Ship with 20,000 litres of diesel fuel sinks off Greenland

A ship carrying 20,000 litres of diesel fuel ran aground and sank off Greenland’s coast on Thursday, said authorities who were working to contain a potential spill in the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

“Last night, around 1:45am, a ship hit a reef near Nanortalik and started taking on water,” Greenlandic police said in a statement according to news agency AFP.

The vessel sank around 7am.

Authorities believe the 30-metre ship contained some 15,000 to 20,000 litres of diesel fuel in its tanks, in addition to 1,000 litres of engine oil.

The name of the vessel has not been disclosed, nor the type of ship.

Vocabulary: forlist – shipwrecked

Government leadership to hold summit on education

Senior members of the government are to attend a summit on education policy over two days in October, Ritzau reports based on invitations to the meeting acquired by the newswire. The education ministry has subsequently confirmed the planned meeting.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen – the leaders of the three coalition parties – will all be in attendance.

The summit will be held in Odense from October 9th to 10th with discussions focusing on “how we create an education landscape that is ready for the future”, the invitation states. No further details about the programme are included in the invitation.

Education has often been high on the coalition government’s agenda during its time in office. In June last year, the government announced a reform of university education, which included cuts to two-year Master’s programmes and an upgrade of the number of English-language courses.

Vocabulary: topmøde – summit

Odense to get extension to light rail network

Odense’s Letbane light rail system is to be extended after a majority of politicians in the city council backed a second phase of construction on the transport system. 

The new sections of the light rail will run from the centre of Odense through Vollsmose to the Seden area, broadcaster DR reports.

The decision is part of Odenseøs 2025 municipal budget and will cost around 1.7 billion kroner. Two parties in the city council, the Liberals (Venstre) and Liberal Alliance, voted against the expansion.

The timeline for when the additional stations will be completed is yet to be decided.

Vocabulary: udvidelse – expansion/extension

Vaccine alliance secures deal with Danish company for 500,000 mpox jabs for Africa

The Gavi vaccine alliance has announced a deal with Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic to secure 500,000 jabs against mpox for use in African countries facing an epidemic of the virus, AFP writes.

The announcement came after the World Health Organization last week prequalified an mpox vaccine, MVA-BN, for the first time, paving the way for the United Nations and other international agencies to procure them.

Separately, the Global Fund — a partnership set up in 2002 to battle AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria — said it would provide $9.5 million towards the mpox response in the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the epicentre of the current epidemic.

Gavi said the vaccine doses, to be delivered by the end of the year, would be purchased through its First Response Fund, which was created in June to make cash rapidly available for vaccines during health emergencies.