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A Kosovan-born gunman shot dead four people in a Finnish shopping mall on Thursday and killed his ex-girlfriend in an apartment before killing himself in Finland's third shooting spree in as many years. Police said Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, killed three men and a woman at the Sello mall in Espoo, a town near Helsinki, as shoppers stocked up for the New Year holiday. They confirmed that Shkupolli, as well as his ex-girlfriend who had worked at the mall, were among the dead after the five-hour incident. "It has been confirmed that the sixth victim is the suspect (himself). He was...

AT least three people have been killed in a shooting at a Finnish shopping mall. Reports by state broadcaster YLE, citing police sources, said four people were dead. Independent MTV3 television put the figure at three dead. Around six shots were discharged from about 08:20 GMT in the Sello shopping centre in Espoo, west of the capital Helsinki. One or more people were shot at the Prisma grocery store. At least one employee was seen lying on the floor on the upper level of the centre. A man, described as being in his late teens and dressed in black, was...

28-year-old Christian man's funeral took a surprising twist at the Helsinki Malmi cemetery when the deceased's Muslim relatives arrived at the grave and took the lead in the funeral. - Upon reaching the gravesite all of a sudden Muslim men jumped out from the thicket and replaced the Finnish pallbearers and the Imam began to lead the service, "the pastor, Jukka Simoila said. The 28-year-old deceased became a Christian in December 2008 and got married last summer in a Christian ceremony. His father was a Muslim. The deceased died of serious illness in September and had hoped for a Christian...

Shots have been fired at a shopping centre in the town of Espoo, near the capital of Finland, Helsinki. An eyewitness said at least one person was left lying on the floor after shooting broke out, the national broadcaster YLE said on its website.

What's wrong with America? Last time I posed this question to the other members of this forum, I got response like "go finish your acquavit elsewhere" and such things. Now, that was pretty rude and not particularly nice, was it?:) Is it my fault that I drive a Volvo V70 and an average American drives a ridiculous part of the Ford F-series? Is it my fault that we Swedes can build superior subs (not talkin' fast food here) and our competitors can not? Most states of the US hasn't let in as many Muslim settlers as Sweden has, I'll give...

The Russians are inferior, afraid and stupid. Scandinavia will conquer Russia one day. We will win. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaN45dqvrxQ

World’s largest cruise ship sets sail Oasis of the Seas features 2,700 cabins, can accommodate 6,300 passengers The Associated Press updated 11:06 a.m. ET Oct. 30, 2009 HELSINKI - The world's largest cruise liner on Friday began its maiden voyage to Florida, gliding out from a shipyard in Finland with an amphitheater, basketball courts and an ice rink on board. The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 1,200 feet (360 meters) from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew. Commissioned by Royal Caribbean International, the ship cost $1.5 billion and took two and a...

SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) – For those who value their freedom of expression as much as health, wealth, and prosperity, then Finland is the place to be, with an index ranking the Nordic nation the best in the world. The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday and compiled by the Legatum Institute, an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organization, ranked 104 countries which are home to 90 percent of the world's population. The index is based on a definition of prosperity that combines economic growth with the level of personal freedoms and democracy in a country as well as measures...

Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications has made 1-megabit broadband Web access a legal right, YLE, the country's national broadcasting company, reported on Wednesday. According to the report, every person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July. And they may ultimately gain the right to a 100Mb broadband connection. Just more than a year ago, Finland said it would make a 100Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. Wednesday's announcement is considered an intermediate step. France,...

Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world's first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access. The government had already decided to make a 100 Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. On Wednesday, the Ministry announced the new goal as an intermediary step. Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity can be arranged through mobile phone networks.

2009-08-19 200 Years Since Sweden Loses Finland2009 ManeuversExactly 200 years have passed since the last military battle was fought on Swedish soil - bloody clashes between Sweden and Russia. The outcome? A defeated Sweden cut in two – loosing its Finnish eastern half, and fearing attacks from European rivals wiping Sweden off the map. The battles were fierce and numerous -– with field artillery and ship's cannons booming from the shorelines and islands of the southern archipelago up through Finland and to the Swedish northeastern coast - above Umeå – to the small northern towns of Ratar and Sävar where...

An unusually large crowd of fans had come to support the Helsinki councillor Jussi Halla-aho (True Finns/Independent) in court proceedings that began on the fourth floor of the Helsinki District courthouse yesterday - Tuesday. Most of the supporters were youngish adult men. Halla-aho is being charged at the Helsinki District Court with violation of the freedom of worship and incitement to racial hatred. The charges were sparked by Halla-aho’s Internet blog writings more than a year ago. In his blog entry, Halla-aho made two statements that violated the law, the prosecutor said. In one of the entries Halla-aho linked Islam...

[from Finland] Four people have had to seek medical treatment after having eaten white Amanitas (Amanita virosa), highly toxic mushrooms also known as "destroying angels". Two of the patients have been brought to the intensive care unit of the Surgical Hospital in Helsinki, and it is likely that yet another patient with mushroom poisoning will end up in the same hospital. Only one of the four victims can be treated in a central hospital of his or her own hospital area. The four persons with mushroom poisoning come from various parts of Southern Finland. The poisoning victims who have been...

Swedish military forces were involved in a battle in Aqchah in northern Afghanistan on Thursday night. No Swedish soldiers have been reported injured. The battle began around 6.30pm on Thursday night when opposition groups ambushed the Swedish troops. The Swedes were in armoured wheeled vehicles and later received reinforcements from several soldiers in a Combat Vehicle 90. “The firefights were intermittant during the evening and night,” Veronica Sandström, press officer for the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten), told the TT news agency. The Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reported Friday that three members of the attacking troops were killed and an additional...

Tucked away in a far corner of northern Europe, the tranquil and resourceful nation of Finland often gets unjustly overlooked. Flanked by a swaggering and increasingly quarrelsome Russia to the east and its larger and blonder Swedish neighbor to the west, the Finns seem to receive neither the attention nor the consideration that they rightly deserve. Indeed, despite being beset by harsh winters and a dearth of arable land, as well as enjoying the dubious distinction of being the European Union's most sparsely populated country, Finland has nonetheless built one of the most pleasant and peaceful societies on the entire...

HELSINKI (AFP) — Finland put an end to Estonia's 11-year reign and took gold and bronze on Saturday at the annual Wife-Carrying World Championships held in Sonkajaervi, central Finland, organisers said. Taisto Miettinen raced through a 250-metre (273-yard) course with two hurdles and a pool in 62 seconds, carrying Kristiina Haapanen on his back. The winners beat Estonia's Alar Voogla and Kristi Viltrop by 0.1 seconds. Miettinen has been attending the competition for a decade now and said he was pleased to finally win. "A couple of times I have lost by 0.1 seconds and I have stumbled. Our win...

Two European companies — a major contractor to the U.S. government and a top cell-phone equipment maker — last year installed an electronic surveillance system for Iran that human rights advocates and intelligence experts say can help Iran target dissidents. Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), a joint venture between the Finnish cell-phone giant Nokia and German powerhouse Siemens, delivered what is known as a monitoring center to Irantelecom, Iran's state-owned telephone company.

In Finland, speeding tickets are based not only on how fast you’re driving, but also on how much money you make. Mental Floss has a great rundown of five seriously costly moving violations, including a $103,000 fine for driving 47 miles per hour in a 31 zone (converted from metric). Sound crazy? Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. The idea seems to be that income-related tickets would affect the rich just as significantly as the poor—and therefore dissuade them equally. That part makes a lot of sense, and it could surely do wonders for a city’s revenue. Then...

European elections: extremist and fringe parties are the big winners Millions of voters deserted mainstream parties in the wake of the economic crisis David Charter and Rory Watson in Brussels Extremist and fringe parties were the beneficiaries as voters across Europe deserted mainstream parties or stayed at home in protest at the state of their economies. The Centre Left was set to be the big loser across the 27 European Union countries with the Centre Right consolidating its position as the largest group in the Parliament. Anti-immigrant parties gained MEPs in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Slovakia. Governing...

Finland Getting Top US Missiles? published Apr 1 05:32 PM, updated Apr 2 03:20 PM The Finnish Air Force is buying at least 200 million euros worth of new equipment for its F-18C Hornet jet fighters. American JASSM air-to-surface missiles may become the latest addition to Finnish fleets. The government’s financial affairs committee gave the go-ahead on Wednesday to buy the weapons from the US Navy. The hardware includes long-range air-to-ground missiles. The upgrade is part of a 17-year development programme with a total price tag of about one billion euros. Under the plan, the entire fleet of Hornet jets...

<p>By JIM LANDERS jlanders@dallasnews.com HELSINKI, Finland – This is the land where no child is left behind.</p> <p>By the time Finland's children complete the ninth grade, they speak three languages. They have studied algebra, geometry and statistics since the first grade. And they beat the pants off students from just about everywhere else in the world.</p>

I consider myself Swedish but the Finns are our brothers! Relatives like my Finnish/Swedish grandmother on the other hand, denounce the very concet of nationality. Personally, I disagree with her, but she's 90 so I rest my case. Freedom does come for free. Having this in mind, I'd say few nations deserve freedom like Finland does. They fought Peter the great better than we Swedes did. They ridiculed Stalin in the wake of WWII. An uncle of mine got shot, but survived, during this conflict. Anyhow: Long live Finland and Finnish freedom!!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_war

(The following was sent to me via email from an acquiantance of mine in Finland. Please excuse the broken English) Yes, I think it is correct to describe what is going on in America as a kind of self-destruction. Half of Americans seem to have a very low self-esteem, which they reflex upon the Old World. Just a couple of recent examples: An American professor visited Finland to give a lecture on Moslem integration in the USA. The lecture as such was just fine, the professor was witty, and the public enjoyed and learned from what he said. But very...

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - A U.S. Embassy official says American and Russian military leaders are meeting for unannounced talks in Finland, the highest-level military meeting between the two countries since Russia's war with U.S. ally Georgia in August. U.S. Embassy spokesman Kim Hargan says the participants include Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Nikolai Makarov, who was appointed the Russian Armed Forces' Chief of General Staff in June. Hargan declined to give any details on Tuesday's talks, which had not been previously announced in Finland. The Finnish Defense Ministry said the head of...

The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in Oslo on Friday, often generates a certain amount of controversy. This year's award to peacebroker Martti Ahtisaari seems to take the prize back to its roots. Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, whose will both funded and set up the terms of the Nobel prizes, decreed that the Peace Prize should go to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the holding and promotion of peace congresses." In recent years, though, the prize has gone to environmental champions, human rights...

As a country, Finland is armed to the teeth. There are more than 1,6 million legal weapons in the weapons register, spread out among nearly 650,000 owners. On a per capita basis we have the fourth largest number of small arms in the world, right after the United States, Yemen, and Switzerland. According to a Swiss estimate, Finland has an estimated 2,375,000 legal and illegal firearms - that is, one gun for nearly every second Finn. The good news is that the law requires a permit to own even a slightly heavier weapon, and most licenced gun owners are upstanding...

Police investigating the Finnish college massacre are looking into possible direct links with the country's last mass shooting Detectives believe gunman Matti Saari, who killed ten people at a college in the town of Kauhajoki, may have had contact with the killer of eight people at a school in Jokela last November. They are examining email and telephone records and suggestions the guns for both massacres could have come from the same shop. Tuesday's shooting was an almost carbon copy of that in November. Pekka Eric Auvinen, 18, also posted warnings on YouTube. Both gunmen shot themselves and died later...

Finland's prime minister has called for gun laws to be tightened after a school shooting that left 11 people dead. Matti Vanhanen said he believed handguns should no longer be used outside shooting ranges. Matti Juhani Saari shot fellow students at a college in western Finland before turning his gun on himself. It emerged that he had been questioned by police after posting on the internet a video clip of himself at a shooting range, but had not been detained. Valid licences Mr Vanhanen told Finnish television: "We have to tighten the law significantly. "In terms of handguns that can...

Matti Juhani Saari, a trainee chef, arrived at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality at 11am local time with a pistol, ammunition and explosives in a large black bag, then pulled on a balaclava and began his killing spree in a classroom where 20 people were sitting an exam. "He was very well prepared," said Jukka Forsberg, the caretaker. "He walked calmly. He didn't say anything. He was cold-blooded." Describing how he first realised what was going on, Mr Forsberg said: "I heard the sound of shooting and hysterical girls' voices. Then two girls came towards my room and said a...

Many people may be dead following a shooting at a high school in Finland, police have said. The individual with the gun is still inside the vocational college in Kauhajoki, 120 miles from Helsinki, and students are being evacuated.

The US debt rescue plan has sought inspiration from the work to tackle the Swedish banking crisis at the beginning of the 1990s. "I have been in the USA several times this year to explain what we did," said Bo Lundgren at the Swedish National Debt Office. "There can be significant similarities," Lundgren added. Lundgren was finance minister in the 1991 right-wing government and, together with current and former Riksbank heads Stefan Ingves and Urban Bäckström, was the architect behind the bank support committee (Bankstödsnämnden or Bankakuten) which did much to alleviate the crisis that raged in the Swedish banking...

My Scandinavian brothers and sisters in Norway and Denmark were raped by Nazi Germany during WWII. Finland was viciously attacked by the troops of Stalin, an army mostly consisting of young Russian farmer sons who never where told why they had to go to Nordic territory and have their throats slit in the cold winter night by a "puukko knife". These small countries, small even from my nation's perspective (I'm Swedish), fought back like hell and in the end they triumphed. Look at the performance of these countries of today. I'm not asking anyone to whine over the hardship the...

This is the time for Bush and other NATO leaders to give high priority and visibility to discussions with Finland, which is considering joining NATO. If Finland joins, Sweden might follow, Swedish officials say. Alliance members also should move now to bolster the defenses of the three Baltic NATO members -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- as Kurt Volker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, has recently suggested. The holding of no-notice joint maneuvers with the Baltic states would be one way to catch Russia's attention.

The brave little nation of Finland declared itself independent from Russia in September 1917. This act was "approved" by the newly formed nation of Bolshevist Russia shortly after. Later on, Kreml changed its mind concerning this issue. Especially Stalin. Luckily enough, this initial acknowledgement by Russia/Soviet didn't result in any false sense of security among the Finns. They had no reason to. Finland was - at least formally speaking - under German hegemony until 1918 (when WWI ended) and was, furthermore, plagued by a civil war raging between patriots and Communists the very same year. This wasn't the first time...

Julia Galvin came to Finland looking for a man that would carry her 120 kg over a 253-metres track - the incentive being the chance to win the wife-carrying world title and beer worth her body weight. In the end the Irish woman was carried by an English man through a pool and across hurdles. She did not make the gold, but said she would keep trying until the title and the beer was hers. "I think I am worth carrying because I am a walking party," she said. Wife-carrying is one of a host of bizarre contests that Finns,...

This is fully in accord with Mark Steyn’s precise observation that “so-called hate speech laws” are “not about facts,” but rather, “they’re about feelings.” Yet facts are really all that should concern us; the rocks Mahmoud Alkhazeh threw at the driver he confronted did not hurt more because they were accompanied by stinging words. Hate speech laws are an assault on truth telling, at precisely the moment when so few dare to tell the truth, and it is for that reason all the more urgently needed.

- In Sweden that is. All the same, if various experts are right, the Nordic countries are not only the richest part of the world, but also global leaders in the domain of QUALITY of life. Therefore, living in this part of Stockholm is probably as good as life gets, or? The article: "The Stockholm suburb of Danderyd is the best municipality in which to live, according to a new ranking by the magazine Fokus. Lund and nearby Lomma in southern Sweden follow closely behind. Ljusnarsberg municipality in the Bergslagen region of central Sweden ended up in last place. The...

HELSINKI: If you can bear dark snowy winters lasting anywhere between three and seven months and are prepared to stand out in a crowd of Finns – tall, blonde and speaking Suomi or Swedish – there is a chance Finland's 'silver economy' needs you. In an extraordinary attempt to lure immigrants to their rapidly-ageing country, Finnish universities have government approval to hawk their wares to Indian and Chinese students. On offer is a world-class education in one of Europe's most wired and well-developed economies and the chance of a good job afterwards. Finland's 'look east' policy is born out of...

THE best schools in the world, it is generally agreed, are in Finland. In the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies, which compare 15-year-olds' reading, mathematics and science abilities in more than 50 countries, it routinely comes top. So politicians, academics, think-tankers and teachers from all over the world visit Finnish schools in the hope of discovering the magic ingredient. Journalists come too, and now it’s my turn. And since I'm coming this far north, I want to take in Sweden too. That social-democratic paradise has carried out school reforms that make free-market ideologues the world over weak...

Every nation could be described as a manifestation of a unique trait of character and most countries furthermore nurture, give emphasize to and celebrate this national identity of theirs. Some examples of such key national characters (please DO comment if you feel inclined to); USA: Liberty Italy: Creativity France: Refinement India: Spirituality Germany: Self-discipline Finland: "Sisu" (a Finnish term meaning "To have guts") Britain: Elevatedness Denmark: "Hygge" (a Danish word meaning "Good-naturedness", of mind as well as of deed) Spain: Passion China: Cultivation Russia: Chaos - just joking, I would actually say "Heart" (in the sense of having a big...

The technological and economical development of Scandinavia (including Finland) is today more groundbreking than anywhere else in the world. The investments being made in relation to population size is mind-boggling. Despite a mere population of 25 million inhabitants, the combined GDP of the Scandinavian countries today ridicules that of a Russia often viewed to be a "reborn" super power "on the go" (combined Scandinavian GDP is actually 125% that of of Russia - and the gap is widening!!) But, let's focus on telecommunications here; Five bidders have paid €226 million ($346 million) for fourth generation (4G), super-fast mobile telephony licences,...

Yes there is. Read on and you'll find out about it. Capitalist paradise exists here on Earth. However, it comes with a price tag called "competence". Most of the world lacks this "competence" and will have a hard time aquiring it, because it is a matter of spirit, a spirit that I'm convinced most parts of the world ever will fail to aquire. In my opinion, Scandinavia leads the world in true Capitalist endeavour (check out how many multinationals we possess in realation to population size). The explanation for this tradition of entrepreneurship is not Scandinavian "Socialism". Sooner, it is...

Rock art from 5,000 years agoThe Astuvansalmi rock paintings are located on a steep outcrop, resembling a human head, on the shore of lake Yövesi. The site may have been used for ceremonial purposes. Rock paintings created during the Stone Age can still be seen today in dozens of sites around Finland. These awe-inspiring artworks are like windows into the ancient past, revealing tantalising glimpses of long lost cultures. FINLAND’S rock paintings mainly consist of brownish-red figures and markings painted onto steep granite walls, often overlooking waterways. Scenes feature people, boats, elk, fish and mysterious partly human figures that may...

The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis. The Fed has been criticised for its rescue of Bear Stearns, which critics say has degenerated into a taxpayer gift to rich bankers. A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis from 1991 to 1993, which brought the region's economy to its knees. It is understood that Fed vice-chairman Don Kohn remains very...

Finland's prime minister, who accused his former lover of hurting his feelings by writing a steamy kiss-and-tell account of their relationship, lost a court case over the book last week but unexpectedly gained popularity. Matti Vanhanen, 52, prime minister since 2003, has been enjoying a wave of support since the disclosure that he likes to take a sauna before sex and enjoys his favourite meal of beef and baked potatoes afterwards. In her memoir The Prime Minister’s Bride, the spurned lover Susan Ruusunen, 36, wrote: “Once, when he kissed me, he said that I tasted better than oven-baked potato.” A...

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7. Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish...

Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen. the breakthrough opened up new ways to treat severe tissue damage and made the prospect of custom-made living spares parts for humans a step closer to reality. "There have been a couple of similar-sounding procedures before, but these didn't use the patient's own stem cells that were first cultured and expanded in laboratory and differentiated into bone tissue,"... the patient was recovering more quickly than he would have if...

The Finnish Chancellor of Justice is currently investigating for possible irregularities and discriminatory treatment after the Swedish School of Social Science released documents relating to their decision to reject an internationally renowned SPACEPOL expert's candidacy for a limited track researcher position. According to SPACEPOL CEO Gunnar K. A. Njalsson, the released documents expose a process of candidate evaluation riddled with inconsistencies and lack of academic integrity. FALSE AND EMBELLISHED EXPERT STATEMENTS The focus of CEO Njalsson's particular concern is on so-called expert comments, requested by the Research Centre Board of the Swedish School of Social Science and submitted by nine...

Finland's prime minister Matti Vanhanen on Monday urged the United States to step up action in reducing global warming and expressed hopes that the next U.S. president would make the issue a priority. Vanhanen, who plans to meet senior U.S. officials including Vice President Dick Cheney Tuesday, praised the U.S. engagement in recent international negotiations to reach a new climate change agreement. But he implied that he would like to see more commitment from Washington to international cooperation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. «All nations need to show determination and leadership in the efforts to tackle climate change. The United...

A city in Finland best known as the namesake to mobile phone giant Nokia is floundering in filthy drinking water after a municipal employee sent thousands of gallons of sewage into the water supply. Thousands have fallen ill -- and the water is still dirty. The 30,000 residents of the small Finnish city of Nokia have long lived according to what city leaders describe as a "principle" etched in stone. "We walk in Nokia boots, we use Nokia toilet paper and we talk using Nokia phones," the saying goes. Indeed, for close to 150 years the city's fortunes have been...