Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet featured a story on the government negotiations led by Prime Minister-designate Juha Sipilä. Yesterday Sipilä announced that work on Finland’s economic problems had led them to a figure of around four billion euros that need to be saved in the budget, the paper wrote.
Sipilä and the National Coalition Party’s Alexander Stubb were scant on details about how the savings would be made, the paper wrote.
“Among other things,” the paper wrote, “there has been talk about a freeze on index increases on all social benefits like pensions, child benefits, and parental benefits. But Sipilä was reticent to reveal concrete details,” the article stated.
Despite the lack of details, the paper wrote that Sipilä emphasised that the economy is a whole entity and savings are just a part of what needs to be done.
‘Where is Kankaanniemi?’
Evening tabloid Ilta-Sanomat published a two-page spread on the Finns Party MP Toimi Kankaanniemi who on Sunday publicly admitted to and apologised for sending unsolicited sexual messages to women on Facebook. The Finns Party has removed MP Toimi Kankaanniemi from its team negotiating the formation of the next coalition government.
After the MP’s only public comments on the matter came via text messages, the paper’s headline asked "Where is Kankaanniemi hiding?" The article features a large photo of Kankaanniemi ‘s home and an adjacent article titled: "Kankaanniemi tried to outlaw phone sex lines in the 1990s."
At the time Kankaanniemi, the paper wrote, was a member of the Finnish Christian League and that according to an MTV 3 news report, he tried to outlaw so-called "phone sex" lines in 1996.
Lists of the matriculated
Hundreds of names of students who made it through high school and matriculation exams began appearing in some of today’s papers. Among them, Turku's daily Turun Sanomat featured names from schools and students across the region, as well as an interesting article about the introduction of computer-based matriculation exams.
A test run of a new laptop-based matriculation exam was done at the high school Kerttulin lukio. The school’s history class were the first to try the new system, and the paper featured the familiar gymnasium full of students being tested. But it was laptops, rather than paper and pencils, which were perched on their desks.
It’s expected that an electronic version of the test will be officially introduced next year, the paper wrote.