bin Laden was never fighting the Soviets
by Anssi Kristian Kullberg

The attack on the US on September 11 last year shocked the entire world. The attack made by militant islamism, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden killed thousands and attacked world peace. Anssi Kristian Kullberg, a foreign policy expert with extensive travelling in Central Asia, gives a comprehensive background on the political development in the area, especially in Afghanistan and the background of bin Laden, who actually never fought the Soviets during the Afghan war against Soviet occupation.

Increased interst for the Founding Fathers
by Allan C. Brownfeld

Americans have a new interest in the background of the Founding Fathers of the Nation and the first years of the Republic. McCulloughs biography of John Adams topped best seller lists in 2000 and “The Founding Fathers” by Joseph Ellis have sold good for a long time. This new borne interest have different backgrounds.

Herman Lundborg and “Race Biology”
by Tommy Hansson

Few ideologies have been more devastating to mankind than race biology. The basic idea was that only people from certain groups could be worthy human beings. The most distinct advocate of this view in Sweden was Herman Lundborg (1868-1943), head of the Swedish Instiute of Race Biology, founded and financed after decisions by the Cabinet and the Parliament (the original private bill in the Parliament was signed by – among others – the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Hjalmar Branting, later Prime Minister). The story of Hjalmar Lundborg is told in this article.

Massacres in Finland during WWII
by Tommy Hansson

For more than 55 years Finnish governments have kept the lid on, on the atrocities committed by Soviet Communist partisans fighting against Finnish civilians during the second Finnish-Soviet War 1941-1944. This was made in order not to create any irritation with the powerful Eastern neighbour. The awful truth can however now be told in a book by the Finnish journalist Veikko Erkkilä.

Rent control in Sweden
by C G Holm

The Swedish housing market is in a crisis. In the large cities people cannot find housing at affordable prices. In the small communities council-owned housing is blown up by dynamite in order to keep rents up. New construction is so low that it would take 400 years to replace the present Swedish housing stock. In spite of the fact that only fractions of a fraction of one per cent live in houses more than 400 years old…

Economists have studied the rent control system and the preparedness of households to pay for their dwelling. They find that the present system is not adapted to the preferences of the public. Regulations make people pay a lot for low-quality new buildings, while rents are extremely low for preferred “elderly charm”. Which is in high demand but unachievable for all except those paying “black money” in order to get a contract.

In a few cases housing have however been adapted to demand. Immigrants seem to prefer housing in modern buildings – and they live in suburbs with that type of buildings, while Swedes seem to prefer old buildings in central areas of the urban concentrations. This is actually how people live, but the politicians want to make everybody unhappy by forcing a change to that, in order to counter segregation.