Morning Briefing – Monday, June 24

The Copenhagen Post’s daily digest of what the Danish press is reporting

Private rocket success

Copenhagen Suborbitals successfully launched its Sapphire rocket on Sunday. The privately funded firms rocket reached a speed of 1,239 kilometres per hour and an altitude of over eight kilometres. The only reported malfunction during the launch was a parachute failure, which meant the rocket sank to the floor of the Baltic just east of Bornholm after returning to earth. – Ingeniøren

Denmark missed out on North Sea oil fortune

The road out of the recession could have been shorter, had the previous government negotiated a better deal with companies drilling oil in the North Sea, according to economists. New Tax Ministry figures showed that had the previousgovernment followed the advice of its advisors an extra 124 billion kroner could have been brought in since 2003, when the deal was struck. – Politiken

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Bank investigated for illegal loans

Finance watchdogs Finanstilsynet will investigate Danske Andelskassers Bank for illegally lending money to purchases of shares in the bank. The bank reportedly pressured business owners who needed loans to keep their businesses afloat to buy shares in the bank in connection with its 2011 IPO. Since then, the banks 35,000 shareholders have lost a total of 250 million kroner. – Jyllands-Posten

Massive harbourfront building plans

Two of Denmark’s biggest pension funds, PensionDanmark and PKFA, want to spend 2.1 billion kroner building 700 flats in Copenhagen's Islands Brygge. In just ten years, the population in the harbourfront neighbourhood has doubled to 14,000. The project is expected to start in 2014 and and take up to six years to complete. – Business.dk

Study abroad push amounts to study fees

Helping the government meet its goal of having half of all university students study abroad by 2020 could prove costly for the students. About 17 percent of university students currently study abroad and about one in every five paid money to do so, according to 2009 figures. Recommending that more students study abroad amounts to an implementation of university fees, say universities and student organisations. – Information

Second fastest 15-year-old in history

Sprinting talent Kristtofer Hari became the second fastest 15-year-old in history on Saturday when he ran the 100-metre dash in just 10.37 seconds at an athletics meet in Germany. The time was just a one-hundredth of a second slower than the fastest time ever run by a 15-year-old, set by Darrel Brown in 2000. – Ekstra Bladet





  • How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

    How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

    Being part of a trade union is a long-established norm for Danes. But many internationals do not join unions – instead enduring workers’ rights violations. Find out how joining a union could benefit you, and how to go about it.

  • Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

    Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

    Internationals are overrepresented in the lowest-paid fields of agriculture, transport, cleaning, hotels and restaurants, and construction – industries that classically lack collective agreements. A new analysis from the Workers’ Union’s Business Council suggests that internationals rarely join trade unions – but if they did, it would generate better industry standards.

  • Novo Nordisk overtakes LEGO as the most desirable future workplace amongst university students

    Novo Nordisk overtakes LEGO as the most desirable future workplace amongst university students

    The numbers are especially striking amongst the 3,477 business and economics students polled, of whom 31 percent elected Novo Nordisk as their favorite, compared with 20 percent last year.