Sweden and Switzerland have expressed their willingness to, upon request, send a team to inspect North Korea's possible dismantlement of nuclear and missile programmes, a US broadcaster reported on Saturday (Sept 22), according to Yonhap news agency.

The Swedish student who livestreamed her onboard protest against the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker over the summer is being charged with violating Sweden’s Aviation Act, broadcaster SVT reported on Friday. Student activist Elin Ersson protested against the Swedish government’s policy of deporting some rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan by boarding an Istanbul-bound flight that carried an Afghan man who was to be returned home after being denied asylum.

The people of Sweden are voting in a general election - where an anti-immigration party is vying to make large gains. The nationalist Sweden Democrats (SD), which polls suggest have 20% support, are tipped for second place. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven called the SD a "racist" party as he cast his ballot in Stockholm.

Sweden has seen a rise in reports of child and forced marriages, according to a hotline established by the County Administrative Board in Östergötland County, located in southeastern Sweden. At least 130 phone calls were made in 2018 to a support hotline that seeks to help children and young people who have been forced into marriage. This is a massive increase compared with the 101 calls that were made between 2014 and 2018, according to Swedish public broadcaster SVT.

High temperatures and low rainfall have fueled fires across the country. Elsewhere in Europe, drought in Britain and Ireland has exposed ancient structures.

The Swedish government will pump 5 million Swedish crowns ($564,000 USD) into migrant sex courses according to news outlet Fria Tider. A portion of the funding will support the government's sex-awareness website, "Youmo," which provides translation in Arabic, Somali and Dari. The goal of the website is to "simply inform immigrants about what is in Sweden," reports Tider.

Sweden's coast guard was on Monday working to clear up an oil spill caused by heavy winds after a large freight ship ran aground off the country's southeastern coast. The 139-metre freight ship Makassar Highway first ran aground on July 23rd and began leaking oil. Initially the coast guard was able to contain the spillage, but heavy winds on Saturday and Sunday meant the oil began to leak into the Baltic Sea, before the salvage operation could begin.

Swedish police shot dead a 20-year-old man with Down syndrome in Stockholm early Thursday. He had run away from home carrying a harmless toy gun. The policemen say they opened fire because of a "threatening situation", according to media reports.

Sweden will buy the Patriot air defense missile system from U.S. arms manufacturer Raytheon Co, the government said on Thursday, as it looks to boost its defenses amid growing tensions with Russia. Sweden’s Defense Materiel Administration (FMV), which handles military logistics, began negotiations over Patriot in November last year aiming to replace the current air defense system which cannot shoot down ballistic missiles.

Scaring temperatures from Europe's summer of extreme heat has melted so much ice on Sweden's tallest peak, that it is no longer the tallest. The southern peak of Kebnekaise mountain, in northern Sweden, has shrunk by 14ft in the month of July because of the unusually hot sun melting the ice on top of it, according to figures published by Swedish news site TheLocal.se. It used to be 6892.4 ft, but thanks to the hot weather is now only 6879.2 ft.

Dozens of cars have been set alight in Sweden overnight, in what police say may be a co-ordinated criminal action. Up to 80 vehicles were badly damaged by gangs of black-clad youths, beginning at about 21:00 local time (19:00 GMT). Most of the damage took place in the western city of Gothenburg, but incidents were also reported in cities up to 100km (60 miles) away.

A Swedish Muslim woman has won compensation after her job interview was ended when she refused a handshake. Farah Alhajeh, 24, was applying for a job as an interpreter when she declined to shake the hand of a male interviewer for religious reasons. She placed her hand over her heart in greeting instead. The Swedish labour court ruled the company had discriminated against her and ordered it to pay 40,000 kronor ($4,350; £3,420) in compensation.

A series of documents released by the US Department of State have revealed how Sweden was pressed to take action against The Pirate Bay. According to US officials, this directly led to law enforcement's decision to shut down the torrent site more than ten years ago. Sweden, meanwhile, avoided a spot on the feared US Trade Representative's 301 Watch List.

Sweden will do whatever it takes, including sending in the army, to end a wave of gang violence that has seen a string of deadly shootings, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in Wednesday.

UK prosecutors tried to dissuade Swedish counterparts from doing so, exchange shows

AN UZBEK ASYLUM seeker who confessed to wanting to mow down “infidels” in an April 2017 Stockholm truck attack that killed five people pleaded guilty to terrorism charges today as his trial opened. Rakhmat Akilov appeared in the Stockholm courtroom, handcuffed amid tight security, wearing green prison clothes and with a shaved head and a beard, accompanied by his lawyer Johan Eriksson.

Researchers in Sweden have uncovered evidence of a behavior never seen before in ancient hunter-gatherers: the mounting of decapitated heads onto stakes. The grim discovery challenges our understanding of European Mesolithic culture and how these early humans handled their dead.

Documents released under Freedom of Information requests to Italian magazine La Repubblica confirm the very close relationship between the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Sweden in the Julian Assange case. The files contain hundreds of mostly redacted emails sent over a five-year period. But according to one authoritative source, the number of CPS documents relating to the case may be much greater than has so far been disclosed.

A new crazy bill in front of the Swedish parliament makes ordinary sharing of TV, music, and movies as severe a “crime” as some types of homicide. The Swedish IT industry and net community is in shock and disbelief, while the copyright industry lobbyists are cheering.

Burrowed beneath a small park in Stockholm is a forgotten relic of the past that may help in the future. The only clue to its existence is a green metal door, 8 feet high by 5 feet wide, hewn into the rock next to a busy, snow-dusted sidewalk. Heaving it open reveals an airlock that leads to a fully operational nuclear bunker. Facilities like this are a vital part of Sweden's history — and recent threats from Russia mean they could become important again in the years to come.

Bridges would be easier, but it doesn't want to disturb the surroundings.

IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad amassed 362 billion kronor ($46 billion) in wealth before he died. According to his will, half of that money will go to charity in Sweden, with the rest divided among his children.

The big, grey building north of St Petersburg does not look like much to the naked eye. But behind its nondescript facade hides one of Vladimir Putin’s infamous troll factories. For two months, this was the workplace of Lyudmila Savchuk – mother-of-two, environment activist, and freelance journalist. But Savchuk wasn’t one of the trolls – far from it. Instead, her work at Internet Research was part of an undercover investigation for the newspaper My District.

The world’s first electrified road that recharges the batteries of cars and trucks driving on it has been opened in Sweden. About 2km (1.2 miles) of electric rail has been embedded in a public road near Stockholm, but the government’s roads agency has already drafted a national map for future expansion. Sweden’s target of achieving independence from fossil fuel by 2030 requires a 70% reduction in the transport sector.

According to a report in The Local, a burned lump recovered near a fireplace at Sandby Borg on the island of Öland is a 1,500-year-old onion. However, archaeologist Helena Victor explained that onions were not grown in Scandinavia at the time. She thinks the vegetable may have been imported from the Roman Empire as an exotic vegetable. “An onion doesn’t sound very interesting,” Victor said, but she notes that the next-oldest onion to have been found in Scandinavia dated to A.D. 650.

For anyone who used to play with slot cars as a child, Sweden's new electrified road might bring back some memories. In the first of its kind, the Scandinavian country is trialling the world's first public road which allows electric vehicles to recharge while driving. Similar to a slot-car track, vehicles are able to connect to an electric rail that's embedded into the road.

Humans can get chipped, too — just like their dogs. By Victor Tangermann.

Sweden has adopted a law requiring people to get explicit consent before sexual contact, otherwise it will be considered as rape. Swedish politicians approved the change by 257 votes to 38, with 54 absentees. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, says "it is no longer necessary for the offender to use violence or threats, or to exploit the victim's particularly vulnerable situation" for rape charges to be brought forward.

Thieves have made away with an estimated 2.1 million bees from bee harvesters in southern Sweden. Two farms near Eslöv, southern Sweden, were hit this week in what appears to be a bee heist. The robbers got away with around 50 beehives, as well as bee wax and over 1,000 litres of honey.

A key committee of Swedish lawmakers wants to force the country’s biggest banks to handle cash in an effort to halt the nation’s march toward complete cashlessness.

Much has been discussed about the superiority of electric vehicles (EVs) to conventional internal combustion vehicles, but the rhetoric hits a snag every time the topic of charging comes up. A significant chunk of the EVs on the roads today struggle with charging on-the-go, and are forced to make elaborate plans on their charging schedules and stick to routes that offer EV charging stations on the sideline.

Swedish utilities and power generators have already installed so many wind turbines that the Nordic nation is on course to reach its 2030 renewable energy target late this year. By December, Sweden will have 3,681 wind turbines installed, lobby group Swedish Wind Energy Association estimates. Together with second-half investment decisions, this will be more than enough capacity to meet a target to add 18 terawatt-hours of new, renewable energy output by the end of next decade. Some new plants will be built by Norway, with which Sweden shares a renewable certificates market.

In the eyes of its members, there is no more important cultural institution in the world than the Swedish Academy. The members, who call themselves The Eighteen (always in capitals), are elected for life by their peers, and meet for a ritual dinner every Thursday evening at a restaurant they own in the heart of the old town in Stockholm. And once a year, at a ceremony brilliant with jewels and formality, the permanent secretary of the academy hands out the Nobel prize in literature and all the world applauds.

For nearly two decades Sweden has been battling a mysterious illness, which affects only the children of asylum-seekers.

A member of Sweden’s neo-Nazi party the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) has been arrested after police found proof that he was planning to murder two journalists. Swedish police found documents on the Nazi party member’s computer with information about two journalists working for Mittmedia, one of Sweden’s largest media groups. The files also included photos of the reporters’ homes, Swedish news agency TT reported.