Interesting Pickings from the Danish Press compiled by The Copenhagen Post

Denmark continues to lead in Globalisation. Two studies suggest that Denmark has the highest readiness for tackling the challenges of the future. (JP) A more elaborate article on the results from the Economist Intelligence Unit can be found at the FinFacts.com site.

New sports facility to showcase savings in Energy. The construction is part of ProjectZero, a plan launched by Sønderborg in southern Jutland to make the region the first CO2-neutral growth area in Europe. (UgensErhverv.dk)

Electric cars can increase their range per charge with Danish device. A Danish company Lithium Balance is currently in dialogue with leading Danish energy company DONG Energy and entrepreneur Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place regarding an electric car project in Denmark. (Børsen)

Another story on Electric cars. Danish firm Jacob Jensen Design, which is well-known for its watches, telephones and other high quality consumables, is developing a concept for an electric car for everyday use that can run 500 kilometres on one battery charge and costs less than DKK 100,000 (USD 21,273), writes professional journal Ingeniøren (The Engineer).

AFghanistan leaders have asked Denmark to try and sort out continuing corruption and foreign aid problems. (Berlingske Tidende)

The Danish prime minister has invited over 11,000 of his Facebook supporters to jog along withhim. With 11,963 Facebook friends, the prime minister is the website’s 10th most popular figure in the world, just behind California mayor and still-strong man Arnold Schwarzenegger. (BT)

Siemens Wind Power and Dong Energy are putting DKK 15m into the Technical University of Denmark to boost development of an intelligent electrical grid system. “New solutions are needed to create future intelligent energy systems, which are necessary to ensure second-by-second balance between production and consumption in an electrical grid system utilizing a lot of renewable energy such as wind power”, writes DTU in a press release. (Ingeniøren)

 

Mine Action Day

You probably don’t know but today we celebrated the global Mine Action Day with the inauguration of the clearing of the last live minefields in Jordan. They are situated along the Jordanian-Syrian border – on the Jordanian side – for a stretch of about 104 kilometres. And they have a lot of mines – mostly antipersonnel mines and some antitank mines. It will take time to accomplish this task but I am pretty sure that the end result will be very good. Unfortunately most of the mines are still functional and really a disgusting weapon. The majority of military people in the world agree that the mines have no efficient military use any more and that stockpiling and use should be banned. The mines are much more a threat to children and farmers than to soldiers

 

Fenced off live mine field in the Mafraq Governorate.

And that is exactly what the mine-ban convention aka. The Ottawa Convention is all about. Jordan acceded to the convention about ten years ago and is for this year chairing its conferences. HRH Prince Mired bin Raad is taking his job as chairman very seriously and he benefits greatly from his experience as president of the National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation (NCDR) in Jordan. NCDR do have a homepage and I think the rehabilitation aspects and the extensive work on creating mine awareness and education merits a look.

 

Anti Tank mine close to the Jaber Border control.

I find it only fair that Jordan has been given the responsibility of running the Convention this year. Jordan will most probably be one of the first seriously mine infected countries to raise the flag and declare itself rid of mines, minefields and stockpiles. This is really something – not least among the ME-countries where many not even adhere to the convention. Take that neighbours…

Along the road towards a mine free Jordan some countries have stepped up to the plate and supported Jordan with funding, technology and skills in its effort to clear the mines. Many countries have contributed but I believe that our Norwegian friends take the price in their support to Jordan. The mine clearing at the border is done in close cooperation between the Jordanian authorities, NCDR and Norwegian Peoples Aid – sponsored by the Norwegian Government – who by the way on today’s occasion donated a new (monster) mine clearing machine.

As regards the Danish Government we are as active as Norway in the mine clearing field with funding running at up to 20 mio. USD a year for mine infected countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Angola and Sudan among others. That makes us one of the ten biggest mine clearing donors in the World.