Fire at old stock exchange building ‘under control’

Danish rescue services said Tuesday that the fire that engulfed Copenhagen’s 17th-century former stock exchange, ravaging the building and toppling its iconic spire, was “under control.”

Amid flames and black smoke, the 54-metre (180-foot) spire crashed into the street below the Borsen building on Tuesday morning, which had been undergoing renovation. Shortly after 4pm, rescue services said the fire had been brought under control.

“The fire is under control to the extent that we at this moment are dealing with what we call final extinguishing,” director of emergency services Jakob Vedsted Andersen told a press conference, adding the work would continue for “many hours”.

He said that half of the building was more or less burnt. Earlier in the day, witnesses watched in tears as more than 100 firefighters battled to save the building.

Martin Henriksen voted in as leader of Nye Borgerlige party  

Martin Henriksen, a former MP for the far-right Danish People’s Party has been voted in as the new chairman of the rival far-right Nye Borgerlige party, replacing the party’s founder, Pernille Vermund, who has moved to the Liberal Alliance. 

Henriksen joined the party in June 2023, and became the party’s lead MEP a few months later, shortly dropping his candidacy to help rescue the party following Vermund’s departure. 

“Now we have to start the work. There is no doubt that we have a lot of work ahead of us,” Henriksen said after winning the vote. “There is a lack of a system-critical party towards the power elite in Denmark. There is a great distance between politicians and people in society. Most people feel that the decisions that are made, they are made over their heads.” 

Danish vocabulary: beslutninger der bliver truffet – decisions that get made 

Excavation complete for tunnel between Lolland and Germany 

The excavation of the 18km Fehmarnbelt tunnel between Denmark and Germany has been completed after almost three years, Femern A/S, which is part of Sund og Bælt, said in a press release on Tuesday.

“This is by far the largest excavation in Denmark’s history, and it has been a difficult task,” Pedro da Silva Jørgensen, the project’s Technical Deputy Director said in the release. 

The subsoil between Denmark and Germany is a complex mixture of different soil types, with the excavators meeting huge blocks of granite left over from the Ice Age, the largest of which weighed 70 tons. 

“This has given rise to some exciting challenges along the way, which we have managed to solve in collaboration with our contractors. That is why we are happy and proud that we have now reached the goal,” Jørgensen said. 

The tunnel is 18 kilometers long, and 15 million cubic meters of sand, stone and earth have been excavated from the seabed, creating approximately 300 hectares of new land off the coast at Rødbyhavn, which will in the long term become beaches and hiking trails.

Danish vocabulary: udgravningen – the excavation 

Denmark to shut down Iraq embassy 

Demark has decided to close down its embassy in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, just a few years after it last reopened in June 2021. 

Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said the embassy was being closed because the Danish role managing of NATO’s mission in Iraq had “ceased”,  meaning there were now far fewer Danish soldiers and civilians in Iraq.

The embassy was previously shut down in 2012 because “the phasing out of Danish bilateral engagement” was “nearing completion”.

It opened eight years later, however, to allow Denmark to take over the leadership of NATO’s training mission in Iraq, NMI.

Denmark ended its leadership in May 2022, but until the beginning of 2024 “continued to have a significant contribution to NMI, the ministry of foreign affairs said in a press release announcing the decision. 

Danish vocabulary: betydelig – significant