Aurora enthusiasts in Facebook group discover new phenomenon in Finland

The government says it wants to promote "wellbeing and gender equality".

A Finnish man has been handed a whopping 54,000-euro fine for speeding, it's reported. Finland's speeding fines are linked to income, with penalties calculated on daily earnings, meaning high earners get hit with bigger penalties for breaking the law. So, when businessman Reima Kuisla was caught doing 103km/h (64mph) in an area where the speed limit is 80km/h (50mph), authorities turned to his 2013 tax return.

Tough Viking is the largest and toughest obstacle race series in the Nordics. This year, a total of nine races will be organised in the Nordic countries, two of which are in Finland. The first, the Arctic Tough Viking was held in Levi, Finland, and is the first extreme obstacle race in the world. The race was held 170km north of the Arctic Circle with over 300 participants and around 1,500 spectators.

Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. The prestigious PISA rankings place it among the world’s highest for maths, reading and science, and teachers flock to the country from all over the globe to learn from its success. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that Finland is undergoing a radical overhaul in its education system, dropping ‘teaching by subject’ in favour of ‘teaching by phenomenon’.

Credit: Roopesh Davda

How did Finland moved having the highest incarceration rate in Europe to having one of its lowest? Part of the answer lies in its open prisons, where prisoners — even those convicted of crimes like rape and murder — can be gradually eased back into normal life. “It’s quite relaxing to be here,” says Hannu Kallio, a convicted drug smuggler. “We have bunnies.” The 70 inmates in this facility go to work every day in the greenhouse. Today, they’re potting seedlings...

The Finnish navy drops underwater depth charges as a warning to a suspected submarine in waters near its capital, Helsinki.

Testing uploading and posting. The image is from midsummer 2013.

Finnish Police counter the Taxi Association's request and say that monitoring should be equal - not merely a tool to single out one operator.

Some toy and game shops sell sets of drinking games such as Beer Pong, which do not themselves include any alcohol. However, retail chains such as Tiger are allowed to refuse to sell of the games to minors.

For anyone who has ever grumbled about the plodding pace of play in baseball, the Finnish version of the game offers something previously unimaginable: America’s pastime without wasted time.

Love the tribe suggestion engine for suggesting Finland on that one. :)

Plans to build a Russian nuclear reactor in Finland suffered a setback on Thursday afterthe government said its probe into the ownership of a Croatian investor pointed to Russia. The Croatian company reported a net profit of just $20,000 last year and has Russia-born owners, its documents and Finnish media reports showed.

Welcome to the nerve-wracking reality of being Finland. By Masha Gessen.

Kimmo Kalliola knows the feeling that thousands of Finns have been dealing with over the last couple of years. He spent more than a decade working on geolocation positioning at Nokia, a highly technical job, but the Finnish tech giant hit hard times. In late 2012, Mr. Kalliola and 10,000 others at the company were laid off.

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Leo Komarov appears to be set to pay a heavy fine for speeding in Finland. According to Finnish news outlet Helsingin Sanomat, Komarov was fined more than 35,000 euros on Friday as result of two counts of speeding and two counts of fraud. The amount in Canadian dollars is more than $51,000.

Equipment used: Pentax K-30 body, Pentax-DA 35mm Macro Limited lens. Sunset picture taken with a Pentax-DA 18-55mm lens. Photos taken at Merijärvi and Kalajoki, Finland.