Stephen Gadd
March 8th, 2019

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King of the castle – one of Holch Povlsen’s investments is Aldourie Castle in Scotland (photo: Colin Smith/Geograph)

Ten Danes are on the Forbes magazine annual list of dollar billionaires. Anders Holch Povlsen, the CEO of clothing empire Bestseller, is still the country’s richest with 42 billion kroner. However, he is not quite as rich as he was, having now dropped down the list from number 207 last year to number 242.

After him comes Niels Peter Louis-Hansen, the part-owner of the medical appliances company Coloplast, who is reputed to be worth 36 billion kroner.

Taking the bronze medal is Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the owner of Lego, plus the children Sofie, Thomas and Agnete Kirk Kristiansen, who each have 31 billion kroner. The ownership of the company was split and shared with the children, easily making the family Denmark’s richest.

Baby infected with measles
A ten-month-old baby in the Køge area has been found to be infected with measles, reports the Styrelsen for Patientsikkerhed agency for patient safety. The baby has been attending a creche at a private daycare centre where there are other children who have not been vaccinated against the disease. The parents of the other children have already been informed. Measles is a very infectious disease and in rare cases can lead to complications such as middle ear infections, encephalitis and pneumonia.

Passports taken from two would-be IS fighters
Yesterday, the Eastern High Court upheld a judgment from last June concerning four youngsters – two men and two women – found guilty of trying to support IS by travelling to Syria and joining up, reports DR Nyheder. The two young men lost their Danish passports for the second time. None of the four managed to reach Syria as planned in 2017, with three of them being apprehended in Turkey and the youngest girl not even leaving Denmark because her parents had confiscated her passport. As well as losing their passports, the two men will be expelled for a yet-to-be-determined period of time, while one of the women, an Afghani citizen, will also be expelled. All four have also been sentenced to three years in prison.

Vegetarian restaurant numbers exploding
Figures from the Danish vegetarian association reveal that the number of vegetarian restaurants has increased dramatically from 10 in 2010 to 54 today, and it is not just in Copenhagen. Danes are generally eating less meat. Around 140,000 people, 2.4 percent of the population, are thought to be completely vegetarian and around 680,000 (or 12 percent) are primarily vegetarian, so there is a demand for restaurants and more vegetarian products in supermarkets. Added to that are so-called flexitarians, who eat a plant-based diet with the occasional inclusion of meat. Around 32 percent of Danes have at least one meatless day a week.

Danes charged with sharing murder video
A video showing terrorists killing the Danish woman Louisa Vesterager Jespersen and her Norwegian travelling companion Maren Ueland in Morocco in December has been shared on Facebook and Messenger. After receiving 118 tip-offs, police in eastern Jutland have decided to charge 14 people with sharing it, reports DR Nyheder. Twelve of the people are being charged with breaching the law on privacy – a crime that can lead to up to three years imprisonment. The last two have been charged with publicly expressing approval of a terrorist act.