this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
132 points (98.5% liked)

Europe

5821 readers
1111 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to any of the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.

founded 10 months ago
MODERATORS
 

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.25-034656/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/03/25/sweden-rebuilds-its-total-defense-model-in-which-every-inhabitant-must-be-prepared_6739488_4.html

It was 6 pm on Thursday, March 20. Twenty-five people had signed up for the course entitled "Sköt dig själv" ("Take care of yourself"), offered free of charge online by the women's organization Lotta. The two instructors in their thirties started by advising on how to recognize an emergency situation – the number to call, the radio frequency to listen to. Then, for more than two hours, they detailed the food and equipment to be stored at home, before encouraging people to cultivate a piece of garden or balcony, to increase the country's food self-sufficiency, 50% dependent on imports.

Civil defense organizations offer courses like this one every week in Sweden. Although the possibility of armed conflict is rarely mentioned, it is on everyone's mind. "Sweden is not at war. But it's not at peace either," summed up conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on January 12. None of the kingdom's 10 million inhabitants can ignore this. In November 2024, they all received in the post a new edition of the booklet "In case of crisis or war," distributed by the Civil Protection Agency, reminding them that they must stock at home enough to eat, drink, heat and look after themselves for one week, without any outside help.

Printed three times during the Cold War, the brochure had already been sent to 4.9 million households in 2018, following Sweden's decision in 2015 to resurrect its "total defense." Developed after the Second World War to cope with a "total war," this model, combining military and civil defense, was based on the principle that the army would not be enough to protect the country: Its population still had to hold out.

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm imagining a minefield made up of cans of surströmming. I wouldn't put it past them to break the ~~Geneva~~ Chemical Weapons convention like that.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Surströmming based area denial. At least it works against voles.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Reminds me of a news story I read several years ago, a Swedish family had a summer home in norway, and decades ago they had stashed a can of Surströmming in the roof beams and forgot about it.

Well, it had swelled so much that when they found it they could not get it out the waynit got in, they had to hire a contracting firm to lift the roof off of the house and get it out.

Then they opened the can and tasted the fish...

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

Then they opened the can and tasted the fish...

Epic. I don't know if Surströmming can actually spoil.

Some years ago, surströmming was actually used to scare away the voles around the king's library in Stockholm.