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Mudasir Khan, originally from Pakistan, sits with his nephew Yaeesh Rao Khan in Mjolnerparken, a housing estate that features on the Danish government's "Ghetto List"
Denmark’s new policy seeks to integrate immigrants, but at what cost?
Denmark’s new policy mandates integration in low-income neighborhoods inhabited by mostly “non-western” immigrants through reeducation, demolition, and policing.
The goal: a massive social engineering project to dismantle immigrant enclaves and force integration into Danish society. The policy will require young children from these neighborhoods to spend 25 hours a week in preschools to learn the Danish language and values.
In practice, the policy will look an awful lot like gentrification in the US, only driven by the government. Residents of low-income neighborhoods, where at least half the population is of non-Western descent, will be forced to leave their homes, and thousands of apartments will be sold to private investors and demolished. In their wake, housing catering to wealthier residents will be built to incentivize social mixing.
Critics are calling the policy ethnic discrimination and say it is unnecessary in a country where the generous welfare system minimizes income inequality, crime, and poverty. Nevertheless, it has broad support across the political spectrum.
Denmark, like countries throughout the European Union, is seeing its expansive welfare state challenged by the influx of migrants from Ukraine, Africa, and the Middle East in recent years. The influx has led to a rightward tack in migration policy across the continent.
A harvester carries coca leaves on his back in a coca plantation. He has put in half a day for this. For each 12-kilo sack, he receives the equivalent of about $1.50. A worker can harvest about 20 bags of coca leaves a day.
Hard Numbers: Colombia sees coca boom, Denmark sends museum pieces to Ukraine, World Food Program warns of “doom loop”, a river of wine flows in Portugal
6: In order to fulfill its promises to send Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine, Denmark had to pull half a dozen of the Cold War-era classics from local military history museums. The tanks in museum collections were found to be in better condition than those in Danish army storage.
24 million: The United Nations World Food Program has warned of a “doom loop” of global hunger as it faces a 60% budget shortfall this year. Unless the WFP can make up the deficit, some 24 million people around the world could fall into emergency hunger situations as the program can no longer provide for them.
600,000: Two wine tanks at the Levira Distillery in São Lourenço do Bairro, Portugal burst open, flooding the village with enough red wine to fill a 600,000 gallon Olympic-sized swimming pool. Local authorities managed to divert the torrent into an empty field before it reached the nearby Certima River - no word yet from local field mice on how they like the vintage.
10 billion: As part of its landmark antitrust case against Google, the US Justice Department says Google spends $10 billion every year to unfairly maintain its status as the internet’s most widely used search engine. The trial opened in Washington, DC on Tuesday and is expected to go on through the winter.
Protestors chant slogans during the demonstration against the Quran Burning In Sweden.
Nordics may ban Quran-burning protests
Quran burnings in Denmark and Sweden in recent weeks have angered Muslims around the world. These protests, usually by far-right extremists, tend to play out in front of embassies of Muslim-majority countries or other government buildings. In turn, Scandinavian leaders have been forced to explain that their hands are tied by their countries’ strict freedom of speech laws. But that may soon change.
Citing security and geopolitical concerns, these governments are now considering whether to ban protests that desecrate religious texts. Denmark’s foreign ministry said Sunday that it is looking at intervening when “other countries, cultures, and religions are being insulted, and where this could have significant negative consequences for Denmark." Sweden said it is considering a similar approach, and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has pointed to concerns that the protests could incite terrorism.
Both countries want to avoid political backlash in Muslim-majority countries, of course, but Sweden has another big incentive: NATO membership. You’ll remember that when Sweden announced it wanted to join NATO, its bid was initially held up by Turkey’s Muslim President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had veto power thanks to NATO’s requirement of unanimous consent. Quran burnings didn’t help Sweden’s case. But then Erdogan changed his mind last month, announcing that he would approve the country’s accession. The US responded by promising to send Erdogan some F-16 fighter jets he’s been wanting. But Sweden’s membership is still not a done deal; Turkey’s parliament isn’t scheduled to sign off on it until October.
We’ll be watching to see whether Denmark and Sweden make legal changes regarding religious protests – and in Sweden’s case, whether it’s fast enough for Turkish lawmakers. Other European countries with Muslim-minority populations will also be keeping a close eye on whether a precedent is set by the Nordic countries.
So far, however, the move isn’t having the desired effect: Protesters in Stockholm responded to the announcements on Monday by – you guessed it – burning pages torn from Islam’s holy book outside the Swedish parliament.
A mock 10 baht banknote bearing an illustration of a yellow duck instead of the Thai king or his predecessor is pictured in Bangkok on Nov. 25, 2020.
Hard Numbers: Thai royal canard, Biden’s deficit plan, Japan’s gender pay gap, golden Odin, Greek walkout
2: Prepare to read the next sentence twice. A man in Thailand is facing two years in jail for selling calendars of … rubber ducks. The squeaky fowl has long been a symbol of the country’s pro-democracy movement, and since these birds were dressed in royal regalia, authorities say they insulted the monarchy. The country’s defamation laws have been used to convict 200 people since 2020.
2 trillion: With a partisan battle over the debt ceiling looming, President Joe Biden on Thursday is set to unveil a plan to reduce the federal budget deficit by $2 trillion over the next 10 years. Don’t expect Republicans to jump for joy though – the plan is expected to call for tax increases for the wealthy and corporations but won’t satisfy the GOP’s demands for spending cuts.
75: PM Fumio Kishida vowed yesterday to “work even harder” to tackle the massive gender pay gap in Japan, where women earn 75% of what men do for full-time work. The Land of the Rising Sun has ranked abysmally on the World Economic Forum’s gender parity report despite efforts by successive governments to tackle the issue.
1,500: Historians shouldn’t be too Thor about this. Scientists have uncovered the oldest-known reference to the Norse god Odin on a gold disc dating back 1,500 years. The ornamental pendant is part of a trove of gold found in Denmark in 2020, and its inscription, “He’s Odin’s man,” likely refers to an unknown lord or king.
60,000: At least 60,000 Greeks joined anti-government protests Wednesday, a week after a deadly train crash — blamed on years of underinvestment in infrastructure — killed 57 people. Most protesters were in Athens, where they marched to parliament chanting "murderers” in the biggest challenge to date to PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis.The Graphic Truth: How much it costs to supply Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, proponents of continued military aid to Kyiv say it’s a cut-rate investment for security while others wonder whether the cost is worth it. We look at how much the biggest suppliers spent on military aid to Ukraine as a percentage of their defense budgets last year.
US politics are prone to misinformation, says former Danish PM
Why has Europe been less affected by online misinformation than America has been?
"The democratic debate in Europe is less hostile and less fragmented than in the US," former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, during a Global Stage livestream discussion hosted by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft. She was joined by Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media; Brad Smith, president and vice chair of Microsoft; and moderator Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic.
Thorning-Schmidt believes that the fragmentation of American politics has led to a vacancy in the middle, which makes US politics "prone to misinformation."
In contrast, in Europe everyone still seeks the middle ground, which is a "huge difference [between] Europe and the US right now."
Watch more of this Global Stage discussion: "Crisis in a digital world"
- Is the world coming apart? Drama at Davos - GZERO Media ›
- Stop misinformation blame game — let's do something about it ... ›
- COVID hypocrisy & misinformation - GZERO Media ›
- Elon Musk to buy Twitter: will misinformation thrive? - GZERO Media ›
- Moisés Naim: With inflation & low trust in democracy, Latin America faces perfect storm for nasty politics - GZERO Media ›
- How social media harms democracy - GZERO Media ›
Netanyahu on the verge of losing power in Israel; US spying on EU?
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics this week:
Is Netanyahu's time as Israel's prime minister about to end?
It does look that way. Though of course, like with everything in Israel politics it's right down to the wire. Can they put this unity government, where the only thing they're unified on is everyone wants to get rid of Netanyahu, together by midnight Israeli local time. If they can it's the end of Netanyahu's term, 12 years tenure in office. Though the government's not going to last for long. They agree on absolutely nothing else. There's no policy that'll happen, maybe they get a budget together. That's about it. But my God, yes, indeed. It does look like Netanyahu's probably going to be out.
What's the deal with allegations of US spying on European allies?
Well, we've heard a fair amount of this coming out of the Snowden disclosures years ago. Now, further information about the United States government, the NSA in particular, working with the Danish government, a NATO ally, to engage in spying on other European countries, European officials, including Germany. Why the Danish government would agree with this, especially when they refuse to sell Greenland to us? I don't know. But it certainly is causing a lot of mistrust from key Europeans to the United States. When the US is saying, "We want to work with the Europeans on technology because the Chinese are to be mistrusted," the Europeans are mostly saying, "We'd rather hedge and go our own way. We don't know that we can trust anybody else." This does make it a little harder for the Biden administration.
What is next for Mali after a second coup within a year?
Well, they've been suspended from the African Union. That also happened after the first coup in the year but then when the civilian government came in, they reversed the suspension. This time around it might be tougher. It looks harder for civilian government to come back. When you are suspended from the African Union, you're really handling governance really badly. And the reason is Mali is an economically unimportant country, but strategically it does matter because of the fight against Islamist militants, some of which, many of which, are in the north of Mali, in the desert. The ability of other governments, both in the region as well as the French government, to work effectively with Mali if they have a military government that's completely unrepresentative and repressive, is going to be very low. And that means that you're likely to get more space for terrorist engagement opportunities for them to grow in the region as a consequence. Something we don't want to see.
Brazil players celebrate winning the Copa America 2019 against Peru with the trophy.
What We’re Watching: Copa America venue woes, Denmark-US Euro phone tap, Greenpeace vs big coal in Australia
Who will host the Copa América? Only two weeks before the first match, the Copa América, South America's biannual national football (soccer) tournament, has become — pardon the pun — a political football. The tournament was initially to be held jointly by Argentina and Colombia. Two weeks ago, however, the organizers dropped Colombia as co-host citing security concerns following mass street protests against the government's planned tax reforms. Now, as Argentina enters another national lockdown over rising COVID cases, they have decided to switch the venue to... COVID-ravaged Brazil. Brazil's embattled President Jair Bolsonaro has given the go-ahead, perhaps thinking that hosting the competition will help boost his rapidly declining approval ratings in the football-crazy nation. But the move — which is not yet final — immediately provoked strong criticism from Brazilians who think it will cause the deadly disease to spread even more, and the Supreme Court has agreed to review an urgent motion by the opposition Worker's Party to stop it. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's supporters are calling out his opponents for rejecting a competition that will flush cash into Brazil's economy.
US-Europe espionage scandal: Pressure is mounting on Copenhagen and Washington to explain why Denmark helped the US National Security Agency spy on multiple European politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from 2012 to 2014, according to a new report by multiple news organizations. Although this is not the first time America has gotten caught eavesdropping on European allies — NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden already exposed this scheme six years ago — what has really shocked the Europeans this time is that spooks from a fellow European nation reportedly allowed the NSA to access text messages and phone conversations by tapping into Danish internet cables. Interestingly, after the report surfaced Snowden tweeted that Joe Biden was "involved" in the surveillance scheme when he served as Barack Obama's vice president, and suggested that Biden better be prepared to address the scandal when he visits Europe next month for the first time as US president. No matter how well Merkel and Biden get along, spying is never well received — even by friends — and Biden will have a lot of explaining to do to smooth things over.
Greenpeace sued in Australia: AGL, Australia's largest electrical generation company, has sued Greenpeace for naming AGL as the country's top polluter in a satirical ad that included its logo. AGL — which gets 85 percent of its power from coal — is not disputing the claim, but says that Greenpeace's use of its brand breached copyright and trademark infringement laws. The environmental group, for its part, argues that the ad is clearly sarcastic, and that AGL is trying to intimidate Greenpeace into self-censorship to avoid the high cost of litigation against AGL, a large corporation with big pockets. The news from Australia comes as energy firms around the world are coming under increasing legal scrutiny over their responsibility in contributing to climate change: just last week, a Dutch court ordered energy giant Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent for violating the human rights of the Dutch people by extracting fossil fuels. That ruling could set a precedent for climate activists, but if AGL's lawsuit succeeds in getting Greenpeace to back off, energy companies may have found a way to fight back.