Embassy of Sweden in Kuala Lumpur welcomes new Ambassador

Embassy of Sweden in Kuala Lumpur welcomes new Ambassador Joachim Bergström

On 17 August, the Embassy of Sweden in Kuala Lumpur welcomed the new Ambassador-Designate of Sweden to Malaysia, Joachim Bergström.

According to the Embassy, Ambassador-Designate Joachim Bergström was previously posted as Sweden’s Ambassador to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and has also been posted in Tokyo, Riyadh, and Washington - and served as Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

While welcoming the new Ambassador-Designate to Malaysia, the Embassy also welcomed First Secretary Ms. Anita De Filippi Seiz.

Ms. Anita Seiz, who joins the Embassy from the Global Agenda department at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm, will temporarily stay at the Embassy until December 2021 as Head of Consular affairs and administration. She has also been posted in Cairo as First Secretary from 2012 – 2015. “A warm welcome to Malaysia, Ambassador Joachim Bergström and Ms. Anita Seiz!” the Embassy writes.

Chinese Embassy accuses Swedish freelance journalist and author of lies

Photo from a previous demonstration made by the swedish journalist and author - Foto: Hannah Franzén / TT The Swedish freelance journalist and author Kurdo Baksi is in an email from the Chinese Embassy in Stockholm accused of spreading lies and “contributing to crime”, Swedish media SVT Nyheter reports.

The email was sent to Kurdo Baksi and several Swedish media in connection with a demonstration that Kurdo Baksi organized outside the Chinese Embassy in Stockholm on 17 August. The demonstration was held in support of the SwedishChinese publisher Gui Minhai who is imprisoned in China.

According to SVT Nyheter, the Chinese Embassy has on several previous occasions sent out emails accusing Kurdo Baksi of lying about Gui Minha, and in the recent email, the embassy writes, among other things, that Kurdo Baksi is spreading lies about the Gui Minhai case and that he is contributing to increased crime in Sweden.

News brief Norway allows entry for boyfriends & girlfriends from Singapore and Taiwan

On 5 July, the Norwegian government eased some of the country’s entry rules for foreign nationals to include, amongst others, boyfriends and girlfriends of Norwegian citizens from selected countries including Singapore and Taiwan.

Previously Norway only allowed entry of spouses, registered partners, and minor children but the borders are now also open for citizens from selected countries who have the following relationship with someone who lives in Norway: • Adult children and parents. • Grandparents and grandchildren. • Boyfriends/Girlfriends over the age of 18 who have been together for at least nine months. They must have met each other physically. Minor children of boyfriends/girlfriends can also enter Norway.

The new rules also apply to stepparents and stepchildren. The countries included in the new rules include Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, USA, Serbia, Northern Macedonia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Israel, and Australia.

Source: Aftenposten

Norway and Malaysia team up to further research the Nipah virus

Norway’s Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), has teamed up with Malaysia’s Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysia, to further research and gain a wider scientific understanding of the Nipah virus, media Biospectrum Asia writes.

The Nipah virus (NiV) is zoonotic, meaning that it can spread between animals and people. Fruit bats also called flying foxes, are the animal reservoir for NiV in nature and Biospectrum Asia writes that the Nipah virus is one of the deadliest pathogens known to infect humans.

To explore the Nipah virus more and to characterize and better understand immune responses generated against the virus, UM will work to collect biological material from Nipah survivors. To carry out the research, UM will collaborate with physicians and healthcare workers who responded to the first-ever documented Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia in 1998/1999.

Under the new partnership, CEPI will be providing funding of $188.000 towards UM’s work and because Nipah outbreaks often are sporadic with few survivors, the work is set to provide critical new information on Nipah immunology that has not previously been studied.

File photo of berry pickers. Mikko Savolainen / Yle

Covid outbreaks hits Thai berry pickers in Finland

The berry season in Finland is an occasion that attracts many foreign berry pickers to the three berry regions of Finland, Kainuu, Northern Ostrobotnia, and Lapland. This year 3000 berry pickers came from Thailand to be part of the harvest. The immigrant worker hiring practice can however be tricky in these pandemic times. Two employers in particular learned this when large quantities of their Thai workforces where detected with Covid.

First it was the outbreak of Covid-19 who was discovered amongst 44 berry pickers from Thailand working at a plantation in Kainuu region of Finland and the week after another 40 Thai berry pickers have been found infected with covid-19, this time in Lapland, Finland’s northernmost region.

Finland’s berry production is best known for its blackberries, lingonberries, crowberries, bilberries, cloudberries, raspberries, cranberries, and sea buckthorn. The country’s most profitable berry regions are Kainuu, Northern Ostrobotnia, and Lapland.

The latter case of the corona clusters among berry pickers in Finland were found when the Lapland Hospital District mass tested 110 seasonal workers and found almost a third infected with covid-19 following the outbreak in Kainuu.

The 40 infected workers had all gone through the corona testing that the regulations required without getting detected. According to Markku Broas, Chief Physician of Infectious Diseases of the Lapland Hospital District (LSHP), this case proves that no system is completely effective.

“Even if the test is done on the third day of arrival, the virus can appear and become contagious later. It has apparently happened here that the infection has come after the third day,” Markku said.

Markku Broas pointed out that because the workers from Thailand are working as berry pickers which means that they live and work together in small groups, the virus is easily transmitted between the workers

“Especially in the case of the Delta virus variant, this is the situation,” he ads.

There has also been reported corona outbreak among Thai berry pickers in Sweden likewise there was an outbreak last year in a Danish slaughterhouse among their Eastern European migrant workers.