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Pedro Gonçalves

Swedish riots spark surprise and anger | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...sweden-europe-news

Immigration EU Europe Sweden

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 May 13 - No Cached
  • "These people, they should integrate in this society and just try a little bit more to be like Swedish citizens."Scratch beneath the surface and this is a sentiment shared by many in a country that arguably has the world's most generous asylum policies. Sweden has taken in more than 11,000 refugees from Syria since 2012, more per head than any other European country, and it has absorbed more than 100,000 Iraqis and 40,000 Somalis over the past two decades. About 1.8 million of its 9.5 million people are first- or second-generation immigrants.
  • So it has come as a shock for many Swedes to discover the scale of resentment. It's not hard to find it. Aleks, whose parents came from Kosovo, says: "I hate the police. I hate the cops. I think setting fire to cars in the neighbourhood should stop, but I don't think throwing rocks at the cops should stop."
  • The trigger for the riots – police shooting dead a 69-year-old Portuguese man called Lenine Relvas-Martins
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  • Martins had been brandishing a knife on his balcony, angry after a confrontation with local youths. Police then broke into his house and shot him in front of his Finnish wife. They say she was at risk. She denies it.The police then inflamed the situation last Sunday, reportedly calling young people causing a disturbance "monkeys" and "negroes".
  • there's no doubt Husby has better facilities than deprived areas in Britain. But it is also more segregated. About 85% of people here have their origins outside Sweden.
  • "The politicians are thinking the wrong way. They want to help people, but you never help people when you put 30,000 to 50,000 in one place," complains the man painting at the library.
  • "For a lot of people who live in segregated areas, the only Swedes they meet are social workers or police officers. It's amazing how many have never had a Swedish friend."
  • A third of the 2,500 white, ethnic Swedes who lived in Husby 10 years ago have left.
  • Inequality has also grown faster in Sweden over the past decade than in any other developed country, according to thinktank the OECD, which puts the blame partly on tax cuts paid for by reductions in welfare spending.
  • According to official statistics, more than 10% of those aged 25 to 55 in Husby are unemployed, compared with 3.5% in Stockholm as a whole. Those that do have jobs earn 40% less than the city average.
  • Esmail Jamshidi, a 23-year-old medical student born and educated in Husby, says young people don't lack opportunities."It's a very recent development, this ghetto mentality," he says. "Immigrants come here, and most leave after a decade or two. A very small percentage of them don't, and this last group are left
  • The older generation of immigrants seems as puzzled by the anger as Swedes. Ali, the owner of Café Unic, a Persian cafe in Husby's main square, says he tried living in America but came back. "I love this country. I mean it," he says. "I'm telling my kids every day to remember that you are born here, in Sweden. I love this country because of the way they built it: because of my taxes, and other people's taxes, everyone has a nice place to live. It's a very, very nice and good idea."
Pedro Gonçalves

Swedish riots: if instability can happen here, what might unfold elsewhere? | Aditya Ch... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ish-riots-inequality-stockholm

Sweden Society

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • We all know the cliches, but the reality is they no longer fit the country so well. Whether it's on the wealth gap, or welfare, or public services, Sweden is less "Swedish" than it has ever been. As in other continental capitals, the Stockholm version of the "European social model" is an increasingly tattered thing, albeit still appealed to by the political elites and still resonant in the popular culture.
  • The first thing to observe about Sweden is how rapidly a gulf is opening up between rich and poor. Between 1985 and the late 2000s, according to the OECD thinktank, Sweden saw the biggest growth in inequality of all the 31 most industrialised countries. It's important not to overstate this: the country remains one of the most egalitarian in the world – but it is taking big steps in the wrong direction.
  • while much of the initial rise in inequality was about rich Swedes getting richer, increasingly poor Swedes are getting pushed backwards, either by unemployment and incapacity benefits getting relatively meaner, or by the rise in joblessness. On some measures, one in four young Swedes are out of work. In some towns, they are handed money to emigrate to richer Norway. Von Sydow lives in Oslo and observes: "In any local cafe, the barista will be a Swede."
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  • parties of all persuasions have drifted rightwards over the past few years. It was the left that, in 2005, abolished inheritance tax, so that a Swede will now pay no duty on being left a million kronor, but will face a tax of 67% for starting their own business. And when it comes to privatising public services, Stockholm is way out in front of Westminster.
  • The Economist, that inflight magazine for the autodidactic plutocrat, recently wrote: "The streets of Stockholm are awash with the blood of sacred cows." It then went on to praise its school system as in the image of Milton Friedman. Except that as social-policy academic Joakim Palme observes, the school system has got worse on the Pisa international rankings.
  • Sweden's economy is still growing
Pedro Gonçalves

Following inflammatory article, Sweden to demand EU condemn anti-Semitism - Haaretz - ... - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1111229.html

Israel EU Sweden

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 31 Aug 09 - Cached
  • In a telephone conversation with Haaretz, Frattini said he recently met with his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, and the two agreed that at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers later this week, they will work to pass a resolution making it clear that the EU, under the Swedish presidency, strongly condemns anti-Semitism and will take action against any manifestation of it on the continent. Frattini said he intends to demand that the meeting's summary statement explicitly condemn the article published in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, which claimed that Israeli soldiers harvested the organs of dead Palestinians. He said his proposed statement would declare articles of this sort to be "acts of blatant anti-Semitism."
  • The Italian foreign minister does not believe that the crisis with Sweden, the current president of the EU, have affect relations between Israel and Europe in general. As one of the architects of an agreement to upgrade ties between the EU and Israel, he is encouraged by the fact that Italian pressure led to a decision that separates progress in the peace process from implementation of the agreement.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Czech MPs oust government in vote - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7962177.stm

Czech Republic Politics Mirek Topolanek Vaclav Klaus EU Jiri Paroubek Civic Democratic Party

shared by Argos Media on 25 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The Czech Republic's centre-right minority government has lost a vote of no-confidence midway through the country's six-month EU presidency. Four rebel MPs voted with the opposition Social Democrats and Communists against PM Mirek Topolanek.
  • Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said ahead of the vote that the government could "complete the Czech EU presidency or its substantial part". However, Mr Topolanek has ruled out the idea of a caretaker government until June, when the EU presidency passes to Sweden. According to the constitution, Czech President Vaclav Klaus must decide who to choose to form a new administration. If three attempts to do so fail, early elections will be called.
  • The BBC's Rob Cameron in Prague says this surprise result, which threw observers completely off guard, could have far-reaching consequences beyond the country's borders. In addition to chairing the European Council, the Czech Republic is also in the middle of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and is in talks with the United States on placing a radar base on Czech soil. All these important foreign policy initiatives are now thrown into doubt, our correspondent adds.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Technology | Net firms start storing user data - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7985339.stm

Privacy Online Communications

shared by Argos Media on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Details of user e-mails and net phone calls will be stored by internet service providers (ISPs) from Monday under an EU directive.
  • The plans were drawn up in the wake of the London bombings in 2005.
  • All ISPs in the European Union will have to store the records for a year. An EU directive which requires telecoms firms to hold on to telephone records for 12 months is already in force.
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  • Sweden has decided to ignore the directive completely while there is a challenge going through the German courts at present.
  • The data stored does not include the content of e-mails or a recording of a net phone call, but is used to determine connections between individuals. Authorities can get access to the stored records with a warrant.
  • Isabella Sankey, Policy Director at Liberty, said the directive formalised what had already been taking place under voluntary arrangement for years. "The problem is that this regime allows not just police to access this information but hundreds of other public bodies."
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