Compensation due to thousands of women and girls fitted with coils without their knowledge or consent

Victims of Denmark’s IUD scandal, in which thousands of Greenlandic women and girls were forcibly fitted with contraceptive coils without their knowledge or consent, have claimed victory in their legal fight with the Danish government after it was confirmed they will be eligible for compensation.

The Danish parliament, Folketinget, and the government reached an agreement on Wednesday that entitles about 4,500 Greenlandic women to claim 300,000 DKK (£35,000) each from a reconciliation fund.

María Corina Machado says action was ‘very necessary step’ to confront Nicolás Maduro’s ‘criminal’ regime

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Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, the Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado, has said she supports the US seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, calling it a “very necessary step” to confront Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal” regime.

Speaking in Oslo on Thursday, a day after she was honoured for her “tireless” struggle for democratic change, Machado praised the US navy and coastguard helicopter raid on the vessel.

Christmas tourists are noticing a growing military presence in Lapland, where Santa Park doubles as a bomb shelter

Billed as the official home town of Santa Claus, or joulupukki as he is known in Finland, the city of Rovaniemi offers every imaginable Father Christmas-related experience – from a visit to his “office” on the Arctic Circle to reindeer sleigh rides. He even has his own branch of the Finnish design house Marimekko.

But this Christmas season, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world coming in search of Santa, Finnish Lapland’s snow-covered capital is becoming an increasingly popular destination for international military visitors.

Press conference was expected to have been Venezuelan opposition leader’s first public appearance in 11 months

A press conference in Oslo with the Nobel peace prize laureate María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader in hiding, has been cancelled, the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said, adding that it was “in the dark” as to her whereabouts.

Machado last appeared in public on 9 January at a demonstration in Caracas protesting against the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro for his third term as president. The press conference, traditionally held by the Nobel laureate on the eve of the award ceremony, had been expected to be the 58-year-old’s first public appearance in 11 months.

Moscow ‘continuously reinforcing’ its presence in the region, says Swedish chief of operations Capt Marko Petkovic

The Swedish navy encounters Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea on an “almost weekly” basis, its chief of operations has said, and is preparing for a further increase in the event of ceasefire or armistice in the Ukraine war.

Capt Marko Petkovic said Moscow was “continuously reinforcing” its presence in the region, and sightings of its vessels were a regular part of life for the Swedish navy. Its “very common”, he said, adding that the number of sightings had increased in recent years.