The newsstand tabloid Ilta-Sanomat reports that among the measures Greece has now suggested to right its economy are higher corporate taxes and adjustment to the tax reliefs provided to islands focused on the tourist industry.
Restaurant VAT is to be bumped up to 23% and hotel VAT to 13%. Higher taxes are also to be imposed on cargo shipping.
Taxes on luxury goods in Greece are to go up. The military is to see its budget trimmed by 300 million euros.
The plan looks to cut pension spending and it will become more difficult to get approval for early retirement.
Some sea ports and airports are to be privatized.
The Greek government is aiming at a one percent economic surplus this year and two percent next year. Greece is seeking 53.5 billion euros for interest payments on its debt through the summer of 2018.
The economic and business daily Kauppalehti says that the new Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos is faced by the tough task of "cleaning up a mess" left by his predecessor Yanis Varoufakis.
Kauppalehti writes that Varoufakis, seen as arrogant and unreliable, managed to completely destroy the trust of his EU colleagues.
While the backgrounds of both are very similar, Tsakalotos is reportedly less dogmatic and more moderate.
Keeping Greece in the eurozone, writes Kauppalehti, will require a small miracle: Sunday will tell if Tsakalotos can pull it off.
All unemployed not equal
An announcement by Microsoft that it will be laying off up to as many as 2,300 employees in Finland brought an immediate pledge of aid from the government. Funds will be provided for use in retraining, finding new jobs and as financing for start-ups.
The economic daily Taloussanomat points out that while the details are not available, the government is likely to seek at least some of the money from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGR).
This has been the practice in recent years when Finland has faced mass dismissals in the IT sector and in heavy industry such as shipbuilding.
Taloussanomat notes that a special feature of these extra employment funds is that they are specifically earmarked for people put out of work by big corporations, not for all the employed in a certain region.
At the same time as major sums are being discussed to deal with impact of Microsoft's downsizing, funding for regional unemployment services has been reduced and the number of officials trimmed back, which means that services have been over-stretched and unemployed people are being urged to use online services.
This year's allocation for funding start-ups is already gone in most parts of the country.
Employment Minister Jari Lindström told Taloussanomat that he is aware of the problem, but sees a need for measures in areas suddenly hit by mass unemployment.
He also said that he understands the need for equal aid to all of the unemployed and while the system may be reconsidered in future, for now the government will move ahead with its current approach.
"You can't change the rules in the middle of the game," commented Employment Minister Jari Lindström.
Idle berry pickers
Thousands of foreign seasonal workers are in Finland again to pick wild berries, but the cool wet summer has delayed the berry crop.
A record number of visas, around 3,500, have been issued to foreigners to work at picking berries this year. Most of them are from Thailand.
It is unlikely that they will be able to get to work soon, reports Helsingin Sanomat. The blueberry crop is about two weeks late and lingonberries will not start ripening in the forests until late August.
No berries to pick means no income and those who have already arrived in hopes of earning right away now find themselves living on the often meagre savings they brought with them.
Vernu Vasunta, CEO of Kiantama Oy, a company that will be employing 500 pickers from Thailand this year, points out that under the terms of their visas, the pickers cannot be employed in any other type of work, not even tidying the forests where they will be picking.
He says that normally, pickers have a couple of days after arrival to get prepared and then out into the forest to gather berries. Now, these extra days are can be used to seek out the best spots to pick once the crop start ripening.
Flash, flash
Iltalehti reports that according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, lightning struck the ground no less than 2,500 times on Thursday by 10 PM.
Some of the lightning bolts started small fires, including one at a summer cottage in South Savo, at two warehouses in the southwest and two house fires in the west of the country.
Thursday's storm set this summer's record for lightning strikes, but wasn't anywhere close to a storm last summer during which lightning struck as many as 10,000 times.