The former senior figures had been accused of leaking state secrets about intelligence partnership with the US
Denmark’s former defence minister and ex-spy chief have spoken of their relief after prosecutors dramatically dropped criminal charges accusing them of leaking state secrets.
Prosecutors said this week they would withdraw the cases after Denmark’s highest court made a series of rulings preventing the prosecution from holding the trials in secret.
Continue reading...Danish company has axed 6,500 of those roles already, with global economic slowdown taking toll
One of the world’s largest shipping companies, Møller-Maersk, is cutting 10,000 jobs because of a drop in demand triggered by the global economic slowdown.
The Danish company said it had already started cutting staff but was planning on “intensifying” cost-saving measures in order to safeguard its financial performance as price forecasts worsened.
Continue reading...Audit finds ‘little to no improvement’ in health of sea between 2016 and 2021, as Swedish coastguard battles oil spill
The Baltic Sea faces “critical challenges” due to the climate crisis and degradation of biodiversity, a report has said, as Sweden’s coastguard battled to contain the impact of an oil spill off the country’s southern shore.
In the most comprehensive audit of its kind to date, experts at the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helcom) said on Tuesday there had been “little to no improvement” in the health of the body of water between 2016 and 2021.
Continue reading...Poll of 6,752 people of African descent in 13 countries finds almost half have experienced discrimination
Racism is “pervasive and relentless” and on the rise in Europe, with nearly half of black people in member states surveyed by the EU reporting discrimination, from the verbal abuse of their children to being blocked by landlords from renting homes.
In every walk of life, from schools to the job market, housing and health, a survey by the EU’s rights agency of people of African descent found high levels of discrimination, with some of the worst results recorded in Austria and Germany, where far-right parties have been on the rise.
Continue reading...Group of 67 claim they were fitted with an IUD between 1966 and 1970 without consent or knowledge
Dozens of Greenlandic women who say they were fitted with the contraceptive coil without their consent or knowledge are planning to sue the Danish state.
The group of 67 women, some of whom were as young as 12 when they say they were fitted with an IUD by Danish doctors in an attempt to reduce Greenland’s population, are among the 4,500 women and girls affected between 1966 and 1970.
Continue reading...Researchers in Norway reveal further analysis of 2022 explosions as well as a detailed timeline of events
Scientists investigating the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines have revealed key new details of explosions linked to the event, which remains unsolved on its first anniversary.
Researchers in Norway shared with the Guardian seismic evidence of the four explosions, becoming the first national body to publicly confirm the second two detonations, as well as revealing a detailed timeline of events.
Continue reading...Jens Haaning must return about 532,000 krone loaned by Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, court says
A Danish artist who pocketed large sums of money lent to him by a museum – and submitted empty frames as his artwork – has been ordered by a court to repay the funds.
Jens Haaning, a conceptual artist whose work focuses on power and inequality, was commissioned in 2021 by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, northern Denmark, to recreate two earlier works that used scores of banknotes to represent average incomes.
Continue reading...Passengers in isolation with virus as Ocean Explorer remains stuck in Alpefjord national park
Three people on board a cruise ship run aground in Greenland’s Alpefjord national park have Covid-19, the ship’s operator, Australia-based Aurora Expeditions, has confirmed, but a passenger aboard says everybody remains in “good spirits”.
The Australian-operated Ocean Explorer, which is carrying 206 passengers and crew, ran aground while touring the national park on Monday, around 1,400km north-east of Greenland’s capital Nuuk.
Continue reading...There are no reports of injuries on the Ocean Explorer, which was grounded in the remote Northeast Greenland National Park
A cruise ship with 206 passengers and crew onboard has run aground in north-west Greenland, and remained stuck even after high tide.
Cmdr Brian Jensen of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command said that nobody on board was in danger and that no damage has been reported, but added that officials “take this incident very seriously”.
Continue reading...Almost £7bn wiped off value of world’s largest offshore wind company over possible £1.8bn write-down
Shares in the world’s largest offshore wind company have tumbled by nearly a quarter after it said it may have to write down the value of its US portfolio by nearly £2bn.
Ørsted said it had been hit by a flurry of setbacks in its American business, triggering a rapid sell-off in its shares, listed in Copenhagen.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president also meets leaders of Serbia and Croatia in bid to broaden support base
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s high-speed tour of Europe’s smaller countries continued in Athens on Tuesday, where he obtained further military and diplomatic support after securing a long-awaited commitment on the provision of F-16s at the weekend.
The Ukrainian president met Serbia’s president and Croatia’s prime minister at a Balkans summit in the Greek capital, while a day earlier Greece’s prime minister had said his country would help train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets.
Continue reading...Danish PM says country will provide 19 in stages when pilot training is completed as Dutch counterpart pledges up to 42 planes
The Netherlands and Denmark have announced they will donate up to 61 F-16 fighter jets between them to Ukraine once pilot training has been satisfactorily completed, as Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited both countries after months of entreaties to bolster the Ukrainian air force.
Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said her country would provide 19 jets – “hopefully” six around new year, eight more next year and the remaining five in 2025. “Please take this donation as a token of Denmark’s unwavering support for your country’s fight for freedom,” Frederiksen said.
Continue reading...Collaborative ‘series of bites’ to be served up as Noma looks to a future without its celebrated Copenhagen restaurant
Noma, the three-Michelin-star Danish restaurant that shocked foodies by announcing it would close at the end of 2024, is coming to London – for one day only – as it rolls out a series of spin-off ventures including its own seaweed farm on a remote fjord.
The Copenhagen restaurant, which charges 3,950 Danish kroner (£453) a person for a tasting menu of mostly foraged vegetables, will next month collaborate with a Mexican restaurant in Marylebone and a cocktail bar in Sea Containers House on the South Bank.
Continue reading...Secretary of state Antony Blinken confers ‘full support’ for transfer of F-16s and training of pilots
The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says in a letter seen by the Reuters news agency.
Washington will expedite the approval of transfer requests for F-16s, the letter – sent to Blinken’s counterparts in Denmark and the Netherlands – was reported to say. The US must approve the transfer of the military jets from its allies to Ukraine.
Continue reading...North of continent records unusually wet and windy summer conditions while Portugal and Spain battle flames
Floods struck northern and central Europe last week. Some areas of Slovenia recorded more than 200mm of rain in 12 hours on Thursday and Friday, causing extensive flooding across two-thirds of the country. Many buildings and roads were damaged, at an estimated cost of €500m (£432m), and six deaths were reported.
Storm Hans hit the Baltic region a few days later. Hans originated as an area of low pressure over eastern Europe, but quickly deepened as it travelled northwards towards the Baltic Sea. The low was unusually deep for a summer storm, and led to daily rainfall totals of 80 to 100mm in parts of southern Norway and Sweden earlier this week.
Continue reading...Disagreement over possible successors may mean secretary general is asked to remain in role at next month’s summit in Lithuania
Political disagreements, vetoes and personal reluctance make it increasingly likely that the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, will be asked to remain in post for another year at the Nato summit in Lithuania next month.
It would be the third time the former Norwegian prime minister has been asked to extend his almost 10-year term.
Continue reading...Member states vote to relocate the office to Denmark by the end of the year, in response to health impacts of Ukraine conflict
Member states of the World Health Organization voted on Wednesday to move a Moscow-based office of the WHO to Copenhagen, and urged Russia to stop attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine.
At the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, 80 member states voted to request the WHO secretariat to relocate the European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases to Denmark before the new year.
Continue reading...Exclusive: YouGov survey in seven countries tested backing for government and individual action on crisis
Many Europeans are alarmed by the climate crisis and would willingly take personal steps and back government policies to help combat it, a survey suggests – but the more a measure would change their lifestyle, the less they support it.
The seven-country YouGov survey tested backing for state-level climate action, such as banning single-use plastics and scrapping fossil-fuel cars, and individual initiatives including buying only secondhand clothes and giving up meat and dairy products.
Continue reading...Submarine rescue vessel SS-750 was photographed in Baltic four days before still-unexplained explosions, says Danish newspaper
A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just prior to the mysterious September blasts, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information.
The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage confirmed the existence of the hitherto publicly unknown photographs.
Continue reading...Artefacts believed to date back to 980s found by girl metal-detecting in cornfield last autumn
Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.
The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn.
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