Summary: Last year farms across the country produced their lowest cereals output in a nearly a generation – mainly due to dry conditions.

Finland suffered a second poor harvest in a row last year, the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) confirmed on Thursday.
 Luke reports that the cereal harvest totalled 2.7 billion kilos, the smallest in 26 years. The 2018 crop was primarily reduced by  drought , whereas the poor harvest in 2017 was blamed on excessive rain.
 Last year's grain harvest dropped by one fifth compared to the weak 2017 level.
 "The dry growing season also burned up the green fodder [grass for animal feed], but this harvest was rescued in most cattle grazing areas by the autumn rains," said  Anneli Partala , a senior actuary at Luke.
 Broad beans – a key ingredient in increasingly popular vegetarian food products – suffered a sudden, surprising failure, as Silver Y moths chewed up all the leaves on large plantations, she added. These migratory moths, common across much of Europe, North Africa and Asia, head north into the Nordic region during warm summers.
 Record-poor results in southwest
 The grain harvest was particularly skimpy in southwest Finland. Luke points out that this breadbasket region usually produces roughly one-fifth of the country's cereals, so crop failures there have a major impact on the national total.
 In the southwest, the grain harvest shrank by a quarter or even one-third. Meanwhile the amount of grass fodder fell by half from the normal level.
 Luke reported that Finland's organic grain harvest shrank by one-tenth. However organic grains usually only make up about three percent of overall grain harvests.
 Each autumn, Luke gathers harvest data from farmers through online services and phone interviews. Taking part in the survey were 6,200 farms, including 660 organic farms.
 Altogether some 48,000 farms in Finland produce cereals, with about 4,000 of them in organic production.

Finland's farmers report worst grain harvest in 26 years


Summary: An analysis of 56 political lobbyists finds that job market issues outweigh all other contemporary societal concerns.

Analytics company Iloom reports that lobby organisations in Finland place very little importance on contemporary issues such as climate change, gender equality and digitalisation.
 In its analysis of 56 lobby groups, the study commissioned by consultancy firm Blic found that currently lobbyists are mainly focused on employment and entrepreneurship, education policy reform, municipal governance and international relations.
 Innovation chief  Sari Siikasalmi  calls these foci "traditional". Job-related values tie in with competitiveness, deregulation and taxation – mainly because most of the organisations studied were either employer or employee interest groups.
 "These groups feel that Finland's future competitiveness rests on education and research, and they will be pushing the next government to increase spending there. There is a consensus that education has to be pushed," Siikasalmi said. The new cabinet is expected to take office in late spring or early summer following the parliamentary election in April.
 Silence or shallowness
 The lobbyists included in the study had all posted their own election themes on their websites. In a nutshell, said Siikasalmi, the themes tended not to reflect the broader contemporary societal discussion, whose topics and values are more varied than lobbyist agendas.
 Themes continually raised in public discourse and the media include the challenges of digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI), foreign policy standpoints and cultural funding.
 Families with children are the only context in which lobbyists mentioned gender equality. Henrietta Hassinen / Yle
 Not even the social and health care reform bill ( sote ), the now-cancelled central project of the outgoing government, made it onto the lobbyists' to-do lists, even though the proposal only very recently fell flat.
 As for the environment and climate change, many lobby groups used topical buzzwords but refrained from actually proposing any measures to tackle these issues.
 "Labour organisations seem to have very little to say about environmental themes," Siikasalmi said.
 Political jargon instead of real issues
 The Iloom study also highlighted the ultra-traditional slant to the lobby groups' view of equality: the theme was only raised in connection with heteronormative families with children.
 "This is hardly a breath of fresh air," Siikasalmi asserted. "Outdated attitudes and nothing new."
 The study also found the language of the lobby platforms highly bureaucratic, a kind of political shorthand that bears no resemblance to the language of everyday citizens.
 Comparing the various platforms also showed that labour organisations tended to be more professionally organised than smaller NGOs, leading to job market concerns dominating the political influence held among lobbyists.
 A parliamentary working group headed by Parliamentary Speaker  Paula Risikko  recently called for the establishment of a lobbyist registry, aimed at boosting transparency on interest groups' influence on Finnish MPs.

Lobby groups "outdated" on equality, climate, culture


Summary: As animal populations dwindle, Finnish researchers are tracking new metrics on warming.

As the climate warms, researchers from groups such as the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) are able to detect trends visible in the way natural habitats are reacting to rising temperatures. Scientists say the methods give a revealing picture of the real-world effects of climate change.
 The latest statistics on the mountain hare (or blue hare) population of Finland, for instance, show that the species' numbers are plummeting while the European (or brown) hare is thriving, especially in southern parts of the country.
 Hare species dwindle and thrive
 Researcher  Riikka Levänen  from the University of Eastern Finland says the findings are significant due to the relationship the creatures have with their surroundings.
 Warmer winters mean less snow, but mountain hare fur turns white every year regardless, based on the amount of light in their habitats. Brown hares don't do this, hence their name, and are better at moving in areas without snow.
 Researchers such as Riikka Levänen study hare populations by the tracks they leave. Anton Rinta-Jouppi / Yle
 "Mountain hares with their winter pelage are like white exclamation marks for predators in snowless terrain," Levänen said.
 Natural Resource Institute data from a 30-year period have helped researchers to rule out predators and hunting as the main causes for the mountain hare population crash, according to Luke researcher  Markus Melin .
 "Some populations around Oulu have halved in three decades," he says.
 The two hare species share their habitats in part, even though blue hares prefer the forest and brown hares don't mind human vicinities. When they mate, a hybrid species emerges after a second generation with traits that help the brown hare survive further and further north.
 A history of ice
 Flowing and freezing water is another seasonal indicator of how climate trends are changing. Data gathered by researchers at Åbo Akademi University in Turku collected annual measurements made for nearly the past three centuries show that the River Aura's annual ice break-up has been coming earlier and earlier.
 In the year 1749, Professor  Johan Leche  began recording when the Aura's ice thawed each spring. Now, 270 years later, researcher  Stefan Norrgård  has  collected and analysed those records .
 He found that the Aura's ice breakup now occurs 16 days earlier than it did a century ago, and later thaws no longer happen at all.
 Stefan Norrgård finished collating the historical records for the River Aura in February. Yle / Lassi Lähteenmäki
 Norrgård said that the river remained frozen all winter at least once every decade since the records were kept - until 1880.
 "That was the last year that happened," Norrgård says. "And in 2008, for the first time ever, the river didn't freeze over at all. The change in one century has been massive."
 He said charting the differences in ice breakup can offer even more accurate measurements of the consequences of climate change than thermometers.
 "Devices change places and measurement methods change over time, but the ice is always there to be seen – or not."
 Very few rivers in the world have had their ice histories examined as thoroughly as the Aura, which flows right through the centre of Finland's former capital. In terms of ice breakup, the Aura is the third-most studied river in the world. Ice measurements of the River Tornio in southwest Lapland date back even further, with figures reaching back to the 17th century.
 Many international studies have utilised the Tornio measurements for their unique perspective on climate change. Norrgård says he hopes the Aura research will prove equally useful.

River ice and white hares: Signs of climate change in Finnish nature


Summary: The change is "a message from the state that parenthood is an equal joy and responsibility," says the interim interior minister.

The outgoing government, which now has caretaker status, made a relatively uncontroversial decision on Thursday: elevating Fathers' Day to the status of an official flag day.
 In Finland,  fathers are honoured  on the second Sunday in November, this year 10 November.
 It becomes the seventh such annual red-letter day, when the Finnish flag must be flown from public buildings.
 The others are Kalevala Day (also known as Finnish Culture Day, 28 February), Labour Day (also known as May Day or Vappu, 1 May), Mothers' Day (second Sunday in May), Flag Day of the Finnish Defence Forces, on the birthday of  Marshal Mannerheim  (4 June), Midsummer Day (Finnish Flag Day, the Saturday between 20-26 June, with flags usually hoisted at 6pm the previous evening on Midsummer's Eve) and Independence Day (6 December).
 Other official flag days which vary depending on the year are election days and presidential inauguration days, as well as some official state visit by foreign heads of state.
 There another 11 days on which it has become customary to fly the Finnish flag, including Veterans' Day, Remembrance Day, Europe Day, UN Day, Finnish Swedish Heritage Day. The rest mostly commemorate famous writers, along with composer  Jean Sibelius  and statesman  JV Snellman .
 "Parenthood an equal joy and responsibility"
 Thus Fathers' Day has been elevated from the second informal group to the first, where Mothers' Day has long been included.
 "It's good that motherhood and fatherhood have now finally been placed on the same line when it comes to flying the flag. Removing this difference is a message from the state that parenthood is an equal joy and responsibility," outgoing interior minister  Kai Mykkänen  said.
 The only time the flag statute has been changed before was in 1996, when new election days - including European Parliament elections - were added after Finland joined the EU.
 There are also separate dates when the flags of the autonomous Åland Islands and of the indigenous Sámi people are flown.

Fathers' Day becomes an official flag day in Finland


Summary: Population growth in the capital region may in future be almost entirely due to foreign-language speakers.

The number of people with foreign native languages is growing quickly in the Helsinki region. Their share of the local population is set to nearly double by 2035.
 According to a forecast released by the City of Helsinki on Thursday, the proportion of foreign and foreign-language-speaking people in the area will climb from the current level of 14 percent to around 25 percent.
 Researchers have raised the projected rate of growth since the previous prognosis was released a few years ago.
 According to the new prediction, there will be nearly 440,000 native speakers of foreign languages living in the region by 2035. Throughout the capital region, up to one third of all children are forecast to speak a foreign tongue at home. However more than two out of three of them will have been born in Finland.
 Vantaa most linguistically diverse
 Helsinki's northern neighbour, Vantaa, is on track to become the most cosmopolitan of the 14 municipalities in the greater Helsinki area. There one in three people will have a native language other than Finnish, Swedish or Sámi in 2035.
 Vantaa's foreign-language demographic is expected to triple from its current level of just under 40,000. In neighbouring Espoo and Helsinki the number is likely to double. Those cities now have about 50,000 and 100,000 foreign speakers respectively.
 Beyond these 'big three' cities, foreign-language expansion in the region's smaller municipalities is expected to occur more slowly. In the outer municipalities, foreign language speakers are expected to make up just over 10 percent of the population. These areas will particularly be home to immigrants from Estonia and the other Baltic states, while Russian speakers will be more highly concentrated in Vantaa.
 The largest language groups overall will be of Middle Eastern, North African and East Asian origin. There will be slower growth among those from the sub-Saharan and Western European language groups. Meanwhile in Helsinki, the population of Baltic language speakers may actually shrink.

Foreign-language community growing faster than expected in Helsinki area


Summary: The OECD is calling for Finland to step up its productivity, the Finns Party wants to ease firearm rules and volunteer-run groups feel a tax squeeze.

OECD Secretary-General  Angel Gurría  criticised Finland’s dwindling investments into product innovation and urged Finland to boost productivity on a visit to Helsinki on Thursday, writes business daily  Kauppalehti .
 The head of the 35-nation club said Finland will face challenges as it moves towards a service-oriented economy, as it will have to re-educate its workforce to meet evolving demands.
 Gurría, however, praised Finland for not crossing the 60 percent debt-to-GDP ratio, pointing out that OECD states on average carry public debt amounting to 100 percent of GDP.
 Politics and firearms
 Forty-two percent of candidates in the election compass of agricultural newspaper  Maaseudun tulevaisuus  said they would make it easier for residents to acquire firearm permits for hunting.
 Finns Party candidates were most clearly in favour of easing restrictions on acquiring firearm licenses.
 Meanwhile candidates for the Greens, Social Democrats, Left Alliance and Swedish People’s Party were most opposed to the idea.
 Yle launched its  election compass  on Thursday, ahead of parliamentary elections due on 14 April.
 Volunteers face red tape
 Finland’s  centralised online income register , launched earlier this year, is causing a bureaucratic headache for small associations, writes national daily  Helsingin Sanomat .
 Since the start of the year, associations have been required to report gifts worth less than 100 euros, which was the previous notification threshold. Volunteer-run organisations are now obliged to report the value of minor prizes to the tax authorities. The rule is proving too burdensome for some, especially senior citizens, writes HS.
 To avoid extra paperwork, HS reports that some fishing associations are considering ending the practice of awarding competition prizes, worth around 20 euros, such as food gift packages.

Friday’s papers: Lagging productivity, firearm attitudes and taxing the little guy


Summary: The Finnish Foreign Ministry has condemned the terrorist attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

At least 49 people died and 20 people were injured in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday. New Zealand authorities said they have detained three men and one woman as suspects in the attack.
 Finland's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack in a message on Twitter on Friday morning.
 New Zealand Prime Minister  Jacinda Ardern  said that many of the victims were most likely migrants to New Zealand or even refugees, according to the  New York Times .
 After the attack, it emerged that the shooter had published a so-called 'manifesto', in which he declared he was a racist and a fascist, and claimed to be taking revenge for recent high-profile events including a 2017 terror attack in Stockholm and a series of sexual abuse cases, including those alleged to have taken place in Oulu last year.

Finland condemns "cowardly" terrorist acts in NZ


Summary: Children in at least 27 Finnish municipalities left their lessons on Friday to urge action on climate change, joining a global day of action by young people.

Independent police complaints commission

Finnish young people joined a global climate strike on Friday, urging politicians and decision-makers to take action to prevent climate breakdown.
 The strikes, inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, took place in at least 27 municipalities around the country. Thunberg cites last year's IPCC report suggesting there are only twelve years left to take action to prevent catastrophic climate change.
 "To have any chance of avoiding that extreme danger emissions must drop rapidly – so that by the time we will be in our mid- and late-20s we are living in a transformed world,"  wrote  Thunberg and other young climate activists in a Guardian opinion piece published on Friday.
 Organisers estimate that actions were planned on Friday in more than a hundred countries worldwide.

 Police said around 3,000 marchers gathered in downtown Helsinki on Friday morning, carrying banners and chanting, as they marched through the city centre towards Parliament House.
 As they walked, the loud group of students yelled chants, demanding "climate action!" in unison with some protesters enthusiastically beating handheld drums. One of the students was seen holding a large green sign that read "the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it," while another read "I want a cute guy, not a cute climate change."
 Not only students participated in the Helsinki climate march. Mothers and fathers were seen walking with the procession, pushing prams and carrying their children aloft on their shoulders as they walked down Aleksanterinkatu.

Finnish kids join global climate strike


Summary: A Helsinki city social worker told local media firm Lännen Media (LM) that kids with Finnish roots are returning from Syria.

Kids with Finnish roots are returning from Syria,  Jonna Vanhanen , a senior social worker with the city of Helsinki, told local media conglomerate Lännen Media (LM).
 Vanhanen said that while the number of ISIS returnees is low now, more children could emerge as the caliphate crumbles. More than 80 people, including 30 children, have travelled from Finland to conflict areas in Syria and Iraq, according to the Finnish Security Police (SUPO).
 Interior Ministry official  Tarja Mankkinen  told LM that municipalities should organise returnee rehabilitation, particularly for children exposed to extraordinary violence.
 No free pass
 Last week, the Finnish government called for the  establishment of an international court  in the Middle East to try those who have fought with the terror group Isis. All the Nordic countries back such a move.
 Matti Tolvanen,  a criminal law professor at the University of Eastern Finland, told Yle that he believed it was highly unlikely that Finland would be able to convict former ISIS fighters on terrorism charges due to the difficulty of conducting pretrial investigations in conflict zones.
 Finland's Interior Minister,  Kai Mykkänen , has said that while Finland  will not prevent the return  of nationals who left the country to fight with ISIS, it will not extend help to people who have left either.
 This month CNN and other news outlets reported on  a woman in a camp in eastern Syria  who said she was a Finn named Sanna. She said she had gone into Isis territory with her husband and that she has several children and wants to return to Finland.
 Mykkänen said Finland does  not intend to help  Sanna or her children return to Finland.
 "We have no intention of arranging any return trips for those who have taken part in fighting for Isis," Mykkänen asserted.

Report: Children returning to Finland from ISIS


Summary: Finnish police said they suspect Hayder Abduljabbar Al-Hmedavi, who has been remanded in absentia for attempted murder, may have fled to neighbouring Sweden.

Finnish police said the suspect may have travelled to Sweden via northern Finland.
 “We believe he crossed over to Sweden via Haparanda,” said  Pekka Hätönen , Detective Chief Inspector at the Helsinki Police Department.
 Hätönen said Finnish police have been cooperating with their Swedish colleagues. Police issued a European arrest warrant for Al-Hmedavi last week.
 The 34-year-old assailant is wanted for the stabbing of  his former spouse and their three children  as well as another adult in Helsinki’s Haaga district earlier this month. Finnish authorities  remanded him in absentia  for attempted murder last week.
 Due to the severity of the crimes and as a European arrest warrant is in force, Yle is publishing the name and photo of the suspect ahead of a potential court ruling.

Police: Helsinki knife attacker possibly in Sweden


Summary: Can the populist Finns Party become a contender for government formation talks? APN considers whether its nationalist rhetoric is resonating with voters.

The Finns Party has become as well known for controversy as it has for what it calls its scepticism of immigration and the EU. A recent Yle poll  shows the populist party gaining momentum  in the run-up to the April general election.
 The party appears to have bounced back from the internal division that saw the Blue Reform breakaway to return to the  Juha Sipilä  administration, which said it was not prepared to work with a Finns Party led by immigration hardliner  Jussi Halla-aho.
 APN looked at the pitched battle for poll position with political commentator  Sini Korpinen  and AFP journalist  Sam Kingsley.  Taloustutkimus researcher  Tuomas Turja  also shared his analysis on the party's 13.3-percent polling in Yle's latest political survey. According to Turja, the Finns Party is known for rapidly gaining ground ahead of parliamentary elections to post big gains among voters at the ballot.
 Finns Party among the "big three"?
 Korpinen agreed, saying that in her view, the nationalist group is still to reach its peak and will continue to improve in the polls until the election. She predicted that it would not be far-fetched for them to even rise to the ranks of the "big three" after the vote. Journalist Sam Kingsley agreed, noting that the "immigration-sceptic" party may have been provided with "a gift" in the form of heavy media coverage of suspected sexual abuse in the northern city of Oulu.
 Kingsley also referred to a recent Turku University study indicating that nowadays Finns Party voters are more educated, middle-income earners worried that they have more to lose and are consequently concerned about immigration. Both pundits agreed that if the party does end up in government, as  chair Halla-aho has said is his wish , it will likely struggle to maintain "street cred" as it did during its previous turn in the Sipilä administration.
 If you have any questions, or would like to share something on your mind, just contact us via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter account, or at yle.news@yle.fi.
 The All Points North podcast is a weekly look at what's going on in Finland. Subscribe via  iTunes  (and leave a review!), listen  on Spotify  and  Yle Areena  or find it on your favourite podcatching app or via our  RSS feed .
 This week's podcast episode was presented by  Denise Wall  and  Mark B. Odom , with additional reporting by Denise. The sound engineer was  Joonatan Kotila .

All Points North #44: Platforms, promises and platitudes - Finns Party


Summary: Many students took the day off school to protest the impact they say climate change will have on their future.

Young people across Finland  joined  children from around the world in a ’climate strike’ on Friday March 15, walking out of school to draw greater attention to the issue of climate change.
 The strikes, part of a movement known as ’Fridays for Future’, are inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who shot to fame after protesting climate change outside Sweden’s parliament every Friday.
 They were coordinated and promoted online, using hashtags like #ClimateStrike and #FridaysForFuture.
 In an open letter addressing world leaders, the group organising the March 15 global strike – which includes Thunberg – explained their motivations, saying: ”You have failed us in the past. If you continue failing us in the future, we, the young people, will make change happen by ourselves.”
 ’We want the politicans to do something’
 Standing on the steps of the Finnish parliament building in Helsinki, 7th grade students Ekrem and Daniel told Yle News why they were on strike.
 ”We want to protest because there are consequences [to climate change],” said Ekrem. ”We want the politicians to know and to do something about it.”
 ”I don’t want people to have to leave their homes because it gets too hot, or because of climate change,” added his friend Daniel.
 Story continues after photo
 Tom Bateman / Yle
 Many protesters Yle News spoke to said they thought climate change wasn’t being addressed urgently enough.
 ”We need to do something now, we need to start the conversation now,” said school student Laura, 14.
 Satvik, 13, explained his motivation in stronger terms: ”We’re trying to fight for what we deserve. We’re ruining this planet and we need to do something good.”
 There was also frustration at how older generations are perceived to treat climate change as an afterthought:
 ”There’s climate change and people don’t talk about it much. Like, we’re just pretending it won’t happen, and we need to change that,” said 15-year-old Titus.
 ’Protesting feels empowering’
 Friday’s climate strike in Helsinki saw around 3,000 children and young people taking part, according to estimates from the local police department. Seeing this size of turnout felt ”really cool and inspiring,” according to  Lily  from Espoo.
 Story continues after photo

 ”We didn’t think there’d be as many children as young as us here, because we didn’t think they cared about it,” said first-time protester  Roseanne , 13, from Vantaa.
 13-year-old  Jasmine  told Yle News, ”It feels empowering to be around a bunch of other young people who want the same thing.”
 A serious message
 Behind the memes and placards with messages like ”This girl is on fire” and ”The planet is hotter than my boyfriend” is a serious message: ”We’re the ones who are going to be living here,” said Laura, ”We want to have a future, a good future.”
 13-year-old Roseanne is also thinking of the future, saying: ”I just hope we have more time to actually live on this earth, rather than it being destroyed.”
 Vantaa student Jasmine wants the wider public to learn from the children’s school strike: ”I hope with this protest it’ll open people’s eyes to the different dangers, and maybe people will go vegetarian or vegan, and start conserving more energy to help save the earth.”

Finland’s climate strike kids: "We’re ruining this planet"


Summary: Secretary General Angel Gurria said that Nordic democracies ought to lead the way in creating a better future.

Kansainväliset organisaatiot ja sopimukset

Secretary General  Angel Gurria  of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said Friday that reviving Finland's recently scrapped social service and health care overhaul ( known as sote ) is an economic necessity.
 Gurria spoke to news agency STT during a vist to Helsinki to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Finland joining the OECD.
 Gurria claimed that municipalities in Finland would be unable to ensure stable health care funding, but that the failed proposal's 18 regional administrations was also too many. Gurria also raised the aging population as a concern.
 "Small self-governing units sound like an elegant form of administration, but can they fund equal services? The answer is no," Gurria stated. "Eighteen regions in a country this size is too many, but it would be a start."
 Digitalisation, robotics both threat and opportunity
 The breakneck pace of technological development is likely to offer great possibilities, Gurria said, while adding that technology and digitalisation "also has a dark side".
 "We estimate that 14 percent of all jobs are directly threatened, with a third of jobs changing completely due to digitalisation and automatisation," said Gurria. "The question is, what are we going to do with the people whose employment is at risk?"
 Children are at the forefront of technological development, Gurria said, because of their proficiency in learning to use new tools as digital natives.
 However, successes in international rankings such as the Pisa test are not enough for the OECD; adults need to improve their digital abilities, too.
 "It's all about skills, skills, skills," said Gurria. "We need education as well as on-the-job learning. Companies are in a key position here to educate their workforce. Public incentives and wise political decisions are also crucial."
 Gurria said that despite their problems, digitalisation and robotics are essential to building a better future, improving productivity and alleviating the job market losses created by aging workers.
 "Show the way"
 The OECD was founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress in liberal democracies around the world. Authoritarianism in China and the United States as well as anti-democratic movements in Europe have been on the rise in recent years.
 The Secretary General defended Finland's social security system when asked whether a Nordic welfare state still holds a place in the future.
 "Not only does it have a future, but it must show the rest of the world the way forward. The Nordics emphasise the importance of the individual. Systems that guarantee economic growth but neglect individual freedoms are not worthy systems."
 Gurria said that Finland has managed to combine the market economy and the government's role in balancing gaps in overall social welfare.
 "Research says you are the happiest people on Earth, or at least in the top five. You've definitely done something right; keep going!"

OECD chief: Finland must revive flopped health care reform


Summary: Spray-painted messages that were an affront to Islam and Muslims covered the walls of a Shia mosque in the Helsinki district of Mellunmäki.

A Shia mosque in the eastern Helsinki district of Mellunmäki was vandalised this week. Hateful remarks about the Islamic religion and its Muslim practitioners were spray-painted onto the walls of the mosque on two separate days.
 "We hadn't really seen this kind of thing before, but in recent years it has been starting to gain ground. It would be a good idea to think about what is behind this phenomenon, for example, what kind of image the media is also projecting about Islam," says  Paula Kemell , board president of Resalat, Finland's largest Shia Muslim community organisation.
 The mosque in Mellunmäki is one of Finland's largest, with close to 700 square metres of space. Kemell says it is located off the beaten path, which could encourage vandals.
 "It's not a regular event, but sometimes we have two instances of vandalism in the same week, like this week. Our website has also been hacked, threats are made against us and we are sent death threats. It never ends," Kemell says.
 "It feels bad. We had a group of schoolchildren come for a visit on Wednesday and the first thing they saw was those kinds of things written on the building."
 Several different religions were represented in the cleanup crew. Sara Salmi / Yle
 The walls of the mosque were washed clean on Friday as a team effort. Representatives of several different religions volunteered to help with the cleanup.
 Heidi Rautionmaa , a pastor with the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, was one of the people who participated.
 "It's about friendship and solidarity. No matter if the attack was directed at a church, mosque, synagogue, temple or other place of worship, as far as I see it, it was directed at the entire religious community," she said. "We are all people, with the same joys and sorrows. Different religions do not separate us."
 The graffiti reportedly many some people frightened to attend the mosque. Sara Salmi / Yle
 Resalat head Paula Kemell says she hopes that there will be a crackdown in Finland on online hate speech.
 "Legislation could be passed that would prohibit people from saying anything at all. If we first tacitly accept hate speech, and then accept hate crimes, before you know it, it becomes normalised behavior, which is unfortunate," she says.
 Kemell says that the Resalat community has few options for mitigating the vandalism.
 "We don't have the resources to increase our security with, say, a fancy security camera. It seems that no one hears our cries for help."

Vandals deface Helsinki mosque


Summary: A new PhD study from Finland concludes that people with high blood pressure should avoid liquorice products entirely.

kohonnut verenpaine (taudit, verisuonitaudit)

A fresh  PhD research study  from Tampere University has found that enjoying a daily helping of liquorice candy can cause blood pressure levels to rise to the same extent that blood pressure medications normally lower them.
 "People who already have high blood pressure should avoid any products that contain liquorice extract," says  Elina Hautamäki , the author of the dissertation.
 Commercial liquorice is obtained mainly from the dried root of the  Glycyrrhiza glabra  plant. Liquorice extract is commonly used as a sweetener or flavouring agent in candy and confectioneries, chewing gum, drinks, herbal teas, chewing tobacco, herbal medicines, and medicinal products like cough syrup.
 The study population in Hautamäki's study was asked to eat 120-300 grams of liquorice candy daily for two weeks. During this time, the peripheral and central blood pressure of the test group increased, as did arterial resistance and stiffness.
 Liquorice causes blood pressure levels to rise, due to sodium and water retention.
 Differing sensitivities make it hard to define a safe level
 Hautamäki says the level of liquorice extract varies from one product to another, and this information is normally not stated by the packaging.
 She says people's different sensitivities to liquorice make it hard to come up with safe ingestion levels that would apply across the board.
 "If you have normal blood pressure, you can enjoy liquorice products in moderation, from time to time," she says.
 The impact that liquorice has on blood pressure levels normally lasts for weeks. Hautamäki says this is why it is very important to determine whether patients with blood pressure issues have ingested any liquorice products in the recent weeks when making diagnoses.
 Hautamäki's doctoral defence will take place at the Tampere University department for internal medicine on 29 March.

Eating liquorice raises blood pressure, says study


Summary: A municipal interest group poll found that 45 percent of respondents want to see the Social Democratic Party in the next government after the 14 April elections.

The political party that Finnish residents would most like to see as part of the new government is the Social Democrats, according to a  recent poll  conducted by the Foundation for Municipal Development, an interest group that looks after the best interests of Finland's over 300 municipalities.
 Close to half, or 45 percent, of the survey's over one thousand respondents said they would like to see the SDP in the next coalition. The next most popular were the Greens with 35 percent support, followed by the National Coalition Party (NCP) and the Centre Party, who were tied with just slightly over 30 percent support each.
 Support for Finns Party in government up
 The only party whose support in the poll increased from a similar poll the municipal group conducted last summer was the Finns Party. Now the survey showed that just under a fifth of the respondents would like to see the Finns Party have a role in government.
 Voters who plan to vote for the SDP, Greens or Left Alliance answered that they would prefer to see a coalition of these three players in government for the next four years. In contrast, supporters of the Finns Party in the poll were unable to indicate even one party that they would like to see in government with their party representatives.
 The survey was carried out by the pollster Kantar TNS, reaching out to 1,112 respondents that represented 18 to 79 year olds in all corners of mainland Finland. The margin of error for the results is less than three percentage points in either direction.
 Yle also did its own assessment this week about which parties would be willing to work with which others, based on responses to its  election compass .
 The SDP came out on top of this assessment, too, as the most desirable coalition partner. The NCP and the Centre Party candidate responses indicated that neither would rank the other as the number one partner in a potential future government.

Almost half of Finnish voters want SDP in next gov't, poll suggests


Summary: Rescue services say a propane leak triggered by servicing caused the building to be emptied. No one is believed to have been harmed in the incident.

The Valkea shopping complex in the northwest coastal city of Oulu was evacuated on Saturday after a dangerous gas leak on the premises.
 Oulu's rescue services say that the food court's centralized liquefied petroleum gas station was being serviced, when some valves were inadvertently left open. This caused the gas to leak into the mall.
 The scent of the powerful odorant added to the gas alerted people to the danger and a call was put into rescue service personnel at 2:38pm.
 The authorities say that the building was completed evacuated and is now being carefully ventilated.
 Although several fire trucks and EMT teams were dispatched to the location, rescue services personnel say that, so far, it appears as if no one was harmed by the incident.
 This story was first reported by the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.

Gas leak prompts Oulu shopping centre evacuation


Summary: Most interviewees gave the current government's rating a thumbs down during Yle's News' straw poll.

Climate change, inequality and Finland's role in the EU were some of the key issues voters in Turku said they would be considering when they cast their ballots  in Finland's parliamentary elections  on 14 April. Members of the public shared their views as Yle News continued its  voter pulse series  in the southwestern city.
 "I think it's important to take care of things that make society ... equal. We need to take care of all kinds of people," said  Marja .
 Others expanded the focus to look at bigger issues, such as the impact Finland could have on the EU during its turn at hosting the rotating EU presidency later this year.
 "The parliament which we will choose will then also have an effect on the European Union. So it's very important. We'll be deciding on the fate of the globe,"  Joonas  noted.
 It's all "money, money, money"
 Although most interviewees weren't thrilled with the current government's performance, some gave it credit for increasing employment and boosting national competitiveness.
 "It has done a terrible job. Because it's all about money, money, money. That's it,"  Mika  remarked.
 "Well, at least they succeeded in raising [our competitiveness]. I don't know about anything else. I haven't liked their performance,"  Marika  commented.
 Voters were interviewed before Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä   tendered his administration's resignation  on 8 March after failing to see its ambitious social and health care reform over the finish line. His three-party coalition will however remain in office in a caretaker capacity until the next government is formed.

Watch: Inequality, climate top of mind for Turku voters


Summary: The Greens and Left Alliance promise a carbon neutral Finland by the year 2030, the SDP 2035, and the Centre Party 2045. Three parties have pledged no targets.

The news agency STT approached several environmental organisations and specialists about how Finland's main political parties differ in the  pre-election  solutions they are offering to tackle climate change.
 The experts agree that none of the parliamentary parties seem to understand how quickly new policies must be enacted in order to avoid  dire consequences .
 The panel advises voters that are concerned about climate change to first compare the parties' goals for achieving carbon neutrality in Finland. Attaining a net zero carbon footprint would require lowering overall carbon dioxide emission levels to equal carbon removal capacity. Finland's vast forests already provide a sizeable carbon sink, but other measures such as carbon offsetting and increased renewable energy are also important in this effort.
 Different carbon neutral target dates
 STT's experts say the parties' projected carbon neutral dates are a good indicator of their willingness to forsake fossil fuels and peat, for example.
 The Greens pledge that they want Finland to be carbon neutral by 2030, while the Social Democrats (SDP) and the Swedish People's Party (SPP) have set a target of 2035.
 The centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP) says it wants to make fossil fuels a thing of the past "sometime in the 2030s", while the Centre Party has set a target date of 2045.
 The Left Alliance is also ambitious, saying that they want to "make Finland carbon-negative by the early 2030s".
 Carbon neutrality target dates are conspicuously missing in the election platforms of the Christian Democrats, the Blue Reform and the Finns Party.
 Few clear plans and exact percentages
 Environmental rights researcher  Heta Heiskanen  of the University of Tampere says a second important target for eco-conscious citizens to analyse is the emission reduction percentage that political parties state in their manifestos.
 For example, the Greens call for 60 percent reductions, while the NCP calls for an increase in the 2030 EU emissions reduction target to 55 percent from its current 40 percent, compared with 1990 levels. Many of the remaining parties, like the SDP, Centre and the Left Alliance, pledge that they would like to see emission reduction percentages increased, but without stating specific numbers.
 Another thing the experts say voters can follow is whether the parties have clear plans in place to make attainment of these targets possible.
 "Ask yourself whether they are speaking of larger entities and significant political policies, or if they seem bogged down in discussions of the little details," says project manager  Janne Peljo  of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra.
 Lack of understanding about the means towards the end
 Before Christmas, eight of the nine parliamentary parties in Finland sat down to compose a  joint statement  that said the country must play its part in limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. However, according to the experts that spoke with STT, the parties do not necessarily understand the means required to make good on this commitment.
 Mia Rahunen , a climate expert at WWF Finland, points out that this promise can't be kept without eliminating the use of fossil fuels. She too feels that none of the party manifestos seem to reveal a sufficient understanding of the seriousness of the situation.
 The parties show clear differences when it comes to laying out specific courses of action, the STT experts say. For example, the Greens, Left Alliance, SPP and SDP each have clear action points to tackle climate change in their election manifestos, while the NCP and Centre Party sections on the environment raise many questions.
 "When it comes to the former government coalition parties in particular, it is tough [to understand their climate goals]. They seem to say one thing and do another," says  Olli Tiainen , climate and energy campaigner and project leader at Greenpeace Nordic.
 Tampere University's Heiskanen agrees that it is difficult to ascertain the NCP stance from their pre-election platform.
 "It's hard to figure out how much of the work will be left to volunteer organizations, and how much they will be effectively pushing things forward themselves," she says.
 Climate expert  Hanna Aho  from the development NGO umbrella group Fingo says that she too has sensed a conflict within the NCP. She says that the party has presented several concrete initiatives to combat climate change, and several MPs have made important contributions, but that she found many of their campaign slogans to be in some part antagonistic to the cause.
 Aho also says it is also valuable to examine party messages for their consistency. For example, a political party might have outlined ambitious climate goals, but at the same time be in support of subsidies that are harmful to the environment.
 Next government will have a major climate impact
 After the  14 April elections , the future government will define climate policy for the next four years. The experts in the STT poll predict several divisive issues may come up in negotiations to form the new coalition. For example, there are clear dividing lines between the parties on the issue of using peat for energy, the area of business subsidies, and the extent to which a climate action plan should be built on the back of Finland's electricity supply.
 Heiskanen estimates that potential coalition partners will have an easier time agreeing on such things as support for the circular economy and funding for research and development.
 WWF's Rahunen says it is unclear how big a priority climate issues will be in the government formation talks, as none of the nine parliamentary parties have indicated whether certain climate measures would be potential red lines in the sand when it comes to cooperation.
 Fingo's Aho comments that the ideal situation would be a future government made up of parties with mutually reinforcing environmental aims.
 "But if, for example, the SDP and the NCP end up in the same coalition, with no Green or Left Alliance input, then it's really hard for me to see that at the end of the day, sufficient climate action would be taken," she says.
 Heiskanen says she was also surprised by how little mention the parties made of legislation in the climate sections of their pre-election manifestos.
 "Only the Swedish People's Party had nicely declared that climate considerations should be taken into account in the drafting of all future laws."

Experts detect big differences in party stances on climate change


Summary: The Finnish state now pays off 40 percent of university students' debt if they graduate within a target timeframe. Study loans have doubled in the last decade.

Legislation came into force in Finland in 2014 that was intended to encourage more university students to graduate on time. According to the new policy, students who began their higher education studies on or after 1 August 2014 and completed their degree within the appointed target period were eligible for state compensation of 40 percent of their total student debt that exceeded 2,500 euros.
 Students studying towards bachelor's and master's level university degrees and applied science university degrees are eligible to receive the compensation, which is administered by the state benefits agency Kela. Students completing bachelor's degrees are also free to defer the one-time-only compensation until they have completed their master's, for example.
 The target graduation times range from 3.5 to 4.5 academic years for bachelor's degrees, and 6 and 7 academic years for master's degrees.
 Too early to assess policy effectiveness
 It is still too early to say whether the system has encouraged more university students to graduate sooner, but Kela chief coordinator  Ilpo Lahtinen  says the new system has certainly resulted in  a jump in the number of young people applying for and receiving state-guaranteed student loans . He pointed out that the number of university students with student loan debt has doubled over the last decade.
 "The use of student loans has grown enormously since the introduction of the compensation policy. We foresee a lot of students will expect the compensation when they graduate, as they are certainly very aware of it," he said.
 In early 2016, the Finnish government announced it was cutting 70 million euros from student aid over the next three years, as part of a public finance savings drive. Several opposition  politicians protested the financial aid cuts, saying that the move would force university students to take on more debt .
 Earlier reforms to university financing have made the number of awarded degrees the single most important quantifier for determining annual funding of academic institutions. Higher education facilities also receive additional funding for every student that completes at least 55 credits of coursework a year.
 This new kind of financing model has led Finnish universities to increase their targets for the overall percentage of on-time graduates. Last year, the goal was to have 43 percent of enrolled students graduate within the target timeframes, up from 28 percent in 2005-2006.
 The fiscal plan for the years 2017-2010 that Finland's centre-right coalition government agreed upon in 2016 states that "student loan compensation will be maintained within the framework of financial constraints", thereby continuing the policy for the time being.

Student loan compensation policy enters fifth year, results still unclear


Summary: A strong low pressure front moving in from the west will make traffic routes very hazardous late Sunday and all day Monday in many areas.

Motorists throughout Finland are advised to prepare for poor driving conditions, due to a new front of precipitation moving in from the west.
 Yle meteorologist  Matti Huutonen  says a very strong low pressure front is currently moving over Scandinavia, making its way to Finland. He predicts the storm will hit the west coast already Sunday afternoon.
 "In the evening, the front will spread thorughout the south and west, and road conditions will become either dangerous or very dangerous," he says.
 The precipitation will fall in the south as rain or sleet, and father north as sleet or snow. Northern Finland will see the most accumulation.
 "Central Lapland may see very poor road conditions over the next 24 hours," Huutonen says.
 Clearer skies but colder starting Wednesday
 The Finnish Meteorological Institute has issued a  warning  for dangerous road conditions already Sunday evening in the southwest, while tomorrow the traffic warning will expand to everywhere but the far north.
 Temperatures on Sunday and Monday will stay above zero degrees Celsius in most areas, with below-zero temperatures and sunny skies forecast for Northern Lapland.
 High winds are also expected at sea, where gusts might approach 15 metres per second in the eastern parts of the Gulf of Finland.
 Things are predicted to clear up a bit on Tuesday, with only scattered showers forecast for select areas. On Wednesday, the skies will finally clear up as temperatures drop once again.

Rain, sleet and snow make road conditions extremely dangerous


Summary: Possible US sanctions against a Russian gas pipeline could prove difficult for Finland, a new treatment for depression and Helsinki kicks off electric scooters.

In the aftermath of the  Finnish government's recent collapse , Russian media focused on one thing only - the future of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea stretching from Germany to Russia, writes Helsingin Sanomat columnist and former Yle correspondent  Jarmo Mäkelä  in  HS .
 The stretch of  two parallel pipelines in Finnish waters  measures some 374 km in length, with the entire pipeline covering some 1,200 km.
 Russian news agency Tass reported that Finnish permits would remain unchanged under the caretaker government. Mäkelä said Finland could find itself in an awkward position if the United States decides to impose sanctions against the Russian-backed pipeline.
 The US has expressed concern that the pipeline transporting Russian gas to Europe will increase Russia’s geopolitical influence in the continent.
 Treating depression
 In health news, a new ketamine-based drug to treat depression, marketed as Spravato, could change the way physicians treat depression, writes regional daily  Turun Sanomat . Last month, Yle reported that more than  400,000 people in Finland take anti-depressants .
 Spravato, developed by the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, is the first new depression treatment to come to market in years.
 Turku University Hospital, which has administered ketamine-based therapies for years, recently raised the upper limit for ketamine treatments to six months from three.
 However,  Tero Taiminen , who heads the psychiatric unit at Turku University Hospital, said the effects of long-term ketamine use are still unknown.
 Studies suggest that more than seven percent of adults in Finland annually suffer from clinical depression, with up to one in five experiencing at least mild symptoms.
 Helsinki kicks off controversial electric scooters
 Helsinki’s  yellow city bikes  will be available again on April 1, but on Monday 120 motorised electric scooters will descend on city streets, deployed by a Swedish company, reports  Helsingin Sanomat .
 Unlike city bikes, electric scooters have no docks. Riders consult an app to locate available scooters and leave them behind after they are done.
 Several cities, including San Francisco, have banned electric scooters for cluttering sidewalks and endangering traffic.

Monday’s papers: Pipeline politics, a new hope for treating depression and electric scooters


Summary: Well-insulated buildings help to fend off stress and sleep disorders, says the Finnish health institute.

As many as 600,000 people in Finland are exposed at home to high levels of road traffic noise, as defined by the EU.
 According to a study published by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) on Monday, the actual number of residents exposed to loud noise is probably lower, since buildings in Finland are well insulated due to the climate and therefore muffle externals sounds more effectively than in many other European countries.
 According to the EU, road traffic is the most significant source of environmental noise pollution within the region.
 Despite good insulation, though, noise ranks alongside air pollution as a primary threat to the quality of the living environment in Finland as well, says the THL. Exposure to noise can cause stress and disrupt sleep, the agency notes.
 "It would be beneficial to people's well-being if buildings were designed so that as many residents as possible could situate their bedrooms on the quieter side. We should favour flats that cut across buildings [with windows on opposing sides] or those where the windows face onto a yard," says THL senior researcher  Tarja Yli-Tuomi .
 Noise annoys
 According to the THL, buildings in noisy areas should be equipped with proper soundproofing.
 "Residents of areas with traffic noise should also keep their windows shut. This also lowers exposure to air pollution. Apartments should have properly-functioning ventilation and air conditioning so that it is not necessary to use windows for ventilation," Yli-Tuomi advises.
 In future, registry data on buildings and flats should include information on the direction of windows, so that municipalities could better gauge residents' exposure to noise and air pollution, the THL urges.
 "This information would also be useful for research, because inaccuracy in exposure estimates can hamper or even block efforts to determine links between exposure and health hazards or benefits," Yli-Tuomi says.
 The findings, published in the THL journal  Ympäristö ja terveys , ( Environment and health  in English) are based on a survey mailed to 16,000 residents of the Helsinki region.

THL: Hundreds of thousands affected by traffic noise in Finland


Summary: The forest products giant's closure of a production line could be major blow to the northern city's struggling economy.

Finnish-Swedish forest industry firm Stora Enso announced on Monday that it plans to sharply downsize operations at its Oulu Mill, with the potential loss of 400 jobs. The facility now has some 600 employees.
 The company will replace the current two production lines manufacturing fine paper with a single line making a type of packaging board known as kraftliner. It says it will complete the overhaul and close down its sheeting plant by the end of 2020 at the latest.
 Established in 1935, the Oulu Mill is one of the company's three paper mills in Finland. It now produces wood-free coated (WFC) paper and a much smaller amount of bleached softwood pulp. Despite its name, wood-free paper is produced from chemical pulp made from wood.
 Liisa Nyyssönen , communications director of the company's paper division, tells Yle that demand for fine paper has dropped more quickly than expected.
 She attributes the slashing of hundreds of jobs to changes brought by new technology. Producing cardboard will only require one production line rather than the two needed for producing paper, she says.
 "There are now 130 people working in paper sheeting, but we won't need sheeting anymore, for instance," says Nyyssönen.
 "A bolt out of the blue"
 The Oulu Mill's chief union steward,  Olli-Pekka Kaikkonen , says the extent of the co-determination negotiations came as a shock.
 "This news came as a bolt out of the blue," Kaikkonen remarks.
 Kaikkonen adds that employees were aware that there would be some impact on staffing numbers if the factory was converted to a packaging board mill.
 "However we imagined that the possible redundancies would affect a significantly smaller number of people," he says. "Lay-off talks start next Monday. As far as we know now though, paper will still be produced into 2020."
 Impact across North Ostrobothnia
 Oulu Mayor  Päivi Laajala  sought to put a bright face on the day's news, saying it is a fine thing that the mill will still remain in operation despite the redundancy talks.
 She also points out that the change will affect not only Oulu, but also the entire North Ostrobothnia area.
 "The regional impacts will really be significant. This is a big deal," says Laajala. She promises that the city will support those losing their jobs with employment services and training if needed.
 Stora Enso, one of the world's biggest producers of paper, wood and cardboard, was formed in 1998 when Finnish forest products company Enso merged with Sweden's Stora, which began as a mining company in 1288. Enso traced its history back to 1872, when the Gutzeit sawmill was established in Kotka.
 In addition to Finland and Sweden, the company has mills in other European countries as well as in China, Brazil and Russia.

Stora Enso cutting up to 400 jobs in Oulu


Summary: Opinion polls carried out over the past half-year reveal a split in views on immigration in Finland.

A pair of surveys published by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (Eva) on Monday suggests that Finnish views on immigration have generally become more welcoming – although paradoxically more than half of respondents still said that there are already too many immigrants in the country.
 The business group hired pollster Taloustutkimus to question 2,000 people in Finland on immigration last autumn and early this year, following up on previous corresponding public opinion polls over the past two decades. The polling organisation says it aimed for a representative cross-section of the nation's adult population, but does not specify whether respondents were all citizens.
 Respondents were asked whether they agreed with the following statement, "Our country's ageing population and its threatened decline requires us to make it easier for foreigners to move to Finland."
 No impact from Oulu allegations
 Thirty-nine percent said they somewhat or completely agreed, the highest figure since polling began in 1998. However, nearly as many, 36 percent, said they somewhat or completely disagreed. That number was a majority (52 percent) as recently as 2016, down from a record 61 percent in 1998.
 "The most important result of the survey is that Finns' attitudes toward immigration have become more positive over both the long and short term," said Eva research director  Ilkka Haavisto .
 "The biggest single change is that Finns now believe that our country really needs people coming in from abroad to work," Haavisto said.
 Data was collected from September through February, including a period when there was heavy media coverage of alleged sex crimes by immigrants in Oulu.
 "The Oulu events did not actually affect general Finnish attitudes toward immigration at all," he said.
 Splits along party lines
 Despite the increase in positive responses, many Finns remain cautious or negative about immigration, the survey suggests. Fifty-two percent of respondents said that the current level of immigration is too high.
 Respondents' responses were closely tied to the political party they supported.
 "Supporters of the Greens, Left Alliance and Swedish People's Party were positive by nearly all measures. On the other hand backers of the Finns Party and its breakaway Blue Reform Party were at the opposite extreme, with Finns Party supporters clearly more anti-immigration than those of the Blues," Haavisto said.
 Haavisto adds that while there was a spike in anti-immigration views before the 2011 and 2015 parliamentary elections, there was no sign of one this time, which he said was "surprising".
 The autumn data was collected between 24 September and 4 October, and the winter data between 31 January and 6 February. The pollster says the margin of error is 2-3 percentage points.
 Eva is affiliated with the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) and other employers' lobbies, as well as the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (Etla).

Poll: Attitudes toward immigration becoming more positive


Summary: Finland's papers look at university acceptance statistics, Helsinki's response to a projected jump in foreign-language residents and a two-day worker walkout.

Iltalehti carries a story on the start of the higher education application period, giving  a rundown of which institutions are hardest to get into in Finland .
 Statistics from the National Agency for Education show that securing a tertiary study place in Finland is difficult. On average, less than one-fifth of applicants are accepted each year.
 The easiest universities and applied science universities to get into in Finland are those with Swedish-language instruction. For example, acceptance rates were highest at Turku's Åbo Akademi University and the Novia University of Applied Sciences, which has campuses in Vaasa, Turku, Raseborg and Jakobstad.
 The academic institutions that were the hardest to get into were the University of the Arts in Helsinki, which specializes in fine arts, music and theatre, and the Laurea University of Applied Sciences that has six campuses in the Uusimaa capital city region and teaches things like nursing, IT, business management and restaurant entrepreneurship. Only 8 percent of the applications to these schools were accepted for the last academic year.
 Study places were also difficult to secure at Turku, Lapland and Tampere Universities, where just 11.2-13.3 percent of applications were accepted. Only slightly better, the Universities of Eastern Finland and Oulu accepted just 14 percent of all applicants.
 The university that receives and processes the most  applications  each year is Helsinki University. Out of 31,000 applicants in 2018, 15.4 percent were accepted to study there.
 The application period for entry into higher education institutions in Finland begins on 20 March and ends on 3 April.
 Early childhood education as a silver bullet
 The daily Helsingin Sanomat features a story on the  city council of Helsinki's efforts to adapt the city's services to a projected near-doubling of the foreign-language population .
 The latest estimates predict that  by the year 2035, every fourth Helsinki resident will speak at least one foreign language  – in other words, something other than Finnish, Swedish or Sami – as their mother tongue.
 Deputy Mayor and SDP city councillor  Nasima Razmyar  tells the paper Helsinki must re-think its education, employment and health care systems to take the needs of foreign-language speakers better into account.
 "There's plenty of room for improvement in comprehensive education, for example, because Finnish and Swedish-speaking children are currently outperforming children with a different native language, on average," she says.
 NCP city councillor  Daniel Sazonov  says that efforts to provide more Finnish instruction for the city's residents are underway, but he also points out that services should be available to people who have no plans to stay in Finland long-term.
 "Helsinki should have English-language early childhood education on offer," he says.
 By the year 2035, every third pre-school-age child in Finland will speak a foreign language as their mother tongue, even though most of them will have been born in the country.
 Sazonov tells HS that this is why more children should be encouraged to start early childhood education programmes in daycares, where little ones learn the language and societal norms. Finland's percentage of children who regularly attend early childhood education programmes is currently lower than its Nordic neighbours. To improve these numbers and boost integration, Greens city councillor  Otso Kivekäs  proposes that Helsinki increase its daycare capacity and lower prices.
 Finns Party councillor  Jussi Halla-aho  tells the paper on the other hand that he sees no reason for the city of Helsinki to change its services to meet the needs of a growing foreign population, as the newcomers should instead adapt themselves to the Finnish situation.
 Money for port renovations, but not workers
 Oulu-based newspaper Kaleva carries a story on a  two-day employee walkout at the Stora Enso paper mill in Oulu  on Tuesday, following news that the  mill is planning to lay off up to 400 workers .
 The forest product giant announced on Monday that it planning to convert the northwest paper mill into a packaging board production plant, which would mean the closing of one of the mill's paper machines and a sheeting plant.
 "I was there at the startup of the number six paper machine. I wish I would have never come to see this day,"  Kyösti Nuutinen , a worker for the Stora-Enso subsidiary Efora, tells the paper.
 He and his friends are standing at the gate of the mill, to remind any workers who may show up that tools have been downed for two days in protest. He wonders aloud about the choices Stora Enso has made of late, as significant investments were made in a deep-water channel for the Oulu port before the firm decided to let people go.
 "It doesn't affect a 60-year-old guy like me too much; I'll get by. But the situation is entirely different for younger employees who have just built their houses and have children to feed."

Tuesday's papers: University admission rates, Helsinki daycare expansion, and a strike in Oulu


Summary: Tuesday marks the final session of the current parliamentary term, and the last day of service for more than a dozen MPs.

The Finnish Parliament wraps up its final plenary session on Tuesday, and the last items on the agenda include the implementation of a new firearms directive and legislation to capture and cull alien flora and fauna in the country.
 This session, the last before  elections on 14 April , marks the end of many MPs' careers at Arcadia Hill.
 Centre Party MPs  Seppo Kääriäinen ,  Sirkka-Liisa Anttila ,  Niilo Keränen , and  Tapani Tölli  have each announced that they will not be seeking re-election on 14 April. Kääriäinen and Anttila have both served in the Finnish Parliament for decades, and have held seats as ministers in previous governments.
 Among the Blue Reform party, MPs  Maria Lohela ,  Lea Mäkipää  and  Pentti Oinonen  will not be returning. Lohela served as Speaker of Parliament from May 2015 to February 2018 and was the youngest person to hold the post. She announced in January of this year that she would be leaving the Blues to join the Liike Nyt political movement.
 From the SDP ranks, MP and former minister  Lauri Ihalainen  joins former Speaker  Eero Heinäluoma  and MPs  Riitta Myller  and  Maria Tolppanen  in not seeking re-election.
 National Coalition Party MPs leaving the chamber are former ministers  Pertti Salolainen  and  Lenita Toivakka , while the Swedish People's Party is losing MPs  Mats Nyland  and former minister  Stefan Wallin .
 MP  Kari Uotila  from the Left Alliance will also not seek re-election.
 These MPs' decisions will mean 16 fewer candidates contesting the April  general elections .

Last session for many MPs exiting Parliament


Summary: The alcohol monopoly said that despite declining sales, overall alcohol consumption in Finland was up last year.

Finnish state alcohol retailer Alko announced that 2018 sales were down and that its turnover last year fell to 543 million euros, compared to 596 million euros the previous year. It also announced on Tuesday that operating profits had decreased to 46 million euros from the previous year's 53 million euros.
 The firm said sales were hurt by supermarkets and other stores gaining the legal right to sell beer and alcopops containing up to 5.5 percent alcohol last year.
 Alko CEO  Leena Laitinen  said profits were better than the company had anticipated, saying that the decline was a direct result of the alcohol reforms.
 The reforms went into effect at the beginning of last year. Previously grocery and convenience stores could only sell beverages that contained a maximum 4.7 percent alcohol.
 Shortly after the reforms were put into effect, Alko began to report  declines in sales .
 The firm reported in January 2018 that sales of " lonkero " alcopops fell by 39 percent, beer by 27 percent, and cider by 12 percent in terms of volume. Overall, Alko's litre sales dipped by nearly eight percent year-on-year.
 Despite the sales decline, Alko said that overall alcohol consumption in Finland grew by 0.6 percent. According to an announcement by the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira) last month, the overall sale of alcohol in Finland had been in decline since 2011, but last year that figure  went up slightly .

State booze retailer Alko announces 8.5% sales drop in 2018


Summary: Many people in Finland live their lives according to schedules that don't suit them, according to a study about sleep patterns and their effect on people's lives.

A Finnish study has found that only a third of participants feel that their personal ability to sleep at certain times match the times they need to wake up to get to school and work.
 The study - carried out by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and Yle Akuutti, the public broadcaster's health and wellbeing department - found that everyone has an in-born, personal circadian rhythm.
 These characteristics, known as chronotypes, are an individual's ability to sleep at particular times of the day.
 Schedules that call for early morning alarms do not suit everyone, the study confirmed. Around 12-14 percent of people in the country were found to be more alert during the hours of the evening.
 The study's researchers said that ideally, people should be able to decide their own schedules depending on their personal chronotype, but said society is generally better arranged for morning people.
 "Morning people reported that their daily routines and schedules suited them twice as often as evening people did," said  Mikael Sallinen , program director at the Institute of Occupational Health.
 Being more alert in the evening also affects how much sleep night owls get, according to the study. The later a person pushes forward their daily sleep rhythm, the greater their sleep deficits are, according to  Sampsa Puttonen  one of the researchers behind the study.
 "Respondents who said they wanted to delay the start of the day by a couple of hours often suffered from a two-hour sleep deficit," he explained.
 Researchers surprised by results
 The study's researchers said they were surprised by the close link between psychological well-being and suitable sleep routines are. People with sleep deficits face increased risks of exhaustion, experiencing bad moods and being unhappy with life in general, according to the study.
 The root of some psychological problems can be partly explained by sleep deprivation. But the researchers said they found it remarkable that people who are regularly compelled to wake up too early suffered more psychological problems than people who felt they are regularly forced to stay awake too late.
 A lack of sleep also contributes to increased risks of cardiovascular disease, metabolism problems, back problems and asthma.
 The researchers said that when possible, people should try to follow their own circadian rhythms, even if only during vacations.
 The Institute of Occupational Health has called on workplaces - and society in general - to take people's varying sleep rhythms into consideration.
 Another of the study's researchers,  Ilona Merikanto , suggested that Finland's educational system could examine the issue of sleep and its effects on students.
 "Schools should consider if starting at eight o'clock in the morning is really suitable for a teenager," Merikanto said.

Finnish researchers surprised by impact of sleep routines on mental health


Summary: In honour of Minna Canth and Equality Day on 19 March, Yle has put together a list of figures that shed a light on contemporary gender issues in Finland.

In honour of Minna Canth Day, Finland's annual effort to promote gender equality, Yle has compiled data from the state-run number cruncher Statistics Finland and other authorities on gender issues in Finland.
 1. There are more women than men in the Finnish population
 At the end of 2017, there were 5,513,000 people living in Finland, 2,794,000 of which were women and 2,719,000 of which were men. This means that women presently have a majority of about 80,000. Statistics Finland forecasts that by the year 2065, the situation will be reversed and there will be more men than women in the country.
 2. Women live longer
 In the early 1900s, life expectancy at birth in Finland was just over 40 years for both genders. These days, Finnish residents tend to live twice as long. According to figures from 2017, women's current life expectancy at birth is 84.2 years, while for men it is 78.7.
 3. Women represent the majority of higher education students
 Nowadays, 57.4 percent of students completing higher education at academic universities in Finland are women. Women are also the majority (52.8 percent) in universities of applied sciences, where students typically learn a trade.
 Most students who choose to pursue tertiary education in the fields of social and health care, the humanities and the arts, the service sector, and business, administration and law are women.
 There is no discernible gender imbalance among university students who study the natural sciences, agricultural and forestry. Things are different in the field of IT and telecommunications, however, as in 2016 over 92 percent of graduates in these fields were men.
 4. Just two-thirds of women are in working life
 In 2017 in Finland, just over two-thirds (68.5 percent) of women between the ages of 15 and 64 were classified as employed, compared to 70.7 percent of men. Unemployment figures for the same year showed that 8.4 percent of eligible working-age women were without work, compared to 8.9 percent of men.
 5. Female bosses are rare, and they tend to lead other women
 Even though the number of women who have attained leadership positions in Finland has grown steadily for decades, those companies in which women are in supervisory positions still tend to have more women as employees.
 The last time statistics were compiled on this in 2013, only one in ten men reported working for a female supervisor in Finland. All in all, 65 percent of people reporting that they had a woman supervisor were women themselves.
 After the 2015 election, 41.5 percent of the newly-elected MPs in the 200-member Finnish Parliament were women, while 58.5 percent were men. An  Inter-Parliamentary Union assessment  from the start of this year places Finland at number 12 on a worldwide comparison of women in national parliaments.
 6. Men earn 600 euros more monthly, on average
 There are still clear gender differences in Finland when it comes to wages. In 2017 Statistics Finland determined that for every euro earned as wages by men, women were paid 84 cents. In 2016 women received an average of 3,075 euros per month, while men got an average of 3,675 euros for a month's work.
 Women also reported doing 3 hours and 41 minutes of daily housework in 2010, while men reported doing 2 hours and 33 minutes.
 The most recent  gender equality barometer  conducted by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health suggested that two-thirds of women believe that men in Finland are in a more privileged position in society compared to women. Half of Finnish men also felt this way. The survey of attitudes on gender suggests that only one-fifth of women and less than half of men believe there is gender equality in Finland.
 Data used in this list was compiled from Statistics Finland, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and the National Institute of Health and Welfare (THL).
 _Every year since 2007 on 19 March, Finland has celebrated  Minna Canth  Day, also called the Day of Equality. Canth was an influential Finnish author and social thinker that lived in the late 19th century. She was also a strong campaigner for gender equality._
 EDIT 19.3.2019 An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that life expectancy in Finland was just over 40 for both genders in the early 1990s.

Finland celebrates equality: Data reveals current gender realities


Summary: Looking for the lowdown on Finland’s election this April? Then watch our election debate on Monday 25 March.

This April Finland  elects a new parliament  and ahead of that poll Yle News is hosting an election debate featuring all of the major parties to grill them--in English--about their plans for Finland’s future.
 So if you're concerned about the climate, worried about your wages or enthusiastic about education, our debate on Monday 25 March at 3pm is a must-see event.
 Representing the Left Alliance we have  Veronika Honkasalo , a party vice-chair and city councillor from Helsinki who works as a researcher and says she combines ‘stubborn commitment with political cooperation’.
 From the Finns Party vice chair  Laura Huhtasaari is joining us, claiming that she wants to avoid ‘the problems of immigration’.
 Our Centre Party participant is  Kimmo Tiilikainen , who currently serves as Environment Minister and says he wants to work toward sustainable development.
 Antton Rönnholm  is the Social Democratic Party secretary and has worked for several top social democrats. He is not a candidate in this election.
 National Coalition MP  Elina Lepomäki  is an outspoken advocate of free markets and has even developed her very own model for welfare reform.
 Anders Adlercreutz  represents the Swedish People’s Party, bringing his brand of liberal politics to parliament. He’s currently an MP from Uusimaa.
 Our Green debate participant is  Olli-Poika Parviainen , a first-term MP running for re-election from the Pirkanmaa constituency. Parviainen is currently vice chair of the Greens' parliamentary group.
 Aki Ruotsala  joins joins us from the Christian Democrats, and he’s hoping to be elected from the Vaasa constituency.
 And the Blue Reform representative is  Tiina Ahva , who serves as the party’s third vice-chair.
 Our general election coverage includes a  really simple guide , the  ‘election compass’  which shows you which candidates most closely reflect your views, a  series of in-depth podcasts  on each of the nine largest parties, and of course up-to-the-minute results on election night itself, 14 April.
 You can follow the debate from 3pm (1pm GMT) on Monday 25 March right here at  yle.fi/news , via our  Facebook page  and on  Yle Areena . Join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #YleNewsDebate.

Finland Votes: Join the Yle News election debate


Summary: A museum in Espoo has confirmed it is still planning to show a Michael Jackson exhibition in the autumn despite renewed controversy about the singer.

Kulttuuri- ja taidetapahtumat ja -näyttelyt

Museot, näyttelyt sekä historiallisten paikkojen ja rakennusten suojelu

Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA) is ploughing on with plans to host a  Michael Jackson  exhibition this autumn as the museum’s main exhibition this year, despite an ongoing controversy over accusations of child sexual abuse.
 Since early March audiences in Britain and the United States have been watching the Leaving Neverland documentary, which details claims by  Wade Robson  and  James Safechuck  that Jackson abused them when they were children.
 The film has changed perceptions about Jackson. Radio stations have removed his songs from playlists,  Oprah Winfrey  has declared every parent should watch the movie, and Jackson has even been edited out of old Simpsons episodes.
 There has also been a backlash from Michael Jackson truthers, who declare that the singer was innocent.
 The Jackson estate has launched legal proceedings against HBO, which made the film.
 Pilvi Kalhama Ari Karttunen / EMMA
 At the same time as discussion around Jackson has escalated, Espoo’s cultural attraction EMMA has been preparing to host a major exhibition detailing representations of the deceased musician.
 Museum director  Pilvi Kalhama  told Svenska Yle that the exhibition isn’t a homage to Jackson, and that the museum condemns paedophilia—but she has not seen the film in its entirety.
 “The charges levelled in the film are shocking,” said Kalhama. “Our role is not to take a position on his guilt or innocence, but we can offer a space for discussion.”
 Michael Jackson: On the Wall  is EMMA’s main exhibition this year, and its arrival has been negotiated for three years.
 “There are sensitive, questionable and contradictory factors around him,” said Kalhama. “As an art museum we don’t want fan-based exhibitions. It became clear that the exhibition touches on really important societal themes, like ethnic origins, gender, publicity and the flip side of fandom. It was exactly that aspect that attracted us to the show.”
 Featuring more than 80 works from artists including  Andy Warhol ,  Grayson Perry  and  Isa Genzken ,  Michael Jackson: On the Wall  was shown in Paris after it was launched at the National Portrait Gallery in London last year.
 Kalhama says EMMA has already decided to make some changes to some aspects of the exhibition, and may offer extra space for discussion events, but that the museum’s role is to act as a neutral space.
 Leaving Neverland will be shown on Yle’s TV2 and Yle Areena in early April.

Espoo museum presses ahead with Michael Jackson exhibition despite Leaving Neverland furore


Summary: Finland's print press features results from the latest pre-election poll, a look back at what Finns have eaten in the past, and news that spring has sprung.

The daily Helsingin Sanomat starts the day with the  results from its latest poll assessing political support , which was carried out between 18 February and 15 March. This means the pollster Kantar TNS was still calling up homes and asking about their voting preferences one week after the unexpected  8 March government resignation .
 Results show the Social Democrats (SDP) increasing their lead to 21 percent, and pulling out even farther from the number two ranked centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP) that posted a showing of 18.1 percent.
 Caretaker government Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä 's Centre Party held steady despite his surprise 8 March decision, dropping to 14.3 from February's 14.7 percent support in what has been a slow but steady downhill ride.
 The fourth-most popular party in the HS poll was the Greens with 14 percent, right behind the Centre Party. Support fell slightly for the next on the list, the Finns Party, to 11.1 percent, and increased slightly for the Left Alliance at 8.9.
 Election researcher  Sami Borg  tells the paper that if one party manages to secure over 20 percent of the popular vote, it will make government formation talks much easier. He predicts the SDP will achieve this on election night, as its polling numbers have been consistently strong.
 The margin of error for the HS poll is two percentage points in either direction. The  general election to elect a new Parliament  in Finland will take place on 14 April.
 Meat consumption still strong, sugar and butter no
 The Rovaniemi-based newspaper Lapin Kansa reports on the Finnish population's diet, with a story examining what  typical dinner plates have looked like in the past .
 Favourites from the 1920s and 30s were pea, meat, and fish soups, along with various porridges and the famous "läskisoosi", a kind of pork stew. In the 40s and 50s, a typical meal was potatoes with various sauces or salted fish. By the 1960s and 70s, the standard of living had improved to the point that  meat became the centrepiece of the meal . Sausages and roasts in particular were hot sellers.
 Natural Resources Institute senior scientist  Juha-Matti Katajajuuri  says that Finns only started to be able to afford meat in the early 1960s, but then consumption "grew recklessly" for the next 50 years. Still in the 1970s, the sale of poultry products in Finland was virtually non-existent, "but now poultry already accounts for a third of total meat consumption, and its share keeps on growing."
 Nutrition historian  Merja Sillanpää  tells LK that Finns ate much more sugar and fat in the 1960s and 70s than they do now: consuming 30 kilos of sugar and over 22 kilos of butter per person. The current per capita average consumption of potatoes, about 40 kilos a year, has dropped dramatically since the 1950s, when the average Finn was downing a sizeable 140 kilos of the tubers a year. Milk consumption has also fallen off in favour of cheese and yoghurt products.
 Day and night are equal
 And the tabloid Iltalehti shares the good news that  today marks the vernal equinox . Technically, this is when the subsolar point crosses the celestial equator into the northern half of the planet, an event which is taken to mean the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
 Like all equinoxes, 20 March will see an almost exactly equal amount of daylight and night across most of the Earth's latitudes. IL asks  Anja Häkkinen  from the Finnish Meteorological Institute if this means we can say goodbye to winter in Finland.
 "Temperatures are already above zero in many areas, but the weather will remain quite variable in many places," she says.

Wednesday's papers: SDP lead improves, Finnish food over the years, and the spring equinox


Summary: The UN's seventh annual World Happiness Report ranks the countries of the world on "how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be".

Finland has once again been ranked as the happiest country in the world.
 The Nordic nation received the accolade for the  second year in succession  in the annual survey of global happiness from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
 Finland beat out 155 other countries for the title in the  2019 report , released Wednesday. The report states that global data on national happiness and evidence from the emerging science of happiness shows that "the quality of people’s lives can be coherently, reliably, and validly assessed by a variety of subjective well-being measures, collectively referred to as 'happiness.'"
 The annual report is based on survey results from the preceding three years, although the surveys are not arranged in every country in the assessment on an annual basis.
 Story continues after photo
 Finns often perform ordinary activities in very cold conditions, like this yoga practitioner in an ice hole. Sasha Silvala / Yle
 Finland's result in the 2019 ranking is encouraging, as its position is now even farther ahead of the second-ranked country, Denmark – leaving no doubt about its first-place position on the list. Finland's happiness has been rising slowly but steadily since 2014, the report says.
 Some of the factors going into the assessment include gross domestic product per capita, healthy life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom to make life choices, and perceptions of corruption.
 In this year's ranking, each of the Nordic countries fared well, with Austria moving up the list to break into the top ten and replace Australia. The 2018 happiness rankings of the countries are included for comparison.
 2019 World Happiness Report top ten
 Finland (1) Denmark (3) Norway (2) Iceland (4) Netherlands (6) Switzerland (5) Sweden (9) New Zealand (8) Canada (7) Austria (12)
 The 2019 World Happiness Report concludes that many countries have seen great improvements in happiness in the last decade, with more countries growing happier than not.
 The country that has taken the greatest leap compared to 2005-2008 figures is Benin, whose ranking in the 2019 report improved 50 places. Venezuela and Syria, on the other hand, are both ranked lower this year than the last.
 Burundi, which was last on the list in 2018, has now climbed 5 spots to the 145th position.
 Happiness is a tricky concept
 The happiness study ranks the countries of the world on the basis of questions from the  Gallup World Poll . The results are then correlated with other factors, including GDP and social security.
 The rankings of national happiness are based on a Cantril ladder survey. Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.
 The Cantril ladder method has been the target of criticism, as some suspect it is skewed to favour the Nordic countries.
 For example, Howstuffworks  reported last year  that the Gallup World Poll responses align closely with income level, as the more money you have, the more likely you are to say that your life is an eight or a nine on the ladder.
 It says the report would produce an entirely different ranking if it asked people questions that focus on their emotions and daily life experiences. The Gallup World Poll also poses a series of "yesterday" questions, asking people if they experienced specific positive and negative emotions during the previous day: things like smiling and laughter, respect, enjoyment, worry, sadness and anger.
 If the world's happiest country was determined by these kinds of questions, the publication argues, the happiest country in the world in 2018 would have been Columbia, which was ranked 43rd in this year's UN report, and 37th last year.

Finland: Still the happiest country in the world (says UN report)


Summary: A sugar tax brought in to reduce sweet consumption has not had the desired effect—but a tax on sugary drinks did help people choose healthier options.

Finland’s taxes on sweets and sugary drinks have had differing effects, with Finns happy to sip diet soda—but reluctant to give up their candy fix.
 That’s according to a new report from the Labour Institute for Economic Research. They looked at sales figures from the S-Group of retailers, which controls about 45 percent of the market for groceries in Finland, between 2010 and 2015.
 The 2011 tax on sweets was brought in as a revenue-raising move, but the political discussion around the measure did emphasise possible health impacts. It raised the cost of sugary confectionary by about ten percent, but consumption continued much as before.
 It did raise money for the state but the health benefits have been lacking; Finns appear happy to pay it so they can continue to eat their favourite sweet treats.
 The 2014 tax on sugary drinks was justified by government on health grounds, however, and it seems to have been successful in reducing consumption by 4.2 percent compared to a control group of products unaffected by the tax. People can easily purchase ‘diet’ or sugar free versions of their favourite fizzy pop to replace them. Sales of all drinks rose by 5.3 percent over the same period.
 The study showed a spike in consumption of the healthier options and a decline in sales of sugary ones.

Report: Sugar tax worked on drinks, but not candy


Summary: The court also ordered the defendant to pay the victim 9,500 euros for distress arising from the offence.

A 44-year-old man has been slapped with a three-year eight-month prison sentence after being found guilty of aggravated child sexual abuse and aggravated rape. The offences were found to have occurred between summer and autumn last year.
 On Wednesday the Oulu District Court convicted the defendant,  Muso Asoev , and said that it based its ruling and sentencing on the trust that the victim -- a 10-year-old child -- had placed in the accused.
 The court also ordered Asoev to pay the victim 9,500 euros for distress arising from the offence and an additional 1,500 euros for pain, suffering and other afflictions.
 The court said that the trust the child placed in the accused played a role in its sentencing. The man had no previous criminal record.
 Other suspected child sex offences
 Wednesday's verdict is the first of  several cases of suspected child sex abuse  under investigation in Oulu that came to light late last year.
 At the time police said they suspected eight men of child sex abuse committed over a period of several months. Police said they believe that one of the suspects may have purchased sexual services from a young person.
 According to investigators the suspects include Finnish nationals as well as foreigners. They said that  the suspects approached their victims online  and speculated that some of the suspects and victims knew each other otherwise.

Court hands down 44-month jail term in Oulu child sex abuse case