Sweden

Roland Schoeman of South Africa broke one world record and narrowly missed another at the short-course swimming World Cup on Tuesday. Schoeman broke German Thomas Rupprath’s world record in the 100m individual medley by ,07s, clocking 52,51s in Eriksdalsbadet’s fast short-course pool.

More than 150 000 Swedes were without power on Tuesday and police said another person was reported killed in fierce storms that struck northern Europe over the weekend, bringing the death toll to 17. Two British men swept away in northern rivers have been missing since Saturday and there has been no word about their fate.

A twin brother and a quick change of clothes helped an 18-year-old sentenced for assault and robbery escape from jail, reports said on Tuesday. The jailed brother was allowed an unsupervised visit from his twin brother. About 45 minutes later, the visitor left the jail while guards locked up what they believed to be the twin who was serving a sentence.

A giant straw goat erected by local businessmen in the town of Gavle was torched — again — in what has become a holiday tradition some would call arson. A smouldering pile of wood and metal was all that remained on Tuesday of the traditional Swedish good-luck goat that businessmen in Gavle erect annually.

Winning the Nobel Prize in literature not only ensures a writer’s legacy, it’s also a ready-made pulpit to tout ideas and opinions. But this year’s winner, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, is absent from the annual festivities. Jelinek maintained from the day she won the prize that she had no plans to attend the award ceremony on Friday.

At these Winter Games, there are no strenuous slaloms or figure-eights. But if you can’t shimmy up a chimney or wrap a Christmas gift, forget about competing. The annual Santa Winter Olympics kick off this month with about 50 Santas from across Europe testing their holiday mettle in Sweden’s cold, northern reaches.

A Swedish hunter saved the life of his dog by killing a golden eagle that attacked it in Lapland, northern Sweden, reports said on Thursday. Stefan Stalnacke was out hunting for capercaillies (a large, turkey-like grouse) in the forests near his home in Vittangi, 150km above the Arctic Circle, when the eagle suddenly swooped down on to his dog.

It stood for 350 years, bearing fruit for a dozen generations, but strong winds finally brought down what is believed to be the oldest pear tree in Scandinavia. Ever since the mid-1600s, the massive pear tree had helped feed the people outside Enkoeping, an hour’s drive west of Stockholm.

A shadowy group of militant Stockholmers carried out their threat to ”execute” a fiberglass life-size cow after their demand that Cow Parade, an outdoor art exhibit, be dismantled was not met, organisers said on Tuesday. ”We have received the cow cut into pieces in a bag. It’s really sad,” a Cow Parade spokesperson said.

A truck carrying 8 000 live chickens overturned on a Swedish highway on Tuesday, sending a sea of fluttering poultry on to the road and forcing authorities to shut it down for more than nine hours, police said. Several thousand surviving chickens escaped from their cages and covered the E6 highway.

Organisers of a race for homing pigeons were still scratching their heads in wonder on Thursday after about 1 500 of the birds, famous for their ability to find their way home, went missing during the contest. Of the 2 000 pigeons let loose last week, only about 500 have returned to their lofts after the 150km flight.

The founder of Swedish furniture giant Ikea isn’t hurting for money, but the company he founded denied a report that he surpassed Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as the world’s wealthiest man. Swedish news weekly Veckans Affaerer said Ingvar Kamprad has surpassed Gates and Buffett as the world’s richest person.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Monday the world had the capability but ”lacked the will” to prevent the mass slaughters of the 1990s, in opening remarks in Stockholm to the first international genocide conference in more than 50 years.

Swedish foreign aid agency Sida has pledged to contribute 45-million kronor (about R42-million) to bolster the United Nations’s efforts to deliver food in Southern Africa. The agency said that the situation in Southern Africa has deteriorated because of a crucial need for money to pay for more food aid.