Current affairs

After Sauli Niinistö’s resounding win in the Finnish presidential elections, what does the future hold?

The Government decided on 16 February to propose to the President of the Republic the following ambassadorial appointments.

The President of the Republic appointed today, 17 February, the following heads of mission:

The Helsinki Process HP+10 Review Conference will be held on 13-14 February, hosted by co-chairs Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja and his Tanzanian colleague Bernard Membe. The conference will assess the outcomes of the process and discuss issues related to the management of globalisation, most notably the management of the global economy and sustainable development.

Sauli Niinistö receives 62.6 percent of the second-round vote, becoming Finland’s next president, while Pekka Haavisto gets the remaining 37.4 percent. The 63-year-old Niinistö is a former finance minister and can be described a pro-European, moderate conservative. The results surprise no one, but this election is nonetheless groundbreaking in several respects.

Europe is predicted to show zero growth in 2012. Finland’s outlook is slightly better, and mild growth is expected.

Finnish voters have elected Sauli Niinistö from the moderate conservative National Coalition Party as the nation's 12th president in a decisive second round on Sunday. The 63-year-old former finance minister defeated the Green’s Pekka Haavisto by 62.6 per cent to 37.4 per cent.

Preliminary figures for the number of advance votes cast at diplomatic missions abroad in the second round of the Finnish presidential elections reached a record high of 50,367. This is 6 per cent more than the number of advance votes cast in the first round (47,780), which was the previous all-time record. The number of voters was up 30 per cent on the figure for the second round of the 2006 presidential elections at 38,849.

The UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, co-chaired by President of the Republic Tarja Halonen and President of South Africa Jacob Zuma, submitted its report to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the African Union Summit in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday, 30 January 2012.

Exclusive interview: Einojuhani Rautavaara’s first opera, suppressed during the Cold War, now goes to the Grammies.