Denmark vs. EU

The restrictive Danish immigration policy has come to the end of the road with the revelations of how the Danish ministry of immigration has handled applications for family reunion.
According to Danish law applicants for family reunion in Denmark must be 24 or older, and they must have a primary attachment to Denmark. The result has been that hundreds of young couples have settled across the bridge in Malmoe Sweden.
Now it has turned out that some of the applicants have cited European law of the common labour market as a reason for permission to stay in Denmark, but this has been turned down by the ministry, in blatant violation of European law. If people have been working for at least two weeks in another EU country they're entitled to stay in Denmark. People have not been informed of these rights, even if they have asked the ministry. The minister in charge, Birte Hornbech, is not available for comments. Nor is the prime minister, Mr. Fogh Rasmussen, who is having summer holiday in Southern France. He refuses to come home for such minor details as families with children being broken up, when husbands or wives are expelled from Denmark.

More: Cosmic Duck

View on Denmark

ABC News published an interesting article about Denmark: The Happiest Place on Earth. There are many readers' comments pro or against well being and happiness in Denmark. Maybe the most interesting is this one:

One of the frustrating aspects of living in DK is that, upon arrival, one loses one's right to an opinion, unless of course it is positive. The UK is not doing well these days, and is barely recognisable as the country I grew up in. When my Danish wife and I lived there some years back, she was easily able to see failures within society that I just couldn't recognise. That's how it is when one moves to another country. I was once patriotic, having served in the Military and Police. Not so much these days as the British State is hardly representative of what I call 'home'. I live in DK, for the sake of my wife who has family here. But even she feels it was a mistake moving back two years ago. Okay, everyone has the right to feel proud of their homeland. If that's how one feels, well done. But the sheer scale of Xenophobia here in this cold northern land takes some getting used to. If I have been told once, I have been told a thousand times how everything here is much better than in the UK and everywhere else. What is irksome is that this bombasticism is usually the fruit of a mouth whose head and body have either never been anywhere else, of if they have, it's been on a package tour with other Danes, with a Danish tour guide, a Danish inspired itinerary etc. TV coverage of UK/US is always negatively slanted. So what is better here ? Well, the food quality is awful, overpriced, incredibly limited in choice and variety. The medical system here is no better than the UK's, in some ways worse. Medicine is very costly. Dental costs very high. DK education (indoctrination) standards are higher. Consumer choice is hopeless. Public infrastructure is 20 years behind. Utilities costs are higher. Tax is insane, and services are worse. Visit Rense , Heising, The Truth Seeker. This is not a UK v DK rant. I am trying to be fair. DK is for Danes. Everyone else is a foreigner.

Haunted Locations in Denmark

Dragsholm Slot, Hørve in Sealand, Denmark

Not all phantoms are ill-tempered, and as proof you need look no further than the gray lady of Dragsholm Slot. Once a fair maiden, the gray lady haunts the halls eternally looking to do good and make sure that everything is in order, as a token of her gratitude for having a painful toothache cured right before her death.

Slightly less helpful is the white lady. Another noble maiden, she kept up a secret love affair with a commoner until the day they were both caught, and was then imprisoned inside the castle by her father. In the early 1930s, one lucky tourist managed to poke a finger hole through a piece of crumbling mortar and ended up discovering a skeleton wrapped in a dress. Needless to say, tourism is still going strong.

Dragsholm Castle has been around in Denmark since the 12th century. It was built by the Bishop of Roskilde and is now currently under the ownership of the Bottger family who acquired it in 1939. Guests will certainly admire the interiors of this castle-hotel and a lot of vacations, business conferences and parties are held here. However, like all old castles, Dragsholm has it’s own share of supernatural entities. There are three of them in fact.

The Gray Lady, while not often spotted, is speculated to be the ghost of a maiden who once worked at the castle. She was said to have suffered from a terribly painful toothache. Although she was eventually cured of it, she returns to the castle as a way of giving back and making sure that all the residents are doing well.

On the other hand, the White Lady was not as happy with her life. She is suspected to be the daughter of one of the castle’s former owners. Unfortunately, she fell in love with a common man who worked in the castle. They kept their love a secret but it was eventually discovered. In the father’s rage, he ordered the servants to imprison the poor girl within one of the walls. This White Lady is reported to haunt the corridors. Perhaps what is the most chilling of this information is the fact that during one of the castle’s renovations, workers who had been tearing up the walls did find the skeleton of a young girl in a white dress.

Source: blah blah blah bullshit blah, Froodee

World’s Tallest Lego Tower

Standing tall at a whopping 29.3 meters (96.12 feet), it was made of 465,000 bricks, the World’s Tallest LEGO tower was finally completed this past Wednesday morning (n.b. July 16th) at the C.N.E. fairgrounds in Toronto. Originally the plan was to have the tower completed earlier on Monday, but high winds and dark weather kept tossing about the 100-foot boom crane used in adding new LEGO sections. It took three attempts to finally get the last section in place and when they did, representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records were on hand to officially measure the tower and confirm the achievement into the record books. Completed under the supervision of professional LEGO builders Per Knudsen & Erik Therkelsen, who were flown in from Billund, Denmark, the construction itself was done with the help of kids and families who were visiting the C.N.E. fairgrounds.

Source: ReadnRock.com

Sorgenfri Slot

There is a very interesting Solar Clock in the back yard of the Sorgenfri Slot, which was built in 1705, 300 years ago. The building itself was wonderful, needless to say, but this solar clock is awesome. The mansion's backyard was filled with nature. This clock stood out prominently, as if it was a symbol of the mysteries of the universe on the earth. I don’t know when and who put this solar clock here. Even 300 years ago, the solar clock was a kind of decoration not a practical item. If it were not for this clock, the backyard was a mere luxurious garden. This solar clock make us feel the relationships between human beings and the universe and hold us in awe of the universe and royal authority.

Source: Footloose Dreamer in Denmark

Denmark is closed

It’s July, holiday month, so this is so fitting: Denmark is currently closed…

Ha, ha, ha... you have no idea how true this really is!

I’m sorry, but Denmark is currently closed, please call back in August. Tak!

lolololololol…

Miss Denmark - Universe

I saw Miss Denmark and went WTH? Miss Denmark 08 is clearly part black. One would naturally expect a blond blue eyed female from the Scandinavian country but NOPE. Unfortunately there is not much info out there about her but this one is a head scratcher. Are Europeans especially Scandinavians more progressive than we give them credit?
She has one of the best bodies in the competition.

Maria Sten-Knudsen, Miss Denmark 2008 poses for a photo in her swimwear. She competed for the title of Miss Universe 2008 during the 57th Annual Miss Universe competition from Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Source: The Village

Denmark bails out Roskilde Bank

Roskilde Bank, whose shares performed the worst last year among the Nordic region's 86 financial companies, became the first Danish lender to be bailed out by the central bank since the subprime crisis started.

The bank found that write-downs had to be made on a "significantly larger scale'' than it had expected, Roskilde Bank, based in the Danish city of the same name, said.

It will receive "adequate'' liquidity after the central bank discussed the matter with regulators and the Danish government, the central bank said.

Roskilde Bank is now mulling a sale of its assets and would be the second Danish lender to be acquired amid the turmoil on financial markets in the wake of the US subprime crisis.

Sydbank, the third-largest Danish lender, this year acquired BankTrelleborg, which said it had "significant financial problems.''

Roskilde's trouble stems from its real-estate lending, it said.

"The recent turmoil in the global financial markets and, not least, the crisis in the Danish real-estate market have led to a severe development in a number of larger client relationships,'' Roskilde Bank said.

Danish house prices will drop as much as 10% both this year and next because of rising borrowing costs and excess supply, Svenska Handelsbanken's Danish chief economist Jes Asmussen said on July 1.

More on Business Day

Renault-Nissan to build electric car in Denmark

Denmark looks set to become the second nation to persuade drivers to switch to electric motoring, writes Maurice Glover. Following the deal signed earlier this year with Israel, Renault-Nissan and infrastructure provider Project Better Place are now discussing the supply of electric cars and support systems with Danish government officials.

"They are still to sign the documents, but they have made it clear they want to operate a similar arrangement as Israel. This is good news because it shows how governments are beginning to realise that oil is starting to become scarce. We're confident others will follow in due course," said Renault strategic environmental planning vice president Alice de Brauer.

Renault will make electric versions of the present Kangoo light_van and next-generation Megane hatchback models be available in both countries by 2011. "As a vehicle using existing architecture that has to be adapted, the Kangoo will not be a particularly good example of electric power, but we are putting some new ideas into the Megane.

"However, we are starting to develop a specific platform for electric cars for introduction in 2012," she said.

According to de Brauer, the new platform will initially be used for a Megane-sized family car but is being designed to carry a range of variants.

"We have yet to decide where this new model will be built, but it should be reached by the end of this year, when the business plan has been completed. The view is that if Denmark agrees to make a commitment to electric cars and other countries follow with tax concessions that encourage people to make the switch, we could be building up to two million units per year."

More: Thai Automaxx

New Denmark’s Aquarium

Danish architects 3XN were announced winners of the competition on the new Denmark’s Aquarium, ‘The Blue Planet’, planned to open 2013.

Inspired by the whirl streams of the sea, shoals of fish, and swirling starlings turning the sky black, 3XNs winning proposal is called ‘Whirlpool’. Indeed, from the round centre hall of the building the different parts are ‘whirled’ in the slightly curved sequence of rooms.

The Blue Planet building site is in Copenhagen, at the island of Amager, right at the coast of Øresund, north of Kastrup Havn, close to the Copenhagen Airport, and viewed from a plane the whirlpool shape will show in its full. Approaching on the ground, one will experience the building as floating in a circular reflection pool, and a walk through its interior is a travel through several organic worlds.

Designing The Blue Planet, the architects team was indeed inspired by nature, says principal of 3XN, Kim Herforth Nielsen. “We wanted to stage a totality of the experience one has visiting an aquarium. The starting point was this magnificent experience of actually watching fish in their element. We wanted to create that adventurous feeling, and we took inspiration in the natural phenomenon of the whirlpool or maelstrom drawing you into the deep. A sculpture at the coast it unites the natural elements of water, air and earth.”

Thus situated in the borderland between the worlds of Poseidon and Zeus, the walls and roofs form a single, continuous flow and are clad in a way which emphasises the wavy outline of the building, thereby telling a story of this union. The first and longest of the whirlpool’s arms follows the shape of the landscape and the building, moving into the land.

More on Bustler and 3XN

Leonard Cohen in Denmark

On July 5th, Leonard Cohen had a faboulous live concert at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen and on July 6th a magnificent concert at the City Hall Park in Århus, Denmark.

Video from Århus Concert

Father and son

Denmark Enters Recession, GDP Shrinks Quarterly 0.6%

Denmark slid into recession in the first quarter, the first European Union economy to contract for two consecutive quarters since the global credit crunch started last year.

The economy shrank 0.6 percent, after contracting a revised 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter, Copenhagen-based Statistics Denmark said in a statement on its web site today. The median estimate of four economists in a Bloomberg survey was for growth of 0.2 percent. The economy contracted an annual 0.7 percent.

Growth is slowing worldwide as the credit squeeze sends borrowing costs higher and curbs investment, while record oil prices and soaring food costs erode consumer spending power. Danish consumer prices are rising at the fastest pace in 18 years while property values fall, undermining household spending that accounts for half the $340 billion economy.

"This confirms the picture of an economy that's coming to an abrupt halt,'' Jes Asmussen, chief economist at Handelsbanken in Copenhagen, said in a note to clients. ``Economic growth this year is fading markedly and will be replaced by an economy that's completely stagnated by next year.''

The contraction was led by a 1.1 percent slump in household spending from the fourth quarter, while fixed investment dropped 0.6 percent, the office said. Government expenditure shrank 1.4 percent. Exports grew 1.1 percent, exceeding import growth of 0.4 percent, the office said.

Unemployment
Exports may come under pressure as a labor shortage pushes up production costs and a global economic slowdown hurts demand. That spells reduced demand for workers in the Nordic economy, according to Asmussen.

"Unemployment will rise faster than the consensus picture currently suggests,'' Asmussen said. "The downside risks for the Danish economy are pronounced.''

Randers, Denmark-based Danish Crown AmbA, Europe's biggest producer of pork, said last month it will cut 900 jobs. Biotechnology company Pharmexa A/S said on June 25 it plans to cut 40 percent of its workforce to save costs.

Retail sales dropped 0.6 percent in May from a month earlier, the statistics office also said today, indicating that consumer spending didn't pick up in the second quarter.

'Bleak'
"It's a bleak growth picture for the Danish economy,'' said Jakob Legaard Jakobsen, an economist at Nykredit Bank A/S in Copenhagen. ``The data are an unpleasant surprise and a clear signal that the economic reality has markedly changed its character compared with earlier years.''

Inflation accelerated to an annual 3.4 percent in May, the office said on June 10. The economy grew 1.8 percent in 2007 and 3.9 percent in 2006. Unemployment dropped to 1.7 percent in May.

The central bank doesn't target price stability as its sole mandate is to keep the krone pegged to the euro in a 2.25 percent band. It last raised the key lending rate on May 16 by 0.1 of a percentage point to 4.35 percent to defend the currency peg.

"The Danish economy has now entered new times,'' said Niels Roenholt, an economist at Jyske Bank A/S in Silkeborg, Denmark. "Today's numbers are without doubt just a foretaste of what's to come.''

Source: Bloomberg