Travelling Abroad
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ISSUE 8 (138) • 25 FEBRUARY – 3 MARCH 2010 • €3 • WWW.HELSINKITIMES.FI DOMESTIC BUSINESS SPORT LIFESTYLE EAT & DRINK Till Dividend Oulu Home of Heaven death payments rugby Grand on do us apart hold stardom Canyon Earth page 4 page 9 page 12 page 14 page 16 LEHTIKUVA / HEIKKI SAUKKOMAA Finland managed debt in dubious ways DAVID J. CORD their offi cial statistics measure up. HELSINKI TIMES Some complex fi nancial transactions have been used as well. GREECE’S public fi nances have been Finland used a variety of tech- under intense scrutiny in recent niques to massage offi cial statistics. weeks. Questionable accounting prac- From 1995-2001 Finland engaged in tices have been used that may have securitisation operations in regards hidden the extent of the nation’s debt to housing loans granted by the State crisis. Greece is not alone. Finland has Housing Fund. These loans were used similar tricks in the past. transferred to another entity, Fen- The eurozone pact requires coun- nica, which in turn issued bonds on tries to keep total debt below 60 per the market using the loans as guar- Railway workers getting ready to clear ice and snow from the rails. cent of gross domestic product and antees. The net result was a transfer annual budget defi cits under 3 per of debt from Finland to Fennica and cent. To meet the criteria various ac- out of offi cial statistics. counting measures have been used Transport Minister: Finland has by some countries in order to make Read the full story on page 9. forgotten how to deal with winter ferry people to Estonia and Sweden or fl y them to sunny beaches. Since STT In response to criticism over in- for the ongoing delays. Jaatinen says Travelling Finland is literally surrounded by MATTHEW PARRY – HT suffi cient funding for rail mainte- that the discount will cost the compa- countries using currencies other nance, Vehviläinen points out that ny hundreds of thousands of euros. than the euro, foreign exchange is EVERY day now, train delays are tor- more money would have been no The winter delays mean the com- abroad big business. menting more than 10,000 regular guarantee of prevention of the cur- pany is facing accrued losses running But how should one make pur- passengers who in practice are com- rent pandemonium. into the millions of euros. In January, DAVID J. CORD chases abroad? Should the travel- pletely dependent on rail services. Each month, the Finnish rail op- more than a quarter of trains did not HELSINKI TIMES ler use cash or cards? If using cash, Minister of Transport Anu Veh- erator VR sells well in excess of run on schedule. January’s delays should one exchange here or in the viläinen (Centre) feels that once 10,000 30-day passes for its com- alone will cost the company an esti- FOR FINNS travel has become destination country? If using cards, this winter’s blizzards have reced- muter and long-distance train serv- mated three million euros. Last year, something of a national pastime. is point-of-purchase better than ed, steps should be taken to prevent ices. The company refuses to release VR’s net operating profi t amounted Large industries have grown to ATMs? a possible repeat of the situation as more detailed fi gures on the locali- to 29 million euros. “I used to live in China,” says Tuo- early as next winter. ties and transport zones which have mas Kauppinen, Product Specialist “We’ve had a long bout of fairly the largest number of 30-day pass at Forex. “If I wanted to withdraw mild winters. Perhaps we’ve forgot- holders between them. Train delay compensations the equivalent of 100 EUR I would ten what sort of situation can devel- “Hardly any company releases its – Compensation claims are most eas- have to pay percentage charges and op on the rails, especially given that sales fi gures in detail. This is normal ily done by online form at www.vr.fi. fi xed fees to both the local Chinese there is a lot more traffi c than there practice,” comments VR’s head of – Passengers can also cancel un- HEIKKI SAUKKOMAA HEIKKI bank and my Finnish bank. I would was a couple of decades ago.” passenger traffi c, Antti Jaatinen. used train tickets and receive full have 10.50 EUR in fees from a 100 Vehviläinen argues that simi- All in all, VR performs just under compensation if the train has been EUR withdrawal. Using a card is the lar consideration should be given to 200,000 rail trips daily. delayed by over an hour. Tickets can easiest thing to do, but it is also the other traffi c, such as icebreakers. VR has promised to sell 30-day be cancelled at train station sales most expensive.” “It seems that we are unable to passes for commuter and long-dis- counters, or by phoning VR’s cus- respond adequately to this sort of tance services at a 25 per cent dis- tomer service number 060041900. Read the full story on page 8. winter.” count in March, as compensation 24.2.—6.6. The Power of Africa Tu e , Fri-Sun 11-18, Wed-Thurs 11-20 Free entry Wed-Thurs 18-20 Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola, Espoo www.emma.museum Busses from Kamppi, Helsinki: 106, 110 2 25 FEBRUARY – 3 MARCH 2010 Q & A HELSINKI TIMES Louise Vet is a professor of Evolutionary Ecology at Wageningen Uni- versity and director of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. She is an ecologist with a broad interest in ecology and evolution, working on multitrophic interaction. “We have a take-make-waste economy” use any water because they Q: You state that we “live in resources. We’re in a space- use groundwater instead of the wrong economy”. What ship, we have only a limited To halt the planet’s declining biodiversity and loss of critical natural drinking water. do you mean? amount of stuff available on resources, both the economy we live in and communication about sci- The pee and poo go to fer- A: We have a take-make- the planet and if we destroy ence needs to be changed profoundly, says ecologist Louise Vet. mentation tanks, and after waste economy, not think- it, we eventually make our making energy out of “the ing about the stuff we use own lives impossible. black water”, as we call it, the and what to do with it after- Therefore we need to [remainder] goes in there with wards. It’s this so-called line- get to a circular economy, LISA JANSEN peared on the front-page of planet. Right now a tree is all its minerals. Then it goes ar economy that is so wrong. to at least keep the limit- IPS the major Dutch newspaper only valued by the amount of to algae and in algae it will be We don’t value our resources ed resources in the amount the NRC, with 80 signatures wood it produces when you transformed into worms. enough. we have them now, rather WE PRESENTLY live in a line- of these businessmen. harvest it. But when the tree We’ll be the fi rst offi ce lab- Energy is not the real prob- than diminishing them even ar “take, make and waste” At fi rst sustainability was is valued on an ecosystem oratory building of this kind. lem, we can solve that, it’s the further. economy in which natural seen as a left-wing thing, but services basis, it is tremen- resources are running out because we present it as an dously important for every- and ecosystems are being innovation challenge with body on this planet. destroyed, says Louise Vet, benefi cial possibilities rath- Taking it away has a long- a professor of evolutionary er than a problem, right-wing term affect on the ecosytem ecology in The Netherlands. people have gained interest. services: it catches CO2, it But this clash between On a regular basis my col- fi lters air, it has its micro, economic and ecological in- leagues and I lunch with pol- fauna, fl ora, diversity impor- terests could be reconciled by iticians to talk about topics tance etc. A tree contains so implementing a so-called “cir- such as deforestation and much more value than a sim- 3ANTA3AFARIISTHEONLYINTERNATIONALINBOUNDGROUNDHANDLINGCOMPANY IN cular economy”, she argues. policies regarding the fi sh- ple piece of wood for a table %NONTEKIO &INLAND4HECOMPANYOWNSANDMANAGESTHE$AVVI!RCTIC,ODGE IN Vet, director of the Neth- eries, trying to get our ideas or a chair. erlands Institute of Ecology, across the political agenda. +ARESUVANTO7EHANDLEALARGENUMBEROFGUESTSEVERYYEARANDPRIDEOURSELVES spoke with Liza Jansen about Q: You recently invited eve- ONQUALITYANDAUTHENTICEXPERIENCESIN,APLAND how this circular economy of- Q: What’s the biggest ob- ryone to come and poo in -ANYOFTHEGUESTSCOMEFORSHORTBREAKSBUTOTHERSCOMETOVISIT3ANTA#LAUS fers concrete solutions to pre- stacle to reaching an your research centre. Why? SIMPLYFORTHEDAY vent further ecological losses agreement? A: One of our most limited re- 4HEPEAKOPERATIONALPERIODISFROM.OVEMBERTO!PRIL and teaches how to commer- A: We have very limited focus sources is phosphorus. Phos- cially benefi t from it. Excerpts on long-term goals, which is phorus is in every cell, in our 7EARELOOKINGFORENERGETIC SKILLEDANDDEDICATEDPEOPLETOWORKINARANGE from the interview follow. diffi cult for present day in- DNA, in every living organ- OFPOSITIONS dustry. One of the major ob- ism, plant or bacteria. We !LLAPPLICANTSMUSTBE¾UENTIN%NGLISHANDPREVIOUSEXPERIENCEISANADVANTAGE Q: Apart from your pro- stacles is the way we value use it in our artifi cial fertilis- fessional interest in out- things in our present day ers, making agriculture pos- (/4%,-!.!'%2 standing ecologic scientifi c economy.