Journeys home on Fridays and before public holidays start on average 35 minutes earlier than on other working days, reports Politiken. This is based on the Travel Behaviour Study carried out by the Department of Transport at the Technical University of Denmark, which charts Danish traffic behaviour in detail.

We nip off early
The study looks at all commuter journeys over the last three years. On average cars whizz off from work 39 minutes earlier on Fridays, whilst those taking public transport leave nine minutes earlier.

Megafon, the research institute, asked 1,107 Danes about their work habits. 43 per cent of those in employment said that they work less on a Friday. The survey was carried out for Politiken and TV2.

Friday liberties
According to Henning Jørgensen, a labour market researcher at Aalborg University, we have simply stretched the weekend.

"Something has happened to our working hours on a Friday. It is not a full working day any more. As the weekend approaches our thoughts turn to family life and so our legs take us away from work.

So it is 'help yourself' among many office workers, because they feel they deserve a reward after a hard week's work," Henning Jørgensen told Politiken.

In the current three-party negotiations, the Government is proposing to improve the public finances by DKK 4 billion through increased employment.

30 minutes longer at your desk
However, if every Dane worked half an hour longer on a Friday this would lead to an budgetary improvement of DKK 7.5 billion, according to calculations prepared for Politiken by the liberal think-tank Cepos.

In the Megafon survey 37 per cent of Danes said they would be prepared to work half an hour extra on a Friday if it meant that the public holidays could be preserved.

This emerges from a comprehensive survey of municipal HR managers carried out by Avisen.dk.

"We are Funen's healthiest municipality, so it's perfectly natural that we should be completely smoke-free. We believe this is the extra motivation that the 22-23 per cent of our 3,600 smoking employees need," Henning Qvick, chief executive of Assens Municipality, told Avisen.dk.

This development is very much to the liking of the Danish Cancer Society, which expects more municipalities to follow suit once the way has been paved.

"Smoking bans in working hours are politically highly sensitive, and there has long been an air of hesitancy in the municipalities. But this is the starting signal for a process that will gain momentum in the next few years," Inge Haunstrup Clemmensen, consultant at the Danish Cancer Society, told Avisen.dk

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt (SocDem) revealed this after the 27 EU Heads of State and Government concluded their meeting on growth and new jobs in Europe early on Thursday morning.

"We have had a very constructive discussion, and we have laid the groundwork for a real growth package that we can discuss at the next summit meeting at the end of June," said the Prime Minister.

She is holding onto the hope that the Danish EU Presidency can be crowned with a common European growth pact that will create new jobs and help pull the EU out of the crisis.

In the lead-up to the meeting, the media had set the scene for a showdown between German Chancellor Angela Merkel's desire for austerity and newly elected French President François Hollande's desire for more investment.

However, according to Helle Thorning-Schmidt the tone of the discussions was positive.

"It's simplistic to say that you either have to save your way out of the crisis or invest your way out. The message from the meeting is that everyone now agrees we need to get to grips with the economy but also kick-start growth," said the Prime Minister.

In their final-day clash with AC Horsens, Mikkel Beckmann scored the opener shortly before half-time. Andreas Laudrup made it 2-0 ten minutes after the restart, and Andreas Bjelland completed the scoring a few minutes from full-time. This meant that the result of the game between FC Copenhagen and Silkeborg was irrelevant, although Copenhagen did their bit by winning 2-1.

AC Horsens' defeat also meant that they missed out on third place, which instead went to FC Midtjylland, who defeated AGF 2-0.

As well as the Danish title, FC Nordsjælland can celebrate earning an automatic place in next season's Champions League, which will earn the club more than DKK 100 million. FC Copenhagen will be entered in the qualifying stage of the competition

This is shown by new figures from the Parents’ Counselling Service, which receives calls or letters from parents seeking impartial advice and guidance on their children’s problems at school.

The second most common reason for parents contacting the Service is children feeling persecuted by an adult, also known as teacher bullying.

Top of the list
Since 2006, the Service has received 488 inquiries relating to teacher bullying. By comparison, pupil bullying has only accounted for 172 inquiries, almost three times as few, writes metroXpress.

Teacher bullying is at the top of the list every year, and this is a concern for Solveig Gaarsmand, head of the Parents’ Counselling Service.

“It surprises us every year that so many parents contact us because their children feel persecuted by a teacher. Self-reflection among teachers is important if we are to stamp out this problem,” Solveig Gaarsmand told metroXpress.

A very serious matter
Vera Rosenbeck, president of the Association of Danish Pupils, echoes this message.

“It’s one thing being bullied by a pupil, but it’s even more serious being bullied by a teacher. It’s their job to promote safety and well-being, and if someone has been persecuted by an adult for ten years in school, no one can object if they don’t want to enter a post-compulsory education programme,” she told metroXpress.

Verbal assault
In 2009, the Danish Centre of Educational Environment carried out the biggest study to date of teacher bullying. It showed that one in ten Danish school pupils feels bullied by a teacher, but since then nothing has been done about the matter, said head of centre Ole Juhl.

“It’s time to get things out in the open and talk freely about teacher bullying because it’s verbal assault. But the matter is being covered up,” he said.

He points out that while all schools have a duty to implement an anti-bullying strategy, often it only focuses on the pupils and not the teachers.

“I don’t imagine that it’s ‘take it or leave it’, but that it will be the first draft that we’ve waited so long for. However, I also think that things will proceed quickly,” Dennis Kristensen told the Danish news agency Ritzau.

“LO will have the opportunity to discuss whether the mandate covers what the central organisation wants to bring to the negotiations and, if so, give the thumbs-up. Alternatively, we could approve the mandate with additions,” said Dennis Kristensen.

Three-party negotiations could be imminent
According to DR News, the three-party negotiations could begin in a few days if LO approves the mandate.

Dennis Kristensen has not yet received the mandate, but he has high hopes for it. Among other things, he is counting on massive investment in training and education. But he does not expect to see a mandate which paves the way for abolishing one or more holidays.

“I’m assuming that the government has thought things through carefully based on the recent debate,” said Dennis Kristensen, who has been one of the harshest critics of cutting holidays.

“We still need to find DKK 4 billion with the help of increased working hours, but I expect an open proposal where they haven’t already committed themselves to finding the money in one way or another.”

LO's large General Council, which needs to be appraised prior to the three-party negotiations, will also meet later today, writes DR News.

This emerges from an analysis undertaken by the journal Ingeniøren on the basis of information from the bus company Movia.

Three times as expensive
Ingeniøren calculates that the introduction of the new card will result in annual running costs of DKK 191 million for Movia.

If they retained the current punch-card system, costs would be a third of this - just DKK 63 million.

"I am surprised that a digital product does not result in lower operating costs," said Kim Normann Andersen, professor of IT systems at Copenhagen Business School.

Moving away from paper tickets should really result in savings, he observes.

Costs will be passed on
Danish train and bus companies will now have to spend DKK 2.7 billion more over 15 years for the digital travel card than they have been spending on their current systems - even after deducting all the savings.

According to Kim Normann Andersen it is likely that the transport companies will end up passing the costs on.

"One possibility is that they will be allowed to increase ticket prices, another is that they will ask stakeholders to inject more money. In other words, the municipalities may be asked to cover these costs."

Ole Henrik Hansen asserted in Berlingske that his research was based on questionnaires sent out to 40,000 nursery staff. However, the P1 radio programme Detektor has revealed that there were only 1,412 respondents.

What is more, Ole Henrik Hansen is accused of distorting the responses in his presentation. He used the survey to criticise the apparent lack of leadership and planning in Danish nurseries, suggesting that many of them should therefore be closed.

Politicians demanded action
The responses to the survey, which was carried out in conjunction with the Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educators, actually show, however, that 79% of the nursery staff questioned consider that their workplace has an open and inclusive leadership style and that they are listened to and have an influence. The leadership was judged to be inactive in only 8 per cent of cases. 59 per cent also said that there are planned activities for the children for at least some of the day.

All the same, several politicians have demanded action in this area based on the survey and the media's coverage of it.

No comment
Berlingske defended itself in a mail to Detektor: "Berlingske tried to cover Ole Henrik Hansen's research as thoroughly and accurately as possible, among other things by sending a draft of the article to the researcher himself to avoid errors and misunderstandings. The figure of approximately 40,000 comes from Ole Henrik Hansen himself".

Ole Henrik Hansen does not wish to comment on whether the data he has cited are incorrect.

There aren't 40,000 nursery staff
In an open letter in today's Information, fourteen childcare researchers question Ole Henrik Hansen's conclusions.

As it happens, there aren't even 40,000 nursery staff in Denmark, but only around 11-12,000, according to the estimate of the Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educators. Its president, Henning Pedersen, is also therefore wondering whether it can actually be their survey that was referred to.

"I was amazed at the figure of 40,000 childcare workers. I couldn't understand where it came from," he said.

The study was carried out by Professor Øjvind Lidegaard of the Department of Gynaecology at Rigshospitalet.

"In terms of blood clots, the patch is the highest-risk product on the market. Then come the new third- or fourth-generation contraceptive pills, which, like the vaginal ring, increase the risk six-fold," Øjvind Lidegaard told DR News.

Women must decide
Last autumn, a study showed that some contraceptive pills can increase the risk of blood clots. This prompted many of the 400,000 or so women who use daily contraceptive pills to switch to other methods, including vaginal rings.

"But that's a really bad idea," said Øjvind Lidegaard.

In the first instance, he is advising doctors to inform women of the risk, but he stresses that it should be left up to the women themselves to choose which form of birth control they wish to use.

"Some women will conclude that they want to continue using rings or patches because they work for them. As far as I'm concerned, it's fine as long as they understand what they are doing," said Øjvind Lidegaard.

According to the web newspaper Canarias7, the man's wife reported her husband missing on Wednesday, after which a search was launched.

Items found
The man's bicycle and a backpack containing his documents were then found in a ravine in an inaccessible area near the Soria dam in the south of the island.

According to the Norwegian website CanariaJournalen, the rescue services, a helicopter, the police, the civil defence and rescue dogs are all involved in the search.

"As things stand right now, the plan is that the crown prince will attend," she said. "As is standard practice, the royal family will follow the government line."

The Danish government, led by Minister for Culture Uffe Elbæk (SocLib), has so far declined to boycott the championships in Ukraine even though other countries have questioned whether political representatives should attend.

The international concern that democratic rights are not being respected in the country has been heightened in particular by the imprisonment of Ukraine's former president Yulia Tymoshenko.

In October, Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power in what she herself described as a "political witch-hunt".

In prison in the city of Kharkiv, Tymoshenko has allegedly been mistreated and has suffered with serious back pain. Earlier this week she was moved to a hospital in the same city.

This is the conclusion of a new comprehensive status report by the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) published on the occasion of its 25th birthday.

"Denmark is a strong, democratic constitutional state with a highly developed welfare system. Our platform is good compared with most other countries in the world," said DIHR Director Jonas Christoffersen.

"However, if we scratch the surface, we also find a lot of areas where we can do better - and should do better," he added. "And the area of children is where I think we have the most serious problems in Denmark."

Jonas Christoffersen points to a number of abuse cases in recent years where Danish children across the country have been subjected to violence, incest and neglect without the authorities intervening in time:

"The supervision has not worked well enough, and that is a big mistake. Children have a right to be protected and cared for, but instead their rights have been neglected. The state has a duty to provide continuous, qualified supervision so that children are not exposed to unnecessary use of force or sexual assault."

In addition to the area of children, the DIHR highlights 12 other areas where Denmark can do better than it is currently doing, including human trafficking and detention.