Did Russian 'threat' lead to Swedish troops on Gotland?

Information about an increased threat from Russia was a contributing factor in Sweden’s decision to station permanent troops on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, according to a newspaper report.

Dagens Nyheter (DN) claims that the the threat and its nature have been classified as top secret, meaning the contents cannot be disclosed without a government decision to declassify it.

Since the summer both Sweden’s Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Micael Bydén and defence minister Peter Hultqvist have spoken of a worsening security situation for the country.

At the same time, leaders in the Armed Forces decided that unannounced inspections of their units’ readiness would be carried out, while they also sent 150 soldiers from central Swedish town Skövde to train on Gotland off the east coast.

Last Wednesday, the Supreme Commander ordered the soldiers to stay put on the island, bringing forward a previous decision to station soldiers on the strategically located island from late 2017.

“Something has happened in the intelligence picture, but we citizens don’t know what. We can see the effects of it however. The rapid basing of a unit on Gotland is exceptional,” intelligence analysis professor Wilhelm Agrell told DN.

Swedish Armed Forces press secretary Jesper Tengroth denied that a specific event was behind the decision to keep troops on Gotland however.

“Rather, it’s a worsening over time in the surrounding world that is behind this, and with regards to DN’s information, we don’t comment on our intelligence work,” he told news agency TT.  

Hans Wallmark, the defence policy spokesperson for the opposition Moderate party, said that though he had not been informed by the government about an increased threat from Russia, he was not surprised by the information published.

“This shows a steadily deteriorating security picture around the Baltic Sea,” he told TT.

 The local

The Iphone 7

The Iphone7. #iphone7

Volvo teams up with Uber in self-driving car race

Sweden-based manufacturer Volvo Cars has announced it will team up with ride-sharing service Uber in a $300 million joint venture to develop driverless cars.

"Both Uber and Volvo will use the same base vehicle for the next stage of their own autonomous car strategies," Volvo, owned by China's Geely, said in a statement.
"This will involve Uber adding its own self-developed autonomous driving systems to the Volvo base vehicle," it added.
Uber and Volvo were two of the founding members of a coalition unveiled in April to push for a unified US legal code on self-driving cars – a group that also includes Google, car maker Ford and Uber rival Lyft.
Both companies have previously announced plans to develop self-driving cars, which will take passengers to their destinations of choice without human intervention.
Uber unveiled its first self-driving car in May, announcing it had begun testing an autonomous vehicle on the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Volvo engineers began supervised tests of semi-autonomous cars in 2014 in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, where the company has its headquarters.
It will let a limited number of people test the vehicles on the streets of London and Gothenburg next year.
"Over one million people die in car accidents every year. These are tragedies that self-driving technology can help solve, but we can't do this alone," Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick said in a statement.

"That's why our partnership with a great manufacturer like Volvo is so important," he added.
The chief executive of Volvo Cars, Håkan Samuelsson, said the venture placed Volvo "at the heart of the current technological revolution in the automotive industry".

The terrible history behind Jamala's Eurovision triumph

Euro vision 2016

"When strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say, 'we're not guilty, not guilty'."

Those are the harrowing opening words of war-scarred Ukraine's winning entry for the Eurovision song contest -- a flamboyant and festive occasion more normally associated with laughs than tears.

The lament entitled "1944" was sung in Saturday's Eurovision grand final in Stockholm by 32-year-old Jamala, a member of the Muslim Tatar minority of Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

Jamala's words refer to the tragedy that befell her great-grandmother near the end of World War II, when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin deported 240,000 Tatars -- almost the entire community -- to barren Central Asia and other far-flung lands.

But the song also has deep resonance for contemporary Ukraine, where memories of that horror were revived by Russia's seizure of Crimea and Jamala's poignant lyrics tell the story of a people with a history of persecution that continues to this day.

The song beat bookies' favourite Russia, bringing unavoidable political and diplomatic undertones to the competition between two nations whose relations have been effectively frozen for two years.

Originally an opera singer who became a jazz star in Ukraine, the svelte brunette said that she wanted to make her song "about my great-grandmother Nazalkhan and thousands of Crimean Tatars who never had a chance to return to Crimea again".

"That year changed their lives forever," she told AFP in an interview ahead of the contest.

Over a span of three days in May 1944, Stalin accused the Turkic ethnic group of collaborating with the Nazis and deported them thousands of kilometres (miles) to the east, where nearly half them died in the harsh conditions.

Jamala's great-grandmother was in her mid-20s when she, her four sons and daughter were expelled, while her husband fought against the Nazis in the Soviet Army's ranks.

In a journey that took several weeks, about 8,000 people -- mostly the elderly and children -- died of thirst and typhoid.

Nazalkhan's daughter did not survive the tortuous trek and "her body was thrown from the car like garbage", Jamala recalled.

"I needed that song to free myself, to release the memory of my great-grandmother, the memory of that girl who has no grave, the memory of thousands of Crimean Tatars", who have nothing left, not "even photographs", Jamala said, tears flowing down her cheeks.

Jamala said she chose to compete in Eurovision because she wanted more people to hear a song written "in a state of helplessness" after Russia seized her land in 2014.

The United Nations, United States and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have repeatedly condemned widespread human rights violations against the Tatar community that began to occur after Russia's takeover.

The West has also sanctioned Russia for taking Crimea, which is still viewed by the United Nations as part of Ukraine.

The singer herself said she had not visited the peninsula in two years because she was "in the risk zone" for supporting Ukraine.

Her parents and some other relatives remained in Crimea and she misses them greatly, but understands their refusal to leave.

"This is our home. We returned there and nobody has the right to kick us out," Jamala said with a sigh.

source: the local

Guards 'reject' migrants from Eurovision fan zone

Revellers are flocking to Stockholm to take part in the 2016 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, but it seems not everyone is welcome at the city’s specially designated fan zone.

Eurovision 2016 Come together

Held with the tagline 'Come Together', the Swedish capital has invested around 95 million kronor in a swish fan area at the city’s Kungsträdgården park. Yet a report from national broadcaster SVT suggests the seemingly inclusive motto isn’t true for all.
The state broadcaster has posted a video on its website that purportedly shows one of the guards from the fan area asking an EU migrant to leave the premises and await the arrival of the police. When a Swedish speaker is seen with the migrant asked why his counterpart must wait outside, the guard replies that they “don’t want people who take things”.
The speaker in question was Hans Caldaras from HEM, an association that works with homeless EU migrants in Sweden. He told SVT that the guard went on to show him and his counterpart a piece of paper containing rules for access to the Kungsträdgården fan area, the details of which were also captured on camera.
The paper states that it is forbidden to beg, pick up cans (which can be exchanged for money as part of Sweden’s national recycling scheme) or even “dress up like Micky Mouse” in the fan zone. Written in Romanian as well as Swedish, the document also states that “ni” (Swedish for the collective “you”) should “keep away from the area to avoid coming into contact with the police”.
Though the paper was not signed, the City of Stockholm later confirmed that they produced it in conjunction with the police.
“The written information was an attempt to efficiently communicate the rules of conduct that we have come up with together with the police in order to have a pleasant arrangement," explained Jesper Ackinger, the City of Stockholm’s Eurovision Song Contest Project Leader, before later elaborating that the note has now been taken out of use as it was “unfortunately worded”.
Stockholm Mayor Karin Manngård has subsequently moved to clarify the city's stance on access to the fan zone, saying that it is "unacceptable" to wrongfully reject entry to the park.
“Our events will be open to all, but that also means that everyone must follow the rules in place in the area," she wrote. "It is not acceptable if someone is wrongfully turned away and that should not occur. All staff that work at the event will do so in line with the city’s values”.

source:The local

A song of peace!

A beautiful Afghan song for peace and brotherhood

Hardcore porn shown on hacked billboard in Malmö

A woman was left in shock after hardcore porn footage appeared on a digital information board in central Malmö. 

The hacked billboard in Malmo

The graphic footage appeared on a street sign near the bus stop at Malmö's central station on Sunday afternoon.

"It was seriously hardcore porn," witness Maria Escalante told the Aftonbladet newspaper. 

 

"There was a group of guys standing there watching and I asked them if it had been going on for a while. They said it had."

 

She added that she missed her bus, meaning she was left at the bus stop for 15 minutes as the pornography continued. 

Footage of the sign posted on Aftonbladet shows passersby walking past as the porn plays at the bus stop. 

 

Global Agencies, the company that runs the sign on behalf of Malmö Stad, said they'd launched an investigation.

 

"The system should be secure and right now we can't answer how someone managed to hack it," Roger Starck told the paper. 

 

"I'm incredibly angry about this all, it should never have been able to happen."

 

"Someone has decided to mess around, and they've succeeded."

 In May last year, Sweden's public broadcaster SVT also had an unfortunate gaffe concerning hardcore footage after it accidentally sent an SMS to 60 children which included a link to a pornographic site.

source: The Local