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NEWS
The Copenhagen Post cphpost.dk
7 - 13 December 2012
Danske Bank pulls #Occupy image from ad campaign
D
anske Bank has withdrawn imagery of the Occupy movement protestors from its new advertising campaign after widespread criticism. The bank recently launched a high-profile advertising campaign, entitled ‘New Standards’, that attempted to show the new world we lived in. It featured a range of imagery that included amputated athletes, children using iPads, solar panels being installed in Africa, and protesters throwing stones at the police. The campaign was launched to coincide with the bank’s new strategy in which it hopes “to restore trust in the bank and ensure that we live up to our new vision of being recognised as the most trusted financial partner”. They added that the campaign was supposed to show that “the fragility of the financial markets, continuing globalisation, energy and sustainability have all become permanent issues that no-one can ignore.” But the bank’s use of an image of a man with a dollar bill
Danske Bank withdrew this image from its advertising campaign after intense international criticism
site specialising in viral content, called the advert “shameless”. “It would – maybe – feel less hyper-hypocritical if Danske presented some evidence in this TV ad that it is not like every other financial behemoth in the world,” the website stated. “Because, right now, it just looks like Danske has done nothing but make a pretty, outrageously meaningless commercial.” Even financial daily Børsen joined the choir, with a columnist writing that the campaign weakened the bank’s integrity by aligning itself with global movements it did not evidently support.
Not in anyone’s backyard Ray Weaver Government’s plan to build a permanent radioactive waste facilty has been panned by a top Swedish official, who says the waste should stay right where it is
I
t is unrealistic for Denmark to attempt to establish a permanent storage facility for 5,000 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste currently sitting at the Risø National Laboratory near Roskilde, according to the head of Sweden’s own radioactive waste authority. Denmark has no nuclear power plants, but it operated three test reactors between 1954 and 2000. Some of the waste also comes from hospitals. Six rural locations are currently being reviewed as possible sites, but any further discussion is pointless, according to Johan Swahn, the head of Sweden’s Office for Nuclear Waste Review.
“Not one single country in the entire world has constructed a depot for this kind of waste, so it is inconceivable that Denmark can do it,” Swahn told Danish newspaper Information. Denmark has been seeking a country for the past ten years to find a site outside of the country to store its radioactive waste. The health minister, Astrid Krag (Socialistisk Folkeparti), said at a public hearing last month that even though the ultimate goal is still to ship the waste out of the country, there have been no takers, and until that happened the process of finding a site for a storage facility would remain underway. Parliament decided in 2003 to build a facility that could hold the waste for 300 years, until it no longer posed a health threat. The councils on the current shortlist have united in a common effort to see that the waste is either shipped abroad or remains where it is.
Flemming Eskildsen, the mayor of Skive Council, which has been identified as having two possible locations that could house the facility, expressed scepticism about Krag’s claims that the waste is essentially harmless. “Even though she jokes that the storage facility would be so safe that you could sit on top of it for a year without getting more than the normal amount of radiation, there are no major population centres on her list of depot sites,” Eskildsen told The Copenhagen Post. Eskildsen said that burying the waste somewhere in the countryside may put it out of sight, but would not solve the problem. “We should ask other countries with more experience at this sort of thing to help us.” A major fear of all of the councils on the list is that the waste would eventually seep into the groundwater.
“Danske Bank is riding on the back of the hard-won gains achieved after years of hard work and risk-taking by handicapped athletes and solar panel makers. Danske Bank makes it appear as though they are part of the same hard-working and risk-taking community. But they are not. On the contrary.” With websites mocking the bank’s ‘New Standards’ message, many identified an incongruity between the advert’s message and the actual direction the bank was taking. On the one hand, the bank aligns itself with the struggles of ordinary people, but in an effort
to increase its profits it recently announced that it would close many branches in smaller towns across the country and lay off about 3,000 employees by 2015. While the bank justified the move by arguing that the prevalence of online banking meant there was less need for actual branches, an article on Kommunikations Forum suggested the bank was simply behaving the way any profit-orientated businesses would. “[The bank’s] neo-liberal and shareholder focus is kept at any price, even at society’s and the customer’s cost. Like [Republican presidential candidate Mitt] Romney, the bank does not care about the lower 47 percent of their customers because they are bad business,” the article stated. “That is why the bank’s campaign cannot involve the 99 percent without it ending up as a new standard for hypocrisy.” The final word came from a video by #Occupy supporters. “Your bank grows richer as poverty and inequality are growing,” the video states. “Bank directors are getting great bonuses, but ordinary people cannot afford mortgages because of the bank bailout.” The video added: “We hope you are happy with your bank bailouts – just remember who paid for them.”
Scanpix / Niels Ahlmann Olesen
Bank withdraws anti-Wall Street photo from the after criticism that it was insensitive to the goals of the movement
taped across his mouth with “#OCCUPY” written on it sparked international outrage. “Many have criticised us for using images that depict the Occupy Wall Street movement in our new campaign,” the bank stated in a press release. “That is why we have decided to remove the images from the campaign. It was not our intention to offend anyone, only to show that the world is changing and that we are changing with it. We have only used the images in order to illustrate the criticism directed at the banks after the financial crisis.” The bank faced widespread criticism for using the image as it seemed to undermine the fact that the original #Occupy WallStreet movement was driven by outrage at the irresponsible risks taken by the banking sector that contributed to the global financial crisis. One commenter on Danske Bank’s Facebook page wrote: “Hello, bankers, do you think we are going to belive that you are a socially aware business rather than one driven by profit? And do you think we have forgotten that as part of the banking industry you are one of the world’s super villains?” The advert made its way to the US, where the website Buzzfeed, a highly recognised web-
Danske Bank
Peter Stanners
Ole Kastbjerg Nielsen (centre), shown here inspecting storage drums, doesn’t share the concerns that moving the waste is unsafe
“If, as the government says, the waste poses no danger, then why not put it near Copenhagen?” Stig Vestergaard, the mayor of Lolland-Faster, another potential candidate, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. Despite the criticism, Dansk Dekommissionering, the group responsible for radioactive waste in Denmark, is keeping the possibility of a Danish storage facility open. “Our analysis showed that
it can be done safely,” Ole Kastbjerg Nielsen, the head of Dansk Dekommissionering, told Information. Danish experts want the radioactive waste moved from Risø to an area that is more geologically stable, but Swahn said Denmark should let the radioactive waste stay there for the time being. “It is not a problem for Denmark to take a timeout for 50 or 100 years,” he said.
Calls for more compensation for egg donors Fertility clinics argue women should receive more than 500 kroner for donating ova, but the health minister warns against turning them into commodities
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ertility clinics are demanding that the government change the law and allow greater compensation for egg donations, according to Berlingske newspaper. Danish law states that ova and sperm donors may only be compensated 500 kroner, but an investigation by Berlingske revealed that clinics were routinely giving women more to adequately compensate them for helping them meet the high demand for eggs. The law limiting the financial compensation for donations is to prevent the creation of a commercial trade in human tissue, health minister Astrid Krag (Solcialistisk Folkeparti) said. “It is vital that we don’t turn [eggs] into commodities,” Krag told Berlingske. “People should not start to donate their eggs because of financial hardship.” But Peter Lundstrøm, who runs Fertilitets Klinikken IVF in Ballerup, argues that the remuneration for women is far too low given the time, pain and inconvenience that egg donation incurs. “There is a religious and ethical misunderstanding that has led to something as unpleasant as having an egg removed being compared to sperm donation,” Lundstrøm said. Female donors have to take a course of hormones to encourage their ova to mature, and go to clinics for several meetings and ultrasounds before the eggs are finally removed using a thin needle inserted into an ovary. The 500 kroner compensation does not, in many cases, cover the costs of the women’s transport to and from the clinic, or their lost earnings. The procedure is painful and women are expected to take at least a day off work for the procedure. In order to encourage women to donate, Berlingske reported that many clinics bend the rules and give women 500 kroner every time they attend the clinic. Others pay women as much as 5,000 kroner and make them sign a contract saying that the sum equals the costs incurred because of the donation. (PS)
Online this week Copenhagen nightlife a safe place to be, revellers say Despite a rash of recent reports about stabbings and grisly murders, a new City Council survey indicated that 90 percent of Copenhagen revellers feel safe at night in the city. The survey, carried out by Userneeds, is based on the responses of 601 men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 who live in Copenhagen
and have been out to a nightclub or bar at least twice in the past year. “We are very happy that people feel safe in Copenhagen, but we can’t let this news cause us to relax. We must continue to focus on safety in the city,” Lea Bryld, a spokesperson for the city’s safety commission, Center for Sikker By, told Politiken.
The show cannot go on: Carnival calls it quits Organisers of the Copenhagen Carnival announced that this year’s carnival was the last after the City Council slashed funding by more than half. The amount the city gives was cut from 500,000 kroner this year to 202,000 kroner next year, Copenhagen Carnival head Morten Sørensen said the annual event, which has been
running since 1982, had become too expensive. “Running such a large event is costly and we have had to concede that the council support of 202,000 kroner we have been granted for next year’s Carnival is insufficient to cover the millions of kroner it costs to responsibly run such a large event,” Sørensen said.
‘Mama Jane’ appalled by prison sentence for extortionist Jane Petersen, the owner of Nørrebro’s Café Viking, says she is “appalled” that a 19-yearold gang member who tried to force her to pay protection money was sentenced to eight months in prison. “It is wrong to put a young man in prison,”
Petersen told Berlingske newspaper. “I would have preferred that he received something like community service.” The man wanted money from Petersen to guarantee the safety of her business. When she refused, he threw a brick through her window.
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