The front page splash of tabloid Ilta-Sanomat has a picture of Russian president Vladimir Putin with the caption "Give us Poland and Finland!", which the paper says Putin’s supporters chanted at a rally in Moscow yesterday. The 100,000-strong anniversary rally of the annexation of Crimea was "a frenzy", the IS story described.
"The nationalistic slogan was used during the Russian civil war," Arkady Mošes from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs told the paper. "It was more than likely a premeditated cry to be chanted during the anniversary celebration."
The Institute’s programme director Mika Aaltola is quoted in the paper as saying the slogan itself is not cause for concern, but the ideology behind it might be.
Party leaders hesitate, eclipse visible in north
Top daily Helsingin Sanomat and other papers such as Turun Sanomat run stories on party politicians' unwillingness to stand by national cut proposals under the coming elections. HS says that most of the leaders consider the proposals suggested by the Ministry of Finance to be "impossible", and that four years is too short a span for cuts as high as six billion euros.
Turun Sanomat also mentions that only two MPs are standing against another sweeping policy shoot-down that says a one-hour train connection between Helsinki and Turku is likewise "unrealistic". The only leader to praise the initiative was Ville Niinistö, head of the Green League.
Meanwhile in the natural world the recent Northern Lights will be followed a partial but near-full solar eclipse will be visible in parts of the country starting at around 11 am today and ending at around 1.30 pm. The Helsingin Sanomat story estimates conditions to be cloudy, but that visibility will still be good especially in central Finland and in western Lapland.
Staring directly at a solar eclipse without protection is commonly known to be extremely hazardous to human eyes, as the intense radiation can cause permanent eye damage in a matter of seconds. Not only that, but trying to take a snapshot of the eclipse with your phone can damage the camera’s sensor, too.
You can observe the eclipse live on Yle Areena.
Happy International Day of Happiness
Amidst political unrest and financial crises there is still cause for joy, if research on happiness by country is to be believed. HS reminds us that today Friday is the UN's International Day of Happiness, launched as recently as 2012 -- which is good, since many people don’t know the day exists.
Regardless, Finland is doing well in not just one but two different scales that research and quantify happiness, the paper reports. Finland is in 7 place in the UN’s World Happiness Report, and at number 8 in the OECD's Better Life Index. Family and friends rank high on Finnish peoples' causes for joy.
"Then there are other things like exercise, hobbies, being able to study and other great things that Finland offers," one woman in Helsinki beamed. Incidentally, the studies also showed that women are happier on average than men, which HS also ran as its headline.
