Last Week in Denmark (03.10 - 10.10) Episode 33
Deportation is DF’s last wish! Speed cameras; Pandora Papers; Nobel Prize
Editor HQ
One part of Denmark's beating 💓 is represented by the sport clubs. People here tend to go at least twice a week to the sports club, either as participants or volunteers (trainer, manager, etc.). Around these sport clubs communities grow.
When we talk about the integration of newcomers, we should look at the sport clubs as a tool. "Integration through inclusion" is a much stronger tool than "Get integrated or we deport you".
Some sport clubs excel at including non-Danes amongst their ranks. One very good example is the football club Nordens Paris (Aalborg), started in 2016 by AaB player Lucas Andersen. At the initiative of Jonas Nørgaard, the club decided to include non-Danish speakers, by adopting English as a working language. Today, dozens of internationals are calling the club their home.
Public Health HQ
Status: 76,1% of the population has been vaccinated (4,460,485 people). 74,7% of the population has received the second vaccine shot (4,383,736 people). 83,2% have received Pfizer/BioNTech; 12,4% Moderna; 3,4% AstraZeneca and 1% Johnson&Johnson. The region with the highest vaccination rate - North Denmark (78%).
Corona infection status: There is an average of 500 new infected people every day. 88 people are hospitalized. The five municipalities with the highest rate of infection are: Albertslund, Brøndby, Ishøj, Lolland and Gladsaxe. Check out more data here.
Travel Guidelines: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, updates every week (on Saturday) the travel guidelines, by dividing the world into three colours (red, yellow and green).
This week's changes - Sweden and Portugal switched to green. Lithuania switched to yellow. If you travel from a yellow country to Denmark, you need to have a corona pass (vaccinated, infected before or recently tested). If you are vaccinated, the colour system doesn’t apply to you, you can travel anywhere you want.
Moderna vaccine and young people: After an unpublished Nordic study (in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) pointed out a suspicion that the Moderna vaccine could have a very rare side-effect, heart inflammation, among young people under 18, the four countries decided to not offer the Moderna vaccine to that age group. According to the Danish Health Agency, the Moderna vaccine was never offered to young people under 18. Keep in mind that this is just preliminary data and the four countries only acted as a precaution.
Antibiotics: Consumption of antibiotics has decreased 22% in the last 10 years. The biggest decline in usage has been seen in children between 0 and 9 years old, where it decreased by 54%. Also the usage of antibiotics for animals has decreased, with some types of antibiotics completely phased out. There is a national plan to reduce antibiotics consumption, to avoid a future where antibiotics simply don’t work.
Danish Politics HQ
Agriculture climate agreement: The government together with a broad majority in the Parliament have made a climate agreement regarding the future of agriculture:
55 to 65% reduction in greenhouse emissions until 2030.
3.8 billion dkk in investments to help the green transformation of the agriculture
613 million dkk for the establishment of private forests on former agricultural land.
575 million dkk for the development of new technologies and measures that can reduce greenhouse emissions within agriculture.
396 million dkk for brown biorefining and pyrolysis.
260 million dkk for grass biorefining and production of various types of green proteins for humans and animals.
964 million dkk to support the establishment of young farmers. (who can apply for up to 750.000 dkk)
Psychologist help for politicians: The municipality of Slagelse decided to allow local politicians the opportunity to see a psychologist free of charge if they experienced harassment or received threats.
Inger Støjberg and DF’s last wish: The infamous former integration minister together with the Danish People’s Party proposed a law to deport certain groups of immigrants until 2030. The aim? 70% of all the immigrants that either committed a crime or don’t speak Danish or have been long unemployed to be deported. In their estimate, 50.000 people should be deported. Luckily for us, Inger is closer to jail than politics and DF is giving it’s last dying breath.
Re-opening the Danish Parliament: On the 5th of October, the Danish Parliament restarted work after a long summer vacation. As customary, prime minister Mette Frederiksen opened the Parliament with a “state of the country” kind of speech.
Her speech was focused on climate, environment and green transition. Main remarks:
“Imagine a future where the air in Denmark is completely clean”
“Electric cars that are affordable.”
“Eating more green, locally-sourced products. “Measures - phase out gas and oil production; recycle more waste; reorganize road transport; make agriculture more sustainable and introduce a CO2 tax”.
“Denmark doesn’t have raw materials, we make a living from being skilled and innovative”
“We need to adapt our education system to the new era with robots and AI. To be prepared for the digital and green revolution.”
“Families with ordinary income should afford to live in the cities. We will build 20,000 houses within the big cities in the next few years that will have a capped rent at max. 8,000 dkk/monthly.”
Danish Economy HQ
Danske Bank, again: The bank clerks discovered an error while fixing other errors in old customer cases. This error might affect 140,000 customers. They are talking about interest on reminder fees that shouldn’t have been collected.
Daily Life in Denmark HQ
Don’t rush this week! The police will set up extra speed cameras across the country, from Monday to Friday. Unfortunately, high speed is still the cause of 4 out of 10 fatal accidents in Denmark.
Case study: An Iraqi-Norwegian was passing through North Denmark with his newly-acquired Lamborghini from Germany, for which he paid 2 million dkk. Unfortunately for him, he was driving 236 kilometers per hour, which meant he came under the incidence of the “insane driving” law and the police seized his Lamborghini.
Nurse crisis: 3450 nurse positions opened in the last five months, could not be occupied due to a lack of applicants or applicants with the right skills. That represents 47% of all nurse positions opened in the first part of the year. Why? The current conflict between the nurses and the government (which continues through illegal strikes) is about salary level, working hours and conditions and job prestige. However, there is also a clear shortage of people with nurse education.
Culture Night: For more than 27 years, Culture Night has been one of Copenhagen's most well-attended cultural events. More than 250 museums, theatres, libraries, churches, ministries and parks throughout the city welcome the public during Copenhagen's biggest annual one-day event, and the exciting events show that the city embraces many aspects of its cultural life.
The World in 2021 HQ
Pandora Papers: 11.9 million leaked documents which expose hidden wealth, tax evasion and money laundering among 330 politicians, including 35 national leaders, and numerous celebrities worldwide, including 130 billionaires, totaling 29,000 beneficiaries among 27,000 companies. This is the largest offshore data leak in history, surpassing the Panama Papers by nearly half a million documents.
Facebook blackout: A quite disruptive event happened Monday afternoon, that we all felt (and maybe discussed on Twitter and Reddit), as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp have stopped working for 6 hours. The company lost billions in revenue and made a lot of people very angry, with some even calling 112 to report the blackout.
Facebook vs. democracy: Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, told U.S. lawmakers that the company's sites and apps "harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy".
Windows 11: Windows 11, the latest version of Microsoft's computer operating system, launched worldwide as a free upgrade for Windows 10 users.
The First movie filmed in space: The space race continues, with the latest milestone being, who shoots a feature fiction film first in space. To the horror of the Americans, the Russians are first once again, with actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko going into space this week to start filming for the movie “The Challenge” for a whole week.
Delivery drones in India: COVID-19 vaccines are delivered with commercial drones to remote areas in order to speed up the country’s vaccination drive.
Malaria vaccine for children in Africa: Humanity (especially children) has been plagued by malaria for millennia. Now, children across Africa can be vaccinated with the newly-developed malaria vaccine. A great medical achievement that took almost a century.
World’s largest under-sea electricity cable: The interconnector began transferring power between Norway and the United Kingdom. At its full 1,400 megawatt capacity, the interconnector is expected to supply at least 1.4 million homes with electricity.
European Union HQ
Nobel Prize in Physics: Syukuro Manabe (Japan), Klaus Hasselmann (Germany) and Giorgio Parisi (Italy) received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics for “the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it, as well as revolutionizing the theory of disordered materials and random processes”.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Benjamin List (Germany) and David W.C. MacMillan (UK) received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “their development of a precise new tool for molecular construction: organocatalysis. This has had a great impact on pharmaceutical research, and has made chemistry greener”.
Nobel Prize in Medicine: David Julius (USA) and Ardem Patapoutian (Lebanon) received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of receptors for temperature and touch. ”Their discoveries have unlocked one of the secrets of nature by explaining the molecular basis for sensing heat, cold and mechanical force, which is fundamental for our ability to feel, interpret and interact with our internal and external environment.”
Nobel Prize in Literature: Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania) received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature for “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
Nobel Peace Prize: Maria Ressa (Philippines) and Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov (Russia) received the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”. Maria Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines. Dmitry Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.
EU vs. Poland - Episode “The Constitution strikes back”: The politically-controlled Polish Constitutional Court ruled that the Polish Constitution comes first, ahead of EU law. This is a direct challenge of the European Union law primacy that Poland accepted when they joined the Union in 2004.
EU response to Pandora Papers: EU tax commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told the European Parliament that the European Commission will present new legislative proposals to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion by the end of the year.