The controversial municipal politician announced his candidacy on an anti-immigration website, the national daily Helsingin Sanomat reports.

“MUNICIPAL politician Jussi Halla-aho, known for his polemical blog writings on immigration, will run in the spring 2011 general election as an independent candidate on the Perussuomalaiset list.

He announced his candidacy on Thursday evening at the Homma Forum website, which is a web community and discussion site for people who are critical of immigration.

The Finnish dock workers’ strike risks damaging the Finnish forest and paper industries, the financial paper Kauppalehti reports.

“THE GREATEST sufferer of the dockers’ strike is the forest industry, which claims to be losing 30 million euros a day due to the strike. There is also a danger that work will be permanently lost to competitors abroad.

Timo Jaatinen, the Director General of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation, says that because of the strike and the Transport Workers’ Union’s (AKT) ban on overtime that preceded it the forestry companies have lost orders to competitors.

Occasionally private investigators also help solve crimes, reports the Kuopio-based daily Savon Sanomat.

“HUNDREDS of Finns use a private detective to keep track of their spouse’s doings. About half of private investigator Riitta Tanner’s job assignments consist of investigating suspicions of infidelity.

Most of the cases are justified. Tanner has conducted about 300 infidelity investigations. In only five cases was there no evidence of infidelity. This ratio is affected by the fact that Tanner never takes cases in which she suspects morbid jealousy or mental problems to be involved.

Relatively few visitors to Lapland go there to ski, the Tampere-based daily Aamulehti reports.

“THE MAGIC of Lapland: cold, expensive and faraway. Easy, fun and intoxicating. Welcome to Finland’s very own Ibiza, where the busiest season of the year is right now. More and more people go to Lapland without any intention of exercising. Finns make over two million trips in their free time during the best winter holiday period. Only less than 250,000 go abroad, according to statistics.

Taking a fast loan is becoming ever more costly for people, the online financial newspaper Taloussanomat reports.

“A FAST LOAN may become ever more expensive for the person taking it due to the tightening of loan conditions prompting fast loan firms to raise prices. The genuine annual interest rates of the most expensive loans are over 2,000 per cent.

According to a study conducted by Suomen Rahatieto about a third of fast loan firms have raised prices since last autumn, according to a report made by Suomen Rahatieto for Taloussanomat.

Such is the amount of floating voters in the next general election, the tabloid Iltalehti reports.

“THE TERM ‘floating voters’ means those people who are going to vote for a different party in the next election compared to the last one. This batch of floating voters, comprising over half a million Finns, is exactly the group that political parties will fight over the most in next spring’s general election.

The Facebook death threat has now become a police matter, the tabloid Iltasanomat reports.

“MINISTER of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors (Swedish People’s Party) is reporting to the police about a group in Facebook that is threatening to kill her.

A group was set up on Facebook called ’Olen valmis istumaan muutaman vuoden Astrid Thorssin taposta!!’ (I’m ready to spend a few years in jail for killing Astrid Thors!!).

Heated debate continues as to how violent Finland really is compared to other European countries, reports the Helsingin Sanomat.

“FINLAND is not a violent country by European standards, according to social scientist, Professor Pertti Töttö of the University of Eastern Finland. Finns commit quite many violent crimes compared to countries in Western Europe, but far less than any country in Eastern Europe.

On the other hand, according to Professor Emeritus of Criminal Law Eero Backman Finnish culture is a traditionally violent one where more homicides are committed than in Western Europe and even some Eastern European countries.

The data from as many as 100,000 credit cards were endangered by a security breach, the financial paper Kauppalehti reports.

“The Finnish police is investigating the data theft of at least 40,000 credit cards from a computer in a store in Helsinki, reports the Bloomberg news agency.

The store’s computer system was breached from abroad. Card copies of the stolen data have already been used in different parts of the world.

An animal welfare expert claims abuse of fur animals and other livestock is fairly typical, the national daily Helsingin Sanomat reports.

“Threr are no good fur farms, says spokesperson Janna Rancken from the animal rights organisation Oikeutta eläimille ("Justice for Animals"). ‘Animals are kept in cramped conditions on every farm,’ she explains.

On Wednesday evening YLE’s A-studio broadcasted the material that the animal rights organisation had received from Finnish fur farms. Previously the organisation had shocked people at the beginning of December with footage shot at pig farms.