Well, We Know How They Feel About Trump

Donald Trump has nations a bit on edge, even America's friends.

Take the Swedes for example. Sweden is a country with Cold War memories. During those dark years when the Soviet Union vied with the United States, Sweden constructed 65,000 nuclear bomb shelters. That's a lot.

Today, of course, the Soviet Union is gone. So too is the United States, at least in the sense that we once knew it. Today it's Putingrad and Trumpville. And that's got the Swedes on edge all over again. They're taking this pretty seriously, even to the point of planning to expand that already extensive network of nuclear fallout shelters.

Swedish authorities figure the existing 65,000 shelters will suffice for a population of seven million only, today, that still leaves three million with not much better than "duck and cover." Officials are now looking to construct new shelters to protect the overage. Swedish shelters are intended to provide protection against the gamut of WMDs - nuclear, biological and chemical.

If you find the Swedes extreme, the Swiss are way ahead of their Scandinavian counterparts. The Swiss have an abundance of shelters, more than enough to house their entire population.

Whereas confidence among Europeans that President Barack Obama would “do the right thing regarding world affairs” ranged between 70 and 90 percent in a number of surveyed nations during his term, those numbers plummeted after Trump’s inauguration and have only gone down since. Only 7 percent in Spain and 11 percent in Germany now say they have confidence in Trump. Top officials in Germany have also directly contradictedTrump’s North Korea policies, and have voiced concerns that the White House may overreact to nuclear provocations and escalate the war rhetoric being exchanged with North Korea.

Europeans are similarly worried that decades-long nonproliferation efforts could be dismantled virtually overnight, leading to a new arms race. In 2009, the Obama administration negotiated a treaty with Russia in which both countries agreed to cap the number of deployed warheads. Trump reportedly called the agreement a bad deal in his first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year, although administration officials have since backtracked.

Sweden’s new shelter locations indicate that at least some of the concerns are connected to Russia. One of the regions where most new shelters are expected to be constructed in the coming years is the island of Gotland, where military defenses were recently expanded with the declared aim of stopping a possible Russian invasion.

The Swedes are Running Out of Rubbish to Recycle

This is a bit mind-boggling. The people of Sweden have become such ardent recyclers that less than one per cent of their trash winds up in the landfill. They're so good at it that Sweden imports rubbish just so it can keep its recycling plants running. From The Independent:


While Europe is aiming for a 65 per cent recycling target by 2030, the UK may be about to fall even further behind its green neighbours.

Why are we sending waste to Sweden? Their system is so far ahead because of a culture of looking after the environment. Sweden was one of the first countries to implement a heavy tax on fossil fuels in 1991 and now sources almost half its electricity from renewables.

“Swedish people are quite keen on being out in nature and they are aware of what we need do on nature and environmental issues. We worked on communications for a long time to make people aware not to throw things outdoors so that we can recycle and reuse,” says Anna-Carin Gripwall, director of communications for Avfall Sverige, the Swedish Waste Management’s recycling association.

Over time, Sweden has implemented a cohesive national recycling policy so that even though private companies undertake most of the business of importing and burning waste, the energy goes into a national heating network to heat homes through the freezing Swedish winter. “That’s a key reason that we have this district network, so we can make use of the heating from the waste plants. In the southern part of Europe they don’t make use of the heating from the waste, it just goes out the chimney. Here we use it as a substitute for fossil fuel,” Ms Gripwell says.

That Didn't Take Long. Is This Assange's Reward?

Is Julian Assange getting an early Christmas present? A week after Donald Trump's election victory and six years after Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, a Swedish prosecutor went to the British capital to visit Assange in the embassy.

Assange's team said he agreed to the interview "in part to ensure the Swedish authorities have no further excuse not to discontinue their investigation".

Swedish assistant prosecutor Ingrid Isgren was present at the interview, which was conducted by an Ecuadorian prosecutor.

The fact that Swedish prosecutors were present but not the Swedish defence counsel was "incredibly problematic", [Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson] said – but they had decided to proceed anyway.

"We have been offering his testimony since 2010 and the Swedish prosecutor has refused to hear his side of the story until now."

It's amazing how the wheels of justice can suddenly free up and I'm sure the election result and a grateful president-elect had absolutely no bearing on it.

We Haven't Had This Much Fun Since the Cold War

Sweden's armed forces are hunting for a mystery (i.e. Russian) submarine in waters off Stockholm.

"We have begun an intelligence operation ... involving ships, helicopters and several ground units," Commander Jonas Wikstroem told reporters, adding that the operation was based on a tip-off from a "credible source."

Wikstroem did not specify how close the operation was to the Swedish capital but said that the military was informing the public as the area is "heavily trafficked.

In recent months, Swedish media have reported an uptick in Baltic Sea maneuvers by the Russian air force, including a close encounter between a Swedish spy plane in international airspace off Russia's Baltic Sea coast.

"As the government has said, the situation has deteriorated in the Baltic Sea," Wikstroem said, adding that no weapons had been used in the current operation.

At the height of the Cold War, Soviet submarines were regularly detected in Swedish waters.

NATO's New Legion - Is Canada In?

NATO is organizing a 10,000 strong "expeditionary force" with an eye clearly on the Ukraine.

The aim is to create a fully functioning, division-sized force for rapid deployment and regular, frequent exercises. Officials involved in the planning say it will have the capacity to increase significantly in size.

The force will incorporate air and naval units as well as ground troops and will be led by British commanders, with other participating nations contributing a range of specialist troops and units. Countries involved at present include Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway and the Netherlands. Canada has also expressed an interest in taking part.

The Financial Times also reports that Sweden and Finland may soon enter the NATO alliance.