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A round-up in English, in bulletin form, of the news in the Finnish dailies Iltasanomat and Iltalehti.
Student demand for apartments has risen in Helsinki, meaning that more students–particularly new students and foreign research students–will be competing for privately-owned flats.
Responding to the demand, the student unions’ housing agency has set up a free service through which owners can rent to students.
Police have found the body of a missing Russian tourist in the Vuoksi river near Imatra in South-Eastern Finland. The 37-year-old tourist, who was staying at the Valtio hotel in Imatra with his parents, disappeared last Tuesday on a trip to photograph the local waterfall.
An extensive search conducted of the terrain and waterways was stopped on Thursday and the parents returned to Russia.
Young people spotted the body while fishing and alerted the police.
Prosecutors in Espoo have accused a social worker of aiding a kidnapping by advising a mother not to return her 9-year-old boy from Sweden to Finland.
The mother, a Finn, and the father, originally from Pakistan, were disputing custody of the child in the district courts when the mother requested to move to Sweden. The judge denied her request. Espoo social services paid for the move regardless and the social worker encouraged her to stay in Sweden.
According to readers of Iltalehti, ‘the will to try things out,’ ‘good positions,’ ‘back rubs,’ ‘abstinence,’ ‘role-playing,’ ‘the ability to give and receive pleasure,’ and ‘openness,’ are the keys to ‘better sex.’
Helsinki council is discussing an initiative demanding condoms be distributed to under twenty-fives for free over a trial period of three years, reported Helsingin Uutiset.
‘Condoms are expensive for young people, and they don’t often want to ask for money for them from their parents,” commented Doctor Eija Hiltunen-Back, a specialist in sexually-transmitted diseases.
70-80 customers arrive in the emergency section of a local std polyclinic per day, according to the article.
Police in Ahvenanmaa are looking for a ‘young man' who appeared in a video posted on YouTube showing the capture of a robber who attempted to steal a consignment of valuables.
The video, taken by a bystander, shows the man bend over the robber and attempt to speak to him.
Police say the man is not currently a suspect, but are asking that he come forward.
Dangerous diseases spread by ticks such as Borreliosis and Kumling disease (tick-borne viral encephalitis) can now be caught in central Lapland, according to Lapin Kansa.
Traditionally, only island travellers have been warned about ticks, but due to increases in climate temperature, prevalence of the disease-carrying ticks has spread further north.
“The Lapland traveller can’t avoid the dangers any more,” stated the article.
Antti Alitalo, infectious diseases doctor at of the National Institute for Health and Welfare, stated that ‘there is no reason for hysteria,’ but that ‘if going to the doctor with vague, unidentified symptoms, that doctor will hopefully remember the possibility of tick diseases even if the patient hasn’t been in a ‘tick’ area.’
‘This is a new thing, that Lapland no longer provides any protection, and a tick bite can be got there too,” he continued.
It has been estimated that two percent of ticks carry Kumling and as many as half Borreliosis. The early symptoms of Borreliosis, or Lyme disease, include rashes and flu-like symptoms. Symptoms of Kumling disease include fever, malaise, stiff neck, encephalitis, and confusion.
According to insect researcher Juhani Itämies, the northernmost case of Borrelioisis has been recorded in Oulu.
Ex-Finnish prime minister and parliamentary speaker Paavo Lipponen has refused to take a position on speculation in which he has been suggested as a candidate for the next EU president.
Lipponen told news agency STT that he considered the recent statements ‘interesting,’ but didn’t comment much further, other than to say he supported the Treaty of Lisbon, which if ratified by all EU member states would change the EU constitution.
The British Financial Times has marked Lipponen twice as a possible for the EU presidency and recently stated that ‘political friends’ had approached Lipponen regarding the position, which he confirmed.
33 Finnish town centres now have pedestrian zones, report Iltasanomat. The number of pedestrian streets has increased considerably since the year 2000, and as many as a third were built during 2008. Of the twenty largest Finnish towns, only Seinäjoki does not have a pedestrian zone.
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