Lawmakers on Thursday agreed that in the future Finland’s Security Intelligence Service (Supo) will not have a say in who polices it, writes regional daily Turun Sanomat.
Parliament is in the process of establishing a new security intelligence committee and Supo was initially appointed to vet MPs selected for the committee.
But legislators criticised the inherent conflict of interest in the proposed system, leading them to decide that the office of Finland’s Data Protection Ombudsman would perform the security clearances for parliamentarians selected for the special body that will, in turn, oversee Supo.
How much waste do we generate?
The Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) says each resident in Finland produces around one kilo of household waste every day, or roughly 342 kilos per year, reports Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet.
This is, however, only an estimate as Finland does not have a streamlined way of measuring household waste—a problem SYKE is attempting to now tackle.
Around half of household waste is recycled and the rest is incinerated—a figure the EU wants to raise to 65 percent by 2035.
The rise of English
The Finnish language is threatened, says national daily Helsingin Sanomat, following up on earlier claims by the Institute for the Languages of Finland that the growing use of English is diminishing the importance of the country's main national languages, Finnish and Swedish.
HS reports that the pro-Finnish linguistic strategy outlined by former PM Jyrki Katainen’s government in 2012 has fallen short.
Politicians interviewed expressed concern over Finland’s expanding range of English-language degree programmes and the practice of Finland’s universities valuing job applicants published in English-language academic journals.
”More points should be awarded for publishing research in Finnish,” said Culture Minister Sampo Terho, whose nationalist Blue Reform party splintered from the Finns Party last year.