Former leader of scandal-hit New Right party plans to return

Pernille Vermund, the co-founder and former leader of the New Right (Nye Borgerlige) party has announced plans to stand for election once again as party chairman with the hope of leading the party in the next general election. 

In January, Vermund announced that she would not stand for the far-right party in the next general election (likely in 2026), and would resign as leader of the far-right party.

Lars Boje Mathiesen then took over as new party leader on February 7th, only to be fired at the end of March after it emerged that he asked for 350,000 kroner to be transferred from party accounts to his own private account. 

“I am not stepping up again to be a career politician, but when duty calls, you step up,” Vermund told the broadcaster TV2 on Monday morning. “That’s how I was raised and that’s what I am doing now.” 

Danish vocab: når pligten kalder – when duty calls

Amateur treasure hunters’ gems go on display at Denmark’s National Museum

They may be derided elsewhere but in Denmark, hobby archaeologists who hunt treasures with metal detectors are such an asset that the National Museum has dedicated an entire exhibit to their finds.

“What they save now means the world for what we can do in the future and how we can build our museums,” exhibit curator Line Bjerg told AFP. “What they do really matters.”

In Denmark’s muddy soil, if objects “are not saved, then they are lost to history”, she added.

In three rooms on the museum’s bottom floor, visitors can learn about “detectorists” and admire some of their discoveries, including rings, necklaces and gold coins, all marked with the name of their finder.

SSI director warns of more pandemics in future

Henrik Ullum, director of Denmark’s SSI infectious diseases agency, has warned that the world is likely to see more global pandemics in the future, in an interview with the Poltiken newspaper held to mark the three-year anniversary of Denmark’s first lockdown. 

“We can in no way breathe a sigh of relief, even though we have put covid-19 behind us for a long time,” he said. “We saw with coronavirus how rapidly it spread from China to the rest of the world via plane passengers. In the old days, it could take many years for new diseases to spread, because man did not travel across the globe. It is different now.”

While he wouldn’t set a date for the next pandemic, he warned that rising temperatures, war, refugees, and modern industrial farming all came together to increase the risks. 

Danish vocab:  i fremtiden – in the future

Thousands queue online to access Danish tax returns

Over 77,000 people were on Friday morning waiting online to access their Danish tax returns – and find out whether they will receive a rebate from the tax agency.

At one point, the queue became so long that the Danish tax authority, Skat, paused the queue system to prevent it from growing further.

A message on the Skat.dk website read that “you cannot access” the portal.

“We apologise and will correct the error as quickly as possible. Leave the queue and log in again later,” the message read.

Danish vocab: en hjemmeside – a homepage