News from Denmark

I was reading the edition of Nyhedsavisen from 22 of June and there was a long piece about two doctors who had been consulting the government on what medicine to use for arthritis and they were apparently taking payments from a company who made the medicine while they were at the same time consulting on what medicine to use. Clearly a conflict of interest. Interested, read here.

A watchmaker was robbed a few months ago but he defended himself against the robbers (who had guns) by using his own gun, which was not registered. He fired 3 shots at the robbers (who fired no shots I think) and wounded one of them if I remember correctly and one of the shots was fired as the robbers were on their way out of the store. He had been robbed several times before and was getting sick and tired of it so he decided to take matters into his own hand an got himself that unregistered gun. It is that sentiment, "taking matters into his own hand", that got the authorities here worried. So the watchmaker was charged for assault and possession of an illegal firearm because there are some that don't want this society to become some sort of a wild west where a lot of store owners have firearms in their shops. Well, today he got acquitted of the assault charge but got 6 months in prison for the possession. The court thought it apparent that he acted in self defense and had thus right to his actions, even the last shot was justifiable.

The danish forces in Iraq use interpreters to communicate with the local folks and these people are local folks who know english. This month it got released to the press that two of these men had been murdered because they were helping the coalition in Iraq. This got people worried about the other interpreters that are still alive. Today the government announced that they will help these people by either giving them citizenship here in Denmark or a bag of money so they can start a new life in a neighbouring country or somewhere else in Iraq.