”Does someone else still need to die?” asks the cover headline of tabloid Ilta-Sanomat alongside an image of the spontaneous memorial in Tampere to the 11-year-old schoolgirl who died on Thursday in hospital after being hit by a truck while crossing the street on Wednesday.
In a three-page spread, Ilta-Sanomat examines the aftermath of the two separate accidents (one in Tampere, one in Helsinki) that took the lives of two schoolchildren on zebra crossings within the last week. Yesterday, on Mechelininkatu in Helsinki's Töölö neighbourhood children dressed in black and white held paper cutouts of angels' wings in remembrance of the 9-year-old girl who was killed while crossing the street when a truck hit her last Friday.
Ilta-Sanomat, like many other newspapers on Friday morning, goes on to review the traffic light system that shows green lights for both pedestrians crossing a crosswalk and vehicles making a right turn, which appears to have played a role in both deaths. Should this system be reviewed in light of recent tragic events, asks the paper.
Tampere’s Aamulehti also devotes its cover to the tragic traffic accident in its city with a map illustrating Tampere’s most dangerous intersections. It also criticises the double green light system as dangerous.
Helping refugees find accommodation
Tabloid Iltalehti leads with a piece on how people are countering anti-refugee sentiment by offering up space in their own homes to asylum seekers. “Many want to help those who are fleeing war zones,” writes the paper. One such organisation is Refugees Welcome (Helsinki + Finland), a group started on Facebook.
“Many people have offered accommodation in their own homes to asylum seekers. In our group there are also many people with different professional skills that are useful for organising aid," says Marjaana Toiviainen, one of the Refugees Welcome group’s founders and Parish Priest at the Kallio Evangelical Lutheran Parish.
Localising labour agreements?
Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat leads on a political note with the story of how the Centre Party wants to promote local labour agreements in an effort to increase competitiveness. Local labour agreements would mean that employers would have more flexibility to negotiate contracts on their own terms. Centre Party Parliamentary Chair Matti Vanhanen, who once served as the country's prime minister, says that Finland's weak export situation is not due to the quality of Finnish products, but rather their overly expensive production costs, writes the paper.