Not Your Casual News Week 15: Sweden's long struggle with gang violence
Also about a real estate mogul sentences to death, massive flooding in Russia and Kazakhstan, and an extreme marathon runner completing an extreme feat
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Mikael Janicki, a 39-year-old Swedish man of Polish origin, was taking his son to the swimming pool in the suburbs of Stockholm when he encountered one of the district’s youth gangs in an underpass. They shot Mikael at point-blank in the head, in front of his son. The 12-year-old called the police by himself.
The 'why' is still unknown, but the 'how' leaves a sour taste in the throat. Mikael had long been frustrated by the presence of narco gangs in his community, the Skärholmen district, located in the south of Stockholm.
In an interview with SVT, the Swedish national public television broadcaster, Mikael's sister Aneta described him as “a person who always told young people to stop what they are doing”, because “he does not want his son to grow up in a criminal environment.”
He may have confronted the youths after they threatened his son and himself as they cycled through the underpass. “Yesterday was an example of what he used to do,” Aneta said.
Wednesday’s horrific murder sent another shockwave through Sweden. It is one of many shootings that have taken place in Sweden in recent months, including several in the suburb of Skärholmen.
"It's so sad. You get scared, you just want to stay indoors. You don't dare go out," Kicki, who has lived in Skärholmen for over 25 years, told to the Swedish news agency TT. Kicki also said that she is now afraid to go out after dark.
The Scandinavian nation has recently seen a rise in criminal activity as gangs compete for dominance in the drug trade. In 2023 alone, there were 363 shootings, killing 53 people, and 149 bombings. The violence is spreading as gangs now target families and reach into wealthier neighbourhoods.
And civilians found themselves in the crossfire: a 70-year-old man and a 20-year-old man were killed in a pub shooting in Sandviken, central Stockholm, last September. A 24-year-old teacher, fresh from university, was killed in an explosion near the university town of Uppsala.
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Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson declared in an Instagram post on Thursday:
The systemic crime that our country is now experiencing has brutal consequences for the victims, for people's safety and integrity and, by extension, for our entire free and open society.
The gangs with their total ruthlessness will not stop until we have stopped them [...] Nothing is more important than putting an end to this insane violence.
As soon as Sweden’s new centre-right government took power in October 2022, it launched a war on gangs. According to Kristersson’s team, the Social Democrats, who had been in power for the previous decade, were responsible for the growth of gangs. Before 2016, Sweden’s asylum laws were among the most lenient in Europe.
Many of them live in suburbs made up mainly of second- and third-generation immigrants. These suburbs are often located in satellite towns and council estates on the outskirts of Swedish cities. With limited economic opportunities, social inequality is an important issue there, which can hinder integration efforts.
A 2021 study by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention found that young people born in Sweden to two foreign-born parents were disproportionately represented among suspects in murder and robbery cases, although Swedish police do not currently track the nationalities of gang members.
Dr. Damian Szacawa, senior analyst in the Baltic Team at the Institute of Central Europe, gave more details in interview with naTemat:
“Gang fighting crime is linked to migrants. But it's not like this is the last wave of migrants. Nor are they exclusively migrants. We are dealing with a criminal environment that only partially recruits people from among migrants. Taking advantage of the weaknesses or impossibility of assimilation in Swedish society.”
The gangs often recruit young teenagers to carry out these violent acts, as they are under the age of criminal responsibility. Through social medias, they promise the young kids glory and money. Cases have been reported of perpetrators as young as 12 — children the same age as Mikael’s son.
The Swedish government is taking steps to reduce crime and improve the integration of immigrants. The government wants to make it harder for immigrants from outside the European Union to receive social benefits and to make preschool compulsory in some areas for children with two foreign parents in order to improve their Swedish language skills.
“They have been living rather isolated,” Principal Asa Beckman Malmberg, who teaches young offenders in a juvenile detention centre, told Sky News. “The parents don't trust the government. They don't trust the social services. They don't trust the police. So these kids have lived there all their lives, and they are struggling in the schools.”
Earlier this year, it became an offence to recruit children to take part in criminal activity. Stop and search zones are to be introduced in early 2024, and ministers want to double prison sentences for crimes such as weapons offences and explosions.
Of course, this is not the overall picture of the country. Sweden is not at war, and its people feel globally safe. But the problem has been growing and getting worse for years. It should not be underestimated.
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What Else Happened?
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A real estate mogul has been sentenced to death for her role in Vietnam’s biggest ever fraud case. Truong My Lan, head of Van Thinh Phat, a private investment conglomerate founded in 1992, was convicted on Thursday of embezzlement, bribery and breaches of banking regulations. The case has caused an uproar in the country. It’s estimated that around $12.5 billion (€11.7 billion, about 3% of Vietnam's GDP) was embezzled. However, the total damage caused by the fraud is now estimated at $27 billion (€25.3 billion), according to prosecutors. “The defendant’s actions … eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] party and state,” read the verdict of the trial in Ho Chi Minh City, which ended with a death sentence for Truong My Lan.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with Zhao Leji, China's top legislator, in Pyongyang on 13 April 2024 to discuss strengthening bilateral ties. This high-level Chinese official visit is the first since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and coincides with the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Kim expressed the North's commitment to its long-standing friendship with China, with Zhao’s visit being “of very weighty significance in demonstrating the invincibility of the DPRK-China friendship.” North Korean leader eventually proposed a toast to the “eternal development” of socialism in both countries, reported the official Korean Central News Agency.
Climate News
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Mass evacuations have been ordered in southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan due to heavy flooding caused by a combination of heavy rain, melting snow and unseasonably warm temperatures. The city of Orenburg in Russia has been badly affected, with the Ural River reaching record levels and 12,000 homes under water. Similarly, in Kazakhstan, more than 100,000 people have been evacuated due to flooding. The situation has been exacerbated by a sharp rise in temperatures. “No anti-flood work was carried out. The mayor didn't do anything. People here are used to flooding, but when we heard the levels were so high and had risen over the dam, people were overwhelmed and began to panic,” a resident of a northern Kazakh village told RFE/RL.
Bogotá has begun rationing its water, with reservoirs falling to their lowest level in 40 years and supplying only 16.9% of Colombia's capital. Under the rationing plan, water will be cut off for 24 hours at a time in different parts of Bogotá, affecting 11 surrounding municipalities and more than 9 million people. Residents are being advised to conserve water, for example by sharing showers and avoiding car washes. The aim is to reduce Bogotá's average water consumption of 18 cubic metres per second by 2 cubic metres, with the aim of refilling reservoirs to over 70% capacity by the end of the year. The measures will be re-evaluated every two weeks.
Illegal refrigerant gases are still being smuggled into Europe, according to a new investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency. Organised criminals are taking advantage of weak law enforcement to meet demand as countries move away from hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases, which are commonly used in air conditioning and refrigeration but are harmful to the climate. Evidence shows that traffickers are sourcing HFCs from Turkey and China for illegal import into the European Union. They smuggle the chemicals across borders to destinations across Europe, using tactics to avoid detection.
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Some people are built differently. Like Russ Cook. The British extreme marathon runner, as Reuters calls him, ran across Africa from south to north in 352 days, while raising almost £1 million ($1.25 million / €1.17 million) for charity.
From South Africa, his starting point, he ran the west coast of Africa to Cape Angela in Tunisia, a total of more than 16,000 kilometres, the equivalent of 392 marathons — more than a marathon a day.
“I’m a little bit tired,” he said to journalists.
Needless to say, but he is the first person to run the length of Africa.