The Finnish Forest Industries Federation said Monday that the stevedores' strike had shut down almost 60 per cent of the country's paper mills, with more than 3,700 workers sent home.

Timo Jaatinen, the managing director of the wood-processing industry lobby, said the Transport Workers' Union (AKT) was putting jobs at risk.

The federation added that the dockers' strike was slowing down the country's recovery from the recession.

Talks between the AKT and the Port Operators' Association to end the strike broke down on Friday.

The strike began on 4 March.

STT

The Finnish police said Monday that a man had set himself alight at a filling station in central Rovaniemi late on Sunday.

The police added the man, aged 24, had purchased petrol before dousing himself with some and setting the fuel on fire.

An ambulance that happened to be at the scene rushed the man to hospital. The man sustained serious injuries.

The police said the man's motive was not known.

STT

Tarja Halonen, the Finnish president, said Saturday she would consider issuing a political statement declaring post-second world war trials of Finland's wartime leaders as breaches of the rule of law.

The 1945-6 trials, which most Finns prefer to call "war responsibility trials" instead of the less palatable heading used by the allies, saw Risto Ryti, president in 1940-4, six wartime cabinet members and an ambassador jailed for waging war against the Soviet Union in 1941-4, a conflict known as the continuation war in Finland.

Finnish national daily Helsingin Sanomat on Monday quoted a poll as indicating that some 59 per cent of the public opposed an increase in immigration, up from 44 per cent returned by a similar poll carried out a year ago and from 36 per cent three years ago.

The paper quoted Heikki Ervasti, a professor of social policy at the University of Turku, as saying that the survey marked a reversal of a trend of rising tolerance that had begun in the 1980s.

Said Aden, chair of the Finnish Somali League, said the outcome of the survey was hardly surprising during a recession.

Commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat, market research company Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) interviewed 1,000 people.

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Finnish Feb consumer prices up 0.1 pct after 8 months of deflation

Statistics Finland said in a statement Monday that the country's consumer prices had risen by 0.1 per cent in February after an eight-month deflationary stint.

"Consumer prices started to rise mainly because the rate of reduction in interest rates slowed down and the prices of single-family houses went up," the agency added.

Prices had fallen by 0.4 per cent year-on-year in January.

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David Beckham, a British AC Milan footballer, is to fly to Finland to undergo Achilles tendon surgery, a number of agencies quoted the Italian football club's doctor as saying on Monday.

Beckham injured his left Achilles tendon during a match on Sunday.

Jean-Pierre Meersseman, the club physician, told Sky TV Italy that Sakari Orava, a Finnish orthopaedic surgeon, was to treat Beckham.

Dr Orava told the Finnish News Agency (STT) that the former England captain would probably not make a full recovery before the world cup in June and July.

He added that the plan was to carry out the procedure in Turku on Monday.

STT

The police in the eastern Finnish town of Varkaus said Friday that a local girl aged 12 had confessed to kidnapping a baby and burying the three-month infant in a snowdrift earlier this week.

The police had said earlier on Friday that the main suspect was a 15-year-old.

The police quoted the 12-year-old as saying during questioning that she had snatched the baby on a whim.

The baby survived three hours buried in the snow.

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Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia on Friday cut its 2009 handset market share estimate by four points to 34 per cent.

"Beginning in 2010, Nokia is revising its definition of the industry mobile device market that it uses to estimate industry volumes," Nokia said in a statement.

"This is due to improved measurement processes and tools that enable Nokia to have better visibility to estimate the number of mobile devices sold by certain new entrants in the global mobile device market."

"These include vendors of legitimate, as well as unlicensed and counterfeit, products with manufacturing facilities primarily centred around certain locations in Asia and other emerging markets."

STT

Two Finnish Centre party MPs said Friday they backed direct government funding of the country's public broadcaster.
Tuomo Puumala, a deputy leader of the Centre party, said in a statement that a lump-sum tax had been the wrong way to go in the first place.

"In that case Nalle Wahlroos as well as somebody living on a basic pension would have paid the same amount," Mr Puumala said, citing the managing director of Sampo Bank.

Two Finnish lawyers said in a report Friday that the country's head of state or prime minister could issue a statement labelling postwar trials of Finnish leaders as a breach of the rule of law.

The 1946 trials, which most Finns prefer to call "war responsibility trials" instead of the less palatable heading used by the allies, saw Risto Ryti, president in 1940-4, six wartime cabinet members and an ambassador jailed for waging war against the Soviet Union in 1941-4, a conflict known as the Continuation war in Finland.

Finland's trade deficit fell to about 55 million euros in January from some 95 million in the year-ago period, the National Bureau of Customs said in a statement Friday.

Exports fell by about four per cent year-on-year with imports dropping by about five per cent from the year-ago period.

STT

The police in the eastern Finnish city of Varkaus announced Friday that they suspected a local girl, 15, of kidnapping a baby from a pram and burying the three-month infant in a snowdrift.

The police added that child protection officers had taken the suspect into custody.

The suspected kidnapping took place on Monday, with the baby surviving hours buried in the snow.

Earlier this week, the police upgraded the investigation into an attempted murder inquiry.

STT

Matti Vanhanen (centre), Finland's prime minister, said Thursday that leaders of the ruling parties had settled a row over the decision-making process pertaining to crisis mangement troop deployment.

Mr Vanhanen said the secretariat of the constitutional committee had found a solution that satisfied all ruling party leaders.

But he refused to disclose any details about the agreement.

Finnish regional daily Aamulehti on Friday quoted a Taloustutkimus poll as indicating that about 47 per cent of the public felt that Parliament should reject the permit applications of all three utilities planning building nuclear power stations in Finland, with some 38 per cent of the respondents backing extra nuclear generating capacity.

Aamulehti said 22 per cent of the respondents would like to see a single permit, 11 per cent two and six per cent three permits.

Commissioned by the paper, market research company Taloustutkimus interviewed 1,000 people in early March. The margin of error was stated as three percentage points either way.

STT

Finland's Supreme Administrative Court on Friday began proceedings over what is commonly known as the Tiitinen list, which allegedly contains the names of Finnish informants used by the Stasi, East Germany's state security ministry.

The court is to rule whether the Finnish Security Police (Supo) is to hand a copy of the list to a reporter who requested one.

In 2008, the Helsinki administrative court ordered Supo to disclose the list, with Supo appealing the ruling.

Supo has warned that making the list public would undermine national security, hurt relations with foreign intelligence organs and violate privacy.

Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet reported in its Friday issue that one of the names on the list was Riitta Juntunen, a spokeswoman at the Central Organisation of Trade Unions.

The Supreme Administrative Court ruled in 2003 that Supo did not have to disclose the list.

STT

Finnish daily Hufvudstadsbladet reported Friday that Riitta Juntunen, a spokeswoman at the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), had handed 940 pages of reports to the Stasi, East Germany's notorious state security ministry, between 1979 and 1985.

The paper added that Ms Juntunen, known by the codename Kati in the Stasi's files, had been paid 70,000 West German marks for her services.

November last year, Hufvudstadsbladet quoted Petra Sauerzapf-Poser, Ms Juntunen's colleague at the German Democratic Republic's interpretation and translation bureau in Berlin, as saying that Ms Juntunen had denounced her to the Stasi.

STT

US business magazine Forbes on Thursday included Antti Herlin, the main owner of Finnish lift and escalator maker Kone, on its list of US dollar billionaires.

Mr Herlin is the first Finn to be featured on the Forbes list.

Forbes estimated Mr Herlin's net worth at about 1.3 billion US dollars, earning him 773rd place along with 54 other well-heeled people.

Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecommunications tycoon, topped the Forbes list with a fortune of some 53.5 billion dollars.

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The Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church's Turku archdiocese said Friday that Kari Mäkinen, a bishop at the archdiocese, had won the church's archbishop election, beating Miikka Ruokanen, a professor of dogmatics at the University of Helsinki, by a handful of votes.

Dr Mäkinen is to replace Jukka Paarma, due to retire in June, as the head of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

In the runoff vote, Dr Mäkinen received 593 votes against Dr Ruokanen's 582.

STT

Suvi Lindén (cons), the Finnish transport minister, announced Thursday she would not carry forward the government's plan to replace the licence fee with a tax, citing a lack of backing in Parliament.

The minister said the matter would be postponed to the next legislative period, meaning after next year's general election.

The government had planned to fund the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) with a lump-sum tax it prefers to call the media fee.

The Finnish government said in a statement Thursday it had decided to change the name of the education ministry to "the ministry of education and culture".

Pending Parliament's approval of the change, the new name will enter into force in May.

"Finnish ministries have been named in a way that best describes the key mandate of each ministry," the statement added.

"Cultural policy is a broad social policy area coordinated by the ministry of education. It covers areas such as cultural heritage, cultural exportation, multiculturalism and international cooperation."

STT