-Karin and Nils Ahrland

Tuesday Sep 28, 2004

Dear Diana and David, and with regards to all Wednesday Night friends, Be surprised! Here some news from Sweden! I could give you 25 explanations why you have not had any news for so long, some true, some not, but it is better to use time for real news and thoughts.

First, however, some comments on the Mullahs of Sweden -or rather of the larger cities of Sweden.

It is true that in Malmö as well as in some of the suburbs of Stockholm we have thousands and thousands of refugees and that probably most of them are Muslims. They are mostly from Bosnia, Kurdistan, Iran and Iraq and thus received as refugees. Some, -maybe most-, are doing their best to integrate in Sweden; others do not, but that usually goes for old grandmothers and fathers who are not bright or strong enough to accept a new life-style.

In Malmö the great problem is that they all live in one part of town, and that very few have or can find a job. Do not ask me why but I can give you a variety of reasons, They do not try hard enough to learn our language; if they apply for a job, the employers very often are not interested to check what they can do if there is also a Swede who wants the job. And the official unemployment rate in Sweden is quite high nowadays. Tax-system as well as labour unions have forced quite many Swedish companies to Asia.

The crime situation is not ideal (where is it?) but not really as bad as the newspaper indicated. It is however quite clear that the situation is not at all as it should be. Swedes are not the least religious, our churches are, except at Xmas, weddings and funerals, almost empty, but there is a slowly growing fear or contempt of Muslims and that is very much because of their attitude towards women.

Sweden has always, since the Second World War, tried to be looked at as the "good country" and refugees have been welcome, but quite many cruel stories about Muslims and women over the last years are slowly changing public opinion. But, always something good, both my travel agent and hairdresser are Iranians and very good -and not religious!

What else can I tell you?

Family wise we are older, Nils celebrated his 80th birthday in March this year We went to London over the day but gave a big party later on. Since then he has been more and more tired and has also been seriously ill, but just now he is quite well and has even spoken about going to the South of France for a week around New Year. We shall see. I have stopped smoking, and do not like it, but I realized I had to.

And when it comes to travel, I am going to Washington over the election! We have a friend who has invited his sister and me to visit him and we thought it would be interesting to be in Washington at election-time.

I suppose you know that Mr. Bush is not very popular in Europe but that we believe that he will win. Anyhow we can at least watch and listen. It would have been nice to go up to New York and Montreal too but I cannot be away for more than a week. Nils is not fit to be alone too long.

Swedish politics is not very interesting for the moment. We were very irritated that there was a referendum about the EURO and Swedes said NO. We seem to be as stubborn as the British.

As we live in the south we - or I - do make short trips to Germany now and then and I have just returned from Berlin. This time I stayed at hotels situated in the former East Berlin and there is still a big difference between East and West. Unemployment rate is 20 % in East and every taxi-driver we used was complaining that their wives were out of work. Empty factories are falling apart; all industries that were already established in the west have evidently no intention to move east. But cultural life has always been strong in both parts of Berlin and is so nowadays too.

So this must be all for today. We think of you very often and always on Wednesdays.

Yours Karin and Nils

Fri 6/14/02 8:25 AM

Dear Diana and David,

We were indeed very touched and proud to receive the invitation to a thrilling wedding in Singapore. And we are sure we shall miss a great event as we cannot be able to go there. Singapore is a little to far away, but we shall be there in our thoughts. We are also sure that any girl that is marrying your charming son can call herself lucky.

I shall of course write to the happy couple with all our wishes for the future.

I should have sent you this earlier but have not been very healthy the last months. Nothing so serious that I need to worry for the future, but enough to make me very tired and that means that taking care of house, garden and quite often grandchildren has not inspired my correspondence.

We did go to England at Easter as i had told you, but we only spent the incoming and outgoing nights in London and visited Yorkshire and some friends in Derbyshire as that was the purpose of the trip. It means that I never had the opportunity to call Marc, but we shall most probably go back later in the year.and then we hope to meet his wife too.

I understand diana is very busy and travelling around, I hope you may go by business class when you go to Asia. Those trips are somewhat tiesome.

Sweden

We are of course following the events in Afghanistan closely as I cannot give up my interest for that poor and unhappy peoples and do have a lot of friends there.

As I became 70 last year I have given up all my official work as president of the Afghanistan committee- and as Marshal of the diplomatic corps, but of course it is always of interest to follow what happens. Just now I am very glad the the former Secretary of state and vice PM in Sweden, a nice lady, has agreed to be the new president of our Committee. She is of course a Labour-girl, but I have known her for 30 years and trust that she will be good at her new commitment.

I have heard absolutely nothing from Knut, but as he lives on an island where some of our friends spend their summer-vacations I hope to find out some gossip later on. Of what I so far have heard his "clinic" is not a greaat success economically- but that is of course only gossip.

This will have to be all for to-day, please give our regards to all wednesday-night friends. Maybe we could come back once more, nobody knows, but first the stock-market has to recover. Everybody is complaining and getting poorer here just now.

Much love from both of us!
Karin

Karin and Nils

Karin Ahrland

Karin and Nils

They are sailing to New York aboard the QE2, then driving North to arrive next Tuesday. We are thrilled to have them with us and hope so very much that you will join us in making the Wednesday Night for which they have come so far a truly memorable one!

In the meantime, we wish you a very Happy Easter and/or Passover.

David and Diana Nicholson

Kingdom of Sweden/Konungariket Sverige (Female sufrage 1919) Karin Ahrland The Prime Minister is known as Statsminister and his/her deputy as Vice Statsminister 1981-83 Minister of Medical Services Karin Ahrland Consul General in Montral 1989-91, Ambassador to New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga 1993-96. (b. 1950-) Jag vill här tacka alla de som ställt upp i intervjuer för Radio Islam och stimulerat debatten, bland dem Algeriets legendariske revolutions- ledare Ahmed Ben Bella, ärkebiskopen Bertil Werkström, biskop Krister Stendahl, Syster Marianne; riksdagsledamöterna Evert Svensson, Karin Ahrland och Maria Leissner; SSU-ordföranden Anna Lindh, professor Jan Hjärpe; författarna Per Gahrton, Jan Myrdal, Jan Guillou, Torbjörn Säfve; journalisten Björn Erikssson; skådespelaren Sven Wolter och konstnären Lars Hillersberg för hans förträffliga teckningar om Israelmaffian, samt Lars-Gösta Hellström och Christer Hedin. Report: Stockholm Conference on Afghanistan February the 24th 1999 Subject Afghanistan, Humanitarian Aid, and the Taliban: Challenges and possibilities on the eve of the 21st century Purpose of the conference: The purpose of the conference was to shed light on the current situation in Afghanistan and how it affects the entire region, examine the factors which led to Taleban's rule, the socio-political development of the country in the near future, and to discuss the existing conditions for rebuilding the country and continuing aid. Karin Ahrland, member of the Swedish Parliament for Center Party Karin Ahrland The Stockholm Conference was attended by experts on Afghanistan, representatives from various international aid organizations, academics and journalists. Karin Ahrland, member of the Swedish Parliament for Center Party and the former chairwoman of SCA, opened the conference by welcoming the guests from around the world. In her speech, Ahrland expressed satisfaction and pride for being able to arrange such a conference and inviting so many important experts on Afghanistan, such as, Anthony Hyman from London, Olivier Roy from Paris, Nancy Hatch Dupree from Peshawar, Michael Keating, former UN-specialist in Afghanistan and Andres Fdnge, the chairman of SCA's office in Peshawar. Ahrland's main focus in her speech was the emergence of the Taleban movement, who they really are, what their objectives are, and what kind of education and ideas Taleban have. She also discussed the idea of whether the world should subject the entire Afghan people to sanctions because of the laws introduced by Taleban and whether it would be a violation of the human rights, particularly the rights of women. She expressed readiness to help the Afghan people, but didn't know how to proceed with the current authorities while they are acting so strangely. Karin Ahrland    Help on Search ""Karin Ahrland"" search on: All the Web - AltaVista - Deja - Google - HotBot - Netscape - Northern Light - Teoma - Yahoo

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