Is Ikea Coming To Idaho

WORLD IN BRIEF

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — A new book claims Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad’s youth ties with Nazi groups extended beyond what he has previously admitted, saying Sweden’s intelligence agency set up a file on him.

Respected Swedish author and journalist Elisabeth Asbrink says Kamprad joined the Swedish Nazi party in 1943 when he was 17, prompting the security police to set up a file on him the same year.

Asbrink also claims in her book And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain that the founder of the Swedish furniture chain was in contact with Nazi sympathizers until at least 1950 — two years longer than he had previously acknowledged.

She writes that Kamprad’s letters were secretly opened by the security police, and their contents, including information about his effort to recruit new members, were noted on his file, in which the police wrote the word Nazi.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have found another thing to blame on the climate demon El Nino: civil strife within poor tropical countries.

A study released Wednesday finds a significant increase in unrest during the years of an El Nino, a regular climatic event that warms the central Pacific Ocean.

They say one out of five conflicts over a 55-year period were influenced partly and somehow by El Nino. It is not the only or main cause, but 48 civil wars or uprisings had an El Nino influence factor. That influence was seen only in mostly tropical countries.

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — A North Idaho man charged with illegally killing a female grizzly bear that supporters say wandered into his yard where his children were playing has pleaded not guilty in federal court.

Jeremy M. Hill, 33, of Porthill was arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Coeur d’Alene on a misdemeanour charge of unlawfully taking a federally protected species.

Ah, Sweden: Birthplace of Ikea, Meatballs and Sexualized - RedState

Kindergarten children in Basel, Switzerland will be presented this year with fabric models of human genitalia in a “sex box” to teach them that “contacting body parts can be pleasurable.”

The kit for teachers to give sex-education lessons to primary school children uses models and recommends having children massage each other or to rub themselves with warm sand bags, accompanied by soft music, according to The Local, a Swiss newspaper in English.

“Children should be encouraged to develop and experience their sexuality in a pleasurable way,” Daniel Schneider, a deputy kindergarten rector for Basel who helped develop the sex ed curriculum along with experts, had said earlier this year.

Education officials who have reportedly been flooded with over 3000 complaints from outraged parents have agreed to change the program’s name, but will do nothing to stop the materials from being distributed in schools, according to The Local.

Christoph Eymann, Basel education minister and member of the liberal democrat party (LDP), told the paper SonntagsBlick, “It was no doubt stupid to call it a ‘sex box’ – we will change that.

“But we will stick to our goal: to get across to children that sexuality is something natural. Without forcing anything upon them or taking anything away from their parents.”

Eymann said he understood that one line in the programme, “touching can be enjoyed heartily”, could be misconstrued, but insisted: “It is not about ‘touch me, feel me’. We want to tell the children that there is contact that they may find pleasurable, but some that they should say ’no’ to. Kids can unfortunately can become victims of sexual violence already at playschool age.

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