Deportation facility operating normally after fire, Greenland introduces new limits on foreign property ownership and more news from Denmark this Friday.
Deportation facility operating normally after fire
The Kærshovedgård ‘departure centre’ for people awaiting deportation from Denmark is running normally after a fire this week. A resident at the centre was arrested for suspected arson in connection with the incident.
Residents who were moved from their rooms due to the fire are gradually being moved back, operator Danmarks Fængsler told the Ritzau news wire.
The 33-year-old man who was arrested admitted to police that he started the fire but denied his intention was to hurt anyone, police told local media Herning Folkeblad.
He was brought for preliminary court hearings earlier this week, when regional media TV Midtvest reported that it emerged he had set fire to napkins and clothing in a section of the centre for residents with special care needs. He was accommodated at the section himself due to PTSD.
No-one was injured in the fire.
READ ALSO: Danish asylum facility evacuated after suspected arson attack
Greenland limits foreigners’ rights to own property
Greenland’s parliament, Inatsisartut, has introduced new rules on foreign property ownership amid rising interest in real estate in the country from the United States, newspaper Politiken reports.
All land in Greenland is owned by the state and cannot be purchased, but individuals can obtain the right to use a specific plot. Properties can be bought and sold, however.
The new rules make it harder for foreign nationals to both receive approval to use a plot of land and to buy property.
The bill was introduced after authorities observed “a certain level of interest” from abroad in acquiring property in Greenland, Politiken writes.
The newspaper has previously reported that estate agents in Greenland have seen a spike in interest from Americans seeking to buy land in the country.
Advertisement
Dog involved in incident on S-train after lead caught in door
A dog became separated from its owner by the door of a moving S-train after the mechanism failed to detect that the thin dog lead had become caught in it, local media KøbenhavnLiv reports after speaking to rail operator DSB.
The incident resulted in the dog being carried through the air as the Copenhagen metropolitan train service began moving while its owner still held the lead through the closed door.
The incident happened at Sjælår station in Valby near the capital. The train was quickly stopped and the dog is reported to have come through the incident unscathed.
Government and defence websites hit by cyberattack
Danish government and defence websites were hit in a wide-ranging cyberattack on Thursday, the country’s Civil Protection Agency said, with pro-Russia hackers claiming responsibility.
The agency was “aware that several Danish companies and websites were currently experiencing outages and operating disruptions because of DDoS attacks”, it said in a statement provided to AFP.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks halt access to a website by overloading its servers with traffic.
The agency said it was “following the situation closely”, in tandem with Denmark’s military intelligence agency.