"We're definitely in a worse position than Norway, Finland, Sweden - countries which have seen very little by way of recession".

BBC: Northern Bank makes pre-tax loss of ?71m

Embarrassed drug warriors blame this on alleged cultural differences, but even in fairly similar countries tough rules make little difference to the number of addicts: harsh Sweden and more liberal Norway have precisely the same addiction rates.

ECONOMIST: Failed states and failed policies

Historians and social scientists have found quite a lot to say about why faith thrives in some places and periods but not in others why, for the first time in human history, there are now hundreds of millions of unbelievers, and why religion is little more than vestigial in countries like Denmark and Sweden.

NEWYORKER: It Ain��t Necessarily So

Britain ought to let Assange flee to Ecuador, because there's little chance he can get a fair trial in either Sweden or the United States.

CNN: Assange's stubborn grip hurt WikiLeaks

Faced with higher energy costs and little hope of labour-market reform, other big companies are also thinking of leaving Sweden.

ECONOMIST: Sweden

This is how I whiled away one long summer night at a wedding reception on the Baltic coast of Sweden: hearing toasts, crooning local drinking songs and draining a profusion of little nips bottles of something called snaps (which is pronounced "schnahps, " but is very different from dessert-like schnapps).

WSJ: Sipping the Spirit of the North | Half Full

The UK and Sweden, while not opposed to the tax in principle, have both warned that it makes little sense unless it is applied globally, as investors will simply move their trading activity to a different country in order to avoid paying it.

BBC: Financial transactions tax in Europe given go-ahead