Det svenska uttrycket, liksom dess tyska förebild ”einem die Stange halten” har enligt Svenska Akademiens ordbok två olika ursprung, med från början lite olika betydelse. I det första fallet avser stången en lans eller motsvarande, och uttrycket bygger på att första ledet i en äldre stridsordning hade lansar som vapen som de höll mot fienden — och så länge de höll fienden stången kunde fienden inte ta sig framåt. Det andra fallet bygger på att skiljedomaren vid en medeltida tvekamp skilde de stridande åt med en stång när den ena parten gav upp och förklarade sig övervunnen. En numera utdöd variant av det uttrycket var ”hålla stången rätt emellan (två personer)”, med betydelsen ’medla på rätt sätt’.

Finland and Sweden are right to have concluded from the tragic war being waged in Ukraine that they need more security. Mr Putin is dangerous and unpredictable not because of NATO, but because of the way he has chosen to govern Russia. Their applications should rapidly be approved. As with NATO’s expansion in the past, their membership will help secure European peace.

The Sweden Solar System (SSS) is the world’s largest model of our planetary system. The Sun is represented by the Globe in Stockholm, the largest spherical building in the world, and the planets are lined up in direction north from here.

Distances and sizes are scaled according to 1:20 million, and the inner planets are all in the Stockholm area. The outer planets follow in the same direction with for instance Neptune in Söderhamn and the dwarf planet Pluto in Delsbo, 300 km from the Globe. A number of minor planets and comets also populate SSS, which now extends from the very south to the very north of Sweden. There is a host institution for each model. SSS is a pedagogical instrument and conveys a direct feeling of the enormous distances in space, and how small the planets are compared to the Sun. Art, mythology and science merge in this project, and SSS connects to different places and activities in Sweden.

On a continent famous for its welfare systems, school closures threaten to widen divisions of education, ethnicity and class. Compared with the rest of the world, Europe has not done badly during the pandemic. Most of its schools reopened in the autumn, while in South America and South Asia they largely stayed shut. But covid-19’s second wave has forced many European schools to close again.

This hurts all pupils, but it hits the poor and vulnerable ones harder. France’s education ministry says that last spring’s lockdown increased the gap in exam scores between normal schools and ones in hard-up areas by several points. In Germany, that first lockdown cut studying time from 7.4 hours per day to 3.6. An analysis of last year’s national exam results in the Netherlands came up with the depressing finding that during the spring lockdown the average pupil had learned nothing at all. Those whose parents were poorly educated did even worse: they emerged from their first two months of schooling by internet knowing less than when they started.

VIP tour of the Swedish Parliament this afternoon. Many thanks to our guide, MP Olle Thorell!

Men hoten finns fortfarande kvar. Miljögifter, skogsavverkning, tjuvjakt och plundring av bon är faror för den känsliga arten.

Enligt Bahnhofs anonyma källor föreslår utredningen att datalagringen på flera sätt ska utökas. Dessutom ska internetoperatörerna tvingas bygga om sina system i syfte att underlätta övervakningen. En normalstor operatör kommer enligt inofficiella beräkningar att behöva lagra 300 Terabyte mer än idag, till en kostnad av hundratals miljoner kronor.

The country has outranked 162 others to take pole position in the Good Country Index, a league table based on 35 separate indicators from sources including the United Nations and the World Bank.

Sweden scores highest for positive lifestyle contributions including prosperity, equality, health and wellbeing, while also performing well culturally.