Arctic explorer’s ship to return to Norway
Canada has authorized the repatriation to Norway of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's three-mast ship Maud from the Canadian Arctic, a project representative said on Friday.
Day: March 16, 2012
Norway
Sweden
Swedish heavy metal tune gets stunning sign language makeover
An impassioned sign language interpretation of a Swedish heavy metal song has turned an unassuming actor into an overnight YouTube sensation.
Sweden
Poverty drops in Sweden: report
The number of poor households in Sweden has decreased after a dramatic rise over the last ten years, according to figures that the Parliamentary Investigative Service (Riksdagens utredningstjänst - RUT) has calculated on the behest of the Left Party.
Norway
Wreckage found in plane crash search
Rescue teams have found pieces of wreckage on both sides of Sweden's highest peak, as the search continues for five officers who were travelling in a Norwegian Hercules aircraft that disappeared on Thursday.
Sweden
Wreckage found in plane crash search
Rescue teams have located wreckage of the missing Norwegian Hercules aircraft near Sweden's highest peak, military sources confirmed Friday evening, as the search continues for the five officers who were on board when the plane disappeared on Thursday.
Switzerland
Swiss crash driver not unwell: prosecutor
The driver of a coach that crashed in a Swiss alpine tunnel this week, killing 28 people, did not fall
ill and no alcohol was detected in his blood, a prosecutor said on Friday, giving the results of an autopsy.
Germany
Stupid stunt causes bomb scare chaos
Staff at a German computer company were left red-faced when a stunt to promote their company caused a string of bomb scares in offices across the country.
Norway
New US rules grate with Norway cheese giant
Norwegian dairy giant Tine, maker of a hugely popular Jarlsberg cheese brand, has admitted to concern over the potential effects of a US plan to impose higher duties on foreign state-subsidized goods.
Sweden
Stockholm museum to get 3D renovation
This weekend, the City Museum of Stockholm will have a temporary new façade in the form of a 3D projection mapping project developed by Swedish multi-media artist, Jesper Wachtmeister.
Germany
Jihadist songs loved by US airmen’s killer banned
A series of extreme Islamist songs sung by a convert whose most infamous fan shot dead two American soldiers at Frankfurt Airport last year, have been put on the German censorship index, it was reported on Friday.
Norway
Norway intel ‘couldn’t have stopped attacks’
Norway's intelligence agency said on Friday it would not have been able to stop the gunman who killed 77 people in twin attacks last year even if it had pursued a tip that he had bought chemicals to make a bomb.
Germany
Fat cat pay packets raise German hackles
Nearly three-quarters of Germans do not think that CEOs deserve multi-million-euro salaries, even if they steer the company to record profits, a survey published on Friday found.
Sweden
Grab a taste of Sweden’s 10 Michelin-rated eateries
When the French Guide Michelin published its guide on Wednesday, Stockholm remained in the lead as the main gastronomic city of Scandinavia, with two restaurants retaining their two star status.
Sweden
Swedish church’s new recruitment ploy: wine
A Swedish church with dwindling parish numbers has turned to the pulling powers of alcohol in the hope of bringing in new members, and has invited people who’ve recently turned forty to come in for a wine tasting.
Sweden
Swedish university traditions make foreigners feel at home
Traditional student societies are at the heart of the social lives of Sweden’s oldest universities. And these time-honoured institutions are the perfect places for overseas students to find their feet.
France
Sarkozy to journalist: ‘what a dickhead’
President Sarkozy surprised a journalist on Thursday when he told him he was a "dickhead" ("couillon").
Sweden
Begrimed baguettes cause bakery battle
It’s News in Brief Friday again, where we’ve captured some of the shorter tales that caught our attention – this week including a ski race around the Stockholm castle, begrimed baguettes, bungling bird baiters, and the anniversary of a rather unusual murder.
Sweden
‘Neutrality to blame in Saudi arms scandal’
Sweden's neutrality policy and its inability choose between decency and Soviet oppression lies at the heart of the current Saudi arms deal scandal, argues libertarian Swedish commentator and author Fredrik Segerfeldt.
Germany
Priceless posters stolen by Nazis returned
A valuable collection of posters stolen in 1938 by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels will be returned to a Jewish family in the United States, Germany's supreme court ordered on Friday.
Switzerland
Why cleaning in Switzerland is a job for professionals
There's an art to cleaning, and nowhere is this art more respected than in Switzerland - not least when you move home. For green cleaning that meets these exacting demands, you need to turn to the experts.
Switzerland
British boy among Swiss bus crash victims
An 11-year-old boy of dual British and Belgian nationality was among the 22 children killed in a bus crash in Switzerland this week, British officials said on Friday.
Switzerland
Lower house votes for 60 percent Swissness
Switzerland's lower house voted on Thursday on amendments to the laws as to what constitutes a “Swiss made” product.
Germany
Forget sex: dirty dishes cause most couple fights
German couples fight not over sex or money but untidiness, a new survey has revealed. Nearly a third of people asked listed mess as their number one point of conflict.
Switzerland
Swiss hotels most expensive in the world
Swiss hotels are the most expensive in the world, according to a study by Hotels.com.
France
Peeing man loses Google Street View battle
A French court ordered a man who was pictured answering a call of nature in his garden was ordered to pay legal costs to Google on Thursday for bringing a badly prepared case against the Internet giant.
Switzerland
Al-Qaeda kidnaps Swiss woman: Yemeni officials
Suspected Al-Qaeda militants have kidnapped a Swiss woman and are holding her in the southeastern province of Shabwa, a provincial chief and a security official told AFP on Friday.
Germany
Millionaire couple ‘kept girl like Cinderella’
A real-life Cinderella story unfolded in a villa in an exclusive Hamburg suburb, where a millionaire couple kept an Ecuadorian teenager as a slave for 18 months before she escaped.
Switzerland
Teacher plays strip poker with class
A school teacher known only as Peter C has been accused of playing strip poker with his 12- to 13-year-old pupils and instructing them to watch porn for homework.
France
One in five gays plans to vote for far right party
A survey revealing the voting intentions of different groups in France has shown some of the sharp divisions in party preferences.
Norway
Herder in nightmare tow trip after reindeer row
A family feud over reindeer herding spiralled out of control at the weekend when Mads Jonar Smuk Dahl, 21, found himself hitched to the back of a pickup truck and dragged 2.5 kilometres along a road in northern Norway.
France
Lesbian couple denied right to adopt
A gay French woman was not discriminated against when she was denied the ability to adopt the daughter of her long-term partner, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday.
Sweden
Man dies after hospital mistakes stroke for drugs
A Swedish man who had suffered a stroke later died in hospital after staff mistakenly thought he was on drugs, prompting the family to file a police report.
Germany
Lift mechanic crushed after wrong decision
A German lift repair man was crushed to death in an accident – after he and his workmate followed their instincts and ran rather than taking shelter in a specially made escape hole.
France
Author sets up residence in bookstore window
A British author has set up camp in the display window of a Paris bookstore for a six-day stunt to publicise a new French edition of one of her books, her French publisher said on Thursday.
Sweden
Swedish feminists bare pits to ‘reclaim the hair’
Some forty Swedish women gathered at a Malmö square in the afternoon on Thursday, taking a stand against the recent internet storm vilifying women's hairy armpits.
Sweden
Man with machete leaves woman, dog bloodied
A machete-wielding man went on a wild rampage in northern Sweden on Thursday, first slashing a woman in the face before hijacking a minivan filled with students.
Germany
Corruption ‘will cost Germany €250 billion’
Corruption will blow a quarter-trillion-euro hole in Germany's economy in 2012, despite the country being near the top of Transparency International's anti-corruption index, an alarming new study has estimated.
Switzerland
First bus crash survivors back in Belgium
The first survivors of a bus crash that shocked Belgium returned to a national day of mourning Friday, after grieving parents laid flowers at the Swiss Alps tunnel site where 22 school children
died.
Sweden
Riksdag approves cluster bomb ban treaty
Swedish lawmakers voted Thursday in favour of ratifying a treaty that bans the use of cluster bombs, the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Norway
Bad weather slows hunt for Norwegian plane
Blizzards hampered a search and rescue operation on Friday for a Norwegian military transport plane with five crew feared to have crashed in a Swedish Arctic mountain range, rescuers said.
Germany
Merkel wants her finance minister in euro top job
Chancellor Angela Merkel has tipped German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble to take over as head of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Sweden
Bad weather slows hunt for lost Hercules plane
Harsh weather conditions complicated search and rescue efforts underway Thursday night to locate a Norwegian Hercules military transport plane which is feared to have crashed in the mountains of northwestern Sweden.
Germany
Scientist seeks deposits for elephant sperm bank
Elephants in captivity are becoming too inbred, so a German researcher has amassed a sperm bank of wild elephant semen for zoos to draw on. There’s just one small problem – sperm is not a commodity bull elephants give up lightly.
France
Depardieu: I don’t like ‘arrogant’ French
French actor Gerard Depardieu said on Thursday he would play the "arrogant, smug" former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a film about his fall from grace in a series of sex scandals, adding that he doesn't much like French people.
France
Scooter-riding gunman kills two French soldiers
A gunman riding a scooter shot dead two French soldiers and seriously wounded another in a hail of bullets on a street in the southwestern city of Montauban on Thursday, officials said.
France
Carla angry over pictures of her daughter
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of the French president, has angrily demanded that media organisations stop using photographs of her five-month old daughter, Giulia.