Up to 60 per cent of Finns who smoke say they would like to quit smoking. Moreover, about 40 per cent of those who smoke daily have made one serious attempt to quit smoking within the past year, says the director of the National Institute for Health and Welfare Pekka Puska.

Puska believes that the recent reduction in smoking is due primarily to a broad change in attitude. According to Puska smoking has slowly but steadily become less common throughout the past decade.

Anni Sinnemäki, the labour minister and Green League leader, on Wednesday blasted an "election manifesto" drafted by a group of True Finns MPs as muddled and counterproductive.
The manifesto focuses on immigration policy.

Sinnemäki said on her website that the immigration policy proposed in the manifesto would lead to the very problems and conflicts that its authors wanted to stop from forming in the first place.

Two Finnish climbers died on Tuesday while ascending Kebnekaise, Sweden's highest mountain.
The police said a man in his late 20s and a woman in her early 20s had been crushed by a boulder.

None of the other three members of the climbing team was hurt.

Riku Rönnholm, the chairman of the Finnish Paratroopers' Guild, told the Finnish News Agency (STT) that the climb had been organised by the guild.

Ville Itälä, a Finnish Conservative party Euro-MP, was quoted as saying by online party organ Verkkouutiset on Tuesday that he did not want his party to join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

Itälä and Hannu Takkula, a Centre party MEP, had been quoted as saying by Turun Sanomat that the two parties' Euro-MPs should join forces under a single European party.

The Finnish Conservative party is currently a member of the European People's party.
Itälä resolutely rejected Takkula's invitation to join Alde.

The head of the Finnish Trade Union of Education (OAJ) was quoted as saying by regional daily Keskisuomalainen on Tuesday that the union's lawyers were kept increasingly busy settling disputes between schools and parents.

Olli Luukkainen, the chairman of the union, told the paper that today's parents expected teachers to do things that were not their job.
"Teachers are afraid of the increasingly common interventions by lawyers," he was quoted as saying.

Luukkainen said individualism and Americanisation were to blame.

The Finnish Slot Machine Association (Ray) said in a statement Monday it would cut the equivalent of about 80 jobs, adding statutory cooperation procedure talks would start in early August.

"The growth in slot machines is mainly achieved through developing new technologies, such as internet distribution," the government gaming monopoly said.

More than half of the respondents in a poll carried out for six provincial papers said prisoners sentenced to life in prison should have no right to be released at all, the papers quoted the poll as indicating on Saturday.

Matti Tolvanen, a professor of criminal law at the University of East Finland, was quoted as saying by Savon Sanomat that the outcome of the poll did not surprise him in light of recent events.

Tolvanen added that keeping all life sentence prisoners locked up indefinitely would raise violence and the risk of escape.

Bjarne Kallis, the chairman of the Finnish Christian Democrats' parliamentary group, was quoted as saying by regional daily Aamulehti on Sunday that the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church should give up its power of legal solemnisation if a same-sex marriage bill was passed into law.

"Personally I feel that this option would be good, but I do not know what the parishes, for example, think about this," Kallis told the Finnish News Agency on Sunday.

The Committee of European Banking Supervisors said in a statement Friday that Finnish bancassurer OP-Pohjola had passed the second round of an EU-wide stresstest exercise.

"The results of the stresstest indicate that the capital adequacy of OP-Pohjola group is highly resilient to the adverse test scenario employed," the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority said in a separate statement.

Sweden's Nordea and Denmark's Danske Bank also passed the test, with both banks running branches in Finland.

Russia placed pork and beef processed by Finland's Atria under an export ban in February, the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) reported on Friday.

Juha Grön, head of Atria Finland, said the events leading to the ban had begun last year.
"Over the course of their own inspections back then the Russians found types of antibiotics that have never even been used in Finland," the public broadcaster quoted Grön as saying.

Entrepreneurs search for late-night profits while shoppers try to avoid drunks.

Finland’s merchants and shoppers have had over six months to try out newly liberated opening-hour rules. So far, most store owners are cautiously trying to determine if being open longer hours will be profitable.

The country has long had a complex system of rules on when stores can be open.

Finland's top party leaders joined forces in expressing outrage over a Russian official's recent proposal on cross-border child custody disputes during a debate in Pori on Wednesday.

Pavel Astahov, Russia's children's affairs ombudsman, had said that issues faced by Finland's Russian minority could not be addressed on the basis of Finnish legislation alone.

Far-reaching regulations are necessary for introducing transparency to the operations of investment banks and funds. But despite this, no regulations have been drawn up, writes Julio Godoy.

More than three years after the start of the financial crisis that brought the world economy to the brink of collapse, the governments of industrialised countries are still struggling to reach a consensus on the minimum regulation required for the operations of international banks and hedge funds.

An unusually long spell of warm weather has contributed to about 30 deaths from drowning this month, up from July of last year’s 22, according to the Finnish Association for Swimming Instruction and Life Saving (SUH). Last weekend saw 11 people lose their lives in the water, a larger figure than during the extended Midsummer weekend.

“The impact of this current heatwave is beginning to show,” says Pärla Norha of SUH. However, the sweltering weather is not the sole reason for the numerous fatalities – the tendency to mix alcohol and carelessness during periods of hot weather creates a deadly cocktail that increases the occurrence of drowning deaths dramatically.

The presidents of Finland and Russia pledged at a joint news conference on Wednesday to settle a dispute over food exports within a fortnight.

Russia announced last week it would impose an export ban on 14 Finnish food processing facilities.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said at the Finnish president's summer residence that the quality of Finnish food was in order and that there was no need to politicise the issue.