Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt asked the nation to be prepared for tougher times in her New Year speech at the weekend. Read the full story

Next year’s national budget bill has been approved by Iceland’s Alþingi parliament after a marathon voting session. Read the full story

A psychopathic man who killed his girlfriend this summer has been sentenced to an asylum; a man has been remand in custody in connection to a shooting in Reykjavik last week; and another man has been arrested for threatening his friends with a knife. Read the full story

Young people with children are the biggest group emigrating from Iceland, according to Statistics Iceland. Last year around 2,000 more people moved away from Iceland than in an average year. Read the full story

Some of Iceland’s highest level political leaders have signed a joint convention against bullying. Read the full story

A man in Sweden is accused of fraudulently claiming several million kronor in benefits after forcing his daughter to fake a mental illness for 11 years. Read the full story

Despite a raft of proposed new tax rises for next year, Iceland’s finance minister says his budget proposal is a lot milder than the one imposed on 1st January this year and that the state budget deficit will likely turn to a surplus in 2012. Read the full story

Two ambulances donated by Falck, the private emergency response service, are now operating as injection rooms for people addicted to drugs. Read the full story

More young people in Finland, many of them under the legal age of 18, are applying for sex changes, according to a media report. Read the full story

The strength of family bonds between Icelanders has seldom been stronger than now, while the strength of loyalty to the government and official bodies has collapsed since the banking crisis. Read the full story