King Carl Gustaf & Queen Silvia - Current Events Part 3 (April - October 2005) - Page 2

GrandDuchess · #21 04-26-2005, 01:50 PM

1) Yesterday, Monday 26 April, the King awarded the Vega medal (a medal awarded by The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography) at the Royal Palace of Stockholm to Professor Francoise Grasse. Picture from the Royal Court (PRB):

2) Yesterday, Monday 26 April, the King attended the Big Export Day and awarded The Swedish Trade Council's prize "The Big Export Prize" at the China Theatre in Stockholm. Picture from the Royal Court:

HMQueenElizabethII · #22 04-26-2005, 04:37 PM

And the Queen holds a news Conference yesterday too.I saw some pics from Getty.

GrandDuchess · #23 04-26-2005, 05:49 PM

NEW YORK - APRIL 26: Queen Silvia of Sweden speaks at the American-Scandinavian Foundation April 26, 2005 in New York City. The Queen spoke about her charity the World Childhood Foundation and its efforts to help impoverished and vulnerable children. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Alexandria · #24 04-26-2005, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrandDuchess

NEW YORK - APRIL 26: Queen Silvia of Sweden speaks at the American-Scandinavian Foundation April 26, 2005 in New York City. The Queen spoke about her charity the World Childhood Foundation and its efforts to help impoverished and vulnerable children. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Here is my superficial comment: I don't like it when anyone wears hair bands as Silvia has here. They make me think of fashion durinig the '80s -- and anyone who lived through that period, even as a young adult, would not want to be reminded of that time. Just as if you were a young adult during the '90s "scrunchies" were very popular.

Silvia has such a lovely, wavy head of hair -- why pull it back with an ugly and unstylish hairband? I'm sure that her speech was very important and that she had some insightful things to say, but the hair band would've been too distracting for me!

Thanks nonetheless for the pictures GrandDuchess. :)

GrandDuchess · #25 04-27-2005, 09:25 AM

Yesterday the King together with the President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, and her husband, Dr. Pentti Arajärvi, attended a ceremony and inaugurated the new monument in commemoration of the Finnish war children that Sweden took on during WWII. The monument stands in a park in Haparanda in the north of Sweden, at the border between Sweden and Finland.

The monument, called “Separation”, has been made and placed to commemorate that it is 60 years ago this year that the war ended in the Finnish Lappland. During the years 1939-44, around 70 000 young children were sent from Finland to Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The children arrived with trains from Karelia, Helsinki, Åbo and other large cities in Finland, carrying not much more than big name tags on them. Haparanda in the north of Sweden became a gathering place for children between 1 and 14, before they were transported to their new foster families in Sweden. Many organisations and private individuals made large efforts for these war children.

The King’s speech during the ceremony, translated by me

The Republic of Finland’s President, County Governors, Ladies and Gentlemen

Today a circle is completed. The war children’s monument here at the border between Finland and Sweden, between Torneå and Haparanda, is just about to be uncovered.

Commemorational marks exists already in many locations in Finland, locations from where the children were disconnected for their travel into an uncertain future- Since many years, there is also a commemorational plaque at Skeppsbron in Stockholm, where many children who came to Sweden, stepped onto land.

But it was up here, at this border, that thousands of war children left their home country. They were on their way to a temporary, but unknown, sanctuary in Swedish homes and families, and this took place during the ongoing war.

Most things were new, including the language, for the children or groups of siblings who came to Sweden. Some came with only an address tag around their necks. Most children, thank god, got a good life here, but the separation from their families and their home country was hard for many, and of course put traces in their souls forever.

I myself was not even born when all this happened, but later during my childhood I heard about the war children that my mother, Princess Sibylla, helped and supported at the Bellevue home in Stockholm. She understood and felt strongly for their situation, and wanted them to have a good life in every way.

Therefore it feels very natural and important to today uncover the war children monument here in Tullparken in Hapranda, 60 years after the end of the war.

I hope that it shall remind us and coming generations about the Finnish war children’s very special lives and hardship. It shall also remind us of the special closeness that has always been there, and is highly still alive, between Finland and Sweden.

Boris · #26 04-27-2005, 10:23 AM

I do agree that the headband is a very bad choice which Queen Silvia has unfortunately reverted to - after using it a lot in the 1980's indeed, I don't remember seeing her with one again until a few years ago. Plus, the stage lighting for her NY speech was obviously perfectly terrible and even makes me wonder if she did have plastic surgery after all!

(Still better than the constant rubberband-ponytails on her daughter CP Victoria though, IMHO-)

On an equally superficial note, wasn't there a World Childhood Foundation Gala supposed to take plce in NY on April 25? No pics whatsoever of that event? I'd be happy to see some & thankful for anybody who could post it here -

Reina · #27 04-27-2005, 10:51 AM

Yeah.. The headband is the first thing I noticed when I saw that pic. But more puzzling to me is why would she wear that in New York? Of all places?

Dennism · #28 04-28-2005, 08:25 AM

The fight to grant permanent residency to asylum-seeking children suffering from apathy has stepped up a gear thanks to King Carl XVI Gustaf. A weighty blow to the government says the press while campaigners in the children's corner cheer on.

King Carl XVI Gustaf took up the plight of Sweden's apathetic refugee kids on Tuesday saying: "It's is terrible what is happening with these poor children."

The king was in Haparanda in the far north of Sweden to inaugurate a memorial for the 70,000 Finnish children who crossed the border into Sweden during World War II. Speaking afterwards, the press took an opportune moment to catch a comment from His Majesty.

"It's good that the press take up the issue so that we can have an orderly discussion about the situation," said King Carl XVI Gustaf.

Earlier this month, the Swedish Parliament voted against granting permanent residency to a number of apathetic asylum-seeking children, which caused an outcry in the ongoing debate. According to Wednesday's Aftonbladet the royal words have given comfort and hope to families of the children in question.

"It's feels like magic that the king cares about us," said the brother of an apathetic 13 year old. His family are facing a looming threat of deportation back to Kazakhstan.

"Suddenly we have a little glimmer of hope. I think that ordinary people listen to what the king says and perhaps the government should do the same."

Priest Michael Williams, chairman of the Swedish Network of Asylum and Refugee Support Groups echoed the view that the king's statement was of great significance.

"He was diplomatic but very clear. It is great to experience a wave of empathy and compassion. I hope it leads to a public sense of feeling that we are not wrong."

While Aftonbladet portrayed the royal remarks as an attack on the government Dagens Nyheter pointed out that the king refused to comment on the state's handling of the apathetic children affair.

Meanwhile Wednesday's Svenska Dagbladet reports that the number of cases of apathetic refugee children has risen dramatically. In the first investigation of its kind, the number of children known to be affected has risen from 55 cases in 2002 to 155 cases in 2004.

The majority of children come from the former Soviet Union (61.5 per cent) and the former Yugoslavia (26 per cent).According to the survey presented in DN, 410 children in total have been treated for varying degrees of apathy syndrome, around a third of which are residing in Stockholm. Of those, around 30 per cent have been granted permanent residency while 15 per cent have had their applications turned down.

The symptoms associated with the apathetic state have varied from refusing to go to school and becoming withdrawn and uncommunicative to the dramatic step of being tube fed.

Following contact with European counterparts, authorities here believe this is somewhat of a Swedish phenomenon. Germany and Holland have no knowledge of apathetic children while in Norway and Finland there has been seven and four cases respectively. Nine of those children had moved from Sweden.

The Local

GrandDuchess · #29 05-04-2005, 11:38 AM

Yesterday, Tuesday 3 May, the King attended the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management’s annual meeting and following dinner in connection with their 175th jubilee. It is being held in Umeå in Västerbotten County. Here's a pic from Västerbottenskuriren.

Lena · #30 05-04-2005, 12:39 PM

I wonder, what the family has planned for the prolonged weeked. Probably something together, because they all have days off. Well, high likely we will never know...

GrandDuchess · #31 05-10-2005, 08:46 AM

Today, Tuesday 10 May, the King inaugurated 551 student apartments in Nationalstadsparken in the Stockholm County. In the 1960's, just like today, there was a big shortage of student housing - and back then King Gustaf VI Adolf decided to give away a piece of his own land in Kungshamra to build student apartments on. And today the present King inaugurated more newly built apartments on this land that once his grandfather donated. The pics are from the City of Solna.

GrandDuchess · #32 05-14-2005, 12:01 PM

Statement by His Majesty The King about Monica Zetterlund's death:

It is with great grief that my family and I have received the notice that Monica Zetterlund has died.

She was a great and multifaceted artist who's career spread over broad fields. Singer, variety artist and actress. Her songs will forever be a part of Swedish music life.

Carl Gustaf

Some pictures (from Expressen) of Monica. May she rest in peace.

GrandDuchess · #33 05-16-2005, 09:39 AM

Yesterday, Sunday 15 May, the King and Queen were at their summer residence Solliden on the island of Öland where they opened H.M. The King’s exhibition “A collection of royal postcards” in a pavillion. The exhibition features a vast collection which the King has gathered for many years and now he chooses to show it to the public for the first time. The motifs are Solliden, the island of Öland and the town of Borgholm and also nature pictures. The first picture is from the Royal Court, the second from Fotomarktplatz and the third from the newspaper Barometern: