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Juankoski will be joined to the city of Kuopio in the beginning of 2017.
The city council of Kuopio accepted the annexation unanimously on Monday.
The city council of Juankoski accepted the annexation last week.
Also the municipality of Tuusniemi carried out an examination regarding a municipal annexation, but its council decided that Tuusniemi will continue as an independent municipality.
Kuopio and Juankoski will decide on executing the next municipal elections separately.
The municipal elections will be held next time in 2016.
After Juankoski has been annexed, the population of Kuopio will be approximately 111,000.
India and Japan prime ministers meet in Tokyo
India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, is meeting his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, in Tokyo to discuss economic and security ties, on his first major foreign visit since winning May's election.
Mr Modi is on a five-day trip to Japan to strengthen economic ties with the third largest economy in the world.
High on the agenda are plans for greater nuclear co-operation.
India is also reportedly hoping for a deal on defence collaboration between the two nations.
Putin: Ukrainian troops shoot civilians
On Monday, Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed Kiev’s leadership for refusing to have direct political talks with the separatists of eastern Ukraine.
The current Kiev leadership doesn’t want to carry out substantive political dialogue with the eastern part of the country, Putin said according to the news agency Itar-Tass.
He also said the pro-Russian separatists, whom Kiev and the West claim to be supported by Russian army, are trying to push Ukrainian troops further from their current positions where, according to Putin, Ukrainian army is shooting civilians.
The aim of the militia fighters is to push away these armed forces and their artillery to not give them the possibility to shoot on residents of the area, Putin said.
The event was organised on Friday and Saturday at Rytmikorjaamo.
The surprising thing was that there were people already in the early evening.
During the two days, there was an expected amount of visitors, promoter Tom Kangas says.
Seinäjoki Hiphop Festival was organised for the third time.
Next year again.
We’re still going to be a hip hop festival, there won’t be any pop, Kangas assures.
A law restricting the acquisition of the substances that are suitable for preparing explosives will come into effect in Finland on Tuesday.
In the future, the private persons wishing to purchase or maintain in their possession substances or compounds that could be used as a so-called parent compound for explosives must file a permission request with the Police Government.
Such substances are hydrogen peroxide, nitromethane, nitric acid, potassium chlorate, potassium perchlorate, sodium chlorate and sodium perchlorate, as well as compounds containing them, if the specified concentration values are exceeded.
For example, the cleansing agents and detergents contain hydrogen peroxide, but their concentrations usually don’t exceed the limits.
Nitromethane is being used for example in drag racing.
However, the parent compounds which have been acquired before the law enters into force, may be held in possession and used until March 2nd, 2016.
George Webster accused of Nairn and Pitlochry hotel rapes
A man is to stand trial accused of raping women at two hotels.
George Webster, 28, faced the charges during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow.
He is alleged to have raped a woman at the Scotland's Hotel in Pitlochry in Perthshire on June 7, 2013.
It is claimed Webster attacked her while she was "unconscious, asleep and incapable of giving consent."
Webster is then charged with raping a second woman at the Golf View Hotel in Nairn in the Highlands on May 4, 2014.
Judge Lady Rae set a trial date for November 17 at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Premier League: Super Raheem shone - Mario left in the shadow - Premier League - Ilta-Sanomat
Only 19-year-old Raheem Sterling showed again why he’s considered as the future hope of the English football.
There was an electric atmosphere at White Hart Lane on Sunday, when Liverpool, reinforced by Mario Balotelli, was hosted by Tottenham.
Super Mario’s initial performance was promising: experienced English journalists saw the 24-year-old Italian working on the field with completely different attitude than he had done in Manchester City times.
Balotelli is still far from his top tune.
The Italian player missed three good scoring opportunities, and of all the sixteen passes he made, only half was for his own team.
The Pool supporters, who already had picked the player as their favourite, are expecting something better in the future.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers positioned Balotelli in the role of Luis Suarez, who had travelled to Barcelona, as team’s second striker together with Daniel Sturridge.
The star of the team was not Balotelli, but the tip of the midfield diamond Raheem Sterling, who poked past Hugo Lloris the important opening goal of the 3-0 win.
Sterling, 19, doesn’t shine with his power only.
The Englishman, who is 20 centimetres shorter than Balotelli, plays between the adversary lines as a duck takes to water.
That quality is not common for a player who dashes around the field at 34 kilometres per hour at his best.
Also Rodgers deserves a big recognition for Sterling’s development.
The Northern Irishman told after the match how Liverpool systematically has developed the North West Londoner who grew up at the roots of Wembley into a player who is more comprehensive than a plain wing racer.
Susanna Mälkki selected as the Chief Conductor of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra - “I’m happy and proud”
The city council of Helsinki has decided to appoint Susanna Mälkki as the next Chief Conductor of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, starting from autumn 2016.
The newspapers, including even Los Angeles Times, have been enquiring which orchestra she will choose next.
Susanna Mälkki says she will start her new task happy and proud.
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra has had a key role in the music life of our country for over hundred years now, for example by premiering a great amount of Sibelius’s music.
The orchestra has been led by the best Finnish conductors and I have previously worked with many members of the orchestra.
I look forward to our collaboration with excitement,” she says.
The administrations of the federations of salaried employees gathered to discuss the pension negotiation issue - Domestic affairs - Regions - News - Karjalainen
A new speed will be sought today for the pension negotiations, through the own meetings of the labour market organisations.
The administrations of the federations of salaried employees SAK, Akava and STTK will discuss the negotiation situation in the morning.
The aim is to continue the actual pension negotiations after that.
The labour market organisations have been fretted for example by the quarrel about binding the pension age to the life expectancy.
The organisations have promised a career solution by the end of autumn, but according to the latest estimation it would be achieved this week.
Pihtipudas.
The women’s volleyball league team Woman Volley from Rovaniemi tripped over the league climber Vampulan Urheilijat at the final of Pihtiputaa rehearsal tournament on Sunday.
Vampula bent the match that had stretched to five sets into a 3-2 win.
Wovo lost the last set 15-11.
The neighbour was one step ahead all the time.
The struggle was good, but in the defence play and pass play Vampula was a bit better, said WoVo’s coach Teemu Mäkikyrö.
WoVo’s sextet was a bit broken as 190 cm tall American centre Jennifer Keddy was out of the game because of a jammed back.
The middle blocker was Sara Niemi.
Even though Karoliina Kyllänen had a thumb injury, she was capable of playing, and together with Johanna Pekkarinen she formed the most powerful combination of WoVo.
Jenna Keskimäki, who started as a setter, had to move aside and let Jana Jaudzeman enter for the last 1.5 sets.
The best of Vampula consisted of the skillful Russian setter and the libero Hillaelina Hämäläinen, who WoVo tried to avoid as much as possible.
WoVo’s preparation for the league will continue next weekend, when Hämeenlinna’s HPK will travel for a rehearsal camp to Rovaniemi.
The teams will meet on Saturday at 6 pm at “Kauppis” for an official rehearsal match.
On Sunday there will be another encounter at the sports academy.
Lidl making a mint in Finland
The turnover of the company’s shops in Finland grew almost 25 percent to nearly 1.2 billion euros during the accounting year which ended in February.
The company released its profit and loss data on Monday.
Lidl has now 142 stores in total in Finland, and is planning to continue the expansion.
The company also told that during the last accounting period it paid taxes in Finland for nearly 14 million euros.
Lidl Suomi belongs to German Lidl Group.
The company has over 4,200 employees in Finland.
Delayed diagnosis and inability to access best treatment mean ovarian cancer kills more in rural areas
Angelina Jolie and her brother James have posted a video tribute to their late mother who died of Ovarian cancer in 2007.
Women living in rural Australia are at higher risk of dying from ovarian cancer than their city counterparts.
Researchers analysed medical records of more than 1100 Australian women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005, finding just 35 per cent lived for five years after diagnosis.
Lead researcher Susan Jordan, of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, said those living in regional and remote areas of the state were about 20 per cent more likely to die during the study than those in urban areas.
SMALL STUDY: New drugs may slow lung, ovarian cancer
The researchers tracked the women's medical journeys across seven years.
Dr Jordan said a woman's age at the time of diagnosis, ovarian cancer type, having existing illnesses and socio-economic status also impacted on survival chances.
Older women and those whose cancer was more advanced at the time of diagnosis had the poorest survival rates.
Those living in regional and remote areas of the state were about 20 per cent more likely to die during the study than those in urban areas.
Although the study was not designed to determine why women living outside the city were more likely to die from ovarian cancer, Dr Jordan suggested delayed diagnosis and inability to access best treatment might be factors.
"This disease is best treated by gynaecological oncology surgeons and they're mostly based in major cities," she said.
Despite improving tele-medicine services to lessen the tyranny of distance, she suggested more fly-in, fly-out services to allow specialists to treat women closer to home and programs to support people in treatment away from their communities could help.
Dr Jordan said regardless of geographical status, the study found long-term survival among women with ovarian cancer was poor, reinforcing the need for better treatment and prevention strategies.
The research, funded by the Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer cancer, will be published today in the Medical Journal of Australia.
In March 2012, at 33 years of age, young Gold Coast mum Elisha Neave was told that she had an aggressive form of ovarian cancer.
The city of Rovaniemi wants to confirm with a local detailed plan the sled parking activity in Friendship Park, located next to Hotel Pohjanhovi.
The city board decided on Monday that a local detailed plan proposal regarding Friendship Park and the area adjacent to it shall be displayed publicly at the service point Osviitta.
Statements regarding the plan proposal will be requested from environment committee and Lapland’s Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centre).
Through the change in the local detailed plan, the city wants to make the continuation of the travel-related snowmobile activity in the area possible.
The aim is to create there a park area which will include the current Friendship Park and the area between it and the river.
According to the proposal, between November 15th and April 30th a maximum of 200 snowmobiles stay be there permanently.
Also fuel points may be positioned in a specified part of the area.
Service transportation will be allowed in the new park area as well.
The city of Rovaniemi has been renting the Friendship Park area during winter time to safari businesses for snowmobile usage.
The rental agreement has been renewed last time in the spring 2014, and the agreement is valid until spring 2018.
Snowmobile parking activity and the plan change have aroused even loud protests.
The dwellers of the neighbouring houses have been both irritated for the sounds and worried for the emissions.
However, the emissions of the area have been checked and the investigations haven’t brought up any findings that would exceed the guideline values.
Also, the renewed equipment causes less emissions than the old one.
One element which supports Friendship Park as a parking area is that if the starting point would be moved further, the safari clients of the hotel should be transported to the starting points by buses, and it has been estimated that the buses would have 15 departures a day.
According to the city, the Friendship Park area and the environment adjacent to it is sufficiently large for the snowmobiles, better than the places that had been suggested as replacing starting points, such as the side of the boat quay on the eastern side of Ounasjoki bridges.
Also, Friendship Park is a good location because in the future the activities can be expanded for example to the area of Ounaspaviljonki.
Establishing the parking activity is part of the urban strategy accepted by the city council of Rovaniemi, and according to the strategy, the goal of the city is for example create good framework to business activity by reserving enough quality areas in places that are favourable logistically and in terms of activities.
Ystävyydenpuisto has been marked as a snowmobiling starting point also in the general plan of the centre, which hasn’t been enforced yet.
Garden centres rue fall in homeowners
The drop, coupled with a particular decline in the number of homeowners aged under 35, could result in garden centres losing out on tens of millions of pounds a year when today's young consumers reach the "core gardening age group," according to the HTA's study, which was reported by the Financial Times.
According to the report, people renting properties spend an average of 55 per cent of the amount that those with their own homes spend on their gardens.
It cited the rise in people living in highly urbanised areas with no gardens, the popularity of paving over front gardens for parking and shrinking garden size as other factors threatening the industry, which is worth an estimated £5 billion in sales each year.
Greater London, where home ownership has fallen from 61 per cent to 43 per cent in six years, has Britain's lowest spend per household on gardening products.
The HTA and Royal Horticultural Society said that renting property or a lack of garden space did not mean people could not grow plants.
Guy Barter, chief horticultural adviser to the RHS, said: "Container gardening, for example, is especially popular with renters who can move their plants when they relocate."
The HTA report identified the period between 1997 and 2005 as the garden retail sector's 'golden age" as a result of increased home ownership and economic prosperity from the late 1980s to mid-1990s.
It also predicted an improved market this year due to better weather following unfavourable conditions in March and April last year.
Turkey Summons US Diplomat Over Spying Report
The Turkish foreign ministry has summoned the most senior U.S. diplomat in the country for clarification of a report about American and British spying in Turkey.
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent said the U.S. charge d'affaires and Turkish officials had discussed the report Monday.
German magazine Der Spiegel and the online magazine The Intercept said that documents provided by former U.S. National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden show that Turkey was a high priority intelligence target for U.S. and British intelligence services.
According to Turkish news wires, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan downplayed the importance of the report, saying that all major countries spied on each other.
An earlier report that Germany's main intelligence agency had also targeted Ankara drew a more angry response from the Turkish government.
Croze, a Cannes award winner, in a new Finnish movie
Canadian actress Marie-Josée Croze, who has acted in several successful movies, has been cast for the lead role in a new Finnish movie.
Croze will act in the film “2 Nights Till Morning”, directed by Mikko Kuparinen, the shooting of which starts this week in Lithuania.
Croze won the award for Best Actress at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival for her role in the film “The Barbarian Invasion”.
She has acted for example in Steven Spielberg’s movie “Munich” and in Julian Schnabel’s film “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”.
The lead actor of “2 Nights Till Morning” is Mikko Nousiainen.
The film will premiere in Finland in September 2015.
Magaluf police chief charged over corruption
The claimants presented proof of extortion by policemen and Calvià Town Hall civil servants at Mallorca's public prosecutor's office on Friday.
The head of Calvià police on the holiday island of Majorca has been arrested following corruption claims filed by businessmen and bar owners in the notorious binge drinking hotspot of Magaluf.
Chief Inspector José Antonio Navarro has been remanded in custody following corruption claims made against him by several businessmen from Punta Ballena, the street where most of Magaluf's bars and nightclubs are located.
According to online daily Mallorca Diario, the claimants presented proof of extortion by policemen and Calvià Town Hall civil servants at the office of Majorca's anti-corruption prosecutor on Friday.
Two other local police officers were arrested by Spanish Civil Guards in connection to the corruption claims and will have to be questioned by a judge alongside Navarro.
Spanish national daily ABC reported the disgruntled nightclub owners as saying favouritism by authorities was having a serious effect on their businesses.
"It's not about making money anymore, it's about surviving," one of the businessmen told the court.
You don't mess with our livelihoods.
We have nothing to lose.
Magaluf made international headlines this summer as a result of a viral YouTube video which showed an 18-year-old British holidaymaker performing fellatio on 24 men during a pub crawl.
Island authorities have since attempted to clamp down on the drunk and disorderly behaviour of Magaluf holiday revellers by minimizing numbers on the notorious alcohol-fuelled bar crawls.
In addition, the Playhouse club where the fellatio incident took place was forced to shut down for a year, while Playhouse and the bar crawl organizers Carnage were jointly fined €55,000 ($73,000).
The tourist resort of Magaluf, mainly popular with young British holidaymakers, has also seen numerous alcohol-fuelled accidents involving the craze known as "balconing," where people jump from one balcony to another or from a balcony into the hotel pool.
Israeli Children Return to School After Gaza War
Thousands of Israeli children in areas near the Gaza Strip went back to school Monday after spending the summer in bomb shelters as rockets and mortars rained on their communities during the 50-day Israel-Hamas war, while schools in Gaza remained shuttered as the territory recovered from the fighting.
The start of school brought a sense of joy and excitement to rocket-scarred communities in southern Israel, but the signs of the fighting remained fresh.
In the southern city of Ashdod, employees at the "Pashosh" kindergarten, which was struck by a rocket, removed shrapnel marks off the walls and slides ahead of the students' arrival.
"We are a little scared but we are excited," said Ronit Bart, a resident of Kibbutz Saad and an English teacher in its school.
A lot of children in our area really need to go back to a routine.
Her 11-year-old daughter, Shani Bart, said it felt a "little bit weird" to suddenly be going back to school.
"There were some difficult times and we didn't leave our houses at all," she said.
President Reuven Rivlin visited the kibbutz, which is located close to the Gaza border, to offer his support.
Until a cease-fire halted the war last week, thousands of residents of border communities like Saad remained indoors or left their homes for safer areas further away from Gaza to escape rocket and mortar fire.
Many residents of Nahal Oz, a community close to the Gaza frontier where a 4-year-old boy was killed by a Palestinian mortar shell, are hesitant about coming back.
The Education Ministry said about a dozen families still had not returned.
Their children have been placed in alternate schools for the time being.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited a school in Sderot, a Gaza border town that has been hard hit by Palestinian fire.
He urged the children to study hard and said "we will make sure to provide you with knowledge and provide you with security."
Israel and Hamas agreed to an open-ended truce last Tuesday.
The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the fighting but left key issues unresolved, such as Hamas' demand for the lifting of an Israel-Egyptian blockade of Gaza and the reopening of Gaza's air and seaports.
Israel wants Hamas to disarm and the return of bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in the war.
A new round of indirect talks is expected to begin later this month in Egypt.
The war killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, three-quarters of whom were civilians and at least 494 children, according to Palestinian and U.N. estimates.
Israel disputes the figures and estimates that at least half of those killed were militants, though it has not provided firm evidence to back its claims.
On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians, including a Thai worker, were killed.
Hamas and other Gaza militants fired 4,591 rockets and mortars at Israeli cities during the fighting, mostly in the south.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, carried out more than 5,000 airstrikes and other attacks.
The Israeli attacks damaged or destroyed thousands of homes in Gaza, and an estimated 250,000 people took refuge in more than 100 U.N. schools turned into makeshift shelters.
With tens of thousands of people still in the shelters and fighting still raging, education officials delayed the start of the school year last week.
"I hope the school will open soon to complete our education, just like the world's children and Jewish children," said Mohammad Amara, a 13-year-old boy staying in a Gaza City school.
Housing prices have posted their strongest winter gain in seven years, according to a widely-watched gauge.
The RP Data CoreLogic Hedonic home value index of Australian capital city dwelling prices rose by 1.1 per cent in August, RP data said on Monday.
The rise brought the total gain over the June, July and August to 4.2 per cent, the biggest rise over the winter months since 2007.
Annual growth in prices came in at 10.9 per cent, more than double the gain of the 12 months to August 2013, but the gains were not evenly spread across the country.
RP Data research director Tim Lawless said Sydney and Melbourne are driving a two tier market.
The RP Data figures show Sydney home prices rose by 16.1 per cent in the past year, while Melbourne's were up by 11.7 per cent.
The next strongest markets were Adelaide, Brisbane and Darwin, with price rises averaging between five and six per cent.
At the other end of the scale was Canberra, hit by government spending cutbacks, where prices rose by only 1.4 per cent through the year.
Mr Lawless said that now spring has begun there would be a rise in listings of properties for sale over the coming few months, which would be a "real test" for the market.
"Considering the ongoing high rate of auction clearance rates, a generally rapid rate of sale and the ongoing low interest rate environment, it's likely that dwelling values will rise even further over the next three months," he said.
The new Gösta Museum has attracted a record audience to Mänttä
The new museum and visual arts have attracted a record audience to Mänttä this summer.
By the end of August, over 70,000 visitors have visited the Serlachius Art Museum.
The new Gösta Museum was opened in June, and it has displayed for example classic pop art works from Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
At the same time, Mänttä Art Festival told on Monday that it had achieved a record amount in visitors, as the event “Hetkinen” had been visited by 14,500 persons this summer.
No-one is accustomed to figures like this.
People just have been flooding in,” says Pauli Sivonen, the director of the Serlachius Museum.
Sivonen estimates that the total amount of visitors in the Serlachius Museums will be close to one hundred thousand this year.
In previous years there have been approximately 40,000 visitors.
There are approximately 11,000 inhabitants in Mänttä-Vilppula, which is located half way between Tampere and Jyväskylä.
Museum director Sivonen reminds that the new museums always are phenomena when they open.
“The challenge is to make the phenomenon last,” he says.
In fact, Mänttä wishes the art season to continue long after the summer.
New exhibitions will be opened in the art museum in autumn.
The police are investigating four thefts committed in the last few days in Kajaani.
On Sunday evening, in Pohjolankatu, a commercial property was broken into by breaking a window.
The burglar had obtained a small amount of money from the cash register.
Between Thursday and Monday, in Syväojankatu, some fuel was stolen from the tank of a truck.
And between Sunday and Monday, at the Petäisenniska marina, a boat with an outboard motor attached to it had been taken.
The boat was a Kalapalta rowboat, and it was light coloured outside and yellowish on the inside.
On the inner side of the bow there was the text “OIVA”.
The police have already managed to catch couple of suspects.
On Sunday evening, in Tikkapurontie, a commercial property was broken into.
The police dog found a track, and a man from Paltamo in his twenties was found in the forest, hiding under a spruce.
On Monday, the police caught in Paltamo another man, who is also suspected to be guilty of the same burglary.
Missing amphetamine brought a murder charge in Kajaani
The disappearing of an amphetamine lot of less than ten grams brought a murder charge to a man, born in 1977, from Kajaani.
According to the prosecutor, the man had gone to the apartment with his live-in partner and another man, and shot with a shotgun the 34-year-old woman from Kajaani, who was the tenant of the apartment and whom he suspected of taking the drugs.
The defendant denied the charge, and claimed that the shooter would have been the other man who had been with him.
The police learned about the case when a police patrol stopped a private car, in which a group of people was burning the clothes used in the killing.
In addition to the burnt garment shreds, a sawn-off shotgun was found in the car.
The district court of Kainuu will give its sentence for the case later.
August was unusually warm in several places.
According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute a such warm August repeats itself once in ten years in average.
It emerges from the statistics of Finnish Meteorological Institute that the average temperature was above the normal in the whole country.
In most parts of the country the offset ranged from one to two degrees.
Due to the hot weather in July and August, the summer was warmer than normal.
Summer’s highest temperature was measured during the first week of summer in Pori, where the meter displayed 32.8 degrees.
Lenny Henry: My father never hugged me.
Never said "I love you"
Henry was one of seven children born to Jamaican immigrants in Dudley in the Midlands in 1958.
His father, who died when Henry was 19, worked in a factory and their relationship was limited.
Henry is rehearsing a comedy, Rudy's Rare Records, which is based in part on an imaginary conversation with his father and has grown out of the Radio 4 series.
The soundtrack is a mix of reggae and rap and the tunes are upbeat.
But Henry has had to work through some difficult memories of childhood.
There was "a lot" of therapy after his mother died and Henry is reflective about his relationship with his father.
He was very unknowable.
You never saw his face, you just heard his voice: 'Stop the noise.
Leave your sister alone.
Move!
I want to watch the cricket.
My older brothers Seymour and Hilton - who were grown-up when I was a kid - went to the pub with him and talked about things like the shape of the beer glass, the beauty of the stroke in cricket.
I never had a conversation with him like that.
He was this unsmiling bloke in the corner, reading the paper for a lot of my life.
Recently Henry opened a foundry in Dudley and, although conditions were better than in his father's day, he got a snapshot of what life must have been like for him.
It's a bit brighter now but they're dark, smoky, Stygian labyrinthine depths with bursts of flame and smoke and lots of soot.
My dad used to get in the bath and just lie there and you'd hear him slowly start to sing to himself because he would wash the foundry off him.
When I walked round it, I realised that he had done that for years and years to put food on the table, and my estimation of him went up.
None the less, Henry emerged from a childhood stripped of parental affection.
My dad never did hugging, never said, 'I love you'.
It wasn't until my mum was poorly near the end of her life that we started saying 'I love you, I love you, I love you.
Having a daughter of his own, Billie, with Dawn French, enabled him to share the love he missed as a child.
Could you stop with the "I love you"?
Just stop hugging me!
Dad, I'm 22!
With Dawn French.
Why wouldn't I be friends with her?
She's a great mum
He's still very good friends with French, to whom he was married for 25 years.
Dawn's a good person.
Why wouldn't I be friends with Dawn?
She's a great mum.
Henry's own mother was diabetic.
It was one of the things that killed her.
So when I became very, very overweight and started getting diabetic symptoms, my doctor said, 'You've got to be radical.
So I went on a big fitness thing, and I also had to go on a drastic diet to reverse the symptoms.
It's very hard.
And it's tedious.
Nobody likes eating carrots.
Henry's change in career trajectory is, perhaps, reflected in his distinguished, close-cropped beard.
Since he won critical acclaim for his Othello, he has become engrossed in the theatre.
Comedy of Errors followed, as did Fences by August Wilson.
It's a different experience from the sitcoms and comedies that have upholstered his busy working life.
He started out when he was just 16 and working at a factory.
A DJ spotted him on stage doing impressions and wrote to New Faces about him.
His TV career was launched in the mid-Seventies: "For quite a long time I was the only black impressionist/comedian on telly."
He learnt on the job.
Not only did I have to grow up in the public eye, I had to learn how to be an efficient joke-delivering mechanism between 1975 and 1985, whilst being a star, being on television and it was really difficult.
Lenny on New Faces in 1975
Because his manager owned the stage rights to The Black and White Minstrel Show, a light entertainment programme in which people "blacked up," Henry found himself performing his comedy in it for five years.
My family were very uncomfortable about it.
I sort of wish it had never happened, but I don't regret that I did it.
Although it was a weird, reprehensible position to be in, I was working in huge venues and learning how to work a crowd.
But what was an "award-winning light entertainment staple of British television for years and years" was also a "grotesque parody of black people."
Introducing characters who both lampooned and celebrated black British culture, Henry worked on the alternative comedy circuit in the Eighties.
The first series of The Lenny Henry Show aired in 1984, and in the Nineties he was known as, among other things, chef Gareth Blacklock in the comedy series Chef!.
Advertisements, documentaries, TV series and parts in films consumed his next decade but after his 2008 BBC series, LennyHenry.tv, he thought: "What are you going to do next, Len, because it all feels a bit like you're marking time or you're slightly going sideways."
What came next was a Radio 4 documentary series called What's So Great About...?
The first was on Shakespeare.
I had a real allergy to Shakespeare.
I wasn't really taught it at school properly and thought it was very much the reserve of middle-class white people with tights and a cabbage down the front.
So I was very frightened of it.
Everybody we interviewed on that show, Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn, Adrian Lester, Judi Dench, said, 'You should try it.
Don't slag it off if you don't know what you're talking about.
Get some of the words in your mouth and then you'll understand why we all love Shakespeare so much.
Henry delivered 20 lines of Othello's last speech for the documentary and he was hooked.
It gave me the feeling that I could do it.
It's almost like I had my head put on straight for me.
'This is what it's about, it's a serious thing, take it seriously, learn your lines, do some research.
So the rehearsal process was brutal and I was reading that play for months and months before we did it.
And it was a success.
They seemed to expect a car crash and it didn't quite happen.
Soon he was starring in Comedy of Errors.
Suddenly I'm at the National Theatre and I just couldn't quite believe it.
There was one moment where I thought, 'Oh, you've changed.""
There was a technical fault and Henry instinctively felt that it was his job to keep the audience entertained.
"A little voice inside me said, 'You're going to have to do 10 minutes while they fix the computer.""
Instead, the stage manager announced the performance would resume as soon as the problem was resolved.
I walked off the stage and something in me went, "Oh, thank God".
It's not my responsibility.
I can let somebody else sort it out.
'You're in a play, stay in character.""
Henry appearing in Fences at the Duchess Theatre
Learning his lines for Fences was challenging.
Panic's quite good, it stiffens the sinews.
That was well received too, so it's like a big sign from the gods, saying, 'This is what you should be doing.""
He says this, of course, in a BOOMING voice.
So I'm sticking with it.
I'm really loving it.
I love being in a rehearsal room.
Henry still has a comedian's brain, though - throughout, our conversation is broken with flashes of his humour as he slips in and out of impressions.
I'm just choosing not to do stand-up because that thing of getting instant gratification from a room full of strangers I guess is kind of dangerous.
If you're constantly seeking that it can lead to a brick wall.
I do Live at the Apollo sometimes when I want to, but generally it doesn't float my boat like it used to.
I ask whether he'll ever do another stand-up tour.
The joy of sitting in a room with a director who is helping to shape a beginning, middle and end of a journey - I don't think I'll ever want to give that up.
So this is his new incarnation?
I think so.
I like being an actor.
It's good fun.
You're always telling a story and that's a great place to be.
I love stories.
People love stories.
Kenya registers civil servants to target 'ghost workers'
Kenya has started biometrically registering all civil servants in an attempt to remove "ghost workers" from the government's payroll.
Employees who failed to register over the next two weeks would no longer be paid, a government statement said.
The government suspects that thousands of people continue to receive salaries after leaving the civil service.
President Uhuru Kenyatta pledged to curb corruption in the public service after taking office in 2013.
An audit earlier this year found that at least $1m (£700,000) a month was lost in payments to "ghost workers" and other financial malpractice.
The government suspects that salaries continue to be deposited into bank accounts, even after a person dies or leaves the public service, reports the BBC's Wanyama Chebusiri from the capital, Nairobi.
All public servants are required to present themselves over the next two weeks at identification centres to ensure their data is captured through the biometric registration exercise, a government statement said.
Anyone who failed to do so without a valid excuse would be eliminated from the payroll, it said.
"This exercise will contribute significantly to the rationalization of the public service by determining the actual numbers of public servants and will also be used to cleanse the payroll at both levels of government- hence bring a stop to the issue of 'ghost workers'," said Anne Waiguru, the cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Devolution and Planning.
The profit-and-loss of the 2015 accounting period of Seinäjoki may remain in deficit by 25.5 million euros, unless the city adapts its operations and expenditure development in the tight economic situation.
Based on the current budgetary provisioning, the annual margin is going to remain in deficit by 9.4 million.
The presented possible reinforcement measures included settling for less in the scope and the quality of the services, purchasing the services, selling of the property, subsidies, and increasing the profit from taxes and fees.
The goal of 10 million reduction from the investments has been reached by 8.5 millions.
There is no relief in sight for the municipalities’ situation.
The new duties imposed to the municipalities, inadequate growth of the tax income, increasing unemployment and the five percent cut in state subsidies will weaken the prospects even more.
The purpose of the economy seminar is to search for new means in order to balance the economy.
The city board is unanimous that savings must be achieved.
The ship must be steered towards a goal which is in conformity with the strategy, notes Kimmo Heinonen, chairman of the city board.
Furthermore, the city board returned the presented proposals to be prepared by the board of directors.
The city board proposals are the base of the budgetary preparation at the council’s economy seminar at Frami on Monday, September 8th.
After the council seminar, the budget proposal shall proceed, through a committee discussion, to the city board and then to city council.
Tens of Turkish Policemen Arrested over 'Plotting' against Gov't
A total of 33 police officers have been detained in Turkey on suspicions of 'plotting against the government', local media outlets say.
Police officials have not immediately commented.
Among the detainees were 14 high-ranking officers, according to Hurriyet Daily News.
Some of them were involved in last December's corruption probes targeting government officials, including four government ministers.
In July a number of Turkish policemen were arrested for allegedly having set up an organized criminal gang and having tapped phone number.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who was Prime Minister back then) described their actions as part of activity conducted by Islamist cleric Fethullah Gullen against him and others in power.
Not all children back to school in Ukraine
Schools across most of Ukraine reopened their doors on Monday (September 1), after the summer holidays.
The day is traditionally a big one for families, and like thousands of other Ukrainian parents, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk took his daughter to school.
While there, he told waiting journalists that not all schools had reopened, but that he was committed to defending the country for future generations:
The first of September ceremony was not held in every school.
There is not a peaceful sky over every part of Ukraine.
We must fight for a peaceful sky.
The whole of Ukraine, a huge joint Ukrainian's people's front, must fight for a peaceful sky.
Aleksan Pastukhov, the head teacher of Slaviansk School, attended by Yatsenyuk's daughter, spoke in Russian.
We hope that peace will finally be established here and that children will receive knowledge that will be useful in their future lives.
The first day back at school is traditionally celebrated by children wearing embroidered shirts, carrying balloons and giving flowers to their teachers.
Texas' Perry Says Disparaging Tweet Unauthorized
A tweet from Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry's verified account on Sunday night included a disparaging image of the Democratic district attorney who is at the center of his criminal indictment on charges of abuse of power.
The tweet was later deleted, followed by another from Perry's account that disavowed the post.
A tweet just went out from my account that was unauthorized.
"I do not condone the tweet and I have taken it down," the later post said.
Perry aides did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Although the tweets were sent from Perry's verified account, it was unclear who does the actual posting for the feed.
The earlier tweet posted an unflattering mock image of Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who was convicted of drunken driving in April 2013.
Perry vetoed funds to her office when she refused to resign, which led to a grand jury in Austin this month indicting Perry - who is a potential 2016 presidential candidate.
The caption on the tweet reads: "I don't always drive drunk at 3x the legal blood alcohol limit ... but when I do, I indict Gov. Perry for calling me out about it."
I am the most drunk Democrat in Texas.
Lehmberg's office did not lead the grand jury investigation against Perry.
It was handled by Michael McCrum, a San Antonio-based special prosecutor who was assigned by a Republican judge.
Perry has pleaded not guilty and called the charges a political ploy.
His high-powered legal team has asked the judge overseeing the case to dismiss the indictment, claiming that the law being used to prosecute the longest-serving governor in Texas history is unconstitutionally vague.
Perry cut off $7.5 million in state funds to the state's Public Integrity Unit - which is based in Travis County and prosecutes public corruption in Texas - when Lehmberg refused to resign.
That veto drew a formal complaint from a left-leaning watchdog group.
Perry's verified account is updated frequently - and sometimes famously.
After finishing in fifth place in the Iowa caucuses during his 2012 presidential campaign, Perry addressed speculation that he might call it quits with a tweet of a photo of himself jogging near a lake, and the words, "Here we come South Carolina!"
Berkeley says housing market back to "normal"
One of London's most prominent property developers has warned that the housing market in southeast England has "reverted" to normal levels of activity.
Homes in the capital have been the subject of red-hot demand and surging prices, with widespread fears of a credit bubble prompting the Bank of England to impose limits on mortgage borrowing in June.
Tony Pidgley, founder and chairman of upmarket housebuilder Berkeley, on Monday said: "Since the start of the current financial year, the market has reverted to normal transaction levels from the high point in 2013," adding that this offered a "stable operating environment."
London's property market fared well during the downturn as foreign buyers piled into the capital.
Prices in the city have leapt 18.5 per cent in the past year alone, according to Land Registry data, far outstripping the 6.7 per cent average for England and Wales as a whole.
Average selling prices on Berkeley's private, affordable and student schemes have risen by about a fifth in the past year, reaching £423,000 at the end of April.
However, a strengthening pound has in recent months made London property less attractive to foreign buyers - some of whom have also been deterred by the introduction of new property taxes and political rhetoric around a potential "mansion tax" ahead of the general election next May.
London estate agent Foxtons last week warned that April's Mortgage Market Review, which introduced tougher lending rules, would also spark lower rates of market growth in both property sales transactions and prices during the second half of the year.
Fresh data from the Bank of England on Monday showed a drop in the number of mortgage approvals in July, further suggesting the housing market is cooling.
Hamptons International, another estate agent, has cut its 2015 forecast for London property price growth to 3 per cent on the basis that house price sentiment is already starting to weaken.
Transaction volumes have meanwhile dropped by a quarter year on year in London's most expensive postcodes, such as Chelsea, Mayfair and Kensington, according to agent WA Ellis.
Still, appetite for homes in the capital has been a boon to Berkeley, pushing up cash due on forward sales to more than £2.2bn.
Mr Pidgley added: "Demand for the right product with good design in the best locations has remained resilient and, reflecting this, forward sales have been maintained."
In June the company reported it had sold 3,742 new homes in the year to the end of April - almost a third more than the pre-crisis peak in 2007.
Annual pre-tax profits rose 40 per cent year on year to £380m, on revenues up 18 per cent to £1.6bn.
Speaking on Monday ahead of the company's annual meeting, Mr Pidgley said Berkeley's earnings for the year were anticipated to be in line with current market expectations.
Analyst consensus is for full-year pre-tax profit of £450m.
Berkeley shares were flat at £23.96 in afternoon London trading.
Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence leaked online by hacker
Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the 85th annual Academy Awards.
Nude photos of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence have been leaked online by a hacker who claimed to have a "master list" of images of 100 other starlets.
A representative for the star of "The Hunger Games" confirmed the photos of Lawrence were real and blasted the hacker for "a flagrant violation of privacy."
The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.
The photos, which originally were posted on the image-sharing site 4chan, were purportedly obtained through a weakness in Apple's iCloud online storage system, and a purported "master list" of the hacking victims includes the names of dozens of female stars, including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Mary-Kate Olsen, according to BuzzFeed.
It is not clear how many of the images are authentic, though "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" star Winstead took to Twitter to denounce the hack as well.
"To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves," Winstead tweeted.
However, Victoria Justice, of the Nickolodeon series "iCarly" and "Victorious," denied that the photos were of her, tweeting, "These so called nudes of me are FAKE people.
Let me nip this in the bud right now. *pun intended*.
Buzzfeed reported late Sunday that a spokesman for pop star Ariana Grande denied that purported photos of her were authentic.
Exclusive extract from Howard Jacobson's acclaimed new novel about love and the letter 'J'
They dissolved, that was the best way of putting it, they gradually came apart like a cardboard box that had been left out in the rain.
Just occasionally a woman told him he was too serious, hard-going, intense, detached, and maybe a bit prickly.
And then shook his hand.
He recognised prickly.
He was spiny, like a hedgehog, yes.
The latest casualty of this spininess was an embryo-affair that had given greater promise than usual of relieving the lonely tedium of his life, and perhaps even bringing him some content.
Ailinn Solomons was a wild-haired, quiveringly delicate beauty with a fluttering heart from a northern island village more remote and rugged even than Port Reuben.
She had come south with an older companion whom Kevern took to be her aunt, the latter having been left a property in a wet but paradisal valley called, felicitously, Paradise Valley.
No one had lived in the house for several years.
The pipes leaked, there were spiders still in the baths, slugs had signed their signatures on all the windows, believing the place belonged to them, the garden was overgrown with weeds that resembled giant cabbages.
It was like a children's story cottage, threatening and enchanting at the same time, the garden full of secrets.
Author's view: Howard Jacobson, whose novel "J" is longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014.
The shortlist is announced next week
Kevern had been sitting holding hands with Ailinn on broken deckchairs in the long grass, enjoying an unexpectedly warm spring afternoon, the pair of them absent-mindedly plugged into the utility console that supplied the country with soothing music and calming news, when the sight of her crossed brown legs reminded him of an old song by a long-forgotten black entertainer his father had liked listening to with the cottage blinds down.
Your feet's too big.
On account of their innate aggressiveness, songs of that sort were no longer played on the console.
Not banned - nothing was banned exactly - simply not played.
Encouraged to fall into desuetude, like the word desuetude.
Popular taste did what edict and proscription could never have done, and just as, when it came to books, the people chose rags-to-riches memoirs, cookbooks and romances, so, when it came to music, they chose ballads.
Carried away by the day, Kevern began to play at an imaginary piano and in a rudely comic voice serenade Ailinn's big feet.
Ailinn didn't understand.
"It was a popular song by a jazz pianist called Fats Waller," he told her, automatically putting two fingers to his lips.
This his father had always done to stifle the letter j before it left his lips.
It had begun as a game between them when he was small.
His father had played it with his own father, he'd told him.
Begin a word with a j without remembering to put two fingers across your mouth and it cost you a penny.
It had not been much fun then and it was not much fun now.
He knew it was expected of him, that was all.
He had to explain what jazz was.
Ailinn had never heard any.
Jazz, too, without exactly being proscribed, wasn't played.
Improvisation had fallen out of fashion.
There was room for only one "if" in life.
People wanted to be sure, when a tune began, exactly where it was going to end.
Wit, the same.
Its unpredictability unsettled people's nerves.
And jazz was wit expressed musically.
Though he reached the age of 10 without having heard of Sammy Davis Junior, Kevern knew of jazz from his father's semi-secret collection of old CDs.
But at least he didn't have to tell Ailinn that Fats Waller was black.
Given her age, she was unlikely to have remembered a time when popular singers weren't black.
Again, no laws or duress.
A compliant society meant that every section of it consented with gratitude - the gratitude of the providentially spared - to the principle of group aptitude.
People of Afro-Caribbean origin were suited by temperament and physique to entertainment and athletics, and so they sang and sprinted.
People originally from the Indian subcontinent, electronically gifted as though by nature, undertook to ensure no family was without a functioning utility phone.
What was left of the Polish community plumbed; what was left of the Greek smashed plates.
Those from the Gulf States and the Levant whose grandparents hadn't quickly left the country while WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED was happening - fearing they'd be accused of having stoked the flames, fearing, indeed, that the flames would consume them next - opened labneh and shisha-pipe restaurants, kept their heads down, and grew depressed with idleness.
To each according to his gifts.
Having heard only ballads, Ailinn was hard pressed to understand how the insulting words Kevern had just sung to her could ever have been set to music.
Music was the expression of love.
"They're not really insulting," Kevern said.
Except maybe to people whose feet are too big.
My father never insulted anybody, but he delighted in this song.
He was saying too much, but the garden's neglect gave the illusion of safety.
No word could get beyond the soundproofing of the giant cabbage-like leaves.
Ailinn still didn't comprehend.
Why would your father have loved something like that?
He wanted to say it was a joke, but was reluctant, in her company, to put two fingers to his lips again.
She already thought he was strange.
"It struck him as funny," he said instead.
She shook her head in disbelief, blotting out Kevern's vision.
Nothing to see in the whole wide world but her haystack of crow-black hair.
Nothing else he wanted to see.
"If you say so," she said, unconvinced.
But that still doesn't explain why you're singing it to me.
She seemed in genuine distress.
Are my feet too big?
He looked again.
Your feet specifically, no.
Your ankles, maybe, a bit...
And you say you hate me because my ankles are too thick?
Hate you?
Of course I don't hate you.
That's just the silly song.
He could have said, "I love you," but it was too soon for that.
"Your thick ankles are the very reason I'm attracted to you," he tried instead.
I'm perverse that way.
It came out wrong.
He had meant it to be funny.
Meaning to be funny often landed him in a mess because, like his father, he lacked the reassuring charm necessary to temper the cruelty that lurked in jokes.
Maybe his father intended to be cruel.
Maybe he, Kevern, did.
Despite his kind eyes.
Ailinn Solomons flushed and rose from her deckchair, knocking over the console and spilling the wine they'd been drinking.
Elderflower wine, so drink wasn't his excuse.
In her agitation she seemed to tremble, like the fronds of a palm tree in a storm.
"And your thick head's the very reason I'm perversely attracted to you," she said...
Except that I'm not.
He felt sorry for her, both on account of the unnecessary unkindness of his words and the fear that showed in her eyes in the moment of her standing up to him.
Did she think he'd strike her?
She hadn't spoken to him about life on the chill northern archipelago where she had grown up, but he didn't doubt it was in all essentials similar to here.
The same vast and icy ocean crashed in on them both.
The same befuddled men, even more thin-skinned and peevish in the aftermath of WHAT HAPPENED than their smuggler and wrecker ancestors had been, roamed angrily from pub to pub, ready to raise a hand to any woman who dared to refuse or twit them.
Thick head?
They'd show her a thick fist, if she wasn't careful!
Snog her first - the snog having become the most common expression of erotic irritation between men and women; an antidote to the bland ballads of love the console pumped out - snog her first and cuff her later.
An unnecessary refinement in Kevern's view, since a snog was itself an act of thuggery.
Ailinn Solomons made a sign with her body for him to leave.
He heaved himself out of the deckchair like an old man.
She felt leaden herself, but the weight of his grief surprised her.
This wasn't the end of the world.
They barely knew each other.
She watched him go - as at an upstairs window her companion watched him go - a man made heavy by what he'd brought on himself.
Adam leaving the garden, she thought.
She felt a pang for him and for men in general, no matter that some had raised their hands to her.
A man turned from her, his back bent, ashamed, defeated, all the fight in him leaked away - why was that a sight she felt she knew so well, when she couldn't recall a single instance, before today, of having seen it?
Alone again, Ailinn Solomons looked at her feet.
A score or so years before the events related above, Esme Nussbaum, an intelligent and enthusiastic 32-year-old researcher employed by Ofnow, the non-statutory monitor of the Public Mood, prepared a short paper on the continuance of low- and medium-level violence in those very areas of the country where its reduction, if not its cessation, was most to have been expected, given the money and energy expended on uprooting it.
"Much has been done, and much continues to be done," she wrote, "to soothe the native aggressiveness of a people who have fought a thousand wars and won most of them, especially in those twisted knarls and narrow crevices of the country where, though the spires of churches soar above the hedgerows, the sweeter breath of human kindness has, historically, been rarely felt.
But some qualities are proving to be ineradicable.
The higher the spire, it would seem, the lower the passions it goes on engendering.
The populace weeps to sentimental ballads, gorges on stories of adversity overcome, and professes to believe ardently in the virtues of marriage and family life, but not only does the old brutishness retain a pertinacious hold equally on rural communities as on our urban conurbations, evidence suggests the emergence of a new and vicious quarrelsomeness in the home, in the workplace, on our roads and even on our playing fields.
"You have an unfortunate tendency to overwrite," her supervisor said when he had read the whole report.
May I suggest you read fewer novels.
Esme Nussbaum lowered her head.
I must also enquire: are you an atheist?
"I believe I am not obliged to say," Esme Nussbaum replied.
Are you a lesbian?
Again Esme protested her right to privacy and silence.
A feminist?
Silence once more.
"I don't ask," Luther Rabinowitz said at last, "because I have an objection to atheism, lesbianism or feminism.
This is a prejudice-free workplace.
We are the servants of a prejudice-free society.
But certain kinds of hypersensitivity, while entirely acceptable and laudable in themselves, may sometimes distort findings such as you have presented to me.
You are obviously yourself prejudiced against the church; and those things you call "vicious" and "brutish," others could as soon interpret as expressions of natural vigour and vitality.
To still be harping on about WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED, as though it happened, if it happened, yesterday, is to sap the country of its essential life force.
Esme Nussbaum looked around her while Rabinowitz spoke.
Behind his head a flamingo pink LED scroll repeated the advice Ofnow had been dispensing to the country for the last quarter of a century or more.
Smile at your neighbour, cherish your spouse, listen to ballads, go to musicals, use your telephone, converse, explain, listen, agree, apologise.
Talk is better than silence, the sung word is better than the written, but nothing is better than love.
"I fully understand the points you are making," Esme Nussbaum replied in a quiet voice, once she was certain her supervisor had finished speaking, "and I am saying no more than that we are not healed as effectively as we delude ourselves we are.
My concern is that, if we are not forewarned, we will find ourselves repeating the mistakes that led to WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED, in the first place.
Only this time it will not be on others that we vent our anger and mistrust.
Luther Rabinowitz made a pyramid of his fingers.
This was to suggest infinite patience.
"You go too far," he said, "in describing as "mistakes" actions which our grandparents might or might not have taken.
You go too far, as well, in speaking of them venting their "anger" and "mistrust" on "others."
It should not be necessary to remind someone in your position that in understanding the past, as in protecting the present, we do not speak of "us" and "them."
There was no "we" and there were no "others."
It was a time of disorder, that is all we know of it.
"In which, if we are honest with ourselves," Esme dared to interject, "no section of society can claim to have acquitted itself well.
I make no accusations.
Whether it was done ill, or done well, what was done was done.
Then was then.
No more needs to be said - on this we agree.
And just as there is no blame to be apportioned, so there are no amends to be made, were amends appropriate and were there any way of making them.
But what is the past for if not to learn from it -
The past exists in order that we forget it.
If I may add one word to that -
Luther Rabinowitz collapsed his pyramid.
"I will consider your report," he said, dismissing her.
The next day, turning up for work as usual, she was knocked down by a motorcyclist who had mounted the pavement in what passers-by described as a "vicious rage."
Coincidences happen.
Lesotho military says no coup planned; PM stays in South Africa
Lesotho military officials denied staging a coup to overthrow the government, saying they were acting against police suspected of trying to arm political fanatics.
Prime Minister Thomas Thabane fled the country, saying the country's military had surrounded his official home and seized government buildings in the capital of Maseru.
The premier took his family to neighboring South Africa after saying he received an assassination threat.
Military spokesman Major Ntlele Ntoi said there was not, in fact, a coup, but that the military was responding to a threat from "political fanatics" whom police were attempting to arm.
"What happened this morning was that the command of the Lesotho Defense Force was acting after receiving several intelligence reports that amongst the police service, there are some elements who are actually planning to arm some of the political, party political youth fanatics who were on the verge of wreaking havoc," he told Voice of America.
South African government spokesman Clayson Monyela said the military's actions had the appearance at an overthrow.
"Although no one has claimed to have taken over government through the use of force, by all accounts the activities of the Lesotho defense force thus far bear the hallmarks of a coup d'etat," he said.
Lesotho military officials said soldiers returned to their barracks Sunday and there was calm in the capital.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing in control of the government in Thabane's absence.
Thabane said he believes he is being targeted due to his attempt to fight corruption in the country.
Tensions have been high in Lesotho since June when Thabane suspended parliament sessions due to feuding in his unity government.
He said his actions have not undermined the government, despite allegations otherwise.
Kauppalehti: Microsoft will set up a data centre in Uusimaa
Information technology company Microsoft has set up a big data centre in Uusimaa, but the company refuses to specify the location.
In the note sent to the media Microsoft says that due to security reasons it doesn’t tell the location of all its data centres.
According to Microsoft, the centre is already fully equipped and connected to the network.
It’s an investment worth of millions of dollars for Microsoft.
In public, the previous bets for the location of the centre have been Oulu or Kajaani.
Microsoft will close its Oulu site completely, which will leave approximately 500 persons unemployed.
Altogether, Microsoft has communicated that at most it will terminate 1,050 jobs in Finland.
Camilla Lindfors, director of communication at Microsoft, tells STT that the company will not comment on how many persons the new data centre shall employ.
Kauppalehti told about the setting up the data centre in Uusimaa on Monday.
Man accused of knocking down girl on Fife pelican crossing
A 78-year-old man is to stand trial accused of running over a three-year-old girl on a pelican crossing in Fife.
Gordon Stewart is alleged to have knocked down the girl on a crossing in Pittenween in East Neuk.
Prosecutors said Mr Stewart drove his Audi Q3 without due care and attention and knocked the girl down to her injury.
Stewart, 78, from Anstruther, denied the charge at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Charles Macnair QC set a trial date in January.
4 tips for better underwater photos and video
If you're interested in shooting photos or video underwater, you have a variety of equipment choices.
The cheapest option is a waterproof point-and-shoot, such as the Nikon Coolpix AW120 or an action cam, such as the GoPro Hero3+ Silver Edition, which both go for around $300.
I shot these photos at a family party using several cameras, all priced under $350.
No matter what gear you use, a few rules apply for getting the best results.
Double-check your gear.
Even if you have a waterproof camera, make sure that the camera's battery and other compartments are tightly closed.
Also, set your camera to match the type of photos or video you'll be shooting.
Some cameras and camcorders have scene or shooting modes that will optimize the exposure for dim undersea settings.
And before you jump in, know how deep your equipment can go.
Some cameras are rated to only 5 feet, others to 50 or 60 feet.
Check out our buying guide and Ratings for digital cameras for both conventional and waterproof models.
Take multiple shots - because many of them won't work.
Point-and-shoot cameras have LCDs to help you compose photos, while action cams generally don't.
Even if you have an LCD, it's going to hard to see it underwater, and composing your shot will be a hit-or-miss process.
So shoot multiples.
Also, if your camera has a bracket mode, which shoots a burst of shots at slightly different exposure settings, take advantage of it.
Stay near the surface.
Light falls off dramatically the deeper you dive underwater.
If possible, stay close to the surface when you shoot in a pool, a lake or the ocean.
This will also allow you to capture more color in your photos; the deeper you go, the less color you'll see.
Get close to your subjects.
This is great advice for shooting on dry land, but it is even more important underwater because of the dim lighting conditions.
It's particularly important if you're shooting with an action cam: These devices often have a fixed, wide angle lens, which means you have to get closer to your subjects if you want them to fill the picture frame.
China refuses to give Hong Kong right to choose leaders; protesters vow vengeance
China's parliament decided Sunday against letting Hong Kong voters nominate candidates for the 2017 election, despite growing agitation for democratic reform.
The move is likely to spark long-promised protests in Hong Kong's business district, as activists began planning and mobilizing within hours of the announcement.
The decision by China's National People's Congress essentially allows Communist leaders to weed out any candidates not loyal to Beijing.
"It's not unexpected, but it is still infuriating," said legislator Emily Lau, chairwoman of the Democratic Party.
This is not what Beijing promised.
They've lied to the people of Hong Kong.
And it's clear we are dealing with an authoritarian regime.
Defending China's ruling, Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said allowing public nominations in the election for Hong Kong's leader would be too "chaotic."
Since 1997, when Britain handed control of Hong Kong back to China, Beijing had promised to allow the region's residents to vote for the chief executive beginning in 2017.
Chinese leaders presented the Sunday ruling as a democratic breakthrough because it gives Hong Kongers a direct vote, but the decision also makes clear that Chinese leaders would retain a firm hold on the process through a nominating committee tightly controlled by Beijing.
And, according to a new clause, only candidates who "love the country, and love Hong Kong" would be allowed.
The ruling comes after a summer that has featured some of the largest and most high-profile protests in Hong Kong in years.
Behind much of the pro-democracy campaign in Hong Kong is the Occupy Central With Love and Peace movement, whose organizers have threatened to shut down the financial district if Beijing does not grant authentic universal suffrage.
On Sunday night, within hours of the announcement, hundreds of Occupy Central supporters had assembled in the rain outside the Hong Kong government's headquarters.
At the demonstration, organizers said that their movement was entering a new stage of civil disobedience and that they would mount waves of protests in the coming weeks.
However, they did not give details, apparently looking to avoid problems with authorities.
In an online statement, organizers said the movement "has considered occupying Central only as the last resort, an action to be taken only if all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and there is no other choice.
We are very sorry to say that today all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and the occupation of Central will definitely happen.
Authorities in Hong Kong have been preparing for Beijing's announcement for days, and security was tight Sunday at the government headquarters, with police and barricades deployed.
Driving the unrest is a sense among many in Hong Kong that they are slowly losing control over their city.
An influx of mainlanders is fueling competition for products and services.
There is also growing fear that Hong Kong's values, such as democracy and freedom of speech, are beginning to bend under increasing pressure from Beijing.
Some have criticized the Occupy Central movement, saying its demonstrations put business - the lifeblood of Hong Kong - at risk.
"The protest they are talking about, it could result in much economic damage, depending on how many are involved and for how long," said legislator Regina Ip, who has long criticized the movement.
We don't want concern to spread that Hong Kong is getting out of control.
This is a perception that is bad for investment.
China's state-run media also has run stories in recent days painting Hong Kong's democracy activists as agents of subversion directed by Western powers.
This summer, activists organized an unofficial referendum on voting rights that drew 780,000 participants - more than a fifth of Hong Kong voters.
And in July, tens of thousands turned out for one of the largest pro-democracy demonstrations in the region's history.
US prom culture hits university life with freshers offered private jet entrances
We're excited to be answering this demand by launching the UK's first luxurious travel service for the students of today.
To make the maximum impact arriving at university, the company also offers transport options including private jet, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Aston Martin or McLaren P1.
Mr Stewart also claimed the service had a safety aspect.
The service is an ideal alternative for students who would usually have to haul their belongings across the country in a dangerously overloaded car.
Paired with our new VIF options, we're looking forward to ensuring this year students reach university with minimum fuss and maximum luxury.
A spokesman for the company said that because the service has just launched there have been no bookings yet but added that "students will be booking the service over the next few weeks."
The company also said that despite students facing tuition fees of £9,000 a year, it still expected to find a market for the service.
Students of today are quite different in terms of expectations and aspirations, compared to students 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago - it's more important than ever to make a great first impression and VIF is just the way to do that.
However, the National Union of Students criticised the service as out of touch.
Megan Dunn, NUS vice president for higher education, said: "This scheme seems incredibly out of touch with the lives of the majority of students.
Many students starting university this month are facing a cost of living crisis, with available financial support in loans and grants failing to keep pace with spiralling bills for basic essentials, before they can even start thinking about forking out thousands of pounds for something as simple arriving at their halls of residence.
Ipswich 'pig in residence' house for sale
A picture for a house for sale in Suffolk was removed by estate agents when it emerged it showed a large pig at rest in the living room.
On sale for £120,000, the detached one-bedroom property sits on a private road in Ipswich.
The particulars featured a picture of the living room of the house - which included a pig with its head resting on a settee.
Estate agents Connells said the pig in the photo was the home owner's pet.
"However, the photo was put up in error and has since been removed," a spokeswoman for the company said.
In the particulars for the property, Connells described the former meeting house as a "unique one bedroom detached house."
Although the agency has removed the image from its website, it still appears in publicity material.
The house sale has sparked interest on social media, where some have enquired whether the pig is included in the sale.
Torres’s exit confirmed, Kagawa returns from ManU to Dortmund
It was confirmed that the Spanish striker Fernando Torres will leave Chelsea, but a replacing player entered the club nearly simultaneously.
Chelsea announced it had hired the French striker Lois Remy with a four-year contract from the neighbouring team QPR.
According to some media, the purchase price is 13 million euros.
Torres, 30, will join AC Milan on a two-year loan deal.
He moved to Chelsea from Liverpool with a record sum of 50 million pounds four years ago, but he never played up to the expectations.
Also the unsuccessful trip of Japanese player Shinji Kagawa to Manchester United has come to its conclusion.
As expected, Kagawa will return to the Borussia Dortmund in Germany’s Bundesliga, where he did his breakthrough before the move to ManU.
The purchase price is, according to some media, approximately 8 million euros.
Kagawa’s fresh contract is four years long.
I wanted to make my dream come true in the Premier League.
Now I’m happy to be a Dortmund man again.
This is a great team and the environment is wonderful, Kagawa said.
Another Bundesliga club, Berlin’s Hertha, will be reinforced by Salomon Kalou.
The striker from Ivory Coast’s national team will move to Hertha from French Lille, and the transfer sum has been estimated to be approximately 3 million euros.
Before Lille, Kalou, 29, played in Chelsea in years 2006-2012.
Already eight dead in the explosion of a Parisian apartment building
The death toll from an explosion in an apartment building in Paris suburb rose to eight on Monday.
Eleven people were injured, four of them seriously, in the accident that occurred in Rosny-sous-Bois suburb on Sunday.
The rescue workers were still searching for survivors among the ruins on Monday, but the hope for finding people alive was fading.
Provisionally, a gas leak is suspected to be the cause of the explosion.
The explosion occurred early on Sunday and was so powerful that it shook buildings within over one hundred metres range.
Our whole house moved, we were trembling with fear.
The explosion was so powerful that our ears were ringing,” described Maryline Yyvon who lives next to the accident scene.
Already on Sunday, an emergency shelter was set up in a nearby school for the building’s dwellers.
Some of the stars of “It’s Only Life” will be presented at 5 pm
Some of the stars of the series “It's Only Life” will be presented at the event.
Earlier today, the stars of the program got together for the first time after the series was shot.
Some of the stars are available for media at a TV fair called Nelonen Expo.
During the event, Nelonen Media will present their autumn programming with dozens of TV-stars.
This autumn, the series “It's Only Life” will star Vesa-Matti Loiri, Samuli Edelmann, Paula Koivuniemi, Paula Vesala, Jenni Vartiainen, Elastinen and Toni Wirtanen.
Some of them will thus be present at the evening event and at the ISTV live broadcast.
The event will start with the presentation of the programming of different channels of Nelonen Media, hosted by Sebastian Rejman.
After the directed part, ISTV’s camera crew will pick up some of the stars of “It's Only Life” for interviews.
The article has been updated: All of the artists of “It's Only Life” will not be present at the evening event.
According to a notice which has just arrived, the beginning of the event may be slightly delayed.
The transmission can’t be seen on all mobile devices.
HJK will receive a player from Trinidad and Tobago
HJK, who has made it to football Europa League, is about to receive a new player from Trinidad and Tobago.
W Connection FC, a club which plays in the country’s main series, says HJK has made a loan deal for Joevin Jones.
Joevin Jones is a 23-year-old midfielder who has made 28 goals in 55 matches in W Connection.
He has played 35 matches in the national team of Trinidad and Tobago.
According to the football site Socawarriors, who was the first to publish the transfer news, Jones has been one of the star players of the TT Pro league in the two last seasons.
W Connection says Jones will travel to Finland on Tuesday.
HJK has not confirmed the transfer yet.
Bulgaria's Prison Officers Stage National Protest
Hundreds of prison workers from across Bulgaria have held a national protest in front the Justice Ministry in the capital Sofia.
In a peaceful demonstration, they have reiterated their calls for the old working conditions, which were recently changed, to be restored.
Higher salaries are also among a list of requests due to be discussed with interim Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov.
For a month, officers have protested symbolically against the new working hours, demanding to return to the old 24 hour shifts.
Despite the meetings between the prison officers union and the Justice Ministry representatives, an agreement was not reached, Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) informs.
Negotiations are ongoing, the head of the Chief Directorate on the Execution of Penalties Rosen Zhelyazkov told BNR.
The protest of the prison workers union is expected to be joined by members of the Trade Union Federation of the Employees in the Ministry of Interior.
Basketball: fans’ cheering almost too much: Sasu Salin was about to faint on the court
Basketball Sasu Salin was today the embodiment of Finland’s win.
He was able to forget his pitch black match against US and defeated Ukraine with his blood-stopping solutions during the second half.
But Salin gave all the credit to the wolf fans – and did it with style:
I was about to faint there on the court at the end, that cheering was so great.
My eyes just got blurry, I couldn’t help it.
That noise and that white sea of people was almost too much for me.
Salin’s power moments included nine points in a fast tempo, steals, rebounds and general romping in all places where something was happening.
I don’t know what happened, but I just got into a such flow state that I succeeded in everything.
You just get these moments somehow sometimes, this time at a hugely important moment, enthusiastic Sasu explained.
It is my role.
To do all that.
Now it was great to see that also others got the clue.
The whole team was contracted.
Salin is the happiness distributor and the spirit creator of the team so it’s no wonder that his example set the whole team flying, and that was too much for Ukraine’s big and heavy-handed quintet.
Finland in the World Championships after 32 years: the last one is remembered for its outrageous referee fixing
Heikki Montonen (right), who is carrying the bag, was Finland’s main coach at the Argentina World Cup in 1982.
It has been 32 years since the last time Finland’s men’s national volleyball team played in a World Cup final tournament.
Seppo Sirkka was the only Finnish photographer in the 1982 tournament in Argentina, where the legendary Reino Kosonen was Finland’s secondary coach, and Jouni Parkkali, who nowadays is an agent for players, was an opposite hitter.
Kosonen and Parkkali remember one thing from the tournament, as if it had happened yesterday: a boiling hot match against France during the initial rounds.
“The referee game during the decisive balls was blatant in that match,” Kosonen remembers.
We had already won, and both teams had already positioned themselves on the back line.
All of a sudden the game was continued.
We lost it 2-3, and after that the things got even more confused,” Parkkali tells.
Finland was playing under main coach Heikki Montonen’s lead and was eventually the 17th.
Now Finland is among the world’s finest again, when the Poland World Championship picks up the full steam today Saturday.
In 32 years, several things have changed radically in the international volleyball.
The players’ power values are more or less the same as before, but there are now more quality and skills.
Also players’ average heights have increased.
Game is faster than before,” Parkkali says.
But what will happen in Poland?
Finland’s player material has expanded, and the load can be divided.
I expect Finland to make it from the first round to the next one.
Then it might get tougher,” Kosonen assesses.
Seppo Sirkka
Olli Nenonen, Jouko Juvonen and Jukka Savio were in great shape in the victorious match against Tunis.
Jouni Parkkali, nowadays a players agent, was an opposite hitter in the World Championships.
Let’s hope that we’ll improve from the 17th position.
South Korea and Tunis should be defeated, said Parkkali.
In Argentina, Reino Kosonen, the legend of the sport, was the secondary coach for the national team.
Jukka Savio, Mauri Leppänen and Kari Körkkö cheered in the game against Tunis.
The sauna and an evening service at the seamen’s church in Buenos Aires belonged to the national team’s program in the World Championship in 1982.
Kari Kalin (right) was doing some stretching with his teammates.
The final of the “Young Star” song contest has ended - no win to South Karelia
Veera Vento and Veeti Tikkanen, who made it to the final of the “Young Star” song contest didn’t win it.
Other positions weren’t published in the contest.
Singing teacher Teija Immonen says the contest has been popular.
It makes you gain good experience.
Furthermore, the finalists will record the contest songs.
The contest moments always leave you with great memories, Immonen says.
Finnish tourists saved dog Cita on a mountain in Norway: “These men deserve all the acknowledgments”
When Norwegian Merethe Mikkelsen and her dog ended up in trouble in the mountains, Antti and Tuomo Soini bravely offered their help.
Over the weekend Ms Mikkelsen was looking for the “international heroes” in the Facebook so that she could thank the helpers once more.
Ms Mikkelsen told in a public Facebook status update that her dog Cita, who was with her in the mountains on Thursday, hurt its paw.
The injured dog wasn’t able to walk any more on the steep terrain.
I tried to carry it down myself but wasn’t able to, so I had to let it be.
I tried to persuade it many times and pull it a little further, but its legs just wouldn’t hold it up, Ms Mikkelsen writes in the update.
Ms Mikkelsen says the police wouldn’t help, and neither would the nearby hotel, nor by-passers.
As the evening got darker, the situation started to look threatening.
Luckily, two trekkers happened to walk by, and they were ready to help: Antti Soini and his father Tuomo from Tampere.
The men had been to the Norway’s highest mountain Galdhø Peak and were heading to their camping place, when they saw a woman and a dog in the middle of the mountainside.
(Mikkelsen) was quite calm, considering the situation.
We offered to help her with the dog, Antti Soini tells in a message he sent to Ilta-Sanomat.
Soon afterwards, also a German man happened to walk by, and he had a camping mattress with him.
With the mattress, a makeshift stretchers were made for Cita, and the injured dog was attached to it.
The German guy came there soon after us, when we had been thinking what to do with the dog and carried it in our arms down the hill for a while, Mr Soini tells.
PHOTO: Tuomo Soini
With the help of the camping mattress the dog was carried down.
Soini says the endeavour wasn’t hard physically, but carrying the dog on a difficult terrain proceeded slowly.
However, in an hour and a half approximately, Cita was successfully brought down.
After the episode Mikkelsen was still looking for the “international heroes” on the Facebook so that she could thank them once more.
The Soinis replied to her on Sunday, but apparently the German man hasn’t been reached yet.
I don’t know what I would’ve done without these heroes, Ms Mikkelsen says happily.
If they hadn’t helped me, we wouldn’t have necessarily returned.
I’d like to find these people, because I feel that I didn’t thank them enough.
I’m quite sure they don’t know how much this means to me.
These men deserve all the acknowledgements and the honour, I will be forever thankful for them.
The night between Sunday and Monday the Soinis were already on their way home.
They had received good news from Mikkelsen: - Cita is apparently better already!
Susanna Mälkki suggested as the chief conductor of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Ms Mälkki’s three-year period would start in autumn 2016 and it would end in spring 2019.
The proposal also includes an option for two additional periods.
Ms Mälkki started her career as a cellist.
She is an internationally known conductor, and received the Pro Finlandia Medal in 2011.
The current chief conductor of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra is John Storgårds.
The Bold and the Beautiful The TV series “The Bold and the Beautiful” will return on the screen today, after a summer pause.
The allusive name of the opening episode raises questions.
Finland’s most popular soap opera of all times, “The Bold and the Beautiful”, will be back from the summer pause today.
The return episode is allusively called “Oral happiness in Eric’s company”.
The program description of Iltapulu says the following about the episode:
Eric and Donna are discussing the relationships of the family, they order chopstick food, drink white whine and look back at their love history.
Eric is faithful to his shirt style.
The colour he has chosen for his lunch shirt is lilac-ish white.
Ridge offers support to Kate while she’s handling the traumas caused by the relationship between Brooke and Bill.
Ridge hasn’t yet gotten over his problems either.
Bill is at Brooke’s, resolving his own conflicts.
Brooke doesn’t like the man to visit her, in order to try to get her back.
‘I want Ridge, not you, Bill.’
Genetic disorder often misdiagnosed
A British woman says she spent many years thinking she was going to die after a misdiagnosis.
Karin Rodgers spent most of her teenage life believing that she only had years to live after she was diagnosed with another disease.
She actually had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) - a group of inherited disorders that damage nerves outside the brain and spine.
Charity CMT UK said that misdiagnosis is a common problem among people with CMT because so little is known about the condition.
About 23,000 people in the UK are thought to have CMT, which can cause motor symptoms such as muscle weakness, an awkward gait and curled toes.
Sufferers can also experience numbness or pain and the condition is incurable and progressive, meaning symptoms get worse over time.
When Rodgers was 13 she was under the impression that she suffered from Friedreich's ataxia (FA) - a condition which had a very poor prognosis.
Rodgers thought that she was going to be wheelchair bound by the time she was 18 and dead before she reached her 30s.
The mother-of-two, who is now 51, said: "As a child I knew I couldn't do the same things as others.
I was falling daily and everything took me longer to do.
I could never roller-skate or skateboard with other kids and got bullied at school a lot because of the way I walked and ran.
Rodgers said when she was aged 13, after several operations to release her Achilles tendons and straighten out her feet, she took a peak at her medical notes when her consultant left the room which said that she suffered from FA.
"I felt guilty because I'd been nosy and so I didn't tell anybody, but I did come home, look up the condition at the library and wrote to the FA Association," she said.
When I got the information back I was gobsmacked and in the worst state of panic possible.
I thought I'd be in a wheelchair at 18 and dead by the time I was 25 and in between gradually lose all my ability.
I was going through this on my own and I planned my own funeral.
She said by the time she reached 17 she realised that her walking abilities hadn't deteriorated as much as she thought they would have and asked her surgeon about it.
He just stood up and hugged me and said 'my dear I don't think you have it, as you would be in a wheelchair now.'
I think you have something a lot less life threatening.
After some genetic testing she was found to have CMT.
"When he explained what CMT was, I thought I'd drawn the lucky straw," she said.
Charity CMT UK has launched CMT awareness month to try to draw attention to the condition.
One hundred immigrants found in a coal wagon in Macedonia
Macedonian authorities have found over one hundred illegal immigrants in a train carrying coal, country’s interior ministry said on Monday.
The stowaways were mostly refugees from Syria and Iraq.
The train was coming from Greece.
The immigrants were found late on Sunday in Veles, a town in central Macedonia.
It was hard to communicate with most of them.
They didn’t know where they were, where they were coming from, or where they were going,” said the interior ministry spokesman Ivo Koteski.
The police said that the immigrants had paid approximately 3,000 euros each to get to Greece, and additional 800-900 euros to get to Serbia.
Many illegal immigrants travel through Macedonia, a country of a couple of million inhabitants, on their way to western Europe.
Already three million people have fled the bloody Syrian civil war.
The Guardian: Franz Ferdinand and Mogwai support Scottish independence
Pop bands Franz Ferdinand and Mogwai have joined the supporters of Scottish independence.
According to newspaper The Guardian, the groups will star in a concert, which will be organised in couple of weeks in Edinburgh, and which will support the independence project.
There will be a referendum on Scottish independence on September 18th.
In their statement, Mogwai said the referendum is a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for Scottish people.
For example Sean Connery has previously expressed his support for the independence.
At the same time British stars such as Paul McCartney and David Bowie have called on Scottish people to choose to remain part of United Kingdom.
In the polls, the independence supporters have been on the losing side.
The difficulties of the department stores continue in mid-summer - Internal affairs - Ilta-Sanomat
The decline of the trade in the department stores continued also in July, The Finnish Grocery Trade Association (FGTA) says.
It says the turnover of the department store and hypermarket chains remained in July 3.2 percent below that of the previous year.
The sales of the home and leisure time products has been trouble-filled the most, and its turnover fell over seven percent from last year.
Also the clothing products sold clearly less, compared to last summer.
The value of the groceries retail grew instead nearly three percent, compared to that of the last year July.
The sales grew most in small shops and big supermarkets.
During the first part of the year, i.e. January through July, the turnover of the department stores and hypermarkets has diminished over two percent.
The sales of the groceries instead has grown nearly one percent.
Joan Rivers' Family Keeping 'Our Fingers Crossed'
Joan Rivers has been unconscious since her arrival three days ago at a New York City hospital, but her daughter expressed hope today that the 81-year-old comedian will recover from her illness.
"Thank you for your continued love and support," Melissa Rivers said in a statement today.
We are keeping our fingers crossed.
Her mother arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital Thursday after an emergency call that she was in cardiac arrest at an Upper East Side clinic, Yorkville Endoscopy, sources said.
Doctors are intentionally keeping her sedated and under close supervision until they're more comfortable with her condition, which remains "serious."
Reaction has been widespread, including overwhelming online support from the likes of Donald Trump, Montel Williams and Kelly Ripa.
Areva-Siemens: The third reactor of Olkiluoto complete in mid-2016
Areva has provided Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) with an updated schedule for Olkiluoto 3.
In a statement, Areva says the latest delays in the project are mainly due to the fact that an acceptance for the reactor’s automation systems has been applied for.
The project is already years late now.
In May, TVO didn’t provide any estimate regarding the completion time for the third reactor.
Nastola donated Bottas a waterfront lot of 1.4 hectares – worth approximately 60,000 euros
The municipality board of Nastola donated formula driver Valtteri Bottas a waterfront lot of 1.4 hectares on the shore of Kärkjärvi in Villähtee.
The municipality board showed great sportsmanship and was unanimous in its decision.
There were no notes of discord at the meeting when the lot decision was being made, tells mayor Pauli Syyrakki.
The lot donated to Bottas contains farm buildings – in total seven of them.
This year, the municipality will demolish them, leaving only one.
Bottas has promised to build a leisure time house on the lot within two years.
We’re flattered that he has been enjoying his time in his birth parish and wants to be here also in the future.
Every year, Valtteri has visited elementary schools, telling about his sports career and his life.
And hopefully he will do so also in the future, mayor says.
The mayor estimates the monetary value of the lot to be 40,000-60,000 euros.
The shore is shallow and child-friendly.
The municipality has owned the area for good ten years.
Over the decades, with the help of the gift lots, Nastola has managed, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, to keep successful athletes in the municipality.
Both Aki Parviainen, the world champion of javelin throw, and Tuuli Matinsalo, the world champion of aerobic, got single family house lots from the municipality, on which they built extravagant single-family houses.
However, they didn’t stay in Nastola, but sold their properties and moved away.
Parviainen and Matinsalo came to Nastola in search for work, and, after the life situation changed, moved then elsewhere.
Bottas was born in Nastola, and his situation is different, Syyrakki notes, and believes that Bottas will stay in his home municipality.
Hull signed striker Hernandez with a record sum for the club
Premier League club Hull invested a record sum in signing Abel Hernandez, a Uruguay’s national team player.
Hernandez is changing to Hull from Italian club Palermo with 9.5 million pounds, i.e. approximately 12 million euros.
The contract will last three years.
Hernandez scored 14 goals in the last season, when Palermo won the Serie B and moved up to Italian main series.
In Uruguay’s national team he has scored seven goals in 14 matches.
Last summer, in the World Championship final tournament, Hernandez entered the field through substitution in two matches.
Abel is a fantastic signing and highlights just how far the club has come in such a short space of time, said Steve Bruce, Hull’s main coach.
On Monday, Hull told they also had signed Mohamed Diame, the captain of Senegal’s national team, from West Ham.
Russia’s space experiment failed – the geckos sent for a sex trip died
The five geckos, which were sent by Russia to the space for reproduction, have died, Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, tells in its statement.
The geckos were travelling with the Foton-M4 satellite for over a month and a half.
The satellite returned to Earth on Monday forenoon Finnish time.
The purpose of the experiment was to study geckos’ reproductivity and behaviour in zero gravity.
One male gecko and four female geckos participated in the experiment.
Even though the experiment sounds weird, its purpose was serious.
There isn’t yet much information about the effects of weightlessness to for example the development of gecko eggs.
Through the effects caused to geckos it can be tried to predict what effect the weightlessness would have on a human being when staying longer times in a similar space, New Statesman explained in July.
According to Roscosmos, the time and the cause or causes of death will be determined.
News agency Interfax says the travellers, named as “sex geckos”, froze up.
To the unexpectedness adds up also the fact that on the same Foton-M4 there were travelling also fruit flies, which survived the journey without problems, and they bred, too.
France arrested a terrorist suspect at the Nice airport
France arrested a man suspected of terrorism at the Nice airport on Saturday.
The 22-year-old man is suspected to have acted as the recruiter for a jihadist group operating in Syria.
The French authorities issued a statement about the arrest on Sunday.
The authorities managed to trace the man after he had tried to persuade with money a 16-year-old girl to leave for Syria.
The girl was supposed to fly to Turkey and cross the Syrian border there.
The airline company didn’t believe girl’s explanation that she was on her way to Istanbul to see her grandmother, and called the authorities instead.
The authorities contacted her father, who was completely unaware about his daughter’s intentions and told the authorities that the family doesn’t have relatives in Turkey.
According to the authorities, the man is from Chechnya, but currently lives in France.
The French authorities had been following the man’s action already previously.
In France, the authorities have been worried that the radicalised young people, who are lured to the wars in Iraq and in Syria, will become a safety risk also for France.
The authorities estimate that during the latest conflict approximately 800 French citizens or persons with the residence in France have travelled to Syria, returned from there, or is currently planning to go there.
Koponen: we have good chances to win
The hopes of the national basketball team for staying in the game are at stake when Finland meets Ukraine in their second World Championship match today.
If the opening defeat against US was no surprise, Ukraine is instead one of those countries from which Finland should snatch wins in order to be qualified.
Ukraine is a good team, but I believe that we have good chances to win, Petteri Koponen predicts.
On Saturday, Ukraine defeated Dominican Republic 72-62 in its first match of the games.
The team is coached by NBA veteran Mike Fratello, and under his command Ukraine is playing aggressive basketball.
Ukraine’s key player is the game leader Eugene “Pooh” Jeter, whose sister Carmelita Jeter became 100 metres champion three years ago.
Jeter scored 16 points against Dominican Republic.
Pooh Jeter, quick guy, but we’ve been playing against such guys also before and we must get our norm defence in order, Koponen said.
Hanno Möttölä promised that Finland will play better than during its defeat against US yesterday.
We must find our own strengths again.
I can guarantee that the normal wolf pack will be seen on the court, Möttölä said.
The nude pics which are claimed to be of Hollywood stars circulating in the web – some of them confirmed as authentic
A series of nude photos is circulating in the Internet, and the photos allegedly feature known public personalities.
For example actress Jennifer Lawrence has ended up as a victim of the “nude pic campaign”.
The entertainment site TMZ has published an angry comment issued by Ms Lawrence’s spokespeople, which seems to confirm the authenticity of the pictures.
This is a flagrant violation of privacy.
The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts (on the Internet) the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence, the spokespeople threat.
According to TMZ, actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead has confirmed that the photos of her that are circulating are real.
She had taken those pictures years ago with her husband.
Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this.
Feeling for everyone who got hacked, she writes according to the site.
Actress Victoria Justice says instead that the photos circulating under her name are fake.
Other real or fake nude photos that are circulating include at least Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Ariana Grande, Hope Solo, Krysten Ritter, Yvonne Strahovski and Teresa Palmer.
Honka’s goalkeeper criticises his own team: “They don’t work enough in order to get out of here”
Football club FC Honka currently holds the last place in the Veikkausliiga league.
The comments from the goalkeeper Walter Viitala after the Sunday match against VPS describe well club’s current confusional state.
I haven’t had a goalkeeper coach for four months.
But you have to adapt yourself to everything,” Viitala said after the 1-2 defeat.
Honka made defence errors in the match, especially during the first half.
Goalkeeper Viitala wasn’t pleased about the bad defence play.
This summer, the player traffic has been busy at Honka, and for that reason also the defenders in front of Viitala have been changing often.
Along with the player roulette, also several young players have had opportunities which they wouldn’t necessarily even deserve.
“Some of them don’t work enough so that they would get out of here one day,” Viitala snorted, but didn’t name any single player.
To some extent, Shefki Kuqi, Honka’s main coach, agreed with Viitala.
“I told certain players after the match that if you come to the training sessions and matches to have fun, and you think you are a Veikkausliiga player and thus you don’t need to work, you must be in a wrong team,” Kuqi said.
I’ve given playing time for many young players.
If they don’t want to take that position and take advantage of the opportunity, it’s not my fault.
However, Kuqi reminded also that you can’t expect immediate success from the players when the teammates change continuously.
In this season, there haven’t been two same compositions in a row.
Especially in the defence department people have changed.
That is the biggest reason why our ranking is this,” Kuqi noted.
After the defeat against VPS, Honka is at the bottom of the series, and has equal points with TPS, who is the second last.
There still are seven rounds to go in the Veikkausliiga league, so the Espoo club still has time to avoid falling to the 1st division.
I’ve never made a team drop and I’m not going to do it now either.
We’re definitely not going to fall off this series,” goalkeeper Viitala blustered.
Lars von Trier making a TV series after a decades-long pause
Film director Lars von Trier is going to go back to making TV series.
The Danish director is preparing a TV series called “The House That Jack Built”.
Louise Vesth, who has been working as a producer for Trier’s films, told about the project at the Venice Film Festival today (Monday).
According to the statement issued by the production company Zentropa, the shooting of the series should start in 2016.
Trier is said to start working closely with the screenwriting this autumn.
The series will be in English.
Also Peter Aalbæk Jensen, who is Trier’s longtime business partner and known for his big selling talks, tells about the mysterious project in a statement.
He says that a similar series “has never been seen and will not ever be seen.”
“Hold your breath,” Aalbæk Jensen says in his statement.
In the recent years, Lars von Trier, 58, has become known for his public appearances and films such as “Antichrist” and “Nymphomaniac” which have caused stir.
In the 1990s, he directed for TV the series “The Kingdom”.
Sep 1st, 2014, 3.20 pm Supermarket chain Lidl seems to have won the Finns over, at least if you believe the profit figures.
The turnover of the Lidl Suomi Kommandiittiyhtiö, which runs the Lidl trade group operations in Finland, continued its growth in the accounting period which ended at the end of February.
The company also increased its profits.
The profits before taxes reached 79.6 million euros, whereas one year earlier it was 56.4 euros.
The turnover swelled from 960 million euros to 1.2 billion euros.
The growth was 25 percent.
The company, which increased its market share, also increased its operating results from 61 million euros to 84 million euros.
The profit margin was 7.1.
The accounting period of Lidl, which has German owners, is from the beginning of March until the end of February.
The company says it has paid 13.7 million euros in taxes to Finland for the accounting period which ended in February.
The company, which has continuously expanded its supermarket chain, has told it will invest in Finland 100 million euros this year.
There are 142 Lidl stores in Finland nowadays, and it employs over 4,000 employees.
The first supermarkets were opened in 2002.
Ice Bucket Challenge participant dislocates her jaw
Isabelle Roberts from in the UK shouted so hard while freezing water was poured over her head that she damaged the bone structure of her face.
This Ice Bucket Challenge went painfully wrong.
A woman has been hospitalised after screaming so hard during the Ice Bucket Challenge, that she dislocated her jaw.
Isabelle Roberts shouted so violently while freezing water was poured over her head that she damaged the structure of her face.
"The water was so cold so I screamed, but as I did it my jaw just started to stick," she told The Mirror.
Ice water is poured over the 20-year-old's.
Isabelle Roberts moments before the accident
I tried to close my mouth but it would not close, it was locked, and then I came to the realisation that something was up.
Then my mum and sister came to the realisation and they started wetting themselves, but I had to be rushed to A & E.
The 20-year-old, from the UK, was taken to hospital to have her jaw repositioned after taking part in the viral craze on Tuesday.
The clip has become an internet sensation, having been shared thousands of times on Facebook and twitter.
A viewpoint to wolves’ howling (too): how can you explain the fan group growth?
I felt so great today.
This was what basketball player Sakari Pehkonen said in 1995 when Finland had played against France in the European Championship final at the Maroussi Indoor Hall in Athens.
Pehkonen wasn’t exaggerating.
I remember the match because I was present.
And so were all those approximately one hundred Finns who brought some noise to the otherwise empty hall, which has a capacity of 20,000.
I wonder what Pehkonen would’ve had said 19 years later at the World Championship Games, after the Finland-Ukraine match?
There are eighty times Finnish groups of one hundred in Bilbao.
European Championship 1995 was a window of opportunity for Finnish basketball.
The men cleared their way to the final by winning Russia among others at the qualifying match at Helsinki Sports Hall.
That win opened the doors for European elite.
Everything looked good.
There were promising young men, like Hanno Möttölä.
Under the wire, main coach Henrik Dettmann moved Möttölä up to the final tournament team.
A solution with which many disagreed.
Now it can be said that Dettmann was forethoughtful, even if everything didn’t go by the script.
After Athens, the national basketball team dived deep.
At the Athens games, as far as it’s known, there were little over hundred Finns present.
That number included journalists, players’ relatives, Finnish basketball coaches and some fans.
In Bilbao, there are journalists, relatives and coaches, but there are fans also.
And there are lots of them.
The phenomenon has grown into unfathomable dimensions.
Probably no-one is able to say the exact amount of Finnish game tourists.
The estimations have ranged between 7,500-10,000.
Whatever the figure is in that range, it is an unfathomable amount.
The sports sociologists will have hard time explaining this.
In the global world economy, the corporations move across the borders.
In the sports, there probably still is an opportunity to study how we are doing internationally.
As the mobility grows, we can go and take a look how our girls and boys are doing out there, says Hannu Itkonen, professor of the sociology of physical exercise.
Both in Spain and at the Volleyball World Championship in Poland there surely are Finns looking for a thrilling experience.
An experience experienced together.
It doesn’t explain everything, though.
Also the sport itself must be attractive.
Mr Itkonen elevates the sport as part of the popular culture.
The threshold for going to sports games is lower than that for going to Berlin to see some art.
However, you can’t move the masses without success.
Let’s go back to year 1995.
Back then, the main coach Dettmann was challenging the Basketball Association, and also the players, to plunge into high-level sports in a professional manner.
It took almost ten years for that to happen.
Then the direction was changed and the national team activity was put on a pedestal.
The volleyball people made the same move a bit earlier.
Now both of them are enjoying the fruits of their labour.
As Mr Itkonen says, both sports have succeeded in productising their own high-level sport, where the holy trinity works: sport-media-sponsors.
Then also the audience becomes interested.
And the media have taught what this kind of carnevalistic supporting is, Mr Itkonen reminds.
Can the ball sports transmit this massive interest also to the domestic series?
In average, in basketball and volleyball, the matches are played for hundreds of or little over one thousand spectators.
Mr Itkonen thinks it’s a good question, and doesn’t necessarily reply in a way that would be a good sign for those sports.
There’s one school which believes that the interest will be transmitted.
Another school says you shouldn’t indulge.
This bunch is ready for travelling to the World Championships in order to have a great experience, but in their basic thinking the domestic series aren’t too interesting.
Here you got some challenge for the association people amidst the ecstasy.
Bottas’s lot confirmed – nearly 1.5 hectares at a lake front
Nastola is awarding the formula driver Valtteri Bottas with a waterfront home lot.
The municipality board accepted the donation of the 1.4 hectares lot unanimously at the meeting on Monday.
In the future, a holiday home will be built on the lot.
In Nastola, Bottas’s success has been followed since the karting times.
He is seen as a good ambassador for marketing Lahti, Lahti region and Nastola.
The gift lot is located in Koiskala, by lake Kärkjärvi.
It has ended up as property of municipality of Nastola as part of a bigger property deal.
There are seven buildings to be demolished on the lot, and the municipality will demolish six of them at its own expense by the end of the year.
Bottas made it to the podium for the fourth time this year at the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix.
He is fifth at the World Championship ranking.
Bottas was born in Nastola and he has lived his childhood in Villähde.
He lives in England nowadays, but always visits Nastola when he has time off from the Formula 1 racing.
Bottas has visited both secondary schools and youth centres.
Designer smart clothes are coming – but most likely not for the poor
It is presenting and testing them at the US Open Tennis Championships which is currently going on in New York.
Among the testers of Ralph Lauren’s smart shirts there is the ball personnel of the court, but also amateur player Marcus Giron, who is among the top university players, wears one.
He says the shirt helps him track his own development and adjust his recovery.
The nylon shirt has silver sensors knit into it, and from them the data is transmitted to a box which is in the shirt, and from there it goes to a smartphone or to a tablet.
The sensors measure heartbeat, respiration rate, stress and steps.
The box, which works as a central unit, is removed before the shirt is tossed into a washing machine.
The fashion house hasn’t told an exact date when the shirt will be on sale, and it hasn’t provided any hints for its price either, Tech Times reports.
Ralph Lauren isn’t the only company investing in smart clothes.
The Californian Athos has brought a smart shirt and smart shorts on the markets.
They measure heartbeat, respiration and muscular work.
The clothes cost one hundred dollars each and the central unit, of size of a thumb, which the clothes require, costs two hundred dollars.
Also Red Orbit wrote about the techno clothes.
Smart ways to save on college textbooks
With the cost of college textbooks surpassing $1,000 a year for many students, soon-to-be sophomore Matt Schroeder came up with a smart way to trim costs.
He worked out a system of borrowing books from upperclassmen, offering nominal compensation to get them to delay selling them back.
"My calculus book that usually costs $180, I got for the semester for $10 and a Chick-fil-A biscuit," says Schroeder, 19, who attends Covenant College in Georgia.
Required texts for his last semester would have cost $430, he says.
He spent $120.
The College Board says the average student will spend more than $1,200 a year on textbooks and school supplies, but students have a variety of options for managing these costs.
Online outlets and creative approaches like Schroeder's are increasingly the go-to choices for students.
Renting textbooks is on the rise, allowing students to use a book for the semester, often at a significant discount to buying.
Neebo Inc, which operates more than 250 campus bookstores, says textbook rentals have doubled since 2011.
Industry research shows that about one-fourth of books at college bookstores in this past spring semester were rented, says Neebo Vice President Trevor Meyer.
Fewer than half of all texts are purchased at campus bookstores, according to the National Association of College Stores trade association.
Here is the 101 on the best ways to score a deal.
Buying online
Some new book prices can be one-third of what you might find at the campus bookstore if you go online.
The ninth edition of "Calculus" by Ron Larson, Bruce Edwards, and Robert Hostetler carries a list price of nearly $290 but can be purchased new for $239.99 at specialty textbook retailer Chegg.com.
Buying used
If you do not mind other people's notes or wear and tear, used texts are a good option.
"Calculus" is selling for $93.49 used on Chegg.com.
Matt Casaday, 25, a senior at Brigham Young University, says he had paid 42 cents on Amazon.com for a used copy of "Strategic Media Decisions: Understanding The Business End Of The Advertising Business."
The book was selling for $48 new.
Academics like Ingrid Bracey, director of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's College Without Walls, suggest students check with their professors to see if previous editions are acceptable.
Sometimes the updates are not relevant to the classwork.
If so, old editions can often be found for a tiny fraction of the cost of the latest version.
Besides Chegg and Amazon, eBay Inc's Half.com is a popular alternative for used books.
Renting
Renting your textbooks is worth considering if you take reasonable care of them, you remember to return them and you do not care to own them after you complete the class.
You can save more than 80 per cent of the cost of buying a book new.
For example, a student could rent "Calculus" for the length of the semester for about $20.
Know the rules of the store you rent from, including any penalties you could be assessed for taking notes, highlighting, or wear and tear.
Renter, beware: If you fail to return the book, penalties can actually exceed the cost of buying it new.
E-books
Getting e-books instead of traditional texts is another option.
Sometimes those books are essentially rented by providing the electronic license for a specific period from distributors such as Amazon.com, Chegg and Barnes & Noble Inc .
Chegg will rent "Calculus" for six months for about $61.
Bracey says students in literature classes can often find the best bargains since many classics are now available to download for free, while science and engineering texts can be extremely expensive.
No matter what, shop around.
Joe Gault, 29, who is about to enter Pepperdine Law School, recommends using the ISBN number to price books since it ensures you are shopping for the right text.
Before ordering online, Gault says, be sure to check if the book is actually in stock.
He learned that lesson the hard way.
A book he purchased was back-ordered for four weeks, and he ended up paying full price at the college bookstore.
Legioonateatteri (Legion Theatre) of Tampere turns 20
The theatre, which was founded in 1994, is against unemployment, exclusion and passivity.
Anyone, who wants to be involved in performing arts is welcome.
Organises expression oriented activity on a hobbyist level for 17-35-year-old, long-term unemployed persons.
The performances often make statements on the society.
Some of the recent years plays include “Depressio”, which talks about depression, “Moderata”, “Minäminäminä! – humorous tales about narcissism” and adaptations of classic plays.
Believes that everybody can change her or his own life.
The number of the deaths occurred in the fires almost twice as big as last year
This year, the number of the deaths occurred in the fires is almost twice as big as it was last year.
According to the media tracking of the Central Association of Finland’s Emergency Service Sector (SPEK), already 55 people have died in 49 different fires so far.
At the same time last year, the number of the fire deaths was 31.
Most of the dead, 36, have been men.
Eleven persons were over 65 years old.
According to association’s fire death statistics, the last time the situation was worse was in 2009, when by the end of August 64 persons had died in fires.
The fire deaths happen mainly in dwellings.
There have been 17 fire deaths in apartment buildings, 21 in single-family houses and seven in single-family attached homes and other small houses.
SPEK reminds about revising the fire safety at home.
At least the functionality of all home fire alarms should be checked, SPEK says.
Moreover, everyone should check that the first attack firefighting equipment is easily available.
Also, there must be an unobstructed exit route from all rooms of the house.
The children should also be instructed about what electric devices they can use while they’re at home alone.
Nato summit: First protests in Newport and Cardiff
There have been protests over the weekend by those opposed to the Nato summit in Newport.
On Saturday, hundreds gathered in Newport city centre for an anti-Nato march.
And on Sunday in Cardiff, around 150 people came together at Cardiff's county hall for what was described as a counter-summit.
Stephen Fairclough has been following developments for us over the weekend and has spoken to protesters who have travelled from Bridgend to Belgium.
Teens airlifted from Blue Mountains
TWO teenage bushwalkers have been winched to safety after spending the night stranded in the NSW Blue Mountains.
THE 16-year-old girl and 18-year-old man went hiking just after midday on Sunday at Govetts Leap in Blackheath.
Concerned relatives called police about 8pm when they hadn't returned home.
A search party involving local police and rescue squad was sent out and the pair were found about 11pm near Bridal Veil Falls.
The girl had injured her knee and the man had fallen and hit his head.
Officers remained with the pair overnight and they were winched out on Monday morning.
They were taken by ambulance in a stable condition to Blue Mountains Hospital.
Ukrainian soldiers retreated from Luhansk airport
Ukrainian troops have retreated from the Luhansk airport.
Ukrainian army says the soldiers were given an order to withdraw.
Ukraine says the paratroopers have clashed violently against Russian tanks at the airport.
According to an army representative, the artillery fire of the opposite side has been so accurate that it probably comes from professional Russian soldiers.
In the past 24 hours, seven Ukrainian soldiers have died.
At the Sea of Azov, in front of south-eastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian patrol ship sank in the morning after it had been hit by artillery fire, border guards say.
Eight marines have been rescued and two are still missing.
The border guards weren’t sure from where the ship was fired at.
Already yesterday, the separatists told in the social media that they had fired at the vessel.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Russia will not attack Ukraine.
However, Lavrov demanded Ukraine to pull back to positions from which they can’t fire at civilians.
According to the foreign minister, an immediate and unconditional ceasefire should be achieved between Russia, Ukraine and OSCE at the Minsk talks today.
Lavrov also reminded that Russia will respond to possible new economic sanctions.
We will first of all protect our own interests, our economy, our social sphere, our businesses.
At the same time we also will draw conclusions from the actions of our partners, Lavrov threatened.
Heavy rains made Malmö and Copenhagen flood
The streets were flooding in Malmö and Copenhagen on Sunday, when a heavy rain fell on southern Sweden, and Denmark.
The flood waters caused interruptions on several roads, disturbed the traffic, and buried cars under water.
On Sunday, the authorities estimated that it may take some time before the flood diminishes, even though the rain was forecasted to stop by Monday.
The heavy rain managed to take the Swedish authorities by surprise, and in beforehand there was no weather alert concerning the rain.
Ari Mustala, the meteorologist on duty at Finnish Meteorological Institute, estimates that the water front which had been bothering the region, was very local.
The rain zone looks narrow and standing still.
It’s no wonder if it has been difficult to forecast it.
France's Socialists should 'shut up and sort France out', Francois Hollande's key ally says
Mr Valls called on the deeply divided Left to "show its affection" for the embattled Socialist president, whose reshuffle has failed to meet the approval of the vast majority of French.
The president deserves everyone's respect, he deserves our loyality, he deserves our support.
"It is our duty to remain at his sides," he said, to applause.
As a placatory gesture, the prime minister insisted his government would not call into question France's controversial 35-hour working week, despite inflammatory suggestions it should relax the rules earlier in the week by Emmanuel Macron, the new economy minister.
On Saturday, Mr Hollande had implored his fellow Socialists to remain "united" with the government.
But Christiane Taubira, the justice minister, put a spanner in the works by turning up to a meeting of rebel Socialist MPs and criticising the Socialist Party for letting the French "lose faith in their future."
Marine Le Pen, the far-Right National Front leader, heaped scorn on the Socialists' constant in-fighting by saying she did not see the new Valls government lasting more than just a few months.
Francois Hollande the Emperor has no clothes, but neither has Prince Manuel Valls, forced to put together a new government when the previous one didn't even survive the summer.
"And the new one won't survive the fall or the winter either," Miss Le Pen told supporters.
She reiterated her party's call for a parliamentary dissolution, saying she was confident it could win early elections and stood ready to govern.
France's ruling party suffered a drubbing in March municipal elections and the far-right National Front came out on top in EU elections in May.
A poll in Sunday's Journal du Dimanche found 76 per cent of French believe the Socialist Party risks breaking up into several rival factions before the end of Mr Hollande's presidential term in 2017.
Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po university, warned the French would fast lose patience unless the new Socialist government succeeds in improving the economy and record unemployment.
"It has a small window of opportunity, but public opinion needs to quickly feel things are changing," he warned.
Otherwise, the situation could further degenerate.
A straight face wasn’t been kept Kirsti Alm-Siira and Nina Rahkola, the hosts of “Huomenta Suomi”, and meteorologist Pekka Pouta definitely didn’t manage to keep a straight face at the recorded part of the program.
Last Thursday, the program “Huomenta Suomi” posted on its Facebook page a funny video of the recordings made on Thursday.
On the video, Kirsi Alm-Siira and Nina Rahkola, and meteorologist Pekka Pouta are trying to record a teaser for the next day’s transmission of “Huomenta Suomi”, but the recording doesn’t quite pan out.
Alm-Siira confuses the words when she’s trying to pronounce “budgetary workshop”, and because of the mess she’s making, Pouta and Rahkola aren’t able to keep a straight face either.
And we should let these heroes to do a live transmission also tomorrow, says the Facebook post written by “Huomenta Suomi”.
The video has become very popular on Facebook and it has been liked and shared in Facebook over 10,000 times.
Jorma K. Pouta, 68, who used to work at Lehtikuva photo agency, was the third in the portrait series in 1972.
The photo features Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir.
The Socialist International meeting was organised in Helsinki, at the House of Master Builders in Fredrikinkatu, in May 1971.
There were lots of heads of states present, and the security measures were enormous.
When Golda Meir went to bathroom, seven bodyguards went with her.
However, in the beginning of the meeting we were given five minutes for taking photos.
I took this photo from a distance of four to five metres.
The light and the background were right.
I understood immediately that this time I made it.
You can see from the face of Ms Meir that the leaders of Middle East have had hard times also before.
At that time, you could made it in the contests with pictures featuring famous persons or events.
It is great that nowadays you can succeed also with other photos, as long as you have some idea and visual twist in them.
This is the second best photo I’ve taken.
The best is the photo of Lasse Virén falling at the Munich Olympic Games.
I didn’t send it to the contest.
Thesis: the Aarnio investigation has already cost over five million euros
The investigation regarding the legality of the Helsinki Police Drug Unit operations has already cost over five million euros and has required 30-50 person-years.
This is the estimation of Jyri Rajamäki in an information technology thesis he has made for the University of Jyväskylä.
Mr Rajamäki states that monitoring of the legality of the police operations and the crime preventing generally could be significantly improved by combining the IT systems of the investigation and court hearings.
According to Mr Rajamäki, the modern technology allows for multi-use of the forensic material.
He notes that it is possible to build a system, in which the data to be collected for solving the crime will automatically become electronic evidence material which will fill the evidence chain, and at the same time it allows for a comprehensive monitoring of the legality.
The thesis will be reviewed on Saturday.
Yle: the 1999 notion of vegetarian food was forgotten on a school wall: “Vegetarian diet includes fish and chicken meals”
A picture of a peculiar notice on the wall of the Naistenmatka school caused a food stir in social media, Yle reports on its website.
Vegetarians!
At the school lunch, the vegetarian diet includes fish and chicken meals.
Only when there is meat on the menu, we cook a vegetarian alternative!
These are the words of a 15 year old announcement which had been forgotten on the school wall.
You can see the photo here.
The photo, which has been circulating in the social media, has made people send annoyed feedback to Pirkkala municipality.
Anja Vaarma, the head of food and cleanliness services, tells Yle that the note which had been forgotten on the wall isn't valid and it should've been removed long time ago.
Apparently, before I started here, there has been a such idea, which at that time has been discussed with the healthcare department.
Every student can have a meal according to her or his wishes, she says to Yle.
Today, a vegetarian alternative is offered to students in schools only with a permission from the parents and with a vegetarian diet certificate which has been obtained from a doctor or a public health nurse.
Vaarma justifies the decision on the grounds that the vegetarian experimentations of young people may result in inadequate nutrition, and if meat or fish is missing, students' parents might find it surprising.
Norwegian Cruise nears $3 billion Prestige Cruises deal
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd NCHL.O, the world's third largest cruise operator, is in advanced talks to acquire peer Prestige Cruises International Inc for around $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal would give Norwegian Cruise, a company with a market value of $6.8 billion, access to Prestige Cruises' luxury cruise ships and affluent clientele as it competes with bigger rivals Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCL.N) and Carnival Corp (CCL.N).
An agreement may be announced as early as this week, the sources said on Sunday, cautioning that the talks could still fall apart.
The owner of Prestige Cruises, private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC (APO.N), also owns a 20 percent stake in Norwegian Cruise.
The sources asked not to be identified because the negotiations are not public.
Norwegian Cruise and Prestige Cruises representatives did not respond to requests for comment, while an Apollo spokesman declined to comment.
Miami-based Norwegian Cruise operates 13 cruise ships in routes spanning North America, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, Central America and the Caribbean.
It had revenues of $2.57 billion in 2013, up 13 percent from 2012.
Prestige Cruises, also based in Miami, operates under the Oceania and Regent brands, which together have eight cruise ships traveling to Scandinavia, Russia, the Mediterranean, North America, Asia, Africa and South America.
It posted revenues of $1.2 billion in 2013, up 6 percent from the year earlier.
The $29 billion cruise industry is expected to benefit in the coming years from the rise of the middle class in emerging economies such as China and India.
Companies are racing to position themselves as the cruise operators of choice for these new customers.
Prestige Cruises registered with U.S. regulators for an initial public offering in January 2014.
Apollo has been the company's majority shareholder following an $850 million deal in 2007.
Norwegian Cruise was created in its current form in 2000 through a merger with a cruise operator owned by Genting Bhd (GENT.KL), the leisure and casino conglomerate controlled by Malaysian billionaire Lim Kok Thay.
Apollo made a $1 billion investment in Norwegian Cruise in 2008.
Norwegian Cruise went public in January 2013.
Genting had a 28 percent stake, Apollo had a 20 percent stake and private equity firm TPG Capital LP had an 8 percent stake in the company as of the end of June, according to a regulatory filing.
Carnival, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise together account for 82 percent of the North American cruise passenger berth capacity, according to Prestige Cruises' initial public offering registration document.
The city board of Tampere will discuss the matter today.
Animalia hopes to have a strong support for the initiative from the city board.
Salla Tuomivaara, the executive director of Animalia, who is preparing a thesis for the University of Tampere, thinks that the time of the dolphinariums both in Finland and around the world should end soon.
Fortunately, in the last years, an opinion has expanded around the world that keeping developed mammals, such as dolphins, in dolphinariums isn't sustainable neither from the point of view of animal protection, nor ethically.
I wish this opinion would also reach Tampere.
The abolition of the dolphinariums, besides being an animal rights issue, concerns also Tampere's image as a travel destination, Ms Tuomivaara notes.
According to Ms Tuomivaara, the death of the dolphin Näsi reinforces the demands for shutting down the dolphinarium activity.
Näsi's death is a sad continuation to the grim history of Särkänniemi dolphinarium.
It is time to stop the deaths, close the dolphin prison, and start to find out how the dolphins of Tampere could be transferred to a restricted sea area, to a some kind of a dolphin safe house, Ms Tuomivaara demands.
Näsi never was able to experience the return to the original living environment of the dolphins, but hopefully the other dolphins who live in Särkänniemi will have the chance to experience other kind of life than an unstimulating concrete pool, Ms Tuomivaara wishes.
The goal of the animal protection association Animalia is that the use of all wild animals in circuses would be banned in the comprehensive renewal of the animal protection law which is being prepared.
Also the dolphinariums are included in this.
To support the demands, Ms Tuomivaara, director of Animalia, will participate in a dolphin support demonstration which will be organised today, September 1st.
At the demonstration, which will be organised at the Japan embassy in Helsinki, a statement is being made against the hunting season which will start in Japan.
During the hunting season, approximately 2,300 dolphins are captured or killed cruelly and they will end up either in dolphinariums or in the food production.
Putin demands Kiev open 'statehood' talks with eastern Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded Sunday that the Ukrainian government cease battling separatists in the country's east and immediately begin negotiations on the breakaway region's "statehood," according to Russian news accounts of his remarks.
His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, later clarified that Putin didn't mean to imply that the eastern Ukrainian territory under separatist control would become part of Russia, but that its status within Ukraine had to be revised to give the Russian-speaking region the power to protect its rights and interests.
But Putin's call upon the Kiev government to negotiate with the pro-Russia insurgents as equals corresponded with the apparent strategy he has followed since the violence began five months ago: Help the separatists take territory and force the Ukrainian government to grant the newly proclaimed Novorossiya region virtual independence to align with Russia instead of the West.
In an interview with state-run Channel One television, Putin denounced the Ukrainian military campaign to recover separatist-held territory in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that were seized in March and April, after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula on March 18.
The Kremlin and the separatists have lately branded the seized territory "Novorossiya," or "New Russia," a term that harkens to pre-revolutionary glory days of the Russian empire.
Putin said that anyone who believed peace talks are in the offing as Ukrainian politicians launch campaigns for an Oct. 26 parliamentary election and while government troops are attacking civilian communities in separatist-held regions is "a prisoner to illusions," Itar-Tass reported.
"We must immediately commence substantive talks and not only on technical issues, but also on the political organization of society and the statehood status of southeast Ukraine in order to serve the interests of people living there," he said.
Peskov said Putin's reference to statehood was meant in the context of the broader autonomy that has been discussed for months with the Kiev leadership as it struggles to allay fears in the Russian-speaking areas that their cultural and linguistic rights are in danger.
Only the Ukrainian government can grant the eastern regions the necessary autonomy, Peskov said.
It's not a matter to be negotiated between Ukraine and Russia, Peskov said, "because it's not a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but an internal Ukrainian conflict."
The Kremlin spokesman's intercession to correct the "misinterpretation" of Putin's remarks underscored the Russian leadership's approach to dealing with the separatist rebellion in the east differently from its outright seizure of Crimea, where the majority of the 2 million population is ethnic Russian.
Moscow would have a much more difficult fight to annex even the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, as most of the 6.5 million residents are not Russian and pre-conflict polls showed broad support for staying within Ukraine.
The autonomy that Russian diplomats have discussed in international forums would grant regional governments in Ukraine the authority to determine their own trade agreements and foreign relations, effectively handing the Kremlin de facto control over territory that would link the Russian mainland with Crimea.
The Black Sea peninsula annexed five months ago is home to Russia's main naval fleet as well as commercial maritime facilities and historic coastal resorts.
The regions between Russia's Rostov area and Crimea are also home to mines, factories and foundries that produce vital components for the Russian military.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proposed during his inauguration speech on June 7 that Ukrainian lawmakers - after new elections -- weigh constitutional amendments to give more control to the disparate regions over their finances and the status of languages.
But his vision of autonomy appears to differ sharply from that of the Kremlin and the separatist rebels Moscow is accused of arming and instigating.
Putin's latest call on Kiev to deal with the separatist leaders as equals followed new advances by the rebels last week after Russian troops and tanks entered eastern Ukraine from a previously peaceful area along the Sea of Azov.
The Russian-backed separatists took control of the town of Novoazovsk in a drive that Ukrainian security officials say they fear is the opening of a campaign to seize the strategic coastal territory all the way to Crimea.
That has spurred a massive civilian and military effort to fortify Mariupol, a steelmaking port of 500,000 that lies between Novoazovsk and the narrow gateway into the Crimean peninsula.
Poroshenko on Saturday addressed a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels to urge action to prevent further Russian aggression against Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that has been independent for 23 years.
"We are close to the point of no return," Poroshenko warned.
Thousands of foreign troops and hundreds of foreign tanks are now on the territory of Ukraine.
The EU summit took no definitive action; the leaders called for drafting more punishing sanctions on Russia to be imposed in the event of an unspecified escalation of the Ukraine crisis.
Ukrainian soldiers had to withdraw from their positions in Ilovaysk after two columns of Russian armor and 1,000 troops last week moved into the Donetsk region to bolster the beleaguered separatists, Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, told reporters in Kiev on Saturday.
The first of a reported 63 Ukrainian soldiers who were trapped in Ilovaysk by the Russian incursion were swapped Sunday for 10 Russian paratroopers captured inside Ukrainian territory a week ago, Lysenko said Sunday.
The opening goal of Milan was scored by Japanese wizard Keisuke Honda already in the seventh minute.
On the second half, Sulley Muntari scored first, and a little later Jeremy Menez succeeded in a penalty kick.
Also Lazio got, after their narrowing goal, a penalty in the last moments of the match, but goalkeeper Diego Lopez stopped the kick of Antoni Candreva.
Lopez moved to Milan from Real Madrid for this season.
The San Siro stadium was only half full at the coaching debut of Inzaghi, Milan's ex striker icon.
The number of audience at the match was announced to be 39,000.
Nude photo scandal embroils Australian celebrities and Gabi Grecko
Geoffrey Edelsten has vented his disgust at hackers who may have stolen nude images of fiancee Gabi Grecko and a who's who of Hollywood A-listers.
Tinseltown is reeling after a series of explicit photos showing a nude Jennifer Lawrence hit the internet in a major celebrity hacking scandal.
The hacker responsible is said to have 60 nude photos of Hunger Games star Lawrence and superstars including models Kate Upton and Cara Delevingne, singers Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Lea Michelle and actors Kirsten Dunst.
Australian actors Teresa Palmer, Emily Browning, Yvonne Strahovski, and Melbourne-based Grecko also had personal pictures allegedly retrieved due to an iCloud leak.
There are 101 celebrity names on the list.
Edelsten, who proposed to Grecko last month, told Confidential: "It's disgusting".
All private correspondence and images should remain private.
It's disgraceful that personal information can be stolen and dispersed to others.
Grecko, who is in New York, reportedly told a news website the hacking was "shameful" and those targeted would "feel violated."
The hacker is believed to have 30 images of Palmer with ex-boyfriend Scott Speedman, including two frames where she is lounging topless in a pool.
Palmer's film credits include Love And Honor, opposite Liam Hemsworth.
Palmer, Chuck star Strahovski and Sucker Punch actress Browning yesterday had no comment on the hacked pictures.
A representative for Lawrence told TMZ: "This is a flagrant violation of privacy."
Actor Seth Rogen lashed out at the hacker, tweeting: "Posting pics hacked from a cell phone is really no different than selling stolen merchandise."
Just legally speaking, it shouldn't be tolerated to report stolen pics.
Finland played almost like on the home court and got a sensational win against Cuba at the Volleyball World Championships.
See the photos of fan ecstasy.
On Monday, Poland’s Katowice was white: not Polish red and white, but Finnish blue and white.
According to STT, Finland's win was seen at the Spodek Arena by nearly 2,000 Finnish supporters.
It felt like playing on the home court.
That's how big influence the fans had on our game, Antti Siltala, Finland's captain, said to STT.
In the match, Finland was already on the losing side with sets 0-2, but rose to the victory with sets 3-2.
At the fourth set, Finland made a miraculous rise behind six points.
Cuba was already winning 16-10, but after that the Finns fell into a frenzy.
However, a couple of hundred Finnish fans were disappointed, because their charter flight wasn't able to land at Katowice due to a heavy fog.
The fans ended up in Warsaw thus missed the match.
The Finnish ball game fans have been conquering Europe with a fast pace in the last days.
In the Spanish city Bilbao, at the Basketball World Championships, there were over 8,000 Finnish fans present.
US star player Stephen Curry praised the Finnish fans after the match on Saturday, saying that it was like every basket at the game would've been the winning basket of the match.
The council meeting will not be broadcast live due to technical problems
The meeting of the city council of Kouvola can't be watched live on the Internet today.
According to a notice from the city, the transmission will not be possible due to technical problems.
City of Kouvola apologises for the inconvenience.
A recording will be available a couple of days after the meeting.
The meetings of the city council of Kouvola have been viewable on the Internet since the beginning of the year.
Next time the decision making can be watched live on October 13th 2014.
The videos of the council meetings can be found at http://www.kouvola.fi/index/aikuisvaestolle/paatoksenteko/valtuustoverkossa.html and on the YouTube channel of city of Kouvola.