City Tunnel inaugurated
King Carl XVI Gustaf pushed the button and thus the City Tunnel in Malmö was inaugurated. The 17 kilometer (10.56 miles) long rail link running between Malmö Central Station and the Öresund Line will increase capacity on the Scanian network, changing Malmö Central from a terminus to a transit station. The railway starts at a new underground section built beneath Malmö Central station, called Malmö C Nedre. From there, the railway runs in a tunnel to the new station Triangeln, built underground in central Malmö. It then turns south until Holma, and continues in an open shaft to the new station at Hyllie, a developing area south of the city center. Here two lines branch out—one route runs west connecting to the Öresund Railway Line, and the other, scheduled to open in August 2011, will connect to the Ystad and Trelleborg (Kontinentalbanan) lines.

Nationalist Christmas party in Stockholm attacked
A Christmas dinner in Spånga (northwest Stockholm), arranged by the nationalist association Fria Nationalister, was attacked on Dec. 4. Around 8:30 p.m. some kind of firebomb and several tear gas bombs were thrown into the party room through the windows. The culprits also destroyed the car tires of the party guests. All of the culprits were dressed in the same way, which concealed their identities. Nobody has been arrested for the deed.

Exercising together
How does one combine work, family life and exercise? This is a question many of us stumble upon, just to sink down—yet again—in front of the television. But Sydsvenska Dagbladet met two families who found satisfying solutions. The Dohlwitz-Strindlund family (including five children: Algot, 11, Edvin, 9, Maj, 6, Melker 4½ and Clara 2½), began a running routine with their kids four years ago. “Clara and Melker always begin by running with us, but towards the end (of the 3 kilometer—1.86411 miles—long jog) they are too tired and sit in the stroller,” says Malin Dohlwitz-Strindlund. “All of us get exercise and fresh air at the same time and we are teaching our kids healthy habits.” The family runs together once a week; to them it’s more than exercise, it’s family time. “The boys inherit my more expensive running shoes, but the other kids are just using regular sneakers—they don’t need anything fancy,” says Malin. The Rugstad family doesn’t run, they kickbox. “We wanted to find something that suited us all," says Fredrik, the father in the family of four (Elvira is 5 and Jesper is 7). “When we realized we could also bring our kids, we felt this was a perfect way to get effective exercise.” Fredrik and his wife Marie-Louise kickbox in one end of the gym, while their kids work out in the other. “The trainer motivates and instructs the kids so it’s more like fun and games than serious training,” says Marie-Louise, “which is important if they’re going to stick with it.”

2314 hours late
Talk about being late! The trains running between Göteborg and Stockholm have been 2314 hours late in total this year—not even for a month has SJ (Sveriges Järnvägar—Swedish Railways) been able to keep their goal in getting travelers to their destination on time. “We are embarrassed and, of course, sad. This is one of our most important routes,” says Ulf Wallin, assistant officer of press at SJ. “Delays are of course never good. And this shows that our railway system has great problems between Sweden’s two major cities.” SJ’s goal was to have all their high speed X2000 trains running no more than five minutes late, 90 percent of the time. So far this year, not only once has that been the case. February was the worst month, when 520 trains were more than 15 minutes delayed, a total of 685 hours. According to Wallin, the problem is due neither to weather nor the quality of the trains, but rather to crowding. “There are more trains with more frequency but the infrastructure hasn’t become any better. We need a lot of work in order to catch up.” After the chaos of the last winter, many Swedes lost faith in SJ completely.

More money to the homeless
The snowy, cold weather has increased the pressure on places to be open also on weekends for homeless people. Now the city of Stockholm reserves one extra million SEK in order to handle the Christmas and New Year's weekends. The money will go to the voluntary organizations Stadsmissionen, Frälsningsarmén and Ny Gemenskap.