New agreement places bases in cities such as Karup and Skrydstrup under US jurisdictionDenmark has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new defence agreement giving the US sweeping powers on Danish soil, including “unhindered access” to its airbases.The deal, which has been strongly criticised by politicians and human rights experts, means US soldiers in Denmark will remain under US jurisdiction. It gives US soldiers access to Danish airbases in three Danish cities – Karup, Skrydstrup and Aalborg – and grants American soldiers and military police powers over Danish civilians at these locations and outside them. Continue reading…

Danish composer driven by the concept of musical metamorphosis and a renowned symphonist“I don’t know where the lyrical element comes from,” the Danish composer Per Nørgård, who has died aged 92, once remarked. “I can’t construct the lyrical element. It is like when you stick your head out of the window on a spring morning and can simply sense the scent of flowers in the air. It can’t be controlled. In a way, the lyrical element is the sensual side of existence, which always comes as a gift.”One of the most lyrical expressions of that gift among Nørgård’s 400 works was in the finale of his small-orchestral diptych Voyage Into the Golden Screen, composed in 1968. Ironically, its free-flowing melody derived not from chance “scenting of [music] in the air”, but rather the technical dictates of Nørgård’s then newly formulated “infinity series”, where the notes follow mathematically from the proportions of the “golden ratio” and the Fibonacci series: a telling musical counterpart to the prevailing Scandinavian concern, across all the arts at the time, of design-driven expression. Continue reading…

In banning a schools debate on Palestinian sovereignty, our leaders have revealed the nation we’re becomingIn Denmark, we like to think of ourselves as being in the vanguard of freedom of expression. We were the first country in the world to legalise pornography. We insisted on the right to publish caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. Rather than marginalise so-called rightwing populists in parliament, we invited them in to political cooperation. We pride ourselves on being unafraid of controversy and we’re good at making authorities who try to tell us what to do – and especially what not to do – look ridiculous.Danes also like to think of our country as a role model for democracy. As such, the national elections for children aged 13 to 16 are a cherished tradition, considered a part of civic education and a preparation for democratic participation. All schools are invited to take part in the exercise, which is held every other year. Students debate 20 issues for three weeks before casting votes for the parties that are also eligible to stand in real general elections.Rune Lykkeberg is editor-in-chief of the Danish newspaper Information Continue reading…

A funny, heart-on-sleeve Danish drama that cleverly captures the complexities of coming out and queer identity with a character that wonders: am I gay enough to be gay? Technically, this film is a romcom – in that it is funny and romantic. But it’s not a romcom in the sense of adhering to the formulaic character types and well-worn plot beats that we’re used to seeing the likes of Jennifers Aniston, Lawrence and Lopez navigate with such aplomb. It is the story of twentysomething Liv (Johanne Milland) and her burgeoning attraction to Andrea (Josephine Park), and is a lovely, well-acted and sincere Danish independent film with plenty of humour; it wears its tender heart on its sleeve and hews closely to the form and style of a coming-of-age film.Nobody here is coming-of-age, though; they’re already-of-age, but in Liv’s discovery of her sexuality, perhaps it could be a coming-of-orientation film. The Venus Effect is strong on the things which matter in such stories: sizzling chemistry between the leads and likable characters you hope can work through their inevitable differences. It’s also good on rather more under-explored themes, such as the ripple effects of coming out in a modern family who aren’t going to disown you for homophobic reasons, but might nevertheless disappoint you in other ways. Continue reading…

The first stage of a major prison swap between Ukraine and Russia has taken place in Turkey, with 390 people released todayFor more coverage of Trump’s tariffs threats – which also include a warning that Apple must pay a 25% tariff unless it manufactures its iPhones in the US – follow our business live blog here:US president Donald Trump has just called the EU “very difficult to deal with,” lamenting the bloc’s “powerful Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against American Companies, and more” (original capitalisation!).“Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. Continue reading…

Psychoanalyst and art therapist hailed for her bestselling 2015 book Boarding School SyndromeThe Jungian psychoanalyst and art psychotherapist Joy Schaverien, who has died aged 82, will be remembered beyond her professional world for her book Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the “Privileged” Child (2015).It became a bestseller for the publisher Routledge: among its readers were adult boarding school survivors who found that it described accurately the traumatic experiences some of them had had when sent away to school, particularly at an early age. Continue reading…

Deal would allow US to carry out military activities in and from Denmark, giving them powers over Danish civiliansWhen Copenhagen signed a new defence agreement giving the US “unhindered access” to Danish airbases in December 2023, the idea of granting sweeping powers to US forces on Danish soil was quite a different proposition to what it is today.The US, then under the Biden administration, was an unwavering Nato ally that Denmark had followed into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland and Norway had similar agreements with the US. Continue reading…

Zara Zerny’s lucid and compassionate study gathers moving, candid interviews with bereaved partners remembering their lost loves The Marvel bromide about “What is grief, if not love persevering?” comes to mind watching this metaphysically charged Danish documentary in which nine senior citizens discuss their departed life partners. Director Zara Zerny works hard in defining the miracle of lifelong companionship, and the ineffable essence of that significant other which persists after death. So much so that, in one final, oddly encouraging section, some of the interviewees here suggest that their loved one still watches over them, Patrick Swayze-style.Awkward beginnings and lovestruck thunderclaps: it’s all here. Finn-Erik recalls his first sighting of Kirsten as a 17-year-old with ballet-dancer grace. Ove was rescued from a hotel-room orgy with multiple Norwegians by strapping six-footer Bent, who tells him: “You’re coming home with me.” Then there’s Elly, the trauma of whose first violent marriage “vanished like the dew before the sun” when she met her new partner Aksel. In Zerny’s intimate interviewing environment, nothing is off the table: sex and infidelity, domestic bliss and disaffection, partnerships that outlast passion, the pain of outlasting your partner. Continue reading…

Government to analyse potential benefits of new generation of reactorsDenmark is reconsidering its 40-year ban on nuclear power in a major policy shift for the renewables-heavy country.The Danish government will analyse the potential benefits of a new generation of nuclear power technologies after banning traditional nuclear reactors in 1985, its energy minister said. Continue reading…

Ukraine conflict and Trump’s threat to seize Greenland have caused internal tensions within intergovernmental bodyNorway is to hand over the leadership of an intergovernmental body comprising countries with territory in the Arctic after what its foreign minister called a “difficult two years”, during which there have been unprecedented tensions within the group’s membership related to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland.The Arctic Council requires consensus from all eight Arctic states – the US, Russia, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland, and Sweden – for all decisions and statements. Continue reading…

The Danish drama is piercing in its ordinariness. In the real world, the climate crisis worsens and authoritarians take charge as we calmly look awayThe climate crisis has taken a new and frightening turn, and in the expectation of disastrous flooding, the entire landmass of Denmark is about to be evacuated. Effectively, the country will be shutting itself down and sending its 6 million people abroad, where they will have to cope as best they can. Huge numbers of northern Europeans are therefore being turned into refugees: a few might have the wealth and connections to ease their passage from one life to another, but most are about to face the kind of precarious, nightmarish future they always thought of as other people’s burden. Don’t panic: this is not a news story – or not yet, anyway. It’s the premise of an addictive new drama series titled Families Like Ours, acquired by the BBC and available on iPlayer. I have seen two episodes so far, and been struck by the very incisive way it satirises European attitudes to the politics of asylum. But what has also hit me is its portrayal of something just as modern: how it shows disaster unfolding in the midst of everyday life. At first, watching it brings on a sense of impatience. Why are most of the characters so calm? Where are the apocalyptic floods, wildfires and mass social breakdown? At times, it verges on boring. But then you realise the very clever conceit that defines every moment: it is really a story about how we all live, and what might happen tomorrow, or the day after. The writer and journalist Dorian Lynskey’s brilliant book Everything Must Go is about the various ways that human beings have imagined the end of the world. “Compared to nuclear war,” he writes, “the climate emergency deprives popular storytellers of their usual toolkit. Global warming may move too fast for the planet but it is too slow for catastrophe fiction.” Even when the worst finally happens, most of us may respond with the kind of quiet mental contortions that are probably better suited to literature than the screen. Making that point, Lynskey quotes a character in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Year of the Flood: “Nobody admitted to knowing. If other people began to discuss it, you tuned them out, because what they were saying was both so obvious and so unthinkable.”John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading…

Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory finds common ground between Ella Fitzgerald and Charli xcx – and its free-thinking alumni are thriving. We go on a tour to see what’s in the water there (aside from shipwrecks)Before she was getting DMs from Dua Lipa and minting K-pop hits, and long before yesterday’s surprise release of her sumptuous fourth album, Erika de Casier was a nervous student in her 20s debating what to wear on her first day.It was 2019, her debut album Essentials had come out that year and received critical acclaim. But at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC), that was by the by. “In Denmark, it’s incorporated in our way of being: everybody is so humble,” says the Portuguese musician. “It wasn’t like I went to school and people were like …” She makes an exaggerated starstruck face. “That would be crazy. It was just, ‘Oh, congrats. I heard the new album. Sounds great.’” Continue reading…

CIA, NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency all included in ‘collection emphasis message’, report saysDenmark has said that it will summon the US ambassador to Copenhagen to respond to reports that US intelligence agencies have been ordered to increase espionage in Greenland.The Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said on Wednesday that he was concerned about the report in the Wall Street Journal, telling the Ritzau news agency: “It worries me a lot, because we don’t spy between friends.” Continue reading…

Slowdown will deepen concerns Denmark’s biggest company is losing market share to US rival Eli LillyBusiness live – latest updatesDenmark’s Novo Nordisk has cut its annual revenue and profit forecasts after disappointingly “flabby” sales of its weight loss drug Wegovy, as US prescriptions tailed off.A boom in sales of Wegovy and the diabetes medication Ozempic helped to turn the drugmaker into Europe’s most valuable listed company, worth $615bn (£461bn) at its peak last year. Continue reading…

The ‘epidemic for Golden Age paintings’ may already be a global problem, with the fungi a possible health hazardA new type of “extreme” mould is sweeping through Denmark’s museums, threatening some of the nation’s most important paintings and cultural objects, conservators have warned.Described as an “epidemic for Golden Age paintings”, the highly resistant mould covers objects in a white coating and has been detected in 12 of the country’s museums, including the National Museum of Denmark and Skagens Museum. Continue reading…

‘Inconsistent application’ of Schengen rules on passport validity has seen people turned back at border by airlinesSome Britons flying to Scandinavia this summer risk being turned away at the gate if they are travelling on an older passport due to the “inconsistent” application of Schengen travel rules, it has emerged.The Guardian was contacted by a British artist who was denied boarding by the airline Norwegian because her passport was issued “more than nine years and nine months ago”. She was due to fly from Gatwick airport to Copenhagen. Continue reading…

President has repeatedly expressed idea of expansion into autonomous territory within fellow Nato member DenmarkDonald Trump would not rule out using military force to gain control of Greenland, the world’s largest island and an autonomous territory within Denmark, a fellow Nato member with the US.Since taking office, the US president has repeatedly expressed the idea of US expansion into Greenland, triggering widespread condemnation and unease both on the island itself and in the global diplomatic community. Greenland is seen as strategically important both for defense and as a future source of mineral wealth. Continue reading…

It’s a terrifying concept: a privileged country being evacuated as it’s about to go underwater. But not even Oscar-winning director Thomas Vinterberg can make this climate crisis dystopia the epic it promised to beFamilies Like Ours is a drama – directed and co-written by the Oscar-winning Danish director Thomas Vinterberg – that asks the question: what would you do if your luck ran out? The kind that maybe saw you born with a healthy body, or into a privileged, developed country, or with a skin colour that didn’t invite discrimination among others. Maybe even all of the above. What if life as you knew it – stable, easy, dependable, cushioned – was turned upside down? What then?The seven-part series is set in Denmark in a near future in which the Dutch economy has recently crashed, flooding the Netherlands’ nearby countries with job-seeking immigrants, eating up capacity and goodwill. Thus there is little of either available when the government announces that the threat posed to low-lying Denmark by global heating and rising sea levels means it must now be evacuated of its six million inhabitants entirely. The country is, in effect, being shut down. Continue reading…

Nordic country is latest to act amid evidence of impact on young people, including attention and self-esteemFinland has passed legislation to restrict the use of phones and other mobile devices during the school day amid fears over their impact on student wellbeing and learning.Under the changes, which were approved by the Finnish parliament on Tuesday and will come into effect on 1 August, mobile devices will be heavily restricted during lesson times. Pupils will be allowed to use them only with the teacher’s permission for healthcare or learning purposes. Continue reading…

This blog has now closed. You can read our latest wrap of developments here.We are just getting a line from Reuters news agency saying that the Conclave to elect new pope will start on 7 May, according to its source.We have not independently verified this report. Continue reading…