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Outside the big cities in Finland, the fire service is also partially voluntary in fact, in some municipalities the service is 100 per cent voluntary. The two per cent budget increase promised in the last electoral term would have only bought some extra time, Puheloinen admits. C O R D HEL SINKI TIMES Avalanche risk in Finland A recent snowslide at the Pyhätunturi ski resort, on an untended slope sometimes used by offpiste skiers, has highlighted the fact that potentially fatal avalanches are not just an occurrence in the Alpine resorts of Switzerland and Austria. It is difficult to put a number on the amount of volunteer workers in Finland. See page 9. CULTURE Get your marching boots A new exhibition in the Amos Anderson Museum, called I Ain't Marching Anymore, examines the turbulent political period of the late 60s and early 70s. In Finland, Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen refused to cut spending in all sectors, saying the government must prioritise. · Some of the reforms will be completed by the end of this year, and the remainder by the end of 2014. Finnair board members still defiant E L I N A KO R K E E , H E I K K I M E T S Ä M Ä K I S T T ALL AN BAIN HT FIVE MEMBERS FOUNDED IN ST. In sport alone there are over 540,000 adult volunteers this fig- Ursula Ranin, Veli Sundbäck and Pekka Timonen in a press release. "We need to have garrisons in different types of areas throughout the country, so that we can train conscripts and reserves to operate in different conditions." "A risk will have to be taken," Puheloinen says, with the country's military capabilities in the coming years, in order to meet the savings targets. Hungary has lost some EU funds because of its failure to hit a budget target, while Spain was asked to cut deeper than it had planned. The Finnish Sports Federation describes volunteering in sport as "people getting together to work for the common good for free and without immediate benefit for themselves." Clearly this fits the criteria of a volunteer worker. There are over 600 voluntary fire brigades in the country. A study in 2006 showed there were over 250,000 volunteers in soccer, ice hockey, track and field and cross-country skiing alone. The work is done without monetary reward and without material benefit, save, in some circumstances, food and shelter. Other countries are also under pressure in regards to spending. The risk he identifies arises from the long-term effects on training of the severe budget cuts that will be implemented from now through 2014. Largest reforms since 1945 · Over the course of the next four years around 2,200 jobs will be cut throughout the military, and there will be around 1,200 layoffs. Experts claim there is evidence of collaboration between far-right extremists in Germany and Russia where race-related violence has also increased. · Combat-ready troop levels will be reduced from 350,000 to 230,000. In Germany, the Cologne Institute for Economic Research reported that this year the German government will only meet half of its planned 19.1 billion euros in savings. "Those demanding cuts of up to 5 billion euros must come out and say from where the cuts will come," she told Yle. As part of the military reforms and cutbacks which began at the start of this year, six garrisons were closed, in Jämsä, Kauhava, Keuruu, Kontiolahti, Kotka, and Lahti. `Military reforms were inevitable' ST T / TH THE COMMANDER of the Finnish De- fence Forces, General Ari Puheloinen told news agency STT in an interview that even without the state savings pressures, military reforms would have been unavoidable in the near future. PETERSBURG 1860 of the Finnair board who were present when a decision was made in 2009 about payment of additional bonuses to the company's management are still of the opinion that the decision arrived at was the right one. Underlying these specific bonuses is the resignation of CEO Jukka Hienonen in 2009. ISSUE 11 (242) · 15 2 1 MARCH 2012 · 3 · W W W.HEL SINKITIMES.FI L E H T I K U VA / M I K KO S T I G DOMESTIC Governments struggle to meet austerity demands DAV I D J . "In 2009, we took the decision about additional bonuses after careful consideration, and we still believe that the decision was necessary in terms of the company's future wellbeing and the safeguarding of shareholders' interests. Approximately 47 per cent of Finland's population lives in municipalities with voluntary fire services and they make up 95 per cent of the country's area. At that time, the board was headed by Christoffer Taxell. See page 22. GREECE'S new bonds began trading at distressed levels this week. See page 5. INTERNATIONAL NEWS Neo-Nazi violence increases Czech neo-Nazi groups are believed to be responsible for more than ten firebombings of Roma residences the past five years. Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen has also recoiled from the idea. Read more on page 11. For more working life-related articles, see pages 16-19. It's easy to give a little time DAV I D DU N N E HEL SINKI TIMES KESKUSKATU 4, HELSINKI P. · The mandatory period of military service will be shortened by 15 days. Many who coach or help out with the local sports team wouldn't consider themselves volunteer workers, as they see it as just their pastime. People may also volunteer to develop skills or knowledge, to make. "In companies, these sorts of bonuses are a quite commonly used means of rewarding people in times of challenging transition," Taxell asserted in his own press release. The new instruments were yielding at almost 19 per cent, demonstrating that investors believe the restructuring will not work. But if doing volunteer work to feel better about yourself is seen as selfserving, then most volunteer workers would happily admit their guilt. The exhibition shows the works of Finnish artists and their interpretation of youth-led movement of the time. ure accounts for 16 per cent of the adult population. Naturally, the board and its members must enjoy the confidence of shareholders," said board members Sigurdur Helgason, Satu Huber, new friends, to make contacts which may in turn help them in the professional world, to gain new life-experiences or a host of other reasons which may be seen as self-serving. "It wouldn't have saved us from the need for the major changes that are underway now." Puheloinen admits that the location of garrisons was a key consideration in in deciding on which ones would be axed and which would be saved. In a visit to Helsinki, former ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet told Taloussanomat that "belt-tightening is simply a sensible policy." Even countries relatively better off are having difficulties balancing the demands of austerity in the face of a predicted recession. 044-740 3385, Mon-Fri 10-18, Sat 10-16 Find your local r e tailer www.tillander.fi VOLUNTEER work is generally viewed as work or time spent doing activities intended to promote good causes or improve human quality of life. In total, the airline paid 18 directors almost 2.8 million euros in additional bonuses in 2009-2011 in the hope of keeping them at Finnair. That same year, the airline's pilots agreed to a five per cent pay cut. Read more on page 17. There are approximately 15,000 trained voluntary fire fighters actively in service. Faced with ever-worsening public finances, officials are once again pushing for austerity measures. A European Commission report, viewed by Reuters, calls for Greece to slash a further 5.5 per cent of GDP in spending in 2013 and 2014
2 15 21 MARCH 2012 VIEWPOINT HELSINKI TIMES Viewpoints are commentaries written by experts and authorities about specific topics. And no one wages war on shifting tectonic plates or fires at the Sun. Candy, anyone. In the 1990s, Desert Storm kicked off with stealth bomber raids on Saddam's presidential palaces. The individual elements of the swarm act as autonomous agents, collecting and passing information in real time through the network formed by all. True, no one could have doctored this particular candy. Undeterred by his father's failure, Bush the Younger tried to bomb Saddam out of existence in 2003. A 1939 British Spitfire fighter cost 12,000 pounds, or half a million dollars in today's inflated terms. Dispersal is the key -- the whole idea is that there is no central brain or command centre or HQ. Add to this network-routing algorithms rooted in game and auction theories which help organise and streamline collaboration and resource allocation and you've got yourself a real-life Terminator. But insect, pollen, and eventually synthetic-bacte- ria soldiers will come to pass, even if only because everyone today is working furiously to release the nano-genies from the bottle. But don't break out the champagne. The growing use of selfguided missiles, self-propelled vehicles, and military drones on today's battlefields is but a first step in this direction. Conventional arsenals have gone hand-in-hand with conventional declarations of hostilities because, once you were at war, there was no hiding it from the other side. Add the colossal cost of support and resupply, which is once more in the multibillion range. Later the same decade, Nato bombers targeted all the Belgrade residences where Milosevic was thought to be hiding. AIDS, SARS, Chernobyl, Mount St. His Ars Americana (2010) was a National Book Award finalist. Waging peace Modern technology has changed the face of warfare and politics in dramatic and sinister ways, writes Peter Swirski. A SERIES of executive orders from the 1970s and 1980s prohibits American commanders-in-chief from ordering assassinations of foreign leaders. Candy anyone. This is accomplished with the help of stateof-the-art algorithms from optimisation techniques and probabilistic modelling which plug gaps in data, extrapolate and predict trends, and otherwise overcome informational entropy when channels are cut, jammed, impaired, or compromised by the enemy. A brave new world, indeed, that has such people in it.. The banquet is sumptuous, tables laden with food and wine. Don't like candy. They are as invulnerable to biochemical hazards as to enemy propaganda. A DNA bomb: progressive miniaturisation coupled with molecular genetics will enable assassination of just the person you want dead. These could be phalanxes of unmanned tanks or collimated aerosol suspended in the air, each nano-droplet capable of collecting and processing information, aggregating and communicating with closest neighbours, arriving at collective decisions, and initiating responses. All of a sudden you are looking at 70,000,000,000 dollars over the shelf-life of a single supercarrier. But you could arm every candy in the bag, in the palace, in the country, and in the world with a bomb designed to finish him and only him off. How about countless sleeping DNA bomb mixing freely, waiting until they eventually reach the designated address to kill or merely incapacitate with bone cancer, flesh-eating bacteria, debilitating depression, or merely chronic migraines. Later in the evening his chest, stomach, arms, head begin to throb with dull pain. In the first phase of this devolution, they will come to resemble synthetic insects (synsects), just like real mosquitoes becoming virtually indestructible in the swarming or dispersing mass of lethally armed soldier insects (solsects). In 1945, a P-51 Mustang fighter-bomber, the workhorse of the US Air Force, cost 50,000 dollars. We can look forward to the day in which assassination becomes an exact science thanks to microbotic devolution the very same that will make battlefields a thing of the past, although not in any way to make peaceniks rejoice. Something has to give. Factor in the inflation and overruns -- the original price tag was only 3.9 billion per -- and it is a safe bet that the eventual cost is going to be half as much still. Solsects This is, of course, only the beginning. They are immune to shellshock, physical fatigue, and the need for food, sex, decorations, danger pay, hospitals, and pension plans. Operational costs over the lifetime of these behemoths are approximately five times as much. At two-thirds the size, British carriers currently assembled in Scotland (to be in service around 2020) carry a price sticker of 5 billion pounds. Modern assassination methods being so crude and inefficient, the CIA hatched no fewer than 638 plots to get Castro, involving, among other things, a cigar, a mollusc, and a fungus-infected wetsuit (just about the only thing they haven't tried was a voodoo doll). No point trying to hit the nexus that will paralyse its planning and operations, because there isn't any. and again. Self-organising, connected informationally only to the spores next to them, perfectly identical, perfectly interchangeable, dead cheap to churn out by the trillion. The last phase will see weapons the size of bacteria and with bacteria's capacity to replicate themselves. But future military ops will be waged not by the vulnerable macrosystems of today but by miniaturised robots. In the subsequent phase, future weapon systems will become the size of pollen and equally plentiful, with trillions and quadrillions of virtually weightless nanobots floating around, settling on hair, eyelids, skin, inhaled straight into the lungs, covering every leaf of every tree of every battle zone or every inch of farmland and the body of every farm animal behind the enemy lines, ready to turn lethal at a click of a mouse. Playing Globocop does not come cheap. A Ford-class supercarrier will set you back just under ten billion. How about celery, tobacco, beef or trout. So what. Instead of wielding the weapon, the soldier will become the weapon. Helens, the 2004 tsunami, the Fukushima earthquakes, the annual ravages by Santa Ana, power grid failures, droughts, spikes in cancer rates, obesity epidemics -- all these could be cryptomilitary campaigns conducted by nano-agents that make it impossible to tell whether one is even under attack. Devolution will walk hand in hand with evolution. In the future, instead of getting more massive and more costly to make, weapons will implode in size and unit price. The costs of design and development of new generations of microbotic soldiers will be transferred onto the systems themselves as weapons will be allowed to evolve and vie for supremacy with other systems as part of military "breeding and weeding". In the 1980s, Reagan had a go at Ghaddafi. The runaway costs of development, manufacture, and maintenance alone will ensure this, quite independently from any tactical and strategic considerations. Enter ALLADIN -- codename for Autonomous Learning Agents for Decentralised Data and Information Networks -- a brainchild of BAE Systems, the world's largest military contractor (listed on the London Stock Exchange, and a safe investment if what I'm telling you is right). Think again. Bond's Q section would have been proud. You can submit your articles to viewpoint@helsinkitimes.fi. Alladin Autonomous microbotic armies are anathema to control freaks at every echelon of every military establishment. You can annihilate such numbers of them that would send human troops into bowel-loosened retreat, and they will still continue to mobilise and carry out the battle plan in real time, constantly augmenting their tactical awareness with a stream of input from communications satellites, radar, radio, video, and other sensors. All of this is so inefficient, so twenty-first century. Devolution. The whole system will be no more than a few thousand picometres in size, a fraction of a pollen grain and as cheap to produce and disperse in the world, the ultimate stealth assassin that will kill only you, leaving everyone else to eat candy in total safety, risking only bad teeth or an occasional stomachache. Shunning the desserts, the dictator rips open a bag of mass-manufactured candy and pops one in his mouth, confident that no one could poison this particular sweet. After all, the best military campaign is one that ensures no retribution on the victor. How about water or air supply. Articles should be at least 5,000 characters-with-spaces long (maximum length 10,000). Inside, the lining of his organs is dissolving, haemorrhaging into all body cavities. Together with a troop of British universities, BAE is developing weapon systems made up of autonomous learning agents. Most of them tried anyway, mostly by ineffectual aerial bombing. Think this is much. The Penta- gon gobbles up half of the annual total federal discretionary spending, so much so that America blows more on armaments than the next twenty biggest spenders combined. The KGB's Department V of the First Chief Directorate cached within the internal security department of the Russian army these days took care of dissidents like Trotsky and Georgi Markov with similarly crude devices (ice-pick and ricin-loaded umbrella). Helsinki Times reserves the right to accept or reject submissions, as well as to edit or shorten the text. Not so in the age of autonomous weapons finer than pollen, capable of inducing natural disasters or attacking the enemy in ways indistinguishable from pandemics, acid rain, corrosion, landslides, earthquakes, and such like. Not only will this eliminate overhead but also ensure efficacy, since the systems left standing in this micro-evolutionary arms race will be by definition the most lethal. War is peace Ultimately, microbotic weapons systems are destined to completely upturn the nature of combat and render war as know it obsolete. Mechanical soldiers are every general's wet dream. The opinions expressed in this section are the writers' own and do not represent the official policy of the Helsinki Times. Peter Swirski is Professor of American Literature and Culture at UMSL, Professor and Research Director at HCAS, and Honorary Professor of American Studies in China. Solution. A virus that will dissolve the cell walls in your body will activate only when it matches the DNA of the dictator or the dissident stashed away in a not-so-safe house. At this point, design teams and production lines will become a thing of the past as each unit will extract operational and reproductive resources from the environment. Ten billion dollars covers only the construction costs. Arm the bomb and send it to the right address -- or arms billions of candy bombs and release them into the world in complete safety. Today the cost of one B-2 stealth bomber exceeds two billion. Within minutes he's dead, lungs filled with blood, drowned. Still, the cumulative outlays for the invasion and occupation of Iraq alone (around two trillion) mean that the shopping spree won't last forever. Each of us carries a unique biological ID-card and biological address in the form of nuclear DNA. During WWI, a Vickers F.B.5 (Fighting Biplane) cost only 2,000 pounds to make. The 2011 Nato-American coalition insisted they were not targeting Ghaddafi but you can bet they would have popped a few champagne corks if they succeeded by accidental design. Globocop And if at first you don't succeed, try and try again... War and peace will be replaced by a permanent state of crypto-hostilities conducted by autonomous systems so camouflaged to blend with the environment that not even their creators may be able to tell them from forces of nature. They are not given to thinking for themselves, disobeying orders, or running for cover when in peril. Just like the Nimitz-class leviathans on which they are based, these guys are so big they come with their own ZIP code. Add the cost of the carrier's planes and choppers plus their fuel, armoury, and upkeep
"When the price falls to about 300 euros, the barrier to getting one will drop enormously. "Most of the work that's done at home on the computer could be done on a tablet." Internet browsing, email correspondence, social media, watching videos and looking at photos all these are easily done as well by tablets, he says. HELSINKI TIMES DOMESTIC NEWS 15 21 MARCH 2012 3 Tablets still hard to swallow THE FINNISH IMMIG RATI ON SE RV I CE has a brand-new website SAIL A KIUT TU S T T HT A MAGAZINE, Click the address www.migri.fi g You will find answers quickly kly and avoid queues d d on the telephone! www.migri.fi information on residence permit, asylum and citizenship issues in Finland. a gameboard, a camera, a computer, a mobile store, a phone it's all these and more in the same package. This upper secondary program is for people with English skills who also need to develop their Finnish. Aalto's job is to monitor the latest trends in media use. Come to the school's office and apply! High School Study in English while learning Finnish The Matriculation Examination (ylioppilastutkinto) is taken in Finnish whereas the University of Cambridge AICE Diploma is taken in English. To feel good about themselves." Some others are far more impressed than Aalto about the new arrivals to the computer family. "Why does someone order a women's magazine, for example. Most people don't yet find it necessary to buy a tablet that costs around 700 euros." Tablets lighter, laptops cheaper · The standard-sized 10-inch screen tablet computer weighs about half a kilo. He's even convinced that the majority of people in Finland don't need a regular home computer, or even a laptop. · The lightest laptops, the smallest of which have the same screen size, weigh about twice that. Men are usually most interested in the device itself," says Finnmedia's director of development Helene Juhola. Despite being more reserved about the tablet than Ahlroth, Aalto does see the advantages also, although she doesn't believe they will ever entirely replace laptops, which along with home computers still come into their own for more complex operations, such as editing videos or pictures. Ahlroth finds a second obstacle to the rise in popularity of tablets, namely their price. Permanent residence permit needed on all courses. Age limit for daytime studies 1725 years. They can be used with a separate wireless keyboard, but this makes the device less practical to carry around and significantly cuts down the battery life. According to a recent survey by Finnmedia, the Federation of the Finnish Media Industry, in Finland there are currently around 170,000 users of the two most popular tablets, the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy. "The only reason there can be that most Finns won't change from laptops to tablets is that writing on a touchscreen is too slow and cumbersome." This may even be the question that seals the tablet's fate. Next entrance test on Office hours: Mon-Tue 1018:30, Wed 1016:00, Thu 1116:00, Fri 1015:00. www.eira.fi. She believes that for the time being, purchasers of tablet computers are guided more by feeling than by rationality. · Laptops prices start from about 200 euros (without 3G, i.e. wireless internet, capability), whereas tablet prices start from about 500 euros (with 3g capability). Study Options for Everyone Create Your Own Vision Apply for peruskoulu 2.57.8. Our peruskoulu is taking new students starting in May. Journalist Jussi Ahlroth, who studied the technology and thinking behind tablet computers for a year at the University of Oxford and who now works for the Helsingin Sanomat, is enraptured with the things -- the `intuitiveness' and responsiveness of the touchscreens, the beauty of the layout. And he sees other advantages too: they're lighter and more energy-efficient than laptops, with longer battery life. The fateful question There's one point, Ahlroth concedes, on which tablets lose out to laptops. Above all, however, tablet computers are still a mode of self-expression, according to Tuija Aalto, the director of planning at the internet department of Yle. We also offer beginner's courses in Finnish and English in the evening. Tablets are still the preserve of a fairly small elite. The most common laptop models have a 15-inch screen (measures on the diagonal), and usually weigh over two kilos. The users are typically high-earning middle-aged males. "Women's use of them is becoming more common too, but they tend to be more interested in the content of the devices, in what they can be used for. Information session 3 May at 17:00 on school premises
For example, online stores monitor purchases and also the products browsed by the customer. A good example of this is a list which is maintained by online companies: if you subscribe to this list, the monitoring should stop. To simplify, there are two kinds of online monitoring. STT / HT L E H T I K U VA / V E S A M O I L A N E N SAK criticises government's savings target as `socially unsustainable' The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK) stated on Tuesday that the government's proposed plan to cut spending and increase taxes to the combined value of five billion euros would have `socially unsustainable' effects. As yet, there have been no reports of anyone breaching the user information databases of major players such as Facebook or Google. Do you think the sacking of Hilkka Ahde from the Transport Workers' Union was justified? Health authority critical of on-call healthcare system SINIK K A SUOS A L MI S T T HT ACCORDING to the National In- Yes 33.3 % No 66.7 % View details and this week's question at www.helsinkitimes.fi. stitute for Health and Welfare (THL), the provision of social and health standby (or on-call) services is highly fragmented in many areas of the country. "In the US, for example, there is a comprovision of basic services. STT / HT Online services know everything about you yet. While writing the piece, I used social media and read articles in online newspapers. The worst-affected areas in this regard are in Central Finland, Ostrobothnia, and Lapland. QUESTION OF THE WEEK The Transport Workers' Union AKT's sacking of Hilkka Ahde dominated the Finnish media's headlines last week. The position will be filled in May. STT / HT Halonen passes up on ILO opportunity Contrary to earlier speculation, former President Tarja Halonen will not be among the candidates considered for the position of Director-General of the United Nations' Interna- ONLINE companies such as Google and Facebook know more about you than the authorities. Many of them monitor all web browsing also on other sites. Alongside the actual hospital and departmental on-call services, Erhola suggests, a parallel acute home-care model should be developed. Similar incentive schemes to encourage investment are already in place in France, Britain, and Ireland, and are being planned in Sweden. Exercises for testing various voluntary activities. He believes that abstaining from monitoring and data protection friendliness may one day become a competitive advantage for these applications. How I was monitored JUSSI L ANKINEN S T T HT According to some estimates, there is information on every internet user in at least tens, possibly even hundreds of databases. JUSSI L ANKINEN S T T HT Kauppalehti: Tax breaks likely for investors in growing companies In an interview published in today's Kauppalehti, Minister for Finance Jutta Urpilainen (SDP) said that the possibility tax reductions for investors in small-sized, but growing, companies will be discussed during government development negotiations next week. Everyday heroes' stories. Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen (NCP) had pledged governmental support for Halonen if she wished to apply for the post. 11:30-12.15 Lunch break (at participants own cost) 12.15-15.15 Volunteer work at Red Cross. The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority is not as concerned about this. In addition to the sites dedicated to collecting browsing data, Google's, Facebook's and Twitter's sites monitored my browsing history especially closely. prehensive law that requires companies to inform their customers of data breaches. However, the majority of data breaches are never disclosed. In Erhola's view, the ideal situation would be that the elderly people would not have to WHILE I was writing this story, dozens of programs followed my online activity. In the US, for example, a bill that would address online monitoring has been drafted. On Saturday 31th March at 09:30-15:30 Where. This was indicated by an application I added to my browser which follows the monitoring of my online surfing. Mikko Hyppönen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, estimates that there is information on every internet user in at least tens, possibly even hundreds of databases. The more they know about the target of their advertising, the better companies are able to personalise and focus their advertising. There have recently been numerous data breaches followed by user information being leaked online. Would you also like to get involved. "It is a huge publicity blow for a company to be caught redhanded for covering up a data breach," says Jussi Eronen from the authority's data protection unit, CERT-FI. After just under three hours, the program had verified that around 90 sites had followed me. 10.00-11:30 History, ideology and operations of the Red Cross organization. In principle, people's online behaviour is subject to "secrecy of correspondence", and monitoring it is forbidden without the user's permission. 15:15-15.30 Participation certificates and the opportunity to sign up on the action! Call 0400 720 405. When the queues for the latter are too long, people go to the outpatients department. Want to find out about different people and at the same time to do something which brings joy for you and others. In the lighter form, websites track what users do while visiting these sites. Laivanvarustajankatu 6 b, Helsinki Registrations to the course latest by 25th of March to doinita.negruti@redcross.fi or 0400723 985 The course is free of charge, is held in the English language and is intended for anyone interested in Red Cross activities! Course program: 09:30-10:00 Coffee serving and course introduction. The practice would be helpful, Urpilainen said, because young entrepreneurs have difficulties in getting financing from the markets. I didn't click on any advertisements and didn't give anyone express permission to monitor my online behaviour. The favourite for the position is tipped to be Britain's Guy Ryder, who is currently vice director of the organisation. Companies also save all this information in their databases. Many patients are now treated by temporarily employed doctors, or even by graduate-level medical students. "It's clear that in small health centres the doctor can't always do standby duty, so the areas of responsibility would have to be sufficiently large," says the director of the National Institute for Health and Welfare Pekka Puska. By combining this information, very detailed profiles of people can be compiled. "There is a strong antimonitoring movement in the US, and people there have woken up to the fact that the industry's self-regulation is not enough. According to Hyppönen, the only way to avoid monitoring is by not using the internet. At present, according to the THL study, approximately 150,000 people throughout the country have to travel more than 80 kilometres if they need emergency medical treatment outside of daytime service hours. Volunteers tell their own experiences. They know where you live, your hobbies, what food you like and who you know at least if you are logged into their services while you surf the net. Not all of these were specialised in data collection, but nearly 30 were. Under the present set-up, Puska explains, standby services are continually overloaded because they are forced to compensate for the insufficient English Driving School in Helsinki! Esami Driving School www.esami.fi I info@esami.fi Student comments "A great place to learn driving!" "I would recommend this as the first choice driving school in Helsinki" All about Finnish Red Cross course The Red Cross is the world's largest humanitarian aid organization in the world, millions of voluntary people work wherever help is needed most. Do not hesitate, you're needed! When. But things need not be this way, according to THL's director-general Marina Erhola. 4 15 21 MARCH 2012 DOMESTIC NEWS HELSINKI TIMES COLUMN tional Labour Organisation (ILO). Web users are monitored more closely by online services that require users to log in. Rather than save by introducing cuts on the proposed scale, SAK urged the government to implement what it called a more just taxation scheme which would increase capital gains tax, taxes on large pensions, and property tax. However, Data Protection Ombudsman Reino Aarnio would not throw in the towel Breaches remain undisclosed The collected records of users also constitute an information security threat. However, this may not be the case, as many companies only stop offering targeted advertisements." According to Aarnio, the tide may yet turn. In practice, little can be done to prevent it. The deadline for applications was Monday. The statement by the Organisation's board said that austerity measures which the government must finally decide upon within the next two weeks must not have the effect of stifling economic recovery and growth. Information is usually collected for marketing purposes. leave their homes to queue for outpatient services at all the services would come to them. Under United Nations and ILO rules, no candidate may apply for the position without the support of his or her home country. Along similar lines, Puska emphasises the importance of ensuring that services are close to people. There is no such law in Finland or the EU," he says. According to Hyppönen, the law on the publicity of data breaches is lacking in this respect. Facebook, for example, has been caught spying on its users even after they have logged out of the service. This would be particularly directed towards providing care for the elderly
Slides typically occur on untended slopes. The police force's financial situation for the next several years has already been mapped out by a governmental working group, and according to that prognosis there is not enough mon- ey to maintain the number of police officers at the current level of about 7,700 nationwide. The chair of the working group, Kauko Aaltomaa of the Ministry of the Interior, says that in addition to the funds needed for adjustments a further 40 million euros are needed for 2015. This change was already proposed by the [governmental] working group during the last electoral term." According to the minister, more police tasks could also be transferred to patrol cars. There is a need to cut policing expenditure by around 30 million by 2015, Aaltomaa says, and cuts in force numbers is one of the means that is being considered to this end. Helsingin Sanomat later apologised for publishing the rumour.. Many of the volunteers work at Pyhätunturi and other resorts, so have a solid knowledge of the local terrain. There have been regular freezes on police budgets in recent years due to fluctuations in state finances, and Paatero would like to see an end to these unpredictable ups and downs. The second issue that has generated much controversy is the government's efforts to hold fast to the decision made last October to cut the police budget in the near future. HELSINKI TIMES DOMESTIC NEWS 15 21 MARCH 2012 5 L E H T I K U VA / V E S A M O I L A N E N Police under pressure for cutbacks The much-discussed savings objectives and their effect on police work and morale have become a major issue in the government's ongoing spending negotiations. T OM I OR AVA INE N S T T HT THE YEARS ahead will be lean ones for the police, although exactly how much so will become clear only when the government's ongoing savings and development negotiations have reached an end. A large snowslide occurred at the Pyhätunturi ski resort last Sunday, but there were no injuries. According to Ahde, Räty has not spoken to her for two and a half years. "That's one of the worst problems. Despite the desire for savings, however, the government is adamant that the number of police officers in the country will be kept at the current level. "Nothing drastic is likely to happen, but the changes will become increasingly evident over the coming years. We don't have the sort of precise snowslide and avalanche predictions found in Switzerland, for example," Blanco Sequeiros says. "Then we can develop our operations and police performance will remain good," Aaltomaa explains. Aaltomaa is optimistic about the possibility of avoiding redundancies, but the employment prospects for newly-graduating police officers would deteriorate, at least for some time. Blanco Sequeiros explains. There are different kinds of snowslides; the most common is the slab avalanche, in which a block of snow fractures from its surrounds and starts to slide. Plentiful freshly fallen snow increases the risk. · In areas that are susceptible to snow slides, skiers should proceed in single file and keep a safe distance from each other. The pre- dictions are based on an international classification from one (least risk) to five (highest risk). Both Räty and Ahde strenuously deny this. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute's Lapland area manager Alberto Blanco Sequeiros, as many as four-fifths of all documented snowslides in Finland are caused by people. · If you do plan to ski beyond the range of the tended slopes, tell someone what direction you're going in. This is part of an ongoing dispute with former head of communications for AKT, Hilkka Ahde, who was sacked this month by the union AKT cited "a long-term lack of confidence." Räty has denied the accusations of harassment. "Paperwork could be done on the move and police could then spend more time patrolling areas where there are no police stations," Räsänen says. L E H T I K U VA / RO N I R E KO M A A Freshly fallen snow increases the risk of snowslides ST T / HT PLENTY OF fresh snow and untended slopes should set off alarm bells for anyone planning to go skiing in Finland this month. Less and less minor offences will be investigated, and at least in sparsely-populated areas the reaction time of police to calls is likely to become longer. "The system hasn't been specifically developed for predicting snowslides, but for tracking the weather. Helsingin Sanomat reported, based on unidentified sources, that Räty and Ahde had an affair and that relations became strained after the affair ended. The maintenance of "drunk tanks", for example that is, holding facilities for those who are found in a highly intoxicated state on the streets could be transferred to local social services, Räsänen proposed. "The transportation and accommodation of drunks is more of a social services task than a police one. The Meteorological Institute has issued warnings for six skiing areas in northern Finland, and the daily updates can be followed on the Institute's website (www.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi). · There is plentiful oxygen in fresh snow, so if you are trapped clear a space in front of your face. Who: Timo Räty From: Kuopio Famous for: Being at the centre of public row with former colleague Hilkka Ahde. Chairman of the Transport Workers' Union AKT, Räty has recently been questioned by police over charges levelled against him of improper conduct at work the charges are of harassment in the workplace. The slide, which was 80 metres high and 50 metres wide, occurred on the Isokuru slope, which is an untended slope beyond the tended slopes of the Pyhätunturi skiing centre. According to Commissioner of Police Mikko Paatero, the economic outlook now facing the police is "the bleakest moment of his career." If the October proposals come into effect, Paatero believes it would be "only a matter of time" before the effects are seen concretely on the streets. Rescue operations must be begun immediately. The incident did show the importance of the Lapland volunteer emergency services, however, since the rescue operation was left to them. · While the snow mass is still moving, it is easier to try to "swim" one's way through it. Strong swimming movements of your arms and legs will at least bring you close to the surface. If the police spending limits are not extended by the time the negotiations reach their conclusion in a couple of weeks' time, this may mean a need to implement savings of around 900 working-years through police layoffs. Whatever the precise shape of the [government's] framework solution, I hope it will be a long-term decision and that full funding will be forthcoming." The police force's finances for a number of years to come have already been mapped out by a governmental working group. Yle: Minister proposes transferring some police tasks to social services IN AN INTERVIEW with Yle late last week, Minister of the Interior Päivi Räsänen (Christian Democrats) suggested that one way of reducing policing expenses would be to transfer some police tasks to local authorities. He added that the unemployment problem in the police must be handled equitably. "If there is plentiful snowfall, the fresh layer doesn't immediately stick to the layer below," How to reduce the risk: · Don't venture beyond the tended slopes on your own. A combination of factors gives rise to snowslides, including the thickness of the snow cover, and fluctuations in temperature. Overall, the visibility of police will decrease," Paatero says. If a slide occurs: · Call for help immediately if your companion has become trapped under falling now. Minister of the Interior Päivi Räsänen (Christian Democrats) has stated her support for exploratory measures with a view to implementing the required savings, but in contrast to comments she made in recent weeks, Räsänen now says she is in favour of avoiding layoffs. "The starting point for negotiations on spending is to keep the number of police officers at the current level," Räsänen told news agency STT. Jobs on the line. A twentymember rescue group was deployed, but the operation was called off after some hours when it was clear there was no people missing
Katainen pointed out that the cheese slicer method [i.e. `We won't unnecessarily raise any taxes or make any needless cuts. JARI SAARIO "ACCORDING to Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen (NCP), who was interviewed on TV1's morning programme Ykkösaamu, using a `cheese slicer' isn't a good way of making savings. There has been a lot of talk in this small community about the reasons of trade unions quite often have arguments with their employers unions, in other words. He's the chairperson of Aytoimihenkilöt, the organisation for clerks working for those unions that are part of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK). The crimes took place in the house of a family member of the victim, where the men had been invited. Such a large number of students can't fit into a patient's hospital room at one time, and they can't see the patient from the back row. It's quite common that working hours aren't clearly defined. He was sentenced for sexually abusing a child. Professor of Youth Psychiatry Mauri Marttinen from the University of Helsinki says that from the age of 15 or 16 years the likelihood of committing suicide ILTALEHTI 10 March. `In smaller unions, arguments about overtime and compensation for work done at the weekend may arise. The man was sentenced to a five-year suspended sentence, the trial period of which will come to an end in autumn next year. Katainen is convinced that a solution acceptable to all the parties in the government will be found. `Depression is at least a partial cause for every second youth suicide. In fact, disputes about the working conditions of trade union employees have recently become more common, says Sauli Järvinen. In other words, Finnish debt won't grow as a result of our decisions,' Katainen said." "THIS IS the third winter in a row when a young adult living in Parainen a municipality in the archipelago near Turku has committed suicide. His colleague was given a one-year suspended sentence raymond-weil.com | parsifal collection AAMULEHTI 11 March Newly qualified Finnish doctors found lacking "A MEDICAL student in Finland can graduate despite never having punctured a patient's maxillary sinuses or her eardrum. Ay-toimihenkilöt also rep- resents employees of unemployment funds. The three young people knew each other, at least to some extent. `The sorts of measures that have the best `euro per job' ratio should be prioritised,' Katainen said during the interview. MARJO OLLIKAINEN Arguing and bullying nothing new for trade unions "THE EMPLOYEES Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen says he is against incrementally cutting services but will agree to raise taxes or make cuts if they are needed. KAUPPALEHTI 10 March. RISTO KUNNAS Teachers guilty of sexually abusing student "TWO WELL-KNOWN musicians forced a 15-year-old girl to take part in sexual activities. In Helsinki, the official aim is to have groups of six students, but in the worst cases there may be as many as 12 to 14 students. Katainen believes that the national economy should Katainen rejects the `cheese slicer' savings method Youth suicide gets Parainen talking TURUN SANOMAT 10 March be stimulated using measures that have an immediate impact and are most useful. Therefore, Hilkka Ahde's experience of being bullied at her place of work isn't that unusual, even within a trade union. Iltalehti reported on Friday that the Kouvola Court of Appeal had agreed with the sentence given to a teacher at a well-regarded music school for forcing a 15-yearold to have sex. Unfortunately, there is also some workplace bullying,' Henttonen explains." grows rapidly until the age of 25. The minutes of the meetings of earlier district court sessions reveal that the under-age victim had actual- ly become the victim of two well-known musicians, who also work as music teachers. That's a growth of almost 70 per cent.". 6 15 21 MARCH 2012 FROM THE FINNISH PRESS T R A NSL AT IONS B Y A INO B A IN HELSINKI TIMES L E H T I K U VA / J A R N O M E L A HELSINGIN SANOMAT 11 March. But those taxes that have to be raised and those cuts that need to be made will be,' he said. Something depressing or humiliating happens, your girlfriend leaves you, for example." and 50 hours of community service. `We will bring an end to the growth of Finland's indebtedness. Medical studies are conducted in small groups, as students have to learn their skills by practising them. In and of itself, being of this somewhat difficult age does not, however, make a person consider taking his or her own life. Her own teacher held her bare breasts as well as his own penis, whereas the other teacher forced her to have oral sex by holding her head with his hands. `There is one ongoing case at the moment. In addition, problems start accumulating: there are problems at school, arguments with friends. incrementally cutting services etc.] has already been used so exhaustively that there is nothing left to slice. `It is an unfortunate fact that during their studies students may not get the chance to practice, or even observe, these simple operations, which are basic skills all GPs should possess,' says Kari Heinonen, the chairperson of the Finnish Medical Students' Association. According to Katainen, the Finnish government must now prioritise savings and find a way of making savings acceptable across party lines. The public papers of the trial, which has been kept secret, reveal the ways in which the girl was abused. Often intoxicant abuse is also involved. One of the men is a Helsinki-based family man, who, at the time of the crime, was the girl's music teacher. The girl's own teacher is a multi-talented musician who is well known, especially in church circles." for young people feeling so bad that they can't see any alternative to this one, final solution. The quality of education has deteriorated because the number of students per group has become too large. There have been only a few disputes about working conditions in unions within the Finnish Confederation of Professionals (STTK), says Satu Henttonen, the chairperson of Järjestöammattilaiset Jami ry, which is the union for clerks working for unions within STTK. `People get in touch with us about this every week, and we take about two to three cases to court every year,' he says. A year and a half ago, there were more cases, but agree- ments were found with the employers.' The most typical problems are arguments about working conditions and how much different jobs are worth, Järvinen says. The crime took place back in June 2004, but it only came to the attention of the police at the end of 2010. So unions argue with their employees about similar issues to the ones with which their own members need help. The University of Tampere has increased the number of study places for L E H T I K U VA / J A A K KO AV I K A I N E N medical students from 400 to 700 students during the 2000s
HELSINKI TIMES 15 21 MARCH 2012 7
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According to the Swedish government's website, Saudi Arabia is Sweden's most important trading partner in the Middle East and North Africa. He said the Swedish government has been fully aware of the plans. Classified government documents revealed by the public broadcaster Swedish Radio Tuesday show that FOI since 2007 has been involved in a project called Simoom that has been kept secret from the public. Russian neo-Nazis have been linked to terror campaigns such as attacks on and the murder of judges who have sentenced right-wing fanatics and activists. "It is extremely problematic that a government institutional authority assists in planning the establishment of a weapons factory in a dictatorship where gross human rights violations occur," Anna Ek, head of the NGO Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS) explains. In this way FOI was dis-. Because some traditional parties now use antiRoma rhetoric it could be the backdrop for more militant activities by neo- Nazis." Experts say that extremists are also adopting tactics of gaining supporters by promoting their opposition not just to Roma but to immigration in general and to controversial issues such as same-sex marriage. However, in a document sent by Jan Olof Lind to the Ministry of Defence in March 2009 the planned project is explained in detail. It was recently discovered that a neo-Nazi cell in Germany calling itself the National Socialist Underground was responsible for the killings of nine immigrants and a policewoman over a six-year period, as well as bank robberies and bomb attacks. PRAGUE CZECH REPUBLIC PAVOL STR AC ANSK Y IPS THEY SAY that extremist groups in countries such as Russia, Italy and Germany are providing Czech rightwing movements with operational, organisational and ideological inspiration and support for racial violence and ways of gaining public support. Several MPs have now demanded the minister's resignation. Sweden in Saudi arms deal controversy Confidential documents have recently revealed how Sweden has secretly been helping Saudi Arabia plan the construction of an advanced arms factory to produce anti-tank missiles. and Human Rights Watch, has nevertheless for several years been assisted by experts from the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). These discussions are classified," he told the Swedish Radio. German neo-Nazi groups also have a proven history of terrorism. HELSINKI TIMES INTERNATIONAL NEWS 15 21 MARCH 2012 9 L E H T I K U VA / A F P P H O T O / N ATA L I A KO L E S N I KO VA Neo-Nazis taking to terror Just days after a hotel was firebombed in a suspected racist attack, experts and activists have warned of neo-Nazi groups turning to `terrorist' campaigns as they become increasingly influenced by far-right movements in other countries. paigner in the Czech Republic explained: "It is an established fact that the Czech and German ultraright parties have entered into cooperation agreements. tanced from the project in order to avoid any direct links between itself and the Saudi government. I do not wish to comment on discussions that may or may not have occurred between Sweden and Saudi Arabia. Russian ultra-nationalists have been cooperating with Nazis in the Czech Republic. But Miroslav Mares, a sociologist, pointed out that a fertile breeding ground for anti-minority violence was being created by some local mainstream politicians. "That a company was created to bypass scrutiny and that it was approved by the government is a huge scandal," says Anna Ek. The agency, which is an authority under the Ministry of Defence, has been involved in plans to develop Saudi Arabia's weapons industry in cooperation with companies based in Sweden, the defence company Eurenco Bofors among others. Anti-racism monitors across Europe have reported a rise in anti-immigrant and anti-minority sentiment since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, and the Interior Ministry report cited worsening economic conditions and increasing social exclusion as other drivers of the predicted rise in racial attacks. A Russian neo-Nazi gives a fascist salute at a recent anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow. On 6 March Sweden's Green Party spokesperson Gustav Fridolin announced that he would report the Minister for Defence, Sten Tolgfors, to the Committee on the Constitution to review his role in the matter. "The Czechs now seem to be following German tactics of having a relatively mainstream-looking, officially registered political party hold public rallies which those ideologically committed to racist violence then attend in hopes of actually carrying out that violence." Albert, who works for the Romea Roma rights and education group, added: "The impact of Russian fascist and ultra-nationalist ties can also be seen." The warnings come after the Interior Ministry last week released a report on the far-right in the country which said a rise in racially motivated attacks in the coming years was likely partly because of the influence of foreign rightwing extremist groups who use violence and terrorism, especially those in Russia. In socially troubled areas we can see the involvement of the regular population in anti-Roma demonstrations and the neo-Nazis are the `drivers' of anti-Roma activities and prejudices. "We can now hear racist statements from local politicians from non-extremist parties. Gwendolyn Albert, a prominent anti-racism cam- Firearms training Meanwhile, former German neo-Nazis have publicly said that there is strong cooperation between German and Czech right wing groups and that firearms training camps for neoNazis from across Europe have been held by German rightwing groups on Czech territory. Several former FOI employees confirm the existence of the project in interviews in Swedish Radio, including Dick Sträng who led the project until 2010 and was one of Lind's closest colleagues. The document reveals that the project's worth is several hundred million dollars and that Sweden's involvement would stretch over a five to six-and-a-half year period. Confidential documents show that the plans have been far-reaching though the construction of an advanced weapons factory which would be the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia has not yet begun. He told local media: "What we are seeing is the rise of `common' racism. While Sweden has sold weapons to Saudi Arabia in the past, a classified government document from June 2008 says that the project Simoom "is something new for FOI and stretches the boundary for what is possible for a Swedish agency." FOI General Director Jan Olof Lind denies the existence of the project. STOCKHOLM SWEDEN IDA K ARL SSON IPS SAUDI ARABIA, one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world and condemned for its human rights violations by organisations such as Amnesty International Discussions are classified "We do not have a project agreement with that country. Some commentators have put the increased tensions down to growing economic hardship. In the confidential document it is also revealed that a private company, Swedish Security Technology and Innovation (SSTI) was founded to take over the negotiations
· Sign up for automatic SMS alerts with your airline. IT IS NOT only happening in troubled nations. Corporations might instead be more cost-conscious. From a high of 6.8 million, the amount fell to 5.3 million by early 2009. · Be polite to airline staff. "A permanent shift occurred during the recession in 2008-2009, when a lot of companies invested in equipment and software for virtual meetings," she says. But no one has been able to explain why the details of our public finances must be kept from us. I calculated it is costing us 102 million over five years, based upon publicly-available information.) OF COURSE, some official information should be secret. Weekdays: 10:00 19:00 Saturday: 10:00 16:00 Buys close one hour earlier. Cash-Store Oy Kastelhomantie 2, 00900 Hki tel. +358-9-616 621, info@hotelanna.fi www.hotelanna.fi. Everybody knows things are bad... Yet this fall in premium seat tickets does not mean that business travel has decreased by a similar amount. Keep your temper. Topping that with several different time zones, I wonder if it would have been more productive if we had been in the same room and able to see each other's faces and expressions." Video conferencing Besides economic cycles, changes in technology have impacted business travel. · Consider a travel agent that specialises in corporate travellers. The trend had been evident for some time: in 2004 almost 10 per cent of all tickets sold were for premium seats, but by the end of 2007 that percentage was about 9. It is happening here in Finland. "There is a world of possibilities for both travellers and travel management in smart phones and applications," Viljamaa says. · Consider a portable scanner to keep track of receipts. (They are Alpha, Eurobank, National and Piraeus, according to Reuters.) Some conspiracy theorists suggest our government doesn't want us to know because of how bad a deal it is for Finns. This isn't right. Put your watch, cell phone and any metal items in your carry-on to save time. It has improved, growing to about 6.3 million by the end of last year, but is still not at pre-crisis levels. For the business travel industry, the recession was hard and the recovery is slow in coming. · Have an alternate route in mind in case you need to rebook. · Be prepared for security before you get in line. "Special attention is paid to the duration of business trips, ticket prices, travel class, hotel standards and rental cars, for instance," continues Viljamaa. ings were to be primarily conducted in a `non-travel way.' This is naturally very sensible in many ways, also for sustainability reasons. We're more THE FINANCIAL crisis and ensuing recession impacted different industries in different ways. Cord david@helsinkitimes.fi The writer is a journalist and columnist for Helsinki Times. These virtual ways of meeting are here for good, and will be used also when the economy is up." Viljamaa believes that virtual meetings and actual meetings can complement each other. The people did not vote for Jean-Claude Juncker to speak for all of us using the euro. 10 15 21 MARCH 2012 BUSINESS HELSINKI TIMES L E H T I K U VA / J U S S I N U K A R I David J. · Carry a pen on the flight. Viljamaa says that video conferencing, conference calls and other forms of virtual meetings have influenced the industry. He dared to imply that the Greek people were Some conspiracy theorists suggest our smart enough to make their own decisions. THIS decomposition of democracy has spread to sovereign governments. Our government says it is because the Greeks requested it. The people did not vote for Herman Van Rompuy to be head of the European Council. If there are any available, they might give it to you for free. government doesn't want us to know because of how bad a deal it is for Finns. seats out of total airline tickets sold has decreased. "Also, many introduced policies where certain types of meet- Travel apps While some advances in communications technology are negatively impacting the corporate travel industry, other improvements are making travel easier and more efficient. "Thus, it is often one of the first categories to be cut when the economy is down." One proxy often used for corporate travel is the number of premium seats sold. "For larger companies, business travel is usually among the top three variable costs," explains Sari Viljamaa, Managing Director of the Finnish Business Travel Association. Frankly, Greek bankers have no right to withhold information from us about our own public finances. According to the International Air Transport Association, the share of premium Some tips for frequent business travellers · Pack light. The recession dramatically impacted the number of premium seats sold. "Managing traveller risks, the duty of care, is an issue that needs to be taken seriously by any company with business travellers." INSTANT CASH! concerned with being left alone with our toasters and TVs. Never put anything integral to your trip in checked luggage. Not only are we not allowed to have a say in some European matters, we are not even allowed to know what decisions our government has made. They might save time and money. We have a right to know what our MPs are doing. We have a right to be mad. The Italians had a premier foisted upon them, as did the Greeks. STRANGELY, we don't seem very interested. (It is a bad deal. As examples, she cites regular meetings among people who already know each other could be conducted virtually. Some have fully recovered, while others have languished. If you have any liquids, remember to use only the small "travel size" containers. · Have one full set of toiletries only for travel. C O R D HEL SINKI TIMES movie Network had some powerful writing, including the iconic "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" line. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. The last Greek PM that went through an election, George Papandreou, lost his job for the unforgivable sin of suggesting the Greek people should have a vote for the currency they use. I'm speaking of the secret Greek collateral deal, of course. But for a sales call to a client one has never met before, she thinks it would be better to meet face-to-face. All of us had our personal English accents and intonations. I want you to get mad." According to the International Air Transport Association, the share of premium seats out of total airline tickets sold has decreased. Business travelling People still take business trips, but the industry is changing. DAV I D J . Our national defence plans and our counter-terrorism operations shouldn't be released, for instance. We have a right to have a say in our governance. I want people to get angry about what is happening in Europe. THE 1976 THE EU, defined by its bloated, lumbering bureaucracy, is not known for being a glorious example of democracy. All we say is `Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. "On a personal note, I have attended conference calls with 30 or more participants from all over the world. One rumour is that the Greek banks don't want us to know which of them were participating. · Print out your boarding pass before you go to the airport, if possible. Alternatively, consider the self-serve kiosks, which are frequently unoccupied. If you do check luggage, put something distinctive on your suitcase so you can recognise it immediately. Recently I've been feeling some affinity to the character Howard Beale. The simple fact that our MPs insist on keeping this from us is disquieting. It will save time with packing and unpacking. NO ONE has convincingly explained why it is secret. Some destinations require you to fill out customs forms. · Ask for an upgrade. And neither does our own finance ministry. We buy and sell good condition used: TVs, DVDs, home hi-fi, sport equipments, tools, car stereos, game consoles, mobile phones, computers, music instruments, jewellery and watches... (09) 727 92707, fax (09) 727 92407 Second-hand Shop www.cash-store.info Cosy hotel in the heart of Helsinki Annankatu, 00120 Helsinki tel. He is also a private investor with over ten years of experience. The decline and fall of European democracy "I DON'T need to tell you things are bad. I want you to be mad
The corners are rounded in different ways on different models, and maybe the colours are different, but generally that's as far as the distinctions go. In his opinion, Finnair's board ignored the principles of good corporate governance by paying out these bonuses at the same time as cutting others' benefits. 0207 007 725 kilo@tilaakaikelle.fi +358 (0) 207 007 700 to find out more. * The offer is available for a limited time.. 0207 007 720 ala-tikkurila@tilaakaikelle.fi Kilo Kilonkartanontie 1, 02610 Espoo Puh. Such an error of judgment was also at play when Finnair's board failed to tell the minister responsible for matters pertaining to state-owned enterprises at the time, Jyri Häkämies (NCP), of its decision. After Vehviläinen's arrival, there have been a lot of changes in Finnair's management. According to the company's annual report, his basic pay and fringe benefits came to 611,650 euros last year. When the question is one of flagrantly breaking corporate governance rules of the game, the key owner should be in- formed," Pekkarinen added. Timonen, a Finnair board member, also heads Savings programme under way · Finnair is currently implementing a 140 million-euro annual savings programme. Nokia's design exhibits the same principles as Finnish architecture, he says, with the same functionalism as can be seen in Alvar Aalto's buildings. Taking shape "The key principle is that the design contributes to improving the everyday use of the device." In addition to Aalto, Ahtisaari also cites many other Finnish designers that have had an influence on Nokia. "Cluttered interfaces are bad design," Ahtisaari summarises. Screen size and phone thickness are things that engineers and engineer-types get hot and sweaty over, but the average consumer is far less interested in such things. The new Lumia 800 as an example: viewed from the front it looks a bit like a Lada, but from the back the organic influences from Wirkkala are clearly on display. From Tapio Wirkkala comes the idea of taking inspiration from organic shapes, and from Kaj Franck elements of the colour schemes and the aim for an austere aesthetic: "Out with everything that's not essential," as Ahtisaari puts it. · In autumn 2009, Finnair signed agreements with its technical and catering units' employees about cutting costs. "I don't really believe it. Among others, Finnair's cabin crew staff went on strike in December 2010. the state ownership steering unit. Product design should develop "as if from within," he adds. HELSINKI TIMES BUSINESS 15 21 MARCH 2012 11 L E H T I K U VA / J A R N O M E L A Next-generation Nokia: Less nerdiness, less fuss The beleaguered Finnish manufacturer is trying to claw its way back to the top with a new line of phones. ANT TI AU TIO S T T HT NOKIA HAS released several new phones over the last six months or so, some of them Windows-based Lumia models and others the older Asha-based devices. · Increased productivity has been attained through outsourcing and pushing wage costs down. "Espoo is particularly strong on interface design," he says. `Rules of good corporate governance broken' Mauri Pekkarinen thinks Finnair's board suffered an error of judgement. From page 1. MIKA VEHVILÄINEN, who replaced Finnair's previous CEO, Jukka Hienonen, isn't one of those who received a bonus. Nokia's director of design Marko Ahtisaari says that the plans extend to as far as three phone-generations ahead. The airline is aiming for a marked increase in productivity in its personnel costs. The considerations that exert the greatest effect on the final outcome of the design process are production methods, the technology contained in the device, and the packaging for sale. 0207 007 715 herttoniemi@tilaakaikelle.fi Ala-Tikkurila www.pelicanselfstorage.fi or call Härkävaljakontie 28, 00750 Helsinki Puh. But now Nokia plans to stand out, Ahtisaari assures us. Additionally, Vehviläinen is entitled to short and long-term incentive rewards. In Ahtisaari's view the model combines austerity and softness, and highly-developed manufacturing processes were required to make it. The plan, Ahtisaari says, is to fashion devices that require a lot less of the user's attention than the current phones. 0207 007 710 vallila@tilaakaikelle.fi Herttoniemi Hitsaajankatu 8, 00810 Helsinki Puh. The company is now setting its sights far into the future, however far, that is, in the short-term and fast-changing world of mobile electronics. The first two are the largest, and during his short time in his new role Ahtisaari has already managed to spend three weeks in the Espoo centre. "Did the board think the risk of executives leaving was so big that good corporate governance was worth sacrificing," Pekkarinen pondered sceptically during a phone interview with the news agency STT. The Commerce Committee will probably arrange hearings with people involved in the matter in order to obtain more information about the decision and how it was communicated. We have room for everything... Rent your own storage unit 130m2 Go to Visit us in: Vallila Mäkelänkatu 62, 00520 Helsinki Puh. This is the assessment that Pekka Timonen gave of the situation in Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday. · At the same time, disputes with employees have plagued the company since autumn 2009. Among others, vice president Lasse Heinonen, head of communications Christer Haglund and the executive responsible for investor relations, Taneli Hassinen, all left the company last year. With it, the company hopes to put an end to its continuous losses by 2014. He was promoted to the company's top level at the beginning of February. Nokia's director of design, Marko Ahtisaari. Common principles At first glance, most mobile phones look more or less the same, so much so that one often needs to glance at the logo to be able to tell different brands apart. The user interface is where people's behaviour and design come together, so the combination of humanism and technology is not at all strange, he says. Ahtisaari has worked fulltime for Nokia since 2009, but also worked for the company from 2002 to 2006. Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre), who heads the Parliament's Commerce Committee, sees the Finnair board having suffered an error of judgement in its decision about additional bonuses. In other words, Nokia is trying to shake off its nerdy image. The value for tax purposes of his company-provided house, news of which caused a scandal a few weeks ago, was 23,607 euros. Nokia has four design centres, in Espoo, London, on the west coast of the United States, and in China. For Ahtisaari the most important thing is "the human perspective, since after all people want to be in touch with each other face to face." Ahtisaari's entry into the world of technology took place around 15 years ago, when he left a career in the humanities behind; but his former field, he suggests, is now an advantage when it comes to designing more user-friendly technology
12 15 21 MAR H 2012 MARC 2012 MARCH 01 012 HELS NKI TIMES LSINK M HELSINKI TIMES WESTERN UNION HAS MOVED IN! Western Union moved in with us a few weeks ago. Come to FOREX Bank for your money transfer transactions. HELSINKI Itäkeskus Shopping Center, Pasaasi ESPOO Tapiola, Sampotori VANTAA TURKU JYVÄSKYLÄ TAMPERE OULU www.forex.fi. This means you can now send money quickly and easily around the world
In difficult economic times, the easiest option for making savings seems to be to cut back on investment in preventive measures. HELSINKI TIMES FINLAND IN THE WORLD PRESS L E H T I K U VA / J U S S I N U K A R I 15 21 MARCH 2012 13 WIRELESSFEDERATION. The Finns had the lowest rate, with just over 24 percent of PCs infected by a virus, worm or Trojan. The World Health Organization has estimated that 80 per cent of coronary artery disease and 90 per cent of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by adopting healthier lifestyles: by giving up smoking, eating healthily, taking adequate exercise, and keeping one's weight at a healthy level. Industrial production decreased a working-day ad- justed 5.2 per cent annually in January, after rising 2.1 per cent in December. Nokia will continue the service for the next 4 to 4 months to give enough time for subscribers to use up the money. The main reason may be that the effectiveness of preventive measures takes time to come to light. LIFESTYLE choices have clear effects on susceptibility to illnesses: the risks of smoking, excessive consumption of alcohol, and obesity are well known. policy-level actions such as taxation, various kinds of restrictions and measures agreed upon with industry have often proven to be effective. THIS Last year's informal EU meeting in Lapland was cancelled due to events in Japan and Libya. These measures include alcohol and tobacco tax increases, and banning tobacco advertising. Lower School Grade 1 Classroom teacher, one year leave replacement contract All applicants must be local residents and have at least a Bachelor's degree with a major focus in primary or early childhood education, certification and at least two years of full time teaching experience in a similar position. A separate report from the statistical office showed new orders in the manufacturing sector declined 4.2 per cent annually in January, much slower than the 16.5 per cent fall in December. A healthy lifestyle also reduces the risk of developing coronary heart disease, and the risk of strokes. A good social status will improve people's knowledge and their economic conditions, so they are able to live and work in a healthy environment and to choose health-promoting behavioural models. All applicants must be local residents and have at least a Bachelor's Degree in Education with an emphasis in special needs, certification, and at least two years of full time teaching experience. The company, Norman, analyzed data from its free Malware Cleaner application and broke down rates of infection by country. It too often goes unnoticed that in the long run, these savings themselves carry a high cost. edu.hel.fi a letter of application and a current CV including the names and contact information for at least two references. FIRST, SECOND, measures aimed at shaping lifestyle choices have also proven to be cost-effective: measures to encourage people to take more exercise, nutritional and weight management advice and treatment, and measures to help people quit smoking. The company will then surrender its license to the apex bank in India, the Reserve Bank of India, as well as refund the registration fee to subscribers..." Merja Mäkisalo-Ropponen is a Member of Parliament with the Social Democratic Party. Promoting health is a government goal PROMOTING health involves not only treatment of illnesses, but also various forms of preventative and rehabilitative measures before problems arise or worsen. Nokia launched it service a couple of years back in India. There needs to be more public investment in these areas. OVER allenh@ish.edu.hel.fi Lower School Learning Support teacher one year leave replacement contract Position supports lower school students displaying learning needs by collaborating with classroom teachers and through direct intervention with the students. Health, in other words, is strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. Reducing one's exposure to these risk factors reduces the risk of a great many health defects, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and high blood fat levels. In addition, the unequal distribution of resources in the general population may lead to increased social exclusion, and many other developments that are detrimental to the wellbeing of the population. Positions begin 1 August 2012 through June 2013. GOOD education, decent housing and working conditions, meaningful work and adequate livelihood for the entire population are important bases for health promotion.. Manufacturing orders declined for the second month in a row..." is all common knowledge; but why then has investment in health promotion been so insufficient. If all lifestyles were to become like those enjoyed by the highesteducated sector of the population, morbidity would be reduced from twenty to forty percent. Qualified and interested applicants must send to mainoffice@ish.edu.hel.fi a letter of application and a current CV including names of references with contact details. the past 20 years, a large gap has developed amongst the Finnish population between the healthy and the unhealthy: the better the standard of living, the better one's health is likely to be. It was the biggest decline since November 2009, when output fell 13.9 per cent. PROMOTING public health has a decisive impact on individuals' quality of life improvements, in addition to having broader positive effects on the national economy and social wellbeing. In 2010 the meeting was hosted by Alexander Stubb, Finland's then-foreign minister. Premier Katainen is considered a possible successor of Jean Claude Juncker to lead the Eurogroup starting from next June, when the Luxembourg Premier is due to leave the reins of the 17 European countries group. All qualified and interested candidates should forward to mainoffice@ish. According to a Norwegian security company, it's Finland. Finland has topped other recent studies of computer cleanliness..." NASDAQ.COM 9 February Finland January Industrial Output Falls "FINLAND'S industrial produc- tion decreased in January after increasing in the previous month, data released by Statistics Finland showed Friday. COM 11 February Nokia to end mobile money service (Finland, India) "HANDSET maker Nokia is planning to put an end to its mobile money business in an attempt to keep with the company's strategy of focusing on the core areas of the business. According to the Finnish authorities, all 27 member countries of the Union, and not only those making up the Eurogroup, would take part to the meeting..." Who's got the world's `cleanest' computers? "WHO'S got the world's "cleanest" computers. Investment in health is an investment in the future, with the aid of which it is possible to further many important initiatives, such as reducing the number of disability pensions and the incidence of social exclusion. Also, there is little political will to place limits on free markets and individual responsibility. STUDIES on health promotion have highlighted two cost-effective policies as being central. The Government's aim is to take into account the promotion of health in all social decision-making, and to incorporate it into all government sectors and ministries. Pictured: Stubb with the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, in Saariselkä on 13 March 2010. AGENZIA GIORNALISTICA ITALIA 9 February Finland ready to host EU summit on March 23-25 "FINLAND MSNBC.COM 9 FEBRUARY invited the European Heads of Government and Finance Ministers to take part to an informal meeting in Lapland to discuss about the economy crisis from March 23 to 25, as made known by the Finnish Premier Jyrki Katai- nen, who will host the meeting in Saariselkä
Most of the Finns study at the Tallinn University of Technology, Estonian Business School, University of Tartu and the Estonian University of Life Sciences. Estonia became the OECD's 34th member country on 9 December 2010. Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world (242 million) and an economy with projected growth of 6.2 % for 2012. Our general objective is to foster entrepreneurial mindsets in Estonia and Finland, and to support the birth of new, internationally competitive and innovative companies. ww w.start-smart.me Synergy of neighbours together to distant markets A unique visit to Indonesia took place on 23-24 January 2012. Also, Tallinn's status as the European Capital of Culture has increased Estonia's attractiveness as a tourist destination. Estonia boasts a long tradition of high-quality higher education. Their number increased by 15.6% compared with 2010. The most popular subjects in Tartu are medicine and veterinary medicine, and business management, law and international relations in Tallinn. It was also a nice coincidence and a proof of already existing cooperation, that the two business delegations leaders do business in everyday life. The Estonian business delegation leader was Sandor Liive (Enefit/ Eesti Energia AS) and the delegation members were: Port of Tallinn, Real Systems, Chemi- Pharm, Repo Vabrikud, Enterprise Estonia, CF&S, ESC Global Security, Defendec, Horizon Pulp&Paper. Estonia declared its independence on this day in 1918. 14 15 21 MARCH 2012 ESTONIA ENTERPRISE ESTONIA IN FINLAND HELSINKI TIMES Estonia is going strong In 2011, 1.8 million foreign tourists stayed overnight at the accommodation establishments of Estonia. The highlight of the visit was a trilateral business seminar on 24 January with over 260 participants, where the local Minister for Trade Gita Wirjawan and the visitors had an interesting panel discussion about the possibilities for cooperation. These facts give a large amount of possibilities for the businesses of Estonia and Finland, countries with developed technologies and long-term know-how. More thorough information can be found at www.studyinestonia.ee and on Facebook www.facebook.com/studyinestonia The number of Finnish students at Estonian universities has increased considerably in recent years. With the cooperation of Finpro, the Finnish Embassy in Jakarta, the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Indonesian Embassy in Helsinki Estonian- Finnish- Indonesian Business Seminar on 24th of January in Jakarta. Five organisations stand behind the Start Smart! program: The School of Economics Small Business Centre of Aalto University in Finland and Estonian organisations BDA Consulting OÜ, Enterprise Estonia, AS Technopolis Ülemiste and the Estonian Development Fund, the lead partner of the project consortium. Estonia became a NATO member state on 29 March 2004. The driving force behind the increase was the creation of new transport connections with many European target markets. Finnfund, Finnvera Plc, Gemalto Oy, Image Soft Oy, Indufor Oy, Jomet Oy, Konecranes Co, Martin Bencher Oy, Metso Corporation, Neste Oil Oyj, Nokia Corporation, Outotec Oyj, Rovio Entertainment Ltd., UPM Kymmene Corporation, Veisto Oy, Wärtsilä Ltd. "Interest in Estonian higher education is on the increase," says Mariann Lugus, Communications Manager for higher education marketing at the Archimedes Foundation. Petersburg 350 km; Stockholm 375 km. Two neighbouring countries, Estonia and Finland, visited Jakarta with a business delegation of over 30 high-level companies of both countries. Star exhibits in the museum will include the submarine Lembit, a British Short 184 seaplane, the steam-powered icebreaker Suur Tõll, historic boats, yachts and naval artillery. Currency: Euro Credit Ratings: Fitch A+; Standard & Poor's AA-; Moody's A1 Economic growth 2011 (estimation) 7,5 % Economic growth 2012 (estimation) 3 % Geography Area: 45 227 square km Estonia is a green land, forests cover 50.5% of the country (22 846 square km) 1 450.2 km, with a sea border of 768.6 km and a land border of 681.6 km Borders Total length: Distances from Tallinn to: Helsinki 85 km; Riga 310 km; St. At the moment the interior is taking shape and bridge, which divides the museum space into three levels above, on and under the water, is ready. From left: Sandor Liive, Urmas Paet, Gita Wirjawan, Alexander Stubb, Pertti Korhonen. and the Foreign Ministers of all three countries, a very high-level program was developed. The delegation was led by Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Finnish Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade Alexander Stubb. For young people, Estonia's vibrant and international environment, together with access to the latest developments in information technology, makes Estonia an attractive place to study and live. Superior education in this small EU state comes at a good value, with relatively low tuition and living costs. In 2012 there will be numerous new attractions opened in Tallinn and Estonia, for example Seaplane Harbour and refurbished TV tower. All participating entrepreneurs had the chance to meet ministers as well as organizations working in their sectors. In order to achieve our goals, we are organising over a dozen different thematic and practical workshops, conferences and other events between May 2011 and August 2013. Our region should be seen from Asia as an effective gate to Europe and Russia. The number of nights spent was 3.75 million (17% up on 2010). Sörnäisten rantatie 22, +358 (0)9 669805 opiskeluvirossa@studyinestonia.ee. Seaplane Harbour welcomes people to visit from around the world. For more information visit www.visitestonia.com and http://twitter.com/#!/visitestonia Information about studying at Estonian universities is available in the heart of Helsinki, the Estonian House. "We are also happy to see that the young Finnish people who acquired their education in Estonia are now much sought after in Finnish job markets". What is Start Smart!? Start Smart! is a connecting title for a wide variety of different activities designed and carried out in benefit of young entrepreneurially-minded people in Estonia and Finland. In addition, guests can travel the world in a Yellow Submarine, try to fly a water plane, navigate on the Baltic Sea and enjoy other interactive simulators in the museum. Last autumn, 264 young Finns started their BA, MA and PhD courses, which now raises the number of Finnish degree students in Estonia over 700. A Graduation Ceremony at Tartu University. Study in Estonia quality education close to home Estonia boasts a long tradition of high-quality higher education. Estonia became a European Union member state on 1 May 2004. It's worthy of note that, in 2011, inbound tourism to Estonia increased significantly compared with 2010, which was already a record year. The grand opening ceremony of Seaplane Harbour will take place on 11 May. The success and positive synergy that was created during the visit gives both sides the belief that the format of the visit justified itself and there is a reason to repeat it in the future. Estonia at a Glance Official name: Republic of Estonia Short form: Estonia National Day: Independence Day, February 24. The Finnish business delegation leader was Pertti Korhonen (Outotec Oyj) and the delegation members were: Chempolis Oy, Blaast, Digita Oy, Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation Ltd. There is extensive economic interdependence between Estonia and its Nordic neighbors: 62% of foreign direct investments in Estonia originates from the Nordic countries (principally Finland and Sweden), to which Estonia sends 36% of its exports. www.koda.ee This spread is provided by Enterprise Estonia
Fast chargers are provided through the cooperation of ABB, G4S and NOW!Innovation and are able to charge the battery up to 80% of its capacity within 20 minutes. Estonia's capital Tallinn was a member of the Hanseatic League. Valdar Liive GSM: + 358 40 830 4656 valdar.liive@eas.ee www.investinestonia.com Export from Estonia Ms. Due to high competition, the local logistics and transport companies have reached the western standards in terms of service and quality and have great transport potential. Estonia in Finland www.viro100.fi Estonia in Finland: www.viro100.fi The Estonian Embassy www.estemb.fi Why Estonia: Strategic location market accessibility via air, land & sea · Baltic, Nordic and Western European connections Infrastructure progressive logistics · Sites scalable and accessible · Ports growth potential, deepest ports in the Baltic (up to 18 metres); ice-free year round · Intermodal connections rail, road, air, sea Competitive cost and tax efficient solutions · Freezone (4) transit tax-free regime, customs bonded areas · Simple, flat income tax at the rate of 21% · 0% tax on reinvested profits · Labour costs are a third of those in Sweden or Finland Easy to do business simple, speedy, hassle free · Ranked third in the world for trading across borders · Ranked as the easiest place to do business in CEE Logistics cluster world class companies · A trading nation - exports represent 78% of Estonia's GDP · 3860 companies in logistics, distribution and transport services · Track record in attracting international logistics players (e.g. Thanks to Estonia's proximity to Nordic countries and Russia it has become a popular destination for outsourcing investments in the Nordic region to relocate and centralise their business services. Estonia can provide shared service centres high-quality and reliable telecommunications networks, office spaces and utilities at reasonable prices. The pilot project will enable to promote environmental awareness, improve the quality of social services and create new knowledge on electric vehicles in Estonia. Th is is the first fast charging network in the world to cover a whole country. But most of all, it gives an excellent opportunity for EV owners to discover Estonia in an environmentally-friendly way. Toomas Tärk GSM: + 358 45 114 6225 toomas.tark@eas.ee www.visitestonia.com Useful links: www.vm.ee www.einst.ee www.archimedes.ee www.arengufond.ee www.euregio-heltal.org www.seky.fi www.fecc.ee www.finland.ee www.eesti.ee www.e-estonia.com www.momoestonia.com Text by: Krista Humal Head of Foreign Offices Enterprise Estonia www.investinestonia.com Johan Ginman, manager for AGA. This spread is provided by Enterprise Estonia. The use of Shared Service Centres (SSC) has become a popular business practice during the last 15 years. Data will be collected and made available on the cars' performance, making it one of the largest test pools in the world. Transit business is definitely one of the reasons for the large share of transport sector. We are riding towards smart mobility join us for the ride! The most efficient logistics corridor Historical Transit Route to Europe and Russia via Estonia Estonia has been a global trading post for 760 years. The value of the grant will be up to 18,000 Euros per application, and it has to be used within 2012. It contributes up to 11,4% of the Estonian GDP 2011. For the comfort of all those new EV users, up to 200 fast chargers (CHAdeMO standard) will be installed around the country by the end of 2012. So, after 2012 Estonia might have one of the highest numbers of EV per capita in the world. The main drivers for SSCs are process optimisation, cost reduction and service quality. Johan Ginman, manager for AGA shared service centre in Estonia, has said: "We employ very good people with high education, who have energy and drive and who carry out their responsibilities well." For those wanting to do business in Nordic languages or in English, German or Russian, Estonia offers a cost competitive, low risk option with a well-educated labour pool. In 2011 Estonian Government has bought 507 Mitsubishi iMiEVs for social workers in the municipalities. HELSINKI TIMES ESTONIA ENTERPRISE ESTONIA IN FINLAND 15 21 MARCH 2012 15 Estonia the unique hub of smart mobility A country well known for electronic government and advanced internet and telecom infrastructure has taken the next step by investing heavily in nextgeneration electric vehicle infrastructure and bringing around 1000 EVs to the streets. International companies such as AGA, Finnair, Stora Enso and Fortum are already benefiting from Estonia's unique mix of skills and knowledge. Come and see, you will be positively amazed! Estonian Tourist Board Representative in Finland Mr. Transport sector plays a vital role in Estonian economy. During the Middle Ages, the Hanseatic League, uniting towns around the Baltic Sea, formed the most dominating trading bloc in the world. In related developments, 500 Estonian private and legal persons will be able to apply for a grant to buy an electric car. Infrastructure of that scale creates a unique opportunity to develop and test electric vehicles, their infrastructure and associated applications. The chargers will be installed along all primary and secondary roads at 40-60 kilometre intervals and in all cities and settlements with at least 3,000 inhabitants (see the map). Maersk, DB Schenker) Quality talent pool world class people · 40,200 professionals in the logistics and transport cluster · Dedicated vocational programs at colleges and technical universities · 55% of the Estonian workforce are fluent in one or more foreign languages Low risk: economically & politically stable · Solvent: lowest central government debt in Europe (6.6% of GDP) · Joined the Euro area on 1 January 2011 · Consistently ranked as one of the most politically stable countries in CEE · NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence COE is located in Tallinn · Recognized as one of the least corrupt countries in the world www.transit.ee www.eestimaja.fi Estonian Institute www.viro-instituutti.fi Tuglas Society www.tuglas.fi Union of Estonian-Finnish friendship societies SVYL www.svyl.net University of Tartu www.ut.ee Estonian Association of Designers www.edl.ee Come and visit EV-Estonia! Enterprise Estonia in Helsinki Eesti Maja Viro-keskus Sörnäisten rantatie 22 C 00540 Helsinki helsinki@eas.ee www.eas.ee Investments and Cooperation Mr. The most popular business processes for SSCs have been finance, procurement, HR and IT, as well as customer relationship management and call centres. The map above shows the locations of fast charging network that covers the whole country starting the end of 2012. Port of Tallinn, Muuga Container Terminal. Nordic nearshore Estonia has changed a lot during the last 20 years, to create a modern business environment a country characterised by political and economic stability, accessibility, innovation and ease of doing business. The mission of the public infrastructure is to reduce range anxiety, support early adopters and ensure that EV users have access to emergency charging. Aurelia Lorents GSM +358 50 400 80 56 aurelia.lorents@eas.ee www.tradewithestonia.com All EV owners are welcome to discover Estonia in an environmentally friendly way
Vanhala-Harmanen believes that, in the future, certain industries will be on the hunt for professionals. Ne-Rå and Luckan's Bridge are two very useful independent organisations offering free and independent advice on a broad range of issues facing immigrants, counselling on social services and benefits, assistance with filling in forms and support in dealing with authorities. www.infopankki.fi Coming changes in job numbers by 2020 Health andsocial work: +90,000 Executive and expert: +62,000 Services: +52,000 Construction: +18,000 Manufacturing: +17,000 Education: +17,000 Culture and communication: +10,000 Rescue and security: -2,000 Agriculture and forestry: -22,000 Office work: -60,000 Predicted job openings per year till 2020 Sales: 4,500 Social services: 4,250 Healthcare: 3,250 Teachers: 3,050 Construction workers: 2,750 Cleaners: 2,600 Transport: 2,400 Practical nurses: 2,100 Metal workers: 2,100 Cooks: 1,900 Source: Finnish National Board of Education LUCKAN Simonkatu 8, 00100 Helsinki Contact: bridge@luckan.fi / 040 485 9636 / www.luckan.fi/bridge Cutting through the red tape DAV I D DU N N E HEL SINKI TIMES Who are the Finland-Swedes? Find out more about Finland's linguistic minority at Svenskfinland.fi ON FIRST arriving in Finland the maze of bureaucracy can sometimes seem like it is meant to make life difficult. Nokia and its contractors, which used to play such a vital role in the labour market, have declined. It is also possible to call Infopankki's office to discuss your situation and get advice. C O R D HEL SINKI TIMES Seminars 26 March at 15-17 Preparing for a job interview What should you think about when preparing for a job interview. Elie El-Khouri, EnterpriseHelsinki, will give you information on forms of enterprise, business idea and plan, financing, taxation, start-up gran and insurances. For instance, the Ministry of Education targeted about 18,000 students in social services, health and sports, but only had approximately 15,000 entrants. IT, mining and the environment Minna Vanhala-Harmanen, CEO of the recruiter Opteam, concurs that services will become more important. "The service sector will continue its strong growth and there will be a great demand for personnel with natural service talent," she says. However, students have their own ideas on what they want to study. "Environmental issues, natural resources as well as clean water and food are all matters which are becoming more and more vital for mankind," she explains. "The professionals specialising in these matters will be needed in the future." She also believes that the IT sector will continue to be important. Authorities try to estimate future demand and structure the educational system to meet it. Ahokas, Honkatukia and Marttila point out that Finland's huge growth in recent years was due to exports, but "the situation is totally different after 2015." Finland has already slipped into a trade deficit. Granted, the system for immigration is not perfect, but which such system is. Bring your CV (in Finnish, Swedish och English) to our CV Clinic and let us help you to improve it! Venue: Counselling Centre Ne-Rå, Kolmas linja 12. The principal things you must get after arriving in Finland are a residence permit, accommodation, personal identity number, Finnish SII card/ Kela card, tax card, bank account and a telephone number so that you may be contactable. Also, the forestry industry, the traditional backbone of Finnish exports, has declined in importance. Are you coming to as a student, to find employment, from another EU country, or as a refugee or an asylum seeker. More information www.ne-ra.fi or www.luckan.fi/bridge. 4 April at 15-17 How to start up a business in Finland? Are you planning on starting your own business. In contrast, service industries have grown in importance. This could mean that jobs will Manufacturing down, services up Besides demographic changes, the future labour market will be influenced by the changing global economy. The site's Welcome to Finland downloadable brochure comes in eight different languages and has lots of extremely useful information.. It contains basic information about Finnish society and culture, administrative permits, housing, studying Finnish, finding employment and starting a business, education, healthcare, social services, getting help in a crisis, cultural and leisure services and NGOs and associations, as well as links to websites where you will find additional information. The website's languages include Finnish, Swedish, English, Estonia, French, Russia, Somali, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, Spanish, Albanian, Arabic, Persian, Chinese and Kurdish. Register by 30 March. During the lecture we will discuss how to prepare for and what typically happens during a job interview in Finland. The closest thing to a onestop-shop for all the information you may require is the Info Bank (Infopankki) online service. Tricky as things may seem, this is not the case. "Labour demand growth is notably faster in public services, and especially at healthcare and social services," they say. We offer assistance and advice! Welcome to visit our service point on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11-16 or call or send us an e-mail with questions concerning integration. The jobs of the future The jobs of the future won't be in factories producing flying cars. "Labour demand of other services, trade, hotels and restaurants and transport continues to grow faster than labour demand of manufacturing industries and primary production," they write. Vanhala-Harmanen says mining companies have huge recruitment needs, and there is also demand from related industries. The information contained in the brochure is much the same as the infopankki.fi website, but is easier to browse through. In other fields the situation was reversed. This was one of the conclusions reached by Jussi Ahokas, Juha Honkatukia and Kimmo Marttila in a study forecasting labour demand for the Government Institute for Economic Research. In the field of culture, the Ministry wanted slightly more than 5,000 but had almost 8,000 entrants. Manufacturers increasingly want their factories placed in countries with cheaper labour. The events are free of charge. Lecturer: Tony Eichholz. There will be great demand for people with skills necessary to cater to the needs of pensioners. A newer industry which is showing a need for workers is the mining sector. Statistics Finland points out that people aged over 65 will climb from 17 per cent of the pop- ulation to 27 per cent by 2040. Drop in! Organised by Ne-Rå and Bridge. Instead, think hospitals. DAV I D J . "The low productivity of these industries leads to a considerable employment increase. Thus, the demand for age-related social services and healthcare stimulates labour demand substantially more than the demand of other services and produced goods." This demand can already be seen today in data released by Statistics Finland. Experts attempt to predict the structure of the future Finnish economy and which jobs will be in demand. 16 1515 2121 MARCH 2012 16 MARCH 2012 WORKING LIFE L E H T I K U VA / J A R N O M E L A HELSINKI TIMES be scarce in cultural fields, but easy to find in healthcare. I N T E G R AT I O N According to the Finnish National Board of Education's latest figures, job openings in sales, social services and healthcare will be topping the charts in the future. Are you lost in the Finnish bureaucracy. Registrations to bridge@luckan.fi More information: www.luckan.fi/bridge or 040-485 96 36 FOR STUDENTS thinking about their education and future job prospects, they should probably forget working on cold fusion or manufacturing wondrous gadgets. The approach differs in some respects depending on why you are coming to Finland. People sometimes joke in Finland that you almost need to fill out a form to cross the road, but as you spend more time in the country you can only admire the efficiency, in most cases, of the system. Over the past five quarters, the number of job openings in education, health and social work has averaged 10,780, about a quarter of all open positions. One major trend that will influence the coming labour market is the greying of the Finnish populace. Register by 23 March. 27 March at 10-16 CV Clinic Do you need tips on how to write a successful CV. Most likely, Finland's future job market will be dominated by services. The Ministry for the Interior's Lifeinfinland.fi website contains a guide for immigrants that includes information on living and working in Finland, contact information of various officials and basic information about the Finnish culture and society. Here we try to map out the basics from your arrival, and the process that you should follow to make settling in that bit easier. Do you need help in finding a job, a place to study or a language course
When I was a kid I would never throw clothes away, but always give them to a charity or somebody who needed them," explains Oubrechtová. KEPA is the umbrella organisation for Finnish civil society organisations (CSOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that work with development cooperation or are otherwise interested in global affairs. Their meetings are informal and open to everyone, irrespective of age, sex, nationality or religion meetings range from cookery evenings to chat groups and cultural evenings. "When I came to Finland two years ago I thought about what I could do to help others. "I guess I first heard of the Red Cross in first grade in school. From the initial committee of five members of the Geneva aristocracy who helped organise the movement with Dunant, the movement has grown to 97 million members worldwide. "I enjoy my work with the International Clubs. seuraavia tukimuotoja: - vertaistukiryhmiä vanhemmille joilla on huoli lapsesta - kun vanhemmalla on huoli lapsesta -tapaaminen (12 tapaamista) - perhekohtainen dialoginen perheohjaus Tarjoamme palveluita suomeksi, ruotsiksi ja englanniksi. As Oubrechtová reminds us, "Only the other day I though again about the quote from Audrey Hepburn, when she said `As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others'." Business Incubator Services For innovative starting companies with an interest and potential for high growth. Before counselling please attend information session first. Riikka Suhonen, a Finnish ETVO volunteer, planting trees with locals in Senegal. We have many family intervention services i.e. Pavla is also thinking that perhaps she might do some foreign aid work in a country which has suffered a natural disaster or civilian catastrophe in the future. Free of charge, but sign up first. Business Counselling for startups and acting entrepreneurs Anna-Sofia Joro of KEPA. ter working environment for civil society groups and making our voices heard." Counselling is confidential and free of charge, but only by appointment. From something as easy as giving some local kids a lift to hockey practice to spending six months working in a field hospital in sub-Saharan Africa. HELSINKI TIMES WORKING LIFE 1515 21 21 MARCH 2012 MARCH 2012 17 17 Lending a helping hand In today's busy world, where people increasingly find they have less and less time for themselves, it's easy to forget the millions of people across the country who give of their own free time to help others. DAV I D DU N N E HEL SINKI TIMES HEL SINKI TIMES EnterpriseHelsinki - Helsinki region's joint service centre for startups and acting entrepreneurs "Become an Entrepreneur in Finland" project organizes: From page 1. WHEN people think of volunteer work they often think of the Red Cross, or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as it is properly called, and their relief assistance in emergency situations, such as natural disasters. Our school organised disaster relief packages for the victims of an earthquake with the help of the Red Cross. The main areas of KEPA's training are related to development cooperation projects (planning courses, project evaluation, funding and financial administration), development policy issues and training designed to support NGOs' publicity and advocacy activities, like how to produce effective publicity materials, website design and campaign planning. KEPA is campaigning actively, together with our member organisations, for a just world the main themes being development cooperation, fairer international trade policies and climate justice," explains Joro. There are over 95,000 members of the Finnish Red Cross and tens of thousands of active volunteers. One of the really important aspects of our work is to help our member organisations make better applications for funding to the government ministries. The person there explained about the International Clubs and the idea really interested me." The Finnish Red Cross runs a number of International Clubs across Helsinki. Here in Family Room the WHOLE family is the client. But our offices here in Helsinki also serve as a meeting place for member groups who may not have their own premises and a library with a wide range of related literature." There are countless ways in which you can help others. One of the most visible things we organise is the World Village Festival which has run every May since 1995, but behind the scenes a lot of our work is lobbying government and trying to guarantee a betISSA SOW Information sessions about how to start your own business Held in English and Russian, Estonian and Arabic. Perhetilan toiminta ei ole sidottu diagnooseihin, eikä lapsen ikään. Familjerum/Family Room, Folkhälsan Mannerheimintie 97, 00280 Helsinki, Tel. First Meeting and Peer Support Group for parents. I just like the idea of helping people and that is one of the core ideas of the Red Cross. Courses are also free, but sign up first. These concerns might include neuropsychiatric symptoms (ADHD, Asperger's, Tourette ...), learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, or challenging behavior. +358 447 883 659 tai +358 44 788 3641, , familjerum@folkhalsan.fi Attention Parents Folkhälsan's Family Room provides family intervention services for ALL parents who have ANYKIND of concern regarding their child/teen. I don't feel like it's some debt to society, it's just that I feel that if I was in some kind of trouble I hope that somebody would help me," says Oubrechtová. "We also do courses in English, as some of the groups we work with are immigrant organisations and they find English easier. "KEPA also has offices in Mozambique, Nicaragua and Tanzania, as well as a regional office based in Thailand covering the Mekong region. The Red Cross was founded in 1863 by Swiss humanitarian Henry Dunant after he witnessed the Battle of Solferino, in which 40,000 soldiers died in a single day the majority of whom died from lack of medical attention. The basic principle of the movement is to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, race, sex, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. The clubs also organise excursions, events and picnics for immigrants. You as a parent can contact the Family Room and reserve time. Anna-Sofia Joro, spokesperson for KEPA explains, "The range of organisations we assist is very broad, from Friends of the Earth Finland to the Somali Forum for Progress. Also virtual incubator services. Evening courses for acting entrepreneurs Courses in English, Finnish and Russian. olla jokin erityisvaikeus, viivästynyt kehitys tai lapsi voi olla eri tavoin haastava kotona. The ideas of impartiality, neutrality and independence as well as voluntary service are important, as Red Cross members often find themselves in war zones where they can't be seen to favour either side. The Finnish Red Cross organises the national blood transfusion service, promotes humanitarian principles and values within Finland, supports national disaster preparedness through the education of voluntary members, teaches first aid courses, runs afterschool clubs to help immigrant children with their homework and organises a host of other activities which touch many people's lives. Multicultural meetings Pavla Oubrechtová is a 22-year-old musician from the Czech Republic who does volunteer work with one of the Finnish Red Cross' International Clubs. Lisätiedot ja ilmoittautumiset: Perhetila, Folkhälsan, Mannerheimintie 97, 00280 Helsinki Puh. These offices help with Finnish member organisations in various ways on the ground - including training and advisory services and collaboration with local partner organisations. +358 44 7883659 familjerum@folkhalsan.fi. Office space available for rent at reasonable prices. This work in war zones involves monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions, organising nursing and care for wounded, supervising the treatment of prisoners of war, helping with the search for missing persons in an armed conflict, organising protection and care for civil populations and arbitrating between warring parties. There are hundreds of volunteer organisations across Finland who help with immigrant integration and assist in foreign aid projects. Kepa has almost 300 member organisations, which work with development cooperation and global education. At the moment KEPA has 297 member organisations, ranging from small voluntary-based to major national organisations. I've even played music at two pikkujoulu events. You do NOT need a doctor's statement or referral from an agency; it is enough that you are concerned about your child and you want to talk about it. Schedule for info sessions and courses in www.enterprisehelsinki.fi Perhetila Familyroom Perhetila, tukea perheille Folkhälsanin Perhetila tarjoaa tukea vanhemmille, joilla on huoli lapsesta. Please don't hesitate to contact us for more info through the information below. Lapsella voi esim. ETVO is a volunteer programme operated by KEPA. Government ministries "We have a very good working relationship with the current Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala. I'd actually called into one of the Red Cross offices to donate some clothes I didn't need and just asked whether there was some way I could help out. But within every country's own borders, the work of the Red Cross is extensive and often unseen. Dialogical Family Guidance as well as services that are FREE OF CHARGE i.e. Perhetila tarjoaa mm. Possible in Finnish, English, Swedish, Russian, Estonian, German or Arabic. And the idea of helping others has always been in my mind. These clubs are multicultural meeting places for foreigners, which aim to promote integration and intercultural encounters, to prevent social exclusion and to increase tolerance of difference. And we run different types of training also for the organisations," Joro says
A sample of 1.2 million sick days was taken, and there was found to be no peak around weekends. It's common for people to work from home when they have flu, and it's not registered anywhere," says senior physician Juha Liira of the Institute of Occupational Health. The most recent figures are from 2010, when the survey respondents lost an average of 17.9 days in the working year to illness. At the individual level the change isn't used, but in a large number it's 50,000 more healthy days a year. Those who take sick leave unnecessarily are making matters more difficult for those who really are sick," Martimo says. Company doctors are particularly adept at judging how the illness affects the ability to work. Middle-aged employees with families, for example, usually have a very strong commitment to work. `No curfew' The Mehiläinen health station chain's director of occupational health services Kari-Pekka Martimo is concerned about the claim that abuse of sick leave is widespread. Flexible cooperation with the company healthcare provider is important. Finnish for foreigners · Group lessons · Private lessons · Sign up now! · Call 040 521 0616 Mikonkatu 9 00100 Helsinki info@berlitz.fi www.berlitz.fi. "Low levels of sick leave are often in the sorts of jobs where distance work is possible. According to a study by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, the amount of sick days has been dropping steadily for some years now. "Studies consistently show that those who are frequently on sick leave are more likely to die premature- ly than those who aren't. "In the cities sampled, training courses are available to develop work skills, and much attention is paid to well-being at work. Larger employers and the public sector, on the other hand, usually have accurate monitoring systems for absenteeism. So people are genuinely sick in these cases," he emphasises. Distance working The trust-based practice of employees informing employers of their absence due to illness has been found to shorten sick leave. · If the employee is continuously taking short sick leave, employers should consider whether it is something at work that is creating or contributing to the problem. · The employer should keep a record of all sick leave taken, something that is often left undone in small companies. "This [claim] is most annoying for those whose illness is not immediately apparent, or is not easily diagnosed. Still at the beginning of the millennium absences from work due to illness were on the increase, but since 2008 the curve has started to decline rapidly. At the highest, the average annual number of sick days was almost 19. "Surprisingly, the number of absences on Mondays was the lowest," says Vahtera. In Western countries, the ordinary amount of sick leave taken is about two percent of working time, but in Finland the frequency is much less in some fields. As a member you get legal advice, employment services, salary statistics, benefits from collective bargaining and unemployment benefit. For more info: www.uil.fi or contact Membership register tel +358 20 693 877 or email jasen@uil.fi Under the Occupational Health Act, employers are required to arrange professional-level occupational health services for their employees in order to prevent work-related health risks. L E H T I K U VA / A N T T I A I M O - KO I V I S T O Engineer, 70 % of your colleagues in Finland have secured better workdays for themselves. STATE of public-sector employees' health has picked up in recent years. Doctors need to provide a diagnosis to prescribe sick leave, but the estimate of whether the patient is fit to work or not is usually left up to the patient himself or herself. Without a doctor's certificate, a maximum of three consecutive days' sick is possible. The study compares the long-term developments in Finland's ten largest towns and cities. About a decade ago the Institute decided to test the claim that people have a habit of extending their weekend by taking a sick day on Friday or Monday. 18 1515 2121 MARCH 2012 18 MARCH 2012 WORKING LIFE HELSINKI TIMES Public sector staff healthier than others Contrary to popular belief, Monday is not the most popular day for calling in sick to get a day off work. SOIL A OJANEN -- S T T HT THE Those colleagues are members of Union of Professional Engineers. Vahtera says that sick leaves are an excellent measure of the state of health of the working population. The quality of working life is positively correlated with lower incidence of ill health," according to professor Jussi Vahtera of the Institute of Occupational Health. Doctors will often prescribe three days of sick leave just to avoid having the patient returning soon after for renewed treatment. "In these cases, there are usually better resources for avoiding unnecessarily long sick leaves," Martimo estimates. Pain or mental health problems are not necessarily easily evident to others. · If an employee is frequently off sick, it makes most sense to discuss the matter constructively first. Sick leave is not a curfew: "With some illnesses getting out and about can actually promote a faster recovery." Reducing absences · New employees should be instructed on proper workplace practices concerning sick leave
My faHEL SINKI TIMES Anders Warnqvist from Sweden working from his home-based office. ther was a translator, and an English teacher also. As a freelance translator, Warnqvist translates mainly from English, German, Danish and Norwegian into Swedish, and also proofreads Swedish texts. Along with two others I bought the company in 2007." "The bulk of our work is with large businesses. In the center of Helsinki. Kisa Kissa www.felicitas.fi Helping nature succeed Urho Kekkosen katu 46 A, 00100 Helsinki, Tel. In formal terms, good translators must have a "very good" written and spoken knowledge of the language from which they are translating (source language) and an "excellent" command of the language into which they are translating (target language). Among translators, it is generally accepted that the best translations are produced by persons who are translating from their second language into their native language, as it is rare for someone who has learned a second language to have total fluency in that language. I worked at The English Centre for ten years, then at another translation company called Valtasana and then became a freelancer, working for Bellcrest among other clients. After that I did my Masters in Translation Studies. They're dealing with consumers in many other countries and may order translation work in 5 or 6 languages at the one time," explains Miller. Monitoring of pregnancy by midwife and a specialist. "I originally studied German in University I guess a lot of translators start off studying languages. We don't use Google Translate, as it's not a very good quality tool; also, the information is stored on a third-party server and our clients' documents are often confidential," says Miller. There is a common misconception that any bilingual individual is able to work satisfactorily as a translator, but this is often not the case. Because Google Translate uses statistical matching to translate, rather than a dictionary or grammar rules approach, translated text can often include apparently nonsensical and obvious errors which in fairness can happen with rule-based tools too. We have some big customers, like Metso for instance. Most of us work with catalogues, manuals, websites, newsletters, user interfaces and so on. The large translation companies often outsource to freelancers like Anders Warnqvist, a Swedish native who lives in Helsinki. I have also translated a book directly for a publishing company. "I have experimented with Google Translate and it's not so bad, but struggles with restructuring sentences which is where you can get the wacky translations. Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. I had been studying Russian, but since moving to Finland I've dropped Russian for Finnish studies. In the larger companies, where there is an ongoing relationship with the client, they will develop an understanding of the client's needs and often have a better knowledge of specialist subjects. Some of the best-known household names in Finnish business are also heavy hitters on the international scene, like forest and wood giants Stora Enso, IT companies like Nokia, Elcoteq and TeliaSonera, heavy industry stalwarts like Outokumpu, Metso and Kone and chemical companies such as Kemira and Orion. You'll get new things to work on every time although the material you work with is obviously not very exciting all the time. Try to input a goodsized body of text into Google Translate and some of the anomalies thrown up are entertaining to say the least. We have a staff of eight here in the office including two project managers - and a couple of dozen freelancers, who perhaps specialise in a certain subject matter." Erik Miller, Managing Director of Bellcrest Translations, at work. Translation memory system "We work with a translation memory system as a part of CAT or computer-assisted translation. Erik Miller is Managing Director of Bellcrest Translations and President of the Association of Finnish Translation Companies. They outsource to us, and in turn they must make a profit, so we bill them and they add their percentage," says Warnqvist. The process of translating is said to be meshed with human understanding the words used should mean just what the original author intended, nothing more and nothing less. "Mostly we work in Finnish to English and vice versa and of course Swedish is an important language here, also Russia and the Baltic languages. But we also work in Norwegian, Danish, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish, etc., but to a lesser degree. The results can be crucial. Private OB/GYN in city center High-quality infertility treatments. There is a compromise involved between being literal and using a good sense of interpretation. The rea- son being that it memorises phrases, as opposed to rules, so previous mistakes or errors get carried over. The translators working on fiction, for example, are few and far between. "Working as a translator is great in many ways. HELSINKI TIMES WORKING LIFE 1515 21 21 MARCH 2012 MARCH 2012 19 19 HEL SINK I TIMES / JACEK WALC Z AK Make yourself heard Whether it's your CV that needs updating in a new language, a website interface for the new vintage car club or the launch of a multinational company's world-wide marketing campaign, the importance of getting your message across accurately in a different language cannot be underestimated. DAV I D DU N N E HEL SINKI TIMES THE BUSINESS of translation services is a growing one in Finland. The range of material a translator may work with is breathtaking: from instruction manuals for a Germanmade vacuum cleaner being sold in Saudi Arabia to international peace treaties be- tween warring nations. Finnish companies are producing increasing amounts of literature for clients across the globe in a huge range of different languages, and they have to get their message across accurately. My mother is Finnish and my parents moved here when I was just a few months old so I'm as close to native as an American can be." "I kind of drifted into translation work. There is quite a wide variety but business and finance is a large sector for us. "I've been living in Finland nearly all my 44 years. It's far from perfect," jokes Miller. The basic processes used by bilinguals in expressing thoughts and ideas orally are different from the processes of being able to read, understand and retain somebody else's ideas, and then render them accurately and effectively. Our database stores previously used phrases, which sometimes helps with the next job. I really hope to be able to work with FinnishSwedish translation, since the Swedish material sometimes is really poorly translated," explains Warnqvist. For example, a native Spanish speaker should always translate English documents into Spanish; however, this fundamental rule is often ignored by amateur translators. Specialist subjects Translation companies differ from freelance translators in that they tend to provide a wider range of languages. It assists the translator by providing suitable material from previous translations and usually includes some kind of term tool for creating glossaries." "English to Swedish is easier than, say, English to Finnish as the sentence structure is closer, but English to Finnish needs a lot more work. "It's also fairly usual to work from home, but I have had an office in Sweden and also go to this social workplace called the Hub on Annankatu in Helsinki. The larger companies have become so much more international, they tend to order several languages at a time. In the translation industry, it is considered standard procedure to translate only from an individual's second language into their native language never the other way around. (09) 612 2750 We are a part of the Mehiläinen Group. Information on Finnish Courses because you want to learn Finnish www.finnishcourses.fi HELSINKIESPOOVANTAAKAUNIAINEN. As with most translators, I work freelance and work for many different companies, both translation agencies and direct clients." From vacuum cleaners to international peace treaties "I'm the sole proprietor of my own company the advantage being we freelancers are more competitive than the larger companies. I started out in the early 90s, working as a freelancer purely through the necessity for a job. Every EU document must be produced in the 23 official and working languages of union, from Bulgarian to Swedish
050 4 nettely: 012. 04200 KER AMMATT IOPISTO www.keuda.fi/hae. 20 15 21 MARCH 2012 LIFESTYLE HELSINKI TIMES MAVA n matillisee ttajien am uu koulutus Maahanm almistava ut ukseen v peruskoul - Lisätietoja sta: koulutukse a@keuda.fi a.stepanov köposti: olg h 34 411 8 Sä puh. ja hakume Hakuaika aku on 2.4 30.4.2 Seuraava h almistava lutukseen (Nuoret, V .keuda.fi/ n ammatilliseen kou Keudan www ttajie aahanmuu nkatu 9, Sarviniity koulutus, Mkoulutus) -hakemus, valmistava isto Kerava/MAVA ammattiop AVA