The killing of two Finnish aid workers in western Afghanistan dominated the newspapers on Friday. The two women had been working for the International Assistance Mission in Herat, and were shot in a taxi as they went shopping.
Ilta-Sanomat had a big scoop thanks to a local stringer, Fawad Ahmady. Online the tabloid trumpeted that it "interviewed the taxi driver' just minutes before he was arrested by the local police. In truth it was Ahmady who conducted the interview, and the IS story's paper version runs under his byline.
"I ran out of the car and shouted 'Help! Help! Stop them!'," the driver was quoted as saying.
The two attackers had used a silenced weapon, according to the driver's account as told to IS, and nobody in the vicinity noticed what had happened.
Both Ilta-Sanomat and rival Iltalehti carried comments from Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen. The Christian Democrat leader's husband serves as rector at the Finnish missionary training college, and the Räsänens knew the murdered women well. She expressed condolences for the women's families, and said that aid agencies will now have to look again at their security procedures.
Helsingin Sanomat, meanwhile, emphasises that the two slain psychiatrists knew Afghanistan well. They were not naive newcomers, having worked in Herat for years. The paper reached Herat's governor, who expressed his shock at the news.
"These women were respected," said governor Fazlullah Wahidi. "Their organisation has worked in Afghanistan for years. Everyone in Herat knew them."
Urban living--and dry toilets--the key to sustainable development?
The Social Democrat daily Demokraatti has a story about a knotty Finnish problem: urbanisation. Finns tend to live in sparsely-populated districts, and the environmentalist association Dodo ry wants to change that. They're organising an exhibition in August intended to showcase the possibilities offered by more compact living arrangements.
The paper interviews the organisers, and offers a preview of the delights on offer at the exhibition. It promises to show how a five-person family can live in a two room flat, while one of the organisers suggests that urban Finns need to change their attitudes--and start using dry toilets--to reduce their environmental footprint.
Cruel deadlines for football journalists
Lapin Kansa's sport pages showed the limitations of print media in a digital age in a rather cruel and slightly unfortunate fashion. The Rovaniemi paper sent a team to Greece to cover the local football club's Europa League adventure. Things looked promising after the first leg, which RoPS drew 1-1 with Asteras Tripoli, and players, journalists and even a few fans travelled hoping to see the Finns spring a surprise and go through.
The journalists produced a column on the Greek side's stadium (a model for Rovaniemi, apparently), and wrote a nice feature on goalkeeper, Saku-Pekka Sahlgren, who moved from HJK Helsinki to the Arctic circle in search of playing time and has now become, as the paper's headline has it, 'The new lock on the defence'.
There was just one problem with this double-page spread. The game had not finished until 11pm Finnish time and the final score didn't make it into the paper. It had finished 4-2 to the Greeks, RoPS were out, and poor Sahlgren had made a mistake for the first Greek goal, then given away a penalty for the second and been sent off. Not quite the new lock on the defence his local paper is proclaiming on the breakfast tables of Lapland this morning.