Summary: The CEO of Finnish gaming giant Supercell has slammed delays in granting residence permits.

Top experts often have to wait months for Finnish residence permits, even though they are nearly always granted.
 Prime Minister  Antti Rinne 's government says it wants to boost work-based immigration, but companies say that bureaucratic red tape and delays hamper their recruitment of foreign experts.
 This week the CEO of Finnish gaming giant Supercell,  Ilkka Paananen , tweeted in Finnish that "this is a catastrophe that be seen everyday at Supercell, for instance. People with world-class know-how who would be very good taxpayers are ready to come to Finland, but our bureaucracy blocks us from bringing them here. A world-class creator is not going to wait 3-4 months for a permit."
 Statistics from the Immigration Service (Migri) confirm that permit processing times for foreign specialists have clearly grown. This year the average wait for handling of a first-time residence permit is 52 days, more than double last year's average of 25 days.
 Processing of applications to extend existing permits is dragging on even longer, now taking an average of 67 days.
 Migri boss blames budget shortage
 "The average should not rise by that much," Migri Director  Jaana Vuorio  conceded to the Finnish news agency STT.
 To qualify as a specialist, an applicant must usually have a binding job offer in Finland with a gross income of at least 3,000 euros per month and a higher education degree.
 Almost all such applicants are eventually granted residence permits, with the largest number of them coming from India.
 Vuorio says the increase in processing times is partly due to workforce shortage and a budget shortfall.
 "At the moment application fees only cover three quarters of the cost of handling them. We have a financing shortfall, which has led to a staff shortage," Vuorio said.
 Target: 1-month maximum
 She says that another reason why applicants are having to wait longer for replies is that Migri is increasingly obliged to ascertain whether their promised salaries are really at the required level.
 The number of people applying for work-based residence permits has risen as well, she notes. Vuorio says she does not believe that the number of asylum seekers' applications – which has fallen in recent years – affects the processing time for specialists' permits.
 Rinne's cabinet says its goal is for work-based residence permits to be handled within a month. Migri and various ministries are now looking for ways to relieve bottlenecks in the application process.
 Sonja Hämäläinen , Migration Director at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, says that application forms are being revised in order to provide more precise information and reduce the need for further queries and investigations.
 Applicants are also being urged to fill out forms electronically as this speeds up the process compared to printed versions.

Slow processing of foreign experts' permits "a catastrophe"


Summary: The Swedish and Finnish PMs weighed EU issues in Helsinki before Antti Rinne's phone call with Boris Johnson.

Prime Minister  Antti Rinne  hosted his Swedish counterpart  Stefan Löfven  on Saturday in Helsinki. The two Social Democratic premiers discussed issues on the agenda of the EU summit on October 17-18, including Brexit and the long-term EU budget framework through 2027. Rinne and Löfven also talked about sustainable growth, Baltic Sea protection and Arctic issues.
 After their bilateral talks, the two took part in a panel on the future of the Nordic welfare society as part of the SDP's weekend Future Forum seminar in Helsinki, hosted by party secretary  Antton Rönnholm .
 The two discussed efforts to slow climate change, expressing concern over climate change deniers and those attacking young activists such as Sweden's  Greta Thunberg .
 At a joint press conference, they concentrated on EU affairs. Löfven voiced support for a proposal championed by Rinne whereby granting of EU subsidies to member states would be linked to adherence to the rule of law.
 Along with the climate, it has emerged as a main theme of the first half of Finland's six-month EU presidency term, which ends in December.
 Löfven, 62, became the leader of Sweden's SDP in 2012 and has been PM since 2014. Rinne, 56, took the reins of the Finnish SDP in 2014, becoming premier in June this year.
 Johnson agrees to Brexit proposal schedule
 Regarding Brexit, Rinne said that he and Löfven had both planned to speak with British Prime Minister  Boris Johnson  on Friday but that the calls had been cancelled.
 Rinne's office issued a statement early Saturday evening saying that he had spoken with Johnson about his latest Brexit proposal, which was rejected by many EU leaders last week.
 "I told him that the proposed solutions would not ensure adherence to the Good Friday agreement nor the EU's integrity and functioning of its internal markets," Rinne said in the statement.
 "I told Johnson that it is important to find a solution within a week so that the matter can be properly considered at the October European Council. Johnson said that he agreed on this timetable," he went on to say.

Rinne discusses Brexit with Swedish and British PMs


Summary: The World Health Organisation needed an additional month to assess which strains of influenza it should prepare for.

hengitystieinfektiot (hengityselinten taudit, infektiot)

The National Institute of Health and Welfare THL says it has begun distributing seasonal flu vaccines to municipalities to provide protection during this year’s flu season.
 However the public health watchdog noted that the annual flu vaccination schedule has been delayed by the late arrival of the vaccine – meaning that municipalities will also provide free shots later than in previous years.
 "Vaccines have arrived slightly later than usual and they will come in more lots than in previous seasons," explained THL specialist  Niina Ikonen .
 According to Ikonen, members of the public will still be able to protect themselves against influenza before the worst of the season takes hold.
 "The epidemic usually begins only after the New Year, at the beginning of January. Generally the worst weeks are around February to march. At the moment there is no indication that the season will begin any earlier than usual," she added.
 The THL is advising local governments to begin public immunisation at the end of November, when they would have sufficient stocks of the vaccine on hand. However it is up to municipalities to decide when to provide free vaccines.
 Time needed to assess flu strains
 According to THL, the World Health Organisation, WHO, wanted an additional month to assess which strains of influenza it should prepare for. Because the WHO’s final recommendation for the composition of the vaccine came one month late, it had a knock-on effect on production, which in turn affected deliveries of the drug.
 Free vaccines provided in Finland’s national immunisation programme are generally available to groups to whom an influenza infection would pose a major risk. In additional, individuals such as social and health care workers also get the shot for free.
 Some Finnish residents pay for inoculation themselves. Pharmacist  Krista Merras  of Yliopiston Apteekki in Helsinki said that private customers have been asking about the availability of the flu jab. She pointed out that individuals need a doctor’s prescription to purchase a dose.
 "At the moment the vaccine is not yet on sale but we will have it at all of our outlets next week. It’s about a couple weeks behind schedule compared to previous years," Merras added.
 Nasal spray more popular for infants
 THL said it has ordered 1.7 million shots to be administered by way of a needle for this winter’s flu season. In addition, it has also ordered 116,000 doses to be administered via a nasal spray, an alternative that is suitable for children between the ages of two and six.
 This year the THL ordered 40,000 more nasal spray doses than last year -- enough for 40 percent of two to six-year-olds in Finland.
 "We have seen that the nasal spray is a more desirable option for children than an injection. Two-thirds of parents who decide to inoculate their children ask for the nasal spray," Ikonen observed.
 The vaccine does not always prevent people from contracting the flu, but it does mean that persons who fall ill experience milder symptoms. More  information about the flu vaccine is available  on the THL website (in Finnish).

Delayed start to seasonal flu shot programme in Finland


Summary: A manipulated photo used in a WWF Finland campaign sparked a lively discussion on social media.

Environmental NGO WWF Finland has apologised for using a retouched photo of a polar bear and cub standing on a tiny ice floe, apparently adrift in an ocean. However, the organisation’s communications head,  Anne Brax , also defended use of the image as an advertising tool commonly used as shorthand for climate change and its impact on arctic regions, rather than as a news item.
 The photo was used as part of an anti-climate change fundraising campaign aimed at students participating in Finland’s annual "taksvärkki" or "day’s work" programme, where middle schoolers work for a day to collect money for worthy causes.
 The image used in the campaign was  originally shot by nature photographer Steven Kazlowski  and depicts a polar bear and a cub. In the original photo, however, the polar bears are set against an icy landscape with no ocean in sight.
 Alongside the manipulated image used in the WWF Finland campaign is the text "sulaa hulluutta kun ilmasto lämpenee", which roughly translated means "pure madness as the climate warms", with a play on the word "sulaa”, which also means "to melt" in Finnish.
 WWF Finland: "We made a mistake"
 Tabloid daily Iltalehti first reported on the social media dust-up the image caused, following which Yle spoke with WWF Finland’s Anne Brax. She stressed that the photo was used for advertising and not for news purposes.
 "Like all other organisations, we used a composite picture in the ad. Collages or composite pictures or otherwise manipulated photos are used in marketing to emphasise a message and for visual impact," she commented.
 "In our advertising, ice hockey players, polar bears and Saimaa ringed seals have been used on the same ice floe to [signal] that we should preserve our snowy and icy winters," the comms chief added.
 Brax noted that the polar bear image came from WWF’s international image bank and that agreements are always made with photographers regarding the use of their material.
 However she admitted that the NGO made a mistake in assuming that the photo would be seen as an advertising image rather than an actual situation.
 "We have made a mistake and we deeply regret it," she said, adding that advertising photos should clearly indicate that it they have been retouched.
 "We are sorry that the photo used in our ad did not make this clear enough," Brax observed.
 NGO: Polar bear a symbol of climate change
 Brax said that in future, WWF Finland will indicate that photos used in similar campaigns have been manipulated .
 "We have already added this in digital versions of the photo in question."
 She stressed that an advertising photo is not misleading because the polar bear is a widely used symbol of climate change and the resulting distress experienced in arctic regions.
 Yle pointed out that many people are sceptical about climate change and that some even claim the entire theory is a hoax and asked whether facts rather than manipulated photos should be used to counter their views.
 "We are constantly presenting facts in our news communications – for example in our messaging about the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change. We have done this awareness building for years. Even school children can find facts on our website and we are constantly answering people’s questions about climate change on social media. We wanted to use the polar bear ad to lead people to seek facts on our website and to remember the relevant sources," Brax countered.

NGO apologises over doctored image in climate campaign


Summary: The 24-hour news service’s travel site described Lake Inari as the perfect backdrop for watching the Northern Lights.

"A year-round paradise," is how US news service CNN described Finnish Lapland's Lake Inari (Inarijärvi in Finnish) as part of its roundup of the 20 most beautiful places to visit in Europe.
 The listing on CNN’s travel site aimed to introduce travellers to less popular destinations on the continent, which it said might be familiar mainly to residents and the more adventurous.
 Story continues after photo.
 Lake Inari offers remote but compelling views to fearless travellers. Ismo Pekkarinen / AOP
 One of the travel site’s recommendations regarding the northern Finland destination it singled out was that it provided the perfect backdrop for observing the Northern Lights.
 It also noted that as the epicentre of Sámi culture, the north represents Finland at its most traditional.
 Story continues after photo.
 The midnight sun during summer at Lake Inari. Mikko Karjalainen  / AOP
 Other well-kept destination secrets on CNN’s list included Norway’s Lofoten Islands, the dunes of Henne Strand in Denmark and Lake Vattern in Sweden, among others.
 Read the full list  on the CNN site .

CNN lists Finland's Lake Inari as one of Europe’s "most beautiful places"


Summary: Pupils will soon be able to complete upper secondary school, making it the first such institution outside of Finland.

The Finnish International School in Doha, Qatar offers English-language tuition to roughly 700 students based on the Finnish school curriculum.
 According to vice principal  Hanne Patomäki,  the school was the brainchild of  Mozah bint Nasser,  the wife of the former Emir of Qatar, who became interested in Finnish education years ago. After visiting Finland she set about establishing a Finnish school in Doha.
 Educluster Finland, an education lobby group headed by the University of Jyväskylä, seized the opportunity and collaborated with the education ministry in Qatar to get the school off the ground in 2014.
 Story continues after photo.
 The curriculum includes Qatar-specific elements. Yle
 Like many other schools, educators encourage students to be active. However in the searing summer heat when daytime highs soar to 40 degrees Celsius, children spend their study breaks indoors.
 They play ball games, dance and play tag in a large air- conditioned hall for as much as half an hour. Voices ring out and it is possible to discern Finnish, Arabic and English in the melee.
 "Our language of instruction is English. The curriculum is Finnish but we have made some additions of course, such as Qatari history, Arab and Islam for Muslims," Patomäki explained.
 The school currently accommodates students ranging from pre-school level to the first year of upper secondary school. In a few years, pupils will even be able to complete upper secondary school at the institution, making it the first of its kind outside of Finland.
 Better pay than in Finland
 The Qatari school has more than 100 teachers and assistants on its payroll – 39 are Finnish while 60 represent other nationalities. Teachers’ salaries in Qatar may be double pay packets in Finland – or more.
 Employee perks also include generous housing benefits as rents in Qatar range from 1,500 to 5,000 euros monthly. The cost of a rental in a residential area for detached homes with a sports field and pool may come in at 3,000 euros or more.
 Funding for the school comes from annual tuition fees, which run from 10,000 to 15,000 euros. The fees are generally paid by the employers of students’ parents.
 Story continues after photo.
 Children get involved in many activities and clubs as part of the school day. Yle
 Qatar has received a great deal of negative publicity over scant audiences at this year’s World Athletics Championships. It has also come under scrutiny over issues such as women’s rights as well as the condition of migrant workers. The conversation will likely continue, given that Qatar will host FIFA's World Cup finals in 2022.
 However according to Patomäki the close-knit Finnish community in Doha has been unsettled by the current media focus. She said they also feel there are many positive aspects to the country.
 "Our school represents more than 60 different nationalities. I see multiculturalism as a major asset that you can see everywhere. People become more tolerant and open," the vice principal declared.
 She noted that Finnish employees have also made friends with many of the parents of local students.
 "We have visited, gone out together shopping and to restaurants – we have done exactly the same things that Finnish friends do together. We have been treated politely by officials and in the stores here. At no point have I felt uncomfortable or threatened as a woman," Patomäki observed.
 She pointed out that after five years in Doha, many of the local customs have already become part of her everyday life. Her children wear school uniforms and cover their knees and shoulders in public places. However they wear shorts whenever they please in their local community.
 "Maybe during the first year you had to think about whether or not it was appropriate to shake hands with an Arab man, for example. Or you needed to remember not to eat and drink in public during the holy month of Ramadan. But these things quickly became part of my own routine," she explained.

Qatari students follow Finnish curriculum at English-language school


Summary: Commuter train drivers in the Helsinki region cancelled a strike due to take place from 3am until 9am on Monday.

On Sunday evening Helsinki train drivers cancelled a strike due to shut down local train services in the capital during the Monday morning rush hour.
 The strike would have caused the cancellation of all local train services in the Helsinki region. Long-distance services were to be unaffected by the action.
 The union had called the strike after claiming that managers at VR, the state railway monopoly, are not respecting existing agreements and infringing on drivers’ free time.
 The dispute centres on the mechanism by which drivers rostered as substitutes discover the times of shifts they’re asked to fill. VR has up to now called or informed by SMS of the exact location and timing drivers on those shifts should turn up, but in future they will be notified via an app.
 The union says workers on their days off, annual leave or sick leave have to use company systems on their days off without compensation, and that is in breach of the current agreements governing the sector.
 The drivers’ representatives say this should be counted as working time, and they should receive compensation for it.
 In a press release, employers’ umbrella organisation Palta claimed that Monday’s industrial action is illegal. According to Palta, there is a mechanism to resolve differences of opinion on collective agreements, and the matter is still under consideration.
 Until it was called off, the strike was expected to cause delays and congestion on the roads on Monday as large numbers of commuters commuters look for alternatives or stay at home.
 In 2017 HSL  reported  that some 20,000 people every morning were estimated to use Helsinki commuter trains to reach the city centre during the morning rush hour.
 EDIT This story originally stated the strike was set to last until 9pm, when the strike officially ends at 9am.

Helsinki train strike cancelled


Summary: Thousands of nurses face job cuts, Finnish hockey players make a splash and long-term projections for a warmer winter.

Yhdysvaltain ilmasto- ja merentutkimuslaitos

Municipal job restructuring talks may threaten the livelihoods of thousands of nurses despite a widely-reported lack of available professionals in Finnish health care, wrote daily Helsingin Sanomat on Monday.
 The Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) says that their members are facing lay-offs in 30 municipalities.
 CEO  Minna Karhunen  of the employers’ umbrella organisation the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities said she regrets a situation where facilities such as health centres may sometimes call in pensioners and unqualified workers to fill in gaps in staffing.
 Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services  Krista Kiuru  said in HS she understands the economic strain of cutbacks and municipal savings, but finds the message sent by the talks worrying.
 "I would hope that municipalities could refrain from sending this message to nurses that they risk being fired over spending policies, when nurses are sorely needed in the sector, especially in elder care," Kiuru said.
 Finns flying on ice
 Papers on Monday also carry news of a winning streak among Finnish players in America's National Hockey League (NHL).
 Winnipeg Jets wunderkind  Patrik Laine  picked up two assists in the first two games of the season, and stood out when he scored against the New York Islanders only minutes before the end of the second period.
 The Islanders beat the Jets 4-1, but Laine opened his point streak while skating alongside top players  Mark Scheifele  and  Blake Wheeler .
 Aamulehti wrote that Laine, who first broke onto the international hockey scene with a 2016 hat-trick against Toronto, did not attend training camps or matches while awaiting his two-year contract extension. That did not stop him from scoring 1+2 points at the start of the season.
 AL reported that Laine's compatriot  Erik Haula , snapped up by the Hurricanes this past summer, is also on an autumn streak. He is the first player in the history of his team to score a goal in each of the season's first three opening matches.
 International meteorologists' long-term call
 Speaking of ice, teams of international meteorologists expect a somewhat milder winter in Finland. Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reported that the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMRWF) is forecasting that average temperatures will be 0.5-1 degree Celsius warmer than usual in 2019-2020.
 Warm, humid air will blow into Finland from the Azores before the end of the year, IS wrote.
 Other organisations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US, the Beijing Climate Centre (BCC) and the UK's Met Office all report higher than average long-term temperatures across Northern Europe.
 Predictions from China are perhaps most drastic, projecting winter temperatures in Finland at three degrees Celsius higher than usual this year.

Monday's papers: Nurses' job talks, NHL Finns, winter weather predictions


Summary: Gather your crew, ready your brew and we'll bring the cinnamon buns. Here's how you can invite us.

Yle’s 'Yle comes for coffee' campaign is now available in English as Yle News joins the programme. We will visit clubs, families or groups of any kind who want to discuss media and Yle in English.
 The idea of the project is to understand how Yle can better serve diverse audiences in different parts of the country. You invite us and we'll bring the cinnamon buns if you supply the coffee or tea.
 Just gather your family, friends, work colleagues, college friends or any other group, and get in touch.
 We want to hear what you think we can do better or differently. Which topics should we cover? How do you follow news, current affairs and sport?
 We won’t be reporting on our visit, we won’t store your information longer than necessary and all information provided will be treated in confidence.
 If you’d like us to come for coffee send us an email at yle.news@yle.fi with 'Yle coffee' in the subject line  by 31 October . Explain where you are, tell us about your group and why you want us to visit.

Fancy a coffee with Yle News? Then read on…


Summary: Social media criticism of conditions in Turkey or President Erdogan could lead to problems, according to media reports.

Ministerit, ministeriöt ja valtioneuvosto

Turkish officials have prevented Finnish-Turkish dual citizens from leaving the country for ambiguous reasons, according to information obtained by Yle from various sources. The problem of dual citizens being barred from leaving the country appears to have begun in 2016, after an attempted coup.
 The Finnish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that dual nationals have faced travel bans in Turkey in recent years, but it would not disclose the precise number of people affected or comment on the reasons why they may have been blocked from leaving.
 "There have been a few of these cases affecting Finns. I cannot comment further on the precise number of cases," said consular head  Antti Putkonen .
 The ministry has issued travel advisories warning dual citizens that Turkey does not recognise dual citizenship with Finland, thereby limiting the ability of Finnish authorities to assist them.
 "Of course from our perspective they are Finnish citizens and we try to help them. However they also have Turkish citizenship and local officials can treat them as exclusively Turkish nationals," Putkonen added.
 "Likes can lead to criminal probe"
 Other European countries have also said that dual nationals with a Turkish background who have visited their home country on vacation have been barred from returning home to their adopted countries. The German foreign ministry has warned that opinions shared on social media, for example, could lead to problems in Turkey.
 According to those warnings, even liking or sharing news items could have consequences. The travel bans imposed on dual nationals may be driven by social media opinions on conditions in Turkey or criticism of Turkish President  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . Such comments could be classified a crime and could lead to an investigation and possibly even a trial.
 In previously-reported cases, people have been suspected of supporting the Kurdish pro-independence party PKK or cleric and scholar  Fethullah Gülen , who has been accused of instigating the 2016 coup.
 The chain of events has been similar in several cases. People have encountered problems during passport control checks, either upon arrival or when they attempt to leave Turkey. In some cases, they have ended up stranded in Turkey for several months after being denied leave to travel.
 Informants in Finland
 Suspected informants have also been communicating with authorities in Turkey. However it remains unclear to what extent this has been organised and whether or not the Turkish embassy or pro-Turkey organisations have been involved.
 At least one person who has travelled to Turkey was detained shortly after arrival on the basis of information provided by an informant. According to Yle sources, a few other Turkish-background Finnish citizens have found themselves in trouble because of informants.
 People detained in Turkey have also been pressured to inform on their compatriots. Documents from an ongoing trial in Turkey include an interrogation report that draws attention to a Turkish-background Helsinki man who claimed that several people living in Finland were involved in "terrorism".
 Dozens of German dual citizens in Turkey
 At the end of August, the German foreign ministry issued a report indicating that some 62 German dual nationals were in Turkish prisons. Another 38 were said to be languishing in conditions resembling house arrest in Turkey. Persons placed on a travel ban must report to the police regularly – once or twice weekly.
 The German foreign ministry report provides no indication of what offences the people detained or placed under house arrest are suspected of committing. According to German media reports, some of the cases can be linked to criticism of the Turkish government on social media.
 Turkey has been known to collect information on citizens living abroad, so it is possible that officials also have information about anti-government demonstrations.

Foreign ministry tight-lipped about Finnish-Turkish dual nationals detained in Turkey


Summary: The young man suspected of a sabre attack that killed one woman and injured nine others is no longer in intensive care.

Two persons are still in hospital following  a sword attack at a vocational school  in Kuopio, eastern Finland, last Tuesday. One of the persons still warded at the Kuopio University central hospital is the suspected attacker.
 Both patients were moved to open wards after initially receiving treatment at the hospital’s intensive care unit. All of the other persons injured in the incident, including persons who were also in intensive care, have since been discharged from the facility.
 The suspect was formally  remanded into pre-trial custody  on Friday after participating in the hearing from hospital via video link.
 On Monday the National Bureau of Investigation said briefly that it was continuing its investigation into the attack and that it would provide an update when possible.
 Police call for tips from public
 Investigators are still asking for possible photographic and video material recorded of the attack and also urged members of the public to contact them via WhatsApp and email with any information about the incident at 050 306 8875 and  rikosvihje.krp@polissi.fi  respectively.
 The attack that killed one person and injured ten, including the suspected attacker, took place last Tuesday at the Herman shopping centre, where the Savo vocational college had been providing business classes due to air quality problems on its regular premises.
 On Monday college officials were not able to say when classes would resume at the shopping centre location.

Kuopio vocational school attack suspect still in hospital


Summary: Women who opted to implant the Essure sterilisation device reported symptoms ranging from acute pain to weight gain.

Over 250 women across Finland have had their Essure birth implants surgically removed since early 2017 after experiencing unexplained side effects, according to data collected from hospitals countrywide for an Yle survey.
 According to the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), the exact figure for those who chose to remove the implant is not available yet. The National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira) has reportedly received over 500 incident alerts from the Essure manufacturer, healthcare professionals and citizens about symptoms purportedly triggered by the implant.
 Story continues after photo.
 Essure permanent female sterilisation device. Henrik Leppälä / Yle
 Essure is a permanent female sterilisation device — a metal coil inserted into the fallopian tubes which creates a barrier that keeps the sperm from reaching the eggs. Around 8,000 women in Finland have undergone the Essure implantation procedure.
 After the procedure, many of the women have reported symptoms ranging from acute abdominal pain, swelling and headaches to weight gain and mood swings. Medical professionals were unable to directly link any of the symptoms to the implant, which the women said added to their frustration as they would often come back from the doctor feeling clueless.
 Some women denied removal surgery
 Johanna Kortesluoma  is one such woman who got the Essure surgically removed after she started experiencing adverse side effects after it was implanted in 2014. A couple of weeks after the procedure, the 39-year-old experienced inflammation and pain in the lower abdomen, apart from a constant sense of unease. Her doctor dismissed her symptoms during a follow-up examination.
 "It was clear to me that the swelling was due to Essure as it started right after the implantation. But I was afraid that the doctor would associate my symptom with my thyroid gland," said Kortesluoman, who suffers from hyperthyroidism.
 In 2016, her symptoms worsened — she suffered from fever, fluctuating blood pressure and shaking fits. It was only after she joined a Facebook group of women who suffered from similar issues that she learnt that some women stopped experiencing symptoms after they got their implants surgically removed. After being dismissed by the Turku University Hospital, she chose to get the removal surgery done in Tampere.
 Story continues after photo.
 Pictures of Johanna Kortesluoma before (left) and after (right) the Essure implant which left her with swelling and other symptoms. Johanna Kortesluoma
 "Even if only a few of the women have problems, this should not be a reason to dismiss or neglect symptoms. I still wonder how this can happen in Finland," Kortesluoma exclaimed.
 Bayer, the manufacturer of Essure discontinued sales in Finland in 2017, citing lack of demand. Since then, sales in Europe and the US have been terminated due to lack of demand. Essure has come under fire for years with women around the world reporting adverse side effects after implantation.
 Yet, doctors are sceptical about the symptoms.
 "In some patients, symptoms have already started before the Essure implants are inserted. Tiredness, fatigue or depression are not enough reasons for surgery,"  Jaana Fraser , chief of gynecology and obstetrics at North Karelia Central Hospital, said.
 "Fortunately, the Essure hysteria has not spread to our area,"  Liisa Tikkala , chief physician at Kymenlaakso Central Hospital noted.
 Many respondents revealed that they had to travel to another hospital district to get their implants removed as they were denied surgery in their area or their symptoms were not taken seriously enough.
 Most of the Essure devices were removed over a period of less than three years at Helsinki University Central Hospital, where more than a hundred procedures took place. Dozens of women have also had implants removed in the Pirkanmaa region. It is estimated that at least 50 women have undergone surgery at the Tampere University Hospital.
 Class action lawsuit
 Based on their personal experiences with the implant, 161 women filed a class action lawsuit against the Essure manufacturer Bayer. However, earlier this year, the consumer ombudsman rejected the claim citing that the women’s symptoms are not consistent and noting that an investigation would prove too lengthy and expensive.
 According to a survey of 140 people conducted by support group 'Essure Problems in Finland', symptoms completely disappeared after surgery in more than half of the respondents. About 10 percent of respondents felt that surgery had no effect on their symptoms.
 "Patient numbers have fluctuated according to the media reports. We've had patients who absolutely want Essure out of their system,"  Jari Sjöberg , Chief of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Helsinki University Central Hospital.
 Doctors who responded to the survey believe that pain is the main symptom Essure causes.
 "Implants do not cause weight gain, loss of libido, headaches or mood swings. Not all the pain is attributable to Essure. Some patients are more objective, and once they are provided with information, they decide to keep their implants," Sjöberg added.
 Removal also risky
 Doctors say there is reason to be cautious because the removal surgery comes with its own dangers.
 Eila Suvanto , specialist in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Gynecological Radiotherapy at Oulu University Hospital, pointed out that the implant cannot be extracted without removing the fallopian tube.
 "Some patients have the idea that the fallopian tube can be saved and sterilisation can be reversed with the removal procedure. A patient may change her mind about surgery after hearing this," Suvanto said.
 Urogynecologist  Kaisa Raatikainen  from Kuopio added that a hysterectomy is the only sure way to remove the implants. In cases where a complete hysterectomy is not performed and only some of the uterus is removed, parts of the device may remain in the patient, according to Raatikainen.
 Women who underwent the surgery, Finland’s five central hospitals and all the university hospitals participated in the Yle survey. Sources used in the story include statistics from Valvira and THL, Johanna Kortesluoma's patient records and the class action lawsuit data.

250 women in Finland opt for surgical removal of birth control implant


Summary: Amazon's quiet venture into the Nordics, elk collision season, and defining success in sports are in the news.

For years,  rumours  have been swirling about Amazon's entry into the Nordics. Now business daily  Kauppalehti  reports that the e-commerce giant could open a Nordic website next year.
 Commerce 8, an agency helping retailers get on the web shopping behemoth, told KL that the company will most likely on board more Nordic customers before launching its Nordic site.
 "Companies in Scandinavia aren’t ready yet to work with Amazon. There’s no point in secretly launching a Nordic website because that doesn’t support sales. The supply chain has to be in place for orders to ship in two days," explained  Emma Zethelius  of Commerce 8.
 Driving in elk country
 Finland’s elk hunting season begins on Saturday. With the terrestrial mammal on the move, there's a heightened risk of vehicular collisions with  Alces alces  in the coming weeks, reports  Hufvudstadsbladet .
 Over 70 percent of elk-related traffic accidents occur about an hour after sunset, insurer IF told HBL. The company said the incidence of animal-vehicle collisions has risen during the past decade, with a fifth of such accidents occurring during the month of November.
 How do you define success in sport?
 It’s a question Finns often wrestle with. At the World Athletics Championships in Doha Finns have  won no medals , but four athletes have done better than their ranking and surpassed the average of their five best results this season.
 Only five Finns who finished their race or competition did worse than the average of their five best results this season.
 So while watching the records smashed and the glory of the podium ceremonies it’s good to remember that by their standards, the medal-less Finns returning from Doha have done okay.
 EDIT: The original version of this review erroneously reported that most elk accidents occur in March, as did HBL. However the If report states the correct month is November.

Tuesday’s papers: Nordic Amazon, moose on the loose and sports success


Summary: The Finnish company will hold more than 70 percent of Uniper stock.

Finland's majority-state-owned energy firm Fortum is finally acquiring a majority share in German energy giant Uniper. If the deal goes through as planned, Fortum's stake will rise from the current 49.9 percent to 70.5 percent.
 Its investment in Uniper will climb to around 6.2 billion euros.
 Fortum said on Tuesday that it had agreed to buy 20.5 percent of Uniper's shares from Elliott Management and Knight Vinke Asset Management for some 2.3 billion euros.
 The move brings to a conclusion a takeover effort that has dragged on for two years. Fortum says it will pay for the transaction out of its cash resources as well as credit from London-based Barclays.
 The deal must still be approved by regulators in the US and Russia, which Fortum expects to happen in the first quarter of next year. Fortum also requires that Uniper's board be reformed immediately to reflect its ownership.
 Gas and coal focus
 Uniper was created in 2016 when German electric utility E.ON divested its fossil fuel assets.
 E.ON had earlier pulled out of the planned Fennovoima nuclear project in Finland, where it was replaced by Fortum in 2015.
 Uniper owns 12 natural gas plants and two large coal plants, Maasvlakte in the Netherlands and Ratcliffe-on-Soar in England, which have a combined capacity of 4180 megawatts. It also has nuclear and hydropower operations in Sweden.
 Uniper is one of Russian state energy company Gazprom's partners in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, intended to pump natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, including Finnish territorial waters. The German company also has a Russian subsidiary, Unipro.
 Uniper hopes to build a liquid natural gas (LNG) facility in Wilhelmshaven, near Bremen on Germany's northern coast, in partnership with Exxon Mobil.
 Earlier this year Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe rated Fortum as  one of the EU's worst emitters  of greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to its ownership share in Uniper.
 Fortum has called for "ambitious and prompt action" to tackle climate change, calling it "one of the biggest challenges for mankind" and saying it aims to provide its customers with "environmentally friendly products".
 The Finnish state owns 50.76 percent of Fortum, with various state agencies and public pension funds among its other major owners.

Fortum buys majority stake in German fossil fuel firm Uniper


Summary: As redundancy talks ended in two departments, new ones began in another.

Finland's biggest financial group, OP, aims to slash costs by 18 million euros by the end of next year.
 The group is reducing staff at its Corporate Banking and Insurance Customers units following redundancy talks that began in late August. At that point it said that it might shrink its staff by  as much as 250 .
 The negotiations, which ended on Monday, involved some 3,000 people.
 They wrapped up with the company deciding to eliminate 300 posts. However it promises to create 185 new jobs. As a result the net loss of jobs will be 115.
 "Although some jobs will cease to exist, we aim to offer new roles to as many people as possible,” OP's VP for Human Resources,  Hannakaisa Länsisalmi , said in a statement on Tuesday.
 That came a day after the group launched new layoff talks focusing on the central cooperative's support functions. They are expected to last at least six weeks.

OP financial group cuts 115 jobs, more on chopping block


Summary: The bloodsucking parasites remain active well into autumn, scientists say.

Turku University tick researcher  Jari Sormunen  told Yle that people don't always realise that ticks still bite when the weather cools.
 “[Small] nymphs are more dangerous in the sense that they’re more difficult to see. Larger individuals on average carry more harmful bacteria and viruses, but they’re easier to spot,” said Sormunen, who scraped 25 separate areas for ticks in Turku and 11 in Helsinki this past summer, covering over 100 kilometres.
 Ruissalo in the Turku archipelago has the highest density of ticks in the Turku area. Sormunen's tick research is now expanding to include Oulu, Tampere, Jyväskylä and Joensuu.
 “This summer we’ve collected an average of 15 nymphs per 100 square metre area, with that number rising to 25 in the peak month of August,” he explained.
 No safe place
 Early summer, between May and June, is the year's first high season for hungry ticks. The blood-sucking arachnids calm down in July but are ready for another feeding frenzy in August and September.
 Sormunen told Yle that while most residents watch out for ticks in the forest, few people are on the lookout for the eight-legged creature in urban parks.
 “There’s no typical place for ticks to inhabit, though they do seem to prefer damp, shady places with regular access to suitable hosts,” Sormunen added.
 Dormant, not dead
 The incidence of ticks at all of Turku University’s research sites in Turku as well as in Helsinki has risen over the past 20 years.
 Southwestern Finland and Uusimaa have reported 29 cases of tick-borne encephalitis in 2019, according to health watchdog THL's infectious disease database. So far this year, some 1,500 people nationwide have contracted Lyme disease, an illness caused by ticks carrying  Borrelia burgdorferi .
 Sormunen said cold weather doesn’t necessarily kill off ticks, especially as the snow cover can protect them from winter's harshest elements.
 “We once froze ticks down to -20 degrees Celsius in the lab, and when we thawed them up they were still alive,” he explained, adding that he suspected that the ticks had managed to slip into hibernation during the freezing process.
 EDIT: This story has been updated to correctly state the number of legs ticks have.

Tick, tock: Finland's ticks still thirst for blood


Summary: Opposition parties have slammed the government's increased appropriations as reckless in light of a weakening economy.

Finland's Parliament began debate on Tuesday over the first  state budget proposal  put together by the left-leaning government of Prime Minister  Antti Rinne . Budget discussions will continue throughout the week, and after this, the draft budget will head to various parliamentary committees for further assessment.
 The current government budget proposal would increase the state budget to 57.6 billion euros next year, or 2.1 billion euros more than this year's budget total. Most of the increase is due to implementation of the four-year Government Programme, the cabinet's policy agenda for the next four years.
 The draft of the budget being considered on the parliamentary floor is two billion euros in the red, which means that the national debt would rise to 109 billion euros next year.
 Ministry: Poor economic growth won't help unemployment
 Finland's Ministry of Finance predicts that  economic growth will slow down  next year by one percentage point to just one percent growth in the coming years. This slow economic growth will not help the job market, the ministry reasons, as it forecasts a peak employment rate of only 73 percent by the year 2023.
 Rinne's government has justified its added state budget expenditures and reforms as necessary to push Finland's employment rate to 75 percent by 2023. One of the main goals of the government is to create jobs for 60,000 people, together with Finland's leading labour market organizations.
 Vote of confidence is taste of things to come
 A hint of what kind of parliamentary floor debate will be in store came already last week, when the centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP) called for a  confidence vote  in the government over spending. Critics in the party have  criticized  the Rinne government for raising taxes and increasing state expenditures with no guarantee of added revenue. The interpellation fell by a vote of 97-75 on Friday.
 NCP chair  Petteri Orpo  warned in August that Rinne government's economic policies will bankrupt Finland, but he later softened his tone and said that Finland was "on the road to repeating what happened in Greece".
 The NCP has pushed Rinne's coalition to prove that they have concrete employment-boosting measures in place to reach their 75 percent employment target. They say that from where they sit, it looks as though their plans will weaken the job market instead of improve it.
 Jussi Halla-aho , chair of the nationalist Finns Party, Finland's largest opposition political party, has said that he feels the government's employment calculations are irresponsible in light of the weakening global economy.
 Finns Party politicians have also opposed increases to development cooperation funding and fuel taxes.
 First review in August 2020
 Finance minister  Mika Lintilä  will present the government's revenue and expenditure proposals to the Finnish Parliament this week.
 In discussion surrounding last week's confidence vote, Lintilä stressed that the government was committed to achieving its 75 percent employment goal and balancing public finances by the year 2023, providing economic growth remains normal.
 Finland's government has calculated that in order to reach its 75 percent target, it will have to create 60,000 new jobs by 2023. It says it will do its first review of the situation in August 2020, when the methods it will use to create 30,000 jobs should be known.
 Prime Minister Rinne has made several references to an entry in the  Government Programme  that says the government will pursue a counter-cyclical or stimulus-based economic policy if the global economy, eurozone economy, or the domestic economy were to fall into a severe economic downturn.
 NCP chair Orpo says that the government is in his view wasting stimulus money next year, as the economy is forecast to continue feeble growth.

Parliament debates Rinne govt's first budget proposal


Summary: It’s not yet known whether or not the payout went to a single player or it it was a pooled bet.

Saturday’s 10-million-euro lottery jackpot went to a winning ticket purchased at a K-Market grocery store in Helsinki’s Roihuvuori district, national betting agency Veikkaus said in a statement on Sunday.
 It’s not yet known whether a single player or a group that pooled for the bet found themselves 10 million euros richer on Sunday morning.
 The winning numbers in Saturday’s weekly draw were 8, 10, 19, 28, 34, 36 and 40. The odds of winning the jackpot were around one to 18 million.
 No one chose six of the seven winning numbers plus the extra, while 6 people correctly guessed six of the seven numbers correctly for a payday of nearly 3,000 euros. Five people matched five of the numbers for around 72 euros.
 A prize of 1.2 million euros is up for grabs in next week’s draw.

€10m-euro lottery jackpot goes to winning ticket in Helsinki


Summary: The charges stem from his treatment of a female candidate for the position of editor-in-chief at the Aamulehti newspaper.

Alma Media CEO  Kai Telanne  again faces charges of employment discrimination related to a female candidate for a top newspaper job.
 On Tuesday prosecutors announced they were pressing bias charges against Telanne and the company's Human Resources chief,  Virpi Juvonen . The case centres on the  recruitment of  Päivi Anttikoski  to become editor-in-chief of the group's flagship newspaper, Aamulehti . The Tampere daily is Finland's largest-circulation provincial broadsheet.
 In a statement, Alma Media says it "denies that the suspects are guilty of the crime of employment discrimination and emphasises that family ties did not affect the selection of Aamulehti’s editor-in-chief in any way. Alma Media takes equality very seriously, and discrimination of any kind has no place in the company."
 Ollila: No effect on Telanne's position
 Telanne and Juvonen deny breaking any laws.
 Alma Media chair and former longtime Nokia CEO  Jorma Ollila  said that the charges would not affect Telanne's position -- for now at least.
 “The Board of Director [sic] trusts that the recruitment process was conducted properly, and that employment discrimination has not occurred. The pressing of charges has no effect on the position at Alma Media of the individuals concerned. The Board of Directors will monitor the legal process and if necessary, reassess the matter when the decision is known,” Ollila is quoted as saying in the statement.
 Lapin Kansa case dates back to 2008
 The current case goes back to late 2017, when Anttikoski was close to being hired as editor-in-chief of Aamulehti. She said that Telanne decided not to hire her when she said that her husband and 10-year-child would initially stay in Helsinki after she started work in Tampere, less than 200km away. She claims she was dropped as a candidate after saying this, despite the previous male editor having a similar arrangement.
 Anttikoski is a former journalist at Yle and MTV3 news and editor at the leading daily Helsingin Sanomat. Since last year she has been Director General of government communications in the Prime Minister’s Office.
 Two years earlier, the Supreme Court fined Telanne in a separate job discrimination case. That case dated back to 2008, when  Johanna Korhonen 's contract was cancelled after she was selected as the new editor-in-chief of the Rovaniemi-based Alma daily, Lapin Kansa. The court found that the annulment came after Telanne found out that Korhonen's spouse was a woman.
 The Anttikoski case will likely go to trial in November or December.

Alma Media CEO charged with discrimination for second time


Summary: Finnish scientists behind the study also discovered gestational diabetes had little effect on children’s health.

Helsingin ja Uudenmaan sairaanhoitopiiri

Finnish researchers say young children of obese mothers are predisposed to having high blood pressure and early stage arterial wall thickening. However children whose mothers developed gestational diabetes during pregnancy showed few adverse health outcomes, according to new  findings  by Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) researchers.
 Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of the death among adults in the western world, and scientists say signs of the condition can already begin developing in the foetal stage.
 Dangerous extra weight
 HUS researchers found that a child’s high body weight correlated to arterial wall thickening and adverse changes to the heart.
 ”It’s important to combat obesity in early childhood even if cardiovascular markers are not yet present,” said paediatric cardiologist  Taisto Sarkola . “It’s a lot more difficult to counter obesity in the teenage years.”
 Researchers found that six-year-olds whose mothers had gestational diabetes were not predisposed to weight gain nor did they show signs of developing markers for cardiovascular disease.
 The study followed 201 mother-child pairs for six years after the child’s birth, and only included moms who had developed diabetes during pregnancy or whose body mass index (BMI) exceeded 30. BMI is determined by dividing a person's weight by the square of his or her height. It considers any adult with a BMI of 25 or more to be overweight, while those with 30 or more are obese.
 Next, HUS plans to home in on blood pressure, examining how the condition passes from one generation to the next. The research project will focus on mothers who had high blood pressure during pregnancy as well as their 8-11 year-old children.

Study: Maternal obesity linked to children's cardiovascular disease


Summary: Kela says there were about 103,000 people who were receiving last-ditch guarantee pensions in Finland as of August 2019.

The state benefits administrator Kela reports that about 15,000 low-income residents of Finland have not applied for the guarantee pension to which they are entitled. Kela states that the purpose of the guarantee pension is to provide residents with a minimum pension of roughly 784 euros per month in the absence of other pension income.
 Eligible Finnish residents can receive the full guarantee pension only if they do not receive any other pension income. For those who receive other pension income, this amount they receive is deducted from the guarantee pension.
 Finland's Act on Guarantee Pensions says that earnings-related pensions, national pensions, spouse's pensions and pensions payable under a statutory workers compensation scheme must be deducted, but things like care allowances, veteran's supplements, and earnings and capital income will not cause reductions.
 Kela reports that some 103,500 people in Finland receive the guarantee pension, according to figures from the end of August. Of these, around 100,000 also receive the national pension. Kela says deductions from other pensions mean that the average amount of guarantee pension that Finnish residents receive monthly is 179 euros.
 The social benefits administrator encourages people who feel they might be eligible for the minimum pension to fill out a Kela application online, via a phone call or with a paper form. The application has a six-month retroactive period.
 Applicants must have lived in Finland for at least 3 years after reaching the age of 16 years to be eligible. Persons who have immigrated to Finland are entitled to a guarantee pension if they have reached the age of 65 or started receiving a disability allowance when they were under the age of 16.

15,000 eligible residents fail to apply for minimum pension


Summary: Finland's press looks at Defence Force intervention in wind energy, a police operation in Spain, and tired mums and dads.

Agrarian paper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus asks  why there are no wind turbines being built in eastern parts of Finland , and determines that the answer is Russia. The paper reports that municipalities in the east have shown an interest in investing in wind farms, but so far, the Finnish Defence Forces have said no.
 While wind energy companies Prokon and Neoen are busy building new wind farms in the western city of Närpes, for example, the military has frozen such plans in the east because of its radar system. This spring, the Defence Forces put the kibosh on 12 wind farms that were planned for North Karelia, MT writes.
 "Wind turbines shorten the range of our radar, create blind spots and weaken visibility of targets, for example, the ability to detect planes," military engineer  Jussi Karhila  tells the paper.
 For the time being, the wind turbine ban applies to the eastern regions of North and South Karelia and North and South Savo, as well as Kymenlaakso.
 MT explains that the Finnish Defence Forces approves each of Finland's wind energy projects, and has rejected about a tenth of the 10,000 turbines it has reviewed. There are currently 700 wind turbines operating in Finland, but over 7,000 more have been approved for construction.
 Cannonball kingpin in custody
 The tabloid Iltalehti carries news of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) tweet Tuesday night that said Spanish  police had finally caught up with Finland's "most wanted man" , former Cannonball biker gang leader  Janne Tranberg , who had been on the run for two years .
 The fugitive was apprehended on the Costa de Sol on Monday, 7 October. The NBI thanked the Spanish authorities for their cooperation in tracking down Tranberg, who was the target of an international arrest warrant. Tranberg faces charges of aggravated tax evasion in Finland, and has already been convicted to serve 649 days in prison.
 Perfectionist parents
 Daily Helsingin Sanomat covers a new study from the University of Jyväskylä in central Finland that says that  most cases of parental burnout in Finland stem from efforts to try and be perfect . The study also found that social media has exacerbated the problem, as new parents compete to be the ideal mother or father.
 ”Our research shows that mums get more burnt out than dads, and younger parents wear themselves down more than older ones. Low income levels, unemployment and a child with special needs also tend to predict this exhaustion," the university's  Matilda Sorkkila  tells the paper.
 Sorkkila says that people in Finland should talk more about parental wellbeing and the importance of going easy on yourself. She says it is no small matter, either, as Finland's birth rate is dropping at historic rates. An earlier study at the same university found that half of parents in Finland reported that exhaustion and fatigue affect their decisions to have more children. Parents that are burning the candle at both ends also influence people who don't have children yet, who wonder if that's what life with kids is really like.
 International studies show that anywhere from 8 to 36 percent of parents burn out at some point. The next phase of the research in Jyväskylä will determine what that percentage is like in Finland at present, HS says.
 Slippery season begins
 And the eastern paper Savon Sanomat reports on snow and sleet this Wednesday making driving conditions very poor in the northeast, while  sub-zero temperatures  elsewhere have made things slippery.
 The paper warns that the Finnish Meteorological Institute has issued traffic weather warnings for the regions of Lapland, Koillismaa and Kainuu because of snow and sleet, and in the western regions of Ostrobothnia and Central Finland due to frozen roads.

Wednesday's papers: Wind farm criteria, nabbed fugitive, parental burnout and slippery roads


Summary: Police were alerted in 2014 after the money made the rounds through several Finnish construction company bank accounts.

The Helsinki District Court decided on Tuesday to drop all charges in a case in which two men were suspected of laundering of over 135 million euros in Finland.
 Police began to investigate the incident in 2014 after  Finnish banks  noticed that over 100 million euros passed through the bank accounts of several Finnish construction firms for a four-month period.
 Suspicions focused on a project to build a new privately-funded motorway to Russia's Karelia region. The suspects in the case admitted in court on Tuesday that the cost of the massive infrastructure project would have risen to 400 or 500 million euros, if it had been completed. As it was, the project was never even started.
 According to prosecutors, the project was a disguise for  laundering  illicitly obtained Russian money, and the accused never intended to design or build a motorway. They argued that the money originated from a Russian shell company and bank that were shut down over money laundering suspicions. After its brief visit to Helsinki, the money ended up in 22 countries and over 250 businesses, the prosecution stated.
 Court: Criminal origin not established
 Among other things, the district court determined that the source of the money could not be used to establish if the assets had a criminal origin.
 The court also ruled that the mere transfer of funds from a company with a false name or short existence, as the prosecutor in the case argued, is not sufficient grounds to make the assets being transferred criminal in origin.
 The Helsinki District Court decided to reject the charges for these reasons, among others. The Finnish State will now be required to pay the lawyer fees of the defendants, a sum that runs into tens of thousands.
 The seizure of a company that was set up in Finland to facilitate the project, HTR Talonrakennus, must also be rescinded, the court ruled.
 The court's decision concerning the two Estonian nationals that were suspects in the case is not final, and can still be appealed to a higher court. During the police investigation, the two men denied having committed a crime. Charges were never filed against the main suspect in the case, a Russian national.

Court drops all charges in €135m money laundering case


Summary: Sweden and Denmark were two Nordic countries that fared better than Finland in the World Economic Forum's latest rating.

Finland has been ranked the 11th most competitive country by the World Economic Forum. The country has maintained this rank for two years in a row in the  Global Competitiveness Report , which looks at factors and attributes that drive productivity, growth and human development worldwide.
 Based on the report, Finland's strengths were its economic stability, security and the quality of its public institutions. However, the small size of the market had a detrimental effect on Finland's ranking.
 Singapore pushed the US to second place to top the 2019 list, which has Hong Kong in third place. Of the Nordic countries, Sweden has been ranked eighth, Denmark 10th and Norway 17th.
 The Global Competitiveness Index 4.0 is the product of an aggregation of 103 individual indicators organised into 12 ‘pillars’ that include institutions, infrastructure, ICT adoption, skills and market size among others.
 The 2019 edition has covered 141 countries accounting for 99 percent of the world’s GDP. In the competing IMD World Competitiveness Rankings published recently, Finland came in 15th position.

Finland holds steady in global competitiveness ranking


Summary: Finland is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while importing from producers using coal and other hydrocarbons.

Finnish power companies often don’t know the source of the energy products that they purchase from abroad, according to the results of a fresh survey published on Wednesday by the global corporate responsibility organisation Finnwatch.
 According to Finnwatch, many electricity providers may be unwittingly buying from countries considered to be at risk of producing high carbon emissions, such as China and India, which are among the big producers of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide . The NGO added that companies in the supply chain may be neglecting their responsibility to minimise emissions.
 "Finland is working hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as it should. At the same time, companies are importing billions of euros of [energy] products into our markets from countries where they are made using coal and other fossil fuels," the corporate responsibility watchdog said in a Facebook post.
 "Activities that are damaging the climate are outsourced to the supply chain and the use of coal in Asian producers such as China and India is growing. In the study published today we are calling for immediate action to address this problem," it continued.
 Finnwatch: Consumers also bear responsibility
 The study found that a majority of participating firms said they did not know what energy sources risk countries such as China and India used to create energy products. The companies that said they did know, confirmed that some energy production came from fossil fuels.
 None of the firms interviewed said that it had incorporated carbon footprint mitigating requirements into purchasing agreements in these countries.
 Finnwatch executive director  Sonja Finér  noted that consumers should also shoulder some responsibility for the situation.
 "Many people in Finland accuse China and other Asian countries for burning coal and accelerating the risk to the climate. It’s high time they realise that Finnish companies and our domestic consumption are feeding fossil energy consumption in production countries," Finér said in a statement on Wednesday.
 The report contains information about 35 companies providing energy products for the consumer market in Finland.
 Finér described the results of the study as surprising, since the respondents already conduct oversight of their subcontractors in risk countries and many of them could be described as pioneers in corporate responsibility in many respects.
 Finnwatch is supported by a group of 11 local development, consumer, labour and environmental organisations.

NGO: Many Finnish energy firms importing products from high-carbon-emission countries


Summary: The goal is to come up with a "traffic-light" model to identify telltale signs like exhaustion and detachment.

The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) has announced that it is creating a list of parameters for identifying warning signs of burnout at work. The institute says that while the phenomenon has been studied widely, more needs to be done to recognise the condition in time.
 FIOH research professor  Jari Hakanen  said in a bulletin that despite thousands of cases being reported, many practical questions surrounding the condition remain unanswered.
 "There are still no clinically-defined parameters for workplace burnout in Finland that would help anyone – both employees and supervisors in the work community – to identify the early warning signs in time," he commented.
 The FIOH research project will test the new model at places of work and in occupational health care programmes. The study will also try to come up with more reliable data on the number of workplace burnout cases reported in Finland every year.
 Four symptoms highlighted
 The goal is to produce a "traffic light" model for detecting workplace burnout. It focuses on four typical symptoms: chronic fatigue, detachment, and impaired cognitive and emotional control.
 The institute defines occupational burnout as a group of symptoms linked to long-term unresolved work-related stress.
 "Many individuals that have burnt out at work report unrelenting exhaustion, feeling as if their work has no significance, and an inability to concentrate or remember things. Emotional outbursts such as breaking into tears or angry outbursts are also typical and may come as quite a surprise," Hakanen says.
 FIOH will coordinate the research project in collaboration with several companies and groups of professionals in the occupational health field.

Finland looks for workplace burnout warning signals


Summary: A lobby group found that firms working on a construction site in Helsinki violated collective bargaining agreements.

Rakennusten tai niiden osien rakentaminen

Three subcontractors were found to have underpaid dozens of foreign labourers working on a construction site in Helsinki’s Töölö district, according to The Finnish Construction Trade Union.
 The organisation said the infringements concerned renovation work taking place on the Chydenia building to prepare it for use by the city’s adult education programme.
 The lobby group said that it had imposed a ban on the companies over the findings on Monday, however two of the firms had since compensated affected workers for the shortfall in their pay.
 Russians, East Europeans affected
 The union said that a total of 50 workers had been underpaid and that the group included Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians and Lithuanians. It added that some of the firms that short-changed workers were registered in Finland, while others were based in Baltic countries.
 Trade union deputy head  Kimmo Palonen  said that workers’ pay had been below the lowest level set in the industry’s collective bargaining agreement. For example, according to information gathered from Estonian tax authorities, some workers earned a gross salary of between 1,000 and 1,300 euros monthly.
 "That’s about half below the watermark that should be paid according to the collective bargaining agreement," Palonen declared.
 Earlier this year the organisation also placed a ban on a few other firms in the sector for the same practice.
 In September Yle reported on a similar case when collective bargaining agreement violations were discovered during refurbishment work on Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium.
 A few weeks ago, the Southwest Finland Regional Administrative Authority also said that labour inspectors found that many immigrant workers were being paid less than their Finnish peers.
 Subcontractors obliged to abide by industry rules
 Sweden-based construction services firm NCC, is the main contractor for the Töölö refurbishment project. Head of renovations  Vesa Ahlroos  said that NCC agreements with subcontractors obligate them to abide by the industry’s collective bargaining agreement.
 “You do lose trust in the kinds of subcontractors that promise to do certain things and then doesn’t do them,” he remarked.
 Ahlroos noted that the main contractor reviews subcontractors’ agreements, but he added that they do not specifically mention worker compensation. He pointed out for example, that they do not provide any information about how much individual workers are paid.
 "We have nearly 100 workers on the construction site. It would be an impossible task for us to constantly monitoring them," he continued.
 Union pushing for stricter sanctions
 Meanwhile the construction trade union said that there should be tougher sanctions for companies that violate collective bargaining agreements.
 "The current situation is that [negligent] firms deal with things the way an honest business would. That’s not a sanction. Maybe criminalising underpayment or wages would be one method," Palonen commented.
 According to Ahlroos, the subcontractors that were found to have shorted workers’ paychecks were immediately banished from the construction site. Once they rectified the situation, the main contractor had a discussion with them.
 "They can’t come here before they sort things out. Then we discuss whether or not they can come after that. Ending the cooperation is one form of sanction," he concluded.

Sting uncovers underpayment of foreign workers at Helsinki construction site


Summary: At least 50 foster homes and child welfare institutions have been reprimanded by authorities for irregularities.

Over the past three years, Finnish authorities have been taking a closer look at the activities of the 500 or so public and private foster homes in the country. They have uncovered a number of irregularities , including some that led officials to shut down a  foster home down in southern Finland  last week.
 Yle's A-studio discussion programme conducted a separate review of foster care facilities across the country and discovered that regional state authorities and the parliamentary ombudsman have reprimanded at least 50 different providers for various shortcomings in recent years.
 Several stories of mistreatment have been reported in Finland from time to time, but Yle's analysis of authorities' records from 2017-2019 reveals that legal violations are more widespread than previously believed and occurred across the country.
 The total number of operational shortcomings suggest lapses at ten percent of foster homes, ranging from the infringement of child protection laws to the violation of children's fundamental and human rights and of irregularities in documentation.
 Examples of the dozen infractions recorded by the authorities over the last two years include a unit in Harjavalta in western Finland receiving a citation for exceeding capacity and employing inadequately trained personnel, workers screaming and cursing at a home in Haukipudas in the northwest and illegal restraints being used on children at a unit in Kuopio, eastern Finland.
 "People don't believe us"
 The southeast Finland police department is currently investigating irregularities at  Loikalan Kartano , a foster home that made headlines last week. They say they suspect the facility's management of isolating residents, who are forcibly stripped and otherwise treated contemptuously.
 Minors aged 14-17 at the home told inspectors that they were asked to undress when they arrived at the facility, and were then segregated from others. They were not allowed to move about inside their units and had to seek permission to leave their rooms by knocking on the door from the inside. They were also reportedly not allowed to speak during meals.
 The deputy parliamentary ombudsman said the decision to have regional authorities inspect the facility was based on the teens' reports, written reports about restraint decisions, staff inspections and records drawn up about the home's residents.
 21-year-old  Miro Määttänen  has lived in five different foster care facilities in Finland. He said that most people ignore what young people have to say about their experiences in foster placement.
 "I get the feeling that people don't believe us. They just convince themselves that it is just another troubled youth running off at the mouth," he added.

Yle investigates: One in ten foster homes in Finland has broken the law


Summary: The report explored how children's financial situation affects their faith in the future and their mental wellbeing.

One in six kids from low-income families in Finland said they don’t believe their dreams will come true, according to the  Children’s Voice 2019 survey  published by children's rights NGO Save the Children on Wednesday. The corresponding figure for children from well-off families was seven percent.
 Only eight percent of children from low-income families in Finland said they were satisfied with their family's financial situation, while the figure for higher-income groups was 92 percent, according to the report which explored how children's financial situation affects their faith in the future, opportunities for participation in hobbies, susceptibility to bullying, and mental well-being.
 Children from low-income families were more likely to bring up money or health as a barrier to their dreams, which the survey pointed were very traditional — a home of their own, a meaningful job, travelling and a family.
 Poverty correlates with lack of prospects
 Of the respondents, 11 percent estimated that their family was 'poor' or 'quite poor', while 21 percent described their family as 'rich' or 'quite rich'. This is in line with Statistics Finland data — approximately 12 percent of the Finnish population came from low-income households in 2017. This refers to households with incomes lower than 60 percent of the median.
 Among well-heeled families, up to 82 percent of kids said they believe their financial situation will be stable in the future and approximately 90 percent responded that they believe they will have permanent employment. Only 51 percent of children from low-income families responded that they believe they will have stable finances and 77 percent expected to have permanent employment.
 "I'm worried that I may become unemployed and an alcoholic like my father and my brothers," one responded admitted.
 "Poverty often correlated with a lack of prospects. We dare not think about the future when we don’t know if we can afford it — let’s manage today or tomorrow and then see what happens. This way of thinking affects the child at an early stage," said  Aino Sarkia , coordinator of Child Poverty for Save the Children.
 A total of 565 children aged 13-17 years participated in the Voice of the Child 2019 survey. The estimates are based on the children's own experiences and perceptions, and not on the actual income of the families.
 Too much pressure, too little support
 Only 53 percent of children in the survey said that they are currently satisfied with their mental wellbeing. The study pointed out that families’ wealth was reflected in the responses — children from low-income families were clearly more unsatisfied with their mental wellbeing than children from more well-to-do families. Regardless of their background, over 70 percent of children felt they had to work harder than others.
 "Their mental wellbeing is alarming — we seem to have a lot of young people who are not doing too well. They are under pressure at school to succeed and have a lot to do in an already hectic life. There’s probably awfully little leisure time in young people's lives," Sarkia said.
 Approximately a quarter reported hoping for more support to reach their goals. Only 70 percent of children from low-income families said their custodians support them in their studies compared to 91 percent of children from wealthy families . Around 79 percent of children from low-income families said that they have more often been supported by their friends.
 About 40 percent of low-income group kids also said they have been belittled for their dreams, most often by their own guardians.
 "The poor financial situation puts pressure on parents and the stress is reflected in the family atmosphere and parenting. Does a parent have the resources to give their child the encouragement and support that young people really long for?" questions Sarkia.
 Poor kids endure guilt and bullying
 The family's financial situation also affects the children’s opportunities to participate in hobbies.
 As many as 61 percent of children from low-income families reported not participating in paid activities. For wealthy families, the corresponding figure is 34 percent — with many citing lack of motivation and time as an obstacle to pursuing a hobby.
 "We can’t afford it. And even if we could, I’d feel guilty that my parents are sacrificing their own hobbies and spare time so that I could have the opportunity for a hobby," a respondent from the low-income group stated.
 Thirty-nine percent said they feel guilty because of their family’s financial situation — of this group, 76 percent described themselves as poor or quite poor.
 Children of low-income households even admitted to feeling like a burden to their parents. As a result, they try to limit their spending and try to contribute to the family’s finances, the report said.
 In contrast, kids from well-off families felt guilty about having friends who don’t necessarily have similar opportunities that they enjoy.
 Up to a third of children from low-income homes said that they have been bullied because of their weak finances.
 The data for the report was collected nationally in Finland using an online form earlier this year. Of the 565 respondents, 68 percent were girls and about 29 percent were boys.
 At the time of the survey, 52 percent of participants were studying in a comprehensive school, 39 percent in upper secondary school and seven percent in vocational school.

Survey: One in six kids from low-income families insecure about the future


Summary: Immigration officials came under attack once again this week for their treatment of non-EU experts who want to work in Finland. But what can be done to fix the problem?

Is Finnish immigration policy in need of an overhaul? That’s what Supercell founder  Ilkka Paananen   asked  last week, suggesting that current waiting times for residence permits for specialists--in practice high-flying coding and tech talent from outside the EU--were a ‘catastrophe’ for the Finnish economy.
 The average wait for a permit this year is 52 days, according to the immigration service, up from 25 days last year.
 Paananen says that’s unacceptable, tweeting in Finnish that "this is a catastrophe that can be seen everyday at Supercell, for instance. People with world-class know-how who would be very good taxpayers are ready to come to Finland, but our bureaucracy blocks us from bringing them here. A world-class creator is not going to wait 3-4 months for a permit."
 It’s a known issue to many in the tech industry. Some, like  Rasmus Roiha  of the software industry group Software and E-Business Finland, say that Migri might no longer be the right place to decide on work permits for highly-skilled specialists.
 “Migri is an institution that’s been well trained and is very effective in situations where people are coming from a crisis area, such as Syria,” says Roiha. “They are very good at looking at assessing refugee applications and deciding if people need protection, but not so much these specialist issues.
 'World Class talent'
 The problem for many of these companies is that world-class talent is only defined as world-class talent because of the impact it has throughout the company.
 “Top talent raises the level of the whole team,” says Roiha. “That’s why it’s so important to get these people here.”
 To do that Roiha advocates splitting off specialist applicants from the rest of the Migri workload, and perhaps assigning them to the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Employment.
 Another option he advocates is to create a fast track inside Migri for applications in certain areas where officials identify a skills shortage, similar to how Canada tries to bring in skilled workers.
 But however the problem is resolved, the key is to get the waiting time down.
 “Finnish companies already have a very difficult time attracting top talent,” argues Roiha. “Finland has a great reputation in some rankings, but these specialists can go anywhere, they are comparing global cities.”
 “So when we get lucky and persuade somebody to come here, then at that point say ‘oh okay you might have to wait up to six months for a working visa’, then that is a very negative signal to send to those people. Everybody can wait 30 days, but six months is way too long and those people will go elsewhere.”
 Schooling an issue
 Melanie Dower  manages the onboarding of recruits at Supercell. She says that delays at Migri can cause knock-on effects for families who have to wait for all the bureaucracy to fall into place.
 “We don’t lose people in the waiting periods, but I am a little surprised that we haven’t lost people recently because the delays have been lengthy,” says Dower. “Particularly families with children, because this has a knock-on effect on school places.”
 In two recent cases families had a tense wait to get local addresses that would entitle them to school places in the August intake, and the children are still waiting more than two months later for a personal identification number, the key to a huge range of services in Finland.
 “Luckily at Supercell we can support people through this, but smaller companies might consider these delays too much of a risk,” notes Dower.
 “You can come here and apply for residency, if you’re a specialist expert and your salary is at a certain level, but it can then be a long time before you get a personal identity number which is the key to everything. For example, you can’t open a bank account, apply for a Kela card or rent an apartment without it. People can be in the country for a while without really feeling that they’ve moved, that they belong.”
 One month deadline
 The political mood in Finland is very much in favour of accelerating processing times for specialists from outside the EU.
 The chair of the Social Democrats’ parliamentary group,  Antti Lindtman , stresses that the SDP-led government was earmarking more money to tackle the problem.
 “[The waiting times are] too much and that’s why the government programme has a goal that if the application is okay then the process should take a maximum of one month,” says Lindtman. “That’s the goal that we’re heading towards.”
 “At the same time we need more embassies, especially in certain areas, and we need more resources in order to get this time shorter than it is today.”
 Chair of the Finns Party's parliamentary group  Ville Tavio  agrees on the extent of the problem, but inserts some characteristically populist talking points into his answer.
 “I completely agree with him, I think it’s a total mess and a failure that the Finnish Migration Services are putting all their efforts to asylum seekers,” says Tavio, who advocates cutting that spending as part of his party's hostile policy on humanitarian migration.
 Migri were asked on Tuesday for a comment but were unable to provide an interviewee before publication.
 What do you think? Is Finland welcoming enough to foreign workers?
 Melanie Dower and Rasmus Roiha will be joining us on this week’s All Points North podcast to discuss the problem from the ground up: what does it take to convince people to move to Finland? You can send comments or questions via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter accounts, or at yle.news@yle.fi.

APN this week: Is Finland’s approach to work-based immigration a ‘catastrophe’?


Summary: Finland stops arms exports to Turkey, wood burners spark debate, and a Catholic child sex abuse scandal reaches Finland.

Most of the newspapers cover Turkey's incursion into Kurdish-held areas of northern Syria, with the main Swedish daily scooping its rivals when Defence Minister  Antti Kaikkonen  told  Hufvudstadsbladet  that Finland will suspend arms imports to Turkey. The move follows an  attack by Turkish troops  on Kurdish militia in northeast Syria on Wednesday.
 Just three weeks ago, the government granted Tampere-based unmanned aircraft system company Robonic the right to export drones to Turkey. The Peace Union of Finland has deeply criticised Robonic's permit, saying the decision to issue it signalled an "inconsistent" foreign policy and "weak" human rights approach.
 That said, Finland’s Foreign Ministry  states  that “through its own actions, Finland seeks to strengthen the international arms control agreements and arrangements.”
 In 2018, Finland exported defence materiel worth 128 million euros, a 17 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Defence Ministry.
 Wood burners spark debate
 With the weather cooling, hundreds of thousands of residents are burning wood to heat their homes. However Finland pays little attention to the particle pollution the practice generates, writes  Helsingin Sanomat .
 Jarkko Tissari , a researcher specialised in wood burning emissions from the University of Eastern Finland, told the paper that there’s been no driving force or regulation in Finland to limit these types of emissions even though HS estimates they contribute to 200 premature deaths annually.
 Particle-capturing filters are common in houses in central Europe and the United States, but in Finland only industrial buildings are required to install them.
 One expert told HS that the cost of fitting homes with filters was likely a deterrent to widespread use.
 Catholic church sex abuse
 The Swedish-language daily HBL also reports that Finland’s Catholic Church is calling for any possible  sex abuse victims  to come forward, saying a priest who worked in Finland between 1993 and 2003 has been accused of child sexual abuse in the United States.
 The priest was ordained in Norway and worked closely with Finland’s Catholic Vietnamese community, according to the Helsinki diocese.

Thursday's papers: Finland suspends arms exports, unhealthy wood smoke, and Catholic church child sex abuse


Summary: A basketball team, an ice hockey outfit and a floorball club have offered season tickets on loan from local libraries.

Sports clubs in Finland are teaming up with their local libraries to offer season tickets on loan in a bid to fill stands and provide opportunities to support local outfits.
 Basketball team Helsinki Seagulls is reportedly the first team in Finland to launch a campaign that will allow library-goers to borrow a season ticket to the club’s games from the Töölö library.
 Seagulls’ sports director  Toni Leppänen  told daily Helsingin Sanomat that the team wants to offer members of the public an opportunity to see a basket ball game at least once.
 The Helsinki club’s gimmick has not gone unnoticed by other sporting bodies. Floorball team TPS Salibandy from Turku and ice hockey outfit Mikkelin Jukurit from southeastern Finland have since rolled out similar programmes.
 Floorball fans can borrow season tickets for TPS games from the main library in Turku while Mikkeli ice hockey enthusiasts can get a chance to see their home team in action by checking out a season ticket at the main library in Mikkeli — however, they’ll have to borrow it by 13 October.
 "We borrowed the idea directly from Helsinki Seagulls. It was such a good idea that we didn’t have to think too much about it and the local library got on board without hesitating. We are apparently the first Finnish Elite League (Liiga) team to provide this opportunity," said Jukurit event and marketing head  Kristiina Tiippana .
 Different loan rules for different clubs
 Sports clubs and libraries have somewhat different rules about borrowing the season tickets. Mikkeli’s Jukurit are offering four season tickets. One library card can be used to borrow one ticket at a time. The borrower can keep the ticket for a maximum of one week at a time and cannot renew a reservation.
 In the case of Helsinki’s Seagulls, four season tickets are also on offer, but one library card can be used to borrow two season tickets. In the case of the Mikkeli programme, if a customer fails to return the season ticket to the library in time, the ticket will no longer be valid.
 Nowadays libraries offer a host of different services apart from book, magazine, CD and movie loans. Patrons can also borrow drills, Nordic walking sticks or even sewing machines.

Sports clubs in Finland offer season tickets on loan from local libraries


Summary: Getting a foothold on the property ladder is increasingly out of reach for Finland's under-40s.

The share of people under 40 renting rather than owning their home has significantly risen over the past ten years,  fresh figures  from national number cruncher Statistics Finland on Thursday show.
 “The situation doesn’t look good,”  Elisa Gebhard , chair of the Finnish National Youth Council Allianssi, which represents more than 100 youth groups, told Yle News.

 The share of 30-34 year-olds in owner-occupied homes has fallen by ten percentage points in the past decade from 58 to 48 percent, figures from 2008 and 2018 show. The same drop was also evident among 25-29 year-olds, with 28 percent being homeowners today compared to 37 percent ten years ago.
 Dreams of home ownership
 “Studies show that young people in Finland still dream of owning their own home. But you need secure employment and significant savings to make it happen,” Gebhard explained.
 While young people aren't one homogeneous group, Gebhard said most young adults still want to live in their own homes and work in permanent jobs, but what they get is rentals and fixed-term contracts.
 The divide between young and old is raising debate among Finland's political youth groups. To that end, the youth wings of several political parties have suggested  cutting pensions  in the name of generational equality as young adults worry whether comfortable pensions will be out of their reach as they struggle to find steady jobs and get a foot on the housing ladder.
 Location, location, location
 But  Reijo Heiskanen , a chief economist at OP bank, said young people’s falling home ownership rate reflects the strong pull of downtown areas, a megatrend of sorts.
 A few years ago an urban sociology professor said the price of a two-room flat in good condition in the Töölö district of Helsinki for 425,000 euros is  roughly the same  as a similar-sized apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
 “Young adults increasingly want to live in the most central downtown areas, particularly in Helsinki, where small flats fetch very high prices compared to the rest of the country,” Heiskanen said. "Housing statistics show that it’s not just a question of price, as home prices in the capital’s surrounding areas haven’t really increased."
 Those who do purchase first homes these days are on average 28.8 years old, which is about a year later than a decade ago.
 Across all age groups, home ownership has slightly dwindled since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, when 66 percent of households lived in their own homes, compared to 63 percent today.

Fewer young households in Finland own their homes


Summary: The education agency urges schools to focus on food's impact on health and the environment, while cutting wastage.

Finland's National Agency for Education on Thursday issued its first dietary recommendations for vocational & high schools. They emphasise healthy, sustainable food choices and a sense of community. The guidelines urge educational institutions to offer vegetarian food on a daily basis and to tackle food waste.
 The agency issued dietary guidelines for comprehensive school pupils in 2008, updating them in 2017. Parallel recommendations for early childhood education were published last year, but this is the first time such principles have been issued for secondary schools.
 The guidelines say that in choosing raw materials, school kitchens should always consider their impact on health, climate and the environment.
 "The decisions that are made now will have an impact on the future. Choices about eating are key from the standpoints of sustainable lifestyles and the wellbeing of the environment. It is our societal responsibility to make sustainable choices as easy and feasible as possible for individuals," says  Marjaana Manninen , Counsellor of Education at the National Agency for Education.
 By the secondary education stage, usually beginning at age 15-16, some students are already taking responsibility for their own personal economy and diet. Therefore recommendations for this age group are crucial in terms of guiding young adults' dining and consumer habits.
 "Vegetarian" label a turn-off for some
 According to Manninen, the new principles are partly driven by changes in youngsters' consumption. For instance, more are switching to vegetarian diets. Therefore the new recommendations aim to provide better information for both students and those who prepare their school meals, she says.
 On the other hand, the document suggests that it may be better not to use the term "vegetarian food" to describe meatless dishes.
 "It brings an unnecessarily negative tone to the conversation when after all we are talking about familiar dishes such as spinach soup or spinach pancakes. They have long been on school menus, but categorising them as vegetarian food brings the wrong kind of tone for some people," Manninen observes.
 A sense of community
 The dietary recommendations also stress the significance of meals in advancing wellbeing and a sense of community.
 "It's not just a question of what students eat, but also that they feel well and can spend time together in the middle of the school day," says  Jouni Järvinen , another senior official at the National Agency for Education.
 The guidelines encourage greater cooperation between school kitchens and students, and includes suggestions on how to get youngsters involved. They also stress the broader dimension of school dining, notes  Arja Lyytikäinen , secretary general of the National Nutrition Council.
 "Food services play a greater role beyond producing nutritious, tasty meals," she says. "It also includes facilitating healthy, sustainable choices and conveying the importance of eating on a regular basis."

New dietary guidelines for vocational & high schools: More vegetarian and sustainable dishes


Summary: Toni Hemminki leaves the long-delayed nuclear project for the Wega Group, which focuses on biofuels and emission reductions.

The CEO of the nuclear power consortium Fennovoima,  Toni Hemminki , announced on Thursday that he is stepping down at the end of the month.
 "I will continue as the CEO until the end of October and after that I will be an advisor to the management until the end of 2019. Early next year I will join the energy sector company Wega Group as a shareholder," he said in a statement.
 According to Wega, he will become Chief Operating Officer and a partner rather than just a shareholder. Hemminki joined the board of the Espoo-based energy firm last year.
 Its founder and CEO,  Niko Ristikankare , says Hemminki "will further strengthen our skilled team and growth path towards the most wanted partner within the clean energy industry and cost-efficient emission reductions".
 Former steel company representative
 Hemminki has been involved with Fennovoima since it was founded in 2007, first as as a representative of one of its founders, steelmaker Rautaruukki, which merged with SSAB in 2014.
 From 2012 to 2014, he served on the board of Voimaosakeyhtiö SF, an electricity cooperative that co-owned Fennovoima with the large German power company E.ON, until the latter  pulled out of the project in 2012 , to be replaced two years later by RAOS, a subsidiary of Russian parastatal Rosatom.
 In 2013 Hemminki joined Fennovoima's board, becoming CEO the following year.
 Okkonen to stand in for now
 Chief Operating Officer  Timo Okkonen  will fill in while Fennovoima looks for a replacement.
 Okkonen was promoted from his previous post of Chief Development Officer last spring after joining the nuclear firm at the end of 2018. He worked for nuclear safety watchdog Stuk in the early 2000s.
 Last week Okkonen said the company's goal still  hopes to be granted a construction license in 2021  for what would be Finland's third nuclear power plant, and its first entirely new one since the 1970s.
 The plant was originally envisaged to have begun producing electricity in  2016-18 . After the decision to switch to a Russian-made reactor, the estimated start date was 2024. That has now been  pushed back to 2028 .

CEO of nuclear power outfit Fennovoima quits