Veikkaus laying off 800 staff, Finland urged to ditch gambling monopoly
Veikkaus laying off 800 staff, Finland urged to ditch gambling monopoly
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Finland’s Veikkaus gambling monopoly will lay off up to 800 staff in January while the country is being shamed as the only remaining European Union country clinging to a state-run monopoly model.
On Thursday, Veikkaus announced that the ‘cooperation negotiations’ it launched with its retail staff earlier this month had concluded with plans to begin laying off up to 800 betting employees starting early in the new year. The layoffs are slated to last no longer 90 days, provided Finland can regain some control over its COVID-19 infection rate.
Police: Five Helsingin Sanomat staff suspected of national security crimes
The National Bureau of Investigation says it suspects five Helsingin Sanomat stuff of being involved in national security crimes. The case goes back to a story that Hesari published in December 2017 about Finland’s intelligence-gathering capabilities, based on decade-old documents. “The police have had reason to suspect that the editorial staff of Helsingin Sanomat has processed information that has been ordered to be kept secret due to Finland’s external security” says NBI’s
Kai Käkelä. “Some of the confidential information was published in the first part of the planned possible series of cases, other prepared articles were not published by Helsingin Sanomat after the start of the preliminary investigation” he adds. During the investigation phase police raided the home of a Helsingin Sanomat journalist and confiscated computers and other electronic equipment like hard drives and phones, wh
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IMAGE: Dogs and their owners seemed to share microbes on their skin, but not in their gut. view more
Credit: Emma Hakanen
In urban environments, allergic diseases are more common among dogs and their owners compared to those living in rural areas. Simultaneous allergic traits appear to be associated with the microbes found in the environment, but microbes relevant to health differ between dogs and humans.
In a joint research project known as DogEnvi, researchers from the University of Helsinki, the Finnish Environment Institute and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare have previously observed that dogs are more likely to have allergies when their owners suffer from allergic symptoms. In a new study, the researchers investigated whether such simultaneous presence of allergic traits is associated with gut or skin microbes shared by dogs and their owners. A total of 168 dog-owner pairs living in rural and urban environments participated in the study.
Finns growing weary of Veikkaus online gambling monopoly
Finns growing weary of Veikkaus online gambling monopoly
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Finland’s gambling market derives over half its turnover from individuals who either have gambling problems or are at risk of developing problems, while the country is losing faith with its state-run gambling monopoly.
On Tuesday, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) released its latest snapshot of the country’s gambling market, which claims that a mere 2.5% of gamblers accounted for half of all gambling spending in 2019. (Read the report here, English abstract starts on page 11.)
The 2.5% figure – which represents around 72k individuals – is a significant shrinkage from the 4.2% of Finns who were responsible for half of all gambling spending in a similar survey in 2007, and less than half the 5.2% figure from 2015.
Finland s largest circulation daily, Helsingin Sanomat, is among the papers reporting that Prime Minister
Sanna Marin (SDP) told the media on Wednesday evening that the government will not, at least yet, be seeking to re-activate the Emergency Powers Act to deal with the resurgence of the coronavirus in the country.
However, she did announce that all parliamentary parties are being invited to take part in a discussion on the situation this coming Monday.
It is the government s view that the conditions required to activate emergency powers have not yet been met. The prime minister pointed out, however, that expert opinion is that the situation could change quickly.