A stock image of the Helsinki Metro (Image: Lehtikuva)

HELSINKI TRANSPORT AUTHORITIES ARE FACING MOUNTING ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM following an alleged incident in which a black teenager was violently assaulted by security staff and arrested for not having a valid ticket. 

Elina Lepomäki on Thursday announced the National Coalition is advocating a shift to universal income security. “This system isn’t fair,” she told Helsingin Sanomat. (Roni Rekomaa – Lehtikuva)

THE NATIONAL COALITION has declared its support for extending earnings-related allowance also to earners who are not members of unemployment funds.

The earnings-related allowance is an unemployment benefit that is paid only to unemployed job seekers who are members of an unemployment fund, even though 94.5 per cent of its funding stems from tax revenues and the statutory unemployment security contributions of employees and employers.

A police handout of a recent seizure (Image: Lehtikuva)

FINNISH CUSTOMS POLICE HAVE REPORTED SEIZING A RECORD NUMBER of illicit and often counterfeit nicotine products this spring, largely consisting of snus products that contain "excessive" levels of nicotine.

In this file photo taken on January 5, 2018 the chamber sits empty before the start of a U.N. Security Council meeting concerning the situation in Iran, in New York City. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

The 14th of July 2020, marks the fifth anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Agreement. Iran showed its good faith by engaging in negotiations to reach a diplomatic solution as called for by all Security Council Resolutions on the nuclear issue. After thirteen years of complex negotiations, in 2015 Iran and the five permanent members of the United Security Council plus Germany signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is annexed to- and inseparable from-Resolution 2231.

The number of attempted homicides, aggravated assaults and attempted aggravated assaults rose by almost 40 per cent year-on-year in Helsinki between January and May 2020. (Olivia Ranta – Lehtikuva)

THE NUMBER of serious violent offences has risen sharply during the course of this spring in Helsinki, Jari Koski, a senior detective superintendent at Helsinki Police Department, told Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday.

The number of attempted manslaughters, for instance, almost doubled from the previous year, from 14 to 27, between January and May.

Police responded to urgent calls in 7–11 minutes in cities with over 120,000 residents in Finland in 2019. (Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva)

A TASK FORCE appointed by the National Police Board has presented its report on police response times to Minister of the Interior Maria Ohisalo (Greens).

Establishing maximum police response times – the time it takes police officers to arrive at the scene of an incident after a call – is one of the objectives laid down in the government programme of Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP).

Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Greens) spoke to reporters as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council in Brussels on Monday, 13 July 2020. (Virginia Mayo – AFP/Lehtikuva)

THE EUROPEAN UNION is continuing to mull over its response to the new security law imposed on Hong Kong by China, tells Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Greens).

Haavisto stated to Helsingin Sanomat on Monday that many of his colleagues from the 27-country bloc voiced their support for a joint response to the legislative change that, according to its critics, curtails protests and freedom of speech in the special administrative region of China.

“Finns do not trust that democracy can be realised through political parties,” tells Antti Kivelä, the head of capacity for renewal at the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra). (Roni Rekomaa – Lehtikuva)

AUTHORITIES, businesses and members of the media are all deemed more trustworthy than political parties in Finland, finds a survey commissioned by the Finnish Independence Fund (Sitra).

Antti Kivelä, the head of capacity for renewal at Sitra, on Wednesday described the survey results as devastating. “Finns do not trust that democracy can be realised through political parties,” he summarised.

A forensic scientist and police officer examined the scene of an apparently accidental shooting in downtown Helsinki on Wednesday, 8 July 2020. (Vesa Moilanen – Lehtikuva)

OFFICERS at Helsinki Police Department have shed further light on the shooting that occurred in bar Pataässä in Helsinki on Wednesday.

A spokesperson at the police department revealed yesterday that the victim of the shooting was a man born in 1970. The victim was taken to a hospital with a gunshot wound in his thigh and remained in medical care with non-life-threatening injuries yesterday evening.

Mika Salminen of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) reacted at a press conference in Helsinki on 28 May 2020. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

THE FINNISH INSTITUTE for Health and Welfare (THL) is unlikely to recommend that schools be closed in a bid to keep the coronavirus epidemic in check in Finland, Mika Salminen, the head of health security at THL, said on YLE Radio 1 on Monday.

School closures, he phrased, would definitely have to be weighed up carefully if the epidemiological situation warranted more restrictions.

A photo of schoolchildren in Helsinki (Image: Lehtikuva)

SWEDEN HAS BEEN REFERRED TO THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS over a case involving alleged discrimination of Finnish-speaking children at a school in Västerås, a city in the east of the country. 

Minister of Justice Anna-Maja Henriksson (SFP) reacted at a press conference held in conjunction with the unveiling of a proposal to overhaul the legislation on sex offences in Helsinki on Tuesday, 7 July 2020. (Olivia Ranta – Lehtikuva)

A TASK FORCE at the Ministry of Justice has unveiled its proposal for updating the legislation on sex offences in Finland.

One of the most highly anticipated and much-discussed amendments in the proposal is removing the use of violence or threat of violence as the essential element of rape and replacing it with lack of consent, be it expressed or presumed.

A commuter wearing a mask surveys public transport safety instructions in Helsinki (Image: Lehtikuva)

FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HIT FINLAND, the number of new confirmed cases is higher in the rest of the country that it is in Uusimaa, a drastic departure from Finland's COVID-19 experience that has previously seen the vas majority of cases confined to the capital region. 

A shot of the blaze early on Saturday morning (Image: Lehtikuva)

FINNISH AUTHORITIES ARE DUE TO OPEN AN INVESTIGATION into a fire that ripped through an elderly care home complex in Jyväskylä in the early hours of Saturday morning. No deaths or injuries were reported from the blaze.

Afghan asylum seekers as Lesbos refugee camp in Greece, where several of today's arrivals had been held (Image: Lehtikuva)

A TOTAL OF 24 UNACCOMPANIED MINORS have arrived in Finland this week, after being relocated from refugee camps in Greece as part of a deal agreed with the European Commission and EU member states to accept more asylum seekers.