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The European Commission took Denmark to court on Thursday for allowing the sale of snus, despite a European Union sales ban on the moist oral snuff. Sweden, a snus producer, is currently the only country in the 28-member bloc permitted to sell the powder tobacco, a privilege granted when it joined the club in the 1990s. …

Twelve EU countries have warned investors not to do business with Israeli settler entities, amid a security crisis in Israel and Palestine. The group includes: Austria; Belgium; Croatia; Denmark; Finland; Greece; Ireland; Luxembourg; Malta; Portugal; Slovakia; and Slovenia. Portugal published its statement on Wednesday (2 July) and the others came out on Thursday. France, Italy, and Spain put out similar communiques earlier this week. Germany and the UK already did it months ago. Poland is expected to publish a warning shortly. The Irish foreign ministry said the action “has been coordinated at EU level”. …

Archaeologists have formed a trade union grouping amid concerns that some highly qualified people are working for pay rates not much above the minimum wage — or in some cases, for free. Contract archaeologists, who mostly work in the private sector, have joined trade union Unite in an attempt to convince archaeological consultancies to sign up to a standardised pay agreement that would protect wage levels. The move comes after what the chairman of the new branch, Matt Seaver, described as “an apocalypse” in the sector. The union grouping comprises approximately 60 contract archaeologists — around half the total number...

The Soobrazitelny head corvette (RIA Novosti / Alexei Danichev) A British frigate was dispatched to track a mysterious battleship that covertly sneaked in close to Denmark’s coast. The ship turned out to be Russian stealth corvette conducting a complex checkout of battle systems, according to British media. Russian naval drills in the Baltic Sea drew some heat after British HMS Montrose (a type 23 frigate) had to establish line-of-sight range with an unidentified warship cruising off the territorial waters of NATO-member Denmark on June 19. In harsh conditions of 30 knot winds, British sailors identified the warship as Russia’s 104-metre-long...

A landmark law in Denmark making it easier for transgender people to change their legal gender should set an example to governments across the world, Amnesty International said. The Danish parliament yesterday passed a bill allowing transgender people to obtain official documents reflecting their gender identity without needing to be diagnosed with a mental disorder or undergo surgeries resulting in irreversible sterilization. “This progressive and courageous step made by Danish MPs should set an example to the rest of Europe and beyond,” said Amnesty International Denmark’s Helle Jacobsen. “All states should ensure that transgender people can obtain legal recognition of...

Frightening article in the Telegraph: Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church. The country's parliament voted through the new law on same-sex marriage by a large majority, making it mandatory for all churches to conduct gay marriages. .... Under the law, individual priests can refuse to carry out the ceremony, but the local bishop must arrange a replacement for their church. I am sure at first most Catholic clergy will refuse and bishops will not comply but down the line, in two or three years, what will happen, and if this law were introduced into England, or the...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, June 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Catholic Bishop of Copenhagen, Czeslaw Kozon, says he is worried that the Catholic Church in Denmark may be forced to perform “marriage” ceremonies for homosexual couples in the future. Bishop Czeslaw Kozon of Copenhagen Politicians in Denmark have voted to force churches in the established Evangelical Lutheran Church to perform same-sex “marriage” ceremonies inside their sanctuaries. Since 1997, when same-sex “marriage” was legalized, homosexuals have been able to get “married” in a blessing ceremony after the normal church service, but now the unions will be part of the service as they are...

Homosexual couples in Denmark have won the right to get married in any church they choose, even though nearly one third of the country's priests have said they will refuse to carry out the ceremonies. The country's parliament voted through the new law on same-sex marriage by a large majority, making it mandatory for all churches to conduct gay marriages. Denmark's church minister, Manu Sareen, called the vote "historic". "I think it's very important to give all members of the church the possibility to get married. Today, it's only heterosexual couples." Under the law, individual priests can refuse to carry...

The Swedish election board in Solna should have received a complete data file of Swedish citizens voting in Denmark by 28 April the latest. It did not arrive. “We must have access to this data 30 days before the day of election to be able to make up our register of electors in time,” Hanns Lejsater, an official at the election authority, told Swedish paper Goteborgs-Posten. […] The Swedish election board is missing data about possible double voters from 10 EU countries, mostly the newest members of the EU but also Denmark and the UK. …

I work for McDonald’s and I make $21 an hour. No, that isn’t a typo. It’s really my salary. You see, I work for McDonald’s in Denmark, where an agreement between our union and the company guarantees that workers older than 18 are paid at least $21 an hour. Employees younger than 18 make at least $15 — meaning teenagers working at McDonald’s in Denmark make more than two times what many adults in America earn working at the Golden Arches. To anyone who says that fast-food jobs can’t be good jobs, I would answer that mine isn’t bad. In...

But where will this Soldier of Allah go? Denmark has a population of less than 6 million. Imagine how much the United States could save if it stopped importing welfare cases. (via Religion of Peace) Denmark’s strict immigration laws have saved the country billions in benefits, a government report has claimed. The Integration Ministry report has now led to calls among right-wing populists to clamp down further on immigrants to increase the savings.The extremely strict laws have dramatically reduced the flow of people into Denmark in recent years, and many government figures are delighted with the outcome. “Now that...

Unique samples were among the 250 ancient coins found in Bornholm After hours of searching through the mud with metal detectors, amateur archaeologists Frank Pelle and Bent Gregersen made the discovery of their lives on a ploughed field in Bornholm earlier in April. The two lucky gold-diggers found an ancient Viking gold treasure hidden in the ground. "It was an amazing feeling, for we had searched for hundreds of hours without luck," Pelle told Ekstra Bladet. Thousand-year-old treasure After studying x-rays of collected earth samples, Bornholms Museum, the local archaeological museum, estimated that the treasure of 250 gold and silver...

France will ban imports of live pigs, pork-based byproducts and pig sperm from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Japan to protect against a virus that has killed millions of piglets in North America and Asia, a farm ministry official said on Friday. The ban, which is due to be introduced on Saturday and does not include pork meat for human consumption, aims to ward off Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDv), which has killed around 7 million young pigs since first identified in the United States almost a year ago. The disease has reduced hog supplies in the United States...

CBS/ReutersMarch 5, 2014, 11:01 AM Vladimir Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize OSLO -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize but the conflict in Ukraine is also likely to be on the Nobel committee's agenda. A record 278 candidates, including 47 organizations, received nominations for the 2014 prize, said the Norwegian Nobel Institute's director, Geir Lundestad. Committee members who met on Tuesday added their own proposals with a focus on recent turmoil around the globe. "Part of the purpose of the committee's first meeting is to take into account recent events, and committee...

As a specialist in prehistoric underwater archaeology, Dr Jonathan Benjamin looks at rising sea levels differently from most people and his fascination with this global phenomenon began when as a PhD candidate at Edinburgh University he came across the work of the Danish archaeologists Anders Fischer and Søren H Anderson. In the 1970s and 1980s, Fischer and Anderson recovered some of the most well preserved material ever seen from sites such as the 6,500-year-old settlement at Tybrind Vig. This was the first submerged settlement excavated in Denmark and from 1977 was the scene of intensive archaeological activity. Lying 300m from...

Time may be able to heal all wounds, but it apparently can’t alleviate all smells… Archaeologists excavating in the town of Odense, Denmark, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, unearthed some medieval barrels that were being used in the town’s old toilet area. "The excavation is characterized by great conditions for preservation and is located on a medieval site that has been found to contain brick houses, half-timbered houses and stables,” archaeologist Maria Elisabeth Lauridsen told Discovery News. "We are talking about 700-year-old latrines. And yes, they still smell bad.”

Eighteen countries, including five of the world’s leading arms exporters, ratified a landmark treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade on Wednesday, giving a significant boost to the campaign for the treaty’s entry into force. […] Five of the world’s top 10 arms exporters—Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain—turned in their ratification documents at the ceremony. The other 13 were Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Among the hold-outs is the United States, the world’s largest weapons exporter. The Obama administration has signed the treaty but there is strong resistance in...

My order is inevitable for it is simply The Father's will concisely done in full view and commitment of My Witness that is My spirit in you . . . Acts 17:28 28 For in him we live and move and are! As one of your own poets says it, ‘We are the sons of God.’ John 14:12 I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. Job...

South Korea has formally decided to purchase 40 F-35 stealth fighter jets for $6.7 billion, South Korea and Lockheed Martin officials announced Monday. The commitment by South Korea, which is boosting its air defenses amid ongoing tensions in the Pacific region, marks a "big day" for the F-35 program in Fort Worth, said Steve O'Bryan, Lockheed's vice president for F-35 business development. "This is a two-year process that Korea held, an open competition where they looked at capabilities, their defense needs, the price as well as the timing and they chose the F-35. It was another open, transparent process that...

<p>MILAN (AP) — Foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna confirm that names of two nationals listed on the manifest of the missing Malaysian airlines flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand.</p> <p>Italy's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that an Italian man whose name was listed as being aboard is traveling in Thailand and was not aboard the plane.</p>