Finland

The Helsinki district court has remanded a man suspected of attempted arson and attempted murder into police custody, ending a short-lived manhunt, police said on Sunday.The 25 year-old is suspected of using a Molotov cocktail to cause a fire at a flat in Käpylä, Helsinki last Monday.The apartment was completely destroyed in the ensuing blaze. The occupant of the flat was at home at the time, but managed to escape unharmed and sought shelter with a neighbour.On Wednesday, police issued an arrest warrant for the suspect, whom they believed was still in the Helsinki region. However on the same day the man turned himself in to police in Kokkola, in central Ostrobothnia on Finland’s west coast. … [Read more...] about Helsinki arson suspect surrenders to police in western Finland

Yle meteorologist Toni Hellinen said Sunday that residents of southern Finland can look forward to heavy snow flurries moving in from the west overnight. According to the weather specialist, flurries could dump up to 10 centimetres of snow in the Uusimaa and Southwest Finland regions by Monday morning."On Monday morning in particular, motorists would do well to reserve more time than usual for traffic," Hellinen remarked.However after the morning rush, the band of precipitation is expected to swiftly move north, trailing snow across the rest of the country."However the heaviest pile-up of snow will remain in Uusimaa, where it could reach up to 10 centimetres," Hellinen said, adding that fresh snowfall is expected in the east and north on Tuesday night.The week’s weather forecast likely provides a glimmer of hope for people looking forward to a traditional white Christmas. The current forecast is predicting snow across the country on Christmas Eve, including southernmost … [Read more...] about Warnings for motorists in southern Finland as snow flurries move in

The government’s activation model to get unemployed jobseekers into paid employment has not lived up to its name, according to a poll of 6,000 members of the trade union confederation SAK and its member organisation, the Industrial Union.Survey respondents said that rather than "activate" the unemployed to find work, the programme represents a de facto reduction of unemployment benefit payments.Introduced at the beginning of the year under a cloud of controversy, the activation model requires unemployed jobseekers to either embark on entrepreneurship, work for at least 18 hours or sign-up for "employment promoting" activities such as training, during a three-month review period or face a benefits sanction.Fewer than one in three SAK members said that they had been able to meet the criteria for maintaining the benefits during the past year, while just one-fifth said they had been able to meet the conditions during at least one three-month review period. Moreover, more than one in … [Read more...] about “Humiliating, embarrassing and stressful”: Finland’s unemployed berate govt’s activation model

The Research Institute for the Finnish Economy (Etla) said the country’s falling birthrate will over time result in significant public deficit, imperiling economic growth. With the Finance Ministry set to publish its latest economic survey on 17 December, Tarmo Valkonen, a research advisor at Etla, said Finland’s changing population structure may cause the ministry to issue a 10-billion-euro public deficit estimate.During 2018, Finland is projected to see more deaths than births for the third consecutive year. The birth rate will continue to decline for the eighth year running and the number of deaths will increase despite longer life expectancy, according to a recent Statistics Finland forecast.Valkonen said that while the current government’s austerity measures have failed to bridge the gap between government spending and tax revenue, the situation would be even worse without actions taken by the current government. Last month the group asserted that some 100,000 … [Read more...] about Think-tank: Finland’s tumbling birthrate could cost billions