The main Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat leads with a story about the alarming rate at which public sector spending has grown to exceed the nation's GDP as a result of the economic recession. It's now the highest in the world in relation to GDP, a development which has many people concerned including President Sauli Niinistö, who spoke out about it on Wednesday. According to the Organisation of Industrialised Countries (OECD), Finnish government spending is predicted to be more than 58 percent of GDP this year. Ten years ago the figure stood at 50 percent.
And the Oscar goes to...
Tampere's daily Aamulehti features a cover photo of film director Selma Vilhunen and producer Elli Toivoniemi toasting with glasses of bubbly over a baggage cart, as their short film "Do I have to take care of everything?" (_Pitääkö mun kaikki hoitaa?) _about a mother frantically scrambling to get her family ready for a friend's wedding was nominated for a prestigious Oscar award in the short film category on Thursday.Vilhunen has become the first Finnish filmmaker to be nominated for an Oscar award for a short film.
Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat also has a cover photo of the "Do I have to take care of everything?" film duo Vilhunen and Toivoniemi with the headline "Finnish mothers' film nominated for an Oscar" and an article about how the script was inspired by a woman who felt her husband was not pitching in to help with household chores.
The sweat smell of success
The main daily of Finnish Lapland Lapin Kansa highlights an unusual sports academy, Santasport, which has tripled in size and profits over the last ten years owing to an unique formula. As the demand for sports and wellbeing education grows, so does the need to house tourists visiting the northern city of Rovaniemi in Lapland. Santasport doubles up services and lets out its dorm facilities to visiting tourists when they are not being used. This successful formula has resulted in steady growth of about 12 percent a year.