The results of a survey commissioned by newspaper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus show that 49 percent of respondents approve of cuts to the funding of the public service Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle.
Meanwhile, 30 percent said they do not approve of the cuts with the remainder unable or unwilling to express a view on the issue.
In September, parties in the Finnish Parliament agreed on a plan to freeze Yle's budget until 2027, and increase the VAT rates levied on the company from 10 percent to 14 percent from 2026. The company's budget in 2027 will be around 47 million euros smaller than it would be if index-linked budget increases occurred annually.
Asked what kind of programming should be cut back, a quarter of respondents said cuts should affect all types of programmes. The next most frequent response in the MT survey backed cuts targeting foreign TV series, sports and cultural programmes.
Few respondents were in favour of cuts in news or domestically-produced TV series. However, as MT points out, this is where a large part of Yle's operational budget goes.
"Decisions taken by politicians will affect the number of creators and everything Yle does," Antti Laakso, the chair of Yle's programme makers' union told the paper. "Savings of this magnitude cannot be made otherwise. For example, if Yle's management was to be completely eliminated, which is of course impossible, even that would not be enough."
Laakso also pointed to inconsistencies in attitudes towards savings measures by the public broadcaster.
"There is a great desire to see savings made, but when Yle announces that this or that programme may end, people say it's the wrong way to save. Yle quality has been criticised, but Yle Areena [streaming] is generally praised as a great service. But what is there in Yle Areena if not programmes made by Yle employees?" Laakso pointed out.
Almost half of Yle's expenditures, 47.3 percent in 2023, were personnel costs: salaries, wages, pensions and staff-related costs.
Around 1,000 people responded to the MT survey conducted by the polling firm Kantar Agri at the end of September.
Elokapina ban?
The Uutissuomalainen (USU ) news group reported that Lulu Ranne, the Finns Party cabinet minister currently holding the Transport and Communications and Interior portfolios, said she considers it necessary to look into a possible ban on the Finnish environmental movement Elokapina.
Ranne told USU that "quite a lot of red flags" have been raised, which is why she says a review about the disbanding of Elokapina is necessary. She pointed out that under the terms of the Associations Act a group can be dissolved if it is found to constantly break the law and disrupt public order.
"The authorities will consider whether the conditions for dissolution under the Associations Act have now been met. Of course, I am not going to dictate to the competent authorities," said Ranne.
A citizens' initiative calling for a ban on the Elokapina movement quickly gathered the 50,000 signatures needed for consideration by Parliament last week.
Ranne also pointed out to the Uutissuomalainen news group that it is very rare in Finland that associations have been dissolved.
"In those cases, we are talking about extremely serious forms of organised crime," she noted.
Police operation at Russian Embassy
There was a major police operation at the Russian Embassy in Helsinki on Thursday, beginning at around 5.30 pm and ending after dark.
According to Ilta-Sanomat, police carried out a search of the grounds at the request of the Russian Embassy. Police said the operation was related to embassy security, but did not specify the reason.
Russian Embassy officials told the STT news agency that it received a call on Thursday saying that the embassy's grounds had been mined. STT reported that Finnish authorities reacted quickly to the embassy's request to take necessary measures. It turned out to be a false alarm.
"This incident is not the first of its kind. Unfortunately, such incidents have already become an unpleasant routine," the embassy said in an email.
As IS noted, by international treaty the premises of diplomatic missions are sovereign territory. However, police may investigate a suspected crime or security incident on the premises of a diplomatic mission with the consent of the state in question.
Helsinki's (sort of) healthy rats
Where there are people, there are rats, and the Finnish capital is no exception.
But, at least they are healthier rats than in most European cities, according to the local Helsingin Uutiset.
The paper looked at the results of an urban rat study published on Thursday by the University of Helsinki showing that rats in Helsinki have very few parasites and infectious agents compared to other cities further south in Europe.
"We found almost all the infectious diseases and parasites we were looking for in Helsinki rats. What was surprising was that their prevalence was significantly lower than elsewhere in Europe," Tuomas Aivelo, the study's director said in a press release.
For example, the prevalence of the bacterium which causes the potentially deadly disease Leptospirosis was found in just over one percent of rats in Helsinki, while in some cities it is found in more than 50 percent.
Within Helsinki, there are geographical differences in the number of parasites found. Northeastern areas had the highest diversity of infectious diseases and parasites, while the north and southeast had the lowest.
According to Aivelo, diseases transmitted from rats to humans are extremely rare in Helsinki. There are only three cases in all of Finnish medical literature where disease in humans has been linked to exposure to rats.
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