Amerikanska

Gothenburg Basketball Youth Festival

Come to our youth basketball tournament in Gothenburg, 13th to the 16th of May 2010. We are in our 32nd Year!

It is the largest in Europe with around 7000 participants from over ten European countries.

Warden Message - Phishing Emails claiming to be sent by the IRS

Dear American Citizen:

It is come to the Consular Section's attention that U.S. citizens living
abroad are receiving e-mail messages purportedly from the Internal
Revenue Service requesting personal financial information. Please note
that the IRS never requests information from taxpayers in this manner.

There is a new phishing scheme which is targeting non-resident aliens
(NRAs) by requesting that you complete an attached but fraudulent
W-8BEN. The official form W-8BEN does not request bank account details.
A correct copy of the W-8BEN can be found on the IRS website:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8ben.pdf.

U.S. Consul to Gothenburg September 21, 2009

Consul to Gothenburg on September 21, 2009

Consul Martin Tatuch will be in Gothenburg on September 21 to take applications for reports of births and passports, and to notarize documents that will be used in the U.S. Please note that we will not be able to accept applications for immigrant visas.

Appointments

In order to obtain an appointment, you must send the required documents for the service you need (passport, report of birth, notarization, etc.) to the Embassy in Stockholm in advance.

The appointments will take place on September 21, from 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Stockholm OPEN GYM: Basketball

If you live in Stockholm and love to play ball, the SSBL (Stockholm Street Basketball League) is the place to be. Stockholm OPEN GYM is set to launch the Winter Season 2009/2010.

Completed-The 2009 Amerikanska Donation Drive

Current: 1500 SEK
Goal: 1500 SEK

We have reached our goal, thanks to Kelly Larsson, Thomas Bengtsson, Ingrid Brandt and 5 anonymous donors.
__________

Those who've been here a while know what this is. It's an annual thing this time of year, started by the founder of the site, Flame. I am continuing on in that tradition, since Amerikanska is really your site.

Amerikanska is a non-profit and ad-free site. All work on the site is done voluntarily.

However, hosting a website costs money.

Currently, it's 1500 SEK per year. That includes costs for hosting the site and the domain, which comes due again in September. We had been talking about moving the website to another host, but decided that the excellent service provided by Datakultur could not be rivaled.

If you're able, please help keep Amerikanska going with a donation to help cover these costs. All donations go to the cost of hosting only, no one is paid to maintain it, not even myself. Only a maximum of 1500:- in donations will be accepted. In the event it happens to go over that, additional donations will be held to pay for the domain name and/or held for next year's costs.

Donations are voluntary, helping to keep the site both ad-free and free to use, which it has been since 2001.

Read on for details on how to help out...

Warden Message

On 02-19-2009, the U.S. Embassy was notified that there were reports on Stockholm Radio P4 regarding possible threats to American interests. A reporter on the radio apparently stated that individuals were passing out leaflets in Ronna, Södertälje encouraging the public to make Molotov cocktails and use them on shops selling American products.

The Regional Security Office of the U.S. Embassy has been in contact with the local police and other sources to determine the validity of the reports. At this time, this report has not been verified. However, due to the specific nature of the report, U.S. Embassy officials decided to share this information with the public.

Site Upgrade

To try to stem the ever increasing flow of SPAM on the site, we upgraded from PHPNuke 7.9 to 8.1 earlier in the evening. It went relatively well, with only one period of panic when we got a database error. That problem was quickly resolved and the site was back up in just a couple of hours.

Bringing Pets to Sweden/EU from US

How to bring cats (and dogs) to Sweden/EU:

Look at the proper websites yourself to confirm that the information given here is still up to date and accurate. The buck stops with you. Don�t expect your vet to know any of the requirements. You need to become the expert. It can take months to get the papers in order, so start early.

Sweden has different rules then EU. Depending on where you are coming in (Copenhagen or Stockholm), make sure you check out the different regulations. The differences are really minor. There is no �check point� coming from Denmark to Sweden.

From the U.S. Embassy: Consul to Gothenburg September 1 - 3

Consul to Gothenburg September 1 - September 3, 2008

Consul Jonas I. Wechsler will be in Gothenburg from September 1 to September 3 to take applications for reports of births and passports, and to notarize documents that will be used in the U.S. Please note that we will not be able to accept applications for immigrant visas.

Overseas Absentee Voting

Embassy of the United States of America
Stockholm

Warden Message: Overseas Absentee Voting

The General Election is on November 4, 2008.

Act now to register to vote and request an absentee ballot for the 2008 presidential and general elections!