Turun Sanomat reports that a woman convicted of planning a massacre at Helsinki University had been previously found guilty of making threats at a school. Last week the 24-year-old was sentenced to three years in prison for the scheme to attack the university last spring.
The newspaper has learned that she threatened to carry out a gun attack on her high school in the eastern town of Lappeenranta in November 2007. This was the first school-threat case brought to trial after that year’s Jokela school massacre in Tuusula, which left nine people dead.
Six days after that incident, the woman published a statement on Wikipedia praising the attack and promising that it would be repeated at her own school. She was detained that evening, but quickly released by police who declared that she would not be a repeat offender. The student was fined 240 euros.
TS also devotes front-page space to corruption charges against former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was charged with various influence-peddling charges after being interrogated for 15 hours. This marks the first time that a former French president has been arrested. Sarkozy denies all charges.
On a lighter note, the Turku daily features a travel article about one of the capital’s old wooden districts, Puu-Käpylä, where “hectic Helsinki shows its slower side”. TS advises its readers who may venture to Helsinki to leave their cars far from the city centre, helpfully informing them that “it is possible to get anywhere by public transport: busses, metro or trams” – not to mention the public ferry to the island of Suomenlinna.
KL: Post-Nokia heroism
The business daily Kauppalehti leads off with analysis from Professor Markku Sotarauta of the University of Tampere’s School of Management, who says that Finns are still awaiting another great heroic business story after Nokia’s withdrawal from the phone business. He says the only way to reinvigorate the Finnish economy is through bold, quick leadership.
“This situation will not improve by waiting for decisions from the government or the president,” says Sotarauta. He predicts that Finland will not be pulled out of this recession by "heroic tales" from one industrial sector – as it was in the mid-‘90s – but rather by smaller success stories that have great potential. He points to regenerative medicine as one possibility.
KL also looks behind the numbers of Tuesday’s rally on Wall Street. The sectors showing the strongest bullishness included the car, computer and chemical industries, as well as healthcare, technology and financial shares.
HS: Bikes and bird droppings
Helsingin Sanomat, the nation’s biggest daily, leads off with news from Ukraine and France, but also with local stories such as a grassroots campaign to install cycling lanes on Hämeentie, a major artery that links the Sörnäinen and Kallio neighbourhoods with the city centre. A petition on behalf of such bike lanes has attracted some 7,000 signatures so far.
The City Planning Department is in fact already planning such lanes, regardless of whether the petition collects the 10,000 names that would make it obligatory for the city council to consider it. On the drawing board is a plan whereby part of Hämeentie would be reserved exclusively for public transport and light traffic, including bicycles.
The paper also looks at potential health problem brought by the large flocks of Barnacle geese that frequent Helsinki’s parks and waterfronts. Preliminary results from an ongoing study at the University of Helsinki show that about one in 10 samples of the waterfowl’s excrement includes campylobacter. The bacteria causes diarrhoea in humans – so those picnicking or exercising children or pets in areas popular with the big birds are advised to exercise extreme caution as well.