Stories from Scandinavia, Poland and Beyond
Many international media, including leading Belgian newspapers, published positive articles on COVID19 in Sweden September this year. But despite their optimism, the Corona situation in Scandinavia’s most populated and biggest country is doing far from good. I gave guidance in […]
UPDATED 10 JUNE 2020, 09:32 / 12:07 | Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was killed by a single .357 Magnum bullet from a revolver when he left a cinema in central Stockholm on 28 February 1986. But who killed him […]
(UPDATED 17 April 2020, 09:20 Warsaw Time) Fight the virus, not the women. With this slogan at least hundreds of Polish were protesting on Tuesday 14 April against their conservative PiS government party putting a total ban on abortion on […]
The State of Norway has again to show up in court because it has given company licenses to drill for oil in the Arctic region. After lower judges ruled it was kind of okay, environmental watchdog Greenpeace and two Norwegian […]
The populistic Frp party has left the Norwegian government, over the return of a woman of the radical ISIS organisation and her son. However the ultra-right Frp remains a strong force when it comes to government decisions. Click to listen […]
While everybody in the world is more or less influenced by fake news, there is one Scandinavian country that prides itself in dealing with it successfully: Finland. Sharing an extensive border with Russia the land of the 1001 lakes is […]
It sounds like a story from the James Bond movies. Underneath the icecap of Greenland a secret military base is hiding, powered by a nuclear reactor. Up to 300 nuclear missiles are tucked away in tunnels of hundreds of kilometres […]
ASAP Rocky has been convicted of assault for a street fight in Sweden. The sentence is two months in jail, but the US rapper stays a free man anyway. A Swedish judge has spoken. How and why this is possible […]
US rapper ASAP Rocky spent a month in jail in Sweden for violence during a street fight. Friday evening 2 August 2019 he was released, to await the verdict of his case outside prison. Headlines too in Belgium, where I […]
A beluga with a harness. This must be a military whale, Norwegians thought when the animal surfaced in their waters. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. This is the property of St. Petersburg a sign on the beluga […]
Almost half of the Danish marriages fail. Divorcing is easy, but for those with children the Danish government now requires a test to give marriage another change. It was a piece of cake to divorce in Denmark. You sent a […]
Denmark is growing, without spending money or launching a military operation. 63 acres of land has been added to the country, by 11 islands as a gift from mother Nature. Sea flow and cluttering of sand, e.g. after storms, have […]
More and more Russians are going on vacation to Spitsbergen, an island group north of Norway. The area is close to the North Pole and is considered an “exotic destination” by Norwegians and Russians. Nevertheless, this has now moved into […]
My live radio chat today on Belgian Radio 1 (VRT): 15 year young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg held a kick-ass speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFkQSGyeCWg) to the world leaders in Katowice (GOP24), Poland accusing them of stealing the future, but it is […]
Do companies take menstruation seriously? That is a hot debate in Sweden, a country often referred to as doing good in women’s rights. But not good enough. Companies provide toilet paper, but no tampons, and they should. If your period […]
The Swedish government is threatening to withdraw the Swedish subsidies for Idea, an international knowledge centre for democracy. Reason: former Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme is under fire for his “authoritarian leadership” of the centre. “Serious shortcomings” in and mistrust […]