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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Friday

Find out what's going on in Denmark today with The Local's short roundup of the news in less than five minutes.

Falling leaves in a Danish forest. Denmark wants to vaccinate a number of groups against influenza with autumn on the way.
Denmark wants to vaccinate a number of groups against influenza with autumn on the way. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Foreign ministry warns of potential travel issues after booster to Johnson & Johnson vaccine 

Around 50,000 people who were vaccinated against Covid-19 with the one-dose jab from Johnson & Johnson are set to be offered a booster vaccine in the near future.

But the Foreign Ministry has warned that people who receive the booster – which will be a dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, rather than Johnson & Johnson – risk running afoul of travel restrictions on trips to other countries during the upcoming autumn school holidays.

That is because rules on double vaccination with mixed jabs vary between countries, while anyone vaccinated with a single dose of Johnson & Johnson is uniformly considered fully vaccinated.

“It’s not certain that countries will have addressed this until after the autumn holidays and you could therefor risk not being able to enter if you have received jab number two,” Erik Brøgger Rasmussen, director of the ministry’s citizen service (Borgerservice), told broadcaster DR.

We’ll have further detail in an article this morning.

Central bank decreases interest rates in response to strong krone 

The central bank, Nationalbanken, is to lower interest rates in response to the krone’s currently strong position against the euro.

Interest rates for current accounts, savings and loans will all decrease by 0.1 percent, to 0.6 percent, 0.6 percent and 0.45 percent respectively.

Nationalbanken is required to maintain a consistent exchange rate between the krone and the euro.

We’ll have more detail on this in an article today.

Free influenza jabs offered to selected groups 

Free influenza groups are offered for the next three weeks from today to pregnant women in the second and third trimesters, health sectors workers and people with chronic diseases.

The Danish Health Authority wants to vaccinate 95 percent of the groups.

Young children are also set to be offered influenza vaccines this month, as health authorities attempt to ward off a higher number of seasonal influenza cases than usual.

READ ALSO: Denmark to give flu vaccines to young children from October 

Police confiscate 510 cars in 6 months with new reckless driving laws

As many as 510 cars have been impounded by police since new laws allowing stronger responses to reckless driving were introduced half a year ago, DR writes.

That amounts to almost three cars a day.

Under the new rules, cars or motorcycles can be confiscated if drivers are more than 100 percent over the speed limit or for driving recklessly with a blood alcohol content of 2.0 permille by mass.

Meanwhile, 623 charges have been pressed against drivers in 586 cases.

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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: a roundup of the news on Wednesday

Støjberg attacks Rasmussen for relaxing tough migration laws, Danish IT company declared bankrupt, 'no quick fix' for cancer waiting lists, and record number of foreigners came to work in Denmark in 2022. Here's some of the morning's news from Denmark.

Today in Denmark: a roundup of the news on Wednesday

Denmark Democrat leader attacks government for relaxing migration policy

Inger Støjberg, the leader of the far-right Denmark Democrats, has attacked the government, and in particular Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen for relaxing immigration policy, and ignoring the principle that refugees who no longer need Denmark’s protection should go home. 

Støjberg was arguably Denmark’s most hardline ever immigration minister during Rasmussen’s second term as prime minister between 2015 and 2019. Both Støjberg and Rasmussen have since left the centre-right Liberal Party to form their own parties. 

As migration minister, Støjberg brought in a law allowing police to strip refugees of their jewellery, a ban on Islamic face veils, and a requirement that all those getting citizenship shake the hand of the mayor. 

“I carried it in my heart,” she said of those policies. “That is why I am infinitely sad that Lars Løkke Rasmussen did not take it to heart and is now doing away with the cornerstone, which is to send people home who no longer need our protection.”

Rasmussen has since called these measures “gesture politics”, saying that were only adopted to put pressure on the Social Democrats. 

However, he accused Støjberg of “overdoing it and overinterpreting things”.

“I completely agree that when you apply for asylum, it is because there is a special situation, and if it changes, you have to go home,” he said. “It just can’t be such a hard-boiled point of view, because then you have a heart of ice if you can’t also look at it a little practically.”

Danish vocab: grundstenen – the cornerstone

Danish IT company declared bankrupt after revelations

The Danish IT company Meew has been declared bankrupt by Denmark’s commercial court, weeks after it cancelled a listing on the Spotlight exchange in Stockholm following revelations that its founder fabricated qualifications. 

The Finans newspaper revealed in mid-March that Meew founder and managing director Armin Kavousi had falsely claimed to have a doctorate and to have been a brain researcher, among other things falsely claiming to have a master’s in neuroscience from Aston University in Great Britain. 

The following day, the company’s board resigned, and the stock market listing was abandoned.

“They tried to investigate whether there was an opportunity to transfer the healthy parts of the company,” Per Astrup Madsen, a partner in the law firm DLA Piper, told Finans. “There was contact with an investor, but it has not ended up with an actual agreement. Therefore, there was no basis for allowing the reconstruction to continue.” 

Danish vocab: at blive erklæret konkurs – to be declared bankrupt

‘No quick fix’ for Danish cancer waiting lists: health minister

Health Minister Sophie Løhde said on Thursday that she “deeply regrets” missed deadlines for bowel cancer treatment at Aarhus University Hospital, but that the government does not have an immediate fix for the problem.

Danish law requires cancer patients to be operated on within two weeks of the decision to operate being made.

Broadcaster DR recently reported that 182 patients had waited too long for an operation at Aarhus University Hospital (AUH). Following DR’s report, a Region Central Jutland survey found that 293 patients had waited for more than the two weeks prescribed by law over the past year.

Løhde was asked at a briefing on Tuesday whether bowel cancer patients at AUH can now expected to be operated on within two weeks.

“In reality, that should have happened the entire time. I can’t stand here and guarantee that it will happen again tomorrow or the next day, as much as I’d like to,” she said.

“What I can guarantee is that this has the utmost attention on the part of the government.”

Danish vocab: dybt beklageligt – deeply regrettable

‘Record number’ of foreigners move to Denmark for work

A record number of people moved to Denmark from abroad for work reasons in 2022, according to national agency Statistics Denmark.

A total of 31,600 people moved to Denmark to work last yer, according to a Statistics Denmark review released on Tuesday.

The figure corresponds to a 24 percent increase compared to 2021 and is the highest in the history of the statistic, which goes back to 1997.

The average number of work immigrants in the decade prior to 2022 was 21,000 people.

Specifically, the number describes the amount of people who were given work permits in Denmark in a given year.

Danish vocab: rekordmange – a record number (literally “record many”) 

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