DSB warns of delays and canceled trains on Monday morning

Danish train company DSB has warned on its website of serious delays to traffic on Monday morning, and some cancellations, after a fault on an overhead line at Sorø affected traffic between Ringsted and Slagelse.  

The company said that fault meant trains could only use one track between Ringsted and Slagelse, increasing journey times. DSB expects track operator Banedanmark to fix the fault between 7am and 8am, after which both tracks available later on Monday morning.  

Danish vocabulary: køreledning – overhead line 

Novo Nordisk Foundation, Bill Gates and Wellcome, to spend $300m on global health 

The foundation which owns more than 28 percent of the Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has teamed up with the Wellcome Foundation and the Bill Gates Foundation to plough $300m into scientific research and development to promote global health, focusing on “solutions that are accessible and affordable to people in low- and middle-income countries”. 

Over three years, the three foundations will each invest $100m (700m Danish kroner) into combatting the health impacts of climate change, infectious disease, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). 

“By pooling the vast experience and unique expertise of each organization—across research, technology, innovation, and enterprise—we can make advances that wouldn’t otherwise be possible,” Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, CEO, Novo Nordisk Foundation, said in a press release.

The project was announced at the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Global Science Summit in Denmark on Sunday. 

Danish vocabulary: infektionssygdomme – infectious diseases

Denmark to ban trawling on five ecologically significant Danish reefs

Denmark has announced plans to ban trawling on five Natura 2000 areas in the North Sea and Skagerrak in a move the country’s fisheries minister, Jacob Jensen, said was the first step towards a total ban on beam trawlers from The Netherlands. 

“Unfortunately, we have several times seen examples of foreign beam trawlers who have been caught violating the fishing regulations, Jensen said in a press release announcing the decision. “They are simply destroying too much of our seabed, and we cannot live with that.”

As well as beam trawlers, the ban will also apply to bottom trawls, and seine nets and will apply at Lønstrup Rødgrund, Thyborøn Stenvolde, Jyske Reef, Store Reef and Gule Reef. 

Danish vocabulary: havbunden – the seabed 

EES border checks could undergo ‘soft launch’, UK says as app concerns mount

The UK government is preparing for a “soft launch” of the new EU border system – the Entry/Exit (EES) system – in October but authorities are still waiting for the European Commission to confirm the start date, amid concerns over the delay of a new app.

The government is assuming that the system will go live on October 6th, ministers told a hearing at the House of Commons European scrutiny committee this week.

But the European Commission is expected to confirm the exact launch date of the new biometric checks for non-EU travellers entering the Schengen area at some point this summer, they added.

“We are very much working on a basis whereby this policy will go live on the 6th of October. It is important that we plan for that eventuality. We are expecting to hear definitively from the European Union that ‘go live’ arrangement in the summer,” Tom Pursglove, UK Minister for Legal Migration and the Border told the committee.

The parliamentary committee is conducting an inquiry on the disruptions the system will cause in the UK.