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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Thursday

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

Northern city Aalborg is one of the worst-affected areas as snowy weather disrupts Denmark.
Northern city Aalborg is one of the worst-affected areas as snowy weather disrupts Denmark. Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

Intensification of Covid-19 vaccine push 

Coronavirus infections are at an all-time high and seven cases of the omicron variant have so far been detected in Denmark.

This formed the backdrop to a government briefing yesterday evening at which Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen again led calls for more people to take a Covid-19 vaccination.

While Frederiksen has previously focused on unvaccinated people, this time she asked the public to accept the offer of a booster jab as soon as possible. Boosters will be offered to all over-18s six months after the original vaccination course was completed.

Vaccination capacity is to be ramped up to enable 500,000 jabs per week, the government said at the briefing.

We’ll have more on this story in a report on our website today.

READ ALSO: How foreign citizens can get a booster Covid-19 jab in Denmark

Snow falling across the country

Much of the country is again waking up to snowfall or snow on the ground, with the white stuff moving east across the country and particularly affecting parts of Funen, Zealand and Bornholm.

Temperatures this morning are above freezing during, however, so ground snow should melt during the day.

Stormy weather meanwhile caused a temporary closure of the Great Belt Bridge at around 5am. Icy roads have caused a number of traffic accidents.

Snow strands staff and customers in Ikea

Have you ever been to Ikea to pick up a few bits for your home, only to end up feeling you’ll never leave?

Six customers and 25 staff members were forced to spend the night in the furniture giant’s Aalborg branched after being snowed in, local media Nordjyske writes.

“This is certainly a new situation for us,” store manager Peter Elmose said.

Aalborg Airport passengers forced to sleep in terminal

At least Ikea Aalborg’s stranded customers and staff will have had somewhere comfortable to lay their heads.

The same probably cannot be said for 300 passengers at the city’s airport, who were also forced to stay at the terminal overnight after the airport was forced to stop flights from 2:30pm yesterday amid worsening weather, which also prevented buses from transferring passengers to hotels.

“We have around 300 people in the terminal right now and have been giving out blankets on the assumption they will be staying here tonight,” operations manager Kim Bermann told Nordjyske.

Danish Oscar hopeful sketches human face of Afghan refugee crisis

“Flee,” an award-winning Danish film about a gay Afghan refugee undertaking the perilous journey to Europe, puts a real-life human face on the country’s decades-long crisis while simultaneously keeping its subject anonymous — through animation.

Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s hybrid documentary, which won the Sundance festival’s jury prize and is Denmark’s official candidate for next year’s Oscars, stems from his teenage friendship with a refugee from Afghanistan, whom he has given the cover name Amin.

“I had the curiosity about his past ever since I met him when we were 15 years old, and he arrived to my Danish hometown,” Rasmussen, now 40, told news wire AFP.

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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Tuesday

Right wing party defends use of Mette Frederiksen deepfake, parties want mink breeder compensation cut, Billie Eilish announces Royal Arena concerts and more news from Denmark on Tuesday.

Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Tuesday

Party criticised over deepfake satire video of prime minister 

The far-right Danish People’s Party (DF) has been criticised for sharing a video that uses ‘deepfake’ techniques to misrepresent Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

In the video, Frederiksen is made to appear as if she is saying the government plans to cancel Christmas, Easter and Pentecost holidays after already scrapping Great Prayer Day.

A small stamp is visible in the corner of the video signalling that it is not real footage of Frederiksen.

The centre-left Socialist People’s Party (SF) and the Liberal (Venstre) party, a partner in the coalition government, have both criticised the video.

“DF’s AI video of the prime minister is very funny in terms of content, but a political party using deepfakes is extremely concerning and I don’t think DF actually understands the potential for (ab)use of deepfakes,” SF’s digital spokesperson Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen tweeted.

DF leader Morten Messerschmidt has rejected the criticism, saying the video was clearly meant as satire.

Vocabulary: satirisk – satirical

Politicians call for lower compensation price for mink skins

SF and the Social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) want the state compensation mink fur farmers to be renegotiated. Both parties voted for the compensation plan in 2021.

The parties new positions come after a commission concluded that the most realistic unit price of a mink fur is lower than the price used to set compensation, media Zetland writes based on a leaked document.

The Social Liberal food spokesperson Christian Friis Bach called the issue a “scandal” in comments to Zetland.

Mink breeders receive compensation based on a price of 333 kroner per skin, while the commission has ruled that the most likely price is 247 kroner.

READ ALSO: Danish mink fur breeders received ‘too much compensation’

Vocabulary: afgørelse – ruling

Billie Eilish to play two concerts in Copenhagen in 2025

One of the world’s biggest names in pop music will play to fans in Copenhagen next year after Billie Eilish announced two dates at the capital’s Royal Arena almost a year to the day, on April 28th and 29th 2025.

The concerts, confirmed by Live Nation Denmark in a press release, are part of Eilish’s upcoming world tour “Hit Me Hard and Soft”, in which she will play across Europe as well as in Australia and the United States.

Ticket sales for the two concerts will begin on Friday, according to the press release, with prices starting at 440 kroner.

Vocabulary: verdensstjerne – international star/celebrity

Foreign workers in Denmark ‘create 300 billion kroner of value’

Almost one in eight people in paid employment in Denmark is a foreign national, meaning workers from abroad create a huge amount of value for the country, the Confederation of Danish Industry said in a new analysis.

Based on Statistics Denmark data DI found that, between 2013 and 2023, the number of foreign nationals working full-time in paid employment in Denmark increased from 147,000 to 309,000.

The 2023 level is equivalent to 13 percent of overall employment in Denmark being attributable to foreign labour, DI said.

“You cannot overestimate the importance of international labour in Denmark,” DI’s deputy director Steen Nielsen said in a statement.

“If they had not been here and made the contribution they do, we’d not have been able to produce goods, treat the sick or build the amount of houses we need,” he said.

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