Zorn - censured on Facebook
We may call it art, but the folks at Facebook view Anders Zorn’s paintings of naked Dalecarlian girls as porn, and have censured them. The Danish artist Uwe Max Jensen put several of Zorn’s famous nude paintings on his Facebook page only to watch them disappear hours later. The painting “Flicka på loftet” (Girl in the Loft) was taken down because it went against Facebook picture policy. Uwe Max Jensen was also blocked from putting more picture up on his Facebook page. “Facebook, which is an American company, should not decide what is pornography in a Danish, Nordic or European context,” Jensen said to daily Sydsvenskan. French artist Gustave Courbet’s painting was also removed by Facebook as was a piece of art by American artist Steven Assael.

Swedish Queen ill
Queen Silvia has fallen ill. So ill, in fact, that she has had to cancel a trip to Africa and is forbidden to go back to Sweden from France (where she fell ill) via airplane, but has to travel by car. Explans Bertil Tenners, information officer at the Royal Swedish Court: “It is a bad flu, and those can develop differently. She must rest and take it easy. The doctors are taking good care of her, but have also said it is not advisable for her to fly home. Therefore the decision to have her go back to Sweden by car.” The King is now in Botswana alone, and is said to be worried about his wife. Silvia will rest with relatives in Germany on her route back to Sweden, and it is unclear whether or not she will be fit to participate in the charity dinner for Childhood Foundation in Miami with Princess Madeleine in early April.

Solving Swedish Math crisis
Swedish schoolchildren must get better at math. Swedish municipalities and county councils (SKL) are now sending out special help teams to improve results. “In five years, math knowledge in Swedish schools will be on top for the first time in years,” says Håkan Sörman, managing director at SKL. SKL has for years compared Sweden’s different municipalities in different school areas, with the purpose of trying to spur them into doing better. But in spite of this, Sweden is sinking rather than climbing in the international Pisa school rankings, where students’ knowledge is measured globally. Sweden is currently the 19th best country in the world when it comes to math, according to the economic organization OECD. A placement SKL is far from being pleased with. “We have great goals,” Sörman continues. “And we know there’s a willingness and enough Swedish teachers to better the math results.” In order to climb the Pisa ladder, SKL has developed a new strategy: Municipalities with poor math results will be visited by special help teams. “We will develop five to eight teams, with five to seven people in each team. Our venture includes school politicians as well as school principals. The reason everybody needs to be represented in this group is that we have to think differently, we have to include all levels when we think,” Sörman concludes.