Monday Morning News & Notes
Sweden’s slippery climate slope. EU looks to Denmark for Ukraine donations model.
🍃Environment & Energy⚡️
🇩🇰
Denmark has recorded its hottest day of the year even as summer comes to a close. On August 30, temperatures reached 30.5 degrees in Holbæk, narrowly edging out the previous high of 30.4 degrees at Langø on Lolland recorded on June 27.
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Denmark will get a blast of unusually warm weather to kick off the autumn season. Whether it will stick around for longer than a day or two is up for debate, though. The Danish Meteorological Institute says today will be warm with highs hitting 23°C but on Tuesday it could reach 27°C and then possibly 28°C on Wednesday. However, the agency is putting a big question mark on the forecast. That is because it looks like two weather fronts will collide over Denmark beginning on Wednesday. One is a cold front with rain and wind that will arrive from the west, while the other will see a warm front flowing in from the southeast. What happens next is a mystery.
DMI says if the cold front stalls over Denmark and then changes course back to where it came from, then most of the country could see unusually warm fall weather into next week. If the front continues its eastern march, then from Wednesday on the weather will be a lot cooler and more unsettled.
Either way, Wednesday could be interesting with western Jutland cool and rainy while the rest of the country sizzles.
🇪🇺/ 🇨🇳
The European Union appears to have lost the battle to protect Europe’s solar cell manufacturers from a huge onslaught of cheaper Chinese solar cells. The EU is now trying to ensure that China’s dominance in Europe doesn’t also include the production of electric vehicles and wind turbines.
Think Tank Europe Senior Advisor Svend Roed Nielsen:
“We have simply been asleep at the wheel when it comes to solar cells, and that is why we lost the battle to the Chinese. It has been an expensive lesson for Europe.”
Chinese companies are now the far and away the world’s largest producers of solar cells. Last year, China installed more solar panels than the rest of the world’s countries combined. In Europe, fewer than 3% of solar cells that are being installed are produced in Europe. European solar industry association ESMC says the sector is now in an existential battle for survival.
China, which pours huge amounts of money into state aid for Chinese businesses, is now turning its strategy of market dominance to the EV and wind turbine sectors. Chinese electric car makers are rapidly gaining market share in Europe, which in turn is increasing pressure on European EV makers.
“When it comes to electric cars, in recent years the Chinese have become very hot-tempered and aggressive on the export market as demand at home has fallen. And it is at prices and with a quality that has proven to be so competitive that the European manufacturers cannot keep up.”
On the wind turbine front, Wind Europe says Chinese manufacturers are selling turbines at 50% below what European companies are able to offer. The trade association says if Chinese companies dominate Europe’s wind turbine sector, it will mean job losses and could also pose a security risk. Europe already learned a hard lesson when it relied much too heavily on cheap oil and gas from Russia. Since the energy crisis in 2022, energy policy has become de facto security policy in the EU.
🇩🇰🇪🇺
The Danish green energy business association Green Power Denmark says that Europe needs to regain control over both its green energy technology supply and its electricity grid IT security.
Deputy CEO Jan Hylleberg:
“We will become dependent on Chinese-produced technology, just as we have been dependent on Russian gas. We don't want that. And then it is a question of who has access to our critical infrastructure in the energy sector.”
Hylleberg says that in Denmark, politicians can set mandates about which solar cells and wind turbines, and from what company, can connect to the national energy grid. He says this is a power he would like to see Danish politicians make use of a lot more often.
🇩🇰
Build it, and they will come. In another example of how Denmark is helping the green energy transition by prioritizing infrastructure, municipalities are beginning to install charging stations along popular bike routes for electric bicycles. This year, Assens Kommune on Fyn will install four electric bike charging stations along the popular Østersøruten bike path. Other municipalities are also following suit.
Denmark is also building charging infrastructure for electric vehicles all over the country at an incredibly rapid pace.
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Ten municipalities in Denmark’s capital region are rolling out a new project to use electric bikes to get people out of their cars. 2,000 electric bikes will be placed at 175 locations around the ten municipalities. The bikes can be rented using a special app. The hope is that more people will use the bikes either to get to work or to get to the nearest train station instead of driving.
The two-year project will cost 3.5 billion Danish kroner (roughly $700,000 Cdn). The municipalities involved in the project are Albertslund, Brøndby, Gladsaxe, Glostrup, Herlev, Ishøj, Lyngby-Taarbæk, Rødovre, and Vallensbæk.
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A movement is underway to restore what was once the largest lake in Jutland. A majority of the council in Syddjurs Kommune has voted to restore Kolindsund Lake, which was drained in the 1870s. The decision is being applauded by environmental groups. However, the lakebed also encompasses an area of neighbouring Norddjurs Kommune. So negotiations and consultations will have to be held at the Kommune level and with landowners to forge next steps.
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A Danish brewery says its reusable drinking cup test run was a massive success. Royal Unibrew, makers of Faxe and other beer brands, rolled out the more environmentally friendly drinking cups at this year’s Smukfest, a Danish music festival. Of the 1.1 million cups put into use at the festival, 95% were returned to be reused again in the future. The brewery said its goal was a 75% return rate. The cups will result in reduced waste and less clean up work.
🇸🇪
The Swedish government held a press conference last week to try and convince people its green agenda was on track, but ended up looking a little red in the face. The government claimed that new climate measures, like lowering fuel taxes and increasing the use of biofuel in gas and diesel, mean that Sweden will achieve its EU-mandated climate goals. However, the claim began to fall apart almost immediately. Reporters at the press conference asked for the calculations behind the assessment and were told they could not see them.
Sweden’s Minister of Finance Elizabeth Svantesson:
“You have to choose whether to believe the Ministry of Finance's officials or other calculations. I choose to believe in the officials in the Ministry of Finance.”
Swedish national broadcaster SVT did some digging and discovered that the government’s claims come from a climate report by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, the actual report has more than one scenario, and SVT reports, the government chose to cherrypick the most optimistic option. In its scenario, the new measures will reduce emissions by two million tonnes over six years, allowing Sweden to just meet its EU climate obligations and avoid billions of euros in fines.
However, the report has another not-so-rosy scenario the government chose to ignore.
Swedish EPA Unit Head Sara Almqvist:
“There are many uncertainties when developing scenarios, so we have developed two different ones. We assess that both are equally likely.”
Under the second and distinctly more gloomy scenario, Sweden will miss its EU climate goals by a long shot even with the new measures. In the aftermath of SVT’s reporting, opposition politicians have demanded Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari face questions from the parliamentary environment committee.
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Green companies are teaming up to build one of Europe’s largest hydrogen-based industrial clusters in Sweden. The companies include Lhyfe, specializing in green hydrogen, and OX2, one of Europe’s largest developers of land-based wind power.
The proposal, according to a press release, is to combine wind power generation with green hydrogen production to produce CO2-neutral products. It might also include a CO2-neutral fertilizer plant. The proposed facility would be located in Grönsta, just outside Stockholm.
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NASA is funding research on melting glaciers in Sweden to both better understand climate change here on Earth and also to apply that knowledge to better understand the climate changes that led to conditions on Mars. The space agency says the melting glaciers in Sweden’s Kebnekaise mountain range have a strong resemblance to glaciers on Mars.
🇺🇸🇸🇪
A new study is raising serious concerns about the possible negative health impacts of microplastics. The study found that of the microplastics humans ingest, more fragments end up in the brain than any other major organ.
The study was conducted by the National Institutes of Health with researchers examining the presence of microplastics in the liver, kidney, and brains of autopsied bodies. Mathew Campen, a professor of pharmaceutical toxicology at the University of New Mexico, was the study lead. He called the findings “quite alarming.”
“There is much more plastic in our brains than I would have ever imagined.”
The study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, found that brain samples showed on average 10 to 20 times more microplastics than the other organs.
The as yet unanswered question is how exactly microplastics affect the human body. People ingest microplastics in a wide variety of food and drink. Plastic residue has been found in every conceivable part of the human body, even elbow joints and bone marrow. While its exact impacts remain unknown, the race to find an answer is well underway. Already, scientists have found links between microplastics and poorer fertility, impaired memory, and possible increases in the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Bethanie Carney Almroth, is a professor of ecotoxicology at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, and she says microplastic research is moving quickly.
“There are clear signs of how health is affected by these particles that we find in so many different organs in the body. The planet can't stand it, and people can't stand it.”
🇫🇷
Climate change is driving its own kind of tourism. Tourists are flocking to France’s largest glacier, Mer de Glace, ostensibly to see it before it vanishes. The glacier is shrinking at a rate of six meters each year due to a warming climate.
🇬🇷
People living in the coastal Greek town of Volos say the stench in the city is quite unbearable. The awful smell is due to several hundred thousand dead fish rotting in the harbour. The city’s mayor puts the blame on some severe flooding that he says displaced freshwater fish into a saltwater environment. So far, more than 40 tonnes of dead fish have been collected as workers try to tackle the smelly problem.
🇫🇮
The world’s largest heat pump is being built in the Finnish capital of Helsinki in an effort to help the city reach its climate goals. Helsinki has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030. The air-to-water heat pump will be powered by green electricity and should be able to operate in temperatures as low as -20°C . It will provide enough heat for 30,000 homes when it comes online in 2026.
The new district heating plant will use the new massive heat pump and two 50MW electric boilers to produce heat. The company behind the project, Helen Oy, says it should save roughly 26,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year. District heating is widely used in the Nordic countries. It involves generating heat in a centralized location and then distributing it, often through a network of underground pipes, to homes and businesses in the local area.
According to EuroStat, about half of all energy used in the EU is for heating and cooling homes and buildings. More than 70% of that energy comes from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas. The International Energy Agency found that in 2023 Finland was a European leader heating 41%, the country’s buildings using heat pumps.
🇧🇷
There are almost 40,000 wildfires burning in just Brazil’s part of the Amazon rainforest right now. Satellite date counted up 38,266 currently burning wildfires, the most of any wildlife season in the last 14 years. It is also more than double the number of fires that were burning in August of 2023. The fire season has been helped by a serious drought in the Amazon after last year’s rainy season arrived late and without nearly as much rain as in years past.
🇫🇮🇸🇪🇳🇴
According to Nordpool, the Nordic electricity exchange, Finland should record the lowest electricity spot prices in Finnish history for the month of August. As of Friday, spot prices were a mere 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour.
Finnish Energy CEO Jukka Leskelä:
“The spot price of electricity has been cheaper than at any time this century when adjusted for purchasing power and inflation. So, the prices have been extremely low in Finland and across the Nordic region more broadly.”
Spot prices for July were 1.7 cents per kWh, also a record low for Finland.
However, Finland does not have the cheapest electricity prices in all of Europe. In August, Energy Charts, which tracks European power prices, noted electricity prices in Norway and Sweden were even lower.
🦠Outbreaks🦠
🇩🇰
Concerns over the new Mpox variant are prompting Denmark’s Statens Serum Institute to include testing for the virus in its national wastewater surveillance program. The first Clade 1 variant infection outside of Africa was recently confirmed in nearby Sweden.
The World Health Organization has declared a global health crisis due to the mpox outbreak due to the more contagious variant spreading in a number of African countries.
🇬🇱
Authorities in Greenland are worried the global avian flu epidemic has reached local bird populations. In several places along Greenland’s coast, people are finding dead kingfishers. The birds are being collected and will undergo examining and testing by the Veterinary and Food Authority. Authorities are emphasizing that the risk to humans is low, but they are advising people not to touch the dead birds.
🦠COVID🦠
🇩🇰
After dropping for a few weeks, COVID activity across Denmark crept back upward ever so slightly, according to the latest wastewater surveillance data. The Statens Serum Institute assesses coronavirus spread as being at “a low level.” Over the last three weeks, according to the average weekly growth rate, virus activity has stabilized.
Virus activity increased in all five Danish regions but the growth was most pronounced in Region Midtjylland.
COVID-related hospital admissions have more or less been treading water over the last few weeks
As part of the SSI’s sentinel surveillance program, employees at some of Denmark’s largest workplaces get voluntarily tested when they are sick. The latest data shows that COVID activity continues to be a concern.
🇸🇪
COVID activity continues to rise across Sweden. The Swedish Public Health Agency says coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and virus-related deaths have been increasing since the beginning of summer. It warns those numbers may continue to grow as people return to work and kids go back to school.
The number of COVID-related hospital admissions (311) continues to rise (+27) while the number of severely infected people requiring intensive care (10) declined slightly (-2).
State Epidemiologist Magnus Gisslén:
“The COVID spread continues throughout the year, but an increase is to be expected in the autumn. Vaccination provides effective protection against severe illness and death, so it is important that people at high risk are vaccinated in accordance with our recommendations. In addition, more people in risk groups should be offered antiviral drugs.”
The fall vaccination campaign will begin in Sweden in mid-October. Seniors over 65 and other high-risk and vulnerable populations regardless of age are all recommended to get vaccinated.
🇳🇴
COVID activity increased across Norway last week. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health is also warning that with kids going back to school and people returning to work, coronavirus activity will likely keep increasing. The positivity percentage crept upward last week, rising to 13%, up from the 12.3% from the week before. The NIPH says the KP.3 variant continues to drive the current infection wave.
Norway’s whooping cough epidemic appears to be stabilizing. There were 792 confirmed infections in August compared to 796 in July and 864 in June.
The NIPH says other respiratory viruses are circulating but none of them in any numbers to cause concern.
🇺🇸
A new analysis from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that COVID infection during the first 21 weeks of pregnancy is linked to a slightly higher risk of developing gestational diabetes. Published this week in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the study examined insurance claims for nearly 58,000 pregnant women diagnosed with COVID between March 2020 and October 2022, comparing them with over 115,000 pregnant women who did not contract the virus during the same period. The findings reveal a modest but statistically significant increase in the risk of gestational diabetes for women who had an infection at 23 weeks gestation or later. This association was consistent across all racial groups except for Asian women.
Interestingly, the risk of gestational diabetes was found to be lower during periods when the Omicron variant was prevalent, compared to when the Delta variant was dominant. The researchers suggest that this decrease over time could be attributed to several factors, including changes in behaviour during the early months of the pandemic, acquired immunity, or increased vaccination rates among pregnant women—from 29% in July 2021 to nearly 59% by December 2021. Despite these findings, the authors caution that further research is needed to confirm the results and to explore other contributing factors, such as the body's inflammatory response, the timing of infection, and lifestyle factors like diet and exercise.
🇺🇦Ukraine/ Russia War 🇷🇺
🇺🇦
Ukraine has already lost one of its newly acquired F-16s. Last Thursday, a Ukrainian F-16 crashed after what might be a case of friendly fire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired the country’s Air Force Chief Mykola Oleshtyuk the next day.
🇳🇱🇺🇦
The Netherlands has decided to add another six F-16 fighter jets to the 24 it has already promised to donate to Ukraine. The Dutch authorities were in negotiations to sell the fighter jets to an American defense contractor, but last week the Dutch Defense Ministry suddenly pulled the plug on those talks and announced the fighter jets were instead going to Ukraine.
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺
As Ukrainian forces continue to push deeper into Russia’s Kursk region, the International Atomic Energy Agency is again warning of the increasing risk of a “nuclear incident.” Agency head Rafael Grossi had a first-hand look at Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant last week. He raised concerns about the lack of a protective dome and the power plant’s increased vulnerability because Russian authorities continue to operate it at near full capacity despite the Ukrainian invasion and increased conflict in the immediate vicinity.
🇷🇺🇨🇳
Russia’s woes continue to mount this time from an unexpected source. Russian companies are experiencing major delays and rising costs in transactions with trading partners in China. Transactions worth billions of yuan are essentially in limbo according to Reuters. Chinese banks appear to be shutting down transactions with Russia en masse. The likely culprit is new sanctions announced by the United States against companies in both Russia and China it considers to be helping support the war in Ukraine.
🇷🇺 🇲🇳
Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to pay a state visit to Mongolia this week. However, he will risk arrest if he does so. Mongolia is one of the many countries that have signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This means Mongolia, is obligated as a signatory country, to arrest the Russian leader.
Ukraine and other nations are already increasing pressure on Mongolia to follow through on its obligations under the Rome Statute, arrest Putin, and hand him over to face charges at The Hague.
🇩🇰🇺🇦
The European Union has put Denmark in charge of disbursing part of the billions of dollars of interest from Russian funds that have been frozen due to its illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen says the EU recognizes the efficiency of the Danish model in financing military donations through Ukraine’s own defense industry.
“I am pleased that the EU recognizes the Danish model for direct support of Ukraine. Denmark has already reserved 1.2 billion Danish kroner for direct support to the Ukrainian defense industry. It ensures faster and more effective support closer to the front line. The interest income from the frozen Russian assets can make a significant difference for the Ukrainians.”
This year, Denmark fundamentally changed the way it donates military aid to Ukraine. Instead of using its own military stockpiles, it now donates money earmarked for the weapons and ammunition Ukraine needs that can be procured directly from defense contractors. The priority is on contractors within Ukraine. The two-fold strategy moves weapons and ammunition production closer to the front lines while helping Ukraine establish its own defense industry.
Poulsen says the strategy is already producing results, with Ukraine beginning to produce its own weapons.
“During a visit to Ukraine earlier this year, I saw tests of the first Bohdana howitzers, which will benefit the Ukrainians at the front.”
Last spring, EU member states decided to use part of the interest on frozen Russian funds and assets to support Ukraine’s war effort. While Denmark is in charge of one stream of the interest on frozen Russian funds, two other streams will also be created. One will focus on ammunition procurement and the other on artillery and air defense systems.
🇳🇴🇺🇦
The Norwegian Government has approved the transfer of technology that will allow ammunition production facilities in Ukraine to churn out 155 mm artillery shells produced by Nammo, a Norwegian ammunition producer. The Norwegian government says this will mean that Ukraine will soon have more modern artillery ammunition produced closer to the front lines.
🇸🇪/ 🇷🇺
Sweden’s intelligence service SÄPO is warning of an increased risk of sabotage and other threats to security from Russia. The agency told SVT that facilities that produce weapons and other defense industry organizations are among the highest priority targets for Russian agents and provocateurs. Sweden’s Defense Ministry says there have in fact been several break-in attempts. SÅPO says that Russia now seems to be willing to take more risks than it has in the past.
Russia has already been singled for being behind several mysterious fires at European weapons factories, attempted break-ins at several sensitive facilities, and at least one attempted assassination.
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The Swedish Armed Forces conducted high-intensity marine drills off the Swedish coast in the Baltic last week. With the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines and concerns about Russia targeting critical infrastructure, the Swedish military focused on protecting infrastructure on the Baltic seabed with combat drills underwater, on the surface, and in the air above. Five naval corvettes, the patrol ship HMS Malmö, and Air Force helicopters all took part.
🇸🇪🇺🇦
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, about 70,000 Ukrainian refugees ended up in Sweden under the European Union’s temporary protection directive, which remains in force. Life in Sweden has not been easy, and a number of Ukrainians have since left. Ukrainians reported struggling with the language barrier, Scandinavian bureaucracy, accessing health care, and especially in trying to get help for the various psychological traumas many refugees struggled to deal with.
Another complaint was the slow pace in getting Ukrainians housed and out of refugee camps. Some who were in a refugee camp on the island of Gotland reportedly waited two years before more permanent housing could be found.
🇪🇺🇺🇦
As the war in Ukraine rages on, European Union countries have decided to increase this year’s target for how many Ukrainian soldiers that will receive military training within the EU. The number will increase from 60,000 to 75,000 soldiers, according to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell.
Currently, Ukrainian troops are undergoing training in Germany and Poland. However, there is a growing debate in the EU about dispatching military training teams to Ukraine to conduct training on Ukrainian soil. Countries like France and the three Baltic states support the idea, but Germany and others are against it due to concerns it might draw European countries into the war.
🇫🇮/ 🇷🇺
Finnish President Alexander Stubb says that his country’s relationship with its eastern neighbour, Russia, is now more adversarial and “there is no going back.” Stubb, speaking to an annual meeting of the Heads of Mission, says the relationship began to change when Finland joined the European Union in 1995. Then things got really frosty when Finland joined NATO. He said since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a new iron curtain has descended on Europe, with Russia and Belarus on the other side of it.
In a move that will further anger Moscow, Stubb also praised Ukraine’s invasion of the Kursk region, calling it a smart strategic move. He reiterated that Finland does not place any restrictions on the weapons provided to Ukraine as long as they are not used to violate international law.
“It aligns with both our values and interests that Ukraine wins this war and achieves a just and sustainable peace.”
As for Russia’s continued bluster and threats, Stubb urged calm, saying that it is “not worth overdramatizing all the rhetoric coming out of Russia.”
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Russians living in Finland are taking advantage of the pressure that sanctions have placed on their countrymen living in Russia. The growing mountain of sanctions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made it increasingly difficult for people living in Russia to continue to own vacation property in Finland. Factor in the indefinite closure of Finland’s land border with Russia, and now it is nearly impossible. However, an investigation by Finnish national broadcaster Yle has found that while Russians living in Russia are selling off their vacation properties in huge numbers, Russians living in Russia are snapping them up for a song. Nearly half of the properties purchased by Russian citizens this year sold for less than €30,000.
Finland’s Ministry of Defense reviews every real estate transaction made by anyone outside the European Union. Yle spoke to an expert in that unit who said almost all of the Russian vacation properties for sale are being purchased by Russians living in Finland. The reason why is that sanctions have made it near impossible for Russians without a bank account outside Russia to do any foreign financial transactions. Instead, Russians living in Finland can take advantage of their own banking situation or, alternatively, simply trading property they own in Russia to grab ownership of a vacation property in Finland at a steep discount.
Finland’s Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen is preparing draft legislation, which would enact a total ban on Russian citizens buying real estate in Finland.
🇫🇮🇺🇦
While Finland remains incredibly secretive about what exactly is in its military donations to Ukraine, videos from the battlefield posted to social media are providing some clues. Finnish military magazine Suomensotilas spotted a Finnish self-propelled howitzer in a recent video posted to X (Twitter). The howitzers have some years on them; they were acquired by Finland in the early 1990s when Germany was selling off surplus military equipment from the formerly Soviet-occupied East Germany.
🇱🇹🇫🇮/ 🇷🇺
The Baltic states have been among the strongest European countries standing in opposition to Russia. In Lithuania, its vigilance against threats from Russia now extends to keeping a close eye on the country’s richest man, Gediminas Ziemelis. He has been flagged as a national security threat due to his companies' ties to Russia. Ziemelis owns a number of companies, including an aviation company called Avia Solutions Group. ASG, which is involved in a major construction project at Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow in partnership with Rostec, a Russian state-controlled military-industrial giant. The Lithuanian State Security Department says Ziemelis also has ties to the Russian security services. The Lithuanian government has stepped in several times and halted some of his business activities due to national security concerns.
Those concerns have now gone across the Baltic to Finland as a company that Gediminas Ziemelis owns shares in and acts as an advisor for bought shares in the Helsinki Seagulls basketball team’s ownership group. Finnish security officials are concerned that Russia could take advantage of the situation and try to use the ownership stake in the basketball team to exert some type of soft power. Similar situations have already happened with Russian oligarchs who own European hockey clubs, including the Helsinki Jokerit.
Odds & Ends
🇩🇰
Things I learned this week. Denmark beats out Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Malta for having the most bathing sites along its coastline with the highest water quality. Only Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, and Cyprus have more.
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It is not very often that a parking infraction results in fines reaching almost 300,000 Danish kroner however, that is exactly what happened last week.
Last Thursday, the driver of a German registered commercial truck parked it illegally in Karlslunde. Police showed up and quickly found the driver, a Turkish citizen, was using his son’s driver’s license and that he was also not licensed to drive a commercial vehicle within the European Union. Denmark does not screw around when it comes to enforcing the rules with stiff fines, and all the infractions resulted in a 101,000 Danish kroner penalty (a little over $20,000 Cdn).
On Friday, two drivers from the trucking company in Germany showed up to drive the big rig out, but police found that they too were not licensed to drive a commercial vehicle within the EU. That resulted in additional fines of 191,000 kroner (just over $38,000 Cdn). At last report, the truck remains in police custody.
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If you thought you accomplished a lot last week, meet Danish ultra-runner Stine Rex. She ran 902 kilometres over six days ending on Sunday, breaking the world record for the longest distance run in six days, which was 901.8 kilometres.
Since last Monday, Rex has been running a circuit around Aabybro Lake in Northern Jutland. The route is 1.44 kilometres long. and she ran it over 626 times during her six-day slog. The 45-year-old also used the run to collect donations for SMILfonden, which supports children with serious and chronic diseases.
🇳🇴
A centre to combat misinformation and propaganda is being established in Norway. A number of Norwegian media outlets have teamed up with other organizations to establish the Center for Source Criticism. Among them are public broadcaster NRK and Norwegian daily VG. The concept is still being fleshed out, but the group says ideally it would be financed by the public sector and play an important role in Norwegian total preparedness for war or other national crises.
🇸🇪
Swedish supergroup ABBA is apparently not happy that U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has been using the song “The Winner Takes It All” and some other hits at his rallies. Universal Music says that the Trump team hasn’t paid the “Money, Money, Money” to license the music, and because that is “The Name of the Game,” the campaign needs to cease and desist. If not “When All Is Said and Done,” the Trump camp could face some legal action where ABBA’s representatives will ask a judge that Trump “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme” a boatload of money to say “Thank You for the Music.”
🇫🇮
Tourist numbers in Finland have almost returned to pre-pandemic levels. Visitory, a tourism research organization, says that direct tourism-related income in Finland last year reached €11.8 billion. Helsinki was, again, Finland’s most popular tourist destination, pulling in €1.5 billion in tourism revenue in 2023, a 25% year-over-year increase.
The growth is actually quite an achievement considering Russian tourists, usually one of the biggest tourism markets for Finland, now being completely absent. Due to flight bans over Russia, Finland also saw a lot fewer tourists from Asian markets. Despite these huge challenges, Finland somehow saw tourism revenue come close to pre-pandemic levels last year, while overnight stays now equal numbers seen prior to the arrival of COVID.
🇦🇺/ 🇨🇳
Led by Australia, the Pacific island states have agreed to form a joint police force in order to counter China’s aggressive attempts to exert its influence on the region.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to AFP:
“This demonstrates how Pacific leaders are working together to create the future that we want to see.”
The initial force will consist of about 200 police officers based out of Northern Australia. China wants more influence in the region and has been working aggressively to try and get Pacific island states to sign joint police and security agreements. China has already stationed a small police force in the Solomon Islands and has also sent police advisors to the island nation of Kiribati.