Residents of a wealthy Stockholm suburb have complained to the police about a tour agency’s plan to run ‘high-society safaris’ in their neighbourhood. Read the full story

Many local government officials, businesspeople and media personalities in Iceland are on higher wages than the Prime Minister, it has come to light. Read the full story

Tax figures for 2010 have been made public today in Iceland. The yearly event allows media and other interested parties to make a good guess at what any individual earned during the last year. Read the full story

The centre of Oslo is “becoming like Manhattan”, according to the leader of the council who claims “only the richest can afford to live” in Norway’s capital city. Read the full story

Experts warn that figures suggesting that the average Danish bank balance is DKK 179,000 (USD 28,700) may be misleading. Read the full story

The Scandinavian/Nordic countries can invariably be found atop prosperity indices, with Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark all perennial leaders in quality-of-life surveys. Read the full story

There is one day each year when the results from the previous year’s tax returns are made public. After submitting tax returns for 2008 at the end of the winter, people were yesterday able to find out whether their own personal tax payments needed topping up or if they were in line for a pleasant rebate. Today, for a very limited time, we are able to reveal the tax payments of some of the wealthiest members of Icelandic society. Read the full story

The First Lady of Iceland, Dorrit Moussaieff, has been sued by her neighbour in London, Tiggy Butler. Butler, who is also an interior designer, has been pressing charges against First Lady Moussaieff because of alleged aggressive behaviour and threats made by the First Lady. According to the news source, Daily Mail, the two ladies each own a flat in the same building near the wealthy London neighbourhood of Knightsbridge. Read the full story

Food prices across the globe have been increasing this year and even the wealthy nation of Sweden has been affected. National Geographic News recently reported how skyrocketing costs for basic commodities had affected the Scandinavian country.

Where increasing costs for wheat and rice have devastated poor countries, there is little sign of it impacting downtown Stockholm.

Per Lindelof manages a restaurant in Stockholm. He said: “We’ve had to put up the price of some of our dishes, but business is better this year if anything.”

His restaurant is famous for hosting a banquet for winners of the Nobel Prize. In 2007, the establishment, which is located inside City Hall, charged 1450 Swedish kronor (USD 244) a head for the meal.

One of the restaurant’s most popular meals is the lobster velouté (USD 30) to start and a main course of fillet of turbot (USD 55). “The turbot has really gone up a lot,” Lindelöf said.

Between April 2007 and April 2008, Statistics Sweden noted that overall costs increased by 7.3 per cent. Food staples, however, have increased more dramatically. Fruit increased by 12 per cent, bread increased by 10.9 per cent and dairy rose in price by 10.4 per cent over the course of the last year.

In developing nations, these increases in food prices have resulted in violence, strikes and riots, but the markets and restaurants of Stockholm show little sign of being affected.

Anders Palacios is the head chef at a traditional Swedish restaurant in the Kungsholmen district, Master Anders.

“Beef has gone up the most, but Swedish meats are always very expensive. I guess fish has increased too,” he said. “We have raised prices on our menu recently, but not too much because I don’t want to intimidate people. It hasn’t affected the number of customers. It’s a busy place.”