Tag Archives: Sweden

Sweden likely to deport up to 80,000 of last year’s asylum seekers

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden is likely to deport up to half last year’s record 163,000 asylum seekers either voluntarily or forcibly, presenting a major challenge to authorities, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said on Thursday.

Between 60,000 and 80,000 people will likely have to leave, Ygeman said, which would represent about 45 percent of the total number of applicants.

Sweden, with a population of almost 10 million, is one of the countries that has borne the brunt of Europe’s migrant crisis as hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and north Africa have moved north to wealthier members of the European Union.

Germany took in an unprecedented 1.1 million migrants last year.

Both countries have tightened asylum rules to stem the flow and force other countries to share the burden.

The Swedish government fears many people whose applications for asylum are rejected will go into hiding. Police will seek to find and deport them.

Of the 13,000 sent back from Sweden last year, 10,000 went voluntarily whereas 3,000 were forcibly deported.

Over the past few years Sweden has rejected about 45 percent of claims for asylum, but with last year’s record influx the greater numbers are putting an increasing strain on immigration and police authorities.

“We have a big challenge ahead of us. We will need to use more resources for this and we must have better cooperation between authorities,” Ygeman was quoted as saying by daily Dagens Industri.

Adding to the problem is a backlog of applications. The Migration Agency says recent arrivals will have to wait between 15 and 24 months just to have their applications assessed.

Ygeman said he thought chartered planes would be more widely used and hoped flights could be coordinated with Germany.

Germany deported 20,000 foreigners last year.

Sweden reversed its open door immigration policy late last year and has introduced border controls and identity checks to stem the flow of asylum seekers.

It is also working on making it more difficult for companies to hire immigrants without proper documents to decrease the incentives to stay in Sweden.

This week, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven promised more resources for police to deal with the increased workload because of the refugee situation.

(Reporting by Daniel Dickson and Johan Ahlander; Editing by Robert Birsel and Janet Lawrence)

‘Enraged’ Israel summons Swedish envoy over official’s remarks

JERUSALEM/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Israel summoned the Swedish ambassador on Wednesday to convey what it described as its “rage” at a call by Stockholm’s top diplomat for an investigation to determine whether Israeli forces were guilty of extrajudicial killings of Palestinians.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s remarks on Tuesday were the latest in a series of statements to stoke Israeli resentment that has simmered since the Scandinavian country recognized Palestinian statehood last year.

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said in a statement that it called in Swedish Ambassador Carl Magnus Nesser to reprimand him over what it deemed “another statement by her (Wallstrom) that attests to her biased and even hostile attitude to Israel”.

It said Nesser was also told of “the rage of the government and people of Israel at the skewed portrayal of the situation”.

Rights groups have accused Israel of using excessive force to quell a surge of Palestinian street attacks that has been fueled in part by Muslim agitation at stepped-up Jewish visits to a contested Jerusalem shrine, as well as a long impasse in talks on founding a Palestinian state on Israeli-occupied land.

The bloodshed has raised fears of wider confrontation, a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided.

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations have all expressed concern, saying that while they recognize Israel’s right to self-defense, restraint is necessary to ensure the violence does not escalate further.

Since Oct. 1, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and gun attacks have killed 24 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. Israeli forces or armed civilians have killed at least 143 Palestinians, 91 of whom authorities have described as assailants. Most others were killed in clashes with security forces.

“It is vital that there is a thorough, credible investigation into these deaths in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability,” Swedish media quoted Wallstrom as saying during a parliamentary debate on Tuesday.

She earlier described the Palestinians’ plight as a factor leading to Islamist radicalization – comments seen in Israel as linking it to the November gun and bomb rampage in Paris.

Pushing back on Wednesday, Deputy Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told reporters that Wallstrom’s censure risked “encouraging Islamic State to take action throughout Europe”.

Hotovely called for a halt to official Swedish visits to Israel – a measure that political sources said was overruled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also foreign minister.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, asked to clarify Israel’s position, said Wallstrom “would not be especially welcomed here. Were she to visit, she would not be received by Israeli officials.”

Responding to Israel’s summoning of the envoy, Wallstrom’s spokesman noted an EU call in October for an investigation into Israeli tactics and said: “We want to have good relations with Israel and have an active dialogue, including about values.”

(Writing by Dan Williams; Edting by Mark Heinrich)

Man with Sword Attacks Swedish School; 2 People Killed

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/TT News Agency

On Thursday, a masked man with a sword attacked a Swedish school in Trollhattan, killing one teacher and one student.

USA Today reported that the student died from his injuries at the hospital, and the teacher died at the scene of the crime after being stabbed. Another teacher and student were injured in the attack and reportedly are in serious condition at the local hospital in Trollhattan, according to CNN. The attacker was fatally shot by police and later died in the hospital.

“This is a dark day for Sweden,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said. “My thoughts go out to the victims and their families, pupils and staff, and the entire community that has been affected. There are no words to describe what they are going through right now.”

The incident started in a cafe section of the school that serves around 500 students ranging between the ages of six and fifteen. According to NBC News, students thought the masked man was part of a Halloween-related prank or event; students even took pictures with the man before the attack. Afterward, the man began knocking on doors in the hallway and stabbing whoever answered.

At this time police are investigating a possible motive, and they are not ruling out the possibility of this being an act of terrorism.

EU Approves Plan to Relocate Refugees Across Europe

European Union (EU) ministers met on Tuesday and approved a plan for the relocation of the 120,000 mostly-Syrian refugees that have recently arrived in Europe.

The Washington Post reports that all but five EU ministers voted for the plan. Those that were against the plan were: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania.

The plan includes spreading out the refugees who have already arrived, boosting border control so that fewer could sneak into nations undetected, and providing support to those in refugee camps in the nations surrounding Syria.

This plan to ease one of the worst humanitarian crises in years has divided European nations as richer nations like Germany and Sweden can handle more refugees while poorer nations reject the recent requirements because they feel they can’t handle any refugees. The poorer nations also point out that many refugees would more than likely move to other, richer nations. Currently, Germany has taken in the most refugees and expects to take in at least 800,000 this year.

Despite the EU’s plan, the United Nations has stated that their plans will not be enough, but despite their statement, many EU leaders are pushing for a compromise.

“We need solidarity and responsibility,” said German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, as he entered Tuesday’s negotiations. “This will be a hard session, a hard meeting. I’m not sure that we will have a result. We will work hard. I think it is unacceptable if Europe sends the message to Europeans and the world that there is no possible solution.”

An additional meeting between leaders of EU nations will take place on Wednesday in Brussels.

Sweden Considers Joining NATO

Sweden has for 200 years maintained a military posture of neutrality when it comes to world affairs and conflicts.

Now, government officials are seriously looking at aligning with NATO out of fears of Russian aggression.

“I think it’s the combination of the perceived threat from Russia and a discussion about the armed forces’ inability to carry out their tasks which leads to more Swedes being in favor of Swedish NATO membership,” Ulf Bjereld, a political science professor at Gothenburg University, told Swedish Radio.

Russian naval and air forces have been making more forays into Swedish territory.  In October, Russian forces moved into the Stockholm archipelago to look for a “missing Russian submarine.”  No missing vessel was ever found.

The Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea has had a major impact on the citizens of Sweden.  The public was almost unanimous in not wanting to join NATO before the invasion and now 33% of the nation wants to join NATO.

Russia has threatened military action if Sweden joins NATO.

“I don’t think it will become relevant in the near future, even though there has been a certain swing in public opinion. But if it happens there will be counter measures,” Russia’s ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper in June. “Putin pointed out that there will be consequences, that Russia will have to resort to a response of the military kind and reorientate our troops and missiles. The country that joins NATO needs to be aware of the risks it is exposing itself to.”

Midwife Denied Job For Being Pro-Life

A Swedish woman was denied a job with three different medical clinics because she would not perform abortions.

The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a brief with the court on behalf of Ellinor Grimmark.  Grimmark was subjected to verbal harassment because of her beliefs and openly denied employment because of those beliefs.

“No one deserves to be denied a job simply because she is pro-life,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “International laws to which Sweden is obligated recognize freedom of conscience and make clear that being pro-abortion cannot be a requirement for employment, nor can medical facilities force nurses and midwives with a conscience objection to assist with practices that can lead to an abortion.”

One of the defendants, Varnamo Hospital, had offered a position to Grimmark but withdrew it when they discovered she was pro-life.

The ADF brief points out that the Council of Europe has ruled “no person, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion, the performance of a human miscarriage, or euthanasia or any act which could cause the death of a human fetus or embryo, for any reason.”

The case is currently pending.

Jellyfish Shut Down One Of The World’s Largest Nuclear Reactors

One of the world’s largest nuclear reactors had to be shut down after a wave of jellyfish was huge enough to clog pipes that bring cool water to the plant’s turbines.

The operators of Oskarshamn nuclear plant in Sweden said they had to scramble reactor three after the animal clog. It was not the first time they had to shut down because of jellyfish. Reactor One was shut down in 2005 because of a jellyfish invasion.

Reactor three is the largest boiling-water reactor in the world. The three reactors at the Oskarshamn site are of the same technology as the Fujushima Daiichi plant that melted down in 2011 after the Japan tsunami.

Scientists say jellyfish causing shutdowns might be happening more often.

“It’s true that there seems to be more and more of these extreme cases of blooming jellyfish,” said Lene Moller, a researcher at the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment, told the New York Post. “But it’s very difficult to say if there are more jellyfish, because there is no historical data.”

Explosives Found At Sweden’s Largest Nuclear Plant

Explosives were found in a car parked at the largest nuclear plant in Sweden according to police. The explosives were found during a routine car inspection and resulted in immediate tightening of security at plants around the country.

Vattenfall, the company that runs the Ringhals nuclear power facility, said the explosives were not enough to cause “major” damage. The company further said there was no risk of explosion due to a detonating device not being found with the explosive. The State Forensic Laboratory confirmed the substance was an “explosive paste.” Continue reading →