Theme: Sweden

Supermarket chains in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg said the temperatures of their refrigerators and freezers in dozens of stores rose overnight, raising fears of a cyber-attack similar to one that caused millions of euros in food losses in France. In Sweden, the Coop chain told the daily Aftonbladet that six of its stores had been affected, and ICA said a “limited number” of stores had their refrigeration and freezer systems impacted.

Dozens of supermarkets in Belgium and Sweden have been hit by a suspected cyber-attack affecting refrigerators and freezers, according to the BBC. In Belgium, around 40 Delhaize stores and 15 Carrefour stores were affected; in Sweden, ICA and Coop shops, and thirteen SuperValu shops in Ireland. Thousands of euros worth of food had to be thrown away, according to local media reports, and one ICA store in Sweden said its freezers' temperatures had been set to 50 C (122F).

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford, “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, according to the official announcement. The laureates’ models, used by central banks and governments, allow well-timed fiscal and monetary policy measures to reduce the economy’s peaks and troughs.

Sweden will deploy Patriot missile defence systems to eastern Poland to help protect the NATO logistics hub that supplies weapons to Ukraine, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Sweden’s Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson said on Monday, September 28, that she had failed to form a government with the three other parties in the left-wing bloc after the country’s September 13 general election. “Based on the discussions I have had, I can conclude overall that there is currently no possibility for me to form a government,” she told reporters. The speaker of parliament is expected to task another party leader, likely outgoing Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who currently leads a caretaker government, with trying to form a new government. Kristersson’s right-wing bloc, which includes the far-right Sweden Democrats party, narrowly lost the election, by 176 seats to 173, and will struggle to find a majority in parliament, according to Le Monde.

Swedish and Finnish fighter jets were scrambled on Thursday, September 24, to intercept and identify Russian military aircraft, CGTN reports, citing the Finnish Air Force. Reuters also recorded the interception of a Russian military aircraft by Swedish and Finnish jets.