Denmark's queen: Living here doesn't make you Danish - The Local. “It’s not a law of nature that one becomes Danish by living in Denmark. " Photo: Henning Bagger/Scanpix Queen Margrethe II has raised eyebrows in Denmark for passages in a new book that weigh in on the nation’s seemingly never-ending debate on ‘Danishness’. In the book, written with journalist Thomas Larsen, the Danish queen says that some immigrants and refugees have failed to properly integrate into society. “It’s not a law of nature that one becomes Danish by living in Denmark.
It doesn’t necessarily happen,” Queen Margrethe says. The queen goes on to say that certain groups of people are better at integrating than others. “Those who came from Southeast Asia have generally prospered. Queen Margrethe also says that Danes have been naive in thinking that integration wouldn't take hard work on both sides.
“We thought that these things would take care of themselves. “If you can’t formulate what you stand for, it is hard to tell others about it. Denmark - Media and publishing | history - geography. By about 12,000 bc, as the climate warmed and the great glaciers of the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) were receding, the first nomadic hunters moved into what is now Denmark, bringing tools and weapons of the Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age) with them. Shell mounds (refuse heaps also known as kitchen middens) reveal the gradual development of a nomadic hunter-gatherer society, whose tools and weapons continued to progress in sophistication and complexity.
Beginning in the 4th millennium bc, during the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age), a peasant culture emerged in Denmark as the people living there further developed their stone tools, began keeping livestock, and adopted agriculture. Those first farmers began to clear land in the forests for fields and villages, and after about 3500 bc they built large, common, megalithic graves. Test Your Knowledge Countries of the World. Denmark profile - Timeline. A chronology of key events: 10th century - Kingdom of Denmark unified and Christianity introduced. 1397 - Union of Kalmar unites Denmark, Sweden and Norway under a single monarch.
Denmark is the dominant power. 1729 - Greenland becomes Danish province. 1814 - Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden. 1849 - Denmark becomes constitutional monarchy; two-chamber parliament established. The modern period 1914-18 - Denmark is neutral during World War I. 1918 - Universal suffrage comes into effect. 1930s - Welfare state established by governments dominated by social democrats. Image copyright Getty Images 1939 - Denmark signs 10-year non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. 1940 - Nazi invasion meets virtually no initial resistance. 1943 - A determined campaign by the Danish resistance prompts Germany to take over full control of Danish affairs. 1945 - Germany surrenders and occupation ends. Postwar recovery 1948 - Faroe Islands granted self-government within the Danish state. 1949 - Denmark joins Nato. Referendum. Denmark just took a major step to eliminate food waste - The Local.
Princess Marie (left) helped open the new market on Monday. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Scanpix Denmark's first supermarket selling surplus food opened its doors on Monday in Amager, officially inaugurated by Princess Marie and the minister for food and the environment, Eva Kjer Hansen. With the opening of WeFood on Monday, Copenhagen is now home to the nation's first supermarket selling only food that would be otherwise destined for the rubbish bin. "WeFood is the first supermarket of its kind in Denmark and perhaps the world as it is not just aimed at low-income shoppers but anyone who is concerned about the amount of food waste produced in this country. Many people see this as a positive and politically correct way to approach the issue," Per Bjerre from the NGO behind the market, Folkekirkens Nødhjælp (DanChurch Aid), said at the opening. His sentiments were echoed by the Danish food minister. "It's ridiculous that food is just thrown out or goes to waste.
Denmark takes historic step for transgender rights - The Local. Competitors perform on stage during Israel's first Miss Trans beauty pageant last week. Photo: Menahem Kahana/Scanpix Denmark will next year declassify "being transgender" as a mental illness, lawmakers from parliament’s Health Committee decided on Tuesday. Following the committee move, transgender will no longer appear on Denmark’s definition of mental illnesses as of January 1st, 2017. “Trans people in Denmark feel stigmatized when they are diagnosed as having a ‘mental disorder’,” Social Democrat spokesman Flemming Møller Mortensen told news agency Ritzau. “We will be the first in the world to remove transgender as a diagnosis. Amnesty International hailed the move as a major victory. “This is a huge step – not just for transgender people in Denmark but around the world – that Danish politicians have so clearly approved removing transgender from the list of mental illnesses,” Trine Christensen, Amnesty’s general secretary in Denmark, said in a statement.
Europe's refugee crisis hits education: A school in Denmark says it’s increasing diversity by segregating migrant students — Quartz. A travel advisory appeared in a Kenyan newspaper this week warning Africans visiting the United States to be aware of continued instability and civil unrest in places like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where protests have erupted in the last few months over police killings of black men. The advisory was circulated widely on social media and reported by local media, but it isn’t a real warning from the African Union. Rather, it is the work of Kenyan political cartoonist Godfrey Mwampembwa, better known as Gado, and it is meant to be a spoof on the many travel warnings Western countries have placed on African countries.
Tourism in Kenya has been hit hard by travel advisories maintained against coastal regions close to Somalia. “It’s funny because many African countries go through those travel advisories—issued by mostly by Europe and US, all the time,” Gado told Quartz. But there is perhaps some basis for warning Africans traveling to America. Denmark is locking every door to immigrants - The Local. Integration Minister Inger Støjberg presented yet another round of tighter immigration proposals on Tuesday. Photo: Ólafur Steinar Gestsson/Scanpix An executive member of the Danish Green Card Association argues that the government's new permanent residency proposals are unfair and a stain on Denmark's image.
Since coming to power in June 2015, the only focus of Denmark’s current government seems to be immigration. This is a total disgrace to the Danish values of acceptability and multiculturalism. Those affected include students, Green Card holders and other foreigners who have lived in Denmark for more than five years. In January, they were told that it would now take six years to become eligible for a permanent residence card. Now the government wants to make it eight. Foreigners also face continuously changing demands. But it gets worse. Denmark’s unpredictable and controversial immigration policies also sends the wrong message to the world about this country that we call home. Foreigners fill more than half of all new jobs in Denmark. Foreigners are making particular inroads into the cleaning, agriculture and transport industries.
Photo: Colourbox According to a new analysis from the online journal Ugebrevet A4, more than half of all new jobs in Denmark are being filled by non-Danes. Working off figures from Jobindsats.dk, Ugebrevet A4 found that foreigners accounted for 25,872 of the 41,381 new jobs created between 2013 and 2015. Danes filled 15,509 of the new positions. Although non-Danes account for 63 percent of the new jobs over that period, the pace slowed to 53 percent in 2015.
Opinions were split on what these employment figures mean. The Confederation of Danish Industries (Dansk Industri - DI) looked at the development as a positive. “One can easily get the impression that foreigners are running away with jobs that Danes could have gotten. The Economic Council of the Labour Movement (Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd) also considered the foreigners’ inroads into the Danish labour market a good thing. Danish kids among the fittest in the world: study - The Local. In a study comparing the fitness levels of children in 50 different nations, Danish kids came near the very top. Denmark ranked sixth in a study conducted by the University of North Dakota (UND) and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario that examined the aerobic fitness levels of children and youth. The study focused on the so-called beep test, a 20-metre shuttle run that is among the most commonly used international fitness indicators.
Some 1.1 million kids between the ages of nine and 17 had their beep test results analyzed to draw conclusions about children’s fitness levels in the 50 countries examined. “If all the kids in the world were to line up for a race, the average Danish child would finish at the front of the pack, placed sixth out of 50,” Grant Tomkinson, the senior author of the study, told The Local. “We didn’t have good international data on diet,” he said. Denmark was topped in the list by Tanzania, Iceland, Estonia, Norway and Japan. Apple to fund biogas research in Denmark - The Local.
Apple's sales director for northern Europe, Erik Stannow, presented plans and models for Apple's new data centre in Foulum on Friday. Photo: Henning Bagger/Scanpix The Danish Foreign Ministry on Friday announced that Apple will "fund and boost" biogas research at Aarhus University. The California tech behemoth will provide funding for the university research into how to covert biogas into electricity via the use of fuel cells. The university will use agricultural waste including straw and manure provided by local formers.
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson told The Local that Apple has committed to an initial 20 million kroner ($3 million, €2.7 million) grant to the university, but declined to divulge the total figure that the tech company has pledged to the multi-year agreement. The construction of Apple's new massive data centre is already underway. Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen said the new collaboration is “an excellent follow-on to Apple’s billion investment in the data centre”. Denmark's DSV eyes more big acquisitions in fragmented freight market. Queen Margrethe: Denmark 'not a multicultural country' - The Local. Queen Margrethe's comment came in a wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel. Photo: JAN WOITAS/Scanpix With Denmark once again engaged in a national conversation about what makes one ‘Danish’, Queen Margrethe II told German newspaper Der Spiegel that she represents “all people who are citizens of the Danish nation”.
The queen spoke with Der Spiegel ahead of her weekend trip to attend the reopening of the refurbished Castle Church in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church and started the protestant reformation. “Norwegians come from the north of the country, from the middle, from the south and all the other regions. “Norwegians believe in God, Allah, everything and nothing,” he added. Queen Margrethe was asked if she looked at Denmark the same way. “I would not say we are a multicultural country, but more people live here now who have different roots, backgrounds and religions, more than 30 years ago,” she told Der Spiegel.
Who is a Dane? More cars set on fire overnight in Denmark | The Post. Yet another vehicle was torched in Copenhagen overnight, this time in Nørrebro. Although the cause of the Copenhagen fire has not yet been made official, Thomas Tarpgaard from the police department said it certainly looked as if the fire had been set deliberately.
“The windows of the car were shattered and the interior was completely burned out,” Tarpgaard told TV2 Lorry. “It was most likely arson.” READ MORE: Are the car burnings a cry for help? Fires spreading The fire was contained to the one car and Copenhagen Police have no suspects in the case. A car fire was also reported in Hillerød overnight. Since August 20, there have been more than 150 arson attacks or attempted vehicular arson attacks at nearly 100 locations throughout Denmark, most of which have been successful. Facebook might open new data center in Denmark - CNET. If Sweden and Denmark Are So Progressive, Why Did They Close Their Doors to Refugees?
The trains from Copenhagen to Malmö leave every few minutes. Shortly after departing the Copenhagen airport they reach the Øresund Bridge, a low-lying metal structure that spans the strait connecting Denmark and Sweden. They pass a watery wind farm, its modern turbines rotating in the breeze, and then, about five minutes later, reach Malmö, the largest city in the Skåne region of Sweden. It’s a pretty, albeit anticlimactic, journey between two countries.
The Øresund Bridge opened to great fanfare in July 2000, replacing what had been a convenient, if slightly slow, ferry route. Copenhagen–Malmö was well on its way to becoming a truly binational—perhaps even post-national—metropolis. In many ways, that dream was born in this very region. Ahmed arrived in Sweden in October 2015. Two of Ahmed’s second cousins, 15-year-old Khalid and 16-year-old Nabil, also came to Sweden in the fall of 2015, traveling on separate boats and in separate convoys. Khalid has similar stories. Denmark reverses course on refugee ‘child brides’ - The Local. An unspecified number of married couples have been reunited in Danish asylum centres. File photo: Bax Lindhardt/Scanpix Denmark’s decision to separate married couples in refugee centres if one party is below the age of 18 has been reversed after the government concluded it was in violation of international conventions.
Metroxpress reported on Wednesday that the Danish Immigration Service will now reunite several married couples who have been living separately since February. “In some of these cases it has been it has been assessed that it would not be compatible with Denmark’s international obligations to maintain the separate living quarters, thus these couple have been offered to be housed together,” DIS wrote in an official response to a parliamentary enquiry.
Josephine Fock, an MP for The Alternative who raised the issue with DIS, cheered the reversal. “It is completely outrageous. Far-right party handed out ‘anti-migrant’ spray in Denmark, spurring backlash. Apple investing billions in Denmark | The Post. Uk.businessinsider.