Finland's Ovi

SERBIA’S Marija Serifovic won the Eurovision Song Contest overnight, beating competitors from 23 other countries in a three-hour televised mishmash of power ballads, ethnic rhythms, and bubble-gum pop.

Serifovic, 22, scored 268 points from telephone voters in 42 countries with her potent but simply staged ballad Molitva, or Prayer.

“I honestly think that a new chapter has opened for Serbia and not only in music. I’m proud”, Serifovic said after the contest, broadcast live across Europe to an estimated 100 million viewers.

Serbia spent the 1990s embroiled in Balkan wars and largely isolated internationally under Slobodan Milosevic, and its transition to democracy has been marked by failed elections and political assassinations.

It was Serbia’s first solo appearance in the contest, held this year in the Finnish capital Helsinki after monster-masked rockers Lordi secured Finland’s first win last year.

The contest is a live showcase for pop music talent selected by each nation in preliminary rounds.

An elegant black-tie event throughout the 1950s, the flagship of the European Broadcasting Union’s light entertainment programming is now widely derided in Western Europe for often trite and lightweight performances.

But it has drawn increasing interest from viewers in Eastern Europe and thousands of fans and journalists travel to the host country.

Serbian fans were delighted at Serifovic’s victory.

“She has a great voice, and it was a great performance. Finally a great song won the … contest,” said Aleksandar Miscevic, a 22-year-old airline steward.

“Serbia had a great song, we really showed Europe what we can do. It was the best song, and she is one of the best singers anywhere,” he said.

While most Eurovision winners quickly, and perhaps deservedly, fade back into obscurity, the contest helped launch the careers of ABBA and Celine Dion.

Serifovic’s sombre performance was in stark contrast to Ukrainian drag queen Verka Serduchka and his bombastic techno-dance tune Dancing Lasha Tumbai, which finished second with 235 points.

Russian pop trio Serebro finished third with 207 points.

In 2004, Ukraine won and Serbia and Montenegro came second.

Lordi reprised last year’s winning song Hard Rock Hallelujah pyrotechnic-filled opening number in front of an audience of 10,000 in Helsinki’s Hartwall arena.

Nearly 25,000 fans watched the show on giant screens in the city’s central square.

All countries in this year’s contest avoided the dreaded “nul points”.

Ireland, which has won seven times, was last with five points.

Britain and France jointly finished in the next spot up from Ireland with 19 points.

Eighteen countries were eliminated in semi-finals on Thursday.

Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, urged EU countries to punish Estonia for the removal of the Bronze Soldier Red Army monument in late April.

Estonian daily Eesti Paevaleht printed the letter on Friday.

“The western countries give their tacit approval to the fact that by equalling the heroism of soldier-liberators and the crimes of Nazis and their henchmen, Estonian authorities were attempting to rewrite history and reinterpret the role of the anti-Hitler coalition in the victory over fascism in the second world war,” the Baltic News Service (BNS) quoted Mr Lavrov as saying on Friday.

Mr Lavrov added that “Estonia’s partners in Europe and transatlantic organisations in particular, as well as in the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe should give an “adequate assessment of the Estonian authorities’ activity.”

“Russia, which has paid a terrible price for the victory over fascism, cannot remain indifferent to developments in which sacred historical memory is turned into a hostage of the moment’s political demands,” BNS quoted the letter as saying.

Ilkka Kanerva (cons), Finland’s foreign minister, said Thursday he had received the letter in late April, adding it was void of drama and only contained Russia’s views on the Bronze Soldier row.

When asked by the Finnish News Agency, the Finnish foreign ministry refused to give access to the letter by referring to section 24 on secret official documents of the Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

STT

Jouko Huttunen, a paternity expert at the University of Jyväskylä, feels that fathers and mothers in Finland continue to live in the stone age as far as certain attitudes are concerned.

“If there were just a little bit of paternal thinking at workplaces, or if more services were directed toward fathers alongside issues related to mothers, or if the post-natal child clinic system directed more services clearly toward fathers, the attitudes could change”, Huttunen says.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health now plans to start encouraging fathers to take parental leave. Stefan Wallin, the Minister responsible for Equality Affairs, is set to launch a project in Helsinki on Friday, aimed at encouraging fathers to take parental leave.

The objective is to promote gender equality at work and in education by increasing the role of fathers in the care of children.

The most frequent users of long parental leaves are mothers who do not have a steady job, or who have little training.

Child care leave is seen as one reason for the weaker position that young women have on the labour market. Employers are afraid to hire women of childbearing age for fear of the absences.

The aim of Wallin’s project is to promote awareness of parental benefits that already exist. This would mean that fathers would also be allowed to use them more.

Mere campaigning and manipulation of attitudes are not enough in the opinion of Jenni Kellokumpu. Legislative changes is also needed, which would eventually filter down to attitudes.

This is suggested by the fact that fathers are using the days off that they are legally entitled to.

“The problem with today’s system is that parents agree between themselves on parental leaves”, Kellokumpu says. “If we could concretely show people we could say ‘Hey Father, these are for you’, men would more consistently avail themselves of the entitlement.”

By Kim McLaughlin

East Coast fans in the United States have praised Finnish monster hard rock band Lordi for bringing rock and roll back to America, the band said on Friday.Lordi — who conquered their native country before storming to win the Eurovision Song Contest last year — kicked off a U.S. tour last month playing twice at the Bamboozle festival in New Jersey and will return in July and August for 16 gigs with the Ozzfest from Seattle to Indiana.

“It’s funny that American kids are saying ‘thank you for bringing rock and roll back to the U.S,” bandleader Mr. Lordi told Reuters.

“It’s kind of weird because we’ve taken all our influences from the U.S. and now the kids are thanking us for bringing it back.”

Around 100 million Europeans watched the Finnish rockers clinch their country’s first victory in the annual Eurovision Song Contest with “Hard Rock Hallelujah”, in a show characterized by over-the-top, horror-show theatrics and mock-demonic imagery.

In Helsinki to perform at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest a year after their shock victory in Athens, Mr. Lordi said that although the band had only played twice so far in New Jersey, the response from fans has been excellent.

“When you go to a new country you don’t know what to expect. Our die-hard fans were already there and were just there to see us,” he said.

The band, whose members never appear without their elaborate ghoulish skeleton and zombie masks and makeup, say the original inspiration for their gory costumes and lyric music came from the American rock group KISS.

Mr. Lordi, whose real name is Tomi Putaansuu said Lordi hoped to return to the studio next year to record a fourth album possibly for release in December.

Lordi has sold more than 300,000 copies of its album the Arockalypse, which includes “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. It was released in North America ahead of the tour.

Helsingin Sanomat

Finland’s first private cancer and radiotherapy clinic to be set up in Helsinki

Finland’s first private clinic to specialise in cancer and radiotherapy is to be set up in Helsinki.

The services offered by the clinic will include radiotherapy, chemotherapy, diagnostics, and follow-up by specialist doctors. At present, cancer treatments are almost exclusively offered by the public health sector. There is not a single private radiotherapy clinic in Finland.
The clinic’s owner, Docrates Oy, intends to outsource surgical treatments, laboratory services, and hospital bed services. These services, however, will be offered in the same building.

At first, the clinic will concentrate on treating the most common forms of cancer, such as breast and prostate cancer. Gradually the offered services will include radiotherapy and medical treatments of all types of cancer.

The aim is to treat 900 patients per year. At the Helsinki University Central Hospital (HYKS), 300 people receive radiotherapy each day.

The clinic is meant to operate in a new building that is to be built in Saukonpaasi between the Jätkänsaari and Ruoholahti districts to the west of the city (see map). Helsinki City Real Estate Department will process the building site application on the 15th of May. Docrates Oy will not be the owner of the building. Instead, the real estate investor is Nordea Life Insurance Finland.
The building is expected to be completed by the end of next year, and the first patients should be received at the beginning of 2009.

The specialist doctor services Docrates is planning to launch already this autumn, somewhere else in Helsinki. The principal owners of Docrates Oy are Master of Arts Pekka Aalto, Docent of Clinical Ontology Timo Joensuu, and Master of Arts Harri Puurunen.

Of these, Aalto has previously set up a company specialising in designing radiotherapy dosage software. Puurunen, in turn, is a managing director, who has worked, among other things, as a financial director with TEKES – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. Joensuu holds a position as a specialist doctor at the HYKS cancer clinic, where he has 14 years of work experience.
“The demand is on the increase as the population ages. Waiting times for radiotherapy at HYKS are already getting longer. There are people who would be willing to pay for private treatment”, Joensuu explains.

By the year 2011, the clinic is expected to employ around 40 people and the entire centre in the region of 300.

To finance the undertaking, Docrates has created an issue of shares aimed at private investors. This has already borne fruit. Next year capital investors will be sought.

According to Puurunen, the company is also holding leasing negotiations on various expensive treatment equipment, such as the radiotherapy hardware.

AFP

Helsinki, Finland. After last year’s unexpected victory by monster rock group Lordi, controversy and fantasy return to the Eurovision song contest this weekend but make no doubt about it, glamour is back on centre stage.

Low-cut dresses and high-cut skirts, pink glitter drag queens, swarthy Latin singers and lots of big hair: 42 acts will compete on Saturday evening in Helsinki when some 120 million television viewers across Europe are expected to tune in to vote for their favourites. 

Serbia, Sweden and Belarus top European bookies’ lists of likely winners. Serbia’s entry is entitled Molitva, a love song about the uncertainties between God and man, performed by 23-year old Marija Serifovic.

Plenty of charm and deep decolletages are common features for Moldova’s entry Natalia Barbu with her song Fight, Dutch Edsilia Romley with On Top of the World, Portugal’s Sabrina and her entry Danca Comigo, Macedonian singer Karolina and Mojot Svet, and Norwegian Guri Schanke with her Latino entry Ven A Bailar Conmigo.

Israel, Switzerland, Iceland and Croatia bring a bit of rock to the competition while Belarus, Denmark, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine are banking on radio-friendly pop. Denmark and Ukraine will undoubtedly put on the most colourful shows as both are represented by drag queens with eye-catching outfits.

The Danish entry, Drama Queen, features singer DQ with cabaret-style fuschia plumage on his/her head, while Ukraine’s Verka Serduchka appears in a metallic outfit topped with a star on his/hers. Fred Bronson, a journalist for US weekly Billboard, tipped Serbia as his favourite, but said Switzerland and Andorra could be other possible winners.

Finland unexpectedly won the competition for the first time last year with its heavy metal act Lordi. The band was dressed as blood-thirsty monsters as they performed their winning song Hard Rock Hallelujah. Swiss singer DJ Bobo, who in 2003 had a summer hit with Chihuahua, hopes to follow in Lordi’s monster footsteps with the song Vampires are Alive.

France is represented this year by the group Fatals Picards dressed in outfits by Jean-Paul Gaultier. The song L’amour a la Francaise is performed in “frenglish” and according to the songwriters it represents “French romance” and “punk for beginners”. The final on Saturday will feature the four founding countries Germany, Spain, France and Britain, the Top 10 finishers from 2006 and the top six countries from Thursday’s semi-final.

The contest, founded in 1956, has been won by Ireland seven times, making the island the most successful participant. France, Luxemburg and Britain have won five times each. Upcoming artists who enter the competition often hope for a boost to their careers but the contest has also appealed to many international stars such as Olivia Newton-John and Julio Iglesias, neither of whom won.

Swedish superstars ABBA made their international breakthrough after winning in 1974 with the hit Waterloo, Italian Toto Cutugno won in 1990, and pop diva Celine Dion won in 1988.

“Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God, there are too many different frequencies filling our ears,” Benedict whined to the crowd, which stood quietly shoulder-to-shoulder on a field on the outskirts of Munich, where he served as archbishop from 1977 to 1982.

No, actually people are hearing God more than ever (too much sometimes, such as President Bush). However, as the Vatican looks more like the 700 Club, the Pope is increasingly on the wrong frequency to reach modern humanity, which hungers for more inspiration and less fear-mongering.

Link to this story  Eurovision Contest.

Three more days for Finland hosting the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest and expanding its popularity more and more in the gay communities. Many of the new gay participants in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest have attracted a gay a majority to this event which makes this song contest a gay icon in the world. Also it has attracted more viewers from around the world, not only Europe.

Finland won last years contest, which was pretty unexpected because of it’s “diabolic” style, but thanks to that this year’s Eurovision will be held in Finland. One could think of it as a modern new way of globalisation, which excludes the church’s blessing, since there’s no doubt about it not fitting into Christianities Ideals.

Maybe the winner of this years contest will be a gay naughty lil devil… which we all should look forward to. There has even been a Gay-Guide from Helsingin Sanomat for the Eurovision Song Contest, printed out on two pages and titled “Gay Guide to the City”. This being a great idea, because most of the gay communities are actually NOT from Finland! Either from the Vatican.. so the best would be to give them a little advice on how to get through the city and where to go and not to go.

Tom of Finland is one of the passive participants in this contest and has contributed in a indelible and sexy way to the gay life in this country. They say he has “fuelled” the fantasies of generation of gay men. In any way we will se what happens to this great event and will look forward to the entertainment and excitement it will give to Finns and Foreigners.

The Helsingin Sanomat has even published a Gay History of Finland.. that will probably very soon include the new Icon 2007:  Eurovision Song Contest.

Edit: The Ovi Magazine

Birdwatchers who observed the shooting of a bear in Hankoniemi on Sunday are not happy with the actions of the police and the Coast Guard. They intend to file a complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman concerning the incident, which was said to have caused unnecessary suffering to the animal. 

A group of birdwatchers notified the Coast Guard on Sunday morning that they had noticed a bear coming ashore at the island of Granskär off the City of Hanko.

Some officers from the Raasepori police department, two boats of the Coast Guard, and a helicopter turned up.

According to one of the birdwatchers, Aleksi Lehikoinen, the bear, who was taking a nap at the time, got frightened and took off, swimming in the windy weather and freezing cold water of some 3° to 4° C for about three hours, until it was shot at a distance of 10 metres from the shore at 6.15 p.m.
“The treatment of the bear showed distinct signs of animal cruelty. If it was necessary to kill the bear, why was it not done immediately and not after hours of hunting?” argued Lehikoinen.

Chief Inspector Esko Kari from the Hanko police department, who was in charge of the operation, regards it as the most important thing that people were protected.

“All alternatives were bad, but I believe that this was the only right solution”, said Kari.

According to Kari, the sedation of the bear was not possible, and the landing of the bear onto the narrow Hankoniemi headland was out of the question, because it would then have run through the residential area. According to some information, the bear had already been seen moving in the city centre on the night before Sunday.
The police will now have to think carefully about their ways of action in similar cases in the future. Even the birdwatchers would welcome some instructions from the authorities.

The subject of the bear’s messy despatch has prompted a brisk exchange of views on Internet message boards, with one strain being the way in which Finns have become so divorced from nature that they cry a river at the death of a bear while having no qualms about eating pork or poultry. Others have made the same point in reverse, that we are so alienated from nature that we panic at the very thought of those wild animals that we put on our stamps and are supposed to be proud of having in the country.

HS

Finnish detachment to act as “defending enemy forces” in NRF drill in Poland
 
Finland will take part in a NATO Response Force (NRF) exercise in Poland next week. The Finnish troops will consist of some 80 to 90 national servicemen, reservists, and their instructors, plus three armoured personnel carriers and a dozen or so other vehicles.

The so-called Noble Mariner exercise is one of three exceptionally large-scale military exercises taking place from 14 to 24 May 2007 in the Southern Baltic region, including adjacent Danish, Swedish, German and Polish territorial waters, airspace and land.

Dozens of ships and airplanes, and thousands of personnel from 17 coastal NATO states including the United States will take part in the NRF drill. Finland and Sweden will train with them as “partners in peace”.

The role of the Finnish and Swedish units is to act as a training opponent to the NRF disembarkation troops. In other words, the Finns and the Swedes will “defend” Poland against the invasion force.

“From the military strategy point of view this drill does not have much to offer to us. Instead, we will gain experience as to how such exercises are planned and implemented, and how the service, logistics, and paper-work are taken care of”, says the Finnish troop commander, Commodore Henrik Nysten.

Before embarking for Poland, Finland and Sweden will organise another exercise in Sweden, where a significantly larger number of Finnish personnel and more equipment were involved.

“The Sweden-phase is much more important. We are able gain information on how a Finnish-Swedish landing force operates”, Nysten explains. NATO will carry out the evaluation.
In Poland, Finland and Sweden will not act as actual NRF members, but as a separate partners-in-peace unit. The Defence Command’s view is that Finland is not taking part in an NRF drill, as, so far, Finland is not looking to participate in any NRF operations. One high-ranking officer stated, however: “If one chooses to see this as only an NRF exercise, then, yes, we are taking part in it.”
Presumably the Defence Command’s caution arises from the fact that the NATO Response Force issue has been a political “hot potato” for a long time. The official policy is to emphasise commitment to the EU rapid deployment forces.

In November 2006, a government Ministerial Committee on Foreign and Security Policy made a decision that opened the possibility for Finland to take part in the NRF drills as well. The newly-formed right wing government favours NATO cooperation more so than its predecessor.

Still, taking part in the Noble Mariner exercise is not a test case. Already last year, the Finnish minelayer Pohjanmaa and its crew participated in a similar exercise in the North Sea.

HS

French nuclear group Areva said Tuesday it had started site investigations in Eno and Kontiolahti in Finland.

Areva geologists are to carry out measurements, collect samples and take geophysical readings from the air during the summer. The company does not have the permission to carry out deep drilling or excavations for uranium.

In October 2006, Finland’s trade and industry ministry granted Areva a site investigation permit for an area of about 16 square kilometres in Eno and Kontiolahti. The Supreme Administrative Court is processing three appeals on the matter.
STT

Helsingin Sanomat

More than a third of cases involve dismissal over pregnancy
 
Suspicions of illegal discrimination in the workplace have multiplied in the Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate of Uusimaa over the course of the last few years.
Last year a total of 24 cases were recorded, and in nine of them the reason for discrimination was suspected to be pregnancy. An employee’s contract had been terminated or her employment contract had not been prolonged after she had told of her pregnancy.

According to the occupational safety officials, a clear majority of communication relating to discrimination at work involves reports of unjustified dismissals because of pregnancy. “The sense we get is that it is fairly common that an employment contract is cancelled during a trial period, for example because of pregnancy””, notes inspector Jenny Rintala.
On the whole, reports concerning discrimination at work are received rather seldom, even though matters relating to occupational welfare give more and more work to Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorates these days.

Furthermore, it is extremely rare that such reports develop to the point where criminal charges might be brought. For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate of Häme as well as that of Turku and Pori report that the number of annual cases is not more than a handful. Moreover, only the Uusimaa Occupational Safety Office compiles statistics of such cases.

Matti Penttinen, a Helsinki lawyer who has been handling issues relating to occupational discrimination since the mid-1980s, has noticed that the number of cases involving unjustified dismissals based on pregnancy have increased over the last two years. Last year Penttinen handled nine cases of suspected illegal dismissals because of pregnancy, while in previous years he had approximately one such case per year. According to Penttinen, in the majority of cases dismissal has occurred very soon after the employee has reported her pregnancy.
Senior Constable Jouko Siikavirta from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Helsinki Police Department, who is in charge of occupational discrimination issues, notes that suspected discrimination based on pregnancy is often a question of proof. The most typical suspicion involves a case in which a woman during a trial period informs her employer that she is pregnant, Siikavirta reports. Then the employer informs her that the employment contract will be terminated after the trial period. Afterwards the question is, whether or not the woman informed the employer first or the other way around.

Siikavirta points out that when an employee informs the employer of her pregnancy, there should be some witnesses around. According to the labour unions, the majority of cases reported to them involve fixed-term contracts that have been terminated after the employer has been informed of the employee’s pregnancy.

In fact, the contract should be prolonged if the tasks continue to exist. If not, this too is illegal, says lawyer Vappu Okker from the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (TEHY).

Most employees are rather reluctant to press charges, as they hope that after their maternity absence they would be able to continue working for their former employer again.

By Miranda Hitti

Test Using a Tracer Chemical May Show Which People With Memory Loss Will Get the Disease

A brain scan test may help predict which people with memory loss will develop Alzheimer’s disease, a preliminary study shows.

Memory loss is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. But most people with memory problems don’t develop Alzheimer’s.

Another hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is the buildup of plaque in the brain. That plaque, made of amyloid protein, has been found in brain autopsies of Alzheimer’s patients.

The new study, published in Neurology, focuses on people with mild cognitive impairment, defined as memory loss that doesn’t impair daily life and doesn’t qualify for dementia diagnosis.

The study included 13 people in Finland with mild cognitive impairment. They were 70 years old, on average.

For comparison, the study also included 14 older Finnish adults (average age: 65) without memory problems.

Participants got an infusion of a tracer chemical called PIB, which binds to amyloid protein.

The researchers — who included Juha Rinne, MD, PhD, of Finland’s University of Turku — used positron emission tomography (PET) brain scans to watch participants’ brains absorb PIB.

Brain Scan Test
The brains of the patient group with memory loss tended to absorb more PIB than the comparison group without memory loss.

“This pattern of increased PIB in patients with [mild cognitive impairment] resembles what’s seen in Alzheimer’s disease and is suggestive of an early Alzheimer’s disease process,” Rinne says in an American Academy of Neurology news release.

But Rinne’s team didn’t follow the participants over time, so it’s not clear if any of them developed Alzheimer’s disease.

Larger, longer studies are needed to learn whether the PIB test predicts Alzheimer’s disease in people with mild cognitive impairment, note the researchers.

The journal notes that Rinne has a consultancy agreement with a branch of GE Health Care, which makes PIB.

:::
more about mild cognitive impairment

Paula Lehtomäki (centre), Finland’s new environment minister, said Saturday that Finland might find it very difficult if not impossible to reach energy and environment policy goals without building another high-output nuclear power station.

Speaking at the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s Launtaiseura programme, Ms Lehtomäki added, though, that her personal approach to the construction of further nuclear capacity was reserved.

Ms Lehtomäki underlined that although nuclear power was viewed as a zero-carbon form of energy generation, there were a number of other problems, starting from the extraction of uranium and ending in the disposal of radioactive waste.

“It is by no means a trouble-free form of energy generation from the point of view of the environment, even though it does not produce climate gas emissions,” Ms Lehtomäki said.

Finland´s fifth nuclear power station is being built in Olkiluoto.

STT