Here is a translation of an article in the Expressen today.
King to travel to Thailand to thank the Thai People.
The King´s travel itinerary stretches itself later this spring from Nairobi to Haparanda. His approaching trip to Thailand is to thank the Thai people for their effort in connection with the tsunami. The dates of which in February the two leaders have not decided yet. In Kenya´s capital in March, he will take a look at an UN´s program on the environment and in Haparanda(next to the Finnish border way at the top of Gulf of Bothnia), he will open a monument in remembrance to the 70,000 Finnish children who were sent to Sweden during WW2.
Crown Princess Victoria
will be taking a row of foreign trips, two of which are really far or long. In March, she will be going to Australia for Swedish Style, a Swedish advertising campaign. Only a month later, she will be going to Bangladesh to study a Swedish program that deals with Aid Assistance activities, assistance with Aid.(I assume with SIDA since they have an office in Dhaka and maybe the Swedish branch of Save the Children as well).
Princess Madeleine will open in the middle of Februrary an exhibition suitably called "Princesses in the Royal Armory".(Sounds exciting).
On Friday, the press chief Ann-Christine Jernberg released the program for the first half of the year for the Royal House. Of the family members who are most successful and most duty bound, the Royal Couple and Crown Princess Victoria take the cake. The younger members of the family, Carl Philip and Madeleine, have only up to now, a few engagements on the program(which makes sense because of their schoolwork).
The Royal Couple are dedicating themselves a number of days in the first half-year to 3 different themes. It begins with a discussion on depression in the area of Assistance development policy and questions on the various things that SIDA(Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) works on. In February the theme of the day will be on future energy usage and then in March, it will be about how Sweden will be governed in the future. That does not mean that the King will suggest that the Constitution be studied(and hope for some future changes like Regent gets to name national holidays, for example, Ponytail Day or National Skiing Day perhaps
)but that they will merely look at the role of the bodies of government in communities and how they can or should act.
There aren´t any state visits in the first half of the year. But on June 10, they will go to Norway to attend the opening of the Svinesundsbron(bridge to connect a part of Norway with a part of Sweden. It goes over a
fjord). Also there is awareness of the loss 100 years ago of the reign of the Bernadottes over the neighboring country. The first national day to be a holiday(June 6, 2005), will find the family celebrating the 400th anniversary of Mariefred Palace as well as the whole family participating in the celebration at Skansen once again.
