The Finnish Environmental Register of Packaging (PYR) said in a statement Tuesday that while an overwhelming majority of respondents in a poll were in favour of recycling in general only about 36 per cent were prepared to pay a premium in retail prices for recyclable packaging.

About a quarter of the respondents said they sorted plastic packaging, with more than 90 per cent saying they took bottles and tins back to the shop and about 80 per cent reporting that they recycled glass, paper and cardboard.

Market research company Taylor Nelson Sofres interviewed about 1,200 people.

STT

Erkki Tuomioja, a Finnish Social Democrat MP and a former foreign minister, said Tuesday he would return to broadcasting after a 40-year break.

Mr Tuomioja added on his website that he would be a co-presenter of a book programme on MTV3.

The programme is to begin airing in late April.

Mr Tuomioja worked as a current affairs programme presenter before winning a seat in Parliament in the 1970 general election.

STT

Joe Wright, a British film director with Atonement and Pride and Prejudice under his belt, is to begin filming an action film called Hanna, starring Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana, in Kuusamo in northern Finland this week, the Finnish Film Foundation said in a statement Tuesday.

One lane of the highway between Kuusamo and Kemijärvi was closed on Tuesday.

The foundation added that the Finnish shoot would last five days.

STT

Tanja Karpela, a Finnish Centre party MP and a former culture minister, announced Tuesday she would not stand for re-election in next year's general election.

Ms Karpela said she had decided after lengthy consideration to pursue new challenges.

Ms Karpela, winner of the 1991 Miss Finland contest, is a third-term MP. She served as culture minister between 2003 and 2007.

Helsinki eatery Luomo has been granted one of the coveted stars in the latest issue of the Guide Michelin Main Cities of Europe, which hit shelves on Tuesday.

Chez Dominique was allowed to keep its two stars, with Demo, Carma and Postres remaining single-star restaurants.

The French company awards one to three stars to restaurants of exceptional quality. One star denotes a very good restaurant in its category, whereas an establishment awarded two stars has cuisine of such merit that it is worth a detour and an establishment with three stars is deemed worth a journey on its own right.

Michelin has never awarded the full three stars to a Finnish restaurant.

All the Finnish Michelin-starred restaurants are located in Helsinki.

STT

Päivi Räsänen, the leader of Finland's opposition Christian Democrats, said Monday that Matti Vanhanen (centre), the prime minister, should cut short his visits to Tanzania and South Africa over the Finnish dockers' strike.

Ms Räsänen said the timing of the visits was inappropriate.

"Is not the prolonging of the port strike the kind of emergency that requires the prime minister's active involvement back home?"

The prime minister is scheduled to return to Finland on Thursday.

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The Finnish Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the lower courts' rulings in a case involving parking tickets issued by ParkCom, a private company.

The Vantaa district court and the Helsinki appeals court had dismissed ParkCom's action against a Helsinki motorist who refused to pay fines issued by the company, ruling that only the authorities could issue parking fines.

By contrast, the Supreme Court ruled that parking in private property constituted a contract between the motorist and the company tasked with managing the parking bay.

STT

Mikko Puumalainen, Finland's deputy justice chancellor, on Monday issued a strongly worded statement faulting the finance ministry for dragging its feet in drafting new legislation on the taxation of used cars imported from other parts of the European Union.

Mr Puumalainen said the ministry had done nothing to make car taxation compatible with EU membership until the European Court of Justice's ruling last year.

Finland joined the union in 1995.

The EU court ruled a year ago that Finland's practice of levying VAT on used cars imported from other member states violated the union's single market rules.

The deputy justice chancellor added that the finance ministry's lack of action had led to unreasonable work and case loads at Customs and at administrative courts.

STT

Finnish regional daily Aamulehti on Monday quoted the transport ministry as saying it was drafting a bill to authorise garages to provide roadworthiness inspection services in an effort to lower prices.

Under current legislation the same facility is not allowed to both service and inspect road vehicles.

Anneli Tanttu, the head of the ministry's transport safety unit, told the paper that the rate of increase in inspection fees had outpaced inflation.

Fees have risen many-fold since the government privatised roadworthiness inspections in the mid-1990s.

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The Finnish Forest Industries Federation said Monday that the stevedores' strike had shut down almost 60 per cent of the country's paper mills, with more than 3,700 workers sent home.

Timo Jaatinen, the managing director of the wood-processing industry lobby, said the Transport Workers' Union (AKT) was putting jobs at risk.

The federation added that the dockers' strike was slowing down the country's recovery from the recession.

Talks between the AKT and the Port Operators' Association to end the strike broke down on Friday.

The strike began on 4 March.

The two sides are to resume talks on Tuesday, with severance pay as the key sticking point.

STT

The Finnish police said Monday that a man had set himself alight at a filling station in central Rovaniemi late on Sunday.

The police added the man, aged 24, had purchased petrol before dousing himself with some and setting the fuel on fire.

An ambulance that happened to be at the scene rushed the man to hospital. The man sustained serious injuries.

The police said the man's motive was not known.

STT

Tarja Halonen, the Finnish president, said Saturday she would consider issuing a political statement declaring post-second world war trials of Finland's wartime leaders as breaches of the rule of law.

The 1945-6 trials, which most Finns prefer to call "war responsibility trials" instead of the less palatable heading used by the allies, saw Risto Ryti, president in 1940-4, six wartime cabinet members and an ambassador jailed for waging war against the Soviet Union in 1941-4, a conflict known as the continuation war in Finland.

Finnish national daily Helsingin Sanomat on Monday quoted a poll as indicating that some 59 per cent of the public opposed an increase in immigration, up from 44 per cent returned by a similar poll carried out a year ago and from 36 per cent three years ago.

The paper quoted Heikki Ervasti, a professor of social policy at the University of Turku, as saying that the survey marked a reversal of a trend of rising tolerance that had begun in the 1980s.

Said Aden, chair of the Finnish Somali League, said the outcome of the survey was hardly surprising during a recession.

Commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat, market research company Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) interviewed 1,000 people.

STT

Finnish Feb consumer prices up 0.1 pct after 8 months of deflation

Statistics Finland said in a statement Monday that the country's consumer prices had risen by 0.1 per cent in February after an eight-month deflationary stint.

"Consumer prices started to rise mainly because the rate of reduction in interest rates slowed down and the prices of single-family houses went up," the agency added.

Prices had fallen by 0.4 per cent year-on-year in January.

STT

David Beckham, a British AC Milan footballer, is to fly to Finland to undergo Achilles tendon surgery, a number of agencies quoted the Italian football club's doctor as saying on Monday.

Beckham injured his left Achilles tendon during a match on Sunday.

Jean-Pierre Meersseman, the club physician, told Sky TV Italy that Sakari Orava, a Finnish orthopaedic surgeon, was to treat Beckham.

Dr Orava told the Finnish News Agency (STT) that the former England captain would probably not make a full recovery before the world cup in June and July.

He added that the plan was to carry out the procedure in Turku on Monday.

STT

The police in the eastern Finnish town of Varkaus said Friday that a local girl aged 12 had confessed to kidnapping a baby and burying the three-month infant in a snowdrift earlier this week.

The police had said earlier on Friday that the main suspect was a 15-year-old.

The police quoted the 12-year-old as saying during questioning that she had snatched the baby on a whim.

The baby survived three hours buried in the snow.

STT

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia on Friday cut its 2009 handset market share estimate by four points to 34 per cent.

"Beginning in 2010, Nokia is revising its definition of the industry mobile device market that it uses to estimate industry volumes," Nokia said in a statement.

"This is due to improved measurement processes and tools that enable Nokia to have better visibility to estimate the number of mobile devices sold by certain new entrants in the global mobile device market."

"These include vendors of legitimate, as well as unlicensed and counterfeit, products with manufacturing facilities primarily centred around certain locations in Asia and other emerging markets."

STT

Two Finnish Centre party MPs said Friday they backed direct government funding of the country's public broadcaster.
Tuomo Puumala, a deputy leader of the Centre party, said in a statement that a lump-sum tax had been the wrong way to go in the first place.

"In that case Nalle Wahlroos as well as somebody living on a basic pension would have paid the same amount," Mr Puumala said, citing the managing director of Sampo Bank.

Two Finnish lawyers said in a report Friday that the country's head of state or prime minister could issue a statement labelling postwar trials of Finnish leaders as a breach of the rule of law.

The 1946 trials, which most Finns prefer to call "war responsibility trials" instead of the less palatable heading used by the allies, saw Risto Ryti, president in 1940-4, six wartime cabinet members and an ambassador jailed for waging war against the Soviet Union in 1941-4, a conflict known as the Continuation war in Finland.

Finland's trade deficit fell to about 55 million euros in January from some 95 million in the year-ago period, the National Bureau of Customs said in a statement Friday.

Exports fell by about four per cent year-on-year with imports dropping by about five per cent from the year-ago period.

STT