New protest at US Embassy, military announces spending on training equipment, parental leave proposed for grandparents and more news from Denmark this Monday.

Greenlanders and Danes protest at US Embassy again

Sunday saw the second demonstration in two weeks of Greenlanders and Danes at the US Embassy in Copenhagen.

The latest privately organised demonstration against the United States went under the title “Hands off Kalaallit Nunaat” (Hands off Greenland).

“This was a show of support for the people of Greenland,” organiser Aviaja Lumholt told news wire Ritzau after hosting the protest and giving a speech.

“We’re standing with them in their fight to prevent a takeover by the US government,” added Lumholt, who is half Greenlandic.

She added that the protest wanted to enforce the message that Greenland belongs to Greenland, and is a “country that has already experienced imperialism and colonialism.”

Military to spend millions on training equipment

The Danish Armed Forces (Forsvaret) is to spend around 600 million kroner on machine guns, vehicles, and night combat equipment for the training of sergeants and lieutenants, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed in a statement.

Army trainees should use the same equipment employed by the armed forces, Flemming Mathiasen, head of the Defence Academy, said in the statement.

“The large-scale procurement of equipment for the Defence Academy’s sergeant and lieutenant schools strengthens our training capabilities and ensures that officers and sergeants are better prepared for their tasks in the field, ultimately boosting the Armed Forces’ operational effectiveness,” he said.

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The investment will meanwhile give training programmes access to more equipment, reducing the need to borrow from operational units.

Denmark has recently announced an acceleration of spending on its armed forces.

Party wants to extend parental leave to grandparents

The Moderate Party, which is a partner in the coalition government, says it wants grandparents to be able to step in more easily to relieve strain in parents of young children.

A new proposal from the party wants to grant grandparents the right to take time off work to look after a sick grandchild, as well as giving grandparents the right to take parental leave.

“This is about ensuring that families with young children have more day-to-day flexibility,” Moderates political spokesperson Monika Rubin said.

Current rules allow a solo parent to transfer part of their parental leave to a grandparent This would be expanded to include families with two parents under the proposal.

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“From our perspective, this proposal is a win-win because we can also see that grandparents benefit from being involved in their grandchildren’s lives,” Rubin said.

Danish cola brand gets sales boost

Sales of Danish brand Jolly Cola at the Rema 1000 supermarket chain were 13 times higher last month than during the same period last year, Jonas Schrøder, Rema’s director of communications, said in a social media post on Friday.

Other outlets including Coop and Fleggaard have also reported significant increases in demand for the Danish cola, newspaper BT reported recently.

Bryggeriet Vestfyen, the brewery which makes Jolly Cola, says it has never seen a sales trend like it.

“It’s getting out of hand. We’ve had hundreds of enquiries about Jolly Cola, recently, mainly from shopkeepers calling us,” senior brand manager Thomas Lindegaard told BT last month.

The sudden surge in demand for Danish cola comes as many consumers being opting for locally produced items to replace American ones they are now choosing not to spend money on.

READ ALSO: Can a Danish boycott on US products have any effect?

“We were already seeing growth last year, but we have a bit of extra tailwind from an unexpected direction right now, and that wasn’t something we saw coming,” Lindegaard told BT.