Summary: No party has the backing of more than 20 percent of voters, an unusual situation, according to analysts.

The nationalist Finns Party has accelerated past the centre-right National Coalition Party to claim second place in a pre-election poll released by Yle on Thursday.
 With parliamentary elections due on Sunday, the Finns Party now have 16.3 percent voter support, up from 15.1 percent in  a previous poll in late March . Thursday’s result represents a 1.2-percentage-point increase from last month and a six-percentage point rise from last autumn.
 Yle election analyst, parliamentary researcher  Sami Borg  from Tampere University, attributed the Finns Party’s voter approval boost  to national discourse about sexual offences and immigration  that ignited toward the end of last year.
 "With respect to the climate change debate, the Finns Party has also successfully offered a clear alternative and a different perspective compared to other parties. And [party leader  Jussi ]  Halla-aho  has also clearly run a successful campaign", Borg explained.
 Research director  Tuomo Turja  of pollster Taloustutkimus said that the Finns Party  has been able to attract  many new supporters from the ranks of people who abstained from voting in the last general election. He said the party was also able entice voters who would have typically voted for the Centre Party, the National Coalition Party, and to some extent the poll-topping Social Democratic Party.
 While the SDP led by  Antti Rinne  has held on to the lead in the Yle poll for the entire year, it saw voter approval slip below the 20-percent mark to 19 percent, down 1.1-percentage-point from the late March survey.
 "It is often the case that the poll-leader’s margin narrows in the last survey," Turja noted, adding that the same happened to the Centre Party just before the last parliamentary election in 2015.
 The pollster noted that all of the changes in party popularity were well within the poll’s 2.3-percentage-point margin of error.
 The Finns Party’s pre-election surge has pushed the National Coalition Party into third place in voter approval, with 15.9 percent support. Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä’ s Centre Party remained in fourth place with 14.5 percent backing.
 Second place still wide open
 The survey indicates that the race to become the country’s most popular political party continues to intensify, given the drop in support for the SDP to under 20 percent, the first time in more than a year that it has slipped below this boundary.
 The pollster said that it would be unusual for no party to corner more than 20 percent of ballots in the election. The closest similar situation occurred during the 2011 general election, when the NCP scraped together 20.4 percent of voter ballots.
 According to Borg, there doesn’t seem to be any ambiguity about the parties’ final order at the finish line, but the SDP will emerge as the winner of the election based on different metrics.
 "From the SDP’s perspective, what is essential is the lead over the other parties. The difference appears to be on the order of two to three percentage points, so the party appears to have a rather secure lead compared to previous elections since 2000," he added.
 However Turja from Taloustutkimus appeared reluctant to declare any election winners just yet.
 "Research shows that increasing numbers of voters take their decision about whom to vote for right down to the wire, even on voting day," he noted.
 "Regardless of who wins the election, it will be difficult to form a government with these numbers. At least second place is wide open, with two or three parties competing for it."
 Finns Party and Greens voters most undecided
 In addition to the SDP, voters also cooled on the Left Alliance and the Greens in the latest survey. The Greens saw voter approval edge down 0.8-percentage-point to 12.2 percent. However, compared to the 2015 election, the current level of support is likely to give the party its best election outcome. Meanwhile, support for the Left Alliance slid 1.1 percentage point to 8.7 percent in Yle’s fresh barometer.
 Turja pointed out that for the Finns Party and the Greens in particular the election result will depend on how well they are able to activate their supporters.
 Thursday’s poll also asked voters how certain they were about their choice of party. The survey included people who had already cast their ballots during advance voting, as well as others who said they planned to exercise their franchise. Respondents were interviewed during advance voting.
 "The Finns Party’s challenge is most certainly that of all the largest parties, they absolutely have the highest number of undecided voters. Their voting certainty is weaker than that of the other parties," Turja expanded.
 On the other hand, the poll indicated that  Petteri Orpo ’s NCP had the most unwavering voters.
 Among the smaller parties, the Swedish People’s Party saw a 0.6-percentage-point bump that took its backing to 4.9 percent, while the Christian Democrats experienced a similar blip to reach 4.3 percent.
 Among the major parliamentary groups, the Blue Reform trailed the field with 0.8 percent voter backing, down 0.1 percentage point from the last survey. Turja described the party’s election prospects as “very bad”.
 "The Blues' only chance is for one of their best-known candidates to be elected in the Uusimaa electoral district," he concluded.

Yle poll: Finns Party sprints to second place, SDP hangs on in first


Summary: Finland's press takes a pre-election look at MP incomes and holidays,  the lack of party unity on parental leave policies, and capital city traffic figures.

The tabloid Ilta-Sanomat  breaks down what kind of income and holidays  the 200 newly-elected Finnish parliamentarians can look forward to when they begin their service on 23 April. IS predicts that after the  14 April general elections , about a third of the elected MPs will be new to the job.
 New MPs in Finland earn 6,614 euros per month, along with a tax-free expense allowance of 987 euros for MPs that live permanently in the capital city region, and 1,315 euros for those who live elsewhere. This extra compensation is even higher for those who maintain a second home in the capital city area.
 Plenary session recesses leave a total of 4.5 months of holiday a year: with a week's break for Easter, a summer holiday from the second week of June until the first week of September, another week's break in late October-early November, and a standard Christmas break.
 MPs are compensated for travel on all forms of domestic transport and are also entitled to compensation for taxi trips, IS reports.
 While ordinary workers in Finland accrue a pension of 1.5 percent of annual income, MPs accrue four percent. MPs receive a pension for up to 15 years that equals 60 percent of their monthly income over the last 15 years of their career. This money is paid out as an old-age pension when they turn 65.
 IS reports that MPs also receive an adaptation allowance that lasts up to three years if they are not re-elected. The  right of MPs to claim adjustment pensions until retirement age was recently struck down , following a citizens' initiative demanding an end to the so-called parachute pensions, a proposal which lawmakers subsequently voted to approve.
 Few united fronts on family leave
 Helsingin Sanomat continues with a story on  election candidates going rogue with regard to Finland's parental leave policy .
 HS went through the answers MP-hopefuls gave to the paper's election compass (find Yle's English-language version  here ) and found that many candidates do not toe their party lines when it comes to proposed family leave reforms. At present, mothers use the clear majority of family leave time in Finland, which is seen to weaken women's position in the labour market. Several parties propose increasing the proportion of leave that fathers should take in order to better share the childcare burden and remedy the problem.
 Two parties are united in their opposition to the plan, HS writes, as 90 percent of the Christian Democrats and the Finns Party "somewhat or completely disagree" with increasing dad quotas. One-third of Centre Party candidates were also opposed.
 The Greens and Left Alliance show the most united support for the plan, with one-fifth of Green candidates not on board, and one-quarter of the leftist group's representatives indicating that they disagreed.
 The discord is most apparent in the centre-right National Coalition Party (NCP), however, where just over half of election candidates subscribe to the party's official campaign platform calling for quotas to be split evenly between men and women. Almost as many candidates have gone solo in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as well, according to the paper, as 40 percent do not agree that increasing men's share of family leave is important.
 Kallio site of most traffic accidents
 And the tabloid Iltalehti finishes the paper review this Thursday with a story on  traffic accident hot spots in Helsinki .
 Tweets from the head of the Helsinki police force's traffic monitoring unit report that the Kamppi district in the city centre is no longer the area with the most traffic accidents, as the areas near the Hämeentie thoroughfare have now taken the title.
 Accidents in the districts of Kallio and Alppiharju in particular have risen sharply. From January to March 2019, 34 accidents were reported in Kallio, doubling last year's figures from the same period. The authorities suspect that on-going renovation of Hämeentie is partly responsible for the increase.
 If the trend continues, Kallio will pull past Kamppi, which has been the location of over 100 accidents annually for the last two years, making it the most dangerous traffic area in the city.
 The amount of traffic accidents in Helsinki is growing year-on-year, but IL reports that the good news is that there have been no traffic accident fatalities in the city for the last eight months. If this streak continues for another month, it will be an all-time Helsinki record.

Thursday's papers: MP salaries, candidates split on family leave, Helsinki accident hot spots


Summary: Development spending is down in part because of lower costs related to the reception of refugees and asylum seekers.

Kansainväliset organisaatiot ja sopimukset

Finland spent 14.6 percent less on development aid last year, when compared to the previous year. In 2018 Finland devoted 833 million euros to development cooperation, making it the ninth largest donor in the European Union.
 This most recent level falls short of both UN and EU targets, which set development cooperation levels at 0.7 percent of a nation's gross national income (GNI). The 2018 figures in Finland correspond to 0.36 percent of GNI, while in 2017 this number was 0.43 percent.
 The Foreign Ministry outlines three reasons for the decrease on the previous year: development cooperation investment fell by 68 million euros, refugees and asylum seeker reception costs dropped by 20 million euros, and Finland’s share of the EU development cooperation budget declined by 26 million euros. This means the actual amount of expenditure in 2018 fell by 129 million euros compared to 2017.
 Finland allocated 84 million euros for humanitarian aid last year. The four main bilateral development cooperation partners were Afghanistan (19 million euros), Ethiopia (14 million euros), Nepal (12 million euros) and Indonesia (12 million euros).
 Global levels down by 2.7 percent
 Over half of Finland’s development cooperation funding was provided through the EU (216 million euros), the UN (152 million euros), and the World Bank Group (94 million euros).
 According to the Foreign Ministry, the largest world-wide donors in 2018 were the US, Germany, the UK, Japan and France. Of the 30 largest providers of aid who are members of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark and the UK exceeded the 0.7 percent UN target.
 Iceland, Hungary and New Zealand increased their spending the most among the DAC members, while Finland was joined by Austria, Greece, Italy, Japan and Portugal in contributing lower amounts.
 Globally, development cooperation decreased by 2.7 percent in real terms compared to 2017.

Finnish development aid falls to near half of UN target


Summary: It’s polling day in one of Finland’s most closely-watched parliamentary elections in recent times. The polls will close at 8pm on Sunday.

9am:  Polls open. If you are heading to the polls on Sunday, be sure to check out our  handy guide  to casting your ballot in the election. For a quick refresher on what parties and candidates stand for in these elections, head on over to our  English-language election compass  to get your bearings. The Ministry of Justice which oversees elections in Finland will begin releasing  preliminary results  from 8pm on Sunday evening.

Finland election: SDP in the lead as votes counted


Summary: Each player on the women's team will receive 5,000 euros compared to a possible 12,000 for each of their male peers if the men's team win silver in May.

In spite of an historic silver-medal performance during last Sunday’s Women’s Ice Hockey World Cup Championships, Finland’s national players will receive less than half of what their male peers are likely to get for a silver in the men’s tournament in Bratislava, Slovakia later this spring.
 The lionesses,  who were denied gold when a goal was disallowed in the dying minutes  of their final against the USA, will each receive a 5,000-euro bonus for their sterling performance, compared to a possible 12,000-euro bounty for each of the players on the men’s team. If Finland’s men’s team manages to cop gold at the upcoming men’s championship in Bratislava, each player will receive a 27,000-euro cash prize.
 Finnish Ice Hockey Association CEO  Matti Nurminen  said that it is not possible to compare the two situations – or the financial reward. He noted that the men’s and women’s games are at different stages in their life cycle.
 "The International Ice Hockey Federation IIHF pays generous bonuses in the men’s world championships based on the level of success. The size of the men’s bonuses depends on how we divide the IIHF premium between the players and the association. On the other hand, the women’s bonuses come exclusively from the association’s budget, in other words, it is funded by the organisation’s income," Nurminen explained via email.
 No IIHF prize money for women's games
 The Finnish Ice Hockey Association SJL could also adopt a different approach to distributing the international federation’s prize money, Nurminen said, noting that it is not specifically earmarked for the men’s team.
 "The SJL does in fact, do this. In practice, both the men’s and women’s bonuses are funded from our other income. It is just a question of which income stream it comes from," he noted.
 The SJL has previously said that it has aspired to promote equality in the IIHF by increasing competition prize money, and it continues to do so. During the 2017 women’s ice hockey world championship, the SJL budgeted a bonus of 2,000 euros per player for a gold medal outcome. Two years later, a win would have earned each player 7,000 euros. It said that it is still pushing for a boost to women’s bonuses at the international level.
 "We have sent the IIHF a written petition asking for prize money for women’s games as well," Nurminen commented.
 According to Nurminen the SJL’s total annual budget runs to about 20 million euros. The women’s tournament that wrapped up on Sunday night in Espoo resulted in a six-figure loss.
 "Every year the SJL’s decision-making bodies consider how to use the money to develop ice hockey from an educational perspective. Organising the women’s ice hockey world championship is an investment by the association in women’s and girls’ ice hockey," Nurminen concluded.

Finland’s lionesses take home smaller bonuses than lions


Summary: One of Finland's best-known painters will be profiled in a movie and an opera next year.

Painter  Helene Schjerfbeck  (1862–1946), one of the most renowned Finnish artists, will be celebrated in an opera and a film, both scheduled to premiere next year.
 A company called Pacific Productions said on Tuesday that it is planning an opera based on Schjerfbeck's art and life. It is to premiere at a festival in Italy in the summer of 2020.
 Johannes Kujansuu  is to compose the opera's music and write the libretto. Also collaborating as part of the working group are Italian conductor  Maurizio Colasanti  and violinist  Sinikka Ala-Leppilampi , artistic director of the Oulunsalo Ensemble, an orchestra that she established in the Oulu region in 2004. Last summer Colasanti performed at the Hailuoto Music Festival on an island near Oulu, which was also founded by Ala-Leppilampi.
 Story continues after photo.
 Schjerfbeck's late works included a series of harrowing self-portraits. Riihimäen taidemuseo
 Birn stars in screen version
 Meanwhile director  Antti J. Jokinen  is working on a Finnish-language film on Schjerfbeck, also set for release in 2020. Schjerfbeck will be played by  Laura Birn . She was also the lead in Jokinen's screen version of  Sofi Oksanen 's novel  Purge  ( Puhdistus ). It was the Finnish entry in the Best Foreign Language Oscar category for the 2013 Academy Awards.
 A novel based on the artist's life,  Helene  by Rakel Liehu, won the Runeberg Prize in 2004, and was followed by another fictional account by  Mila Teräs  in 2017.
 This summer, the UK’s first major exhibition of Schjerfbeck's work opens at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Featuring more than 60 works, it runs from 20 July through late October. Schjerfbeck's birthday, 10 July, has been designated as Finland's national visual arts day.

Opera, film on artist Helene Schjerfbeck due in 2020


Summary: Several individuals allegedly smuggled the cocaine into Finland by swallowing it in capsules, according to police.

Police have concluded a pre-trial investigation into a group of smugglers they suspect of importing 13kg of cocaine into Finland from the Netherlands. Police said they seized more than 800g of cocaine during the probe.
 Police suspect that the cocaine was smuggled from the Netherlands to the southern Finnish city of Tampere. The drug was mainly distributed in Tampere, but some reached the capital region, according to Chief Inspector  Jari Räty  of theNational Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
 Seventeen individuals are under suspicion of involvement in the operation, while 16 are suspected of distributing the narcotic.
 Police said a Dutch citizen was detained in October after the individual was found with 833 grams of cocaine and 30,000 euros in cash. After that, police then detained a Finnish national thought to be smuggling operation's ringleader.
 So far during the preliminary investigation, a total of five suspects were remanded into custody, while two others were remanded in absentia.
 Police: Smugglers swallowed capsules
 Authorities suspect that 16 individuals had smuggled the cocaine into the country by ingesting packages full of capsules containing the drug.
 "Police suspect that the couriers transported the cocaine from the Netherlands to Finland in 21 packages [of capsules],"Räty said. "Several individuals have been detained and interrogated in the Netherlands, and house searches have also been carried out."
 Authorities suspect the alleged smuggling operation took place during 2017-2018 and began looking into the matter early last year after unusual amounts of cocaine began to appear in Tampere. THL analysis of waste water samples from Tampere in 2017 and 2018 also revealed high concentrations of cocaine, Räty observed.
 The NBI and the Central Finland Police Department also received assistance in their preliminary probe from Dutch law enforcement officials.
 The investigation is related to another drug case in central Finland involving NHL hockey player  Jori Lehterä , who was sentenced by Pirkanmaa District Court to a four-month suspended sentence for purchasing cocaine.
 At the beginning of this year Lehterä was cleared of suspicion over involvement in the distribution part of the operation, and was only involved in buying and possessing the drug. His sentencing has not yet been enforced.

Drug ring suspected of smuggling 13kg cocaine from Netherlands to Finland


Summary: The tax on labour for a median-income family in Finland was around 37 percent last year, says the OECD.

Finland was one of the eight highest-taxing countries among the 36 top industrialised countries last year, according to figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Thursday.
 The tax wedge – the difference between gross income and after-tax income – was larger only in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece Italy and neighbouring Sweden.
 According to the OECD, the tax wedge on a median-income family in Finland was 37.1 percent, compared the highest rate of 45 percent in Belgium.
 The highest average tax wedge for single workers without children was also in Belgium: 52.7 percent, well above Finland's 42.3 percent.
 The biggest tax wedge on single-income families with two children was France's 39.4 percent, compared to 37.8 percent in Finland. Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy and Turkey were all also over 37 percent. The OECD comparison takes into account social transfers such as Finnish child benefits.
 Overall tax burden down incrementally
 Income tax rates declined in Finland last year by one tenth of a percentage point, while workers' social security payments rose by 0.43 percentage points and employers' social security payments shrank by 0.62 percentage points. Overall the typical family's tax burden edged down by 0.26 percentage points compared to 2017.
 The lowest taxes among OECD countries were levied in Israel, Chile, New Zealand and Switzerland.
 The average wedge for families across the OECD was 30.8 percent, down slightly from the year before.
 The dip was driven by significant drops in Estonia and the US, due to income tax reforms, as well as in Hungary and Belgium, where employer social security contributions were cut.
 Twenty countries joined the OECD in 1961, including the US, the UK, Canada, Sweden and most other Nordic and western European countries. Sixteen more joined later, including Japan in 1964, Finland in 1969 and Lithuania just last year.

Finland among highest-tax OECD countries


Summary: Workers at a subsidiary of a private health care firm in the cities of Kemi and Tornio say employer cuts have worsened work well-being.

Employees at a northwest Finland health care provider known as  Länsi-Pohja  staged a walkout on Thursday in protest of what they say is an increasingly debilitating workload. Länsi-Pohja is a joint company owned by the Meri-Lappi region, the cities of Kemi and Tornio, and Mehiläinen, one of Finland's largest private and public health care companies.
 The new  Länsi-Pohja hospital and health care centres  in the cities of Tornio, Kemi and Keminmaa just opened last summer.
 The workers participating in the walkout say they are doing so because the employers made changes that negatively affected their ability to cope with their work and their well-being at work.
 Employees worried about patient safety
 In a joint statement, the trade unions Tehy and SuPer say that the problems are a result of measures hastily imposed by management in an effort to cut costs.
 They say that the pace of work is so intense that individual, quality care of patients is impossible.
 Workers have expressed concerns about patient safety and their inability to perform their work well. Some employees have already quit due to the constant rush and changes to working conditions, the unions say.
 The employees accuse Mehiläinen of dictating policy and undermining working conditions as well as failing to stick to the terms of their collective agreement.

Care workers walk off the job in northwest Finland


Summary: The maximum sentence for sexual abuse of a child will go up from four years to six years in prison.

Revised legislation on sex crimes against minors takes effect on 15 April in Finland. A new criminal offence of aggravated rape of a child will go on the books, and the upper sentencing limit for sex abuse of a child will be raised.
 President  Sauli Niinistö  is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday.
 A perpetrator found guilty of both aggravated rape and the aggravated sexual abuse of a child in the same act may be punished for aggravated rape of child. What are now considered two separate crimes will be combined into one.
 The legislation is based on the premise that a child can never provide valid consent to sexual intercourse with an adult.
 The charge of aggravated rape of a child may be applied in case of violent rape as well as to cases where an underage victim is incapable of defending him or herself or expressing his or her will.
 MPs demand comprehensive reform
 The punishment for aggravated rape of a child will be 4-12 years in prison, which extends the maximum prison term by two years from the current situation where the two offences are considered separately.
 Meanwhile the maximum punishment for sexual abuse of a child will rise from the current four to six years imprisonment.
 In ratifying the bill, the outgoing Parliament stipulated that the next government must further toughen punishments for sexual offences against minors, particularly the minimum sentences, and that it should launch a comprehensive reform of sex-crime legislation. This follows public outcry over a series of sentences for such crimes that were widely considered to be overly lenient.
 The past Parliament's four-year term formally ended on Wednesday ahead of Sunday's election. Members of the new legislature are to present their credentials on 23 April.

Tougher punishments for sexual abuse to take effect next week


Summary: Record number of voters with migrant backgrounds, students prefer lone living and the limit of contactless payments rises.

According to daily  Keskisuomalainen , a record number of voters with foreign backgrounds will have voting rights in the general election on Sunday.
 Citing figures from Statistics Finland, the paper says the number of people with migrant backgrounds who are eligible to vote has risen to approximately 100,000. This is about 30 percent more than in the last parliamentary election four years ago, and 50 percent more than in 2011.
 About a third of the voters who speak a foreign language as their mother tongue speak Russian, Keskisuomalainen reports, followed by speakers of Somali and Arabic.
 Voters with a migrant background make up two percent of all eligible voters, the paper adds.
 However, many naturalised Finns often end up  not taking advantage of their right to vote , Yle reported last month.
 Shared flats to be demolished
 The Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region (HOAS) will demolish hundreds of shared flats as students opt to live alone or with a partner, reports daily  Helsingin Sanomat . HOAS will knock down buildings in the suburbs containing 750 shared flats and plans to build 3,000 one-bedroom flats instead.
 Even though shared flats outside the downtown area are inexpensive, most students seem eager to live closer to the city centre.
 For example, some of the shared flats located in the student village in Kivikko, northeastern Helsinki, have been empty for quite a while. The flats were renovated two years ago and the common saunas resemble hotel facilities with their log walls, HS reports. The closest metro station is minutes away and an electric car can be rented for one euro.
 The rent for a 12.5 square-metre room in a shared flat amounts to about 250 euros, of which the student housing allowance covers 190 euros.
 HOAS director  Matti Tarhio  says shared flats are a good way for first-year students to try out living on their own, but only few first-years take advantage of the bargain prices.
 "With low living costs, students don't need to work part-time and can instead focus just on their studies. That way, they will graduate on time," Tarhio says.
 HOAS has even created a flat mate application to help students find like-minded people to share accommodation.
 "It's a combination of Tinder and an election compass," says Tarhio.
 Low rents in Kivikko were a surprise to  Mikko Immonen  who moved from Rovaniemi to Helsinki last year to study pharmacology. He lives with his girlfriend in a 40-square-meter flat and together they pay less than 500 euros in rent per month. Of that 360 euros is covered by government rental assistance.
 "The rent includes wifi, electricity, water, and the use of the sauna and laundry room, so this is excellent value for money," Immonen said.
 HOAS will build one and two-bedroom flats across the capital region, including in Pasila, Kalasatama and Tikkurila, HS writes.
 Contactless payment limit doubles
 Daily  Karjalainen  writes that the threshold for contactless payments (where a debit or credit card is held close to a payment terminal) in Finland will double today – at least in theory. Most banks will allow purchases of up to 50 euros from Friday but not all shops have updated their card readers yet, the paper says.
 For example, S-Group, Finland's largest grocery store chain, will not allow contactless payments of more than the current 25 euros until mid-May, when their systems have been upgraded.
 "It is not possible for us to test our devices before the banks have updates theirs", said finance director  Juha Ahola  from S-Group in Karjalainen.
 "Our shops will be busy with customers due to Easter and we cannot risk that our payment systems not working properly. That's why we have decided to postpone the upgrades until after the holidays," Ahola said.
 According to Finance Finland, which represents Finland's finance sector, contactless payments have become increasingly popular in recent years, with about 80 percent of people using the no-touch form of monetary transaction. Contactless payments were introduced in Finland in 2013.

Friday's papers: Migrant voters, shared student flats and contactless payments


Summary: Three people died in a blaze in Levi ski resort on Friday.

Three people have died after a two-storey log cabin in Levi, a popular ski resort 170 km north of Rovaniemi, caught fire early on Friday morning.
 One person was woken up by the cabin's smoke alarm but three others in the two-storey structure could not be rescued, said detective inspector  Kirsi Huhtamäki  from Lapland Police Department.
 According to Huhtamäki, the people in the cabin were Finnish citizens. She refused to divulge information about the victims' ages or whether or not they were related.
 Police are investigating the cause of the fire but no foul play is suspected at this time, Huhtamäki added.
 The cabin in the Isorakka area of Levi was completely destroyed in the fire.

Log cabin fire in Levi claims three lives


Summary: Ministry officials likely noticed a 210-million-euro hole in government's social and health reform package but did not inform parliament, says daily.

Ministerit, ministeriöt ja valtioneuvosto

There appears to have been an unusual lack of trust between Finland's finance ministry officials and parliament as MPs prepared government's now-failed social and health care reforms, according to emails obtained by newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.
 The paper reported on Friday that it had seen email communications that indicated the ministry may have concealed a funding shortfall of 210 million euros in government's social and health care reform plan from the committee charged with reviewing the plan.
 The contentious reforms, colloquially known as " sote ," eventually collapsed,  bringing down  Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä 's government early last month.  Sote  had run into obstacles over proposed regional government elections and the expanded role of private care providers in the new system.
 According to HS, the key budget information the ministry quashed dealt with financing programmes to assist agricultural workers find different careers as well as funding immigrant integration services.
 Due to a lack of time, financing for the services mentioned in government's proposal was shifted from state to municipality budgets, and it was unclear where the funding would come from.
 According to the  paper  ministry officials likely noticed the financing gap but did not inform parliament about it.
 Nerg denies concealment took place
 News about the emails raised eyebrows among some lawmakers. Several MPs said they interpreted the ministry's reported omissions as a way to push through government's political goal by withholding important information.
 According to the report, permanent under-secretary for governance policy,  Päivi Nerg , denied that finance ministry officials had concealed information from parliament. She said the matter was discussed during a meeting of parliament's social and health care committee on 6 March.
 Experts that HS interviewed said the reported incident was serious and a indicated serious lack of trust between the finance ministry and parliament.
 University of Turku law professor  Janne Salminen  has also seen the ministry emails, and pointed out that parliament's right to be informed of relevant information is broad, saying that all details lawmakers receive need to be accurate and adequate, and that no details should be omitted.

Finance ministry omitted key financial information in reform package, paper reports


Summary: The single bust in Lahti found more than 150,000 ecstasy tablets, almost as much as in the whole of 2018.

Police conducted the largest ecstasy bust in Finnish history on Wednesday. Some 152,000 tablets of the drug were confiscated from an apartment in Lahti, police announced on Thursday.
 The district court of Päijät-Häme has arrested a 30-year-old man and remanded him into pre-trial custody for an aggravated narcotics offense. A 35-year-old Lahti man was also apprehended but was released and issued a travel ban. One man from Lithuania is also currently in Customs pretrial custody.
 The arrests were made late on 11 April after a large-scale, many-year surveillance effort by local police and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
 A bag containing ecstasy tablets. Poliisi
 Police said they monitored a truck registered in Lithuania, which drove to the parking lot of the Merrasjärvi public beach. A sedan with a Finnish registration plate also arrived, and the truck's cargo was moved to the smaller car.
 The car continued its journey to an apartment building, where two men carried a total of five cardboard boxes into an apartment. Police said they confiscated the boxes, which contained 151,390 ecstasy tablets, 1,095 Subutex 8 mg tablets and 211.7 grams of amphetamine.
 Even though the massive haul has an estimated street value of 2.3 million euros, detective superintendent  Pälvi Suokas  from the Häme police said that Finnish drug users will not notice any difference in availability.
 "Unfortunately this is only a temporary disruption in distribution," Suokas said.
 Organised crime behind shipment
 Police said they also found paraphernalia such as t-shirts and wool hats in the Lahti apartment with the printed logo of a criminal group known as Bad Union.
 The 30-year-old local man police apprehended is likely a member of the Bad Union group, which police said acts as a stepping stone to membership in the United Brotherhood syndicate. The United Brotherhood was the intended recipient and distributor of the record drug shipment, police said.
 The pretrial investigation found that the 30-year-old man had been a member of Bad Union for about a week, and was tasked with receiving the drugs in Finland. Police said the other Lahti man's role was smaller, and the third man is allegedly a member of a Lithuanian drug smuggling outfit.
 Record drug imports in 2018
 Finnish police also announced that they confiscated record amounts of ecstasy and cannabis in 2018. The NBI said that some 219,000 tablets of ecstasy and 350 kg of cannabis were seized.
 The Lahti drug bust, therefore, represents more than half of the amount of ecstasy seized last year.
 Police said drug offences in 2018 rose by five percent from the previous year. Altogether 29,000 offences were logged, of which about 1,200 were aggravated infractions.
 The NBI said that the drug trade in Finland is mostly run by the hands of organised crime groups.

Police nab largest ecstasy haul in Finnish history


Summary: Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria kill 700,000 people across the world every year.

clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats

Scientists at the University of Jyväskylä have developed bacteria that spread a genetic mutation which can destroy microorganisms' ability to be antibiotic-resistant.
 The research group headed by academy research fellow  Matti Jalasvuori  aims to develop probiotic bacteria that re-sensitise already resistant bacteria to antibiotics.
 According to Jalasvuori there are two ways that bacteria become resistant: either through the use of antibiotics or through the exchange of resistant genes between bacteria. The latter is possible even if the bacteria have not been exposed to antibiotics.
 "Especially among notorious hospital pathogens, such as E. coli and K. pneumoniae, resistance genes are usually a part of mobile genetic elements that readily transfer from one bacterium to another", said Jalasvuori.
 This gene transfer, however, can also be turned against bacteria. Jalasvuori’s group has developed modified bacteria that disseminate DNA-sequences called CRISPR-elements, which in turn destroy resistance genes in bacterial cells.
 CRISPR-elements can be transferred into, for example, gut flora with harmless probiotic bacteria.
 “In the future, this approach could help prevent antibiotic-resistant bacteria from accumulating in certain environments, such as farms,” Jalasvuori added.
 Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation has awarded the research group a grant worth 255,000 euros for investigating the transfer of such elements.
 It was reported last month that  thousands of people in Finland are diagnosed yearly  with urinary tract infections caused by drug-resistant E. coli bacteria.

Finnish researchers use CRISPR gene editing to fight antibiotic resistance in bacteria


Summary: Polls predict the SDP will come out on top on 14 April, but if they do, who will join them in a coalition?

Yle's last  pre-election poll released on Thursday  shows the Social Democratic Party (SDP) leading the field but with somewhat less support from voters. The SDP now has 19 percent voter backing and the Finns Party have leap-frogged over the National Coalition Party to take second place with 16.3 percent approval.
 APN's resident pundits  Sini Korpinen  and  Sam Kingsley  were on hand to comment on the rather surprising development and speculate on which parties might be a part of Finland's next governing coalition. Both agreed that the SDP is likely to come out the leader in 14 April voting, despite an election platform that didn't seem to differ from many of the others on offer.
 Korpinen said she doubts that SDP party chair  Antti Rinne  would be able to partner with the nationalistic climate-change-denier Finns Party, wagering that the NCP and Greens might be the preferred partners. Kingsley disagreed, saying he foresaw a SDP-Centre-Green coalition on the horizon.
 No matter who wins the election, Korpinen noted that the next government will have a difficult go of it, as the economy is predicted to slow down and there are  still tough decisions on several reforms  that have to be made.
 Still undecided? Watch or listen to our Yle News election debate in English!
 If you missed the live broadcast of the Yle News election debate, you can still catch the programme  on our website , on  Yle Areena  and  our Facebook page . The debate is also available as a  podcast .
 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 final podcast episode of our political party profile series ahead of the 14 April election was presented by  Denise Wall  and  Mark B. Odom , with additional reporting by  Zena Iovino .The producer was  Pamela Kaskinen  and the sound engineer was  Juha Sarkkinen .
 Don't forget to follow the election results on Sunday at our  Yle News website , and tune in again next week Wednesday for our special wrap-up podcast where Sam and Sini will join us one last time for an analysis of the results.

All Points North #49: Platforms, promises and platitudes - the Social Democratic Party


Hiilidioksidin talteenotto ja varastonti (CCS)

A global transition to the exclusive use of renewable energy sources is not only possible but also cheaper and safer than reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy, according to a new study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the Energy Watch Group (EWG) from Germany.
 The study claims  that the rapid development of renewable energy sources and energy storage technology will likely make it possible for the entire planet to reduce its CO2 emissions to zero even earlier than the current 2050 deadline.
 The report is the first of its kind to suggest a cost-effective, all-inclusive, global roadmap to keep average global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. It is also the first planet-wide climate change resistance plan that suggests not using carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) techniques to mechanically remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
 According to the model, in 2050 some 69 percent of the world's energy would come from solar panels, 18 percent from wind power, 3 percent from hydropower systems and 6 percent from bioenergy.
 Fossil fuels and nuclear power would not be needed at all. Cars, planes and ships would run on carbon-neutral synthetic fuels produced from hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
 "Only way"
 The study indicates that its sweeping plans for all sectors – energy production, heating, traffic, water systems, and others – could be funded by the savings accrued from giving up fossil fuels entirely.
 The team of researchers said that the energy revolution is a matter of political will, not of technology or financing.
 "The study was set up with the belief that rapid and effective climate protection is the only way to save a planet worth living on for generations to come," the research paper's foreword reads, authored by EQG's  Hans-Josef Fell .
 "This project was set up to show how techno-economic facts open the door for a much faster and more rigorous shift to renewable energy sources in order to trigger an even more dynamic technology development worldwide, and in addition a chance for all world regions to gain energy independence and benefit from the associated prospects of peace and conflict resolution."
 The study suggests that solar power would be the prime source of energy in the future. Muhammad Sadiq / EPA
 LUT and EWG promised in their study that the massive amounts of information the model is based on would be used to draw up guidelines for renewable energy transition for every country in the world.
 "The study shows that all countries can and should speed up the fulfilment of the goals of the Paris Agreement," said  Christian Breyer  from LUT, who headed the 14-person research effort.
 The team's model used a simulation of the world's energy production and consumption on an hourly level, in five-year phases, between 2015-2050. Such data has never been gathered before.
 The team dedicated the study  to Swedish activist  Greta Thunberg  and the global #FridaysForFuture movement she has inspired in which  students stage a climate strike every Friday  instead of attending school. In March more than a million people marched for better climate change prevention measures around the world.

Cheap, safe 100% renewable energy possible before 2050, says Finnish uni study


Summary: The politician is also an anti-immigration activist and has a previous conviction for ethnic agitation, for which he was fined.

Oulu city councillor  Junes Lokka  was served with charges of ethnic agitation on Friday. The charges involve two suspected offences, according to the Oulu prosecutor’s office.
 Lokka is accused of uploading a recording of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic speech from a Helsinki demonstration on Facebook and YouTube.
 The city official is also an anti-immigration activist and politician and has a previous conviction for ethnic agitation, for which he was fined.
 Journalist convicted for calling Lokka "racist", "Nazi"
 Also on Friday, an Oulu court convicted and fined journalist  Johanna Vehkoo  for defamation, after she called Lokka a "racist" and "Nazi clown," among other things.
 The court found that Vehkoo’s comments constituted a personal attack on Lokka and that she did not focus her criticism on his politics. It sentenced Vehkoo to pay a 15-day fine in its ruling.
 Vehkoo was also ordered to pay Lokka 200 euros for the suffering he experienced. She was also told to pay the complainant’s legal fees, which amounted to 6,000 euros.
 Vehkoo is a co-founder of the Finnish investigative journalism site, Longplay and also received a freedom of speech award from the Finnish chapter of the international journalists’ organisation PEN in February.
 Vehkoo’s lawyer  Martina Kronström  told Yle that her client was stunned by the outcome and intended to appeal the verdict.
 Vehkoo had previously said that she considered Lokka’s criminal complaint to be a form of harassment against her due to her job as a journalist. Vehkoo is a contributor to Yle’s " Lie detector " ( Valheenpaljastaja ) series, which largely deals with fake news.
 Lokka’s spokesperson  Teemu Lamberg  said that he did not know whether or not Lokka also intended to appeal the sentence.
 Edit: Updated at 6.00pm on 12 April to reflect the fact the Junes Lokka is also a politician.

Oulu politician wins defamation case against journalist, gets slapped with ethnic agitation charges


Summary: Coffee imports into Finland rose 13 percent last year to satisfy unwavering demand for the brew, according to new data released Friday.

Finland imported 11 million kilograms of roasted coffee in 2018, mainly via the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany, according to the Finnish Food and Drink Industries Federation (ETL).
 Imports of raw coffee from countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Honduras dropped by nine percent, but remained at a solid 61 million kilograms.
 The food industry lobby group said that Finnish residents showed  no sign of losing their appetite for coffee , downing the equivalent of nearly 10 kilograms per person in 2018. That figure that remained virtually steady compared to 2017, when people drank the equivalent of 9.6 kilograms a head.
 "It's great to see how ample coffee consumption has become a defining characteristic of Finnishness in the eyes of foreigners. Coffee does play an important role in people's social interactions, after all. A cup of coffee during a break with a colleague is also an important part of keeping up with a hectic working life," said ETL coffee and brewery spokesperson  Marleena Tanhuanpää .
 Light roast still preferred
 At the same time that imports of roasted coffee increased in Finland, exports of locally-roasted coffee – mainly to the Baltic states – fell by 15 percent compared to 2017, down to 7.6 million kilograms.
 ETL noted that while dark-roasted coffee accounted for nearly a quarter of the beverage consumed in Finland, the national favourite continues to be the light-roasted, so-called blonde variety. More people are also opting for certified fair trade brews when they settle down for a cuppa, the organisation added.
 "Filter coffee is by far the overwhelming favourite in Finland. Different coffee-making methods as well as new kinds of drinks and cold brews have enriched our coffee culture and introduced variety,” Tanhuanpää added.

Coffee imports rise to slake Finland's thirst for black brew


Summary: Snow cover in Finland may begin to recede rapidly, says Yle meteorologist Joonas Koskela.

Finland may be in for some real signs of spring in the coming days, as it looks like the weather will warm up toward the Easter holiday weekend. An extensive high-pressure front is expected to move across the country, creating clear and even sunny days, according to Yle meteorologist  Joonas Koskela .
 "If our forecast holds true, the next time we'll get rain clouds isn't until the end of next week," Koskela said.
 Saturday and Sunday will see cloud cover, but the days will be dry with the sun occasionally peeking out. The weekend will be sunnier further north.
 "Tomorrow, Saturday the high temperature will go over five degrees Celsius in the west, where Sunday will bring highs of about 10 degrees, and continue to rise from there," Koskela said.
 But the forecaster predicts that next week's warmest day will be Thursday, 18 April, when daytime temperatures will likely exceed 15 degrees Celsius.
 Meteorologists can't see past Eastertide, and night-time temperatures will still drop below zero even in the south. It won't be until the end of next week that night frost will abate, said Koskela.
 Goodbye, snow?
 A cold snap started off the week on Monday, so while southern regions are largely snowless, more than 80 cm of snow is still on the ground in the north.
 Snow cover of up to half a metre can still be seen in central Finland, too – but maybe not for long.
 "Even with night frost, the forecast says that by Sunday next week the snow cover is likely to evaporate in central areas, but I can't promise anything," Koskela said.

Finland's spring comeback: High pressure front could bring 15C temps next week


Summary: A practical nurse is taking one of Finland's biggest nursing home operators to court over a de facto pay cut that could affect 1,000 employees.

Suomen lähi- ja perushoitajaliitto (SuPer)

Esperi Care, which made headlines over the winter due to cases of  neglect at its old-age homes , is now accused of poor handling of its staff.
 A practical nurse from the Päijät-Häme region of southern Finland is taking one of Finland's biggest private social services firms, Esperi Care, to court over a de facto pay cut.
 According to the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses (SuPer), as many as 1,000 Esperi employees have had the same experience. A decision in the case could force the firm to repay all of them for months of lost income, it says.
 The dispute centres on a so-called Esperi bonus, which the company has paid to some 1,000 nurses and other staffers for several years. The bonus has usually been 40-50 euros a month, but SuPer says it has been quietly trimmed or dropped without notification.
 Employees began to notice the slight decline after wages rose last summer in line with the latest collective bargaining agreement. Now one nurse is launching legal action.
 "Last June the nurse's minimum wage rose by 17 euros, and at the same time this agreed bonus of 17 euros was taken away, so the wage increase was exactly zero euros. The employee did not benefit at all from the wage increase that we agreed on," says  Jukka Parkkola , a contract negotiator at SuPer.
 According to the lawsuit, Esperi Care unilaterally slashed the nurse's Esperi bonus from 39.59 euros to 22.48 euros a month, a drop of 17.11 euros. Under the collective bargaining agreement, the nurse's salary should have gone by exactly the same amount, 17.11 euros.
 Union: 'Zero sum game' unacceptable
 Esperi admits that some employees' bonuses were adjusted when the minimum wage rate was raised last June.
 "In those cases where an employee had an Esperi bonus and a wage that was already above the minimum wage level, pay was not raised. Those individuals whose overall pay already exceeded the minimum wage level did not receive an overall pay increase, but their pay was not decreased either," says Esperi's Head of Human Resources  Maria Pajamo  told Yle.
 The union says this is unacceptable.
 "According to how we interpret the law, a wage benefit that has been agreed as part of a work contract cannot be unilaterally taken away just by saying 'now we're raising your wage but at the same time taking something off from the other end', which is kind of a zero sum game," Parkkola says.
 Parkkola says that many Esperi employees have contacted the union over the issue.
 "In a way, this one employee will now be fighting on behalf of the others. If this one dispute is won, then we will of course require that Esperi correct this matter in all the other cases and repay the workers for this cancelled bonus," he says.
 The trial is set to begin in Lahti in June, with the nurse seeking 152 euros in lost income.
 In June, nurses' minimum monthly wages are to go up by around 20 euros according to the collective agreement. Parkkola is concerned that Esperi will attempt to handle this way as last summer.
 Recruitment still difficult
 Esperi's Pajamo says that the firm has phased out the Esperi bonus, which was offered to boost recruitment in areas where it had trouble finding staff a few years ago. These included eastern and northern Finland as well as the Helsinki region – where the firm says it still has trouble hiring enough qualified staff.
 In January,  Esperi's CEO quit  after welfare and health watchdog Valvira shut down one of its nursing homes where an elderly resident’s death was suspected to be caused by negligence.
 Esperi Care has about 6,300 employees, most of them registered nurses and practical nurses. Established in 2001, the firm had a turnover of 270 million euros last year, up from just 50 million in 2011. The firm has grown quickly by taking over dozens of smaller companies. It now has 130 nursing homes around Finland with some 8,000 resident beds. Esperi's principal owner is the British asset manager firm Intermediate Capital Group.

Nurse sues private care firm Esperi over 17-euro pay cut


Summary: Finnair sent an empty plane from Helsinki to carry the 139 passengers on to Manchester.

A Finnair aircraft en route from Helsinki to Manchester made an emergency landing in Stockholm on Saturday. Finnair communications director  Päivyt Tallqvist  says that there was a problem with cabin pressure.
 She notes that a plane must be brought down safely as soon as possible whenever a pressurisation fault is detected.
 "The landing took place normally and the 139 passengers are now waiting at Arlanda Airport as we send an empty plane from Helsinki to take them onward," says Tallqvist.
 The emergency landing took place about 40 minutes after take-off. The Swedish capital is some 400 km south-west of Helsinki Airport in Vantaa.
 The passengers are expected to arrive in England about four hours late. The original departure from Helsinki was 15 minutes behind schedule.
 The plane is an Airbus A319 with a seating capacity of 144. The flag carrier has eight such planes.
 The tabloid Ilta-Sanomat was first to report the incident.

Finnair plane makes emergency landing in Sweden


Summary: A day before Finland's parliamentary election, there was unrest at a campaign event in Helsinki.

Police say that a woman was struck in the head area at a nationalist party's campaign booth in central Helsinki on Saturday afternoon. The incident took place at a Finnish Nation First tent on Narinkkatori plaza in front of the Kamppi shopping centre.
 Police say that the suspected assault was "a one-sided act" and that the victim was a member of the party's staff or supporters. The injured woman was taken away by ambulance for medical attention.
 There were a number of police patrols on the scene, as there were several other campaign events going on at Narikkatori on the eve of Sunday's parliamentary election. Police said there had been unruly behaviour on Friday around the populist Finnish Nation First party's booth.
 On Saturday police officers stood between the party's tent and members of the public, some of whom threw eggs at party's staffers and posters.
 Aggression on campaign trail
 Earlier in the week, police said they were looking into whether the party's anti-immigrant and anti-gay  posters constitute criminal incitement .
 Candidates across the political spectrum have stepped up security measures in the face of what they say has been an unusual level of aggression on the campaign trail this spring.
 In late March, a man wearing emblems of a far-right group  attempted to strike  outgoing Blue Reform Party foreign minister and former Finns Party chair Timo Soini at an outdoor market in Vantaa, just north of the capital. The following day, Left Alliance candidate  Suldaan Said Ahmed was attacked  at Itäkeskus metro station in eastern Helsinki.
 Finns go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new 200-member Parliament to serve for the next four years. Preliminary talks ahead of government formation negotiations are expected to begin next week among the parties garnering the most seats in the legislature.
 Voting locales are open from 9am to 8pm. More than 36 percent of eligible voters have already cast ballots in advance, significantly more than in the 2015 election.

Scuffles, suspected assault at Helsinki election event


Summary: One of Finland’s most closely-watched parliamentary elections in recent times ended with clear gains for centre-left and populist parties.

9am:  Polls open. If you are heading to the polls on Sunday, be sure to check out our  handy guide  to casting your ballot in the election. For a quick refresher on what parties and candidates stand for in these elections, head on over to our  English-language election compass  to get your bearings. The Ministry of Justice which oversees elections in Finland will begin releasing  preliminary results  from 8pm on Sunday evening.

Finland election: SDP squeezes narrow lead over upstart Finns Party


Summary: Lapland police also that there was no indication that the fire had been caused by negligence.

Police in Lapland said on Sunday they do not suspect any foul play in the case of  three minors who perished in a log cabin fire  early Friday morning in Levi, Finnish Lapland. Local police also said that there was so far no indication that the fire had been caused by negligence.
 The deceased all occupied the top floor of the two-storey structure. However, one other occupant of the cabin who slept on the ground floor was able to escape the blaze.
 The survivor was reportedly the elder sibling of the three younger children who perished in the fire, and almost an adult. An adult who had been part of the holiday group was not in the cabin at the time of the fire.
 The youngsters were said to be students from Pyhtää, a small municipality in southeast Finland. One other minor who had been sleeping on the ground floor of the two-storey log cabin escaped the blaze.
 They were students of Huutjärvi School, which said that crisis counselling will be available on Monday for other school children in need. Members of the local parish and youth workers will also be on hand to assist.
 "The youngsters’ relatives have given permission for the flag to be flown at half-mast," said Pyhtää mayor  Jouni Eho .
 On Tuesday a memorial service in remembrance of the victims will be held at the Pyhtää church from 6.00pm.
 "This kind of tragedy touches the entire community of Pyhtää. My heart goes out to the children who were lost and [I offer] my condolences to their loved ones," he added.

Police: No foul play suspected in Levi fire that killed three siblings


Finland’s lionesses lose out on gold--but sill make history
 Finland missed out on hockey gold on Sunday evening, but still made history in a tournament hitherto dominated by North America.
 Finland’s lionesses missed out on gold at the Women's World Ice Hockey Championships on home ice in Espoo on Sunday, but were still the first team other than Canada or the US to get into the final.
 The US went ahead with an Annie Pankowski goal in the second period, before Susanna Tapani equalised for the Finns. The game went to overtime, thanks in part to a superb performance from Finnish goaltender Noora Räty, before the Americans won the shootout 2-1.
 Finland had already made history in the semi-finals, beating Canada 4-2 to become the first nation other than Canada or the USA to contest a world championship final.
 The United States took gold in the past four tournaments, and are also the reigning women's ice hockey Olympic champions.

Finland’s lionesses lose out on gold--but still make history


Summary: Finland voted for change in parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Government parties took a drubbing in Finland’s parliamentary election on Sunday as Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä ’s Centre Party polled its lowest general election result ever with just 13.8 percent of the vote to lose 13 seats with all votes counted, while hard-right populist Finns Party came second with 39 seats, just one behind the Social Democrats' 40.
 Election result 2019 With 100% of vote counted: SDP 40 seats FP 39 NCP 38 CEN 31 GREENS 20 LEFT 16 SPP 9 CD 5 BLUE 0 OTHERS 2
 Coalition partner Blue Reform was obliterated, getting just one percent of the vote and no MPs, while the third government partner the National Coalition Party emerged from four years in power relatively unscathed to gain one seat and finish on 38 seats.
 Sipilä, a former businessman, had promised to bring the efficiency of the private sector to government as prime minister. However his administration’s austerity policies and labour market experiments such as a contentious so-called activation model ruffled many feathers. Reacting to the results on Sunday, Sipilä said that the party was the evening’s biggest loser. "We are the biggest loser and that must be acknowledged. The people have spoken," he added.
 An upstart in the race according to media polls, the Finns Party made good on pre-election polling and staged a strong finish with 17.5 percent of the vote. Immigration hardliner and party chair  Jussi Halla-aho  had previously had said he wanted to take the party into the next government.
 "We have made it very clear to everybody that we are open to cooperation with everyone but not at any cost," Halla-aho said. "We could not join a government which is not committed to reducing harmful immigration to Finland," he added.
 Halla-aho a big vote puller
 Halla-aho scored a double win for the Finns Party, as he emerged as the evening’s biggest vote magnet, attracting support from more than 30,000 voters.
 The centre-left Social Democratic Party managed a razor thin lead over its rivals, snapping up 17.7 percent of ballots cast, one of its poorest election outcomes ever. But that was enough for the Social Democrats to increase their parliamentary presence by six seats to 40, likely giving the party the mandate to initiate government formation talks.
 Party leader and former union boss  Antti Rinne  told Yle News that he is likely to focus on a few key issues in government. "I hope we can solve this unemployment situation we have in Finland nowadays. It’s pensions, students, and child families are not doing so well in Finland now," he noted.
 The NCP ended the evening with 17 percent voter support, just trailing the populist Finns Party. The SDP and the NCP have not always seen eye-to-eye, but party chair  Petteri Orpo  did not rule out both parties cooperating in government.
 "Of course it is possible if we find a common programme for the government. Our red lines are the economy. We want to keep public finances in balance and we want Finland to be an active member of the EU. And our main target is to get the unemployment rate to a Nordic level," Orpo told Yle News.
 The election was a hotly-contested race in which no single party was able to harvest 20 percent or more votes -- a situation that analysts described as unusual. The outcome reflects what pundits are calling an increasingly fragmented political landscape in Finland.
 "People are looking for options. They have not been satisfied and that’s why we have seen the growth of support for the Finns Party and the Greens," said political commentator  Sini Korpinen , a frequent contributor to Yle News’ All Points North podcast.
 "The age when three big parties take turns in government or in opposition are over. It’s time for politicians to figure out how to make things work," she added.
 2019 records: Early voting, women make gains
 This year a record number of people -- more than 1.5 million or 36.1 percent of the electorate -- opted to cast their ballots early during advance voting. Early voting activity increased by about four percent compared to the previous general election.
 The overall voter turnout was 72 percent, up from 70 percent in the last general election in 2015. Korpinen told Yle that the outcome reflects the highly polarised nature of the election. "It’s going to be very hard to negotiate a government, maybe the hardest ever. Anything can happen."
 The election has seated a record number of female MPs in the Finnish parliament. This year women will take up 92 positions as lawmakers, up from the previous record of 85 in 2011. In addition, this year saw more women than ever among the top vote-getters.
 One of Finland’s new vote magnets was NCP MP  Elina Lepomäki , whom punters see as a contender for party chair when party delegates meet to elect a new party leader in 2020.
 Overall, around 60 foreign-background candidates vied for seats in the election, according to Statistics Finland.
 Edit: Updated at 1.02am to reflect final result with all votes counted.

SDP takes top spot, populists rally, heavy losses for PM's Centre in Finnish election


Summary: Following Sunday's elections, none of the nation's newspapers expect forming a new government to be an easy task.

The independent daily  Helsingin Sanomat  notes how very tight  Sunday's parliamentary elections  were by pointing out that the winning margin enjoyed by the first-place Social Democratic Party was only some 6,800 votes ahead the second-ranked Finns Party.
 This win, writes HS, was in no way as big as what SDP Chair  Antti Rinne  had expected. The 17.7 percent of the vote polled is the second lowest in the parliamentary election history of the party. The only time it has fared worse was in the 2015 election.
 According to Helsingin Sanomat, it was "clear as day" that the SDP expected better results, and it predicts that Rinne will come in for criticism inside the party, and that his leadership will be challenged. Rinne himself said on Sunday that voters have "misunderstood" his party, but that is unlikely to work as an explanation.
 It was a matter of life and death for the SDP to come out on top in this election. Getting stuck behind the Finns Party would have been catastrophic for the SDP. The status as the nation's largest party was the minimum that the SDP was aiming for.
 Helsingin Sanomat says that upcoming government formation talks will be tough, but it is Rinne who will start leading those negotiations.
 No more big parties
 The Social Democratic Party newspaper  Demokraatti today writes  that it was a desire for change that won in these elections. This desire was channeled in two directions, with victories for the political left and for the Greens, but also for the populist Finns Party.
 Demokraatti goes on to say that if it is assumed in Finland that "major parties" poll at least 20 percent of the vote, then there are only mid-sized parties left in the country. Success in this election is being measured above all on two scales - a comparison with results in the previous election, and how results stack up against the other parties. In both respects, writes Demokraatti, the SDP was the most successful party.
 This paper says that the election results are so close and so exceptional that government formation talks will be complex. It points out that in a somewhat similar situation in the spring of 2011, negotiations on forming a new government took until Midsummer. Now, that is not really possible because of Finland's EU presidency, which begins on 1 July.
 Dark day for the Centre
 The Centre Party's  Suomenmaa  describes Sunday's loss as the gloomiest in the history of the traditionally rural-based party and predicts that it will generate a bitter internal debate on the reasons, and on the direction of the party must now take.
 Suomenmaa notes that since the Centre's main partner in the previous government, the conservative National Coalition Party (NCP), did not suffer the same kind of defeat, there is plenty to ponder.
 "Parliamentary elections have been held. The people have had their say, and their verdict on the Centre was especially harsh," writes Suomenmaa.
 It quotes former Centre Party leader and PM  Matti Vanhanen  as saying Sunday evening that one key reason may be that some of the most painful decisions taken by that government during the last election period did not affect NCP voters as much as they did Centre voters.
 Record number of women MPs
 The Greens-affiliated  Vihreä Lanka  points out that in addition to the very close finish at the top, another notable feature of Sunday's vote is the increase in the number of women elected to Parliament.
 As of early Monday morning, it looked as if Finland's new 200 member parliament will include 92 women MPs, a new record.
 Of the 20 Green candidates elected to parliament - or 21 if a recount in Lapland goes in favour of the Greens - only three are men.
 Vihreä Lanka also notes that all but six of the MPs in the Green's parliamentary group will be new faces. In addition, a new chair and new party secretary are to be elected at a party congress this coming summer.
 Whether this "renewed" Green League will be promoting its policies in the cabinet, or in opposition, is something that will be seen within the next few weeks, notes Vihreä Lanka.
 Familiar faces gone
 The Oulu-based  Kaleva  writes that many familiar faces will be missing from the ranks of MPs in the new parliament.
 The Blue Reform, which split from the Finns Party two years ago, failed to win a single seat in these elections. That means that four cabinet ministers in the last government,  Sampo Terho ,  Pirkko Mattila ,  Jari Lindström  and  Jussi Niinistö , will be looking for new jobs. Foreign Minister  Timo Soini , also of the Blue Reform, did not stand for reelection.
 Veteran politician  Paavo Väyrynen  failed to regain a seat as a candidate of his recently formed Seven Star Movement. A former Centre Party leader, government minister, MEP, and presidential candidate, Väyrynen has been a fixture on the political scene since first being elected to parliament in 1970.
 Nationalism here to stay
 Finnish politics are now in uncharted waters, according to the newsstand tabloid  Iltalehti .
 In an editorial column, the paper's editor-in-chief  Erja Yläjärvi  writes that politics have entered a completely new age in which not one of the winners can forecast what will happen next. One sure thing is that the time of the three big parties is over.
 In practice, the entire political opposition, the SDP, the Finns Party, the Greens and the Left Alliance, all marched to victory.
 On the implications of the strong showing by the populist Finns Party, Yläjärvi wrote, "Finland is now clearly one of the numerous European countries where in election after election, anti-immigration sentiment and nationalism are permanently important values".
 She adds that the pundits can forget the traditional coalitions of the past. Finland no longer lives in the old world where three big parties shared out power with junior partners. The situation is new, something that will make the weeks ahead as unpredictable as Sunday's elections were.

Monday's papers: Tough govt formation talks expected, more women MPs, nationalism here to stay


Summary: Temperatures may even soar to 20 degrees Celsius on Saturday.

A sunny and warm Easter is in the forecast, predicts Yle meteorologist Anne Borgström. Southern and central parts of the country are most likely to see clear skies, warming sunshine and balmy breezes.
 "There's a chance that the temperature may even jump up to 20 degrees Celsius on Saturday," Borgström says.
 Even though the Easter holidays are being celebrated later this year, temperatures have been warmer in Finland than they usually are in mid-April. The ground is also already dry in many areas.
 "There's still snow in the forests and no grass fire warnings have been issued, but it's a good idea to be careful lighting fires," Borgström says.
 Most of the northern part of Finland is still covered in snow, with 84 centimetres reported in the popular skiing location of Kittilä in Lapland on Friday.
 Weather forecast for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yle
 Thursday already saw the warmest temperatures of the year so far in many areas. Friday is predicted to be a bit cooler, with more patches of overcast skies. Borgström predicts sleet in the western parts of Lapland in the afternoon.
 On Saturday, the precipitation front is expected to move east, and even Lapland may see warm springtime temperatures of up to 15 degrees. Conditions will be colder in the east, with temperatures of around 10 degrees Celsius in the forecast.
 Easter Sunday will bring rain showers and brisker winds to the north, while the rest of the country will continue to enjoy the sunshine and warmth.
 Borgström says things will stay warm into next week as well, with warm and sunny conditions in the forecast for Tuesday, when the mercury may rise to 20 degrees Celsius again.

Warm Easter weekend weather in the forecast


Summary: The postal service cites a drastic decline in the volume of mail deliveries as the reason for further staff cuts.

Finland’s state-owned postal service Posti announced on Monday it will begin discussion to reorganise administration and supervisory roles in its group production unit. This is the second round of  workforce reductions  announced by the company this year.
 According to its preliminary estimate, the personnel reduction needed is a maximum of 120 permanent employees. Formal talks with employee representatives on the cuts are expected to start on the 23rd of this month.
 Growing competition
 Parliament liberalised postal services in 2016, leading to intense competition in delivery services. Although a fully state-owned corporation, unlike many other postal sector operators in Europe, Posti does not receive any financial support from the state.
 Posti says it needs to reduce costs by at least around 150-200 million euros over the next three years. The number of letters delivered in Finland has decreased by half during the past decade, and the delivery volume of printed newspapers has fallen to 1950s levels. The declining volume of letters no longer covers the cost of weekday deliveries.
 At the same time, Posti said it is targeting strong growth in e-commerce and logistics services, both of which are growth markets.

Posti to cut another 120 jobs


Summary: The 83 new representatives joining Finland's Parliament include celebrities and others with familiar names.

Following Sunday's hard-fought election, Finland's 200-seat legislature will feature 83 new MPs – some of whom aren't so new after all.
 Ari Koponen , who runs a charity service under the name "Brother Christmas," was elected on the nationalist Finns Party from the Uusimaa electoral district, which includes Helsinki's surrounding municipalities. In early April, Koponen was charged with  violating fundraising laws .
 Among the MPs chosen in the Savo-Karelia electoral district is  Marko Kilpi  of the conservative National Coalition Party (NCP), who is best known as the author of eight books, mostly crime fiction. He is also a Kuopio police officer who appeared in a popular police TV show and has made documentary films.
 As seen on TV
 Another well-known media figure,  Pirkka-Pekka Petelius , was elected on the Greens ticket in Uusimaa. He has appeared in Yle comedy and nature programmes as well as dozens films – including one based on a Marko Kilpi novel – and as a voice actor in the Finnish version of  The Lion King .
 Another new Greens MP is the party's deputy chair,  Maria Ohisalo , from Helsinki. She  served as the party's acting chair  after party leader Touko Aalto stepped due to health issues last autumn.
 She's joined by the youngest member of the new legislature, fellow Green  Iiris Suomela , 24, was ushered into parliament by voters in the Pirkanmaa district, which includes the city of Tampere. Pirkanmaa Greens voters also returned city councillor and government climate advisor  Oras Tynkkynen  to parliament, where he previously served from 2004 to 2015.
 New Finns Party MPs include party secretary  Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo  from Uusimaa and the former chair of the party's youth wing,  Sebastian Tynkkynen , from the Oulu district. The latter, a former reality TV show star, has made headlines due to a  hate speech conviction  and being  expelled by his church  due to his open bisexuality.
 Like father, like daughter
 Other MPs making comebacks include  former transport minister   Merja Kyllönen  of the Left Alliance, who was sent back to parliament by Oulu region voters after a stint in the European Parliament.
 Three former Social Democratic Party representatives return to the legislature after years off: Olympic silver medallist wrestler  Marko Asell  from Pirkanmaa, former justice minister  Johannes Koskinen  from the Häme district, and Uusimaa author and academic  Kimmo Kiljunen , recently in the headlines as mastermind of the  ill-fated Hamina Flag Park .
 A new generation is literally stepping into the legislature, as Centre Party veteran  Timo Kalli 's daughter  Eeva Kalli  was elected from south-west Finland while former SDP finance minister  Eero Heinäluoma 's daughter  Eveliina Heinäluoma  won a seat from Helsinki. Another former minister,  Ole Norrback  of the Swedish People's Party, saw his son  Anders Norrback  elected by Vaasa voters. All three carry on their fathers' party lines.
 Electoral districts are to certify their results by 6pm Tuesday. MPs are to present their credentials and form parliamentary groups on 23 April. The following day, MPs elect new speakers ahead of the formal opening of the four-year legislative term on 25 April.

Meet Brother Christmas and other new Finnish MPs


Summary: Police suspect an attempt was made to use fraudulent invoicing to extort 13 million euros from a member of parliament.

The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that the extortion attempt being investigated by police targeted businessman and National Coalition Party MP  Eero Lehti . Lehti has confirmed the report by the paper.
 According to police, Lehti first received fraudulent invoices and demands for payment by post and email in 2015. Following that, an action for payment was filed against Lehti with the district court in Tuusula.
 Police said in a release on Monday that the same MP had been involved at the start of the 2000's with the company from which fraudulent invoices originated and the individuals behind the company. The release states that a preliminary investigation found no legitimate reason for the debts being claimed.
 The head of the investigation, Detective  Harri Saaristola  of the Helsinki Police, described it as a case of "process fraud" in which an attempt is made to mislead authorities into providing a ruling favourable to a party in a dispute. Even if claims are found to be baseless and are rejected by a court, there can be significantly detrimental consequences for the target, including expenses and negative publicity.
 Saaristola added that the case in question is by no means exceptional, with similar cases coming to the attention of the police from time to time. The results of the preliminary investigation will be turned over to the prosecutor's office where a decision will be made on bringing charges in the case.

Failed extortion plot against MP


Summary: Redundancy talks are scheduled to start next week.

The Finnish branch of management consulting giant Accenture has plans to cut its workforce in the country by up to 200 employees.
 The company said it's downsizing in order to meet a rapidly-changing operating environment.
 Accenture Finland management is scheduled to begin employer-employee negotiations with worker reps on 24 April.
 The company currently employs around 1,200 people in Finland. Globally, there were nearly 450,000 employees working at Accenture as of last year.
 The firm's managing director in Finland,  Frank Korsström , said the company is committed to further developing its business in the country.
 "We will continue to recruit consultancy and technology experts to meet our customers' demand," Korsström said.

Accenture to slash up to 200 jobs in Finland


Summary: A recount confirmed the legitimacy of a seat that went to the Social Democrats in western Finland's Satakunta district.

Election officials in the electoral district of Satakunta in western Finland confirmed on Monday that  Antti Rinne ’s SDP won three seats in the Satakunta district by razor thin margins
 The recount followed  Sunday's general election  in which the SDP came away with 40 parliamentary seats, barely squeaking past the populist Finns Party, which finished the night with 39 seats. The results of Sunday's election is scheduled to be confirmed by the Justice Ministry on Wednesday.
 If just additional 100 votes were to be awarded to  Juha Sipilä ’s Centre Party in the recount, it could have won an additional seat in the district and the SDP’s elected MPs in the region would have fallen to two.
 Losing one seat would have meant that the Finns Party and the SDP would have drawn level with 39 seats each overall, although the centre-left party garnered a slightly larger share of the vote than the populists. The Centre meanwhile, would have seen its parliamentary seat count rise to 32. That outcome could have upended the calculus  with regard to government formation talks .
 Lapland district also closely contested
 Chair of the electoral district,  Vappu Laukkanen  said that it is very rare for recounts to yield any major surprises. She noted that they generally involve a few votes that have either been miscounted due to negligence, or assigned to the wrong candidate.
 Justice Ministry election director,  Arto Jääskeläinen , said that it is extremely uncommon for seats to be re-assigned from one party to another following a recount. However he noted that it is more likely for the votes counted in favour of different candidates from the same party to change.
 In addition to Satakunta, the situation in the Lapland electoral district was also close. In that case the Greens needed fewer than ten additional votes to sweep one seat from the Centre Party. Based on Sunday night’s results, the Centre Party won three seats in Lapland, followed by the Finns Party, the National Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance, all with one seat each.
 The election saw government parties with the exception of the National Coalition Party  suffer heavy losses , while opposition parties gained additional seats or hold their ground in the parliament..
 Edit: Updated at 7.36pm to reflect that the recount confirmed the original result.

Vote recount in Finland sees SDP maintain slim lead over populist Finns Party


Summary: Growth was strongest in the electrical and electronics industry, with turnover leaping by 14.4 percent in the past year.

Finland's annual inflation rate stood at 1.1 percent in March, edging down from February's 1.3 percent, according to Statistics Finland. Product segments where prices dipped included vegetables, mobile phones, televisions, detached houses and children’s day care fees.
 Pushing the inflation rate up meanwhile were higher costs for electricity, house repairs, cigarettes, petrol, banking fees and rents.
 Finland's inflation rate was slightly lower than that of the whole eurozone. According to the preliminary data on the EU's Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the inflation rate in the euro area was 1.4 percent in March, down by one tenth of a percentage point from February.
 Electronics and forest sectors growing briskly
 Among a raft of other economic data released by the central statistics bureau on Monday, overall trade turnover was by up by 1.7 percent in February compared to a year earlier. Turnover grew across all trade industries.
 The biggest jump in turnover was in the motor vehicle sector, where it rose by 2.6 percent. Automotive sales meanwhile increased even more briskly, by 3.2 percent year-on-year.
 In the wholesale business, turnover edged up by 1.4 percent, but sales actually dipped by the same amount. On the retail side, turnover rose by 1.8 percent with sales lagging somewhat at a 1.6 percent increase from February 2018.
 Manufacturing turnover was up by 5.3 percent from the previous February. Growth was strongest in the electrical and electronics industry, leaping by 14.4 percent, followed by the forest products sector at eight percent and metals by just under six percent.

Inflation slows slightly in February as trade picks up


Summary: In future, organ transplant recipients won't need to wait for donors, but instead will get new organs created using their own cells, according to a researcher.

Biomedical engineer  Anni Mörö  is part of a world-leading team of 3D biological printing researchers at Tampere University in southern Finland.
 Last year Mörö - a postdoctoral biomedical engineering researcher - and her team were the first in the world to successfully "print" portions of a human cornea using 3D bioprinter technology.
 The cornea is a transparent membrane that covers the eye. Millions of people around the world are affected by corneal blindness due to trauma or disease and the emerging technology may someday be able to help those afflicted, Mörö said.
 Bioprinting is a fast-growing technology, and research on the topic has been moving along quickly. Researchers around the world have recently made headlines after having successfully printed human tissue like cartilage, heart muscle, and nerve tissue using bioprinters, she said.
 "The number of scientific publications as well as the number of commercial firms in the industry is growing exponentially."
 While her team's research is moving along, it will take years before printed cornea transplants become a medical reality, she said, noting that her team hopes to be able to print an entire cornea this year.
 Story continues after photo.
 Biomedical engineer Anni Mörö. Wille Nyyssönen
 "Printed tissue as such would be suitable for the treatment of some eye diseases but the replacement of an entire cornea requires additional layers of new cells. Then there are the clinical tests which are needed to ensure that the tissue is suitable for use," she explained.
 Even so, Mörö said activity within the emerging 3D bioprinting industry is staggering, saying that nearly all of the tissues found in the human body can already be printed. But a good deal of research still needs to be done regarding how various tissues, blood vessels and nerves would connect to manufactured biomedical parts.
 "I reckon that the first [3D printed tissues] that will be used will be simpler ones like skin, cartilage and corneas. It will take decades before printing of complex organs like the heart and liver happens," Mörö said.
 However, in the meantime, 3D-printed tissues can soon be used in drug development and testing, possibly removing the need to use animals in such trials.
 Stem cell tech
 Three-dimensional bioprinting technology utilises similar principles and techniques as traditional 3D printing does, but instead of making objects with nylon or resins, bioprinters use stem cells and other bio materials to create biomedical body parts from scratch.
 "The cells are alive but after being printed one must allow them to interact with each other to create functional tissue. This 'maturation' takes a few days," Mörö said.
 Some of the stem cells Mörö and her team uses are excess embryonic cells from fertility treatment procedures. University scientists have also developed a new method to "reprogram" normal blood or skin cells into stem cells, she said.
 "This opens up completely new avenues. When this kind of cell reprogramming becomes commonplace, tissue and organs can be printed from a person's own cells. In this scenario, [organ] rejection is no longer a problem," Mörö said.
 The researcher explained that in the future individuals needing an organ transplant will no longer need to wait in donor queues but rather head to a medical modelling clinic to create a new organ out of their own cells, according to Mörö.

Finnish researchers create corneas using 3D bioprinters


Summary: Many of the nation's newspapers are speculating about the composition of a new government after Sunday's elections in Finland.

Aamulehti is among the papers that Tuesday carried a  syndicated Lännen Media analysis  of the prospects for upcoming government formation talks.
 According to this article, climate issues and taxation may be the main stumbling blocks in finding a smooth path for the creation of a working coalition.
 As the head of  the party that came in first place in Sunday's voting , SDP chairman  Antti Rinne  will be sending out a list of questions to other parties on policy issues on the 26th of this month.
 The paper says that it is clear that some of the questions will concern climate change. It will be difficult to find a fit between the ambitious climate programme promoted by the SDP and comments by Finns Party representatives about "over-ambitious" climate targets. This could well be one reason that the SDP will not invite the Finns Party into a coalition.
 As for taxation, the SDP and conservative NCP are far apart, Aamulehti notes. Demands by Rinne for a return to centralised labour agreements could also put the two parties on a collision course.
 The day after the election, the SDP leader stated that his immediate feeling was that the Left Alliance and the Greens would make for more natural allies in government.
 As the paper points out, these are also the three parties that made the biggest gains in Sunday's vote.
 The Centre Party has not declared itself out of the running for a place in a new cabinet. However, according to this paper, following its massive losses at the polls, the Centre has a lot of dirty laundry to wash before it will be fit to join in a coalition. The SDP and the Centre Party, though still have major differences, especially over Prime Minister  Juha Sipilä' s economic and employment policies.
 Regardless of what constellation of parties ends up in the cabinet, according to this analysis, in practice the Greens are all but certain to be a part of it. If so, it is likely that the Green chair,  Pekka Haavisto  will have the foreign affairs portfolio.
 EU election impact
 Turku's  Turun Sanomat  points out that the campaign for elections to the European Parliament will be underway at the same time as government formation talks are going on. It quotes Finns Party leader  Jussi Halla-aho  as saying that this could have an effect on the negotiations.
 Halla-aho pointed out that the various parties have to emphasise their differences in an election campaign, something that is not necessarily harmonious with the process of forming a new government.
 Political parties will be formally filing lists of candidates for the EU parliamentary elections on Thursday of this week.
 Channel surfing
 The Kuopio-based  Savon Sanomat  carries a Finnish News Agency STT report that over half the nation's population tuned into Yle television coverage of the elections on Sunday evening.
 Altogether 2.7 million viewers watched Yle's election reporting with a peak of almost 1.6 million between 9:30 PM and 9:44 PM.
 They were not all, however, glued to coverage, but bounced back and forth between TV1 and TV2 which was carrying the finals of the  Women's World Ice Hockey Championships , a broadcast that drew some 2.4 million pairs of eyes.
 Danger of measles growing
 Finland's largest circulation daily,  Helsingin Sanomat , Tuesday warned that the dangers posed by measles  could be growing in Finland again.
 The paper points to the latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) showing that the number of cases of measles has risen this year, especially in France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Bulgaria and Ireland.
 According to Helsingin Sanomat, the spread of measles in Finland could rise as well, as the overwhelming majority of cases last year and this year were infections picked up in other parts of Europe.
 Last year there were 15 cases of measles identified in Finland. So far this year, there have been six. Last year three of those originated in Asia, the rest in Europe, both from EU countries and other nearby areas.
 The paper says that this may have influenced the rise registered in the number of inoculations against measles. According to figures released by Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare in February, 96.1 percent of children born in 2016 had received inoculations providing immunity against the measles. During the years 2014 and 2015, that figure was 94.9 percent.
 Notre Dame fire
 The blaze which heavily damaged Paris' Cathedral of Notre Dame Monday night was front-page news in almost every Finnish newspaper on Tuesday morning.
 As reported by most papers, including  Iltalehti , among the outpouring of sympathy from world leaders was a tweet by Finland's President  Sauli Niinistö  addressed to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
 Screen capture of tweet by President Sauli Niinistö. Yle
 Writing in French, President Niinistö said, "Finland shares the sadness in the face of this terrible fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. Our thoughts are with France and Parisians tonight."

Tuesday's Papers: Govt speculation, measles threat, sadness over Notre Dame


Summary: Work by startup firm Soletair Power is considered an important step towards establishing carbon neutral societies.

The technology group Wärtsilä is providing 500,000 euros in seed funding to Soletair Power Oy, a Finnish startup company that has developed a concept to improve air quality in buildings by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and  converting it to a synthetic renewable fuel .
 Based in the southeastern city of Lappeenranta, Soletair has tested a plant that uses solar power for separating carbon dioxide and water from the air, producing hydrogen, and then synthesising a crude-oil substitute from the carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
 The company has now developed a device for installation in the ventilation systems of buildings.
 "Our intention is to make buildings carbon sinks," explains CEO  Petri Laakso .
 The end product of the process is the formation of hydrocarbons that can be used as synthetic fuel.
 "It can be used to make, for example, natural gas," says Laakso.
 The process also generates waste heat that can be used for purposes like heating water.
 The system is based on technologies developed at the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
 Better indoor air
 According to Petri Laakso the production of fuel is not, at least yet, a significant economic factor for the adoption of Soletair Power's system.
 He sees the biggest immediate benefit in the improvement of indoor air quality by reducing the level of carbon dioxide. This, he says, could be a boon to companies in keeping employees more alert.
 "For example, people can start to tire in a conference room when the level of carbon dioxide goes up. This is a way to prevent that by keeping the air fresh. Productivity improves when minds are alert," Laakso points out.
 Announcing its funding decision, Wärtsilä described the concept as representing an important step towards carbon-neutral societies.
 Soletair Power will next launch a pilot installation. Petri Laakso says that several alternative sites are being considered, but that he expects the project to move ahead no later than by this coming summer.

Fuel from solar energy and air - Finnish startup gets funding


Summary: "The election result left me no choice," Sipilä wrote in his blog on Tuesday.

Centre Party chair and outgoing prime minister  Juha Sipilä  announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election as party leader.
 Writing in his blog on Tuesday, Sipilä said that Sunday’s election result, in which the party turned in its worst election performance ever with  just 13.8 percent of the vote , left him no choice. He added that he has asked the party leadership to convene a special convention on 7 September to elect a new leader. Until then he will continue to operate as chair, he said.
 Sipilä had become known for his "show results or go home" (tulos tai ulos) principle,  which he invoked when he tendered the government's resignation  in early March over its failure to get an ambitious social and health care reform into the goal.
 He also declared in March that  he would quit the party's chairmanship  if the Centre was not able to improve on its 14-percent-polling in pre-election voter surveys.
 "Voters have relegated party to opposition"
 "The Centre Party deserves a new and inspiring start. The party will begin its transformation and draw up a reform program. The party’s strong future will be established with a new chairperson," he wrote.
 Sipilä said that the party is thoroughly reviewing its election result and that an in-depth analysis of the reasons for its election loss is required.
 "Party leaders and the prime minister in particular quickly become stale as figureheads of their parties. This has also happened to me. As party chair my responsibility is to think about and safeguard the party’s interests in every situation," he added.
 Meanwhile the party leadership said in a release on Tuesday that "based on the election outcome, voters have relegated the Centre Party to the opposition."
 It added in the statement that the Centre is used to serving the country from the position to which it has been assigned by the people.

Sipilä to step down as Centre chair, party heads to opposition