HELSINKI, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Finnish Environment Minister Paula Lehtomaeki walked out of her office Friday to start a six-month maternity leave-of-absence, the government announced.

Lehtomaeki, 34, has been in her job for just over six months, since March 18 elections. She is to replaced in the interim by a male MP colleague, Kimmo Tiilikainen.

Lehtomaeki, who is deputy leader of the Centre party that forms part of the ruling coalition, had already taken maternity leave once before, two years ago, for her first child. Back then, she held the trade portfolio.

HELSINKI, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Finnish police said on Thursday that they had arrested 21 people suspected of taking part in the most important drug network ever uncovered in the history of the Nordic country.

Charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, the suspects face up to six years of jail for the first charge and up to 10 years for the second.

A Dutch citizen was arrested in France as part of the same drug ring, according to a statement released by the Finnish anti-drug squad.

HELSINKI, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Finnish police said on Thursday that they had arrested 21 people suspected of taking part in the most important drug network ever uncovered in the history of the Nordic countries.

Charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, the suspects face up to six years of jail for the first charge and up to 10 years for the second.

A Dutch citizen was arrested in France as part of the same drug ring, according to a statement released by the Finnish anti-drug squad.

PARIS, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Nokia Siemens Networks, the Finnish-German Telecommunication networks manufacturer, said Tuesday it had won a 180-million-euro (254-million-dollar) network contract from China's Henan Mobile Communications Company.

Under the deal, NSN will provide Henan MCC with its GSM and EDGE core and radio networks equipment, mobile soft switching system, as well as system integration, network planning, rollout and support services for Henan MCC's GSM and EDGE network, it said in a statement.

BRUSSELS, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - EU competition regulators gave their approval Wednesday to French state-guaranteed loans to Finnish power company TVO to pay for the construction of a nuclear power plant by French company Areva.

After an in-depth competition probe, the European Commission ruled that the loan guarantees did not break EU state-aid rules because they were deemed to give no advantage to TVO over its competitors.

Europe's top competition watchdog found that the cost of the guaranteed loans were not below the cost for loans on the market.

HELSINKI, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Alcohol use figures in 80 percent of all murders in Finland, even though violence continues to decline, according to official statistics published Tuesday.

Murders are higher in economically depressed regions of the country and it is normally the people who live in the north and the east of the country who have the higher suicide rate.

Some 111 murders were tallied in 2006 against an average of 130 during the last 10 years, the National Research Institute on Criminal Politics said in its annual report in Finland.

HELSINKI, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - A 19-year-old British construction worker died Sunday after a fall on the building site of Finland's new third-generation nuclear reactor, the operators said on Monday.

The man was discovered by colleagues Monday September 17 lying prone on a concrete floor after an eight-metre (26-feet) fall.

He spent the past week in hospital before dying of his injuries on Sunday. A police and a workplace inquiry are underway.

The man's name was not released.

STOCKHOLM, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - Swedish-Finnish telecommunications operator TeliaSonera said on Monday it would form a new fully-owned Telecommunication infrastructure subsidiary in Sweden.

It said the infrastructure company, which will launch operations in the fourth quarter, will sell its products on equal terms to TeliaSonera's wholesale customers and the company's own operations.

HELSINKI, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - Stora Enso of Finland, Europe's leading paper and packaging maker, said Friday it had sold its North American operations to the US group New Page Holding Corporation for 2.5 billion dollars (1.8 billion euros).

Stora Enso said in a statement it wanted to concentrate on boosting sales in Europe and emerging market countries.

'This is the first major step in focusing our operations to improve the long-term earnings of Stora Enso,' said company chief executive Jouko Karvinen.

HELSINKI, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - Stora Enso of Finland, Europe's leading paper and packaging maker, said Friday it had sold its North American operations to the US group New Page Holding Corporation for 2.5 billion dollars (1.8 billion euros).

Stora Enso said in a statement it wanted to concentrate on boosting sales in Europe and emerging market countries.

The Finnish group will receive 1.5 billion dollars in cash and 19.9 percent of a new entity, to be known as NewPage, according to a deal that should be completed in the first quarter of 2008.

HELSINKI, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - Predators have killed so many Finnish reindeer this year that the government has already paid out all of its alloted compensation for 2007 to breeders, authorities said Thursday.

Wolves, bears, lynx and particularly wolverines killed 2,822 reindeers in the first six months of the year, the highest figure for the past 20 years, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

Losses in the first six months were the same as for all of 2006.

HELSINKI, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - A Lutheran pastor in Finland opposed to the ordaining of female ministers was charged on Monday with discrimination for refusing to officiate a religious service with a woman pastor, officials said.

Ari Norro, a member of a conservative branch of the Lutheran Church of Finland, was charged with discrimination.

It is the first time a pastor has been charged for refusing to collaborate with a woman, 21 years after the Church of Finland allowed women to become pastors.

KOLKATA, India, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - Three people suffered minor burn injuries in eastern India when the battery of a Nokia mobile phone exploded while it was being charged, police said Monday.

A 54-year-old man and his two grandchildren were slightly hurt near eastern Kolkata city, police superintendent Neeraj Kumar Singh said.

'A complaint has been lodged against the dealer who sold the mobile set,' Singh said, adding that the phone had the BL-5C series battery, which the Finnish phone maker had recalled in August after complaints of overheating.

HELSINKI, Sept 10, 2007 (AFP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday compared investment funds he said were responsible for US subprime mortgage woes to 'gamblers' and urged Washington to act to avert a global crisis.

During a visit to Helsinki kicking off a five-day Nordic tour, Lula denounced 'the greed in certain investment funds that ... used subprime rates imagining they were living in a casino situation.'

Subprime rates were made widely available to US home buyers with patchy credit histories and who are now having trouble repaying their loans.

HELSINKI, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Finnish Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva has been injured in a quad bike accident and will not attend an informal meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Portugal, his office said Wednesday.

Kanverva, 59, was under observation in hospital after being slightly hurt when his quad bike overturned, it said.

He will be replaced at the two-day meeting beginning Friday by a secretary of state.

HELSINKI, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Finland's leading film producers, including award-winning director-producer Aki Kaurismaeki, went on strike on Monday to protest what they say is insufficient state subsidies to the industry.

The producers criticised the government's 'broken promise' to raise subsidies for film production by eight percent, or 1.2 million euros (1.6 million dollars), in the 2008 budget.

LONDON, Sept 2, 2007 (AFP) - A Finnish couple saw off competitors from 15 other European countries to win the first ever Eurovision Dance Contest in Saturday's televised live final.

Jussi Vaananen and Katja Koukkula claimed victory after viewers from the other participating nations awarded them 132 points.

Ukraine, represented by Ilyia Sydorenko and Julia Akropiridze, took second place with 121 points and Ireland came third with 95 points for Mick Donegan and Nicola Byrne's performances.

HELSINKI, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - A Helsinki court said Wednesday it would issue a verdict in mid-September in the case of a Finnish diplomat who says he was wrongly accused of spying for the former East Germany's Stasi secret service.

Alpo Rusi, 58, now an advisor to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, is seeking 500,000 euros (675,000 dollars) in damages from the Finnish state for what he says was a flawed police investigation.

HELSINKI, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Nokia, the world's leading maker of mobile phones, unveiled on Wednesday a new digital music shop designed to loosen the grip of Apple's iTunes on downloads.

The high-tech Finnish group is to launch a new portal for users called Ovi, which will include the Nokia Music Store, a virtual record shop with a catalogue to rival Apple's.

Chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said the store, set to launch in the fourth quarter of this year, would have 'millions' of tracks to download.

HELSINKI, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Finnish breweries have launched a campaign to tackle the growing problem of young adults' binge drinking, using the slogan 'You're a jerk when you're drunk!' to get them to drink in moderation.

'We want to change attitudes to encourage responsible drinking. We have been fighting alcohol abuse and underage drinking for a long time,' the head of the Finnish federation of brewers and soft drink producers, Timo Jaatinen, told AFP on Tuesday.

HELSINKI, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty-one years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, fish and mushrooms in parts of Finland are still toxic due to radioactive fallout, Finnish authorities said on Monday.

The concentration of cesium-137 exceeded the EU maximum recommended level in 20 percent of fish and more than half of the mushrooms tested in 2005 by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority and Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira.

NYSLOTT, Finland, Aug 26, 2007 (AFP) - Far from the World Athletics Championships in Osaka a Finn has emerged at the top of his game-- in mobile phone-throwing, organisers of the event announced Sunday.

Competitors were reduced to silence when Tommi Huotari threw his cellphone 82.62 metres (294 feet) at the eighth annual tournament in Finland, home of Nokia, the world's number one handset manufacturer.

Finns dominated the competition, with just one Canadian managing to come in 10th in the first 17 places, all of the rest going to Finns.

HELSINKI, Aug 24, 2007 (AFP) - A court has ordered a student in Finland to pay damages to one of his teachers after he filmed her singing karaoke and posted it on YouTube, the court announced Friday.

Toni Vesikko, identified as a minor over 15, received a 90-euro (123-dollar) fine for slander from a court in Nurmes in eastern Finland.

He was also ordered to pay 800 euros to his teacher, Johanna Tofferi, for mental anguish that resulted, according to the judgement.

HELSINKI, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - A squirrel that charmed Finland this summer by turning up daily at a supermarket for chocolate eggs has now been banned from the premises.

Thanks to the manager of the SIWA supermarket in Jyvaskyla, a city of 85,000 people in the heart of Finland, the squirrel skipped through the open front door every day and made a beeline to the confectionery section.

There it helped itself to one particular European brand of chocolate egg -- notable for including a little plastic toy inside -- before scampering back outdoors to savour the treat.

HELSINKI, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - Nokia, the world's number one handset manufacturer, said Thursday that India had overtaken the United States to become its second-biggest market, after China.

'India is playing an increasingly important role in the global economy buoyed by impressive economic growth, skilled manpower and tremendous business opportunity,' said the company.

The United States was once Nokia's largest market in terms of sales, but is now less significant for the mobile phone maker, whose focus has shifted to fast-growing emerging markets.

HELSINKI, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) - A Finnish diplomat who says he was wrongly accused of spying for the former East Germany's Stasi secret service is seeking damages in a court case that opened Monday in Helsinki.

Alpo Rusi, 58, now an advisor to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, is asking for 500,000 euros (675,000 dollars) in damages from the Finnish state.

He says he missed out on several job opportunities because of the spying allegations and hopes the court case will clear his name once and for all.

HELSINKI, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) - A wounded bear attacked an unlucky hunter in Finland on the first day of the hunting season Monday, but the man survived suffering only a big fright and a few stitches, officials said.

Together with two hunting buddies, the man was tracking a brown bear he had just wounded with a bullet in a thick forest in Kiite, in eastern Finland near the Russian border, when the bear released its anger on the shooter.

The animal escaped another round of heavy-calibre fire and the jaws of the man's hunting dog before turning on the hunter.

HELSINKI, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - Alpo Rusi carries the weight of suspicion like a heavy rock: this high-ranking diplomat from Finland is seeking compensation from the Finnish state which he says wrongly accused him of being a collaborator of East Germany's Stasi secret service.

Now an advisor to the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Rusi will finally see his case against the state open in Helsinki's district court on Monday, more than five years after his nightmare began.

He is seeking 500,000 euros (675,000 dollars) in damages.

NEW DELHI, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - The world's leading mobile phone maker Nokia pleaded for calm in India on Friday as thousands of anxious customers sought free replacements for potentially defective batteries made in Japan.

Police laid on extra security at one Nokia customer centre and crowds thronged others across India, one of the world's largest mobile markets, after the Finnish firm on Tuesday warned that some batteries were overheating.

'Your Nokia Is Safe To Use,' the Finnish firm said in page-one advertisements in Indian newspapers.

HELSINKI, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Die-hard Elvis addicts might not approve, but hits by the man who defined cool when he took rock 'n' roll into the mainstream can now be heard ... in Latin sung by a Finnish literature professor.

In yet another testament to the irrepressible influence of 'The King,' fans can croon along to the broody 'Nunc hic Austria numquam' ('It's Now or Never'), shake hips to the slightly scary sounding title 'Nunc Distrahor' ('All Shook Up'), or just have fun with 'Ne Saevias' ('Don't Be Cruel').

HELSINKI, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - Nokia, the world's leading maker of mobile phones, said Tuesday it would offer free-of-charge replacements for some of its Nokia BL-5C batteries after around 100 incidents of overheating were reported globally.

No serious property damage or injuries were reported as a result of the incidents, the Finnish company said in a statement.

The batteries were manufactured by Japan's Matsushita Battery Industrial Co., Ltd.

Nokia has several suppliers for BL-5C batteries who have collectively produced more than 300 million such products.

HELSINKI, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - Construction of Finland's new nuclear reactor, the world's first third-generation plant, is now more than 18 months behind schedule owing to fresh building problems, Finnish energy company TVO said on Friday.

The engineering companies behind the project, France's Areva and Germany's Siemens, have informed TVO that the commercial launch of the Olkiluoto 3 reactor could be delayed until 2011, pushing back a previous target of the turn of 2010-2011.

TALLINN, Aug 8, 2007 (AFP) - Estonian investigators Wednesday confirmed initial findings that a helicopter crash which killed 14 people in 2005 was caused by a malfunction in the US-built chopper.

'The helicopter got into an emergency situation in the third minute of the flight because of an operating malfunction, caused in turn by the operating fault in the main rotor's front servo,' said a report released by the Estonian government's investigation team.

PARIS, Aug 8, 2007 (AFP) - The French-Italian chip maker STMicroelectronics and Nokia, the Finnish leader in mobile phones, said Wednesday they planned to strengthen their cooperation in intergeated circuits and third generation (3G) modems.

'The multifaceted agreement will enable STMicroelectronics to design and manufacture 3G chipsets based on Nokia's modem technologies, energy management and RF (radio frequency) technology and deliver complete solutions to Nokia and the open market,' Nokia said in a statement.

HELSINKI, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - Scientists have discovered a 780-year-old sylvester pine tree, the oldest living specimen known in Finland, a research institute said Tuesday.

The ancient 'pinus sylvestris' was found last year in Lapland during a study mission on forest fires, the Metla tree cultivation research institute said.

Scientists analysed a section of the tree's trunk in order to determine its age.

'The pine is living but it is not in the best shape. It's quite difficult to say how long it will survive,' researcher Tuomo Wallenius told AFP.

BEIJING, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - China's Communist Party has demoted a high-ranking law enforcement official who forged an invitation to visit Finland so he could travel there at public expense, state media reported on Tuesday.

Xu Wenai has been removed from his post as vice procurator-general of eastern China's Anhui province for wasting public money in the abortive 'business trip' last November, Xinhua news agency said.

Xu's 10-member delegation was refused entry on November 20 by Finnish authorities who questioned the crudely forged 'official' invitation, it said.