Summary: From the beginning of May, only crypto firms which have registered will be able to operate legally in Finland.

Finland's Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) officially began regulating the crypto currency sector on 1 May.
 According to law, the authority is now charged with the oversight of all crypto-exchanges, crypto deposit providers and cryptocurrency issuers that operate in the country.
 From the beginning of the month, all crypto currency-based firms operating in Finland are required to register with FIN-FSA.
 The Finnish legislation was based on the fifth EU Directive on fighting money laundering, according to the financial regulator, which went into force last summer.
 In a press release the authority said registration will ensure that crypto-based firms will comply with laws related to a firm's reliability, the holding and protection of client funds, the segregation of a company's money and that of clients, the marketing of services and compliance with Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations.
 "It has been internationally acknowledged that virtual currencies and related services involve a high risk of money laundering and terrorist financing," the agency said.
 New investor protections not included
 Now, only registered crypto firms will be able to operate legally in Finland.
 "Going forward, only virtual currency providers meeting statutory requirements are able to carry on their activities in Finland. Virtual currency providers which do not comply with statutory requirements will be prohibited from continuing their business activities, enforced by a conditional fine," the authority said.
 Investments in crypto currencies are widely known to be risky. But the authority said its new regulatory role in the crypto sector does not mean it will offer new protections for investors.
 "Virtual currencies have particularly gained attention as investment objects. In spite of the upcoming supervision and registration, the characteristics of virtual currencies and the risks related to virtual currency investments remain unchanged. The risks include sudden major fluctuations in value, data security threats pertaining to exchange services and custodian wallet providers, and the nature of several virtual currencies as speculative investments not involving any inherent source of return," the authority said.
 FIN-FSA is planning to hold a briefing for crypto firms on 15 May at 1:00pm at the Bank of Finland in Helsinki. Among other matters, the briefing will include information on the authority's position on when crypto currency providers need to register, the required steps of registration and will also shed light on the requirements that crypto firms will need to fulfill.

Finland begins regulation of crypto currency sector


Summary: Premier Stefan Löfven calls Sweden’s Gripen fighter "a fantastically good plane".

Swedish Prime Minister  Stefan Löfven  tells Yle that a Finnish decision to buy its future fleet of fighter jets from Sweden would ease cooperation between the neighbouring countries.
 Speaking on Yle TV1’s Ykkösaamu programme on Saturday, Löfven stressed that the bilateral relations will not depend on where Finland decides to procure the planes – a deal that could be worth up to 20 billion euros in the long run.
 The choice of which type of aircraft to buy is one of the biggest decisions facing Finland’s next cabinet, expected to take office next month. The Saab Gripen is among five aircraft models under consideration.
 "Fantastically good"
 Just over a year ago, the Finnish Ministry of Defence called for bids for 64 fighter aircraft to replace its ageing fleet of 64 Boeing F/A-18C/D Hornets.
 Besides Sweden’s Gripen, the ministry asked France, the UK and the US to send quotations for Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter and Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet planes. It received responses from all five manufacturers by the end of January.
 Löfven underlined that Finnish-Swedish relations are not dependent on where Finland decides to acquire its fighters.
 "First of all, I respect the Finnish political process and its independence in decision-making,” said Löfven. “It is however clear that cooperation is easier if we are both using the same material. The Gripen is a fantastically good plane.”
 Lifetime costs could reach €20bn
 Finland estimates that the purchase price will be 7-10 billion euros. That does not include lifespan expenditures, which may end up being more than the initial acquisition price.
 The government is to make a final decision on the matter in 2021. The original Hornets, bought in 1992, are to be phased out by 2025.
 In 2017, US President  Donald Trump falsely stated  that Finland had already decided to buy more Hornet jets, a claim that was later refuted by his Finnish counterpart  Sauli Niinistö .
 In general, Löfven said he is satisfied with defence cooperation between the two countries. He added that it has been noticed “elsewhere in the world” that Finland and Sweden “take responsibility for their immediate vicinity”.
 The Nordic neighbours are not Nato members, but both have ‘enhanced membership’ in the alliance’s Partnership for Peace programme. That includes frequent  joint military exercises  with Nato countries, including mutual neighbour Norway.

Swedish PM: Bilateral cooperation would be easier if you’d buy our jets


Summary: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is meeting his Venezuelan counterpart before talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Rovaniemi.

Ministerit, ministeriöt ja valtioneuvosto

Russian Foreign Minister  Sergei Lavrov  is meeting with his Venezuelan opposite number on Sunday ahead of talks with US Secretary of State  Mike Pompeo  in Rovaniemi early next week.
 Lavrov is scheduled to sit down with Venezuelan Foreign Minister  Jorge Arreaza  on Sunday in Moscow, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
 International crisis talks in Lapland
 The Venezuelan crisis will be on the agenda when Lavrov holds talks with Pompeo on the sidelines of the 11th Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council.
 The  two-day meeting  begins on Monday in Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland.
 The two countries are on opposing sides in the political standoff in the Latin American state. Russia supports President  Nicolás Maduro , while the US and many other countries – including Finland – support opposition leader and former National Assembly leader  Juan Guaidó , who has declared himself interim president.
 As tension increased after May Day marches in Caracas, US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin discussed Venezuela in a phone call on Friday.
 US "sought to remove mention of climate change"
 Meanwhile the  Washington Post  reported on Thursday that President  Donald Trump 's administration tried to remove references to climate change from an Arctic Council declaration on Arctic policy that Pompeo is expected to sign next week.
 According to the paper, this "threatened a standoff in which the US would not sign onto a statement that included climate discussion and other members would not agree to a version that left it out". It quoted an official familiar with the preparations for the meeting as saying that Washington had "indicated its resistance to any mention of climate change whatsoever".
 Finland has made climate change and other environmental concerns key themes of its two-year term as chair of the Arctic Council, which ends this month.

US, Russian ministers to discuss Venezuela in Finland next week


Summary: Warming has expanded the gap between the world's rich and poor, with northern nations benefiting most, says a new study.

Finland is one of the few countries to benefit economically from climate change in recent decades, according to a Stanford University study published by the US National Academy of Sciences in its prestigious journal, PNAS.
 Comparing a half-century of historical temperature fluctuations and economic growth, researchers found that warming has led to "robust and substantial declines in economic output in hotter, poorer countries—and increases in many cooler, wealthier countries—relative to a world without anthropogenic warming".
 Nearly 50% GDP growth linked to climate
 Between 1961 and 2010, researchers say, Iceland's GDP grew by 92 percent in relation to climate change, while Finland's grew by 48 percent and Norway's by 34 percent. Other main beneficiaries have been Canada, Sweden and Russia.
 On the other hand, the report suggests that India's economy would be one third larger if not for the effects of climate change.
 According to the report, "the primary driver is the parabolic relationship between temperature and economic growth, with warming increasing growth in cool countries and decreasing growth in warm countries".
 The report's authors add that their results show that, "in addition to not sharing equally in the direct benefits of fossil fuel use, many poor countries have been significantly harmed by the warming arising from wealthy countries’ energy consumption".
 Marita Laukkanen , chief researcher at Finland's VATT Institute for Economic Research, says she finds the results convincing, but does not see them as reason for Finland to celebrate.
 "We do not know and cannot completely predict what events or chains of events climate change will trigger," Laukkanen tells Yle. She notes that climate change may increase the number of refugees and weaken forest growth, for instance.
 Researchers note that drought is playing an increasing role in migration and unrest, such as in Libya's 2011 revolution and civil war.
 "We're not all in the same boat"
 According to the report, "the primary driver is the parabolic relationship between temperature and economic growth, with warming increasing growth in cool countries and decreasing growth in warm countries".
 The report's authors add that their results show that, "in addition to not sharing equally in the direct benefits of fossil fuel use, many poor countries have been significantly harmed by the warming arising from wealthy countries’ energy consumption".
 "The study shows simply and directly that we're not all in the same boat. The situation has built up historically and some countries are clearly more responsible for this while others have suffered from this and will continue to suffer in the future," says  Tero Toivanen  of the University of Helsinki's BIOS Research Unit, which focuses on socio-ecological development issues.

Study: Finland and Iceland have benefited most from climate change so far


Summary: Young men refusing both compulsory military and civilian service were able to avoid punishment this spring by taking advantage of a legal loophole.

In February Finnish lawmakers  ended the military exemption for Jehovah's Witnesses , but the rule didn’t come into force until April, creating a window of opportunity for total objectors of any conviction to avoid a six-month prison sentence.
 “Fifty-two total objectors registered in the first three months of the year, when the annual total has been around 30 or 40," said  Mikko Reijonen  of the civilian service centre.
 Since the beginning of April, male members of the Jehovah’s Witness religious group can no longer skip military or alternative civilian service without punishment. Some 200 young male Jehovah’s Witnesses will from now on receive call-ups every year. If they decide to object to either form of service, they will face prosecution by the state.
 In 2018, the Helsinki Court of Appeal ruled that the Finnish practice of allowing male Jehovah's Witnesses to  avoid conscription was discriminatory . The ruling related to a discrimination case brought by a man who was imprisoned in 2016 for refusing conscripted service. The exemption dating from 1987 has long been considered problematic from a constitutional standpoint. Members of the Christian faction were previously able to postpone their entry into service for three years at a time (starting at age 18), until their obligation officially ceased at age 29. They cited their pacifist reading of the Bible as the basis of their objection, for which they received no punishment.
 Kaj Raninen  from the Finnish Union of Conscientious Objectors (Finnish acronym AKL) told Yle that removing the exemption for the Christian faction contradicted Finland’s human rights responsibilities.
 The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly condemned Finland’s policy in this area and Amnesty International considers Finland's jailed conscientious objectors prisoners of conscience.

Finland sees rise in 'total objectors' to military, civilian service


Summary: A 20-year-old student has written a book for Arabic-speaking Finnish-language learners that the author says helps bridge cultural differences.

This weekend  Merim Al-Kharsani  unveiled her textbook for Arabic speakers learning Finnish,  Opi suomea Merimin kanssa  (“Learn Finnish with Merim”), at Hervanta Library in Tampere.
 Al-Kharsani, who is studying to become a Finnish teacher, said the popularity of her Finnish tutorials on social media inspired her to write the book, which is mainly intended for Arabic-speaking kids.
 “Children and adults alike need motivation in the first place, lots of grammar comes second,” explained Al-Kharsani, who said there’s been a void when it comes to Finnish-as-a-second-language textbooks catering to an Arabic audience.
 In Finland, Finnish is sometimes taught solely in Finnish, but Al-Kharsani has a different perspective.
 “You can’t just rely on Finnish when teaching it to an Arabic speaker. A textbook has to draw on both languages,” she explained. “It makes it easier to understand nuances and clarify word meanings.”
 As an example, Kharsani said it’s unrealistic to expect someone arriving from her other home country of Iraq to understand Finnish proverbs relating to Finnish nature.
 Al-Kharsani told Yle that being bilingual in Finnish and Arabic helped her bridge some culturally rooted differences between the two languages in  Opi suomea Merimin kanssa . That said, the book draws on Al-Kharsani’s own experiences, though it was edited by a teacher of Finnish language and literature.

Student authors new Finnish textbook for Arabic speakers


Summary: The Centre Party, which lost over one-third of its seats in the general election, is willing to join the government, according to information obtained by Yle.

SDP chair  Antti Rinne  is leading one-on-one follow-up talks with party leaders on Sunday to help determine the optimal candidates for inviting to talks on establishing a coalition government.
 On Sunday, Rinne began discussing parties' answers to a  list of questions  he distributed after the election. He met with the Christian Democrats, Finns Party and Centre Party. On Monday, he will talk with the Greens, Left Alliance, Swedish People's Party as well as the National Coalition Party.
 Rinne, who was named by parliamentary groups to lead government formation talks given  his party’s razor-thin victory  in the general election, said he expects to know by Tuesday evening which parties will be a part of government formation talks.
 “We’ll know what the makeup will look like by Tuesday evening,” Rinne said.
 Despite some internal division, there’s interest within the Centre Party, which  lost over one-third of its seats  in the general election, to join the government, according to information obtained by Yle.

SDP chair Rinne meets party leaders ahead of government formation talks


Summary: A woman could become Finland's next EU Commissioner, a rogue contactless payment card reader and many residents know next to nothing about their retirement.

Finland’s former SDP leader and Finance Minister  Jutta Urpilainen  is poised to become Finland’s next EU commissioner, according to Swedish-language daily  Hufvudstadsbladet .
 This would be mould-breaking as all of Finland’s EU commissioners have to date been male.
 Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne  is  working on forming a new coalition government , but as soon as that job is done, he will appoint Finland’s next EU commissioner to replace  Jyrki Katainen , given the National Coalition’s  election result .
 Former Prime Minister Katainen’s National Coalition Party nabbed the third-highest number of seats in the recent  parliamentary election , behind the Social Democrats and Finns Party.
 Contactless payment
 National daily  Helsingin Sanomat  asks how secure contactless payments really are. A clothing shop in eastern Finland reports that its card reader debited 400 euros from a customer who was in the process of retrieving her wallet.
 The transaction should not have been possible as the limit for contactless payments in Finland (where a debit or credit card is held close to a payment terminal) is 50 euros, after being raised from 25 euros last month. Moreover, the customer had not tapped the card terminal.
 The customer was using a Danske Bank card, which according to the bank, was an older card allowing higher contactless payments when coupled with the cardholder’s signature. These cards have mostly been phased out, according to Danske Bank.
 Finance Finland, which represents Finland's finance sector, said contactless payments have become  increasingly popular  in recent years, with about 80 percent of people using the no-touch form of monetary transaction, up from some 50 percent two years ago.
 Pension knowledge gap
 Agricultural newspaper  Maaseudun Tulevaisuus  reports that only a third of working-age residents know how much their pensions will total, according to a survey by Keva, which is in charge of pensions for public sector workers.
 Nearly 40 percent of respondents to Keva’s survey said they had no idea of the size of their future pensions.
 Wisdom did seem to increase with age, as some 90 percent of those over the age of 60 could put an exact figure on their retirement income.
 A total of 1,173 people participated in the survey commissioned by Keva and carried out by pollster Kantar. The margin of error was 2.9 percentage points.

Monday’s papers: Finland's next EU commissioner, contactless card glitches and many clueless about pensions


Summary: Monday's Arctic Council meeting aims to issue a joint declaration on climate change in the region, and will likely highlight talks about the Venezuelan crisis.

Kansainväliset organisaatiot ja sopimukset

The Arctic Council ministerial meeting starts on Monday in Rovaniemi, Finland with one of the most highly anticipated talks being between American Secretary of State  Mike Pompeo  and Russian Foreign Minister  Sergei Lavrov .
 The representatives are expected to discuss the crisis in Venezuela although that is not part of the Arctic Council meeting's main agenda, which is to undersign a document regarding climate change in the Arctic region.
 The two-day event sees representatives of six indigenous permanent participant organisations, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States meeting in the capital of Finnish Lapland.
 The US and Russia are on opposing sides in the political standoff in the Latin American state. Russia supports President  Nicolás Maduro , while the US and many other countries – including Finland – support opposition leader and former National Assembly leader  Juan Guaidó , who has declared himself interim president.
 US position up in the air
 The 11th Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council will be chaired by Finland’s Foreign Minister  Timo Soini , who will also meet with his foreign minister colleagues bilaterally.
 The main intent of the meeting is for participating nations to sign the Arctic Council’s Rovaniemi Process on climate issues. The process document has aimed, until the last moment, to find the right wording to satisfy all of the parties, including the US. However President  Donald Trump 's administration has attempted to remove references to climate change from an Arctic Council declaration on Arctic policy.
 During Monday's meeting it will become clear whether the seven other member countries can convince the US to compromise on action against climate change and sustainable development in the region.
 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to give a speech about the goals of the current US government regarding the Arctic region on Monday.
 Black coal emission reduction
 A further objective of the meeting is the reduction of black coal emissions. Finland's President Sauli Niinistö  has been vocal about the problem of black coal in the Arctic region .
 The Arctic Council does not have a separate strategy document regarding black coal emissions cuts. However, if progress is made on the topic, it could be considered a victory for Finland, a country which made climate change and other environmental concerns central themes of its two-year term as chair of the council, which ends this month.
 Finland hands presidency to Iceland
 The council has become more relevant in recent years as sea ice thaws are opening up new trade routes and intensifying competition for the area’s oil, gas and mineral resources.
 The two-year presidency of the Finnish Arctic Council will end with a declaration that will also serve as a guide for the next presidency, Iceland. The declaration can be seen as an assessment of Finland's success in the position.
 Iceland will inherit Finland's goal. The two-year targets for countries have historically always been adopted by their successors, so it is unlikely that there will be any big changes ahead.
 The weakness of Iceland's forthcoming presidency of the Arctic Council will likely be Iceland's commercial whaling industry, which the small island nation has not agreed to abandon. Although whaling is not on the official agenda of the Arctic Council, it may rise as in issue over the next two years.

US-Russia talks on Venezuela likely to feature at Arctic Council meeting


Summary: All five of the country's university hospitals are taking part in the effort, which is being funded by the EU.

Finland has set up a nationwide centre of expertise that aims to promote mental health among residents with asylum seeker backgrounds, according to THL, the National Institute for Health and Welfare.
 Initially, the main thrust of the programme will be to consult and train hospital and mental health care staff in the needs of individuals with refugee backgrounds, while at the same time developing health care services, according to THL project manager  Johanna Mäki-Opas .
 "Professionals from various fields need support and information in order to be able to promote mental health services for people with asylum seeker backgrounds. That is why a central competency centre is needed," Mäki-Opas said.
 The new centre is an expansion and complement to the THL's Paloma project (Developing National Mental Health Policies for Refugees) that began at the beginning of 2016 and ended at the end of last year.
 Work on the centre officially began earlier this year and is scheduled to operate through June 2021 and expected to continue after that, according to the agency.
 The effort is being carried out by the THL and all five of the country's university hospitals - in Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Kuopio and Oulu - as well as the Finnish Association for Mental Health will participate.
 The project is being funded by the European Commission's Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), which promotes the management of migration across the European Union.

Finland sets up centre promoting refugee mental health


Summary: Finland's state-owned alcohol retailer said it wants to raise the importance of drinking water, particularly when having a tipple.

Next month consumers will be able to find bottled water on shelves of the state-owned booze retailer Alko, as well as on the firm's website.
 The company's communications chief  Maritta Iso-Aho  told Yle the company wants to emphasise how important it is for people to stay hydrated, especially when drinking alcohol.
 The sparkling water is lightly carbonated and sourced from a well in the western municipality of Kurikka. The company will start selling bottles of  Välivesi  (or roughly, In-Between Water) on 3 June.
 As Alko already sells mixers and non-alcoholic beer and wine,  Välivesi  is by no means the first booze-free beverage that the company has sold, but it will be the first time it sells bottled water.
 Iso-Aho said the point of selling it is to raise discussion about the importance of drinking water, but also acknowledged that tap water in Finland is "very good."
 She noted that the firm also took into consideration eventual environmental problems that bottled water can pose.
 "The bottles are made out of recycled plastic and include a return deposit and the majority of [returnable] bottles are returned. The water is bottled at a plant which uses wind-generated electricity," she said.
 "Drinking alcohol dries out the body and raises your blood alcohol concentration. If you remember to drink water between alcoholic beverages, you’ll stay fresher and more alert throughout the evening and into next day – a party is good when you also feel good the day after," Alko stated on its website.

Alko to start selling bottled water


Summary: As the 11th Arctic Council ministerial meeting gets underway in Rovaniemi, the last two years of Finnish leadership in the region are under scrutiny.

Finland's stewardship of the Arctic Council has run into the  headwinds of geopolitical tensions , with a ministerial meeting marking the end of Finland's two-year presidency facing similar pressures to a previous Council meeting in the Alaskan city of Fairbanks in 2017.
 Back then, negotiations on the wording of the meeting’s final statement went down to the wire as the United States refused to sign off on a document mentioning the Paris climate accord, although then Secretary of State  Rex Tillerson  did eventually sign the text - Paris accords included.
 Fast forward to 2019, and the US newspaper The Washington Post recently reported that US diplomats had attempted to remove any mention of climate change from the upcoming Rovaniemi declaration, which Secretary of State  Mike Pompeo  was expected to endorse on Tuesday.
 In a speech in Rovaniemi on Monday, however, Pompeo made no mention of the words "climate change", although he did reference "steadily reducing sea ice."
 Finland’s Ambassador  Aleksi Härkönen , the diplomat responsible for co-ordinating negotiations over the Arctic Council declaration,  told Reuters news agency , "There are different tones with which different countries want to approach climate change."
 Mr Pompeo’s speech instead focused on the politics of the Arctic region, calling it "an arena for power and competition," in a speech delivered the day before ministers from the Arctic countries are due to meet.
 Trump presidency "made things difficult"
 Finnish officials are keen to point out the successes of the last two years, with caretaker Foreign Minister  Timo Soini  saying, "we have achieved progress in all our selected priority areas."
 Speaking to Yle News, CEO of WWF Finland  Liisa Rohweder  measured Finnish success in more basic terms: “I think the biggest achievement is that they have been able to keep the Arctic Council together, with these political and military tensions which have been growing at the same time,” she said.
 However Professor  Timo Koivurova , director of the University of Lapland’s Arctic Centre, and co-chair of the Arctic Council’s Social, Economic and Cultural Expert Group, says Finland’s chairmanship came at a very challenging time.
 "In this pretty difficult international environment we have the Ukraine crisis, and sanction regimes ongoing with Russia and the other Arctic states,” he told Yle News.
 "But mostly it’s been about the Trump presidency and their stance towards climate change which really has made things difficult."
 Some Arctic observers fear that any failure to reach a consensus on combatting climate change will undermine the entire purpose of the Arctic Council itself.
 Dr.  Laura Meller , Arctic researcher and polar adviser for Greenpeace Nordic told Yle News, "The credibility of Arctic Council as a platform for environmental cooperation is at stake here, given that climate change is the issue defining the future of the region."
 Timo Koivurova , who was in Fairbanks during the negotiations over the 2017 declaration is more sanguine, "You can do a lot of things with words of course, you can circumvent an issue. I’d guess that by the end of the day countries are willing to make some kind of compromises."
 Edited at 6:35 pm for clarity and to add comments from Liisa Rohweder.
 Edited at 11:26 on 7 May 2019 to clarify Timo Koivurova's title.

Finland’s Arctic Council chairmanship overshadowed by global tensions


Summary: Mike Pompeo’s speech in Rovaniemi criticised America’s biggest rivals in the Arctic, but made no mention of the Arctic Council’s top priority: climate change.

In a speech declaring “a new age of strategic engagement” in the Arctic, US Secretary of State  Mike Pompeo  criticised Russian and Chinese activity in the region.
 The US Secretary of State called on both countries to “play by the rules,” saying that although “the Arctic is a place of wilderness, that does not mean it should become a place of lawlessness.”
 His speech, made before Tuesday’s Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Rovaniemi, did not mention US participation in any international effort to combat climate change in the fast-warming polar region.
 Speaking shortly before a  meeting with his Russian counterpart  in Rovaniemi, Sergei Lavrov, Pompeo said the United States was especially concerned about Russian military activity in the Arctic, saying that “Russia is already leaving snowprints in the form of army boots,” and calling Russian behaviour toward foreign ships in Arctic waters “aggressive” and “provocative.”
 Recalling Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the US Secretary of State said that special oversight of military buildup was justified in Russia’s case, “because we know Russian territorial ambitions can turn violent.”
 “There are good neighbours here in the Arctic region, and if Russia becomes one of them we would welcome that,” Pompeo told Yle.
 America’s top diplomat also levelled strong criticism at China, an official observer state at the Arctic Council since 2013.
 Pompeo cited a warning from the Pentagon that China could use its civilian research presence in the Arctic as a pretext to increase its military presence in the region, saying: “China’s pattern of aggressive behaviour elsewhere will inform how it treats the Arctic.”
 In his speech, Pompeo said that while he welcomed Chinese investment in the Arctic, it should “reflect economic interests, not national security ambitions.”
 Pompeo emphasised region's resources
 In a move that angered environmentalists, Pompeo’s speech focused on the potential economic benefits of the Arctic’s natural resources, saying the United States was committed to “environmentally responsible” exploitation of what he called the region’s “opportunity and abundance.”
 “I feel like I got a slap in the face,” CEO of WWF Finland - an official observer organisation at the Arctic Council -  Liisa Rohweder  told Yle News after listening to Pompeo call the Arctic Council’s focus on scientific, cultural and environmental issues a “luxury” it can no longer afford.
 Greenpeace Nordic’s Polar Adviser  Dr Laura Meller  told Yle News: “It seems that paving the way for heavy extraction of natural resources is still a driving motive for many governments, despite talk about climate change and protecting nature becoming more pronounced.”
 But according to Meller, the US is not alone in looking to take advantage of the region’s natural resources: “The Norwegian government wants to open new oil fields in Arctic waters, and the Finnish government has tried to push an Arctic railway connection forward.”
 “Oil exploration and logging of northern forests are not compatible with the goal of preventing dangerous climate change, and governments must decide which is their priority,” she said.

US Secretary of State slams "aggressive" Russia in Arctic Council speech


Summary: Finland's press discuss Tuesday's expected coalition partner decision, parents in the dark about online harassment, traffic fines and weather forecasts.

Helsingin Sanomat, the country's most widely-read newspaper, carries a  story  on how the parties chosen by Finland's next likely prime minister, Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne  on Tuesday will have long-ranging consequences for the country's future in terms of its system of social benefits, response to climate change and taxation. Rinne earlier committed himself to reaching a final decision on the parties he will invite to Helsinki's House of the Estates for government formation talks by Tuesday evening.
 The paper writes that "today is an exciting day in politics" because the decision the SDP leader makes about what parties to choose will have "almost as much influence as the election results", as even some parties that did not do as well in the elections might be chosen to participate in the negotiations. It says that the elections were so close and the field of political parties in Finland preceding the parliamentary elections was so fragmented that "power is only now being meted out in earnest".
 Rinne said in a Saturday interview in the paper that he was looking for an "suitable friend" from among the parties that had earned the next-best election results: the populist Finns Party, the centre-right National Coalition Party and the Centre Party.
 Shining a light on internet recesses
 The Joensuu-based paper Karjalainen features an  STT story  on cyberbullying, reporting on a recent study that discovered that only one in five parents in Finland knew if their children had been subject to online harassment and only one in four has done anything to prevent their children from being the target of cyberbullying.
 Teachers were found to be much better aware of cyberbullying than parents, with one in three having observed the phenomenon in their work. Both the 1,000-some parents and the over 400 teachers responding to the study's survey said they wished there were more digital tools available to safeguard and promote empathy online.
 Insurance company If's country director  Timo Harju  tells the paper that adult figures in children's lives cannot rely on apps to solve the problem, saying that families should do everything in their power to "keep the lines of communication open" and talk about the subject.
 Tracking down lead-foots
 The paper Etelä-Suomen Sanomat also  reports  this Tuesday that police in Finland are planning to start sending notices to Estonian drivers that have been caught speeding by traffic cameras in the country. Law enforcement says the crackdown will begin with Estonian residents because the clear majority of traffic violations by foreigners have been traced to vehicles registered in Estonia.
 The news agency Uutissuomalainen says offenders can expect their first notices in early June. The notice advises the receivers to pick up a ticket stating their fine at the police station in Helsinki's Malmi district. Finnish police cannot send the actual ticket to Estonia, as criminal penalties cannot be sent abroad.
 "The notice will have a deadline and if the recipient doesn't respond by that time, we can put out a search notice for the individual,"  Dennis Pasterstein , chief inspector and head of Helsinki Police Department's traffic safety unit, tells the paper.
 Another scorcher in store?
 And finally, the tabloid Iltalehti has the  first of the inevitable summer weather forecasts  that start popping up at this time of the year in Finland. The tabloid reports a prediction from the Weather Company that says that Europe is in for a hotter summer this year than normal.
 Foreca meteorologist  Joanna Rinne  says it is too early to say with any certainty how things will play out, but unseasonably warm temperatures in the south could indicate hotter summer temps are on the way, as southern and central parts of Europe are already heating up. She says Spain could even see the 40 degrees Celsius mark be broken this summer.
 Rinne predicts more high-pressure fronts over northern parts of Europe in the coming months, meaning clear skies. Last summer Finland had 63 days with temperatures over 20 degrees Celsius, the second-warmest summer in Finnish history. The warmest temperature of the season was recorded in the west coast city of Vaasa on 18 July, when the mercury rose to 33.7 degrees.
 The tabloid writes that a Nature Communications study from last August found that extremely high temperatures will be twice as likely in Finland and the rest of the Europe for the next five years due to climate change and a rise in surface temperatures of the planet.

Tuesday's papers: Choosing gov't "friends", cyberbullying, Estonian speeders, summer heat


Summary: Sources involved in the negotiations told Yle News the failure was due to US refusal to agree to a common statement on fighting climate change in the Arctic.

The Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Rovaniemi is set to end in disappointment after ministers failed to reach an agreement on the wording of a final joint declaration for the first time in the organisation’s 23-year history.
 Sources taking part in the negotiations told Yle News they understood that the United States was the only Arctic Council member not to agree to language on fighting climate change in the draft ministerial declaration.
 Finland’s caretaker Foreign Minister  Timo Soini  opened the day’s talks saying that under Finland’s leadership over the last two years, Arctic Council countries had “been able to sail together,” despite what he called “windy conditions.”
 The run-up to this year’s meeting in Rovaniemi was characterised by reports of conflict among the eight Arctic Council countries - Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States - with US newspaper The Washington Post reporting that US diplomats had attempted to remove any mention of climate change from the draft Rovaniemi declaration.
 No mention of climate change in joint statement
 Reacting to the news,  Gosia Smieszek  from the University of Lapland’s Arctic Centre told Yle News: “It’s not a conflict, it’s a fundamental disagreement over climate change and the fact that the current US administration denies it, which is something that other Arctic states cannot accept.”
 Soini’s official statement from the ministerial meeting noted that “a majority of [Arctic Council members] regarded climate change as a fundamental challenge facing the Arctic, and acknowledged the urgent need to take mitigation and adaptation actions.”
 A joint ministerial statement released in place of a declaration and signed by all eight of the participating foreign ministers did not explicitly mention climate change.
 In his statement to the Council meeting, US Secretary of State  Mike Pompeo  said, “the Trump administration shares your deep commitment to environmental stewardship.”
 “Collective goals, even when well-intentioned, are not always the answer. They are rendered meaningless, even counterproductive, as soon as one nation fails to comply,” he continued.
 Arctic people express concern
 Representatives of indigenous groups at the Arctic Council expressed alarm at the meeting’s failure to result in a final declaration.
 Sámi council president  Åsa Larsson Blind  told delegates, “by mentioning [climate change] by its real name, we can fight it, and reduce its impact.”
 “We need to express our deepest concern about the development of a commitment for this ministerial,” she said.
 James Stotts , president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said “We believe it’s time to stop bickering over whether there is climate change or not and start implementing strategies and actions to survive climate change.”
 “We believe it’s time to stop hiding from reality,” he concluded.

Arctic Council fails to agree on declaration as US holds out on climate change


Summary: Finland is part of the problem, says a Finnish professor of ecology who helped write the comprehensive report.

With one million species at risk, the devastating impact humans have had on nature was revealed in an extensive UN report released on Monday in Paris.
 Three years in the making, the assessment draws on 15,000 reference materials, and was compiled by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
 According to the report nature everywhere is declining at an unprecedented speed as the need for increasing amounts of food and energy grow.
 ”What has been highlighted in this report about the weak state of nature and it’s threat to people is not new. However, these are now more prominent in the form of this historical report,” says professor  Janne Kotiaho , chairperson of the Finnish Nature Board, which is the domestic affiliate of the IPBES and who was part of the Finnish team.
 Real threat to plants, animals and people
 The comprehensive  "Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services" by the IPBES  for the United Nations is the first intergovernmental report of its kind. Based on the systematic review of about 15,000 scientific and government sources, the report was compiled by 145 expert authors from 50 countries over the past three years, with contributions from another 310 authors.
 The report estimates that one in eight of the eight million known species is endangered and the destruction rate of hundreds of thousands of species will continue if the change is not slowed down or stopped. Scientists estimate that at least more than one third of the Earth's nature will destroyed by 2050.
 Kotiaho, a professor of ecology at the University of Jyväskylä, who is a member of the Finnish group, says it's harder to reverse the development of species and plant destruction than to address climate change.
 "Biodiversity is a more difficult thing to manage than climate change, although it is not easy to deal with climate change," says Kotiaho.
 According to professor Kotiaho, the Finnish board went through various models of how change can be achieved, and the change always required major political and economic changes in how goods and products are made and consumed.
 "Environmentally harmful subsidies must be removed and on the consumption side products that are harmful to the environment need to become more expensive in order to reduce their consumption," says Kotiaho.
 The Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OECD) has estimated that in 2015, some 100 billion euros of agriculture which was likely to environmentally damaging was supported in the organisation's member countries.
 Finland's situation not much better
 The assessment of world's state of nature corresponds to a new assessment of the  state of Finnish species that was published earlier this year.
 According to Kotiaho, however, conservation and other biodiversity measures have partly worked and the state of nature in Finland is better than in some other countries, but that does not mean that Finland is doing well environmentally.
 "Finland is dependent on imports and Finns travel a lot abroad, so Finns share a big responsibility for the state of nature in the world,“ says Kotiaho. "Finns are at the forefront of destroying the whole planet. Our consumption, our way of life and our choices cause terrible harm to the world," he says, adding, "Major lifestyle changes are a solution, which is what the IPBES panel has also recommended."

Finns have 'big responsibility' for biodiversity loss, says researcher


Summary: The new report says access to tertiary education and support services must be expanded to prevent youth marginalisation.

A fresh OECD assessment says that while the Finnish education system ranks among the 36-member-country group's best, inefficiencies in employment and social policies are keeping many young people from gaining a decent foothold in the labour market.
 The  report  advises Finland to ease the transition from upper secondary school to higher education by simplifying student financial support and making changes to its tertiary admissions practices that would offer more young people the opportunity to study.
 The recommendations are designed to reduce the number of people under the age of 30 who are currently without a study place or work in Finland.
 One of Europe's toughest university admission rates
 One way the OECD recommends that Finland could make it easier to continue studies is to reform the entrance criteria for university admission, which the group points out are currently one of Europe's most highly selective. Assessors point out that low acceptance rates delay the start of higher education for many young people and forces many applicants to take a gap year against their will.
 The report stated figures that showed that only a quarter of graduates of secondary education in Finland were able to continue their studies at an institute of higher education straight after finishing upper secondary school, for example.
 In addition, the report recommends expanding the capacity of Finland's universities and developing financial aid for students.
 Anna Salonen , a 23-year-old Helsinki resident, says she would like to see an equal playing field.
 "Everyone should have the same starting point when it comes to studies, although I think that those who can afford it will be able to study, just as those who already have work experience will get jobs," she says.
 Iita-Mari Ruponen , a youth worker in Helsinki, says young people need support with things like buying a flat or finding mental health services.
 "There are plenty of services available in the capital city area, but it is sometimes hard to find information on how to access them and what all is available," she says.
 Compulsory schooling should be extended
 The report points out that almost all children in Finland complete compulsory education, which in Finland extends to the age of 15 or 16. Some 55 percent then continue on to upper secondary school and 45 percent enrol in vocational education and training.
 Overall graduation rates tend to be quite high, comparatively, but one out of every four vocational students does not complete their studies within two years of their expected graduation. A 2018 reform of the vocational system hopes to introduce a more customer-oriented system, but the OECD advises adding cross-age peer counselling, which has proven successful in Denmark and the US.
 The report says that new results-oriented financing models discourage Finnish higher education institutions from investing in lower-performing students, and recommends a separate budget for special support services, for example.
 The assessment also recommends increasing Finland's compulsory schooling age to 18 years, saying that free upper secondary education would encourage less-fortunate segments of the population to continue their studies. The development of digital services would also make it easier to reach young people in distant areas, the report concludes.
 One in three young Finns receives unemployment benefits
 In 2017 Finland had an an employment rate of 53.3 percent for people aged 15-29, slightly above the OECD average but below the rates observed in Norway and Sweden.
 Salonen says that financial problems can affect students' continued study prospects, while a lack of work experience can keep young people from securing steady work.
 "That's the dilemma: Where are you going to gain work experience if you can't get a job in the first place?" she says.
 The report says that one-third of people between the ages of 15 and 24 receive some form of unemployment support in Finland, the second-highest rate in the OECD. It surmises that this support creates disincentives for young people to seek work.
 It advises Finland to streamline its system of benefits and strengthen the provision of integrated services to encourage young people to actively seek employment.
 The assessment is part of the OECD’s Action Plan for Youth, and contains recommendations on developing youth services. Similar assessments have been carried out in other Nordic countries, and have so far extended to nine countries in total.
 The assessment of youth services in Finland took place in the spring of 2018 and was jointly commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

OECD: Finland should revamp uni admission criteria, student benefits


Summary: SDP leader Antti Rinne said he would sleep on the decision on which parties would form the next government, but he wanted clarity from the Centre Party.

Finland moved a step forward in the search for a new coalition government on Tuesday, as SDP leader  Antti Rinne  concluded talks with the centre-right National Coalition Party--but said that he would like to know whether the Centre Party would be interested in joining his government.
 Rinne is set to invite his preferred government partners to official talks on Wednesday, but as of Tuesday afternoon the situation remained unclear.
 Earlier the leader of the Centre Party’s parliamentary group,  Antti Kaikkonen , said after a meeting of his MPs that they had not yet decided on whether they were ready to hold talks on joining a Rinne-led government. A caucus of senior Centre Party figures were due to meet on Tuesday evening to hammer out their position on joining the government.
 "It would be important for the whole picture that the Centre was also ready to join [the government]," said Rinne.
 Rinne said the talks had gone well, but he would take his time before announcing on Wednesday which parties would be invited to attend official coalition-formation negotiations.
 Differences of opinion
 NCP leader  Petteri Orpo , meanwhile, said that his party and the SDP had a lot in common but also many differences of opinion.
 In elections on 14 April the SDP emerged as the biggest party with 40 seats in the 200-member unicameral parliament. The radical right-wing Finns Party won 39 seats while the centre-right National Coalition took 38.
 The Finns Party, which was thrown out of government in 2017 after hardliner  Jussi Halla-aho  took over as leader, has said it would be open to joining a government if it was ideologically compatible. However several parties including the SDP have said before the election that they could not envisage forming an administration with Halla-aho’s group.
 Orpo has since faced pushback from rank and file members and some MPs on the right of his party, who would like to keep the option kept open. He said on Tuesday that his party would not be willing to join a government that included the Left Alliance, however, and Rinne said that restriction remained in place.
 Traditionally the leader of the biggest party gets the first crack at forming a coalition among parties holding at least 101 seats in parliament, or trying to govern as a minority administration.
 Official government-formation talks will be held at the House of the Estates, the central Helsinki pile where representatives of the Tsarist-era Diet assembled between 1891 and 1907.
 This story is being updated

SDP leader Rinne keeps all options open as coalition deadline approaches


Summary: Finnish MPs voted on Tuesday to change their seating arrangement, but not everyone was happy about their new places.

Finnish MPs voted 128 to 37 on Tuesday to rearrange their seating arrangements. The radical right Finns Party will henceforth be positioned on the right hand flank of the legislature, in a move that was staunchly opposed by their MPs.
 The Swedish People’s Party had requested a switch to a more central position so that they could more easily access translation services, necessitating the Finns Party’s move.
 The office of the speaker had approved the new arrangements, but with opposition from the Finns Party fierce the measure was put to a vote on Tuesday after a motion from group leader Ville Tavio to retain the current seating arrangement.
 “You won’t shut us up by moving us to the far right,” said  Juha Mäenpää , a Finns Party MP.
 Far-right or not far-right?
 His intervention distilled the substance of the complaint: that the Finns Party should not be regarded as a far right party. Finnish media have tended to eschew that term for the party, but international outlets including the BBC and AFP have used it.
 Several Finns Party MPs including the leader have been convicted of incitement to ethnic hatred, while others have been criticised for attending events with neo-Nazi activists. In 2015 Oulu MP Olli Immonen shared a picture from a memorial event where he posed with members of the now-banned Nordic Resistance Movement, an extremist group many of whose members have been convicted of racist violence.
 With one eye on upcoming European elections, Finns Party MPs ranged far and wide in their topics for discussion, talking about immigration and old age care home staffing in addition to the matter at hand.
 SDP group leader Antti Lindtman was bemused at the row.
 “If a place to the right of the National Coalition is okay in the European Parliament and in the Nordic Council is okay for the party, then why is it unacceptable here?” he asked rhetorically.

Finns Party MPs protest at new parliamentary seating arrangement


Summary: The Centre Party's social media surveys, the woes of the metal industry and unlawful disciplinary guidelines in schools are discussed in Wednesday's papers.

Social Democratic Party chair  Antti Rinne  was due to announce which Finnish political parties he wants to begin government negotiations with before midday on Wednesday, and Centre Party MPs took to social media to figure out whether joining with the democrats would be a good idea.
 Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat wrote  that top Centre Party politicians  Katri Kulumni ,  Mikko Kärnä  and ex-PM  Matti Vanhanen  posted social media updates and polls on Tuesday asking their Facebook friends and followers whether to enter the coming government coalition.
 Rinne was due an answer as to the Centre Party's plans on Tuesday, but instead the party announced it would "gauge its base" before answering. IS wrote that MPs had until 9 am on Wednesday to reply yes or no to a web questionnaire.
 "It looks like the election victors are not going to have a workable majority, so people are looking to the Centre Party. It's a simple question: should the Centre Party be prepared to enter coalition negotiations?" wrote Vanhanen late on Tuesday.
 Responses to Vanhanen's and Kulumni's queries were mostly supportive of joining a coalition, while Kärnä's more formal poll had received almost 70 percent negative votes by Wednesday morning.
 The official web questionnaire will determine what the Centre Party does, IS wrote, with the party's parliamentary group chair  Antti Kaikkonen  saying the results "would be respected".
 Falling interest in metalwork training
 Machinists and welders are in short supply in Finland as an industry-wide slump has caused interest in the work to wane,  wrote daily Turun Sanomat . Various companies are turning to foreign workers and international programmes to make sure their factories remain adequately staffed.
 Engineering company Skoda Transtech out of Kainuu, for instance, constructs trams for the tramlines in Helsinki and soon Tampere, too. TS wrote that half of the firm's 150 welders come from abroad, mainly from Russia and Poland, and mainly gaining employment through temping agencies or labour banks.
 Transtech CEO  Lasse Orre  said one solution would be to bring welding training programmes right to Russia, specifically to the industrial town of Kostomuksha near Finland's eastern border.
 "We have to figure out where to find welders, and Finnish people don't seem to care for the work," Orre said.
 The situation is not rosy at shipbuilding company Meyer Turku, either. Most of the workers are in-house employees, but now not even the basic training courses can be filled.
 "We started an intro course for plater-welders in March, and we were supposed to have one in the summer, but we had to cancel that," Meyer Turku publicist  Tapani Mylly  said in TS. "Let's hope there'll be more interest in the autumn."
 Dodgy school guidelines
 Meanwhile  newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported  on a reader survey that found one in four parents have come across official school rules or guidelines about student behaviour that are prohibitively or even illegally strict.
 The paper wrote on Monday that a school in Tampere had sent around a form for parents to fill out ahead of a children's field trip. The form indicated that misbehaving students would be sent home with a guardian by bus, train or taxi – no matter how far away the destination is from the school district.
 For instance, a cab ride from Helsinki's popular Linnanmäki amusement park back to Tampere would have the cost the parents of a child from that school some 300 euros. The school's principal  Sirpa Raevaara  admitted in HS that the form was a mistake.
 "I admit that such a form was in fact sent to parents. We follow the Finnish National Agency for Education rules, and guidelines like these are prohibited," Raevaara said.
 The punitive money-related measures are against the Finnish constitution and the right to free basic education, according to education agency administrator  Matti Lahtinen .

Wednesday's papers: Centre Party mulls coalition online, welders wanted, unlawful school trip punishments


Summary: Antti Rinne has confirmed that five parties are to begin cabinet negotiations: the SDP, Centre, Greens, Left Alliance and Swedish People's Party.

Social Democratic Party (SDP) chair  Antti Rinne , placed in charge of forming a new government, has announced which parties are to enter formal negotiations. At a press conference late Wednesday morning, he confirmed that the parties entering government coalition talks with the SDP will be the Centre Party, the Greens, the Left Alliance and the Swedish People's Party (SPP).
 The parties that came in close second and third places in last month's elections - the nationalist Finns Party and the the conservative National Coalition Party - appear to be heading into the opposition.
 The leaders of the five parties launched negotiations at 2pm Wednesday at the House of Estates in Helsinki's Kruununhaka district.
 Centre Party chair and outgoing PM  Juha Sipilä  said earlier in the morning that his party was ready to enter talks on forming the next government coalition.
 Sipilä tweeted that eight out of 10 Centre Party leaders polled said the party should try for another cabinet term – despite their heavy losses in last month's parliamentary election.
 "Eighty percent of the party's council, board and parliamentary group members support entering government formation negotiations on the condition that the Centre's threshold questions are met. Twenty percent opposed joining government talks. I have informed Antti Rinne," Sipilä said on Twitter shortly after 10 am.
 The Centre Party has published a list of 10 threshold demands for the new government agenda. They include targets of 75 percent employment rate and balanced public finances by 2023, no increases in corporate taxes, no increase on farmers' financial burden, reform of regional administration into 18 provinces to support health and social services reform ( known as sote ), increases for small pensions and "moderate" increases in logging and "sustainable forest use".
 After Rinne's press conference, Sipilä said that the Centre Party chair would certainly be a member of the new cabinet, but that it will not be him for long. After the election loss, Sipilä announced that he would step down and called a party congress for 7 September to elect a new leader.
 Five-party coalition would hold 117 seats
 Yle reported earlier that besides the SDP and the Centre, the parties in the government coalition talks will be the Greens, the Left Alliance and the SPP.
 They would have a solid majority of 117 seats in the 200-seat Parliament.
 The SDP narrowly won April's election, securing 40 seats in Parliament, just ahead of the nationalist Finns Party with 39 seats and the conservative National Coalition Party (NCP) with 38.
 The Centre Party suffered a historic defeat, losing 18 seats for a new total of just 31. That spurred many party faithful to say that the party should sit out the next legislative term among the opposition ranks.
 The Greens and Left Alliance gained seats for totals of 20 and 16 respectively, while the centrist SPP held on to its 10 seats, including a representative from the autonomous Åland Islands who votes with the bloc.
 Rinne's decision indicates he was unable to agree on basic principles in this week's talks with the NCP. Political analysts such as Yle's  Paula Pokkinen  say that the right-leaning, pro-business NCP would be unlikely to fit into the same cabinet as the Left Alliance, one of the parties that gained seats in the election and which has traditionally been ideologically close to the SDP.
 Another Yle political commentator,  Ari Hakahuhta , notes that former union boss Rinne was still weighing last night whether to pick the NCP or Centre as his main partner in talks, but apparently decided that the SDP would be more likely to achieve its electoral promises in tandem with the Centre than the NCP.
 And an alliance with populist immigration hardliners the Finns Party was always seen as unlikely. The party's chair, likely future opposition leader  Jussi Halla-Aho , did not attend Rinne's press conference, although NCP chair  Petteri Orpo  did.
 Interviewed by Yle afterwards, Halla-aho predicted that the government would carry out "red-green policies" including "irresponsible, generous immigration policies".
 Orpo told the news agency STT that he believes the NCP can carry out opposition politics along with the Finns Party.
 "For instance, we have very similar views on economic policy. That is one example of an area where we can cooperate," the conservative leader said.
 12:13pm updated throughout, corrected number of potential coalition seats
 12:42pm updated with party leaders' comments and launch of talks

Centre Party to join SDP, 3 others in government talks


Summary: Employees at the engineering company will only respond to life-threatening situations during their walkout.

Kone elevator installation and maintenance workers in Finland went on strike at 7am Wednesday to protest their employer's collective agreement measures, which shop steward  Tapio Kuhmonen  called "one-sided commands".
 The 24-hour strike affects over 500 employees of Kone across Finland. HR chief  Elina Jokinen  said she considers the strike illegal.
 The only tasks that will be performed during the work stoppage are life-saving in nature, such as helping people stuck in lifts. Installation and maintenance work on elevators, stairs and doors was ceased for the day.
 Shop steward Kuhmonen called out Kone for many years of unfair practices.
 "Collective agreements are a good way to find common ground between employer and employee. When the employer starts to dictate rules in a one-sided way, that goes against the spirit of the agreement," he said.
 Kuhmonen said Kone has neglected its contractual obligation pertaining, for instance, to the payment of salaries. The company has also resolved some conflict situations with a decree of its own, without negotiating with the interested parties.
 Challenging contract infringement difficult
 Kuhmonen said the biggest problem with the situation is that Kone is rarely held accountable for infringing on work contracts. Employees may file a complaint with the Labour Court of Finland, but many do not find the resources to commit to such a complex process.
 "Infringement conciliation talks don't always even reach the demands of the original agreement, even though both parties should respect the jointly produced rules," Kuhmonen said.
 The shop steward said the situation had now reached a point, after 2-3 years, where the employees have no other recourse but to strike.
 At the end of last year Kone had more than 57,000 employees worldwide, with about 2,300 of them in its home base of Finland.

500 Kone elevator workers to strike


Summary: Police say the wolf they shot dead on Tuesday posed a threat to the neighbourhood.

Late on Tuesday night police in the eastern city of Kuopio shot and killed a wolf that had been prowling in the area and behaving strangely.
 The wolf paced around an inhabited area north of Kuopio for a full day and did not fear the presence of humans, even letting passers-by approach it.
 Eastern Finland Police chief  Harri-Pekka Pohjolainen  said this behaviour is exceptional and constitutes justification for putting the animal down.
 "It wasn't wary or frightened like a wild animal. It let people within a few metres, and that isn't normal," Pohjolainen said.
 Carefree wolf posed danger
 People took to social media outlets such as Facebook to discuss the killing and some to criticise the police. Some comments have asked why the authorities could not wait for the wolf to leave the area on its own overnight.
 Pohjolainen said the wolf had almost 24 hours to leave the densely populated area, home to thousands of people. Police say the wolf could not be repulsed or tranquillised by any usual means.
 "We couldn't let a large predator stay in a place like that. We had no choice," Pohjalainen said.
 Police said they acted according to proper laws and guidelines; the wolf had made its way into an environment that was not in its territory or along any of its migration routes. The risk of being driven into conflict with humans was clear and present.
 "It could have become startled by something and attacked a bicyclist, say, which would have been extremely serious."
 The wolf was finally shot in the yard of a detached house, where it found its way by traipsing through domestic thoroughfares and streets.
 The wolf's carcass has been sent to the Finnish Food Safety Authority's facility in Oulu for autopsy.

Police: Kuopio wolf was shot because it did not fear humans


Summary: Finland's asylum system is still backed up with applications from previous years, says the interior ministry.

The Ministry of the Interior reported on Wednesday that Finland granted more work-based residence permits in 2018 than the year before.
 The ministry's  Migration Review  shows that nearly 7,700 people were granted residence in 2018 while in the previous year some 6,750 people were accepted.
 The data presents a steadily growing trend; in 2013 less than 5,000 work-based residence permits were issued.
 The ministry emphasised that in the previous government term, "several legislative amendments were introduced to make it easier for entrepreneurs and experts to move to Finland" to promote economic growth and employment.
 "The basic premise is that, in addition to the domestic workforce, Finland also needs employees from abroad. There is intense competition in the world for international talent," said  Jorma Vuorio , director general of the Migration Department of the Ministry of the Interior.
 The overall number of work-based residence applications received by the Interior Ministry grew to some 10,800 last year, a growth of more than 2,000 applications.
 Asylum system still backlogged
 The ministry report indicates that while work immigration is on the rise, the number of asylum applications saw a "major decline" last year.
 First-time asylum applications numbered some 2,400 in 2018, about 800 fewer than the previous year. There were more than 2,100 renewed or repeat applications.
 The Interior Ministry said that Finland's asylum system is still "overburdened" by some 10,700 unresolved applications, but that handling times for the applications at the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) continued to shrink.
 More than 41,000 applicants were granted their first Finnish residence permits last year. The figure includes family reunification cases, registering EU citizens, study permits and quota refugees. Just over 9,600 people received Finnish citizenship in 2018.

Work-based immigration up in Finland, asylum applications down


Summary: Hospitals in Finland seek to gain a heftier diagnostics presence in order to compete better with international rivals.

Helsingin ja Uudenmaan sairaanhoitopiiri

A wave of laboratory mergers is taking place in Finland, with the aim of cutting expenses. The Eksote social and health care joint municipal authority in South Karelia is negotiating a deal with the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) to sell off its laboratory and imaging operations.
 "It looks as though prices in these larger units are much more reasonable than in our own unit," Eksote's CEO  Pentti Itkonen  says.
 The negotiations have been coloured by the inclusion of two foreign-owned lab services companies in the bidding: the international provider Synlab Group and the Finnish-German firm Vita Laboratoriot. This marks the first known time that major international medical diagnostics companies have competed with a central hospital in Finland to buy laboratory divisions.
 Domestic offer improved after foreign bids
 Yle sources say that Eksote received a much better offer from HUS after the private companies were invited to submit tenders.
 The interest of international laboratory chains in gaining a foothold in Finland's market is one reason behind the recent redistribution. Public health providers are looking to create large enough entities to compete against the prices international companies may offer.
 "As a country of [just over] five million inhabitants, Finland is small in terms of laboratory automation. Even if all of Finland's laboratories were combined into one, it would be a small facility on the European scale," says  Timo Keistinen , a medical advisor to the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health.
 Splitting into eastern and western camps
 Two separate camps appear to be forming in Finland as a result of the mergers: the unification of larger lab facilities in Oulu, Tampere and Turku in the west, and HUS absorbing other smaller labs in the east.
 Fimlab CEO  Ari Miettinen  says the first exploration phase of a slated merge between Oulu's Nordlab, Tampere's Fimlab and Southwest Finland's hospital district has shown that synthesizing the three area' laboratory work would bring benefits.
 "Cost reductions will be used to improve the operations and use capacity better," he says, adding that a merger would also solve the problem of dwindling experts in the field.
 HUS has already absorbed the Carea labs in the south-eastern Kymenlaakso region and has submitted an offer for acquiring the Eksote operations. Negotiations are also underway with the Islab laboratory company in the eastern city of Kuopio.
 The Helsinki hospital unit had earlier lost two possible merger opportunities to Fimlab in the regions of Päijät-Häme and Central Finland.

University hospitals merge labs in search of savings


Summary: Finland's trade with other EU countries was much brisker than with the rest of the world.

March exports were stuck at the same level as a year earlier after a stronger start to the year.
 Finnish goods exports remained unchanged from a year earlier, as the electrical, metal and chemical sectors remained sluggish. However livelier exports in January and February led to overall year-on-year growth of six percent in the first quarter, the Finnish Customs said on Wednesday.
 The value of exports in March was just over 5.4 billion euros. Meanwhile imports slowed by three percent compared to March 2018. At over 5.5 billion euros, however they still slightly outweighed exports.
 Mercedes sales accelerate
 In the first three months of the year, imports dipped by two percent compared to the same period last year.
 Customs officials say that March showed declines in exports of electrical devices as well as chemical and metal products.
 On the plus side, there was growth in exports of industrial machinery, pulp, lumber goods and as well as instruments and measuring devices. Vehicle exports also expanded, mostly made up of Mercedes A-class and GLC-class cars built by Valmet Automotive in Uusikaupunki.
 Exports to EU swell while others dawdle
 The statistics show a growing divergence in Finnish trade with the other 27 EU countries compared with the rest of the world - which includes neighbouring Russia and Norway.
 Exports to both EU and non-EU countries stayed at the previous year's level in March. That month, imports from other EU states slipped by two percent while imports from non-EU countries dropped by five percent.
 Despite the March doldrums, overall first-quarter exports to the EU swelled by eight percent, but just by three percent elsewhere. Between January and March, imports from the EU edged up by one percent, while falling by six percent from the rest of the world.

Finnish exports freeze up


Summary: An Yle investigation has revealed several serious shortcomings in the private home care system for Finland's elderly.

Yle's investigative team MOT has uncovered incidents of neglect or inadequate care in the elderly home care's private sector, which in many cases compromised the safety of seniors who require help at home.
 Due to a lack of available nurses, visits to seniors' homes were sometimes not carried out. On some occasions clients did not receive their medications at all, and one incident showed that a client did not receive a required insulin dose on time.
 In some cases it was found that security guards had been helping seniors change their catheters, while in others taxi drivers had responded to SOS calls from seniors rather than nurses.
 According to the report, one home care firm had charged their clients and the municipality for services that weren't actually carried out.
 Specific cases
 One of the biggest home care firms in the country, Debora, has had their share of problems. Debora employees told MOT that working conditions at the firm jeopardised the safety of its elderly clients.
 The workers said that when there is not adequate time for caregivers to go to a client's home, documentation of the scheduled visit is often manipulated to make it look like an entire visit took place.
 The firm has offered its services in the southwest city of Turku since 2016. At the beginning of this year however, the company became unable to keep up with all of the care services it provided, according to the city's chief of open care services,  Anne Vuorinen .
 "For example [the company's workers] giving doses of insulin was sometimes delayed or even left undone. That's a very serious situation that endangers patient safety," Vuorinen said.
 Several former Debora employees told MOT that working for the company was chaotic, saying that delivery location and visit schemes were often changed and not taken into consideration during schedule planning which often led to delays. In some cases client breakfasts were handed out at lunchtime, according to the workers.
 The former employees said that several of their colleagues at the firm did not have the appropriate permission or expertise to carry out their jobs and that the company did not ask for education certificates when they were hired.
 The Regional State Administrative Agency began monitoring operations at Debora and then at the end of last year the city severed its contract with the firm. The company stopped its Turku operations in March.
 "Mistakes happened all the time"
 Sometimes scheduled home visits were never carried out at all. The ex-workers said when that happened the company would send seniors chocolates and flowers with the hope that the missed visits would go unnoticed.
 Each time those shortcomings were noticed by the city, the company was handed a fine.
 Vuorinen said she was surprised by the revelation that Debora had intentionally misled the city in its record-keeping regarding the duration of home visits.
 "Mistakes happened all the time. The supervisor did not care a whole lot about them and allowed staff to work on their own," one former Debora worker said.
 Debora CEO  Anna-Maria Mäkelä  acknowledged the workers' allegations of adjusting the records about the length of client visits but said the reasons behind them were due to poor managerial guidance and guidelines.
 She said, however that she did not think the former employees were lying.
 "I wouldn't say they're lying. I cannot say whether this is a misunderstanding or if this is the way one is instructed or not. I was not at the company at the time," she said.
 The city of Turku is now seeking compensation from the firm for the missed visits and work shifts, but Vuorinen said it's difficult to assess how much of the billed work had not actually been carried out.
 Similar stories in Lahti, Seinäjoki
 In the southern city of Lahti, a group of former Debora workers have taken the firm to court, with very similar complaints as the ones Turku. The basis of the lawsuit is that home care workers are required to call clients to ask for permission to skip a scheduled visit. But the ex-workers contest that the missed visits were marked as completed by the company.
 Debora's biggest competitor is the home care firm Stella Kotipalvelut, a company which has had its own share of problems with regulators. The Regional State Administrative Agency of southern Finland has audited the company several times.
 Stella's shortcomings include replacing care staff with security guards, according to the MOT report.
 In the western city of Seinäjoki, Stella was also found of using security guards in lieu of home care nurses. The guards reportedly changed the catheters and diapers of clients and physically lifted seniors with various types of ailments without knowing their health or medication histories. According to former Stella workers said security guards would also sometimes need to assess whether clients needed to be transported by ambulance or not.
 The ex-workers said the security guards were not equipped or trained in how to deal when clients fall down in their homes, for example. One former worker said the guards had "lifted clients back into bed and then said 'good night."
 They claim that this type of care was carried out by workers whose training in the field amounted to a first aid course.
 Some former Stella employees said they were frightened about possible repercussions for speaking to MOT, saying the firm had forbidden them from doing so.
 Stella Kotipalvelut's CEO,  Juhani Pälve , told MOT in an email that 97 percent of the firm's and its subcontractor's safety assistance work is carried out by individuals trained in the social and health care sector. He said the remainder of work is carried out by security guards who have been trained in first aid and lifting skills.

Report: Major shortcomings at leading senior home care firms


Summary: Dailies look at teacher expectations, young people turning from the church and one man stealing 47 sets of car tyres.

While the Finnish government begins to take shape, dailies turn to other issues of the day such as a new psychological service structure in basic education that is pushing teachers to their limits.
 Tampere region paper Aamulehti  wrote that the Finnish Association for Mental Health ( Mieli ) has developed a far-reaching programme called Lapset puheeksi ("Let's talk about children"), which seeks to bolster the mental health services children receive in daycare and in comprehensive education. The system involves verbal discussion and gauging the strengths and challenges faced by young people.
 Some municipalities have already instituted the service structure, but the Finnish Teachers' Association spoke out against the execution of the otherwise positive initiative.
 "There is widespread worry over the mental health of children, teenagers and families in Finland," the association's release is quoted in AL. "The child-centred method is a tangible possibility for supporting families, but it is imperative to consider whose should undertake the responsibility of producing this type of service."
 Teachers said that their work is already grueling, and that no new responsibilities should be instituted before the workload is first lightened in some other way. The Mieli programme has also been criticised as being overly bureaucratic and cut-and-dry, wrote AL, and the teachers' association indicated that social workers would be better candidates for the new outreach method.
 "If a teacher notices a child having trouble, they will involve themselves even without an unwieldy guidance protocol. The current system works because help is offered as it is needed, not based on artificial time limits or an outside system."
 Secularism leads to godparent shortage
 More and more young people are leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland or growing up non-religious, and it is affecting the traditional institution of godfathers and godmothers.
 Daily Helsingin Sanomat  wrote that new parents who want to christen their child via a Lutheran ritual also need to find two godparents for the infant; each godparent must also be a member of the church, which is posing problems in the religious community.
 The paper reported that the church's General Synod in its meeting over Tuesday and Wednesday discussed the possibility of bringing the minimum number of godparents down to just one. Currently single godparenthood requires special permission from a Lutheran pastor.
 "It's clear from the church's membership profile that this is a situation already, and will continue to affect young parents and parents-to-be in the future," said  Hanna Salomäki  from the Church Research Institute.
 Critics of the church's move to ease baptisms say that only a tiny percentage of people report a lack of godparents as the reason for ditching the ceremony, especially because the permission to have only a single godparent is very easy to obtain.
 "I get about one of these requests a month, and I always oblige," said Savonlinna pastor  Sammeli Juntunen  in HS. "It takes about 20 seconds to sign the paperwork."
 The smell of hot rubber
 Finally  tabloid Ilta-Sanomat  on Thursday reported that a Raisio man who stole the car tyres of 47 different people last year, snatched from a local rentable storage garage known as a "tyre hotel", has been remanded and fined for aggravated fraud. The sentence does not yet have the force of law and may be appealed.
 IS wrote that the 53-year-old man, who also rented a space from the facility, lost his temper when the operator of the garage changed the locks on the doors. The man proceeded to gather and sell the tyres "in a huff", claiming to later have repented and attempted to retrieve the stolen goods.
 The man sold the tyres for some 3,500 euros, or less than one tenth of their real value. The prosecutor held that the full value of the haul was around 50,000 euros.
 IS wrote that while insurance paid for the losses of some of the victims of the theft, many were also left without compensation.

Thursday's papers: Teachers' psychological workload, Lutheran godparent scarcity, slipshod tyre fraud


Summary: A survey of labour professionals gave the controversial employment scheme a 3.5 out of 10 rating.

The outgoing government's job-creation measure known as the "activation model" came under attack from 755 employment centre professionals this week after a survey found that 62 percent of expert respondents supported shutting down the scheme.
 Experts were surveyed alongside employment centre bosses. The proportion of executives who called for the shuttering of the activation model was lower, at less than half.
 The survey, commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, will be part of a final report being produced by the VATT Institute for Economic Research and the University of Turku.
 The main finding of the survey is that employment sector professionals do not see the activation model as an appropriate means for improving employment. The respondents' answers came to an average score of 3.5 on a 10-point scale.
 Requirements frustrate unemployed
 The model under scrutiny is the second iteration of the employment programme, initiated last summer. The initial " activation model " mandated jobseekers to undertake at least 18 hours of paid work in each 65-day monitoring period, or join an approved job-related training scheme, earn 241 euros as an entrepreneur – or face a 4.65 percent cut in benefit payments.
 Only one in 10 respondents said they believed the activation model enabled jobseekers to find work. Just four percent said the model helps employers connect with the type of workforce that fits their needs.
 In contrast, 84 percent said unemployed people consider the activation model frustrating because of the scarcity of appropriate work, training or services. Just over half said that fulfilling the requirements of the model – at least four job applications a month and a personalized employment plan – does not actually improve a jobseeker's chances of becoming employed.
 Social Democratic Party leader  Antti Rinne , who is steering efforts to form a new cabinet, has suggested that he  might seek to end the controversial programme  as part of the new government's agenda.

Most employment centre experts would ditch "activation model"


Summary: Centre Party demands may make it difficult for smaller parties to agree on a platform for Finland's next cabinet.

Talks aimed at forming a new Finnish government got underway in earnest on Thursday.
 Social Democratic Party leader  Antti Rinne , who is steering efforts to form a new cabinet, is chairing negotiations at Helsinki's nineteenth-century House of Estates.
 Story continues after photo.
 Antti Rinne Jouni Immonen / Yle
 On Wednesday he chose outgoing PM  Juha Sipilä 's Centre Party as the SDP's main partner in efforts to form a coalition – despite the Centre's disastrous result in last month's election.
 The SDP and Centre are the largest and fourth largest groups in the new Parliament, with 40 and 31 seats respectively.
 If the current talks succeed, they will be in a coalition with the fifth-place Greens (20 MPs), the Left Alliance (16 seats) and the Swedish People's Party (10 seats including the Åland representative). That would give the government a comfortable majority of 117 seats in the 200-seat chamber.
 Two right-of-centre parties, Finns Party (39 seats and second-largest party) National Coalition Party (38 seats and third-largest) would be in opposition, along with the Christian Democrats and Movement Now.
 Only four party chairs were taking part in Thursday's talks though. Acting PM Sipilä stopped by in the morning but then headed to Sibiu, Romania, where he represented Finland at an informal meeting of 27 EU national leaders – without Britain – on Europe Day.
 The ghost of sote reform
 Sipilä has led a caretaker government since announcing the  three-party cabinet's resignation  in March over the failure of the reform of social and healthcare and regional administration known as _ sote _. He is to step down from his post as Centre chair when a new leader is elected in September.
 One likely contender for that post, parliamentary group leader  Antti Kaikkonen , was among those replacing him at Thursday's Helsinki talks. So far all Centre MPs are taking part.
 Story continues after photo.
 Antti Kaikkonen Jouni Immonen / Yle
 The party decided to join the talks on Wednesday morning after a straw poll of party leaders around the country.
 "We haven't had much time to prepare for this, because just 24 hours ago we didn't know that we'd be here," Kaikkonen told Yle.
 Conflicts loom over Centre demands
 Kaikkonen stressed that the party still has 10 'threshold issues' that it aims to have included in the next government's programme as a condition for moving forward.
 They include demands that may be difficult for other potential partners to swallow, such as pushing ahead with a provincial administration overhaul that was  central to the failed sote reform , and an increase in logging. That would likely reduce the country's  carbon sinks , undermining the ambitious climate goals of the Greens and Left Alliance.
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 Party chairs Haavisto, Henriksson, Rinne, Andersson and Sipilä spoke to reporters before the latter left for an EU meeting. Vesa Moilanen / Lehtikuva
 The Centre and the Greens also have sharply differing proposals for reform of parental benefits, while the Left disagrees with the Centre's views on corporate taxes and subsidies. Meanwhile the SDP wants to change or rescind the so-called  activation model employment scheme , key legislation pushed through by the past Centre-led government.
 "Dark clouds on the horizon"
 As talks began on Wednesday afternoon, some 200 party officials heard from an array of experts on eight central themes such as the economy, climate and social and health care.
 On the economy, Rinne cited the latest Finance Ministry forecast.
 "The starting point is that there are dark clouds on the horizon, both globally and in the European economy, with Brexit, the Italian economy and even Germany's situation. These must of course be taken into consideration in economic policy," the SDP chair said.

Potential conflicts loom as government formation talks get underway


Summary: As Brexit plays out, Finns' desire for an EU departure or "Fixit" has reached an all-time low.

More people in Finland back EU membership than ever, according to a survey published by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (Eva) on Thursday, which is observed as Europe Day.
 The poll, carried out by Taloustutkimus, indicates that 56 percent of Finnish residents have a positive view of EU membership while only 13 percent see it negatively. The rest, nearly one in three respondents, are neutral on the issue.
 The business think-tank has gauged Finns' attitudes on the EU since 1988 – seven years before the country joined the Union. The positive rating in the latest survey was the highest ever, while the negative rating was the lowest ever. The current 56-13 ratio has only been approached once before, in 2012 when the ratio was 55-20.
 Finns Party, Christian Dems most eurosceptic
 Anti-EU feelings were at their highest – 35 percent – in 2000 and 2007, according to similar polls.
 As the UK's chaotic Brexit process plays out, Finnish respondents' desire for a "Fixit" or departure from the EU has hit a rock-bottom level of 14 percent.
 The biggest increase in EU popularity since the turn of the millennium has been among supporters of the Centre, SDP and Left Alliance parties, which are among those now seeking to form a new government coalition.
 There are only two parties where a majority of supporters take a negative view of the EU: the Finns Party and the Christian Democrats, both of which appear to be heading into the opposition for the next legislative term.
 Young adults pro-EU
 The highest levels of EU support is among backers of the conservative National Coalition Party, the Greens and the Swedish People's Party.
 Men tend to be more pro-EU than women, and support rises along with respondents' level of education and socio-economic status. Respondents aged 18-25 reported the highest level of EU positivity.
 The survey results are based on replies from just over 2,000 people aged 18-70 in January and February. Taloustutkimus estimates the margin of error at 2-3 percentage points.

Support for EU membership hits record high in Finland


Summary: The case was the first in a series of eight involving the same underage victim.

Oulu District Court has sentenced a man to four years in prison for the aggravated rape and aggravated sexual abuse of a child. He was also ordered to pay the victim 22,000 euros for pain, suffering and undermining her psychological situation.
 The female victim was 13 years old at the time of the crimes. They took place between April and September of last year in a private residence in the northern city of Oulu.
 The court says that there were "shortcomings in the victim's ability to act and understand", which the perpetrator should have realised. The perpetrator and the victim had met and kept in contact via Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
 According to the Finnish News Agency STT, the perpetrator is a 21-year-old who came from Afghanistan as an asylum seeker.
 Special prosecutor  Pia Mäenpää  said she is satisfied with the court's decision, while council for the defence,  Jaana Piipar  said both she and her client were disappointed with it, saying they plan to initiate appeal proceedings.
 Oulu eight
 The case is one of a  series of crimes  that came to light in Oulu at the end of last year. Altogether  eight men  are suspected of aggravated sexual abuse and violent assault of the same victim over the course of nearly five months.
 Police say all the suspects came to Finland as refugees or asylum seekers. Some have already been granted Finnish citizenship. Yle has learned that at least three of the men lived at the same reception centre.
 The cases are being handled separately. One other case has been passed on to the district court. The six others will probably go to trial this summer.

4-year prison sentence in Oulu child sexual abuse case


Summary: Voters in Finland can try Yle’s compass to help them find candidates who reflect their political ideals.

Yle has launched an  election compass  to help voters in Finland cast their ballots during  European Parliament elections  later this month.
 Finish citizens are not the only ones who will be queuing at polling stations to vote on 26 May. Eligible citizens of other EU countries resident in Finland - as well as employees of the EU and of international organisations - may also vote in Finland provided they have registered to vote here.
 Election compasses have proven to be highly popular in Finland.  A similar tool  launched ahead of Finnish parliamentary elections just over one month ago attracted more than one million users, with thousands returning to the service repeatedly.
 The European election promises to be as closely-watched as the national vote, with pundits keeping an eye on the fortunes of the nationalist Finns Party and the Left Alliance who both enhanced their presence in the regional parliament  after the 2014 vote .
 You can try the election compass to see  which candidates’ views align most with yours .

Yle's "election compass" launches ahead of EU Parliament vote


Summary: The railway project would cost an estimated three billion euros, and planned to be built along 10 different reindeer herding areas.

The man who helped to make Angry Birds a household name - and who's aiming to dig railway  tunnels beneath  the Gulf of Finland -  Peter Vesterbacka  is involved in another massive infrastructure undertaking: construction of the Arctic Railway.
 Vesterbacka, the former marketing chief of mobile gaming giant Rovio, signed a letter of intent on the design and implementation of the planned Arctic Railway with a Norwegian development company, in a deal worth an estimated three billion euros at the Arctic Business Forum in Rovaniemi on Thursday.
 Story continues after photo.
 File photo of map featuing planned route of the planned Arctic Railway in Finnish Lapland. Yle Uutisgrafiikka
 Vesterbacka said the rail project will be completed within five to ten years, and if completed would create a quick connection from Rovaniemi to the northeast coastal city of Kirkenes in Norway.
 "The Arctic Railway will feature trains that travel at a speed of 350km or faster," he said, saying that the trains will benefit tourists, noting that previous development plans for the long-discussed project have not taken  tourism  into consideration.
 "Freight transport is not the only thing here. If you compare it to the [planned] tunnel to Tallinn, then the proportion of freight is only 20 percent - the rest is passenger travel," Vesterbacka said.
 "Passenger traffic will play an important role in the Arctic Railway, particularly [considering] that direct flights from Asia will be landing in Rovaniemi," he said.
 Indigenous Sámi oppose the plans
 The Arctic Railway has received a good deal of criticism from the region's Sámi population, because it is planned to run across ten different reindeer herding areas.
 Vesterbacka said concerns raised by the Sámi can be ironed out through discussion.
 "We have already talked to the Sámi and there are many different available options. I am sure we can reach a solution through discussion," Vesterbacka said, noting that parts of the railway line could be dug underground or even above ground.
 However, chair of the Sámi Parliament,  Tiina Sanila-Aikio  said there have been no official talks or negotiations held regarding the plans with the Sámi Parliament.
 Story continues after photo.
 File photo of Sámi women amidst a herd of reindeer. Kaisa Siren / AOP
 Earlier this year a Finnish-Norwegian working group commissioned to investigate  the potential of building an Arctic Railway  found that the project  would not be commercially viable .
 After the working group's report was issued, Sanila-Aikio recommended to the Finnish government to ditch the plans.
 "The railroad would have such an impact on the Sámi culture that the Finnish state should look at other alternatives than to build on the Sámi's traditional land," Sanila-Aikio said.
 Greenpeace also opposed
 News of the railway's progress on Thursday did not impress environmental group Greenpeace Nordic either, according to its programme manager  Sini Harkki .
 She said Vesterbacka's involvement in the project does not mean it makes it any more economically viable, saying that conditions for building the railroad have not been met because the effort doesn't have consent from the Sámi population who live and make their livelihoods in the area.
 "The impact of the railway is not a matter of conversation or interpretation. The Sámi are an indigenous people whose right to their traditional livelihoods is secured by international agreements. The [railway] would split and fragment the lands that are important for reindeer herding, ruining the conditions for practicing reindeer herding according to the reindeer herding cooperatives" Harkki told Yle News via email.
 Story continues after photo.
 File photo of Tiina Sanila-Aikio, chair of the Sámi Parliament. Vesa Toppari / Yle
 Greenpeace pointed out that the "Sámi Council and the Sámi Parliament in Finland have explicitly rejected the project as detrimental to their culture and livelihoods."
 "Many laughed" at Tallinn tunnel plans
 Vesterbacka said that his planned Fin-Est undersea rail tunnel from Helsinki to Tallinn was initially met with ridicule.
 "Many laughed at the Tallinn tunnel three years ago when the plans were presented but now financing of it is beginning to be worked out, the environmental impact survey on it has begun and soon we'll start drilling," he said.
 Vesterbacka has said the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel project will be complete by the end of 2024. The estimated cost of that project, some 15 billion euros, is roughly five times more than the planned Arctic Railway effort.

Ex-Angry Birds marketing chief's involvement in Arctic Railway ruffles feathers in Lapland