Summary: Finnish dailies run stories on psychologists worried about children's rights, a massive EU robotics initiative and a Kalevala-themed luxury holiday village.

Helsingin ja Uudenmaan sairaanhoitopiiri

Three Helsinki psychologists published an opinion piece on Tuesday decrying the slowness of Finland's criminal justice system in litigating sexual offenses against minors,  tabloid Ilta-Sanomat writes .
 Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) psychologists  Merja Oksanen ,  Taina Laajasalo  and  Julia Korkman  from the Forensic Psychology Center for Children and Adolescents said in their open letter in daily Helsingin Sanomat that the time it takes for a criminal case of sexual assault against a minor to make it from police report to sentencing – 23 months on average – is prohibitively long.
 "We wrote it based on our experiences in practicing our field," Laajasalo told IS. "We have closely followed the public discussion of police resources, and we routinely see what they amount to in real life. We felt that a certain perspective was missing from the issue."
 One related bill proposes to extend the minimum announcement period for demonstrations from one day to three, on the argument that police need time to direct resources to safeguarding public security. But the psychologists say in IS that the focus of the discussion is skewed.
 "We have long been worried about how long the legal process takes in children's sexual assault cases. It is very hard on families. The time seemed ripe for our letter," HUS psychologist Oksanen said in the paper.
 The drawbacks of a slow system for children include difficulty in remembering disturbing events after long periods and living with unresolved trauma.
 The psychologists, who work closely with police, blame badly managed organisational changes and poorly directed resources for the unacceptable lag – not the abilities or motivations of police investigators.
 Robots on the horizon
 The University of Tampere and the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) are starting an EU-funded robotics project of vast proportions this year,  local paper Aamulehti reports .
 The international, 32-million-euro undertaking brought together robotics experts from some 20 European countries on Tuesday as the team celebrated the launch of their initiative in Hervanta, Tampere.
 The research programme, called Horizon 2020, includes two projects, Trinity and DIH2. The projects aim to produce techniques and tools to spruce up small and mid-sized Finnish businesses, AL writes.
 "It is so amazing," said university professor  Minna Lanz . "VTT and the university will be working side by side to provide innovations, solutions and know-how to the region."
 The Trinity project, headed by Lanz, focuses on industrial human-robot cooperation while DIH2 aims to develop a Europe-wide robotics network to boost productivity.
 The consortium's four-year schedule means to produce 17 demonstrations of technical use and 50 thorough scenarios of how robotics has been and can be utilised, using emerging technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
 "The goal is to create a system by which humans can interact with industrial robots as easily as possible, without any clunky headgear," said Lanz.
 Mythical Nordic luxury
 Big things are happening in the Finnish hospitality sector as well, as the brand new Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Lapland has caught the eye of many a rich international tourist. The hospitality complex started expanding after its marketing campaign went viral in 2017.
 Helsingin Sanomat  runs a piece on the high-class holiday centre in Saariselkä, whose milieu boast hundreds of modern art pieces, psychedelic fantasy aesthetics and references to Finland's national epic, Kalevala.
 Glass igloos are the main form of accommodation at the Kakslauttanen resort. Kakslauttanen
 One night in the glass igloos at this one-of-a-kind resort costs 800 euros, which 40,000 visitors per year are happy to pay. Movie star  Margot Robbie  visited the complex in early January, to much online buzz.
 The weird wonderland in the far reaches of northern Finland is the vision of millionaire entrepreneur  Jussi Eiramo , who told HS he paid "a few million" to bring the artistic compound into being.
 "Why not build a place like this in the middle of nowhere?" Eiramo said.

Wednesday's papers: Slow assault litigation, robotics in Tampere, Arctic jetset wonderland


Summary: Upgrades to Helsinki metro’s route management system will prevent it from running east of Lauttasaari over the weekend.

Eighty replacement buses will serve commuters as the Helsinki metro shuts down over the weekend for maintenance work to its inter-locking system. As a result, the metro won’t be operating during the weekend from Lauttasaari to the east.
 On Friday at 6pm the metro will stop running between Itäkeskus, Mellunmäki and Vuosaari stations. On Saturday and Sunday, the metro running east from Lauttasaari will be closed for upgrades.
 Replacement buses and trams ready
 ”The capacity is not quite on par with the metro, but the break is over the weekend when people likely have more choice regarding which form of transit they use and the route they take,” says  Petri Nissinen , public transport planner for the Helsinki Regional Transit Authority (HSL).
 The replacement buses will operate, depending on the time of day, every 5 to 10 minutes. Tickets for buses as well as trams should be purchased in advance.
 Back to normal on Monday
 The metro will operate normally again on Monday, 14 January.
 On Friday night the stretch from Itäkeskus to Mellunmäki metro station will be operated by bus 99MX and from Itäkeskus to Vuosaari station by bus 99VX, which will run from 5:30pm through midnight.
 On Saturday and Sunday, three bus lines will replace the metro: 99B, 99M, and 99V. The buses will stop at specially marked stops.
 In the city centre, tram 11 will replace the metro, running from Salmisaari to Paavalinkirkko church, serving all tram stops along the route.
 All of the replacement services schedules are available in the  HSL journey planner .
 New safety device will decrease traffic disturbances
 The new route management system tracks the location of metro trains.
 ”Passengers will be able to receive more accurate real-time information about metro trains and their exact location,” says  Artturi Lähdetie , a director at Helsinki City Transport.

100,000 travellers affected by partial metro shutdown this weekend


Summary: Following in the footsteps of other retail banks in Finland, OP says it’s reducing the number of free monthly cash withdrawals from five to four in April.

After the fourth withdrawal in a one-month period, OP bank will debit customers’ accounts 55 cents for each subsequent trip to the ATM.
 With cash increasingly perceived as the horse-drawn carriage of payments, retail banks have started charging customers preferring physical currency.
 Nordea currently charges customers 40 cents for fifth and subsequent withdrawals in a 30-day period, and Ålandsbanken charges one euro after the first five monthly withdrawals.
 At the moment, some six percent of OP customers visit cash machines more than four times per month.
 “Cash use is decreasing in all age groups at a rate of ten percent per year,”  Harri Nummela , an OP executive vice president, told Finnish News Agency STT, adding that OP customers can withdraw cash at grocery store checkouts around the country.
 Cash still king for many
 Speaking at a forum for business reporters at the end of last year,  Tuomas Välimäki , a board member of the Bank of Finland, said the drive towards cashlessness has been too rapid.
 Around ten percent of residents still prefer cash over other payment methods. Finland’s central bank outlines that residents should be able to make at least one free cash withdrawal a week.

OP Bank to charge active cash users


Summary: In the future, patients contemplating a hospital visit could benefit from AI, helping them determine whether they should seek medical care or not.

Patients heading to hospital emergency or considering a doctor’s appointment in Finland could likely benefit from artificial intelligence in the future.
 The AI will be able to draw on medial records to determine whether someone should seek medical care. It may also be able to predict the likelihood of certain illnesses.
 How it works
 When it comes to minors, a child’s parent first feeds information into an online system about the child’s condition. The AI application will then analyse the information and combine it with previous information on the child's medical history that’s already stored in the a health database. On this basis the AI indicates whether seeking medical attention is acute or if it’s possible to wait a few days.
 This type of application is currently being developed at hospitals in Lapland and Northern Ostrobothnia, with plans to adopt usage of the app in 2021.
 The Lapland hospital district has been gathering information on patients, hospital staff, services and finances since 2014.
 Janne Okkonen , head of the application project for Lapland Hospital, is responsible for developing data management for Lapland’s health and social reform ('Sote' in Finnish).
 "Artificial intelligence has many facets," says Okkonen.
 "At later stages we can bring in a proactive dimension, for example, how information about a patient's health and morbidity are used," he says.
 Ethical considerations
 A patient’s medical needs can be anticipated both on the individual and general population level. In practice this means that AI can be used to consider how much money or staff is allocated for various hospital services.
 It may also be able to predict the likelihood of certain illnesses.
 Predicting the future may have risks if illnesses are incorrectly forecast, admits Okkonen. But he underlines the fact that there's always a human involved in making decisions based on the patient-application interaction.
 ”The diagnosis of an illness is always made by a doctor and not a device," says Okkonen. "The application or device only provides information."
 Avaintec, the app's developer, said the ethical handling of information has been a key consideration. At this time privacy laws prevent collating an individual's data from different sources into a specific profile.

AI set to assist health centres patients in Finland


Summary: Decisions need to be made now, upper secondary school students said during a demonstration at the Finnish Parliament on Friday.

A group of upper secondary school students, mainly from Swedish-speaking schools in the Helsinki region gathered on the steps of the Finnish parliament Friday to call for action to combat climate change.
 "Take action!" and "Save the planet!" read some of the placards on display.
 The young adults launched the protest to call for politicians and business leaders to make environmentally-friendly choices.
 Young people also presented a list of demands to lawmakers. Heikki Saukkomaa / Lehtikuva
 Axel Broman from the Grankulla Gymnasium in Kauniainen, Espoo said that more decisions need to take the climate into account.
 "It’s true that decision-makers are doing something about it, but more needs to be done. These decisions need to be made now, we can’t wait any longer. We need to be braver. And this demonstration shows that we too want to make difficult decisions," he said, adding that young people are pioneers in this regard.
 "This is our future so sometimes we care more than the adults themselves," he charged.
 Calls for a climate tax, a change in habits
 Veronica Winqvist of Gymnasiet Lärkan in Helsinki agreed that leaders are not doing enough.
 "I believe that we should invest more in renewable energy and introduce new laws. We should introduce a climate tax for items that generate a lot of carbon dioxide emissions," she declared.
 "I think that decision-makers haven’t done enough about this. There is a lot that still needs to be done and that’s why we are here," said Veronica’s schoolmate Marcus Schramko.
 “It’s now or never,” one student said. Heikki Saukkomaa / Lehtikuva
 Meanwhile Alvar Winqvist of the same school said that he was worried about climate change.
 "Some work has been done to curb climate change but it hasn’t been enough. It [warming of the climate] should be limited to 1.5 degrees," he noted.
 "One of the most effective methods would be to have some kind of emissions levy so we could really tax the things that pollute. This would be a natural way to ensure the entire society is more climate friendly," he added.
 The young protesters also presented a joint list of demands with questions that lawmakers had the opportunity to answer.
 "We still have to live here for another 50 years"
 Livia Wikström and Jenina Nyström of Töölö Gymnasium held up signs reminding onlookers that young people’s future is at stake.
 Both said there was no question that they would join the demonstration.
 "We all need to do something otherwise nothing will happen. Soon it will be too late. It’s now or never," Wikström said.
 "If we do nothing then nothing will change. We still have to live here for another 50 years or more. Maybe we can reduce airline travel, we can cycle instead of driving, or we can eat less meat and buy recycled clothing."

Teens demand climate change action in Helsinki demonstration


Summary: Longer lines at food banks and more people struggling to make ends meet: APN takes a closer look at increasing poverty in Finland's rich welfare state.

This week the Yle News team sat down to talk about  persistent poverty  in the country with  Jiri Sironen  of the European Anti-Poverty Network in Finland,  Eeva-Maria Grekula , a woman with first-hand experience living in poverty, and  Liisa Heinämäki , a project manager in the prime minister's office who is part of a team focusing on anti-poverty and anti-social exclusion measures.
 Sironen's organisation recently put out a  Poverty Watch Report  on data up to 2017 that, among other things, found that the number of households with no income at all had doubled since 2013 to nearly 50,000. Meanwhile, finance ministry statistics show that earnings in low-income households have decreased by more than any other income group in recent years.
 We asked Sironen how this is possible in a country that prides itself on egalitarianism and provides extensive social benefits. He said it is partially down to policy makers not making poverty eradication a priority, preferring to formulate strategies instead of passing concrete policies.
 Eeva-Maria Grekula told us about her struggles as a single mom making do on limited resources, saying that the hardest part of being in that position was not being able to provide for her children. She said that people living in poverty should do more to call attention to their situation if they could just move beyond the shame and go public with their experiences.
 Helping the poor is a top voter priority
 Parliamentary and European elections are coming up this spring, and a  fresh poll of prospective voters  suggests that Finnish residents rank care for the poor and sick as the number one priority in casting their ballots.
 Liisa Heinämäki's government team is trying to come up with long-term alternatives that the next government could implement when it takes office. She says they are seeking to change the current social security system to be more positive and encouraging and less negative.
 The first place to start, she said, should be in the area of state services. She echoed the sentiment of Grekula, who called for stronger social services for people having a hard time. Heinämäki said that provision of services and benefits have drifted away from each other in recent years, and added that one of her team's objectives is to get the two back in better sync moving forward.
 Top news of the week
 APN took a look at the three most engaging news stories on social media from the past week. First came the chilly update that the coldest temperature of the season so far,  -32 degrees Celsius , was registered in Salla, northern Finland
 Second in popularity was our report on the  book problem at Helsinki's new flagship library Oodi , where demand for books has been so high, that workers are having trouble stocking the shelves. Officials said that users had checked out 66-thousand books in December and returned just about half by the end of the year.
 Finally, our audience got excited about Finland's narrow win over the USA in the World Junior Ice Hockey Championship in Vancouver last Saturday. The young Finns held the Americans to a 3-2 final to  bring home the gold . The Finnish juniors won previous championships in 1987, 1998, 2014 and 2016.
 If you have any questions, or would like to share something on your mind, just contact us via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter account, or at yle.news@yle.fi.
 The All Points North podcast is a weekly look at what's going on in Finland. Subscribe via  iTunes  (and leave a review!), listen  on Spotify  and  Yle Areena  or find it on your favourite podcatching app or via our  RSS feed .
 This week's show was presented by  Denise Wall  and  Mark B. Odom  and . Our producer was  Pamela Kaskinen , reporting was by  Zena Iovino  and the sound technician was  Marko Vierikko .

All Points North #35: Poverty in Finland with Eeva-Maria Grekula, Liisa Heinämäki and Jiri Sironen


Summary: Police say the suspected offences occurred during summer 2018 and that they have detained three of four suspects.

Police in Oulu said Friday that they have launched a preliminary investigation into four fresh cases of suspected sexual abuse of girls under the age of 15. The department added that four foreign background suspects have been held in connection with the case.
 The announcement follows a previous round of investigations last November in which eight immigrant-background men were detained  on suspicion of committing five similar offences  against underage girls.
 Police say that the suspected offences under consideration are currently rape, aggravated child sexual abuse and child sexual abuse.
 In a release issued on Friday, police said that the alleged offences took place during summer 2018. Law enforcement have held three foreign-background individuals in connection with the crimes. Police suspect four people of the alleged offences, two of whom are about 20 and two are minors.
 Police confirmed the death of one victim last year and said that no foul play was involved. However they declined any further comment on that matter, citing an ongoing investigation into the cause of death.
 Police said that they will continue the probe into the new reports as well as the five cases previously reported in November.
 So far no charges have been laid in relation to the suspected offences committed in November.
 Edit: Updated at 12.01am on 12 January to clarify that two of the suspects involved in the latest cases are adult men while the other two are minors.

Oulu police probe four new cases of suspected under-age sex abuse


Summary: In the frigid waters of the Gulf of Finland, cyanobacteria has been observed for the first time during the winter months.

The Finnish Environment Institute Syke says that in early January, it received several notifications of blue-green colored ice and algae in the cold waters and ice flows of the Gulf of Finland.
 Officials used water and ice samples to confirm that  Aphanizomenon  algae was the source of a blue-green tint in ice at Pernajanlahti in the eastern Uusimaa region of Finland.
 Usually blue-green algae is sighted in July-August when sea water is warm. That’s also when the poisonous  Nodularia spumigena  blue-green algae is more common.
 Though it is not as common, blue-green algae can also form mass deposits in cool water and even under ice.
 Aphanizomenon  algae is not known to form poisonous blooms in the Baltic Sea. But poisonous strains have been known to infest lakes.
 The National Institute for Health and Welfare THL recommends always exercising caution regarding water that contains blue-green algae as it may pose health risks.

First ever winter sighting of blue-green algae in Gulf of Finland


Summary: The Defence Forces say the value and scope of the deal is critical information about the Army’s performance capabilities and therefore too sensitive to reveal.

Ulkoasiain hallinto, maanpuolustus ja järjestystoimi

The Finnish Defence Forces have placed an order for new anti-battery radar systems from Israel. The radar system, which is mounted on artillery units, detects incoming projectiles from hostile forces and locates the ground position of the weapons firing them.
 The Defence Forces declined to comment on the value of the deal and did not disclose the number of anti-battery radar systems involved. The price of such acquisitions is usually made public, but in this case it was deemed to be critical information about the Army’s performance capabilities and therefore too sensitive to reveal.
 The Israeli contractor ELTA Systems emerged winner of an international bidding round to supply the materiel. The first units are expected to be delivered in 2021. The deal also includes an option to later order new radar units on terms to be separately agreed.
 Defence Minister  Jussi Niinistö  said Finland needs the new radar units, which have been highlighted in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. The systems can also be used for fire management and air traffic control.
 "Artillery needs to be mobile and if its anti-battery radar doesn’t conform to modern warfare [standards], then it is no use," the minister noted.
 The Defence Forces came in for heavy criticism the last time it purchased military hardware from Israel.
 Left Alliance current and past chairs  Li Andersson  and  Paavo Arhinmäki  condemned a hundred-million-euro missile deal as immoral in light of Israel’s military operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

Defence Forces mum on price of new Israeli-made radar system


Summary: The Interior Ministry says it wants to protect Brits' rights in Finland, but hasn’t said how will do so.

Ministerit, ministeriöt ja valtioneuvosto

Brits living in Finland have expressed frustration over the uncertainty of their status in Finland after the UK exits the European Union at the end of March.
 The Finnish Government has said it wants to protect UK citizens’ rights to live, work and study in Finland after Brexit, but has not provided any details on how that will happen.
 Long-term Finland resident  Tim Bird  told Yle News, "I’ve lived here since 1982. Unless I am missing something, I don’t feel like the Finnish government has done much to reassure us, but then I guess that is at least partly because they are uncertain too."
 "I can’t believe that anyone with the ties I have to Finland is going to be suddenly required to leave the country, but I would expect there to be some bureaucratic implications. And I don’t know exactly what form they will take."
 Story continues after photo
 Tim Bird
 Bureaucratic pain
 Stephen Penny , a finance worker originally from Poole, England, is also worried about the process of applying for residency. "It’s a bureaucratic pain in the backside, the paperwork, the cost, pensions, healthcare."
 When asked what the Finnish government could do to put his concerns to rest, he told Yle News, "Give us a clear idea of what the plans are going to be either way. Even if it’s not going to be to people’s liking, it’d be good to know up front."
 That kind of reassurance is not currently on the agenda. On Tuesday the Finnish Immigration Service Migri said that it is “currently unable” to tell Brits in Finland what they need to do to safeguard their status after Brexit day--which is currently pencilled in for 29 March.
 Migri’s current official advice to UK citizens in Finland is to make sure they are registered as legal residents before Brexit. "The registration might be of advantage if the United Kingdom decides to withdraw from the EU and British citizens are required to apply for a residence permit in Finland in the same way as any other so called third-country nationals."
 A press release issued by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday states that "Finland wishes to protect the opportunities for citizens of the United Kingdom to live, work and study in Finland in the future, too, even after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union."
 Maria Vatanen
 The release does not say exactly how the Finnish government will protect British citizens’ rights in Finland, stating only that “The Ministry of the Interior will publish further information in the coming weeks about the position regarding residence and work permits.”
 The statement, posted on the Interior Ministry’swebsite, says that in the event of a so-called ‘no deal Brexit’ - which is where the United Kingdom leaves without any agreements in place on its future relationship with the EU - UK citizens’ legal status will change overnight to that of ‘third-country nationals’.
 This means British people currently living in Finland could be forced to re-apply for residency on the same terms that currently apply to non-EU migrants in Finland.
 According to the Interior Ministry, the application process is intended to be “as quick and flexible as possible.”
 When Yle News asked for clarification on this and other points in the press release, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said he "cannot answer your questions at the moment," but that there would be more information available in early February.
 Estonia to safeguard UK citizens' rights
 Some other EU member states have already made clear what will happen to their British residents after 29 March.
 The Estonian public broadcaster ERR reportedon Monday that Estonian MPs were due to vote on a bill that would guarantee British citizens in Estonia the same rights they currently have, even in the case of a no-deal Brexit.
 "It is important to be ready for all scenarios so that those Britons living here could maintain certainty about their future," the chair of the Estonian Parliament’s Constitutional Committee,  Marko Pomerants  said in a statement.
 The Estonian bill, which will allow UK citizens in Estonia to keep the same rights they currently have, even in the case of a no deal Brexit, will go to its first reading in the Estonian parliament on 23 January.
 Story continues after photo
 Leo Stockford
 Brits in Finland are not so lucky as their Estonian counterparts.
 "I think I, like a lot of other Brits, are concerned about the Finnish government’s reaction to Brexit. While the German government has given many positive notices about British nationals, Finland has been less forthcoming," Finnish resident  Leo Stockford  told Yle News.
 "I’m lucky in that I have a job which pays above the income requirements, and as as someone married to a Finn, it makes it all a lot easier. However, I work with a lot of people who have to apply for residency every year, and it’s not a simple thing," he added.
 Some expats say the whole affair has adversely affected their health.
 I was recently diagnosed with depression and anxiety and I am in no doubt that Brexit is the primary cause,” said Maria Vatanen. “The sense of “nobody knows” is an everyday concern for nearly three years - since the referendum was announced and campaigning began.”

"A bureaucratic pain”: Brits in Finland seek answers on Brexit


Summary: Politicians are calling for harsher punishments after four new alleged sexual assault cases by foreign-born perpetrators surfaced on Friday.

Minister of the Interior  Kai Mykkänen  went on Yle's morning programme on Saturday to decry four new cases of suspected sexual assault against minors in Oulu.
 "If someone violates one of our basic values, the physical integrity of another individual, I consider that a national threat," Mykkänen said on television. He was booked last-minute for the appearance after vice-president of the European Commission  Jyrki Katainen  was delayed in Vienna.
 The minister also repeated his stance that dual citizens who are found guilty of aggravated sexual assault should be summarily stripped of their Finnish citizenship. Mykkänen previously suggested the measure in December.
 "It's unacceptable for someone to come to Finland in search of safety only to create more insecurity themselves. These crimes have no place in this country, and we cannot let the matter rest."
 Police in Oulu said Friday that they have launched a preliminary investigation into four new cases of suspected sexual abuse of girls under the age of 15. The announcement follows a previous round of investigations last November in which eight immigrant-background men were detained  on suspicion of committing five similar offences  against underage girls.
 In a release issued on Friday, police said that the alleged offences took place during summer 2018. Law enforcement have held three foreign-background individuals in connection with the crimes. Police suspect four people of the alleged offences, two of whom are about 20 and two are minors.
 According to Mykkänen, the suspects in the newest assault cases have come to Finland from Northern Africa and the Middle East. Some of the suspected men are Finnish citizens and some are awaiting asylum decisions, he said.
 PM: "I cannot understand"
 On Friday Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä  also expressed his grief and "disgust" at the new series of sexual crimes, saying he understands the worry and anxiety that many people are feeling.
 Sipilä said that everyone who comes to Finland should respect Finland's laws and the principle of personal integrity. He said that Finland's asylum system cannot protect criminals.
 "Our thoughts are with the victims and their families following these completely inhumane and reprehensible acts. I cannot understand this kind of violence and indifference."
 Blue Reform promotes hard line
 Following Friday's announcement the conservative political party Blue Reform is demanding that government hold an emergency meeting over the suspicions of sexual assault. Chair  Sampo Terho  said in a statement that more information is needed.
 "The government must receive the necessary facts and hear what courses of action experts are suggesting. The government must act fast to provide all possible support to the authorities and the victims of these crimes."
 In the same release the party also demands that asylum seekers who commit sexual crimes should be deported. Terho said his party promotes "harsher punishments, more controlled immigration, speedy forced deportations and proper resources for police".
 Edit: Added Prime Minister Juha Sipilä's comments.

Interior Minister, Blue Reform repeat call to strip citizenship from dual citizen sex criminals


Summary: The Educa event organisers cancelled the attendance of the conservative "True Marriage" association, citing a value clash.

The Finnish Fair Corporation and the Trade Union of Education (OAJ) on Friday banned the Aito avioliitto association ("True Marriage") from participating in the annual Educa teachers' exposition in Helsinki.
 The reason for the group's cancelled attendance is the large number of complaints sent in by both OAJ members and other fair-goers.
 "Based on the extensive critique from members, active supporters and other attendees, it was clear that we had to rethink the situation," said OAJ chair  Olli Luukkainen  in a release. "We listened to the comments, assessed the scope of the event and concluded that Aito avioliitto ry will not attend the Educa fair."
 In 2016 the "True Marriage" bloc was removed from Helsinki's Book Fair because the organiser, the Finnish Fair Corporation, considered the association's behaviour to be inappropriate.
 The corporation along with OAJ said they wanted to ensure the success and equity of the Educa fair, which runs from 25 to 26 January. Luukkainen said that the teachers' union strives to create an atmosphere of parity and justice.
 "Tolerance, personal freedom and respecting human rights are part of the teacher's vocation as well as our event. These values are especially espoused as part of the official fair programme and in the platform the event offers various speakers."
 Luukkainen said that the "True Marriage" group was originally booked as an exhibitor at the fair, but that the association was never officially affiliated with the event programme.
 Heterocentric group defies curriculum
 The Aito avioliitto association defines its mission as promoting the status of heterosexual marriage and as ensuring that children grow up to be cis-gendered; that is, that boys should become men and girls should grow into women.
 However, Finland's latest national curriculum obliges schools to provide teaching without resorting to gender-based models. The comments received by OAJ about Aito avioliitto reflect many people's problems with this discrepancy.
 "The feedback has been overwhelmingly critical," said communications manager  Hanna Ottman  from OAJ. "The association's involvement was under discussion before the holidays, but at the time we did not object to their involvement."
 A total of 300 independent companies or associations are taking part in this year's Educa fair.
 Association cries foul
 Chair  Susanna Koivula  of the "True Marriage" association said she was disappointed with the fair organisers' decision to ban the group.
 "Aito avioliitto ry was already listed as an exhibitor and we had paid for our space," she told Yle via email.
 "We do not consider this decision to be in the spirit of equality, parity or tolerance."
 Koivula said she felt the Educa event fails to support a pluralism of values. She went on to wonder whether teachers, students or parents have the opportunity to express heterosexual norms.
 Koivula called it a shame that so-called "family-positive" values are not welcome at the Educa fair.

Anti-gay lobby group banned from teachers' expo after widespread criticism


Summary: Investor Arto Autio got Estonian Public Broadcasting to withdraw articles written about his alleged criminal enterprises.

Expatriate Finnish businessman  Arto Autio  has sued Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) and its current affairs programme  Pealtnägija,  allegedly for injurious action and spreading false information.
 The lawsuit by Autio and investment firm Brave Capital concerns articles written by two reporters and published in Estonia in November. The pieces detail Autio's alleged criminal conduct and embezzlement-related ties to the Youth Foundation (Nuorisosäätiö), a Centre Party-linked agency specialising in student housing.
 One of the defendants is the editor of the  Pealtnägija  programme,  Mihkel Kärmas , who told Yle that the suit came as a complete surprise to the team.
 "Brave Capital and Autio himself answered our questions briefly at the time," Kärmas said. "After that we heard nothing, until just before the holidays when we received a massive and meticulously crafted lawsuit against us."
 Unusual circumstances
 Kärmas said the case is very unusual, even though ERR does get sued from time to time.
 "This time it's not just the broadcaster, but myself and my colleague  Anna Pihl  who have personally been sued. This is the first such situation in the history of Estonian Public Broadcasting."
 Kärmas said he also found the actual contents of the case to be puzzling. The lawsuit mentions 18 separate instances of alleged falsehoods or inaccuracies. Kärmas said the accusations are unfounded.
 "Of these 18 allegations, 15 concern issues that we never actually reported on. For instance, they claim that our articles mention that Autio faces three separate criminal charges in Estonia, which we never wrote. The plaintiffs are saying that so-called "regular people" might get the impression from the articles that Autio has been accused."
 The other three allegations concern publicly available information, Kärmas added.
 The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported in early August, 2018 that the National Board of Patents and Registration claims the men pilfered money by negotiating inflated real estate and land deals in Estonia with the foundation's construction firm business partner, Salpausselän Rakentajat.
 Pieces pulled, gaps in logic
 Broadcaster ERR took down the contested articles after a court ordered them to be censored. Kärmas said this is not entirely unusual in Estonia.
 "The thinking is that if our pieces were later found to be in error, they would accrue injuries or losses for each day they remained public."
 A central concern for Kärmas is that the court prohibited ERR from publishing any information related to Autio's criminal investigation. Finnish police suspect Autio of helping to bribe ex-bosses at the Youth Foundation, along with related financial crimes.
 Kärmas noted that the same information found in his and Pihl's articles has been published in multiple news outlets, including Yle's  MOT  current affairs programme and weekly news magazine Suomen kuvalehti in Finland, as well as several Estonian platforms.
 "It is illogical to sue us for any of this," Kärmas said. "The current CEO of the Youth Foundation  Kimmo Pihlman  has given many interviews on possible criminal enterprises, and he hasn't been sued, which is interesting."
 Questioned about Autio's possible motives for getting the articles offline, Kärmas offered the speculation that the businessman is worried about causing harm to his investors and his reputation.
 The lawsuit may go on for years, but Kärmas said he is confident in the legal process.
 "Our journalism is sound and we stand behind the articles. This is definitely a pain in the neck, though. Still, it's part of the job."
 Yle contacted Arto Autio via telephone, but he declined to comment.

Finnish businessman sues Estonian journalists – broadcaster pulls articles


Summary: Police said that all of the suspects have foreign backgrounds.

Helsinki police said Sunday that they had held three men on Saturday evening on suspicion of aggravated child sexual abuse and aggravated rape. However they did not specify whether or not both of the offences applied to all of the suspects, who reportedly have foreign backgrounds.
 Officials said they are investigating a series of offences they believe took place during the past two months at an eastern Helsinki residence, however they declined to disclose the number of alleged victims as well as their ages.
 Finnish news agency STT previously reported that the men were held in Helsinki’s Roihuvuori district, however police did not confirm this information to Yle but said that the operation took place in eastern Helsinki.
 On Saturday night STT said that police raided a home in Roihuvuori and that officials at the time said that the operation related to a previous investigation.
 The police raid was first reported by tabloid Ilta-Sanomat. Police said that they would not provide any further updates on the case at this stage.
 Police in Oulu are investigating  several cases of suspected child sexual abuse , the first of which  came to light late last year . No charges have yet been laid in those cases.
 Since the investigations came to light  there have been repeated calls  for dual nationals convicted of serious crimes to be stripped of Finnish citizenship.
 President calls for solutions, pragmatism
 On Saturday President  Sauli Niinistö  said that it is "unacceptable" that more cases of suspected child sexual abuse had been uncovered in Oulu.
 "It is unacceptable that some people who have asked for and even received asylum from us have brought evil here and created [a sense of] insecurity here," the President said in a statement.
 He added that the right to personal integrity is among the values on which Finnish society is based and with which everyone should comply.
 "As I said in connection with the previous suspects, the actions in Oulu have shocked us because of their inhumanity. This was compounded by the fact that they targeted children," he added.
 However Niinistö noted that migrants should be given a chance to settle in Finland.
 "Even in the most sensitive matters we need an open and pragmatic discussion and should weigh decisions carefully. Problems must be addressed and solved. That is the right of all those people who want to adjust to our society, regardless of their background."
 Edit: Updated at 11.31am to include comments by President Sauli Niinistö.

Helsinki police detain three on suspicion of child sex offences


Summary: Finland’s national women’s under-18 ice hockey team will be returning home from Japan with a world championship bronze medal.

Finland’s young lionesses defeated Russia to take the bronze medal in the 2019 World Women’s Under-18 Ice Hockey Championship in Obihiro, Japan.
 The Finnish juniors trounced their eastern neighbours 3-0 to take third place after an impressive run in the tournament.
 The first period of the game was scoreless as each team took the measure of the opposition. However Finland opened the scoring in the second period when  Viivi Vainikka  and  Elli Suoranta  found the back of the net within half a minute of each other.
 Later in the match,  Julia Liikala  found herself facing an open goal and did not miss the opportunity to settle the outcome for the young Finns.
 Goalie  Erica Jaskari  proved her mettle by engaging in acrobatics to deny the Russians a chance to score, especially in light of penalties awarded to the other side in the third period.
 The bronze is only Finland’s second in the women’s under-18 tournament. On Sunday Canada defeated the US 3-2 in overtime for the gold.

Finland’s young lionesses nab world ice hockey bronze


Summary: Reports of violence against care workers have been growing every year, according to a wellbeing at work survey by the national public health watchdog THL.

Some 54 percent of social and health care workers say they have experienced violence or the threat of violence at work, according to a wellbeing at work survey conducted last year. The National Institute for Health and Welfare THL said that among some groups, as many as 80 percent of people working in the sector said they had experienced violence or the threat of violence.
 The survey polled 24,000 workers in northern and eastern Karelia, southern Savo, Päijät-Häme, northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu. According to the results, 60 percent of survey participants in north Karelia’s "Siun Sote" municipal consortium said they had encountered violence on the job.
 Meanwhile 80 percent of professionals working with the elderly and 70 percent of emergency service workers said they had directly experienced violence or been threatened. Some 15 percent of respondents reported sexual harassment while dealing with clients.
 "The numbers are probably accurate because we have got similar information from other sources. Last year, Siun Sote personnel filed nearly 1,500 reports of violence in the Haipro system. The increase from last year was 14 percent," said Siun Sote occupational safety chief  Mikko Simonen . Haipro is an online tool for logging patient safety incidents.
 Broad range of threats
 Paramedics come face to face with the full spectrum of patient violence: hey may have to deal with confused seniors, a delusional mental patient of an aggressive drug user. Narcotics are involved in a majority of violent encounters but sometimes patients become belligerent as a result of a somatic illness. In such cases a patient may be triggered by low blood sugar or the aftermath of an epileptic seizure. Even the shortage of oxygen supplied to the brain following a heart attack could explain violent behaviour.
 Care workers now have a lower threshold for reporting violence. However the THL said that there has been a clear increase in violence, and not just the readiness to log it, and added that analysis conducted in recent years supports this view.
 In a survey conducted last year by Finland’s primary care association, more than 90 percent of respondents said they had confronted violence at work and about a quarter said they had been assaulted. Roughly one year ago, THL polled elder care workers and found that  eight out of ten respondents  said they had suffered physical attacks.
 "The amount of violence is distressingly high and the range is broad. On the milder end we have shouting and verbal abuse and on the more serious extreme, the worst cases involve workplace accidents in which personnel are injured and require hospital care," Simonen explained.
 Last year some 30 care workers received hospital treatment for violence, according to the Siun Sote system.

Survey: Social, health care workers face increasing on-the-job violence


Summary: Anyone who fancies the idea of a fairy-tale wedding in the frosty house of worship will have to hurry. By March the sun’s rays will start melting the structure.

Henkilökohtaiset juhlat ja elämäntapahtumat

Locals in Lappeenranta in southeast Finland formally opened the city's snow church, otherwise known as the Church of St. Lawrence on Sunday, 13 January. It will offer services three times a week.
 "'Snowflake' devotions will last 20 minutes on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. We have sometimes had mass in the snow church," said local vicar  Juha Eklund .
 So far no one has exchanged wedding vows in the chapel, although it is possible to do so and the parish has offered the service. However anyone who fancies the idea of a fairy-tale wedding in the frosty house of worship will have to hurry. By March the sun’s rays will render the structure unusable.
 An eight-year tradition
 This winter marks the eighth year that members of the community have volunteered to build the church. In that time they have honed their skills using snow as construction material.
 As a result two of the walls are about 60 centimetres thick, while the other two walls are ten centimetres thinner.
 "This way the January sun is not a problem, but in March it will warm and melt the walls more on those sides, that’s why we make them thicker," Eklund explained.
 Story continues after photo.
 Installing the metre-high windows. Petri Kivimäki / Yle
 Clean, dry frosty snow works best for building as its quality is uniform and it has no lumps. Two tractors are used to bring fresh snow to the building site from an ice skating rink at Lappeenranta’s Vanha field a few kilometres away.
 The construction team comprised a core team of 10 people who have put the church together each year. They managed to erect the walls – just shy of three metres tall – in about four hours.
 Interior work focused on elements such as a large snow altar. Windows are made of ice that comes from an ice machine to ensure there are no bubbles or impurities. The window elements are one metre high, half-a-metre wide and 25 centimetres thick.
 Story continues after photo.
 Vesa Toivanen checks his handiwork with a spirit level. Petri Kivimäki / Yle
 “We saw them in half so each window is about 12 centimetres thick,” said ice craftsman  Kimmo Frosti.
 The church is located in the centre of Lappeenranta next to an historic fort. Centuries ago another church occupied the site, but was prone to lightning strikes because of the high ground.
 In fact a lightning strike in 1790 caused the old church to burn to the ground, after which the site was abandoned. The snow church can be said to be a memorial to the original that was destroyed by the forces of nature.

You can get married in this snow church in Southeast Finland – but you'd better hurry


Summary: Most party chairs backed boosting police ranks to 7,850 from its current level of 7,200.

A majority of leaders of parties in Parliament said they support boosting the number of police in Finland by around 650 in the near future, according to an Yle security policy survey.
 Yle asked political party chairs whether or not police resources should rise to 7,850 as the National Police Board has recommended to match  the strength of the force  at the beginning of 2010. Finland currently has roughly 7,200 police in the force.
 Centre Party chair Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä  said in the survey that the force should be boosted to 7,850 by 2023. He noted that in many municipalities, police take too long to respond to emergencies.
 Social Democratic Party deputy chair  Sanna Marin  said that a key plank of the incoming administration (after elections in April) should be to consistently increase the number of officers in police ranks. She added that the public should be able to trust that they can get help when they need it.
 Finance Minister and National Coalition Party chair  Petteri Orpo  remained on the fence on the issue of beefing up the force. Orpo said that his party is committed to at least preserving the current number of police officers and ensuring that they can serve the entire country. The Interior Ministry under NCP MP  Kai Mykkänen  is currently evaluating the number of personnel required to best discharge police duties.
 Police union: One in ten calls neglected
 Chair of the police union SPJL  Jonne Rinne  said that in addition to their opinions on staffing, he wants to see concrete action from political decision-makers. Supplementing police numbers to 7,850 is a good start, he noted.
 "The police force has been depleted during the last decade. In that sense this is certainly a positive message. But I hope that in addition to opinions this would lead to concrete measures," he commented.
 Rinne said that he believed that recent reporting on  suspected sexual offences against children  may have prompted leaders to see the need to increase police resources.
 "Police alone won’t solve every problem, but society must find the means to address these matters and resolves them. Police need to have sufficient resources to safeguard the public’s right to legal protection in such unfortunate circumstances," Rinne noted.
 The union leader said that it is unacceptable that police do not have adequate resources to respond to calls, something that shows in the field as well as in investigative work.
 "In practice, one in ten calls is neglected. I consider this a rather large number. When people are in need they turn to the police. Police must then inform them that unfortunately we cannot respond to this emergency call," he continued.
 Police will see an easing of the personnel crunch this year, since 150 more trainees than the previous year will graduate from the Police College Academy. Officials had previously increased the number of study places to prevent a further shrinking of the force.

Majority of party leaders back plan to beef up police force


Summary: The Finns Party youth wing's ethno-centric view of 'Finnishness,' language skills prove a challenge for citizenship and a win for the domestic meat industry.

Ethno-nationalism is growing within the youth arm of the Finns Party, writes Swedish-language daily  Hufvudstadsbladet . The paper argues that the youth wing of the populist party adopted a harder line following the election of a new board last autumn.
 In a drift towards xenophobic populism, the youth arm now claims ’real’ Finns trace their ancestry to prehistoric settlers of [what is now] Finland, a view shared by extreme nationalist group  Suomen Sisu .
 The youth wing said it wants to draw a line between Finnish citizens and Finns, with the vice-chair of the youth arm in Lapland floating a theory of ’ancient Finnish clans,’ a narrative which would strip Finland’s Swedish-speakers (whose roots date back to the 1100s) and Tatar Muslims in the country of any claims to 'Finnishness'.
  Road to citizenship
 Meanwhile between January and November last year 8,131 people gained Finnish citizenship, with 85 percent of applications accepted in 2017, reports business magazine  Talouselämä .
 Rejected citizenship applications were usually due to candidates’ inability to prove sufficient Finnish or Swedish language skills, according to the Finnish Immigration Service.
 Most newly-minted Finnish citizens hailed from Russia, Somalia and Iraq.
 In 2017, the number of new Finnish citizens reached 12,219, a new record. The number of new Finnish passport holders has been  rising each year for the past two decades .
 Buy Finnish movement
 As of this spring, EU rules will oblige Finnish restaurants, canteens, and fast food eateries to inform customers of the origin of their meat products. The move follows Finland's lobbying on the issue, writes agricultural newspaper  Maaseudun Tulevaisuus .
 The meat labelling scheme originated in Finland and the country leaned on the EU to push it through. Finland's case before the EU Commission hinged on country origin being a key indicator of meat quality, correlating to animal welfare and antibiotic use in livestock.
 As a consequence of mad cow disease (BSE), EU member states have since 2002 had to label the origin of beef products, but the new decree extends labelling in Finland to pork, goat, lamb and poultry. The Commission did not, however, include fish in the scheme, to Finland’s consternation.

Monday’s papers: Claims on Finnishness, citizenship obstacles and 'Buy Finland'


Summary: Accidental slips and falls are most common during rush-hour commutes, suggests a new survey.

Using the right shoes for the day's weather plays a significant role in preventing accidents, according to the Finnish Road Safety Council.
 Some 40 percent of Finnish residents said wearing the wrong kind of footwear in slippery conditions put them in hazardous situations during last year, according to a survey by the council carried out last month.
 In terms of accidents, the most hazardous times of the day take place during peoples' commutes to and from work. The council said that slippery conditions affect everyone who is out and about, regardless of transportation methods.
 "Anticipation of slippery conditions plays a key role in preventing accidents involving slipping and falling. You will not be caught off guard in slippery conditions when you follow pedestrian weather warnings and prepare for slippery conditions with the appropriate footwear or anti-slip guards," said  Kaarina Tamminiemi , chair of the campaign known as  Pysy pystyssä  (roughly 'Stay On Your Feet').
 Tamminiemi noted that slippery conditions affect people of all ages.
 "When people of working age hurt themselves, the costs to their employer and society can easily rise due to sick leave – in addition to physical pain and distress, of course," she said.
 The council said that good shoes for slippery conditions feature low, wide heels with an outer sole of soft material with good traction, and also recommends the use of removable anti-slip guards or studded boots.
 Pedestrians need to look up
 Council planning officer  Petri Jääskeläinen  said people need to focus on walking - particularly when pathways are icy. He also said, like drivers, pedestrians should take a moment to stop in order to look at their phones rather than checking them on the go.
 "Your brain really can’t multitask, so in reality, multitasking only means switching between paying attention to one thing and then to the other. When you are trying to focus on two things at once, you are going to disrupt either one or both of these tasks. If you are immersed in using your phone, your thoughts and eyes are easily distracted, in which case slippery areas may take you by surprise as you walk," Jääskeläinen said.
 The Finnish Road Safety Council's survey of 1,009 people in Finland was carried out in December 2018 by polling firm Kantar TNS.

Use slip-proof footwear - but not your phone - when it's icy


Summary: Finland balances its own economic interests and commitment to human rights as President Sauli Niinistö makes a state visit to China.

Monday's meeting is the third rendezvous between President  Sauli Niinistö  and Chinese President  Xi Jinping . Niinistö opened a climate seminar and will meet with Prime Minister  Li Keqiang  and speaker of China's national congress  Li Zhanshu .
 Niinistö was accompanied by Foreign Trade and Development Minister  Anne-Mari Virolainen , European Affairs, Culture and Sports Minister  Sampo Terho  and a business delegation of 100.
 Their last meeting in Helsinki in April 2017 was characterised by  panda diplomacy . China gifted Finland a pair of giant pandas to celebrate its 100th birthday. At the time Finland re-affirmed its commitment to the 'one China' policy, meaning that Finland officially recognises the People's Republic of China—not Taiwan.
 Story continues after photo.
 Lumi Tarmo Niemi / Yle
 Giant pandas Lumi and Pyry (officially Jin Baobao and Hua Bao) arrived at Ähtäri Zoo in early 2018.
 'Average' relationship
 Finland has not had a particularly good relationship with China,  Jyrki Kallio , a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), told Yle, saying that Finland’s ties with the world's most populous country are not unique in any way.
 At the end of last year, Finland was party to a letter by 15 Western ambassadors demanding that China explain its persecution against the country’s Uighur minority. Meanwhile the timing of this week's trip makes Niinistö one of the first European leaders to meet Xi after news broke of ’re-education’ internment camps for Uighur Muslims, something China has previously denied. In this light, Kallio said he believed the world’s eyes will be on the topics broached by Niinistö.
 Finland’s Foreign Ministry has  highlighted the plight  of China’s Uighur minority, and Kallio expects Niinistö may bring up the issue.
 Following China's lead
 On Xi's last visit to Finland, Niinistö faced criticism for playing to China’s tune. The Finnish president did not host a press conference following his powwow with Xi, which would have given the press an opportunity to unpack the contents of the meeting.
 China is easily offended, according to Kallio. He said China cooled on Sweden after the  Dalai Lama 's visit there, and Norway fell out of favour after its Nobel committee in 2010 awarded the peace prize to Chinese dissident  Liu Xiaobo .
 Hockey diplomacy?
 China is an economic powerhouse with many countries vying for a piece of the action. That said, Finland faces balancing its own financial interests with its image as a human rights champion.
 In China, Niinistö and his wife,  Jenni Haukio , will attend the opening of the China-Finland Winter Sports Year, an idea born out of Xi’s and Niinistö’s 2017 meeting to "dedicate a theme year to winter sports between the two countries".

Finland and China: After pandas, hockey diplomacy


Summary: As sexual abuse investigations proceed, two suspects have been freed in Helsinki, along with one in Oulu.  The latter remains under investigation.

Police in Helsinki suspect a man committed aggravated sexual offences against a child. Two other men, who were  detained along with him in a flat in eastern Helsinki  on Saturday, have been released.
 The suspect, described only as having been born in the 1990s, is suspected of various offences including aggravated rape and aggravated sexual abuse of a child. Police will seek to place him formally under arrest this week.
 "The more serious the suspected crime, the lower the police’s threshold to detain individuals for questioning. Two of them have been freed because according the police’s current information there are no grounds to suspect them of crimes,” says Detective Inspector  Saara Asmundela .
 Police have interviewed the suspect and the sole victim.
 "Police will not comment on the victim's age or gender because we want to ensure that the victim's identity remains secret,” Asmundela says.
 Police suspect that several acts took place in the eastern Helsinki apartment between early October and 9 January. They believe that no-one else was present at the time.
 One Oulu suspect released
 Meanwhile police in Oulu have freed one sex crime suspect.
 On Friday police in the northern city said they had launched a preliminary investigation into  four more suspected sexual crimes  against girls under the age of 15. As part of the probe they detained three male suspects “of foreign background”.
 One of them has been released. Police will ask Oulu District Court to remand the other two on Tuesday.
 The head of the investigation, Detective Superintendent  Markus Kiiskinen , says that the suspect who was released is under the age of 18.
 "The preliminary investigation and interviews were completed [on Sunday] in regard to this individual to the extent that there is no need to keep him in detention,” said Kiiskinen, adding that the suspect remains under investigation.
 So far authorities have not cited any links between the Helsinki and Oulu cases.

Finnish police release three sex crime suspects


Summary: In winters with little snow, the extremely rare seals rely on artificial snowbanks to create their breeding nests.

The endangered Saimaa seals of eastern Finland may be able to nest this spring without human help. In recent years with little snow, they have relied on snowbanks built by volunteers for nesting.
 This winter has brought more snow than the past few years, and winds have blown into drifts in areas favoured by the seals for nesting.
 Story continues after photo
 Saimaa seals need plenty of snow for nesting. YLE Etelä-Karjala
 The state forest agency Metsähallitus estimated in 2017 that there were some 370-380 of the seals, who live only in and around Finland’s largest lake, Saimaa. Last autumn the Ministry of Agriculture and Forest  estimated the population  at 392. Biologists say that the population, which has been rising very slowly, should attain a minimum of 400 for viability.
 Metsähallitus estimates that there are 109 females of breeding age. Last year there were an estimated 86 cubs born, of which nine were found dead, some entangled in fishing nets.
 Ski pole down a metre deep
 Harri Ekholm  joined other seal activists over the weekend to check snowbanks on the small rocky islets where the seals usually give birth. He says the situation looks good.
 "Over the past five winters I’ve been out there shovelling snow to make snowbanks I the same area. Now I stuck a ski pole into a snowdrift and hit the ice a metre deep. So there’s a good natural snowbank. If it’s like that all over, then we don’t need to shovel this year,” Ekholm tells Yle.
 The teams that were out scouting this weekend are pooling their observations, which will be handed over to the Metsähallitus office in the eastern town of Savonlinna, which will make the decision about whether volunteers should begin building artificial snowbanks.
 Ekholm expects Metsähallitus to make a formal announcement on Wednesday.

Plentiful natural snowdrifts bode well for rare Saimaa seals


Summary: More than 79,000 Finns signed the initiative, far surpassing the minimum. But due to time constraints, there's little hope MPs will consider the proposal.

A citizens' initiative advocating that foreigners who are convicted of sex crimes should lose their residence permits and face deportation had received nearly 80,000 signatures by Monday afternoon, making it eligible to head to lawmakers.
 However, the initiative has little hope of being considered by MPs, because the current government - which is in its final few months - will not have adequate time to review it.
 Additionally, according to rules regarding such documents, citizens' initiatives created during earlier administrations cannot be presented to later ones. But lawmakers are already talking about the matter.
 Alleged sex crimes
 The topic of foreigners committing sex crimes has been a major issue in Finland for the past couple of months, after police in the western city of Oulu reported a series of alleged sexual assaults of children by foreign men at the end of  last November .
 Soon after those initial reports surfaced, on 6 December, Independence Day, Tampere resident  Saila Al-Jewari  started a citizens' initiative urging parliament to create legislation that would strip foreigners convicted of sex crimes of their residence permits, followed by deportation.
 The initiative states that laws should be changed so that foreigners convicted of sex crimes should immediately be taken into police custody.
 The initiative also proposes that foreign sex crime convicts should never be permitted to apply for Finnish citizenship, regardless of the country in which the crimes were committed.
 Pols already talking about issue
 Regardless of whether this specific citizens' initiative is ever presented to parliament, several politicians in Finland - including Interior Minister  Kai Mykkänen  - are already calling for harsher penalties for foreigners convicted of sex crimes.
 "If someone violates one of our basic values, the physical integrity of another individual, I consider that a national threat," Mykkänen said on Yle's  Ykkösaamu  morning programme on Saturday. The minister also repeated his opinion that dual citizens who are found guilty of aggravated sexual assault should be summarily stripped of their Finnish citizenship.
 Last week Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä  also  expressed his grief and "disgust"  over new reports of alleged sex crimes in Oulu.
 Last week the chair of the Blue Reform party,  Sampo Terho , said that his party promotes "harsher punishments, more controlled immigration, speedy forced deportations and proper resources for police."

Citizens' initiative on deporting foreign sex offenders unlikely to reach lawmakers


Summary: The apartment's female occupant said she is certain the alleged attack was racially motivated.

An unknown person shot three bullets through the front door of a married couple's apartment in the central city of Kangasala on Saturday night, local police have confirmed.
 Police in Kangasala are investigating Saturday night's incident as attempted murder, but said they have not determined a motive.
 The couple told the paper that two men had come to the apartment and racially harassed the couple two weeks prior to the shooting incident.
 The front door of the couple's flat had three bullet holes in it. The woman, who is Finnish, said that the assailants fired three shots at around 1.00am. One of the shots narrowly missed her head.
 "There is definitely nothing besides racist motives for it," the apartment's female occupant told Helsingin Sanomat.
 The Finnish-Iraqi couple are now lodging at a friend's home. She said she believes the alleged gun attack was prompted by recent allegations of foreigners committing sex abuse crimes in Finland and attributed the apparent attack to recent reporting on  suspected sex crimes against minors in Oulu.
 "It's quite clear that for example the Oulu cases have stirred up anger. But it's not acceptable to use such heavy weapons to attack innocent people, people who have nothing to do with those events," she told the paper.

Three shots fired through Finnish-Iraqi couple's front door


Summary: Talks on a new contract for Finland's air traffic controllers have dragged on for more than a year.

Finnish air traffic controllers are expanding their industrial action over a contract dispute.
 The Finnish Air Traffic Controllers Association (SLJY) said on Monday that its members will walk off the job every Tuesday and Saturday between 2am and 8am beginning on 29 January. Those will be in addition to a two-hour stoppage every Thursday afternoon,  which began last week .
 The SLJY says that there has been no progress in contract negotiations.
 Their employer, ANS Finland, has said in the past that it will schedule supervisors to maintain air traffic control during walkouts. The SLJY says it believes this will also be the case during the planned additional tools-down periods.
 Talks on a new contract for the controllers have dragged on for more than a year. The two sides last met at the national labour conciliator’s office on Friday. At that point the mediator’s office declared that the two sides were still "too far apart".

Air traffic controllers plan more job walk-offs


Summary: Papers on Tuesday go into police statistics on sexual assault against minors in Finland, and President Sauli Niinistö's visit to Beijing on Monday.

Finland's news media all carry distressing statistics this Tuesday, following police reports of aggravated sexual offenses allegedly committed by asylum seekers and recent migrants against minors in Oulu.
 Amid growing concern,  daily Helsingin Sanomat  publishes detailed figures from the National Police Board and Statistics Finland that show an increase in sexual attacks against minors since the year 2000. The number of cases reported that year was some 500, compared to nearly 1,700 in the worst year of 2011, many years before the steep rise in immigration.
 HS writes that the number of sexual offenses against minors grew last year, from some 1,200 to 1,400 reported cases. The severity of the charges has also risen; in 2000 some 15 percent of all sexual assault cases against minors were considered aggravated, whereas last year about a third of cases were prosecuted as aggravated.
 Risk factors
 The majority of the perpetrators in all cases of sexual assault and rape that took place in Finland were Finnish natives, according to the paper.
 However, last year one-fifth of suspected perpetrators in cases against minors were foreign citizens and about one-third of suspects in all cases of rape were non-Finnish, according to HS.
 Police figures show that foreign suspects in cases of child abuse in Finland hailed mainly from Iraq, Afghanistan, Estonia and Iran.
 A large proportion of asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan are young men, and 20-34-year-old people from Iraq were found to have committed 10 times more sexual offenses of some kind in 2017 than Finnish citizens of the same age.
 Accurate comparisons were not possible on Monday due to a lack of fresh information on the age of asylum seekers. A total of 48 Iraqi citizens were suspected of sexual abuse compared with 801 Finnish citizens in 2018, a HS graph shows.
 HS cites a Norwegian report that finds people seeking asylum due to crime in their countries of origin are more likely to be involved in crime in the country they move to. Immigrants who arrive because of work, studies or family are equally or even less likely than Finnish-born people to commit illegal acts, the study found.
 Researcher  Martti Lehti  from the University of Helsinki says in HS that asylum seekers are the most challenging group of people to help integrate into Finnish society. People seeking asylum are generally fleeing some form of violence or persecution.
 "Asylum seekers tend to have less schooling than other groups, leading to a smaller chance of employment," Lehti says. "Slow employment, again, feeds crime."
 Human rights discussed
 Meanwhile,  tabloid Ilta-Sanomat  writes that president  Sauli Niinistö , who's on an official visit to China this week, used his time with Chinese president  Xi Jinping  on Monday to cover numerous issues face to face with China's leader. Among the issues discussed were China's human rights track record and ongoing controversial policy moves.
 Amid inspections of China's military and reminiscences about the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Niinistö told IS he got in questions about the dozen or so Canadian nationals being held in custody by Beijing as well as the fate of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Uighurs, who are being actively oppressed and monitored by the Chinese government in the western Xinjiang region according to human rights advocacy groups.
 Niinistö was tight-lipped about the nature of his conversations with president Xi.
 "We talked through all of it. We spoke for about an hour and the subject matter did not upset the host at all," Niinistö said.
 Niinistö also said in IS that he spoke with Xi about the relationship between the three major world powers – the US, China and Russia – and about tensions between North and South Korea. As for the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, Niinistö's take was brief and non-committal.
 "There's some sense of hope in the air, I suppose – at least nothing dark on the economic horizon. But let's not affect the stock market, now," Niinistö told the tabloid.

Tuesday's papers: Finland's sexual abuse statistics, human rights talk in China


Summary: The watchdog said that Kela's selection criteria prioritises low prices over suppliers' social responsibility.

More than ten products reviewed in Finland’s  world-renowned baby box  are made in circumstances that involve serious labour rights shortcomings, according to the corporate responsibility watchdog Finnwatch.
 The NGO said that the problems are rooted in the selection criteria of Kela, the national benefits agency that provides the baby boxes to expectant mothers. According to Finnwatch, the bidding criteria prioritise low prices over corporate responsibility.
 On Tuesday, Finnwatch published a report with detailed information on 40 products included in the 2018 new baby starter kit.
 It’s the first report to provide comprehensive information on the origin of baby box products and the kinds of labour practices behind them. Kela distributes roughly 40,000 newborn kits every year.
 "The majority of products purchased for Kela’s baby box are made in sweatshop countries, where there is a higher risk of labour rights violations in product production," said Finnwatch executive director  Sonja Vartiala .
 Most of the products come from China. Of a total of 63 products in the 2018 baby box, 13 are manufactured in China. After China, the largest supplier countries are Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
 Serious shortcomings behind 12 products
 The report was based on a review of companies as well as an analysis of external audits. Finnwatch also obtained from Kela a list of 18 products sourced from suppliers for the maternity starter kit.
 The NGO sent out questionnaires about the products, the origin of their raw materials and corporate responsibility oversight to all of the firms. Just two companies did not return responses.
 "The majority of companies that supplied products for the baby box however, were very open and shared a great deal of information about their subcontractors," Vartiala noted.
 Serious shortcomings such as illegal overtime, inadequate wages or workplace safety deficiencies were identified behind 12 of the products.
 The risk of major human rights problems was even greater when it came to raw materials whose origin respondent countries knew nothing about.
 "For example cotton production has been linked to human rights risks such as abuse of child labour, forced labour and harvesters’ death by poisoning. Still just one of the textile products in the baby box was manufactured using cotton with a sustainability certificate," Vartiala pointed out.
 Greater emphasis on accountability
 Finnwatch reprimanded Kela for overlooking responsibility and sustainability in its competitive bidding criteria. Kela for its part said that the report is important and assisted with drawing it up.
 In a separate statement issued Tuesday, Kela said that it plans to improve social responsibility in sourcing products for the baby kit. The agency said that it has already added sustainability criteria to bidding criteria for the 2020 package.
 Kela’s corporate social responsibility coordinator  Petra Elomaa  said she hopes that companies will offer responsibly-made products for the baby starter kit.
 "The maternity kit is an important social innovation and a source of pride for us in Finland. Companies supplying products for the package must, among other things, that the workers who manufacture their products comply with the International Labour Organisation’s general agreement on minimum age requirements," she added.
 Bidding for the supplying baby box products is subject to public procurement legislation. The law stipulates that bidders must be treated equally and without prejudice. This prevents Kela from favouring products on the basis of their supplier or the country in which they were manufactured, the agency noted in its statement.

Finnwatch: Majority of Finland’s baby box products made in sweatshop locations


Summary: The savings prorgamme will affect jobs in Nokia locations in Finland with the exception of its Oulu production facility.

Radio-, televisio- ja tietoliikennevälineiden valmistus

Technology firm Nokia plans to begin talks to reduce its payroll in Finland, with a view to cutting 350 jobs this year. Nokia currently employs 6,000 people in Finland and the retrenchment talks would affect all locations except one Oulu production facility.
 The tech firm aims to cut costs by 700 million euros annually by the end of 2020.
 "Ongoing cost monitoring is vital in our industry and the planned changes are indispensable to safeguard Nokia's long-term competitiveness," Nokia country manager  Tommi Uitto  said in a statement.
 The company said that the savings programme will also affect other countries, however the timetable and specific measures undertaken will vary depending on local legislation and practice.
 Tougher 5G network competition
 Nokia first spoke of its  austerity programme last October  and said then that its aim was to safeguard profitability and improve price competitiveness.
 In essence, the firm wants to beef up its technology as network firms compete over deliveries of next-generation 5G networks.
 Nokia is facing stiff competition in that market from Sweden's Ericsson and the Chinese firm Huawei.
 Network equipment manufacturers have faced lean years of late, as investments have focused largely on 4G networks rather than on 5G.

350 Nokia jobs on the line as cost-cutting drive bites


Summary: International plane trips from Finland have increased, and a massive amount of emissions data is being overlooked.

International airline traffic from Finland produced a record-breaking five percent more carbon dioxide emissions in 2016 than road traffic, a study from airport operator Finavia indicates.
 The figures show that the overall detrimental effects of airplanes on global warming far outstrip those of driving in terms of overall climate impact.
 The report notes that in 2016 Finland's domestic fossil fuel industry produced some 40 million tonnes of CO2; domestic traffic overall produced some 12 million tonnes of CO2; and domestic airplane flights accounted for some 0.2 million tonnes of CO2.
 Finland's annual flight emissions are at about 4 million tonnes of CO2, compared with the 6.5 million tonnes produced by automobile traffic.
 However, flights within Finland's borders only accounted for about five percent of all Finnish air travel, meaning that national climate data includes only a fraction of the emissions figures.
 Air traffic also affects the climate in multiple different ways.
 "The consensus in aviation is that the actual climate effects of airplane flights are twice as severe [as those of car traffic]," said Finavia's vice president of sustainability  Mikko Viinikainen .
 Researcher  Johanna Niemistö  from the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) noted that this is just the baseline.
 "In some studies we can talk about a factor of two or even five times the effects in air travel [compared to driving]. Two is the current understanding," she said.
 "Technology can't keep up"
 Statistics Finland reports that well over half of the 6.5 million international trips from Finland each year are made by air. Other statistics show that the CO2 emissions produced by Finnish overseas flights have doubled in 20 years.
 According to the Finavia report, the efficiency of aviation fuel has improved by some 70 percent in the past four decades. But that is not enough.
 "The air traffic industry has managed to curb emissions, but technology can't keep up with the sheer growing number of international flights," Niemistö said.
 Adding international flights to Finland's domestic aviation emissions would raise the climate footprint of every traveler from Finland by some 10 percent, SYKE's Niemistö said.
 Burning fuel in the atmosphere produces nitrogen oxide and steam, which warm the climate. Additionally, flying causes condensation trails in the sky which may form clouds, which may adversely affect the Earth's energy equilibrium.
 "These topics have been under investigation for a long time, but it's hard to confirm a single figure due to changing weather conditions," Niemistö said. "We need more information to say anything for certain."

Report: Rise in overseas flights harms climate more than driving


Summary: Finland’s justice ministry is set to change rape laws to ensure that sex without consent is always a crime.

Finland’s rape laws are set for a revamp, with tightened legislation on consent and sex with minors on the way, along with better consideration of victims’ in helpless situations.
 A Justice Ministry working group laid out the task on Tuesday, stating that the idea was to ensure that sex without consent is always punishable under the law—something that is not the case currently under Finland’s penal code.
 A citizens’ initiative on the consent law gained 57,000 signatures in six months leading up to last December, but this ministerial working group has a broader remit. The campaign to tighten the law initially got a cool reception from the Justice Minister Antti Häkkänen, so campaigners view Tuesday’s announcement as a significant step forward.
 “The main victory is the tone of the debate around the issue,” said Hanna-Marilla Zidan, who was one of the proposers of the citizens’ initiative. “There has been a big change in the conversation, thanks to the metoo campaign and the public atmosphere. It’s important because the law sends a message to society about what’s okay and what isn’t. It’s about improving things for victims but also about the message the law sends--consent is not a grey area legally.”
 In addition, a change in the law is planned to ensure that sex with a child is always considered rape. At present sex with someone under the age of consent is regarded as aggravated child abuse, a legal quirk that raised hackles in Finland when a  man convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old  could not be charged with rape under Finnish law.
 Preparations for the changes started last summer. The working group will start work in February before handing a legislative proposal to parliament after the next election, which is due on 14 April.
 Justice Minister Antti Häkkänen said that he had been shocked by recent reports of  rape and sexual abuse in Oulu , but stressed that legislative changes should be made after careful consideration.
 “Not by reading incendiary headlines on social media and making rapid changes to the law,” said Häkkänen.
 On Tuesday Finland's MPs also reached cross-party consensus on legislative changes to be made before elections due in April in an effort to clamp down on grooming and sexual abuse.
 Those laws, which are already under consideration in parliament, cover police rules on data gathering, to allow them to better track individuals suspected of grooming online; the government is to look at whether aggravated sex crimes could be a reason to rescind Finnish citizenship; and an increase in the maximum sentence for aggravated child abuse from four years' prison to six.
 EDIT-This story was edited to include cross-party agreement on legislation announced on Tuesday afternoon.

Consent campaign yields results as ministry revamps rape laws


Summary: The Interior Ministry says it wants to protect Brits' rights in Finland, but hasn’t said how will do so.

British citizens living in Finland have expressed frustration over the uncertainty of their status in Finland after the UK exits the European Union at the end of March.
 The Finnish Government has said it wants to protect UK citizens' rights to live, work and study in Finland after Brexit, but has not provided any details on how that will happen.
 Long-term Finland resident  Tim Bird  told Yle News, "I've lived here since 1982. Unless I am missing something, I don't feel like the Finnish government has done much to reassure us, but then I guess that is at least partly because they are uncertain, too."
 "I can't believe that anyone with the ties I have to Finland is going to be suddenly required to leave the country, but I would expect there to be some bureaucratic implications. And I don't know exactly what form they will take."
 Story continues after photo
 Tim Bird
 Bureaucratic pain
 Stephen Penny , a finance worker originally from Poole, England, is also worried about the process of applying for residency. "It's a bureaucratic pain in the backside, the paperwork, the cost, pensions, healthcare."
 When asked what the Finnish government could do to put his concerns to rest, he told Yle News, "Give us a clear idea of what the plans are going to be either way. Even if it’s not going to be to people’s liking, it’d be good to know up front."
 That kind of reassurance is not currently on the agenda. On Tuesday the Finnish Immigration Service Migri said that it is "currently unable" to tell Brits in Finland what they need to do to safeguard their status after Brexit day – which is currently pencilled in for 29 March.
 Migri's current official advice to UK citizens in Finland is to make sure they are registered as legal residents before Brexit.
 "The registration might be of advantage if the United Kingdom decides to withdraw from the EU and British citizens are required to apply for a residence permit in Finland in the same way as any other so called third-country nationals."
 A press release issued by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday states that "Finland wishes to protect the opportunities for citizens of the United Kingdom to live, work and study in Finland in the future, too, even after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union."
 Maria Vatanen
 The release does not say exactly how the Finnish government will protect British citizens’ rights in Finland, stating only that “The Ministry of the Interior will publish further information in the coming weeks about the position regarding residence and work permits.”
 The statement, posted on the Interior Ministry'swebsite, says that in the event of a so-called 'no-deal Brexit' – which is where the United Kingdom leaves without any agreements in place on its future relationship with the EU – UK citizens' legal status will change overnight to that of 'third-country nationals'.
 This means British people currently living in Finland could be forced to re-apply for residency on the same terms that currently apply to non-EU migrants in Finland.
 According to the Interior Ministry, the application process is intended to be "as quick and flexible as possible."
 When Yle News asked for clarification on this and other points in the press release, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said he "cannot answer your questions at the moment," but that there would be more information available in early February.
 Estonia to safeguard UK citizens' rights
 Some other EU member states have already made clear what will happen to their British residents after 29 March.
 The Estonian public broadcaster ERR reportedon Monday that Estonian MPs were due to vote on a bill that would guarantee British citizens in Estonia the same rights they currently have, even in the case of a no-deal Brexit.
 "It is important to be ready for all scenarios so that those Britons living here could maintain certainty about their future," the chair of the Estonian Parliament's Constitutional Committee,  Marko Pomerants  said in a statement.
 The Estonian bill, which will allow UK citizens in Estonia to keep the same rights they currently have, even in the case of a no-deal Brexit, will go to its first reading in the Estonian parliament on 23 January.
 Story continues after photo
 Leo Stockford
 Brits in Finland are not so lucky as their Estonian counterparts.
 "I think I, like a lot of other Brits, are concerned about the Finnish government's reaction to Brexit. While the German government has given many positive notices about British nationals, Finland has been less forthcoming," Finnish resident  Leo Stockford  told Yle News.
 "I'm lucky in that I have a job which pays above the income requirements, and as as someone married to a Finn, it makes it all a lot easier. However, I work with a lot of people who have to apply for residency every year, and it's not a simple thing," he added.
 Some expats say the whole affair has adversely affected their health.
 "I was recently diagnosed with depression and anxiety and I am in no doubt that Brexit is the primary cause," said Maria Vatanen. "The sense of "nobody knows" has been an everyday concern for nearly three years – since the referendum was announced and campaigning began."

"A bureaucratic pain": Brits in Finland seek answers on Brexit


Summary: Finnish dailies run stories on psychologists worried about children's rights, a massive EU robotics initiative and a Kalevala-themed luxury holiday village.

Three Helsinki psychologists published an opinion piece on Tuesday decrying the slowness of Finland's criminal justice system in litigating sexual offences against minors,  tabloid Ilta-Sanomat writes .
 Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) psychologists  Merja Oksanen ,  Taina Laajasalo  and  Julia Korkman  from the Forensic Psychology Center for Children and Adolescents said in their open letter in daily Helsingin Sanomat that the time it takes for a criminal case of sexual assault against a minor to make it from police report to sentencing – 23 months on average – is prohibitively long.
 "We wrote it based on our experiences in practising our profession," Laajasalo told IS. "We have closely followed the public discussion of police resources, and we routinely see what they amount to in real life. We felt that a certain perspective was missing from the issue."
 "We have long been worried about how long the legal process takes in children's sexual assault cases. It is very hard on families. The time seemed ripe for our letter," HUS psychologist Oksanen said in the paper.
 The drawbacks of a slow system for children include difficulty in remembering disturbing events after long periods and living with unresolved trauma.
 The psychologists, who work closely with police, blame badly managed organisational changes and poorly directed resources for the unacceptable lag – not the abilities or motivations of police investigators.
 Another police-resource related bill proposes to extend the minimum announcement period for holding public demonstrations from one day to three, because police need extra time to direct resources to safeguarding public security in such situations.
 Robots on the horizon
 The University of Tampere and the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) are starting a major, EU-funded robotics project this year,  local paper Aamulehti reports .
 The international, 32-million-euro undertaking brought together robotics experts from some 20 European countries on Tuesday as the team celebrated the launch of their initiative in Hervanta, Tampere.
 The research programme, called Horizon 2020, includes two projects, Trinity and DIH2. The projects aim to produce techniques and tools to assist small and mid-sized Finnish businesses, AL writes.
 "It is so amazing," said university professor  Minna Lanz . "VTT and the university will be working side by side to provide innovations, solutions and know-how to the region."
 The Trinity project, headed by Lanz, focuses on industrial human-robot cooperation while DIH2 aims to develop a Europe-wide robotics network to boost productivity.
 The consortium's four-year schedule means to produce 17 demonstrations of technical use and 50 thorough scenarios of how robotics can be utilised, using technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
 "The goal is to create a system by which humans can interact with industrial robots as easily as possible, without any clunky headgear," said Lanz.
 Mythical Nordic luxury
 Big things are happening in the Finnish hospitality sector as well, as the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Lapland has caught the eye of many a rich international tourist. The hospitality complex started expanding after its marketing campaign went viral in 2017.
 Helsingin Sanomat  runs a piece on the high-end holiday centre in Saariselkä which, among other things, features hundreds of modern art pieces, psychedelic fantasy aesthetics and references to Finland's national epic, the Kalevala.
 Glass igloos are the main form of accommodation at the Kakslauttanen resort. Kakslauttanen
 One night in the glass igloos at this one-of-a-kind resort costs 800 euros, an attraction which draws some 40,000 visitors per year. Movie star  Margot Robbie  visited the complex in early January, a holiday which received considerable attention from fans on the internet.
 The weird wonderland in the far reaches of northern Finland is the vision of millionaire entrepreneur  Jussi Eiramo , who told HS he spent "a few million" to bring the artistic compound into being.
 "Why not build a place like this in the middle of nowhere?" Eiramo said.

Wednesday's papers: Slow assault litigation, robotics in Tampere, Arctic jet set wonderland


Summary: Some 2,400 people were granted asylum in Finland in 2018. The number has been plummeting since 2015.

The number of people granted asylum in Finland has dropped lower than before the 2015 application spike, the Finnish Immigration Service Migri announced Wednesday.
 A total of 4,548 people applied for asylum in 2018, with about half of those (2,409 submissions) being first-time applications. Most of the applications came from Iraqi nationals, followed by Russians and Somalis.
 In 2015 some 32,000 asylum seekers applied for residency, also mostly from Iraq. Prior to the spike the yearly number of applications held steady at 3,000-4,000 submissions. Last year's figure dropped from more than 5,000 annual applications in 2016 and 2017.
 Unrest in Iraq and Syria based on the expansion of terrorist group Isis prompted the record-breaking 2015 figures, leading to much-publicised challenges in Finland's asylum policy.
 One of the top reasons for granting asylum in recent years has been applicants' conversion from Islam to Christianity. Migri says that Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to live in as a Christian.
 A citizens' initiative calling for the immediate deportation of sexual criminals gathered the minimum 50,000 signatures on Monday. The petition, spurred by recent police reports on numerous cases of sexual assault, will be handled by the next Parliament, following elections in April.
 Migri reports that the agency carried out slightly fewer deportation decisions last year than in 2017. Almost all of the 1,092 negative asylum decisions were based on unlawful residency. A total of 173 people were rejected due to their criminal background; more than half of them have been deported.

Migri: Number of first-time asylum seekers keeps falling


Summary: More than 30 years on, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster remains present in Finnish wild foods.

The Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Stuk) says that fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident can still be detected in Finnish foods, but that it accounts for less than one percent of the average annual radiation dose for people in Finland.
 The city of Helsinki's urban environment division said on Monday that two samples of funnel chanterelle (or yellow leg) mushrooms it tested contained levels of radioactive caesium that exceeded the recommended maximum.
 According to EU guidelines, food products offered for sale should not contain more than 600 becquerels per kilo (Bq/kg) of caesium-137. Mushrooms picked in Pälkäne in Pirkanmaa, south-central Finland had a reading of nearly 1,000 Bq/kg. Meanwhile those picked in Hyvinkää, some 60 km from the capital, contained 1,300 Bq/kg. Wild produce from around the country is widely sold at marketplaces in the capital.
 Most caesium disappears in cooking
 On Wednesday, Stuk said that consumers can eat such mushrooms without worry despite their caesium content. The agency estimates that the annual dose of radiation from caesium in mushrooms is less than 0.01 millisievert (mSv) for the average consumer in Finland – compared with the average dose from all radiation sources, which is some 3.2 mSv annually.
 Stuk points out that caesium levels in mushrooms is reduced by rinsing and cooking them. This can remove as much as 80 percent of their caesium content. Drying mushrooms does not affect radiation levels, though.
 The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident occurred in April 1986 in Ukraine, which was then part of the USSR.
 Winds carried caesium fallout from the plant to Finland, with the heaviest concentrations in the southern regions of Pirkanmaa, Häme and Kymenlaakso. Wild game, lake fish and forest berries also still contain tiny amounts of caesium-137 from Chernobyl.
 Fallout from the accident accounts for less than one percent of the average Finn's annual exposure to radiation – about half of which comes from air-borne radon inside buildings, says Stuk.

Watchdog: Wild mushrooms OK to eat despite lingering Chernobyl radiation


Summary: Roughly half of the money owed by young people in Finland is in the form of consumer and small loans.

An increasing proportion of the debt carried by young consumers is consumer loans, rather than student or housing loans, according to the Guarantee Foundation, a group that helps individuals solve financial problems.
 The foundation's communications director,  Minna Mattila , said that people of all ages are increasingly paying off old loans by borrowing more money.
 "In order to avoid receiving payment arrears notices, people are paying off old bills or debts by taking new loans. By doing this, it can take a long time before the debts are paid up. This phenomenon is constantly being seen across all age groups, even among young people," Mattila said.
 Some 1.6 million new payment default notices were sent to consumers in 2018, according to corporate data firm Asiakastieto, a figure which is slightly lower than the previous year.
 However, Mattila said that as consumers are increasingly paying off loans with new ones, so those figures may not be showing the real number of people struggling with debt.
 New phones, new loans
 People under the age of 25 appear to be taking on increasing amounts of consumer debt and borrowing smaller amounts of money.
 Last year some 40 percent of that younger generation's debt was not made up of housing or student loans, according to Statistics Finland. As housing loans have decreased in numbers, other debts have doubled, according to the agency's 2018 figures.
 Mattila said that many of the Guarantee Foundation's clients say their debt problems began when they were younger and living on their own for the first time.
 "It is very common that people buy new phones on payment plans before the old ones are actually paid for. Those bills seem small to them, but as they start to add up, they can be difficult to pay off," Mattila said.

Young consumers increasingly take new loans to pay off old ones