Globally, around three in 10 people, or 2.3 billion, do not have handwashing facilities with water and soap available at home, said the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Friday.

Media staff members watch a live image of Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaking at the media center of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Kunming, in China's southwestern Yunnan province on October 12, 2021. (Photo by STR / AFP) / - LEHTIKUVA / AFP

The first phase of a meeting of parties to the UN Convention on Biodiversity provided good prospects for further negotiations aimed at halting biodiversity loss. Hosted by China in Kunming and partly arranged as a virtual event, the main achievement of the meeting was a unified message concerning the level of ambition in necessary measures. The Declaration stresses the need for swift action in all areas of society to halt the loss of biodiversity.

The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) says that it has made the process of obtaining a work-based residence permit for foreigners faster and more efficient in 2021 compared to the previous year. 

In a press release, the agency stated that while the average processing time for a residence permit based on employment was 143 days in 2020, it has been reduced to 77 days this year.

Medical staff members walk past ambulances at a hospital for the Covid-19 infected patients at Kommunarka outside Moscow. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

Far reaching proposals to bring an end to historical discrimination in health care have been put forward by the World Medical Association.

YIT has concluded the co-operation negotiations concerning white collar employees in Finland. The co-operation negotiations covered the transition to a more efficient, competitive, and customer-oriented operating model, as well as the implications on personnel and options related to the planned change.

Minister of Justice Anna-Maja Henriksson (SFP) attended a panel discussion on municipal policy organised by the Association of Finnish Municipalities in Helsinki on 15 September 2021. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

THE GOVERNMENT of Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) believes the legislation should enable the abrogation of marriages into which at least one of the parties has been forced, reports Helsingin Sanomat.

The proposal states that the abrogation would restore the previous marital status of the party, but in other respect the legal ramifications of the abrogation would align with those of a divorce.

Netflix's corporation tax payments in the United Kingdom amounted to just 4 million pounds ($5.5 million) in 2020, despite the fact that the company earned about 1.15 billion pounds from its British subscribers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Guardian reported on Friday.

This year, foreign employees have been issued with residence permits on the basis of work considerably faster than last year.

Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) on Thursday voiced her support for calling off the cuts in funding for culture and arts. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

PRIME MINISTER Sanna Marin (SDP) and Minister of the Interior Maria Ohisalo (Greens) on Thursday announced their readiness to call off the much-discussed cuts in funding for arts and culture, echoing the earlier demands of Minister of Education Li Andersson (LA).

The government decided on the cuts in response to a drop in the proceeds of Veikkaus, the state-owned gambling monopoly that is a significant source of funding for arts, culture and sports.

Children collect food and recyclable materials through garbage near the airport in Kabul. LEHTIKUVA / AFP

An estimated 100 million people experienced extreme poverty this year largely in the so-called middle-income countries (MICs) as a result of the economic crisis brought about by the measures implemented to address the novel coronavirus pandemic, the World Bank said in a communique on Friday after a meeting of its Development Committee.

The first part of the UN Biodiversity Conference wrapped up on Friday. It will be followed by final negotiations on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework during face-to-face meetings in Kunming, China, in April 2022.

Mika Salminen, the head of health security at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), provided an update of the epidemiological situation in Finland in Helsinki on Thursday, 14 October 2021. (Mika Salminen – Lehtikuva)

ROUGHLY 238,000 people must still receive the second injection of a coronavirus vaccine to raise the vaccination coverage to the target of 80 per cent in Finland, Mia Kontio, a leading expert at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), told on Thursday.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of over 12-year-olds in the country are currently fully vaccinated against the virus.

Fraud medicine discovered by the custom service have increased by almost ten times in the last five years.

All websites illegally offering medical products not controlled by state authorities should be shut down immediately, according to the World Medical Association.

Finnish producer and writer Jani Pösö (R) and filmmaker Teemu Nikki celebrate winning the award for Best Series for Mister 8 at the closing ceremony of the CanneSeries festival in Cannes, France on October 13/Lehtikuva

The Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) made headlines this week after announcing that it has developed a solution for cement production that has nearly zero emissions. 

The institute’s new method of producing cement and quicklime uses low-emission electricity instead of combustion, drastically reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the process.

Finnish venture capital investors are increasingly investing in companies outside Finland. Although investments are made in many different sectors, ICT companies have raised the most funding. Finnish investors participate especially in seed-stage investment rounds, which represent about half of all international investments made.