Ill passenger halts city trains
A seriously ill passenger requiring an ambulance contributed to extensive delays on the S-trains this morning. Train traffic heading to Copenhagen central station will experience considerable delays as the trains are being held up at Brøndby Strand station. – BT
Denmark: Hash capital of the north
Denmark is the hash capital of Scandinavia, according to the Norwegian and Swedish custom specialists. Hash sales were at record highs in Norway and Sweden set in 2012 and the drugs almost always enter those nations through Denmark. One Swedish specialist speculated that about 90 percent of all confiscated hash comes from Denmark and his Norwegian counterpart said much the same. Swedish authorities confiscated 1.2 tons of hash in 2012, twice the amount confiscated in 2010 and 2011 combined. The news comes in the wake of the fatal shooting of a Norwegian smuggler in northern Jutland on Sunday night while he and two others attempted to transport 250 kilos of hash out of Denmark. – Berlingske
Lawyers to prevent war scandals
After 11 years participating in cases involving war, prisoners, compensation demands and pirates released due to lack of evidence, the Defence Ministry has decided to establish its own expert legal council group. As of February 1, legal experts will tackle the larger legal aspects that can arise during international operations. Torsten Hesselbjerg, the lawyer heading the small legal task force, underlined that the group would be working alongside the rest of the military, other lawyers and the other ministries. One legal expert from Copenhagen University called the move “a pleasant surprise” and that it was “better late than never”, pointing to the mounting cases involving the prisoner abuse in Iraq. – Politiken
More schools facing closure
Almost every second council in Denmark is looking at closing down schools this year in order to make school systems more efficient. Since 2007, every sixth school has either been closed down or been combined with a larger school, a trend that will continue this year. About 43 percent of councils expect to further reduce the number of schools – a move that will save the state 400 million kroner in 2013, according to a council-budget analysis by the council association, KL. Erik Nielsen (Socialdemokraterne), the head of KL, argued that combining the schools will create higher quality education. Parent and teacher associations are not quite as optimistic. – Jyllands-Posten
Weather
Cloudy with some rain. Maximum day temperatures around 7 C, minimum night temperatures around 4 C. – DMI
