restore the “Folkhemmet,” the “people’s home,” the idea of the nation as a family where everyone contributes and cares for one another. That concept was created by the Social Democrats, but many consider it threatened by immigration, Islam, and crime, and like other populist parties across Europe, they have been greatly aided by the 2015 migration wave, a rise in gang warfare in the suburbs of big cities, and some coordinated and highly visible bouts of car burnings.
We were told Trump was lying about that, there and at home.
Westmont, 39, the Sweden Democrats’ candidate for the Stockholm regional council, said his experiences growing up were typical of many in his generation who have soured on immigration.
He said he was a youth member of the center-right Moderates, “but they were becoming too liberal for me.” Growing up in a Stockholm suburb, “half the kids” were immigrants. “So I saw the problem from an early age, and I also saw that what the other parties say was not true.”
When he joined the Sweden Democrats in 2010, his parents were so embarrassed that he decided to change his name, he said. “But a lot of Moderates have come to us, and now my father supports the party, and I hope my mother will, too.” Then he smiled and said, “But who knows about mothers?”
Kimia Khodabandeh sees a more sinister side. Age 18 and a first-time voter, she was born in Sweden to Iranian parents who fled the revolution there. “I do feel targeted,” she said. “I was raised Swedish and feel Swedish, but I don’t look Swedish, and they wouldn’t accept us as Swedish.”
“And that’s why I’m concerned,” she continued. “We live in a society where everyone is accepted and helps one another, but we’re heading in the wrong direction. I just don’t understand why some people want to ruin everything.”
It's so refreshing to see the Jew York Times take up the gauntlet for Iranians.
In the end, the Social Democrats and the center left may yet cling to power, and the Sweden Democrats may do well but again be kept out of the government, but the question of whether to make some deal with them, as mainstream parties in Finland, Denmark, and Norway have done with their far-right rivals, or to continue to isolate them, is unlikely to go away.
“This election is a struggle about values and Swedish identity,” said Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg and an active member of the Social Democrats. “The question is how to keep Sweden in the forefront of liberalism and social democracy versus stronger support for the nation state and borders. Who will Sweden be in this struggle? We’re just at the beginning of this debate.”
Especially when the people vote the wrong way.
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"Swedes give boost to far-right anti-immigration party" by Michael Birnbaum Washington Post September 09, 2018
BRUSSELS — Swedish voters angry about crime and migration on Sunday delivered a blow to two centrist parties that have traded power for decades, but an insurgent far-right party still fell short of capturing a commanding position in the Parliament.
The election had been watched closely for signs about the extent to which a cascade of anti-immigrant fear could hit even Sweden, which has long been one of Europe’s most open nations toward refugees.
The far-right Sweden Democrats had at times during the campaign appeared to have a shot at becoming the biggest party in the country, but in the end they placed third, capturing 18 percent of initial tallies of the vote. Still, they succeeded in defining the election’s agenda and expanded their power in Parliament.
Here is a question: why should democracy the preserved when the elections are rigged?
Now Swedish leaders will head into a chaotic period of politicking as they seek to build a ruling coalition out of the fragments of their old political landscape. Both the ruling center-left Social Democrats and the center-right Moderates had among their worst results in modern Swedish political history.
The coalition blocs that each party leads were neck-and-neck with each other, leaving the ultimate result in doubt and raising the possibility the center-right group might seek to seize power with support from the Sweden Democrats.
‘‘Now we will gain influence in Swedish politics for real,’’ Sweden Democrat Jimmie Akesson told a cheering crowd of supporters as the results came in. He said his party had ‘‘won’’ the elections because of its gain in seats.
The Sweden Democrats want to slam the door to new arrivals, pull out of the European Union, and significantly increase the rate of deportations. In the past, Akesson has condemned the spread of mosques and Muslims.
The result was a mark of the success Akesson has had in gentrifying his party, which traded in its black boots and swastikas for suits and has sought to portray itself as a defender of ordinary working Swedes. Although both major parties have ruled out formally ruling with the Sweden Democrats in a coalition, the center-right Moderates have said they would not reject support in areas where the parties’ positions coincide.
One of those areas is likely to be migration. Sweden, a nation of 10.2 million, took in 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015, the highest per capita in Europe. Although the country initially welcomed the new arrivals, moods quickly soured amid fears that the wave of people fleeing war and poverty could capsize Sweden’s generous social welfare system. Leaders soon imposed border controls and started talking about large-scale deportations.
Arrivals dropped the following year to levels seen in previous years, but the surge crystallized long-running worries about Sweden’s ability to integrate immigrant groups, turning what had been a taboo issue into one that dominated airwaves and the political conversation.
A string of high-profile crimes, including arsons, stoked the discussion even as overall crime figures remained flat or even improved, according to criminologists. Just last month, a spate of more than 80 arsons in a few hours in the Swedish city of Gothenburg drove Social Democratic Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to toy with deploying the military to heavily immigrant neighborhoods outside city centers.
The center-right Moderates have become especially tough on immigration, echoing many of the positions of the Sweden Democrats. That raised questions whether the parties might find a way for the far-right party to vote with the Moderates at least part of the time and helping to install a center-right leader in the prime minister’s office.
Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson hinted Sunday that could be his goal by demanding that Löfven resign based on the results.
The election also touched on the future of Sweden’s generous welfare state, as voters searched for the best way to secure it in coming decades. The Sweden Democrats’ strong showing was echoed on the far-left by a pop for the ex-communist Left Party, which captured 7.9 percent of the vote, up 2.2 percentage points from the previous election, in 2014.
Sweden’s struggles have captured attention around the world, including in the United States, where President Trump has at times held it up as an example of the failures that come from too much immigration. If Sweden takes a more restrictive approach to its borders, it would join other European countries in tightening migration rules, notably Italy, where a government coalition that includes the far-right League party came to power this year and began an ambitious campaign to discourage migration.
I just can't imagine why the Swedes would feel that way.
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Also see:
"Stefan Lofven, the leader of the Social Democratic Party who has been prime minister for four years, will continue in a caretaker role until a new Swedish government can be formed. Although Lofven remains optimistic that he may be eventually able to form a government, the vote means that Sweden faces weeks of political uncertainty. Both main political blocs in the parliament have refused to cooperate with the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party, which made great strides in the election. Lofven remained optimistic he could form a governing coalition but stopped short of saying with whom. ‘‘I am available for talks,’’ Lofven said after the vote Tuesday. Lofven ruled out having any contacts with the Sweden Democrats, saying ‘‘time after time, their connections to racist and Nazi organizations have been exposed.’’
They expelled the Israeli ambassador?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
He headed for Finland claiming appendicitis but was turned back:
"A blazing fireball lit up the dark skies of Arctic Finland for five seconds, giving off what scientists said was ‘‘the glow of 100 full moons’’ and prompting hurried attempts to find the reported meteorite. Finnish experts were scrambling to find where it landed Thursday night, according to Tomas Kohout of the University of Helsinki’s physics department (AP)."
He's now in Norway:
"Report on sexual assaults in Arctic rocks Norway" by Jan M. Olsen Associated Press November 29, 2017
COPENHAGEN — Generations of native Sami people living in remote northern Norway have been victims of rape and child sex abuse that has gone largely unreported and uninvestigated, police have acknowledged in a report citing deep failings in the way authorities operated there.
A police report covering the period from 1953 to August 2017 documented at least 151 sexual assaults, including 43 rapes, in the Arctic municipality of Tysfjord, which has a population of less than 2,000. Most of the cases were not reported at the time.
The youngest of the 82 victims identified by the police was 4, while the 92 suspected offenders were aged between 10 and 80. Some people appeared on both lists. As well as the rapes, 40 cases dealt with sexual intercourse with underage children.
So far two people have been charged in 10 cases, but many cases have been dropped because the statute of limitations has expired.
An estimated 40,000-60,000 Sami live in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia and have their own language. Their situation has been compared to that of American Indians, but rather than establishing reservations for Sami, the region’s governments have sought to absorb them; however, their way of living has threatened by mineral mining, wind farms, and extensive logging, which are encroaching upon reindeer herding grounds and fishing areas.....
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I wonder how often the train comes through:
"Norwegian train kills 17 reindeer in Arctic" Associated Press November 30, 2017
COPENHAGEN — A Norwegian train smashed into a herd of reindeer in the country’s Arctic region Wednesday, killing 17 animals, days after similar incidents led to the death of more than 100 reindeer.
They were on the naughty list last year.
Thor Braekkan of Norwegian rail operator Bane NOR said the latest collision occurred 12.4 miles south of where some 65 reindeer were mowed down Saturday. The company blamed the earlier crash on a lack of communication with freight train drivers.
Jonas Paulsen, an employee with Bane NOR whose job includes cleaning up after animal collisions, said the reindeer stand little chance.
‘‘The first thing we meet can be decapitated heads and severed limbs,’’ he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
The speed at which trains move was immediately reduced along a 20-mile stretch of Norway’s longest railroad between Trondheim, central Norway, and Bodo, just north of the Arctic Circle.
Reindeer have been hit eight times between Nov. 22 and 25, resulting in the deaths of 110 animals.
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On to Denmark:
"Danish court gives man 30 months for fatal jet ski crash" AP July 04, 2018
COPENHAGEN — A Danish appeals court increased the prison sentence Tuesday of a man convicted of manslaughter for crashing his jet ski into a boat and killing two American students.
The Eastern High Court in Copenhagen said 25-year-old Frederik Oliver Schmidt should serve 30 months because of his recklessness, which led to the 2016 crash. Schmidt was sentenced in January to two years in prison.
He fled after the crash and was arrested at a suburban Copenhagen harbor.
Schmidt admitted steering the jet ski that slammed into a rental boat containing a group of students, killing Leah Bell, 18, of Madisonville, La., and Linsey Malia, 21, of Easton, Mass. They were on a trip with five other students from the Copenhagen-based Study Abroad in Scandinavia Foundation.
‘‘I’ll take my punishment for what I’ve done,” Schmidt said Tuesday. “I still have not done it on purpose.’’
Schmidt told the court he lost control of the jet ski. The appeals court said it increased the sentence because of the recklessness of his act.
A license to use a jet ski became mandatory in Demark following the crash.
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{@@##$$%%^^&&}
All things being equal:
"Leaders tackle gender equality at Iceland summit" by Egill Bjarnason Associated Press November 29, 2017
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Over 400 women political leaders from around the world met in Iceland on Wednesday for an annual summit aimed at promoting gender equality inside and outside of the political sphere.
The summit sponsored by the Women Political Leaders Global Forum comes amid the sexual misconduct scandal that has rocked the world of politics, as well as the entertainment and media industries.
In Iceland, often regarded as a champion of gender equality, hundreds of women in politics have signed a pledge against sexual harassment and urged male colleagues to change their behavior.
Former Iceland President Vigdis Finnbogadottir, the world’s first elected woman president, said the brave accounts given in recent weeks would improve the work environments for women in politics.
‘‘This will change the attitude of both women and men,’’ she said in a rare interview with the Associated Press on Monday. ‘‘Women will be more confident discussing with men, and men more careful.’’
Finnbogadottir became the world’s first elected female president in 1980 after she defeated three male candidates. Women account for 7 percent of world heads of state now.
Globally, the average share of women in national parliaments has risen slightly and stands at 23 percent.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who until recently led the United Nations Development Program, said work-related sexual misconduct of the kinds recently made public contributes to a lack of women in leadership positions.
‘‘That kind of behavior, which is now deemed widely unacceptable, has been one of the barriers to women getting ahead,’’ Clark said. ‘‘Lots of sectors — parliaments, film industries, and others — are having to face their past and say, ‘We are going to do it better.’ ’’
Clark said the conference was a rallying cry to show younger women that success is possible if they join the team and help others up that ladder.
The theme of the summit in Iceland’s capital — ‘‘We can do it!’’ — refers to the country’s success achieving gender equality.
Iceland has for nine years running been ranked by the World Economic Forum as having the smallest gender gap — an index measured by life expectancy, educational opportunities, and other factors in addition to pay.
The World Economic Forum’s most recent index, issued this month, concluded that men’s earnings were rising faster than women’s. Under current trends, it will take 217 years for women’s incomes to match those of men, according to the forum’s report.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, who chairs the Council of Women World Leaders, said the trend was worrying.
‘‘This shows that even with the economy recovering — and better economic development in the world overall — the pay gap is increasing instead of diminishing.’’
At Wednesday’s opening ceremony, Finnbogadottir, 87, received an honorary award and addressed the large gathering of female decision-makers.
The scene was in sharp contrast to her inauguration as Iceland’s president 37 years ago, when she stood in front of a crowd dominated by men wearing tuxedos. Of the 150 officials attending that ceremony, only two were women.
Janet Yellen was one.
‘‘Gender equality has changed tremendously in Iceland since then but we still got some ways to go,’’ she said.
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Also see:
"A pacifist environmentalist and expert on Icelandic crime thrillers emerged Thursday as Iceland’s new prime minister, its fourth in two years, after three parties signed a coalition agreement. Katrin Jakobsdottir, 41, chairwoman of the Left-Green Movement, will lead the government of the North Atlantic island nation of 340,000 residents after elections in October that were blighted by scandal and voter mistrust....."
It's epidemic!
UPDATES:
Swedish girl pulls out pre-Viking era sword from lake
Also see:
"White nationalist says he was blocked from entering Europe" Associated Press July 06, 2018
A leading figure in the US white nationalist movement said Friday that he was briefly detained in Iceland this week and had to return home before he could speak at a conference in Sweden.
Richard Spencer said he was traveling from Maryland to Sweden on Tuesday when Iceland authorities stopped him at the Reykjavik airport. He said he was detained at the airport for roughly three hours before he flew back to the United States on Wednesday.
Spencer said Iceland authorities told him that they stopped him due to a ‘‘dictate’’ from the Polish government. In November, Poland’s state-run news agency PAP said Polish authorities banned Spencer from entering 26 countries in Europe’s visa-free Schengen area for five years.
‘‘It’s just completely ridiculous,’’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘‘I’m not attempting to commit any crime.’’
The 26 Schengen countries also include France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
That's when the printed paper punched my ticket.
Polish national police spokesman Mariusz Ciarka said he hadn’t heard of any case involving Spencer, and the Internal Security Agency didn’t immediately respond to an AP query.
Spencer coined the term ‘‘alt-right’’ to describe a fringe movement that is a loose mix of white nationalism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other far-right extremist beliefs. Last August, he was scheduled to speak at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a car plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman.
Spencer previously was banned from the Schengen zone for three years after his 2014 arrest in Hungary, where he had planned to host a conference.
Spencer said Friday that he had been invited to speak at a gathering in Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, and had no plans to travel to Poland. He said the ban on his European travel is ‘‘oppressive,’’ and he vowed to ‘‘seek redress.’’
‘‘I would hope the State Department would do something on my behalf. I am a citizen, after all,’’ he said.
Ever see the movie Missing?
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Spencer is a Zionist agitator and plant, the flip side of the $oro$ folks.
Sick of the $hell game yet?
