Summary: The impact of cold temperatures and the prospect of even more snow were high on the news agenda of Monday's newspaper press in Finland.

The tabloid  Iltalehti  today reminds readers that even the ancient Finns knew how to complain about the weather. Instead of fancy graphics and complex explanations, they attributed the weather to the work of supernatural spirits. "Puhuri" was the spirit of biting winds, of the cold and of winter. Today, the paper says, we are seeing "Puhuri weather".
 The Finnish Meteorological Institute has issued four different warnings. There is an extreme cold warning for the whole of the country. Most coastal areas have frozen sea warnings. There are high wind warnings in the Gulf of Finland, and a warning of hazardous driving conditions in the west and south, as well as very hazardous condition in the southwest.
 Tuesday may see "chaos" on the roads, writes Iltalehti, as a snow storm is expected to sweep across most of the country on Monday night and Tuesday. By Wednesday, southern areas are forecast to have 10-20cm of new snow accumulation, with winds piling up deep snow drifts.
 The paper notes that the Meteorological Institute is reminding drivers to keep a safe assured distance in traffic and to use their fog lights. It might be a good idea to delay any non-essential road travel until the weather improves. If that's not possible, Iltalehti advises packing extra warm clothes, food and drink while travelling. Above all, it writes, reserve lots of time to get wherever you are going.
 What the kids want
 The Kuopio-based Savon Sanomat is among the papers today that carries  an item about a survey  that asked 13-15 year-old school children what they consider to be the most important social or political issues as Finland approaches elections to a new parliament.
 The poll, commissioned by the Finnish Newspapers Association, found that the biggest concern in this age group is climate and environmental protection. They say that this is what they hope that MPs and the government will focus on. They also want politicians to give more attention to developing schools and reducing social inequalities.
 The majority said that they would like to have a chance to influence these issues.
 The march of English
 The daily Helsingin Sanomat reports that researchers are surprised by how much the use of  English has become a part of the daily life  of Swedish-speaking teens in Finland.
 Quoting a study by the Magman think tank, the paper says that a quarter of teens whose mother tongue is Swedish use a significant amount of English regularly outside the home.
 Jenny Stenberg-Sirén , a researcher for Magman, told the Helsingin Sanomat that while there is regional variation, it was surprising that overall, Swedish-speaking teens use very little Finnish with friends, in their hobbies or at school. Online, the use of English is even more striking. Of the 800 teens interviewed, 47% said they primarily use English online, 40% Swedish and only 10% Finnish.
 "They live as Swedish speakers, even though there is lots of talk that Swedish-speaking Finns consistently speak Finnish, and that Swedish-language skills are on the decline," says Stenberg-Sirén.
 Asked whether or not many young Finnish and Swedish speakers use English together, rather than one of the national languages, Stenberg-Sirén point out that it probably depends a lot on where they live. "In the Helsinki region, people assume that Swedish-speakers also speak Finnish. But if someone does not speak it well, then what language do you choose to use?"
 The popularity of English among these teens may in part be explained by the feeling that one doesn't have to speak it as well as Finnish. It is "permissible" to pause or make mistakes. The same goes for Finnish-speakers who don't feel fully competent in Swedish. Using English, says Stenberg-Sirén, may be more relaxed on both sides.
 PM's aborted house offer
 In 2015, Centrist Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä  made headlines here, and abroad, with  an announcement that he would open his home  in Kempele, just outside of Oulu, to a family of refugees.
 The offer was later withdrawn, on the advice of security officials.
 Oulu's Kaleva is one of the dailies that picked up  fresh comments on the affair  made by Sipilä in an Yle radio broadcast on Sunday.
 Sipilä said that the intention was that a family which had suffered persecution in their home country would have moved into the house. He described them as Christians from a majority Islamic country who had been persecuted for helping western development aid workers. He did not state what country.
 Arrangements for the family to move into Sipilä's house were never completed, as security officials felt that they would have faced a dangerously high level of hostility.
 "We could not have imagined that the atmosphere would have become so bad that a family with children who found asylum here would have to fear for their lives," Sipilä told reporters. "Fortunately, that family is now safe elsewhere."
 At the time, Sipilä's decision to take asylum seekers into his home aroused harsh criticism from anti-immigration quarters which claimed that the move would boost the number of people seeking asylum in Finland. There were also protests held near his house and incidents of rocks and fireworks thrown at local refugee centres.
 Prime Minister Sipilä has rejected all criticism of his decision at the time. On Sunday, he condemned criminal actions by some asylum seekers, but stated that he stands for the defense of human dignity and basic rights.

Monday's papers: Weather warnings, youth concerns, the PM and refugees


Summary: A new report says that the next government will need to make radical changes to deal with issues crucial to the fate of the nation.

Finland should pursue a more ambitious climate policy and take steps to counteract the unfavorable decline in population, both developments that could destroy the nation's welfare society if left unaddressed, says a report compiled by 12 State Secretaries and Heads of Office at all of Finland's ministries.
 The main message of the Permanent Secretaries is that the next post-election government will have no time to lose in dealing with a number of pressing issues. In order to secure the nation's wellbeing, significant reforms in several fields are going to be needed during the 2020s.
 The proposals being put forth are both radical and concrete.
 Ambitious climate decisions
 Climate change is highlighted as the main threat, both at the national and global level. The message is that if people want to stop warming before it reaches unsustainable levels, society must fundamentally change.
 Finland's  current energy and climate strategies  are described as insufficient in the long term. Carbon sinks must be expanded and emissions must be reduced, especially traffic emissions, the report advises.
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 Toni Pitkänen / Yle
 This could lead to major changes for the energy and emission-intensive industries, significant restrictions on their operations, and new charges to finance a speedier transition to emission-free transport.
 Finland should also take faster steps towards a carbon-neutral economy where all kinds of raw materials are recycled as efficiently as possible, the top-level public servants say.
 Focus on urban and metropolitan policy
 Community planning, especially urban planning, is now being seen as an essential element of future government policy. Viable and functioning cities have a key role in counteracting climate change, according to the report.
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 Pekka Tynell / Yle
 Finland needs a set of urban and metropolitan policies aimed at strengthening urban areas as the driving forces for their respective regions. Migration to the cities is expected to continue, and more investment will be needed, among other things, in affordable housing, public services and emission-free public transport.
 The Helsinki metropolitan area, other major cities and smaller urban regions all require their own, individual development plans that meet their own needs. Finland currently has only a few urban regions that are sufficiently dynamic to attract foreign investment and new forms of business, the report outlines.
 Employment rate up to 80%
 The most radical proposals in the report focus on employment policy. As it is now, the number of pensioners in the country is growing, while fewer children are being born in Finland.
 If this trend continues, it will pose serious problems in the long run. Without enough taxpayers, the welfare society and the current pension system will collapse.
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 Tommi Parkkinen / Yle
 The employment rate in Finland is now around 72 percent, but by 2023 it should be 75 percent. To achieve that goal, 150,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of less than 5 percent are needed.
 In the longer term, the employment rate needs to be close to 80 percent, but this will require "measures that we cannot yet imagine", according to the report.
 Population development can be influenced by more family-friendly policies, but in addition,  Finland needs more immigration , according to this report. There is also a need for better integration and education programs for immigrants, especially women and young people.
 Education, research and development
 Many traditional jobs are disappearing at a growing pace.
 Ever-increasing digitisation, the proliferation of robots, and use of artificial intelligence in both business and other sectors are placing new demands on virtually all workers, companies and institutions in Finland.
 The answer to that challenge is to be found in education and lifelong learning, new forms of study and support for education, as well as digitised learning materials available to everyone.
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 Yle
 The public and private sector should jointly to put more money in research and development to bring R&D investment up to four percent of GDP.
 Last but not least, the next government should launch a comprehensive reform of social security which would make it possible for Finns of all ages to work and study in parallel as needed, the report urges.

Climate change, birth rate top priorities for next govt, say senior civil servants


Summary: Sisu is the fifth icebreaker Finland has deployed this season. She was sent out on Sunday, some two weeks earlier than last year.

Months of bone-chilling temperatures have turned much of the Bay of Bothnia into thick slabs of ice. Finnish icebreaker  Sisu  is now headed toward the region, and according to the ship's chief officer  Patrik Barck , it seems like there will be a lot of ice to deal with this winter.
 Sisu is the fifth icebreaker sent out so far this season, which is early compared to last year, when the fifth icebreaker was deployed some two weeks later on 10 February.
 In 2017, ice levels on most of Finland's seas were  very low , as well.
 Yle caught up with Barck as he and the large icebreaker assisted a cargo ship navigate through the icy waters of Inkoo on the south coast on Sunday.
 "The ice arrived early this year. We're about two weeks ahead of schedule," Barck said.
 Sisu is headed north to the Bay of Bothnia where the ice is increasingly building up.
 On Monday evening, the beige and black icebreaker is scheduled to begin assisting vessels to port and carving out paths in frozen waters off the coasts of Jakobstad (Finnish name  Pietarsaari ) and Kokkola.
 Entire bay likely to freeze over
 "The ice is increasing all the time and we expect that all of the Bay will be covered in ice this year," he said.
 At the moment, however, the situation is fairly calm. Usually there's more ice on the Finnish side of the Bay, but this winter winds from the east have led to increased accumulation of ice on the Swedish side.
 Story continues after photo.
 File photo of icebreaker Fennica at work.  Arctia
 Wind poses the biggest challenge to icebreakers like Sisu. On the Finnish side of the Bothnian Bay the thickness of the ice rarely grows more than a meter deep, but if it's very windy, the ice can build up significantly.
 "Those ice walls can grow to be 10 metres or up to 20 metres of thick ice. That [kind of situation] always causes problems to assist boats," Barck said.
 In ideal weather conditions around seven or eight ships can be escorted through the freezing waters by icebreakers, but Barck said that winter storms have become increasingly common in recent years.
 "That means more work for us. The ships are unable to move [in poor conditions] using their own engines, so we have to tow them through the ice walls," he said.
 The next land call Sisu is scheduled to make is in about a week, on 4 February, in order to change crew and load up supplies. But it will be a good while before the icebreaker returns to its home harbour in Helsinki.
 "I reckon we'll head back south after 1 May. Normally the first icebreakers head north in November and December and the last ones return in May or June," Barck said.

Cold winter brings out icebreakers ahead of schedule


Summary: Banks such as Nordea and Danske have been ravaged by a number of recent money laundering scandals.

Some 9,000 cases of suspected money laundering were referred to police investigators last year – nearly double the 5,000 reports filed in 2017, according to Finance Finland, FFI, the lobby group representing the banking and insurance sector.
 The organisation said that the number of cases referred for investigation rises to nearly 40,000 if reports made by other non-banking institutions are factored in. However the total number of reports filed overall declined from 2017, FFI noted.
 According to the organisation’s calculations, the total amount of funds that authorities seized in Finland in attempted money laundering cases amounted to 2.3 billion euros, while funds confiscated abroad totalled one billion.
 FFI said that the current notification procedure for suspected money laundering proved to be too slow for some of the cases referred to law enforcement. For example, by the time a bank’s surveillance systems flag unusual cash transfers, the funds have already been transferred abroad and withdrawn from an ATM.
 FFI called for measures that would allow banks to act faster to prevent the suspicious transfer of funds. One method it proposed is increased information exchange among financial institutions.
 In recent times, banks have been ravaged by a slew of  money laundering suspicions  that have undermined confidence in the institutions.
 Bank secrecy a hindrance to anti-money laundering actions
 "We currently have legislative limits on how banks can share information about suspicious business activity," said FFI head  Piia-Noora Kauppi .
 Banks have talked about information-sharing before, but the issue has previously stumbled over data privacy concerns.
 At the same time, banks are under pressure to demonstrate that they are acting to curb money laundering and they also need to show results.
 Achieving these goals means having a secure chain of operations, starting with the customer.
 "This type of crime must be prevented at the outer edges of the system. By that I mean that if a criminal player gets access to even one of the banks in the EU’s internal market, it creates a greater risk that it will be able to continue operating from there," Kauppi added.
 The NBI has been positive about the suggestions proposed by the finance sector organisation.
 Flagging bank account fraud
 "We think all of these methods are useful, from a duty to report so that officials can quickly find the people behind suspicious transactions and then identifying others who may have illegally received funds," said  Pekka Vasara , head of the anti-money laundering unit.
 Vasara added that a more rapid exchange of information could also prevent other offences, such as fraud. For example, changing the account number on an invoice might not work out if the system were to flag when an invoice asks someone to pay into an account that is not the recipient’s.
 "If we were able to see who is posing as the recipient of the money, we would be better able to prevent these cases. At the same time, in cases where people quickly set up accounts for online fraud and the money is rapidly transferred onwards, then information-sharing among banks would be another effective tool," Vasara remarked.

Banks push for more info-sharing over rise in money laundering reports


Summary: A joke meant for a small group slipped into the public domain.

Police are calling on school children and young adults to remember that they should be mindful of creating threatening messages, even if in jest, noting that they sometimes result in major police operations.
 The warning came after officers spent some time looking into a reported threat at a school in Vantaa, but which later turned out to be a joke that got out of hand.
 "It’s better to refrain from making this kind of joke, even among a small group, because they have a way of taking off," said Detective Chief Inspector  Kimmo Kostiainen  of the Itä-Uusimaa police department.
 Police were deployed to supervise the start of the day at the Kilter comprehensive school in Vantaa on Monday morning, after being alerted to a possible attack at the institution.
 “Police received information about a message circulating that included an image of a weapon and some threatening text referring to the school in question,” Kostiainen noted.
 Police and school authorities were said to be looking into the issue with the assistance of one of the authors of the message earlier on Monday.
 "Based on initial reports, the message was a joke that was not meant for the public."
 However law enforcement officials patrolled the school compound, partially to create a sense of security.
 "There was no concrete threat," Kostiainen stressed.
 School principal  Ulla Tolonen  said that school continued as normal after the police operation.

Police warn against pranks after major operation at Vantaa school


Summary: Some 5,000 young people applied to the Youth Housing Association for homes in Helsinki last year, but the NGO said it only owns 1,500 flats in the capital.

Although Finland h as outperformed its European Union neighbours  in reducing homelessness, the number of young people with no fixed abode continues to rise in the Helsinki region, NGOs say.
 NGO No Fixed Abode said recently that youth homelessness in Helsinki has been rising over the past five years. Organisation head  Jussi Lehtonen  said that one reason for the trend is that more people are relocating from the rest of the country as well as further afield in Europe to settle in Helsinki.
 "People are moving around all the time and people are coming from other parts of Finland, they are not from Helsinki. They easily end up on the streets although they should register as Helsinki residents," Lehtonen added.
 Registering as a local resident is key to getting off the streets and into a residence. The Hietaniemi service centre will only accommodate Helsinki residents. On top of that, one emergency accommodation is only open to non-EU residents, while another serves itinerants from Europe.
 Housing crunch a factor
 Ville Savilampi  of the Finnish Youth Housing Association NAL, told Yle News that as of December last year, the organisation had received some 5,000 applications from young people seeking housing in the capital region.
 By contrast, the organisation said that it owns 1,500 flats in Helsinki and environs that it can offer to applicants. He said that the problem of youth homelessness in the capital area won’t improve in the years ahead until government and municipalities address the ongoing housing shortage.
 "It’s caused by the price level of rental flats and the high demand for homes. Plus large numbers of young people have low incomes and that means it’s almost impossible to find affordable homes," Savilampi added.
 Meanwhile Lehtonen said that under the current circumstances, people can end up shifting for themselves in freezing weather, as emergency accommodation is usually filled to capacity. He noted that people often spend longer than they should in emergency housing before being moved on to service homes, given the shortage of the latter. Furthermore, getting placed in one of the NGO's studio apartments requires people with drug and alcohol problems to dry out sufficiently.
 The organisation's head said that in 2017 there were 800 homeless people under the age of 25 in Helsinki. He speculated that one reason for the trend could be changes to the education system that may be causing people to fall through the cracks at a younger age.
 Time to eradicate homelessness
 Finland’s push to tackle the homeless problem saw the production of new housing accelerate during the country’s 1990s recession. In spite of the trying economic times, officials managed to make inroads into the problem.  Jukka Kaakinen  of the "Homes First" (Asunto ensin) organisation said that the future of the programme will depend to a large extent on how many affordable rental homes the state-funded Housing Finance and Development Centre ARA will be able to construct.
 Last spring the government decided that it would halve the number of homeless people in four years. Kaakinen said he hopes that the next administration that takes office will aim higher.
 "Since we have reduced homelessness so much, why not then entirely eradicate this societal problem?"
 He added that he hoped that Finland will become the first country in the world – or at least in Europe – with no homeless people.

NGOs: Youth homelessness on the rise in Helsinki


Summary: The man convicted of carrying out a deadly terror attack in 2017 has dropped his right to appeal the life sentence he received last summer.

Abderrahman Bouanane , the Moroccan sentenced to life in prison for Finland's first legally-defined terror attack, withdrew his appeal at Southwest Finland District Court on Monday.
 In June of last year, Bouanane was found  guilty of two counts of murder with terrorist intent  and eight counts of attempted murder with terrorist intent after carrying out a knife attack in August 2017.
 He received a life sentence for the crimes which he will continue to serve, now that he waived his right to appeal. In Finland, life sentences typically last between 12 and 15 years.
 Bouanane's defence team had already submitted an appeal for the sentence which the court began processing about two weeks ago.
 His lawyer,  Kaarle Gummerus , said he withdrew the appeal because his client didn't want to deal with the matter any longer.
 He said the appeal was originally based on Bouanane's disagreement with the court's finding that he carried out the knife attack with terrorist intent. The court ruled that, because he had become radicalised, part of the intent of the attack was to cause widespread terror.
 Bouanane did not wish to make a statement to the media on Monday.

Turku stabber drops appeal - will serve out life sentence


Summary: Heavy snowfall and poor quality care at some of the nation's nursing homes are among the items in Tuesday's Finnish newspaper press

Despite dire predictions of impending traffic "chaos" on Tuesday, the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reports that at least in Helsinki emergency services had a quiet night with not even any reports on cars skidding off the roads.
 Even so, Ilta-Sanomat notes that driving conditions for most of the country on Tuesday are hazardous, and the Finnish Meteorological Institute is forecasting that conditions will become extremely hazardous in southern and southwestern regions as the day progresses, due to more snowfall, winds and rising temperatures.
 Warnings of extremely hazardous road conditions are in effect for the regions of Uusimaa, Kanta-Häme, Päijät-Häme, Kymenlaakso, South Karjala and South Savo. Hazardous condition warnings extend all the way up to central Lapland.
 More snow is expected along the south coast on Tuesday afternoon and in eastern areas overnight.
 Elderly care under scrutiny
 Care services for the elderly have come under intense scrutiny by the media in recent days after widespread problems resurfaced at  facilities operated by the company Esperi Care . Several municipalities have stopped sending senior citizens to nursing homes run by the company.
 Reporters are now turning up deficiencies in the quality of services provided by other companies, as well.
 An article in Tuesday's daily Helsingin Sanomat says that the  ownership of companies in the 2.6 billion euro elderly care services market  has become increasingly concentrated in recent years.
 The paper points out that elderly care is a growth market, but probably not as much as was once imagined. According to the figures it presents, around 70,000 Finns live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Most of them are elderly, but the figure also includes some people with psychological and developmental disabilities.
 Of the total number of residents, some 50,000 require round-the-clock care. Once upon a time that meant nursing home or hospital care, but most today are in assisted living facilities.
 Helsingin Sanomat asks if the elderly care business is really as profitable as investors have believed.
 As part of the answer, it points out that while the total number of elderly is constantly growing, those living in full service round-the-clock care facilities has remained steady over the past few years. Most of the elderly are remaining healthier, for longer, and get by without expensive services. In addition, it is a matter of policy to care for people in their own homes for as long as possible.
 Further exacerbating the problem is the fact that public authorities charged with overseeing the quality of care provided to the elderly are understaffed and underfinanced.
 In a  syndicated Uutissuomalainen article  carried by Kuopio's Savon Sanomat, Director General  Markus Henriksson  of the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health, Valvira, said that the watchdog has only some 10 officials responsible for overseeing these types of social services. He added that the resources available to Valvira and regional state administrative agencies are significantly smaller that in the other Nordic countries.
 On the other hand, Henriksson does not believe that the problem of deficiencies in the quality of care for the elderly can be solved solely by increasing supervision by the authorities. Instead, he called for more self-regulation by companies in the sector. The job of the authorities, he stated, is to ensure self-regulation works and to get involved if it doesn't.
 Neighbourly visit
 Turun Sanomat reports on  a visit to Finland  by newly sworn-in Swedish Prime Minister  Stefan Löfven .
 On Monday Löfven met with President  Sauli Niinistö  for talks that focused on defense cooperation between Finland and Sweden, as well as defense cooperation on the EU level. The security situation in the Baltic region and cooperation in the Arctic were also on the agenda.
 Today, Tuesday, Löfven is scheduled to meet with his Finnish counterpart  Juha Sipilä . Those talks are expected to touch upon a wide range of issues including bilateral relations, Brexit, climate issues and defense.
 The Nordic countries are planning closer cooperation to battle climate change. A gathering on the topic of Nordic prime ministers and environmental ministers took place in Helsinki last Friday. Löfven was represented then by his deputy,  Isabella Lövin .
 Mint condition
 According to economic and business daily Kauppalehti, Finland is in the odd situation of being  unable to produce any euro coins  at the moment.
 It notes that the national Mint of Finland has announced on its website that its contract with the Ministry of Finance to produce coins expired at the end of 2018.
 An official at the Ministry confirmed to Kauppalehti that this is the first time that the State of Finland has found itself in this kind of situation. Because of a delay in putting out an EU-wide invitation to tender for the contract, Finland is currently unable to have one and two euro coins minted.
 In recent years, the Mint of Finland has produced several million euro coins annually.
 The official calmed any concerns, saying that there is a sufficient supply of cash and the bidding process for the minting of new coins will wrap up by the 11th of next month.

Tuesday's papers: Snowy roads, elderly care scrutiny, visiting Swedish PM


Summary: As Britain’s politicians squabble over how to leave the European Union, some 20,000 Finns in the country are wondering how—and whether—to stay.

Kansainväliset organisaatiot ja sopimukset

Britain’s decision to leave the EU is causing upheaval for people across the UK, especially the roughly three million EU citizens currently living there.
 Roughly 20,000 of them are Finnish, and they are dealing with a different atmosphere to the one many of them initially experienced when they relocated.
 “It has been interesting to follow on social media when some people seem to be your friends and they are saying things about European nationals,” says  Janita Maaranen , an entrepreneur in the northern city of Sheffield. “You have known them many years, and then they say things about European nationals, when actually I am one of the European nationals: is this what you really think about me as well?”
 Maaranen has three main strands to her livelihood. She’s a running coach, she operates a language services company and she bakes and sells Finnish specialities like rye bread, Karelian pies and cinnamon buns.
 The baking business, run under the ‘Cafe Nort’ banner, has gained both Finnish and British customers, and Maaranen has thought about opening a cafe. All her income streams are under pressure, however, as the threat of a ‘no-deal Brexit’--in which Britain would crash out of the EU without an agreement—looms ever larger.
 Story continues after photo
 Janita Maaranen Janita Maaranen
 Maaranen craves certainty above all, even if that means a hard Brexit and bigger trading barriers.
 “It would be easier to have an outcome! Then you can deal with it, you can plan. The more delays there are, the more uncertainty. That’s terrible for a business.”
 Leena Inkinen-Lee  moved to Sheffield from Lahti in the mid-1970s, and has raised her family in the steel city. She also weaves traditional Finnish rugs on her loom, and even once sold one of them to the Swedish film star Ingrid Bergman.
 When she first arrived the steel industry was a a big, dirty presence in the east of the city and Inkinen-Lee found the smog and dirt a little tough. Now she says she loves the city and cannot imagine leaving—but was still shocked at the 2016 referendum result.
 “I don’t really know anybody who is a leave voter,” says Inkinen-Lee. “All my friends are for remain. Neighbours are remain, English, Spanish, German, all for remain. I’ll show you how strongly I felt: For the first time ever I had something in my window.”
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 Leena Inkinen-Lee didn't have a vote in the 2016 referendum, but she displayed a campaign poster in her window.
 Neveen Mansour  is a much more recent arrival. She came to Sheffield in October 2016 on a three-year neuroscience studentship and works at the Centre for Cognition in Small Brains at the University of Sheffield. When the June 2016 referendum took place she was living in Oulu, but still took the plunge and moved to the UK.
 “I was a bit concerned but I contacted my professor and he said to just come anyway,” said Mansour, who adds she thought it ‘unlikely’ that the UK would throw her out halfway through her PhD.
 Two and a half years later, she has no regrets and enjoys living in the city.
 “When I came here and I saw the Peak District, I thought this was going to be a nice city, and it’s also quite a green city,” said Mansour. “People are really nice, you might be walking in the morning and people smile at you and say good morning to you and I enjoy that. You don’t have that in Finland.”
 Like Maaranen and Inkinen-Lee, Mansour spends much of her time in the affluent west of the city, the prosperous wedge that runs from the city centre to the Peak District national park. She has met and mixed with older leave voters, however, and says they didn’t share her worries about what will happen when Britain leaves.
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 Neveen Mansour moved to Sheffield in 2016.
 “Sometimes when you have to talk to them about what will really happen when Britain leaves, I feel like there’s not a common way of understanding,” says Mansour.
 That divide between the well-heeled south-west and poorer north-east is a crucial part of Sheffield’s Brexit story. The city voted narrowly to leave the EU, by 52 percent to 48, mirroring the national result.
 Professor  Charles Pattie  of the University of Sheffield says that the result was driven by anger as much as anything else.
 “One of the things that really annoys me about the way the referendum has been covered is the knee-jerk assumption that people who voted leave are stupid,” says Pattie. “They weren’t. They were angry, and they had a reason to be angry. They’d been let down for years by government and here they had a chance to say well let’s kick back against that. So they kicked back. What did we expect? That anger is the thing, and it’s got real causes.”
 Sheffield’s economy collapsed  nearly as quickly as that of Greece after 2008 , but national political debate in that period mostly focused on economic success. That disconnect was key to the 2016 referendum, according to Pattie, and it’s a divide that’s also played out within cities like Sheffield.
 “We’ve seen a lot of libraries closed in Sheffield, a lot of libraries still open but run by volunteers,” says Pattie. “Money is getting tighter every year, there are concerns about the council being able to provide social services. It’s not just the council, it’s also the welfare system and the health system and there’s growing anxiety about that. There’s anxiety about the extent to which things that were previously seen as core and essential, like libraries, suddenly aren’t.”
 Unsettled status
 Jonna Nylander-Hallott  moved to the north-east of Sheffield in 2015 and now works as a designer at a packaging firm. Her current home is in Chapeltown, a suburb on the outskirts of the city that has been hit hard by the decline of traditional industries, but she doesn’t recognise the picture of horrendous poverty despite deep cuts in public spending.
 “I think this whole country has always been a bit divided,” says Nylander-Hallott. “It’s like, you have the Tories and Labour, rich versus poor, the working class versus the more white collar workers. I don’t know if it’s anything new.”
 “I took [Brexit] a bit personally at first, but now I just feel a bit sad. It’s not necessarily me, it’s the next generation. Like my husband’s students, they won’t have the chances to go abroad, like I did in the Erasmus exchange. They won’t have those easy ways to go abroad and I just feel a bit sad for the kids.”
 "Huge concerns remain"
 Wherever they live in the city, Sheffield’s Finns are now pondering their next moves. The UK Home Office says that EU citizens must register for ‘settled’ or ‘pre-settled’ status via an Android app. Last week the government waived a planned £65 fee for the process but those affected remain critical of the system. It provides nothing like the sense of certainty Finland's government  has offered  Brits  in Finland , for instance.
 “They have removed one of the lesser hurdles and waived the £65 fee - but huge concerns remain,” said  Maike Bohn  of the3million, a campaign group advocating for the rights of EU citizens in the UK. “EU citizens are being forced to apply for rights that they thought they already had - with potentially disastrous consequences for those people who, through no fault of their own, fail to get the new status.”
 Bohn raises questions about the reliability of Home Office checks, data protection issues around personal data that authorities can pass on to third parties, and basic functionality around the Android-only app.
 The Labour MP for Sheffield Central,  Paul Blomfield , who is also a Shadow Minister for Exiting the EU, said by email that he has listened to EU citizens’ concerns.
 “Finland is one of over 120 countries from which people have come to Sheffield and Finns who have made their home here or come to study at one of our universities have enriched our city enormously. As a Shadow Minister for Brexit with responsibility for the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU, I am acutely aware of the concern many EU nationals are feeling about their futures.”
 Yle asked Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay to comment on his government’s performance on citizens’ rights.
 Janita Maaranen says the information required for her case is quite extensive as she looks to safeguard her two children's rights.
 “Who can go back to 2001?” says Janita Maaranen, who moved to the UK 17 years ago. “You didn’t think that you needed anything. I had the same mobile number since 2001, and I have been a member of the gym, so we are using those when we apply.”
 Story continues after photo
 Almond and cinammon buns made by Cafe Nort in Sheffield.
 Leena Inkinen-Lee says she’s waiting to see how things pan out.
 “I’ll wait until the curtain comes down properly,” says the mother of three. “I have to apply for the settled status I suppose. We won’t all be put into a big pit, hopefully!”
 Mansour, a neuroscientist with most of her career ahead of her, says she’d like to stay in Sheffield.
 “It feels weird when some people here have started to apply for citizenship. The atmosphere is very uncertain, some people are doing things even though everybody is saying that things are going to be fine but at the same time you see a different environment around you. Things are happening and changing, but you don’t know about them.”
 “People in my office, students, say it’s not a nice place to be. It’s not nice to not know what’s going to happen. If the situation in the UK gets really bad, or gets worse, then I would think about leaving. I would say that if Brexit takes place, people from abroad, even the highly educated academic people, will leave the UK. And I would say that’s a huge loss.”
 The most recent arrival interviewed for this story, Mansour has followed the debate closely. Aged 25, her views align with those of Britons of the same age: she’d like to see Britain remain in the EU and she thinks there should be a second referendum on Brexit.
 “People change their minds, and I would say that now, when there has been a lot of news about what will happen after Brexit, what will happen if Britain really leaves, and I feel like people have woken up to that,” says Mansour.
 Maaranen says she enjoys her life in Sheffield, citing the diverse cultural life of the city and the friendly, small-town feel, but adds that she wouldn’t mind moving to Finland either.
 “My family would move to Finland at any moment, if I said there’s an opportunity to move to Finland next month, they would be happy,” says the part-time baker. “It’s not so straightforward though, you have to make sure we have a means of supporting ourselves.”
 It may be that Sheffield risks losing its unique Finnish bakery--and much more besides--before it really understands what’s happening.

UK Finns brace for Brexit: “I feel a bit sad for the kids”


Summary: Fewer than 50,000 children were born in Finland in 2018, bringing the national fertility rate to an all-time low.

According to preliminary data from Statistics Finland, 47,307 births were recording in the country last year, a good 3,000 fewer than in 2017. This was the eighth year in a row that the number of babies born in Finland fell.
 Finland's total population stood at 5,521,773 at the end of last year.
 During 2018 the population increased by 8,643 persons, which is 2,780 less than in 2017. The reason for the population increase was migration gain from abroad. The number of immigrants was 15,631 higher than that of emigrants.
 According to preliminary data by region, the population grew last year only in Uusimaa, Pirkanmaa, Varsinais-Suomi, North Ostrobothnia and Åland.
 The national fertility rate, at 1.40, was the lowest ever recorded and marked a decline from 1.50 in 2017.
 A report by top civil servants published on Monday named the declining birth rate as  one of the most urgent issues  that the next post-election government will have to deal with.

Decline in Finland's birth rate continues


Summary: Revelations about widespread neglect and lack of staff by two large nursing home operators in Finland continue to surface.

The managing director of Esperi Care nursing home,  Marja Aarnio-Isohanni , has stepped down, according to a press release issued by the company.
 Her resignation is just the latest turn in  recent media reports of ongoing difficulties  that have plagued private nursing homes in Finland and come to light this week.
 On Friday, Valvira, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health, announced that it would suspend operations at Esperi's nursing home in Kristinestad, western Finland when an elderly resident’s death was suspected to be caused by negligence.
 According to an Yle investigation, officials have in recent years been repeatedly looking into problems at Esperi Care nursing homes around Finland.
 In 14 cities and 16 nursing homes, the Regional State Administrative Authorities (Avi) has demanded that Esperi remedy serious shortcomings in its operations.
 For example, Avi gave Esperi a warning at the end of last year about the Paatela nursing home in central Finland and workers lack of qualifications, which resulted in a 70,000 euro fine.
 Almost all of Esperi’s nursing homes where authorities have intervened have had too few workers. There have also been problems reported about medication handling and storage, human resources and a lack of staff qualified to handle medications.
 Esperi has, according to its website, about 130 nursing homes around Finland. Its turnover for 2018 was 270 million euros.
 Esperi not alone
 Meanwhile, Yle has also been looking into another chain of nursing homes, the health care giant Attendo, where reports have surfaced of elderly patients being underfed, rarely taken outdoors, and sleeping in dirty diapers.
 The problems appear to stem from a lack of healthcare personnel.
 Avi uncovered grievances around the country. Between 2016 and 2018, there were 16 instances were Avi demanded that Attendo nursing homes correct problems.
 Attendo’s operations have been under the magnifying glass, especially in Espoo, where the city fined the company several times for recurring breaches of contract since 2015.
 Though the City of Espoo uses several private healthcare providers, it has had to scale back use of three of Attendo’s nursing homes: Harmaaniitty in 2018, Mikevan Helmi (now Attendo Helmi) in 2017 and Laaksolahti in 2016.
 According to information received by Yle, the Laaksolahti and Harmaaniitty cases relate to a shortage of workers. In the case of Mikevan Helmi, the reason was customer feedback, poor hygiene and problems regarding medication.
 In the end, the city terminated its agreement with Mikevan Helmi in November 2017, when it was unable to resolve the outstanding issues.
 Problems were also reportedly discovered by Avi and the city at Attendo’s Vuoripirtti and Olarinpuisto homes, and some issues have been ongoing at Attendo’s Laaksolahti nursing home.
 According to the city and Avi, inspection and supervision documents tell their own tale of Attendo Laaksolahti’s problems. There have been 17 seniors whose body mass index has been so low that their risk of premature death has increased according to Avi. (There are currently 65 care places at Attendo Laaksolahti.)
 Personnel shortages at Laaksolahti have been repeatedly been ignored. Espoo has fined Attendo twice because of it – for a total of 55,000 euros.
 Prescription drugs without a prescription
 In 2018 Avi ordered Laaksolahti to remove unlawful medicine cabinets. The cabinets had been used to store leftover, opioid prescription drugs.
 According to Avi, the drugs were to be destroyed as medical waste, but they were instead handed out to the nursing home's other patients without doctor’s orders. Avi says the situation jeopardised patient safety.
 Attendo and Espoo are currently having a more peaceful time according to  Matti Lyytikäinen , director of elderly services for the city of Espoo, there are currently no "non-normal control measures underway."
 However, in Laaksolahti there are still problems.
 In 2018, city documents reveal that the nursing home was still receiving a lot of negative customer feedback. This ranged from a lack of interesting activities to complaints about the flow of information. A scarcity of auxiliary personnel has been reported as well as a shortage of trained and qualified personnel. In addition, the city has expressed concerns about the lack of up-to-date medical certificates for staff.
 Attendo is  the largest company in the Finnish care market . It has about 250 nursing homes.
 In 2017, the company's net sales of care services amounted to approximately EUR 300 million.

Embattled CEO of elder care home quits over negligence reports


Summary: For the second year in a row, Finland ranked just behind Denmark and New Zealand in Transparency International's latest index.

The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, using a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
 In the 2018 ranking, Denmark placed first with a score of 88/100, followed by New Zealand (87/100), and Finland (85/100). Finland's score was matched by Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland.
 No perfect scores
 While no country gets full marks on the index, Transparency International says that top performing countries have several democratic attributes in common that contribute to their high scores. Those mentioned include strong institutions, rule of law and high levels of economic development.
 As a measure of public sector corruption, the index gives higher rankings to countries where rates of bribery, diversion of public funds, conflicts of interest and other forms of corruption are perceived to be lowest within government. Yet, as Transparency International notes, that doesn’t mean that these countries are corruption-free.
 As an example, part of this year's review of results notes that the 50.1% state-owned Finnish defence company Patria has been embroiled in corruption scandals in Slovenia and Croatia.
 In 2017, Finland  slipped from second place in the ranking  to third due to several corruption cases and scandals. Among those were the conviction of a high-ranking Helsinki narcotics cop on bribery, corruption and drug crimes as well as corruption cases involving Nokian Tyres, defence company Patria and several asphalt firms. In politics later that year, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä was  cleared of wrongdoing in two cases  where he was suspected of favouring companies owned by his family members.

Finland holds at third in least corrupt countries ranking


Summary: Darude is best known for the trance instrumental hit "Sandstorm" which was released 20 years ago and is still being played around the world.

Darude , whose real name is Ville Virtanen, 43, has been chosen by Yle to represent Finland in May in Tel Aviv Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest.
 "This is a huge challenge for me in many ways, when I was asked to represent Finland I felt a bit scared at first, but there was no way I could say 'no' to my country," says Darude.
 Based in Finland, Darude is best known for the trance instrumental hit " Sandstorm " which was released 20 years ago and is still being played around the world.
 Before leaving for Tel Aviv, Darude will play three pieces in a live Yle TV broadcast on 2 March. The winning Darude track that represents Finland in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest will be decided by a combination of public vote and an international jury’s points via live stream and TV broadcast.
 The three pieces will be released by Yle on three Fridays in a row: 8, 15, and 22 February.
 Record producer and DJ Darude will perform the tracks with featured vocalist  Sebastian Rejman , from the band  The Giant Leap.
 Darude plays about 70 gigs around the world each year. He’s also released four studio albums, including " Moments ," which came out in 2015.

Darude to represent Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest


Summary: Posti said it needs to save 150-200 million euros in the next few years.

Finland’s state-owned postal service Posti announced on Tuesday it will start co-operation negotiations which could result in up to 236 redundancies.
 Posti said it needs to improve profitability in a competitive market where the number of delivered letters has declined by a half in a decade and deliveries of newspapers have dropped to 1950s’ levels.
 The retrenchment negotiations – expected to begin in early February – would affect administrative and service personnel. In addition to the planned reductions, Posti said it would convert some permanent positions into part-time jobs and temporarily lay off service employees.
 Posti expects that the volume of mail will continue to fall due to ongoing digitalisation, necessitating company savings of 150-200 million euros within the next three years. Instead of mail, Posti said it would focus on the growing markets of e-commerce and logistics services.

Posti to slash up to 236 jobs as mail volumes drop dramatically


Summary: A multilingual daycare centre run by the Ankkalampi chain faces closure over missing building permits.

Rakennusten tai niiden osien rakentaminen sekä maa- ja vesirakentaminen

Helsinki city authorities have started an investigation into seven daycare centres run by private chain Ankkalampi. The company operates 20 multilingual daycare centres in Helsinki and provides English-language early childhood education in its Duckies groups in several locations.
 The city’s construction supervision unit suspects that the centres have not obtained the licenses needed to ensure that buildings are safe and do not present a risk to users.
 For example, some daycare units have operated in buildings without adequate air conditioning and emergency exits, and the centre in Lauttasaari may contain asbestos or residues of dangerous substances.
 Pentti Ruuska  from Helsinki construction supervision said the current situation with Ankkalampi’s permits is complicated. "We have given them permits to fix the buildings but the work has not been done. In one case, the permit has already expired. As a whole, the company has been slow to take care of the required licenses."
 "I’ve lost faith in this daycare operator," Ruuska added.
 Ankkalampi chief executive  Heidi Ruhala  told Yle that there are 150 care places in the seven affected daycare centres and the unit in Lauttasaari is the only one currently under threat of closure.
 Ruuska, on the other hand, said that the threat of closure affects all seven Ankkalampi centres under inspection in Helsinki. "If we do not get the necessary documents, we may have to close one of the centres," Ruuska declared.
 The city’s construction supervision department is also looking into the building permits of another private daycare chain, but Ruuska refused to disclose its name.
 The story was first reported by daily Helsingin Sanomat.

Helsinki daycares risk shutdown over missing building permits


Summary: Hamburger chain Hesburger has asked police to find out who, if anyone, put needles inside its French fries in Lahti.

Local hamburger chain Hesburger has requested police to investigate reports that needles were in French fries served by one of its restaurants in Lahti.
 According to tabloid  Iltalehti  (in Finnish), a family found three sewing needles stuck inside French fries purchased on Monday. Nobody was hurt.
 "We ensure the quality and safety of our products in many different ways. For example, all French fries we sell pass through metal detectors in the factory," said Communications Manager  Heini Santos  from Hesburger.
 "Our probe shows that the needles were put in the food after they were sold," Santos added.
 She said Hesburger considered the incident very serious and unfortunate and that the company had been in contact with the customer for additional information.
 Earlier in January,  a needle was found inside a clementine in a western Finnish supermarket .

Police asked to investigate reports of needles in French fries


Summary: Esperi Care allegedly prioritised profits over patient care, a rise in weather-related injuries and a young man walks free after a rape conviction is dismissed.

Under-staffing was  central to the business model at the Esperi Care chain  of elder care homes rather than a problem that management struggled with, daily Helsingin Sanomat reports on Wednesday. Reporter  Tiina Rajamäki  sat down with two former managers to talk about the firm's practices after  reports of widespread negligence  at its facilities dominated headlines this week.
 Both spoke on condition of anonymity due to non-disclosure agreements they had signed. One ex-manager of a facility in western Finland said that Esperi Care senior management ordered them to systematically reduce nurses' working hours on shift rota by five percent, although the company had pledged to provide 100 percent staffing in its supplier agreement with the local municipality.
 Another Esperi Care alumnus who worked in the capital region claimed that in a job interview, ex-CEO  Marja Aarnio-Isohanni  outlined a number of measures to save on personnel spending. The goal was to first start by cutting costs on cleaning, then on food and finally on elder care. The guidance provided to supervisors was to hire substitutes to allow nurses to work during a two-hour morning peak time, go home, and then return to work for another peak period during the evening.
 Moreover, they were encouraged to favour non-Finnish-speaking substitutes since they were less likely than native Finns to be as familiar with labour laws. The former head of the western Finland unit said that as a result, they ended up with "nurses who wouldn't find work elsewhere."
  Sidewalk injuries triple
 With snowy conditions set to continue into next week, tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reports that the slick,  slippery weather is putting more people than usual in hospital  with weather-related injuries.  Mika Paavola , medical chief of staff at Helsinki's Töölö hospital, said that cases of broken wrists, collar bones and ankles have tripled this winter.
 "We have had heavy loads for several weeks. Many people who've slipped and those who've been hurt otherwise have come to the hospital," he told IS. The physician said that there has been a shortage of personnel, especially in operating theatres as well as on wards. At the same time, patients have faced longer queues to see a doctor and get a diagnosis.
 He noted that the Helsinki and Uusimaa hospital district, HUS, is currently cooperating with the Finnish Meteorological Institute, FMI, to be better able to prepare for weather-related injuries. Paavola warned pedestrians to exercise care as weather conditions become milder next week.
 Rape conviction overturned
 Tabloid Iltalehti reports on a case in which  an appeal court overturned rape charges  against a young Turku man after determining that the defendant and his accuser had been in a relationship and that there was insufficient evidence to convict the 20-year-old charged with the crimes.
 Altogether the appeal court dismissed four rape charges and a five-month suspended sentence imposed by the Southern Karelia district court. He was also ordered to pay a total of just over 3,500 euros in costs and damages. The appellate court referenced a precedent case decided by the Supreme Court, which ruled that a victim's "truthful and convincing account also needs to be supported by indirect [independent] evidence to ensure accuracy."
 The Eastern Finland appeal court said that it was indisputable that at the time that the alleged deeds had been committed in 2016, the pair had been in a relationship and that they had been intimate. It also described the accounts of both accuser and defendant as credible and for the most part consistent. However the court ruled that there was doubt regarding the defendant's guilt and it dismissed the charges. The 21-year-old man was freed and was also relieved of any obligation to pay costs and damages.

Wednesday's papers: Cash over care, sidewalk injuries and overturned conviction


Summary: The payroll cuts will hit hardest in the west coast city of Vaasa.

Koneiden, laitteiden ja tarvikkeiden tukkukauppa

Teollisuudessa käytettävien koneiden tukkukauppa

Power systems company Wärtsilä said on Wednesday that it is looking to shed 1,200 positions worldwide as it moves to implement a competitiveness-boosting programme aimed at saving 100 million euros annually.
 In Finland, the payroll reductions will translate into a maximum of 150 job losses, with the biggest impact expected in the west coast town of Vaasa, where Wärtsilä is the city's largest private sector employer and where most of the firm's Finland-based workforce is located.
 Listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, Wärtsilä employs over 19,000 people in 80 countries; one-fifth of the workforce is based in Finland.
 "So the Finnish part of the cuts is smaller than the [relative] component of its personnel,"said the firm's communications chief,  Atte Palomäki.
 New production facility planned in Vaasa
 The company said that it will implement the cost-cutting programme incrementally starting in late 2019 and expects to complete it by the end of 2020.
 "Tensions in global trade, geopolitical uncertainty and market fluctuations are cause for concern," group chief executive  Jaakko Eskola  said in a statement.
 "This is a painful step, but unfortunately we cannot avoid personnel reductions."
 The announcement came as Wärtsilä released its full-year financial statements for 2018. The company reported increased revenues, operating profits and order intake. However profits in the last quarter fell by 15 million euros to 226 million. The result included a significant provision for cost overruns related to two nuclear power projects.
 Last summer the company announced a major investment in Vaasa that involved beginning construction on a new production facility, possibly in 2019.

Wärtsilä to slash 1200 jobs worldwide, 150 in Finland


Summary: After several days of steady snowfall in many areas, Wednesday brings more hazardous roads and train delays.

Finland's weather will turn milder on Thursday, with more snow and sleet in store for this weekend.
 Snow continues through nearly all of the country on Wednesday, except on the Åland Islands where it has turned to rain. Precipitation will drift away from southern and western Finland during the day.
 By afternoon the precipitation will be mostly limited to eastern and northern Finland. There may be some breaks in the cloud cover in the west, with a few lingering flurries, says Finnish Meteorological Institute meteorologist  Ari Mustala .
 Driving conditions remain poor on Wednesday from southern Finland through northern Ostrobothnia, Kainuu, and up to Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland. The FMI warns of very bad road conditions in Uusimaa, Kymenlaakso and southern Karelia due to snowy surfaces and blowing snow.
 Meanwhile state rail operator VR says that more than a dozen trains are running late on Wednesday. Most delays range between 25 and 35 minutes, but a train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle was nearly an hour and a half behind schedule. A morning train from Joensuu to Pieksämäki was replaced by buses between Heinävesi and Pieksämäki because of a freight train breakdown on that track segment. For the latest delays, visit VR's  Traffic Info page .
 The HSL mass transit system in the capital region has also announced an array of delays and cancellations on Wednesday. About 20 commuter train departures, including some between Helsinki and the airport, have been cancelled. Meanwhile half a dozen bus departures, mostly in Espoo and eastern Helsinki, have been scratched due to blocked roads and other problems. Details are listed on the  HSL site .
 Above zero on Sunday?
 A major low-pressure area over the Baltic Sea is moving slowly toward the White Sea in north-west Russia.
 Compared to the near-constant barrage of snow earlier in the week, Wednesday brings brighter conditions with diminishing precipitation in all areas. There is now at least 25 cm of snow on the ground throughout mainland Finland, with 50 to 60 cm in broad swaths of the south, east and north – the deepest being in the far east.
 Temperatures are set to rise to just under the freezing point in southern parts. In central Finland and most of Lapland the mercury will hover between -5 and -10 degrees. It will however be much colder in the far north-western arm, remaining around -20.
 Little precipitation is expected on Thursday, but the snow returns on Friday evening and early Saturday in the south and west, followed by more snow, sleet and rain on Sunday – when temperatures may rise above freezing in southernmost Finland, likely bringing more messy road conditions.
 12.06: VR & HSL delay information updated.

Snow brings more transport woes


Summary: Neighbouring Norway spends more than 2.5 times more on elder care than Finland, according to research at the University of Jyväskylä.

Finland’s elder care system has been underfunded for a long time, according to the head of the Centre for Excellence in Ageing and Care Research at Jyväskylä University,  Teppo Kröger .
 “Elder care services have not received the resources needed for quality care, and some of the results of that can now be seen,” Kröger said, referring to recent reports of  shortcomings at nursing homes  operated by Esperi Care and Attendo.
 Kröger, a professor of social and public policy at Jyväskylä University, said that providing care requires money, saying that Finland spends far less on caring for its elderly population than its Nordic neighbours.
 He said that in terms of GDP Finland annually spends at least one billion euros less on all of its senior care services than Sweden and Norway do. He said if Finland invested an extra billion per year it would bring the service quality up to Nordic standards.
 Sweden and Norway spend 2.2 percent of their GDP on elder services and care, while Finland only spends some 1.6 percent of GDP on senior care and service.
 In terms of sheer spending, Norway invests more than two-and-a-half times more on individuals over the age of 65 than Finland does, while Sweden and Denmark spend roughly 1.7 times more.
 Norway's population is roughly the same size as Finland's, while Sweden's is close to twice as large at nearly 10 million people.
 No instant cure
 Some in Finland argue that simply spending more is not be an instant cure for the situation. While that may be true, Kröger said, the elder care sector needs professional know-how, good leadership, motivation and humanity.
 “After all, the fact remains one can’t deliver quality care services without money,” Kröger said.
 When asked what he sees as the biggest problem facing the elder care industry, Kröger said there were many shortcomings in many areas.
 “Earlier it seemed there were problems in assisted housing but now there are also shortcomings in home care, too. And [the shortcomings] can be found in the private and public sectors,” Kröger said, noting that he was surprised by the surprise with which some have reacted to the news about recent problems.
 “We have known about the lack of resources for a long time, and similar problems have also occurred in Sweden’s [elder] housing service sector,” Kröger said.
 The ageing and care research centre Kröger chairs regularly publishes information on methods that would improve services. But he said it is unclear how much of it has actually been taken into use.
 “We’ve worked to ensure that our information reaches decision-makers, but we have not been invited by committees to share our results,” Kröger said.

Finland needs to spend €1b more annually to meet Nordic elder care standards, researcher says


Summary: Many companies say they still have trouble hiring enough qualified employees.

Mixed economic signals emerge from the latest survey from Finland’s main business lobby. Expectations took a dip at the start of the new year, according to a poll released by the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) on Wednesday.
 Companies across the board see softening demand. They still expect slight improvements in profitability, though, except in the building trade, where profits are expected to edge downward.
 For its quarterly Business Tendency Survey, the lobby asked members for their views on business conditions in late 2018 and early 2019. Respondents represented some 1,200 firms with a total workforce of nearly a quarter million.
 Though their outlook has dimmed somewhat, most companies said they still see current economic conditions as stronger than average.
 More hiring ahead – except in heavy industry
 All primary sectors reported labour force growth, with payrolls expected to keep growing in all branches except manufacturing. On Wednesday, one of Finland's biggest industrial employers, Wärtsilä, announced it is  shedding jobs .
 Companies in most sectors still report significant problems in recruiting qualified staff, though the situation is somewhat better from their standpoint than in October.
 Twenty-seven percent of firms said that their growth is being held back by labour shortages – with the construction sector reporting the biggest problems in recruitment.
 The latter part of last year brought growth to the building trade, which had been lagging behind, bringing it back to the level of other main sectors. The construction business outlook indicator rose from -33 in the previous poll from October to a still-modest -19 (zero is the normal level, and the "outlook balance indicator" worsens as negative figures increase).
 In manufacturing, though, the business outlook indicator slipped to -10 in the January survey, compared to -4 last autumn. Expectations also declined slightly in the service sectors.
 All business branches look forward to moderate growth in sales and production over the next few months. However factories said they are now only using 86 percent of their capacity, slipping from 88 percent last fall.

Mixed economic signals from Finnish firms; many still face recruitment problems


Summary: In one case, a convicted offender ended up in prison nearly two years after an appeal court handed down its sentence.

The Deputy Chancellor of Justice has condemned Finland's appeal court over delays in enforcing prison sentences. The deputy Chancellor's criticism followed a wide-ranging analysis, which unearthed one case in which a convicted offender ended up in prison nearly two years after an appeal court handed down its sentence.
 The report from the Chancellor's office paints a picture of widespread and long-term problem that has affected almost all of the country's appellate courts.
 "Enforcing sentences is an essential part of ensuring criminal responsibility and a credible criminal justice sentence," deputy Chancellor  Mikko Puumalainen  said in a statement on Wednesday.
 According to established practice, after sentencing, the court passes on its judgments for enforcement by the Criminal Sanctions Agency, Rise, which manages Finland's prisons.
 The report indicated that there have been lengthy communication delays between the institutions in dozens of cases. In some instances the information gap was reportedly caused by shortcomings in the electronic system known as Ritu, a criminal conviction management system widely panned by legal and IT experts for its slow and clunky user interface.
 However the analysis by the Chancellor's office noted that the system was responsible for only a small portion of the delayed enforcements.
 "In extreme cases a delay could mean a lapse in enforcement, which would mean that criminal liability remains entirely unfulfilled," Puumalainen observed.

Deputy Chancellor of Justice slams sentence enforcement delays


Summary: Workers told Yle that an operation to remove excess moisture was currently underway on the sixth floor of the new building.

Last May, building contractors handed over the spanking new children's hospital  two months ahead of schedule . After fittings and furnishings were installed during the summer, workers took up their duties in the new structure last autumn.
 According to information relayed to Yle by hospital workers, there have been problems with the new building. They pointed out that an operation to remove excess moisture was currently underway on the sixth floor of the building. On top of that moisture damage had also been detected on the third and eighth floors. Yle was not granted permission to visit or film on the premises, so could not confirm the extent of the damage.
 "I am aware that we have had some small instances of water damage. They have been dried up and in one location that is still ongoing. There have been some small construction errors which caused it," said operational planning head, paediatric diseases docent  Pekka Lahdenne .
 Lahdenne stressed that the scale of the damage has not prevented the hospital from operating as planned. "The building has been excellent. Families and staff enjoy the space," he added.
 Building contractor SRV said that the sixth floor moisture problem caused only minor damage and was due to an isolated construction error by a sub-contractor.
 "The reason for it was a leak in the building's heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system and the work in that area was done by another contractor. They were not part of our project," explained SRV's project manager for the children's hospital,  Mirja Serenius .
 Pages of requests
 The workers Yle interviewed said however that in one month, staff have lodged hundreds of maintenance requests. Calls for repair, maintenance and installation work have included blinds that do not work when doors are closed, drain blockages and an inability to lock doors to rooms which store medication.
 They told Yle they preferred not to disclose their names, but several staff representatives confirmed the reports. Hospital management stressed that the requested modifications, maintenance and repairs have been minor and that management has reacted immediately upon receiving them. The reports have in turn been quickly forwarded, so the list of required actions may seem long, they added.
 Lahdenne said that overall, change requests were minor and included complaints about room temperature or air quality or a lack of power outlets but stressed that hospital management were quite satisfied with the quality of the construction.
 Meanwhile Serenius noted that the project was completed on a tight schedule – construction and design were conducted in tandem, and this meant that there was little need for major changes post-completion. She added that the contractor did not stint on quality during construction.
 "The overall duration of the project was short – design and construction took place in parallel, but [we] reserved sufficient time for construction. We tried to use the expertise of all the parties and specialists to ensure that there was enough time for the concrete structures to dry out," she concluded.

Workers flag building flaws in Helsinki's brand-new kids' hospital


Summary: The Finnish Food Authority is investigating whether the meat has already reached supermarket shelves or if it's still in a storage facility.

Beef that was illegally butchered from sick cows in Poland has been imported to Finland, according to the Finnish Food Authority.
 Last week Polish media outlet TVN24 posted  undercover video  (graphic images of suffering animals, viewer discretion advised) which appears to show very sick cows being smuggled into a slaughterhouse.
 The footage, reportedly shot at an abattoir in Poland’s Mazovia region, shows cows that appear unable to stand, being dragged from transport trucks into the facility with winches and ropes and then butchered without a veterinarian’s oversight.
 Authorities in Poland have confirmed that around 250kg of beef from that facility had been sent to Finland. The beef arrived via a Polish meat distribution firm which exported it to nine EU countries, including Finland.
 The agency said the meat would be taken off the market and has requested other EU countries that export meat to Finland to check whether they have been involved with the slaughterhouse or the meat distribution firm in Poland.
 Poland is Europe’s seventh largest exporter of beef, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.
 Edited on 31 January, 2019 at 12:20 pm to reflect it was the Finnish Food Safety Authority that made the announcement about the imported meat, not Evira.

250kg of Polish beef from sick cows imported to Finland


Summary: The property on auction - which includes several run-down buildings and a sauna on around 11 hectares of land - has no minimum reserve price.

The dilapidated farm which was owned by a Finnish man convicted of drowning two people and trying to kill another three is for sale on an auction website.
 Early last year, the Eastern Finland Court of Appeal upheld a 14.5-year prison sentence imposed  Pekka Seppänen for manslaughter and attempted manslaughter .
 The sentence was previously handed down in 2017, after he was found guilty on two counts of manslaughter and three of attempted manslaughter.
 The original ruling found that in 2007, 2010 and 2011 Seppänen had taken people out on the lake in his boat, capsized it knowing they were weak swimmers and that they were drunk, and swam ashore.
 One person died in the 2010 boating incident and another met a similar fate in 2011.
 The buildings, located in the municipality of Kontiolahti in North Karelia on just under 12 hectares of land, are in poor condition. The property features a wooden house, a barn, sauna building and a small shed. The property does not have running water or a sewage system, according to the auction listing.
 Story continues after photo.
 The "serial drowner's" former property on auction. Ruutukaappaus Huutokaupat.com
 Early Wednesday afternoon the highest bid for the property stood at less than 1,500 euros. According to the listing some 5.5 hectares of the property is wild forest which is valued at around 2,300 euros.
 Seppänen was ordered to pay the victims of his crimes, as well as their relatives and others, a total of about 130,000 euros. Another of the killer’s properties, located in North Karelia’s Tohmajärvi municipality, was also seized and put on auction to put towards the compensation he owes the victims and their relatives. While there is no minimum reserve price for the auction, the bailiff in charge of the sale has the right to accept or reject the highest bid when the auction ends, according to the auction site.
 The auction for the Kontiolahti property closes on 20 February.

"Serial drowner's" farm on auction block


Summary: All the opposition groups in Parliament aim to put the government in the hot seat over problems at old age homes.

Finland's opposition parties will force the cabinet to face a vote of no confidence over the issue of senior care. With just over two months to go before elections, there has been a furore over  reported neglect  at some privately-run old-age care facilities.
 On Wednesday,  Antti Lindtman , leader of the main opposition Social Democratic Party's parliamentary group, invited the other opposition groups in the legislature to negotiate on the interpellation. They met with representatives of trade unions in the social and health care sector, who presented their views on the status of elder care in Finland.
 Opposition criticism focuses on the centre-right government's budget cuts, caregiver ratio guidelines and proposed overhaul of the social and healthcare system, known as _ sote _.
 "We've heard the message from experts in the field. State subsidies for municipalities have dropped during this government's term, which is also reflected in a weakening of services for the elderly," SDP deputy chair  Sanna Marin  said after the meeting.  She is standing in  for party chair  Antti Rinne , who is expected to be  on sick leave until late February .
 Confidence vote within 2 weeks from Friday
 All the opposition parties agree that a minimum ratio of carers to residents at senior facilities should be written into law. They have not yet agreed on what the required level should be.
 During the previous legislative term, the SDP pushed for a 0.7 ratio, in other words at least seven caregivers on staff per 10 seniors. At the moment, there is merely a recommended minimum ratio of 0.5.
 Opposition MPs share concerns that the government's controversial  sote  reform would further undermine the elder care situation due to its tough cost-saving targets. Those targets will be debated during question time on Thursday.
 The opposition groups plan to finalise the wording of the interpellation on Thursday and submit it to the three government parties on Friday. They will then have two weeks to respond.
 Razor-thin majority
 After a debate, the cabinet will face a confidence vote. Following last week's  defection of a Blue Reform MP , the government parties have a razor-thin majority in the 200-seat legislature.
 Besides the 35-seat SDP, the other main opposition parties, in order of size, are the Finns Party, the Greens and the Left Alliance. Smaller groups include the Swedish Parliamentary Group (including one representative from the Åland Islands), the Christian Democratic Party, the Liike Nyt-Movement and the Citizens' Party.
 The four-year legislative term ends on 15 March, with advance voting in the election beginning on 3 April.

Opposition parties to challenge government over senior care


Summary: The press takes a look at hazards created by heavy snowfall, children exercising too little and poor financial skills among Finland's students.

Daily  Helsingin Sanomat  reports that the amount of frozen snow on tree branches has increased to dangerous levels and may present a risk to skiers and others spending time in the forests.
 The paper said the heavy snow has caused trees to buckle and fall in the Jyväskylä region in central Finland. A number of cross-country ski tracks in that town have been partly or completely closed.
 “We have closed about 50 km of tracks because of fallen trees,” said  Kari Häkkinen  from the municipal administration. “Hopefully people will understand they should keep away from these tracks. A falling tree is a real threat to life and limb,” he added.
 Emergency services warn that people should be extremely careful if they go to forests where snow has frozen on trees.  Mikko Hiltunen  from Central Finland's emergency services said frozen snow on branches can weigh hundreds of kilos and snap a tree in an instant. “People won’t have enough time to react,” he said.
 Heavy snowfall has also caused power outages in the region, HS added.
 Inactive kids
 Meanwhile, daily  Maaseudun Tulevaisuus  reports that only a third of all children and adolescents engage in the recommended amount of physical activity every day. What's more, the recommended amount – at least one hour of moderate or strenuous exercise daily – drops significantly with age, a study by the University of Jyväskylä shows.
 More than 7,000 children between seven and 15 years of age took part in the study that researched the amount of exercise, inactivity and sleep.
 While young children tend to play tag or kick the ball in the school yard, older children do not. “These kinds of activities are not considered cool among the older kids,” said  Tommi Vasankari  from the UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research.
 There is also a correlation between the amount of exercise and health problems, the paper said. “The results indicate that children who do not have much physical activity suffer from a range of health issues, including headaches, melancholy, sleep disturbances and loneliness,” said  Sami Kokko  from Jyväskylä University.
 More positively, 88 percent of those surveyed had at some time taken part in activities organised by a sports club.
 Sports clubs should however consider how to keep children active members longer, says Kokko, who adds: “Kids on average start organised sports at six years of age and quit at 11.”
 Financial skills lacking
 In other bad news for Finland's youth, most teachers think that schools do not teach students sufficient financial skills, reports tabloid  Ilta-Sanomat .
 Based on a survey of 750 teachers and 60 teacher trainees, two-thirds of the respondents were somewhat or very concerned about young people’s lack of financial skills. Teachers in vocational institutes were the most worried.
 The good news is that most teachers believed they could have a positive effect on how young people handle money, IS said.
 Research into 10 payday loan firms last year found that their  lending volumes grew by 50 percent  in 2017 alone.

Thursday's papers: Snow hazard, inactive kids and students' poor money skills


Summary: Finnish newspapers this Tuesday are awash with hundreds of articles marking the death of Finnish ski jumping legend Matti Nykänen.

Rarely does a single domestic event cause such an outpouring of reports and commentary as has  the passing of ski jumping legend , later entertainer and staple of tabloid headlines,  Matti Nykänen .
 Many papers on Tuesday carried dozens of items about Nykänen, reviewing his  accomplishments and his personal tragedies .
 Iltalehti, among them, wrote that  a sense of sorrow at the news  of Nykänen's death stopped the Finns in their tracks. The paper described him as being in many ways an exceptional Finn, both as an athlete and as a private individual.
 The five-time Olympic medal winner became, in this paper's words, "the whole nation's Matti".
 "Nykänen's death is naturally a huge shock and a loss to his family and friends, but the loss of this athlete, who rose to the status of national hero, brought the whole of Finland together on Monday and had masses of people remembering him, the greatest ski jumper of all time."
 Taxing the lottery
 A Finance Ministry  report published on Monday  stated that Finland's next government will need to find an extra two billion euros by 2023 in order to ensure fiscal sustainability. The alternatives are the standard ones - spending cuts or tax rises.
 In a bylined column in the economic and business daily  Kauppalehti , the paper's news chief  Mikko Metsämäki  suggests that the next government could find a big chunk of that money by taxing winners of the national lottery.
 This week, the first prize in the lottery is a record 15.5 million euros, money paid out tax-free to the winner, or winners.
 Veikkaus, which runs the lottery, does pay a nominal 10 percent tax on the pots it gives out, but if wins were taxed at, say 30 percent, that would bring an extra half a billion euros into state coffers annually.
 Metsämäki has made the same suggestion in the past. At that time the Finance Ministry commented that technically, taxing lottery wins would be easy, but it would require a political decision and a change in the ideology of state-sponsored gambling.
 On the political aspects, he says somewhat tongue in cheek, that the Conservative's position is that work must always be profitable, but winning the lottery should be even more profitable; the Social Democrats want more money for elder care, as long as it doesn't come from lottery winners; the Centre sees the lottery as the last hope in many rural communities, so it can't be touched.
 On a more serious note, Metsämäki says that the consensus among all the political parties is that it is more important to impose a punitive "solidarity tax" on anyone earning more than 70,000 a year than it is to bolt the door to the country's own domestic tax haven.
 Record cold and rail cancellations
 A new record low temperature for this winter was recording at Utsjoki in the far north of Finnish Lapland overnight when the thermometer briefly dropped to -39.1C.
 Ilta-Sanomat  reports that the Finnish Metrological Institute said that the temperature soon then rose slightly as some low cloud cover moved into the area.
 The all-time low temperature in Finland was seen in January 1999 when a bone-chilling -51.5C was recorded in Lapland at Kittilä.
 Snow and cold are responsible for rail traffic disruptions and a string of cancellations by the state railways VR.
 Turun Sanomat  reports that VR is blaming what it describes as "challenging weather conditions". Low temperatures and deep accumulation of snow has put a strain on both rolling stock and track infrastructure.
 Although VR has targeted keeping 95 percent of long-distance trains in operation, engines and cars are in need of thawing and maintenance.
 According to a media release from the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, Helsinki had a greater accumulation of snow last month than as ever been measured for a January. Cold and snow have jammed rail switches that have to then be cleared by hand.
 A listing of cancellations planned for this week in English can be found  here .
 Great free exercise?
 On the subject of cancellations, this could be the time of the year to cancel your gym membership and grab a snow shovel instead.
 Tampere's Aamulehti  takes up the question of whether or not shoveling snow is good for you. To answer that, the paper spoke with exercise physiologist and sports planner  Katriina Ojala  of the UKK Institute Centre for Health Promotion Research.
 Ojala pointed out that to be effective, exercise should be regular. Since snow shoveling is a seasonal activity and not usually done every day, it doesn't stack up against many other routines.
 That's not to say it isn't good for you though. "When you work at it efficiently, you get a workout for leg and arm muscles and your pulse rises. The heavier the snow, the more muscle work it takes. People who are not in good physical shape get the most health benefits."
 There are risks. The cold poses a risk to people with heart problems or asthma. Posture is important to prevent back injuries.
 Ojala's advice is to approach it much like any sport.
 "Lots of people shovel snow too fast. Just as before any exercise activity, remember to do some warm up before you start.

Tuesday's papers: Eulogies for Nykänen, taxes, and shoveling snow can be good for you


Summary: Analysts are speculating as to whether security concerns swirling around Chinese network rival Huawei will benefit Nokia.

Radio-, televisio- ja tietoliikennevälineiden valmistus

Finnish tech giant Nokia's profits perked up in the final quarter of 2018. In the October-to-December period, the company's results grew to 1.12 billion euros, up from about one billion a year earlier. Turnover grew by three percent to about 6.9 billion euros.
 Nokia, one of the world's three biggest network equipment manufacturers, said that "strong competitiveness across [its] portfolio" and a second consecutive quarter of sales growth in all business groups showed that its strategy is on track.
 "The execution of our strategy also proceeded well, with the work we have put into building a solid foundation for Nokia Software showing clear results and our enterprise business rapidly becoming a pillar of growth, Nokia CEO  Rajeev Suri  said in a statement on Thursday.
 "Overall it was a quite good Q4 as expected," said analyst  Mikael Rautanen  of research firm Inderes told Reuters. "There was a bit more uncertainty in the outlook than I was expecting but the big picture is still the same. The market is recovering well with 5G and they're heading toward their 2020 targets."
 Banking on 5G
 Nokia is banking heavily on the adoption of super-fast 5G networks, saying that it sees "strong customer engagement related to 5G" across most of its portfolio. The 5G rollout has naturally incurred costs related to customer trials and other pre-sales expenses, but Suri is confident that the investments will pay off.
 "Our view of a fast and meaningful shift to 5G remains unchanged. Given that 5G rollouts will be staggered over the course of the year, we expect 2019 to have a soft first half followed by a much more robust second half," Suri said.
 He said Nokia expects operators around the world to briskly updating their existing networks and technology this year. Nokia has been testing 5G networks in Finland since at least 2017, and last summer Elisa set up the country's first local 5G network in Tampere - although devices that can use it are not yet available on the mass market.
 Speculation around Huawei
 A day earlier, Nokia chair  Risto Siilasmaa  said that the company is keeping a close eye on the security scandal surrounding Chinese rival Huawei, the world's largest telecom equipment supplier.
 "We are following very closely what is happening, but it's not our thing to talk about it," Siilasmaa told students at Aalto University on Wednesday as analysts speculated on whether the concerns around Huawei will benefit Nokia.
 Also on Wednesday, senior officials said the European Union is considering proposals that would amount to a de-facto ban on Huawei equipment for next-generation mobile networks, following similar moves in the United States and Australia.
 The Canadian government is also reportedly mulling a ban on using Huawei over security concerns. According to the Financial Post, Nokia and Swedish rival Ericsson - which along with Huawei are the world's top three vendors of network radio gear - "appear to be  seeking opportunities  in Canada."
 More jobs cuts in Finland
 Nokia says it has managed to achieve annual cost savings of 1.2 billion euros over the past two years. Last year the firm announced yet another cost-cutting programme aimed at trimming expenditures by a further 700 million euros annually.
 As part of that scheme, in early January it announced a new round of redundancy talks with employees in Finland, expecting to pink-slip some  350 people here this year . The downsizing affects all Nokia locations in Finland besides its Oulu plant.
 Nokia now has some 6,000 employees in Finland, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 around the turn of the millennium.
 The 154-year-old Nokia, once the world's largest smartphone maker, has focused on network operations since  selling its handset business to Microsoft  in 2013 -- though it has gradually re-entered the phone market through a  brand licensing arrangement  with HMD Global.

5G-focused Nokia boosts profits


Summary: The city of Oulu has temporarily banned asylum seeker and refugee visits to schools and daycare centres as investigations into sexual abuse of minors continue.

Oulu has decided to temporarily discontinue asylum seeker visits to local schools and daycare centres.
 The city’s ban of the integrational visits organised by the Red Cross and other charitable groups is based on an ongoing investigation into the  alleged sexual abuse of underage girls  by a number of asylum seekers and refugees in Oulu.
 Mika Penttilä , the city's Head of Education and Cultural Services, said the decision was driven by parental concerns.
 "We have agreed with the organisers that no such visits will take place at the moment. People have approached us about these visits to find out whether they pose a security risk," Penttilä said.
 Deputy police chief  Arto Karnaranta  however said police have not been informed of any safety risks related to the school visits.
 Expert criticism
 Experts interviewed by Yle said they had been surprised by the ban.
 Rajkumar Sabanadesan , who came to Finland as an asylum seeker, said he considers Oulu’s decision to be outright stupid.
 "One of the basic principles that has been discussed recently is that problems with migrants can only be solved by integrating them with the majority population. This ban is going exactly the opposite direction," the Tampere-based entrepreneur and consultant said.
 "The decision punishes a group of people for crimes that certain individuals are suspected of," Sabanadesan added.
 Similarly,  Mikko Lehtonen , professor of media culture at Tampere University, said stopping the visits seems ill-considered.
 "The city wants to look decisive. However the message that they are now sending may create more problems and not solve any," he said.
 "If I were a member of a migrant group, this ban would send me the message that the so-called native culture does not necessarily want me to be part of theirs," he added.
 Lehtonen also said it was disconcerting that Oulu views all asylum seekers as a separate but homogeneous group, saying that "this view of the world is almost racist."
 Meanwhile, Non-Discrimination Ombudsman  Kirsi Pimiä  said decision-makers should closely consider the relevance and proportion of such decisions and actions. "Prejudice is about associating an individual’s negative traits with the group they represent," Pimiä said in an email.
 However, Oulu’s decision is not discriminatory because there is no common right to visit schools or daycares, Pimiä added.
 More information to come
 Penttilä from the city administration emphasised that the ban is temporary and that Oulu will conduct fact-based discussions on asylum seeker visits and security risks with parents.
 Penttilä said he acknowledges that the ban has raised many questions.
 "I don’t want my decisions to contribute to creating confrontation," he said.

Oulu bans asylum seeker visits to schools


Summary: Prices on 50 popular items were cut on Thursday at S-Group's grocery stores, but farmers say the discounts are hurting their livelihoods.

Finland’s largest retailer S-Group lowered some food prices on Thursday, sparking sharp criticism from farmers across the country.
 Domestic food producers have complained for years that S-Group’s efforts to lower prices on locally-produced foods has hurt farmers' livelihoods.
 However, for the fourth year in a row, the retailing cooperative’s campaign continues. On Thursday, the firm said that prices are being reduced on 50 popular products, including milk, coffee, yogurt, ground beef and chicken.
 According to an S Group survey, 87 percent of respondents said they want more affordable food.
 Farmers getting less
 Daily Maaseudun Tulevaisuus said last year that both farmers and retailers now earn an increasingly smaller share of the money that consumers pay for basic foodstuffs. In contrast, the food industry reaps larger rewards.
 A recent study carried out by the Pellervo Economic Research group (PTT) showed  a clear change in the relationship  between the food industry and the retail grocery sector in 2012-2016.
 PTT's research found that although retail food prices dropped over that period, the food industry's overall share of the trade actually increased. However the producers of the raw inputs used to make those products - farmers -  did not see significant change  in their share of the trade.
 The financial situation among many Finnish farmers has worsened in recent years due to EU export sanctions against Russia, counter sanctions by Russia, lower producer prices and poor harvests.

Farmers in uproar as S-Group cuts food prices


Summary: Juha Sipilä says the EU must set stricter targets for emissions cuts by 2030 and a path to carbon neutrality by 2050.

Addressing a plenary session of the European Parliament on Thursday, Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä  called for more ambitious climate policies.
 He was speaking in the run-up to the Finnish EU presidency, which begins this summer. However only a few dozen of the 751 MEPs were in the hall to listen to his speech, part of the Future of Europe series.
 Sipilä reiterated  a call made by eight Finnish political parties  that the EU to be carbon neutral by 2050. The Finnish premier said that the Union's joint target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts by 2030 should be raised from the current 40 percent to at least 55 percent, compared to 1990 levels.
 "We have to do more and faster. We must reduce emissions, increase the carbon sinks and adopt new technologies," Sipilä said.
 Finland to re-jig Emissions Trading System
 According to Sipilä, the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) is "the most cost-efficient way" to reduce emissions, but that Finland aims to revise the system so as to encourage quicker reductions. He also said that the ETS should be expanded to cover more sectors, including the heating and cooling of buildings.
 The PM said that one way to slow climate change is to increase carbon sinks.
 "It has surprised me how much more carbon dioxide could be bound in agricultural fields if we made some changes in farming practices. We have 100 ‘carbon farmers’ testing new practices in Finland," he said, adding that "we also need to plant more forests".
 Brexit and trade walls
 On other issues, Sipilä decried the rise of populism and its role in Brexit, saying: "We have seen what happens when people propose solutions for complex issues by oversimplification of matters. In the end, nobody takes responsibility. This was the case in the United Kingdom, and the result is there for all to see."
 He also took a veiled swipe at recent US policies.
 "It is very harmful if the major players continue to build trade walls," he said. "We must do everything to prevent or tear down such walls."
 Sipilä addressed the Parliament in his capacity as prime minister of the next country to hold the rotating presidency of the European Council. Finland takes over from Romania on 1 July.

Finnish PM demands faster climate action at European Parliament


Summary: Helsinki city councillors unanimously approved plans to build a tunnel for pedestrians and cyclists.

Helsinki councillors made concrete plans to improve the ability of residents and visitors to move around the city by bike or on foot.
 On Wednesday, the city announced that a proposed downtown  bicycle and pedestrian tunnel project  is going ahead.
 The tunnel project - a pedestrian and bicycle-friendly path connecting the east and west sides of the Central Railway Station - will cost an estimated 23 million euros, according to the city.
 The city said funding for the project will be taken from the 2019-2023 budgets, and that it will take about two years to construct the tunnel.

Helsinki OKs €23m bike tunnel beneath railway station