Finland

HELSINKI, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Icelandic authorities announced the completion of the evacuation of the town of Grindavik on the Reykjanes Peninsula early Saturday morning following a state of emergency late Friday after strong earthquakes rocked the peninsula in the southwest of the country.

HELSINKI, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Finland on Wednesday said China had promised to fully cooperate in the investigation of the destruction last month of the Balticconnector gas pipeline, which happened on the same night that three subsea telecoms cables in the area were also damaged.

Finnish police have said they are investigating whether a Hong Kong registered container vessel, the NewNew Polar Bear, damaged the pipeline by dragging its anchor over the sea bed, but have not concluded whether this was an accident or not.

HELSINKI, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Damage to a Baltic Sea gas pipeline earlier this month is believed to have been caused by a ship dragging a large anchor along the seabed, but it was too early to tell if this was an accident or a deliberate act, Finnish police said on Tuesday.

Investigators said they had now retrieved a lost anchor from the seabed location where the pipeline ruptured on Oct. 8, and were investigating whether it belonged to a Chinese container vessel.

HELSINKI/VILNIUS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.

Early on Oct. 8, a gas pipeline and a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators said may have been sabotage, though they have yet to conclude whether it was an accident or a deliberate act.

HELSINKI, Oct 10 (Reuters) - A subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea have been damaged in what may have been a deliberate act, the Finnish government said on Tuesday.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO was sharing its information over the damage and stands ready to support the allies concerned. Finland joined the military alliance in April, while Estonia has been a member since 2004.

HELSINKI, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The natural gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was temporarily closed Sunday following a suspected leak, the Finnish operator Gasgrid Finland reported.

Gasgrid Finland said the state of the Finnish gas network is stable, and the causes of the leak are being investigated. Finland, during this break, relies on the liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal near Helsinki.

HELSINKI, Sept 13 (Reuters) - A luxury cruise ship carrying 206 people remained stuck in a remote Greenland location on Wednesday after running aground earlier this week, the vessel's operator and rescue services said.

The Danish military's Joint Arctic Command (JAC) said Tuesday's tide had failed to lift the 104-metre (341-foot) Ocean Explorer enough to free it.

"The tide that came in during the day, local time, did not provide the desired help to sail on," the JAC said in a statement.

HELSINKI, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- David Wu, Visit Finland's director of Greater China, said in a recent written interview with Xinhua that he was excited by China's decision to reopen group tourism to Finland.

China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism has recently issued a notice allowing nationwide travel agencies and online tourism companies to operate outbound group tours and offer "flight + hotel" packages for Chinese citizens to a third batch of selected countries and regions, including Finland.

HELSINKI, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Finland's former Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who narrowly lost an election in April, stepped down on Friday as chair of the centre-left Social Democrats, hoping to take the focus off her personal life after an often turbulent four years at the helm.

Marin, who had announced her intention to quit soon after the election loss, was the world's youngest prime minister when she took the post in 2019 aged 34, attracting attention around the globe and helping lift Finland's profile.

HELSINKI (AP) — Denmark’s foreign minister said Sunday the government will seek to make it illegal to desecrate the Quran or other religious holy books in front of foreign embassies in the Nordic country.

Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in an interview with the Danish public broadcaster DR that the burning of holy scriptures “only serves the purpose of creating division in a world that actually needs unity.”