On February 27,  Helsinki Times published a letter by the Ambassador of the State of Israel to Finland, Dan Ashbel. Ambassador Ashbel's remarks were a reply to a piece by this author that appeared a week earlier.

My initial article dealt with the collaboration between Finland's Israeli trading partners in military equipment and the Israeli army. I elaborated on how Finland is "directly profiting the very companies that benefit – from Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories" as Finland has been and remains an ever loyal customer of Israel's "occupation-powered military exports".

Roal Electronics was founded in 1984 by two young and ambitious men, Rodolfo and Alberto who gave the name of the company from the first letters of their names: Ro-Al.

For the people of Castelfidardo, Roal became the symbol of prosperity and pride. Being a part of Roal meant security, future for our children, the fulfilment of our dreams, no worries for "tomorrow". Working for IBM first and then for Alcatel, National Instruments, Cisco, Barco and many others was always a pride for all of us working here and day by day we did our best to improve our knowledge in order to give Roal all the opportunities it deserved.

Dear editor,

I’m writing to you regarding what happened to me in Vaasa, an innocent travelling student attacked inside McDonald’s, and I want to urge the local police to look into this serious assault on a foreigner.

I left Umeå and took a ferry to Vaasa. I arrived at downtown Vaasa at midnight. As I wanted to take the train to Tampere early the next morning, I decided to stay in a McDonald’s, which was open until 5:00, and then proceed to the train station to catch the early train.

Dear Editor,

In the 9 January issue of the Helsinki Times, the Chinese Ambassador to Finland Mr. Huang Xing writes critically about the recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. This article is no doubt part of the worldwide anti-Japanese campaign orchestrated by his head office in Beijing.

Dear Editor,

I am disappointed at the latest commentary of Huang Xing, PRC Ambassador to Finland (Issue January 9-15, Viewpoint: “Yasukuni Shrine, a touchstone of Japan’s attitudes towards history and future”). Not all, but quite many points in his account are biased, erroneous, and politically motivated.

War history and postwar reconciliation in East Asia are still highly sensitive and complicated issues. Regarding China, there are definitely some other newsworthy topics Mr Huang could have clarified.

Sir,

I am writing with regard to what I thought was a biased Q&A with Prof Kohen in the recent issue of HT. I understand this is how journalism works but surely such a divisive subject deserves some balance from both sides, or a neutral perspective maybe. As such, I would like to address a few points I feel at odds with the professor’s views.

I’m a bit disappointed by your populist EU bashing in the article The Cypriot precedent, especially since it is most probably based on wrong information. You claimed that the EU initially required Cyprus to violate the EU-wide 100,000 euro deposit insurance, but to the best of my knowledge it was not the EU/Troika partners who proposed this!

With reference to the article entitled “Officials turn blind eye to abuse of asylum seekers” which appeared in the Helsinki Times dated 21-27 March 2013, I would like to inform your readers of the following.

Firstly, I would like to emphasise and underline the fact that the Greek Government has not and does not turn a blind eye to the multi-faceted problems of migrants and refugees in Greece and in the adjacent geographical area.