Lonely Planet has released this year’s list of the 20 most beautiful beaches in Europe. Hauklandstranda in Lofoten, Norway, tops the list and is described as an “Arctic dream”. Dueodde beach in Denmark is also on the list.
Every year, the travel book publisher chooses the most beautiful beaches in Europe to visit during the year. For 2024, Norway takes first place with the beach Hauklandstranda, or Hauklandssanden, located in the municipality of Vestvågøy. The beach is described as unique with its pointed granite cliffs, white sand and sapphire blue sea.
“Rising like a dragon’s back from the Norwegian Sea, the Lofoten Islands off Norway’s northwest coast are an Arctic dream – whether seen in the never-ending light of the midnight sun or under the dancing northern lights in the winter snow, writes Lonely Planet.
This is not the first time the beach has made the top 20 list. In 2021, it also beat out beaches in Greece, Italy and Croatia. Mayor Jonny Finstad is pleased that his municipality’s beach has once again been recognized by Lonely Planet.
– When we receive such awards from recognized publications, it makes us proud. It is also good marketing for both Lofoten and Hauklandstranda as a destination, he told Norwegian national broadcaster NRK.
Dueodde on Bornholm is ranked 17th. Photo: Klugschnacker/CC BY 2.0
In second place is Cala Goloritzé in Italy, followed by West Beach in Scotland. Dueodde Beach on Bornholm in Denmark is number 17 on the list.
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Finland’s population is shrinking and aging at record pace, with the number of births dropping from 60,000 to 45,000 in just over ten years.
— The population pyramid is standing on its tip, warns demography professor Jan Saarela.
Finland is grappling with an accelerating population crisis that threatens the country’s future welfare. New figures show that the number of school-age children is expected to continue declining over the next 25 years, while the proportion of elderly people increases dramatically.
— This is hardly a favorable development for the future, states Jan Saarela, professor of demography at Åbo Akademi University in Finland.
The numbers speak clearly. In the early 2010s, around 60,000 children were born annually in Finland. During 2023 and 2024, the number had plummeted to approximately 45,000 – a 25 percent decrease in just over a decade.
The decline primarily affects the native Finnish population, and consulting firm MDI’s recent report confirms that the population will continue to shrink and the dependency burden for those working will become increasingly heavy.
Rural areas hit hardest
The demographic crisis strikes with varying intensity across the country. Population projections for 2024-2050 show a Finland where rural municipalities shrink dramatically while only a few larger cities continue to grow.
When professor Saarela is asked by Finnish public broadcaster Yle whether Finns in rural areas can expect even worse services in the future, he answers briefly:
— Yes, I believe so. I also think we will see more municipal mergers in the future, considering that the number of municipalities in Finland is still very large. I don’t advocate for municipal mergers, but I note that it will probably become necessary.
Residents in rural municipalities can soon expect significantly worse services. Photo: Reinhold Möller/CC BY-SA 4.0
Although population concentration in larger cities is a global phenomenon, Finland stands out negatively. The same development is seen in other Nordic countries, but Finland fares worst.
— But Finland is, as far as I know, worst in class and has been for several years, says Saarela.
“More children should be born”
To break the negative spiral, the demography professor sees only two possible paths: more births or increased mass immigration.
— One is that more children should be born, and the other is increased immigration, he argues.
Many Finns postpone having children for practical reasons. Photo: Polina Tankilevitch/Pexels
The low birth rate is partly due to many young Finns finding it difficult to combine parenthood with other aspects of life.
— It doesn’t feel advantageous to have children at certain life stages, so many postpone the decision. In some cases, people wait so long that there are no large families at all, explains Saarela.
One proposal is therefore to introduce higher child allowances for the first child.
— Perhaps a higher child allowance for the first child would help. But it requires resources, says the professor, while also noting that resources become increasingly scarce as the number of people of working age decreases.
Increased immigration?
The second path, increased immigration, is politically sensitive and difficult to plan. Recent years’ substantial immigration, particularly from Ukraine, has temporarily increased the population. But many Ukrainians plan to return when the war ends.
— Immigration is affected by global events and is difficult to predict. Statistics Finland’s projections were previously based on a certain number of immigrants, but recent years’ sharp increase has made the projections no longer accurate, says Saarela.
Researchers also cannot say exactly how large labor immigration would need to be to reverse the trend.
Mass immigration is said to potentially slow population decline, but brings with it a range of other problems. Photo: etvulc/iStock
A risky path
Large-scale migration, primarily from non-European countries, also brings a long series of difficult-to-solve problems and negative societal effects in the form of increased insecurity, poverty, crime, growing parallel societies and ethnic conflicts that are imported to the receiving country. Mass immigration has also proven to be enormously costly economically.
Sweden is one of the Western world’s clearest examples – from one of the world’s safest countries to a country plagued by foreign conflicts, segregation, gang crime, shootings and bombings where the majority of serious violent crimes are committed by people with foreign backgrounds.
Finland has so far avoided Sweden’s most acute problems through lower immigration, but the same negative development is visible here as well.
In summary, professor Saarela sees few bright spots. The negative population development is, according to him, very difficult to reverse, and the challenges to Finland’s population structure will likely persist for the foreseeable future.
Swedish authorities have intensified their messages in recent years about citizens needing to prepare for crises and war. Meanwhile, an investigation of the country’s own shelters reveals major shortcomings in the maintenance of critical infrastructure.
Of Sweden’s eighty special shelters – intended for nearly 100,000 people – only a single facility has been upgraded to modern standards after decades of neglected maintenance.
The Igeldamms garage in Stockholm, Sweden stands today as the sole example of a completed special shelter, while the remaining 79 facilities still await necessary upgrades, reports Swedish public television SVT.
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has begun modernization work in approximately thirty of the eighty special shelters. The work has cost €7.7 million in the past year alone, but the pace is said to be far from sufficient to meet political ambitions for improved crisis preparedness.
Henrik Larsson, head of population protection at MSB, cannot provide information on when all facilities will be remediated:
— It depends. We need to get into all facilities and see what condition they’re in. In some facilities, quite extensive renovations may be required, and then it becomes very costly.
— If all facilities are in the same condition as here (Igeldamms garage), then it shouldn’t be any problem to do it before 2030, but I suspect we’ll have some facilities that we’ll need to spend time and significantly more money on, he continues.
64,000 shelters to be inventoried
During the Cold War, thousands of shelters were built around the country, but many have been used for completely different purposes for decades without proper maintenance. Now MSB has been tasked with inventorying the country’s total stock of 64,000 shelters between 2025 and 2030.
For the current year, approximately 10,000 minor inspections and around 2,000 major inspections are planned – a pace that MSB itself considers insufficient:
— We need to increase by 500 more per year to go through the entire stock by 2030. We need to be between 12,000 and 13,000 annually,estimates Larsson.
Inadequate protection
In addition to the already approved Igeldamms garage, with space for 1,200 people, two additional facilities are planned to be completed next year – one in Stockholm and one in Gothenburg, Sweden. This means that only three of eighty special shelters will have modern standards before 2027.
MSB’s assessment shows extensive shortcomings in the existing stock: only half of all shelters offer satisfactory protection against shrapnel and bombs, while only about ten percent have reasonable protection against chemical warfare agents.
Since the responsibility for addressing deficiencies lies with individual property owners, MSB cannot provide any timeframe for when the shelters will actually be in functional condition.
Sweden has over 64,000 shelters with space for approximately seven million people. The shelters may be used for other purposes during peacetime but must be ready for use within two days during heightened alert or war. When a shelter is activated, it must have water, heating, ventilation and toilet facilities – however, there is neither food nor hygiene products.
The shelters are built to protect against shock waves and shrapnel from explosions, fire, chemical weapons and radiation from radioactive substances. People should be able to stay in the shelter without interruption for at least three days. It has never been the ambition to build shelters for the entire population, and their placement has been determined based on threat assessments.
During air raid alerts, people should immediately go to the nearest shelter or other protective space such as basements or subway stations. People do not belong to any specific shelter but use the one that is closest.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate Party presents new measures against demonstrations and says he now wants to remove “Middle Eastern conflicts” from Swedish streets.
Critics note, however, that the Moderate Party has for many years pushed for mass immigration specifically from the Middle East – and continues to do so.
In a post on X, the prime minister writes about how politicians have been confronted outside the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament), ministers have been followed home from work, and Jewish families have been subjected to threats, and now the government promises tougher action.
“Don’t bring Middle Eastern conflicts to Swedish streets and squares. We must take care of the Sweden we love”, the prime minister appeals.
The statement comes from the same party that during Fredrik Reinfeldt’s government from 2006 significantly increased mass immigration to Sweden from the Middle East – a policy that continues today despite all problems and warnings, even though the rhetoric has changed.
Varför fortsätter ni moderater att bedriva massinvandring?
In just these two decades, Sweden has received hundreds of thousands of people from various conflict areas in the Middle East, and a large portion of them have today been granted Swedish citizenship.
After Israel’s invasion of Gaza, however, Swedish politicians from the Moderate Party and other liberal parties have shown growing frustration and anger over the vocal protests from many of the immigrants they themselves allowed into the country.
These demonstrators protest almost daily against Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and demand, among other things, that Sweden cease its support for the Israeli state – demands that have become increasingly troublesome for those in power.
“Intrusive” demonstrators may face harsher punishment
Therefore, Kristersson now announces the following measures, among others:
• Review of criminal liability for demonstrators who act “intrusively or aggressively”
• Police given greater opportunity to decide on alternative times and places for demonstrations
• Clearer opportunity for police to intervene if decisions are not followed
• Police must report on how they work against disturbances at gatherings
The government is also reviewing possibilities to deport pro-Palestinian demonstrators who are considered particularly troublesome or who are accused of “glorifying terror” by, for example, expressing sympathies for Hamas or other groups designated as terrorist organizations.
“Whipping up hateful sentiments”
Kristersson writes in his post that “a heavy responsibility also rests on those who, by spreading lies, terror romanticism and antisemitism, polarize and whip up hateful sentiments in Sweden”.
For many, however, it appears ironic that the prime minister now claims to want to stop Middle Eastern conflicts from Swedish streets – conflicts that have largely come to Sweden through policies that his own party has implemented.
Others point out that it is telling that those in power react so strongly and condemningly only when they themselves are affected by disturbances and discomfort, while ordinary Swedes have been affected daily for many years by significantly worse immigration-related incidents without this receiving any attention whatsoever.
An increasing number of teachers are being subjected to threats and violence in their professional roles, according to a report from Sveriges Lärare (Swedish Teachers’ Union). Staff working in after-school programs are the worst affected.
One in three teachers has been subjected to threats or violence in the past year. Meanwhile, four out of ten have witnessed a colleague being subjected to the same.
The report also shows that violence is becoming increasingly normalized – many teachers have stopped reporting incidents due to lack of support from school management and unclear procedures.
— Threats and violence in schools are no longer isolated incidents – this is a systemic failure. That we teachers cannot feel safe at work is unacceptable and must never be normalized. The limit of what we teachers can endure has been exceeded, says Anna Olskog, chairperson of Sveriges Lärare in a press release.
Sveriges Lärare: Var tredje lärare utsatt för hot och våld från elever https://t.co/Fx9eb4uTIN
Teachers in after-school programs are the worst affected – six out of ten have been subjected to harassment, threats or violence. Half of all teachers experience high stress, one in three suffers from depression and one in five is considering leaving the profession. The report also shows a clear connection between increased exposure and staff shortages.
Sveriges Lärare demands zero tolerance for threats and violence from school management and that authorities address the problem.
— Threats and violence in schools are not just a school issue, it’s a societal issue. When teachers hesitate to report incidents and when colleagues leave the profession, we lose both quality and safety in schools. We have long demanded a national effort – from the state, from school management and from society as a whole – to reverse this development, says Olskog.
