Nine dead in plane crash near Örebro

All nine people who were on board a skydiving aircraft that crashed in the Örebro region on Thursday have died, police have now confirmed. The plane crashed shortly after take-off, around 7pm.

It comes less than two years after nine people died in a skydiving plan crash in Umeå, northern Sweden.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said in a written statement that he received the news with “grief and dismay” and that his thoughts were with the victims and their loved ones.

Swedish vocabulary: skydiver – fallskärmshoppare

Stefan Löfven to present new government today

Newly reinstated Prime Minister Stefan Löfven will today, around 11am, announce which ministers will make up his government. Few major changes are expected from the previous line-up, but he needs to appoint a Minister of Rural Affairs at least after that minister resigned her post to return to her seat in parliament (this was to ensure that her party was able to take all its votes, because her replacement was on sick leave).

Once the ministers are announced, the new government will make a ‘declaration’ announcing the policies it plans to pursue, but that will wait until after the summer in September.

Swedish vocabulary: to resign – avgå

Eight of Sweden’s regions have no Covid-19 patients in intensive care

That’s just over a third of the 21 regions. As of Thursday, the total number of people receiving intensive care for the virus was just 29 across the country, down from several hundred at the peaks of the three waves. The eight regions are: Halland, Västmanland, Uppsala, Gävleborg, Jämtland, Västernorrland, Västerbotten and Gotland.

But the pandemic is still ongoing, and the decline in new admissions to ICUs has slowed down.

“The decline has lost momentum. We now hope that we do not get any new increases,” sais Göran Karlström, supervisor at Sweden’s Intensive Care Register. He added that even with the reduction in Covid-19 cases, intensive care units and the hospital sector in general remains under a heavy burden.

Swedish vocabulary: to resign – avgå

Sweden lifts Covid-19 travel advisory for 11 more countries

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry has removed its advice against travel for 11 countries with immediate effect from July 8th. The countries are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brunei, Canada, Jordan, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. 

The Foreign Ministry also said it was working on a new system “where pandemic-related travel advisories are retained only for particularly vulnerable countries and regions”, but that this would only be implemented after the summer

Swedish vocabulary: immediate – omedelbar

Ikea to open new store in central Stockholm

Ikea is moving in a new direction and opening up a department store in central Stockholm, with the opening scheduled for July next year. The plan is that customers, especially those without cars, will be able to buy smaller items and order the rest to be delivered home, rather than needing to travel to the stores in the suburbs. The development is expected to provide around 500 new jobs.

Swedish vocabulary: department store – varuhus