Household expenses
According to Konsumentprisindex, a consumer price index that covers the consumption of the entire population of Sweden, the month of December in 2013 saw household expenses rise in comparison to December of 2012. Household prices went up 1.5%, the prices on clothes went up 1.4%, meanwhile the price of electricity went down 3.4% during the same month.

Sweden increases support for Syria
During a conference in Kuwait for those who have been affected by the civil war in Syria, Sweden promised to give humanitarian assistance of ”about 230 million SEK ($35 million)”. ”We will also announce a willingness to increase this even more if there’s need to,” Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Minister for International Development Cooperation Hillevi Engström write on the debate page of daily SvD. The UN has appealed for 42 billion SEK ($6.5 billion) in order to help the Syrians during ”the worst humanitarian crisis in decades”.