CINEMATIC history is punctuated by many successful directors and their actor muse. David Lean had his Alec Guinness, Woody Allen had his Mia Farrow, Martin Scorsese had his Robert De Niro and, well, someone sure had his Pauly Shore.

After their first collaboration Edward Scissorhands in 1990, audiences have been privy to a further five occasions where Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have worked together over the last twenty years. From Ed Wood, to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, via Sleepy Hollow, Sweeny Todd and The Corpse Bride, their combined imagination has made a lasting impression around the globe.

Lauri Kivinen brings experience in telecommunications technology to a changing media landscape.

THE NEW Director-General of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), Lauri Kivinen, has some advice: bickering will lead us nowhere in the media world. He is calling for a collective discussion on the challenges facing the industry.

“I’m absolutely convinced that we in the media world are all in the same boat. We face the same challenges irrespective of ownership or distribution channels.”

AFTER escaping the bun fight that is Helsinki’s rental market a couple of years ago, it was with great relief that my wife and I became owners of our first apartment together. Although the real estate agent muttered something about a putkiremontti occurring within three years, it was difficult to comprehend just what lay ahead.

Now, aside from an awkward smell that would emerge from our shower from time to time first thing in the morning, we didn’t encounter any major trouble with our plumbing. The Finnish media, however, suggested that pipes in residences around Helsinki from a similar era were either choked with rust and sludge, or leaking.

A majority of the divided Supreme Administrative Court decided that humanitarian reasons were no grounds for Finnish residency.

AN EGYPTIAN grandmother will not be allowed to stay with her son in Vantaa. On 8 March the Supreme Administrative Court turned down an appeal against the refusal of a residence permit to, and deportation of, Eveline Fadayel.

Fadayel, who was born in 1945, could be expelled from the country in the coming weeks.

For the first time since September 2006, Mahmoud Abu Rahma, a leading figure in the Palestinian human rights group Al Mezan, has been granted permission to travel outside Gaza. More than 30 applications to travel had previously been turned down by the Israeli authorities, and it was not until German diplomats made appeals on his behalf that he was finally allowed to visit Europe.

Mahmoud Abu Rahma, Gazan human rights worker, has been calling on European Union diplomats to hold Israel accountable for its attacks on innocent Gazans during the war it waged in late 2008 and early 2009. Yet convincing the EU to take a more robust line against Israel...

I’M on strike. I got the idea from the truck drivers, bus drivers, stevedores, baggage handlers, flight attendants and probably a few other professions I have since forgotten about. It’s too hard to keep track. Anyway, striking is a very Finnish thing to do. Since previously I haven’t had the opportunity to go on strike, now seems a good time to start.

MY demands are simple. I told the managers of the Helsinki Times I deserved a cost-of-living raise three times higher than the actual cost-of-living increase. That seems to be what the other strikers are asking, so this is also my demand. In response, management demanded that I stopped drinking heavily prior to negotiations. Touché.

Small parties would generally benefit, but a three per cent threshold could spell danger for the Swedish People’s Party.

Finland’s minor political parties will have reason to celebrate come 2015. Current figures suggest they will pick up parliamentary seats thanks to planned electoral reforms.

Under a model of reform partly approved by the government on 4 March, parliamentary seats would be distributed by crunching the total number of nationwide votes with the current d’Hondt method. Constituency-specific results would be calculated under a new format. The reform would benefit middle-sized and minor parties at the expense of the major players.

Internet and mobile communication have become an essential part of most people’s daily routine in Finland, but some of us can still remember life before broadband.

The fax machine was one of the icons of the 1980s office, and together with brick-sized mobile phones, marked a turning point in modern business communications.

Now twenty years later, most of us can scarcely imagine working life without an internet connection and a daily flood of emails to check through.

World refugees are getting some support from one Norwegian footballer’s unorthodox World Cup travel plan.

THIS year's FIFA World Cup will be the first held in Africa, and former footballer Bjørn Heidenstrøm is doing his best to make his trip to South Africa a memorable one. The Norwegian is cycling and hitchhiking to the tournament from Oslo in an effort to raise awareness of refugee issues, using the generosity of what he enthusiastically refers to as “the football family” to help smooth his path.

Exceptionally heavy snow loads piling up on rooftops have caused accidents and alarm across Finland in recent weeks. Large industrial buildings and sporting arenas with flat roofs have been particularly worrisome. On 6 March a floorball hall was closed in Helsinki due to danger of the roof collapsing under heavy snow. In late February two people were injured when a steel-framed sports hall collapsed in Järvenpää. Accidents involving snow and ice sliding down from rooftops have claimed lives and injured many.

Matti Vanhanen, Finnish Centre party leader and the country's prime minister, and Timo Kalli, the Centre party's parliamentary group leader, have sent a statement to the justice minister saying that the president should continue to have the power to veto crisis management troop deployments, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) reported Wednesday.

A cross-party committee led by Christoffer Taxell had proposed amending the constitution to read that Parliament and the government could decide to deploy troops with no say for the head of state.