Current affairs

The Ministry for Foreigh Affairs has invited 19 recently graduated journalists or journalism students about to graduate to The Foreign Correspondents' Programme (FCP), a media and training programme organised by the Ministry.

Speech by Minister Paavo Väyrynen at South Africa-Finland Business Forum, Pretoria, 2nd of March

Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb will participate in the Nordic–African Foreign Ministers Meeting, to take place in Helsingør, Denmark on 11–12 March. This informal forum of dialogue has been convened since 2001, the site alternating between the Nordic countries and Africa. At the meeting, the foreign ministers of the Nordic countries and ten African countries exchange ideas on topical issues.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen ended his two-day visit to Zambia in the evening of 5 March by meeting with President Rupiah Banda. Minister Väyrynen and President Banda had a constructive and many-sided discussion on relations between the two countries and topical international questions.

Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen will visit the Republic of South Africa and Zambia during the first week of March. The minister will be in South Africa on 2–3 March. Expansion and diversification of political and trade relations between Finland and South Africa will be discussed during the visit, as Finland’s donor-type development aid will cease by the year 2010.

New Ambassadors to Canberra, the Hague, Madrid, Stockholm, Pretoria and Addis Ababa.

On 10 December, Finland and South Africa signed a three-year agreement on support for bioscience networking via the BioFISA programme. BioFISA (The Finnish-Southern African Partnership Programme to strengthen the Southern African Network for Biosciences) is a co-operation programme with the Ministry of Science and Technology of South Africa and Nepad, the Economic Partnership for Africa's Development.