Finnair is extending its code share cooperation with American Airlines. American Airlines begins flights from Helsinki to Chicago today, May 2. The route will be flown daily in the summer traffic season with Boeing 767 aircraft. “We are delighted that, through this cooperation, we will be able to offer our customers a new destination and [...]

Finnair and AA launch direct flights from Helsinki to Chicago is a post from: Aviation news - Planegrazy

Related posts:

1. Finnair and American Airlines to Codeshare between Helsinki and Chicago
2. Finnair adds flights to Nagoya
3. Finnair will manage to increase flights during coming days of strike

A bus driver working for Helsingin Bussiliikenne Oy, the large city-owned bus operator, was attacked in Helsinki's Elielinaukio Square on Wednesday afternoon.

Mexico's Carstens Says Inflation May Reach 4% in 2011 Washington Post May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's central bank Governor Agustin Carstens talks about the country's economy and the outlook for inflation. He speaks with Bloomberg's David Tweed in Helsinki. (/Bloomberg) Correction: Clarification: SuperFan badge holders ... and more »

Sometimes it’s hard to stay on top of all the new route announcements that come our way, so we’ve complied a little bit of a rundown below. As long as you can afford the fares, this should definitely help add to your passport stamp collection.

· American Airlines:
Finland, Finland, Finland that’s the country for me! Well at least that’s what American Airlines is singing, as they just started up nonstop service to Helsinki over the weekend. It’s a seasonal thing, so be sure to get all your Scandinavian stuff done before the end of October. The new flights depart from Chicago en route to Helsinki with a little help from Boeing 767-300s. This is the first time American is bringing their planes to Finland, so hopefully things will catch on and the flight will become a permanent option.

· JetBlue:
Alright we knew JetBlue would be jetting back and forth between Boston and beautiful Newark, New Jersey, but this week things became official. The airline that loves in-flight television and plenty of free up-in-the-air snacks started four daily flights between the two cities on May 4. There’s a couple morning flights and a couple afternoon flights, so you should be able to find something that fits your schedule. Expect Embraer 190s on this route, which are a little smaller but just as comfy. We actually just flew this route yesterday, so it's totally open for booking and going.

Riksbank Ingves: National Power Over "SiFi" And Capital Ratios Wall Street Journal HELSINKI (Dow Jones)--The thorny matter of what constitutes a "systemically important" financial institution will have to be grappled with at national and regional levels as well as at the global level, the governor of Sweden's central bank said Friday ... and more »

ArcticStartup covered PremiumFanPage back in January when it was launched at the CES ‘11. The venture is the brainchild of Jani Penttinen, CEO and founder of XIHA Life and is based on XIHA’s multilingual social media platform. This means your content on numerous social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, blogs can amalgamate at one single fan site via a platform that offers real time translation.

I am a staunch believer in using a native language when it comes to addressing or targeting a particular region. It is bound to increase your exposure and more people actually find it more fruitful to make use of your service. PremiumFanPage takes the burden of doing the translations for you in a very professional manner. We received an update from Jani recently that highlighted the progress of his latest venture.

PFP is building up its reseller networks in the US region as well as partnering with a few design companies, one of them being Bolder in Helsinki (we're also working with Bolder Helsinki on Arctic15). There is quite some work for PFP in the pipeline, so much that they have actually turned down a few customers recently. The issues are largely associated to not having enough resources/bandwidth to get the job done and this is quite largely due to the fact that no one at PFP might have thought of the venture doing this good so early after the launch. More updates include that PFP is not just limited to doing human translated fan pages but has included direct translations of Twitter feeds as well as Facebook pages. This is different as PFP doesn’t require companies to use their hosted sites.

The example of this is Microtask tweets. The account’s tweets are directly translated into French language by a professional translator and all it takes is a minor period to repost the same to the @microtask_fr handle. The feature is only a week old and has already managed to get a decent following amongst the French speaking population. This stands evidence to the fact that using a native language works splendidly as everyone wants content to be available in a language that they better understand.

Jani also clarified the worry which many people or customers may have with PFP. The major being their mistrust with translation services on the Internet and the confusion with automatic translations. He stated:

Most people assume that because it's all automated, the translations are machine-made, which is not the case at all. When I mention it's based on crowd-sourced translator networks, some people still remain suspicious as crowd-sourcing is often associated with people volunteering some stuff on their spare time. On the contrary, we work with networks of professional translators, and our customers can expect the same professional quality they would get from a traditional translation company.

Back in March, I speculated about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's programming and leadership options for 2011-12, given James Levine's resignation from the position of music director there. The press releases related to the season just landed in my in-box, and here's the story: it's a season of guest conductors.

They'll be led by (in order) Anne-Sophie Mutter, Sean Newhouse (BSO Assistant Conductor), Juanjo Mena, Kurt Masur, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos (two weeks), Myung-Wun Chung, Ludovic Morlot (two weeks), Jiri Belohlavek, Andris Nelsons, David Zinman, Riccardo Chailly (two weeks), Charles Dutoit, Jaap van Zweden, Stephane Deneve, Kurt Masur (again), Christoph Eschenbach, Juraj Valcuha, Leonidis Kavakos (yes, he is playing and conducting), Christoph von Dohnanyi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Bernard Haitink (3 weeks).

Whew!

That is quite a line-up, running the gamut from the up and coming (Newhouse, Morlot, Nelsons, van Zweden) to towering figures like Haitink, Chailly, and Dohnanyi. Plenty of tasty programming as well. I'm seriously curious whether the BSO had two schedules planned, one with and one without Levine, or if they had to scramble mightily to figure out who was available when and get them under contract.

Of local interest: Ludovic Morlot, the incoming music director of the Seattle Symphony, is taking the West Coast tour dates, which include two programs in S.F. He'll be leading the already-announced program - another big whew, because I really really want to hear the Carter Flute Concerto.

In any event, the season is a good one, and if I lived in Boston, I'd just get a ticket to everything. Well, almost everything, anyway.

Much of the press release is after the cut.

After raising interest rates by 0.25% a month ago, the European Central Bank (ECB) left interest rates unchanged at yesterday's meeting of its Governing Council. The press conference that followed was held in Helsinki; Finland just elected a new government that may block the aid package put together for Portugal. Adjusting to the Nordic spirit of not wasting time with small talk, ECB head Trichet was very much to the point with his answers:

"Nothing New, Nothing Special." Trichet's succinct explanation that no special programs are needed to support Portugal. The ECB is working with an established framework. To this point, Merk Senior Economic Adviser and former St Louis Fed President Bill Poole, recently pointed out, "stressful periods are less stressful if sound institutional arrangements are in place in advance."

"Not a Problem." Trichet's comment on whether the ECB could stomach any losses on its own balance sheet should Greece

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Helsinki/Fráncfort (Alemania).- El presidente del Banco Central Europeo (BCE), Jean-Claude Trichet, descartó hoy en Helsinki una subida del precio del dinero en junio como habían especulado los mercados y arrastró al euro hasta por debajo de 1,46 dólares.

En la rueda de prensa tras la reunión del consejo de gobierno del BCE, Trichet dejó entrever que esperará para subir de nuevo los tipos de interés, probablemente hasta julio, y que no está dispuesto a acelerar el ritmo de restricción de su política monetaria dada la debilidad económica que atraviesan los países periféricos de la zona del euro.

Trichet dijo que el BCE "observará muy de cerca todos los acontecimientos" con el fin de asegurar la estabilidad de precios, lo que significa que no va a incrementar el precio del dinero en junio y esperará.

El presidente del BCE hubiera hablado de "una fuerte vigilancia" sobre las presiones inflacionistas para indicar que subiría la tasa rectora en junio.

Previamente, el consejo de gobierno, reunido en Helsinki, decidió mantener por unanimidad su tasa rectora en el 1,25 %.

El euro cayó con fuerza frente al dólar y perdió los 1,46 dólares, el nivel al que se encontraba el 21 de abril, tras la rueda de prensa de Trichet.

La moneda única se depreció hasta 1,4579 dólares, tres centavos de dólar menos de lo que costaba la jornada anterior.

Las expectativas de un incremento del diferencial de los tipos de interés entre la zona del euro y EEUU ha disparado al euro desde marzo, cuando Trichet anunció que subiría la tasa rectora en abril, ya que hace más atractivas las inversiones denominadas en euros.

A comienzos de marzo, el euro costaba unos 1,3850 dólares y se había apreciado un 7,6 por ciento frente al billete verde hasta el desplome de hoy que reduce la apreciación al 5,3 %.

La Reserva Federal estadounidense (Fed) dejó claro la semana pasada que mantendrá los tipos de interés en el nivel históricamente bajo entre el 0 y el 0,25 % durante un periodo de tiempo prolongado para apoyar el crecimiento económico.

El consejo de gobierno del BCE se reunió en Helsinki ya que celebra dos de sus reuniones de política monetaria fuera de su sede central en Fráncfort.

El Banco de Inglaterra también dejó inalterados los tipos de interés en el mínimo histórico del 0,5 %, al considerar que la economía británica no está preparada todavía para aguantar un encarecimiento del dinero.

Trichet negó que el BCE lleve a cabo ahora una política monetaria de normalización.

"Nunca uso esa palabra. No creo que tengamos una política monetaria de normalización. Tenemos una política monetaria de situar los tipos de interés en el nivel apropiado para la estabilidad de precios", dijo Trichet.

Recordó que las autoridades políticas y monetarias estadounidenses apoyaron a finales de abril un dólar fuerte en interés de EEUU y su economía.

Trichet también aseguró que el BCE no contempla la reestructuración de la deuda griega, y recalcó que "tenemos un plan, y esa posibilidad no es parte del plan", pero algunos expertos financieros en Fráncfort lo consideran ya algo inevitable.

Recordó que la tasa de inflación de la zona del euro subió en abril una décima hasta el 2,8 %, debido al encarecimiento del petróleo y las materias primas.

El economista jefe de la zona del euro de UniCredit Research, Marco Vali, prevé que el BCE "probablemente apretará el gatillo de nuevo en julio".

El economista jefe de Commerzbank, Jörg Kraemer, destacó que el BCE enfatizó la existencia de riesgos inflacionistas y pronosticó un incremento de la tasa de interés rectora de 25 puntos básicos en julio y otro similar en el cuarto trimestre, por lo que el precio del dinero se situaría en el 1,75 % a finales de año.

Kraemer considera que el BCE va a subir los tipos de interés con menos agresividad que en el pasado por las dificultades que atraviesan los países periféricos de la zona del euro.

En los dos ciclos anteriores de política monetaria restrictiva, el BCE incrementó la tasa rectora 25 puntos básicos cada dos meses e, incluso, 50 puntos básicos en junio de 2000, recordó Kraemer.

NEW ALBUM SET FOR SEPTEMBER 2011 RELEASE; 21ST CENTURY SONG CYCLE
INSPIRED BY CLASSICAL MUSIC THEMES SPANNING OVER 400 YEARs

Tori Amos

Tori Amos marks her debut album for Deutshe Grammophon, the world's most celebrated classical music record label with Night of Hunters, set for release this September. The iconic, platinum-selling singer-songwriter continues her legacy of ground-breaking recordings with this 21st century song cycle inspired by select classical pieces spanning the last 400 years.

With Night of Hunters, Amos carries on the classical tradition of variations on a theme: taking inspiration from classical forms to create a bold new work while paying tribute to the mastery of the original compositions.

On Night of Hunters, which she wrote and produced, Amos comments, "I have used the structure of a classical song cycle to tell an ongoing, modern story. The protagonist is a woman who finds herself in the dying embers of a relationship. In the course of one night she goes through an initiation of sorts that leads her to reinvent herself allowing the listener to follow her on a journey to explore complex musical and emotional subject matter".

"One of the main themes explored on this album is the hunter and the hunted and how both exist within us." the singer explains.

The release of Night of Hunters will be supported by a tour in Europe and the U.S. starting in Helsinki, Finland on September 28. Check out all tour dates below.

TOUR DATES
09/28/11 Wed Ice Hall Helsinki, FI
09/30/11 Fri Oktyabrsky Hall St. Petersburg, RUS
10/02/11 Sun Crocus Hall Moscow, RUS
10/04/11 Tue Den Atelier Luxembourg, LU
10/05/11 Wed Grand Rex Paris, FRA
10/07/11 Fri Teatro Smeraldo Milan, IT
10/10/11 Mon Laeiszhalle Hamburg, GER
10/11/11 Tue Tempodrom Berlin, GER
10/13/11 Thu Sala Kongresowa Warsaw, PL
10/17/11 Mon Carre Theater Amsterdam, NL
10/20/11 Thu Sentrum Scene Oslo, NO
10/21/11 Fri Royal Theatre Copenhagen, DK
10/24/11 Mon KKL Luzern Luzern, SWI
10/25/11 Tue Stadthalle Vienna, AUS
10/26/11 Wed Alte Oper Frankfurt, GER
10/28/11 Fri Koningin Elisabethzaal Antwerp, BEL
10/29/11 Sat Bozar Brussels, BEL
10/31/11 Mon Philharmonie Essen, GER
11/02/11 Wed Royal Albert Hall London, GB
11/04/11 Fri Manchester Apollo Manchester, GB
11/06/11 Sun Royal Concert Hall Glasgow, GB
11/08/11 Tue Waterfront Norwich, GB
11/09/11 Wed Grand Canal Theatre Dublin, IR

Tori Amos Tour Dates :: Tori Amos News

HELSINKI - O primeiro telefone com a marca PlayStation, o Xperia Play, da Sony Ericsson, não foi afetado pelo sequestro de dados de contas de... ( Reuters )

HELSINKI: The European Central Bank kept its main interest rate steady at 1.25 percent on Thursday as ECB governors met after Portugal became the third eurozone country to accept a bailout.

Fly off to Finland this month for half price with this deal from ShermansTravel. This same flight is retailing on KLM for over $1,200, but using ShermansTravel’s Travel Search Tool, you can jet away for just $521 round-trip – including taxes! Spring is a great time of year to visit Helsinki – the temperatures are warm and the days are long, giving you lots of sunlight hours to explore this hip capital city. These rock-bottom prices were found toward the end of May, so put in your vacation time request now!

Helsinki.- El presidente del Banco Central Europeo (BCE), Jean-Claude Trichet, descartó hoy en Helsinki una subida inminente de los tipos de interés al indicar que la actual política monetaria es "acomodaticia", aunque señaló que el organismo seguirá "vigilando de cerca" la evolución de la inflación.

El Consejo de Gobierno del Banco Central Europeo, reunido en Helsinki, decidió hoy por unanimidad mantener los tipos de interés en la zona euro en el 1.25 por ciento, como preveían los mercados.

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FRANKFURT, Germany The European Central Bank has left its key interest rate unchanged at 1.25 percent at a meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Markets are waiting for a post-decision news conference from bank

La reestructuración de la deuda griega, prevista por los mercados, "no está en agenda", aseguró este jueves el presidente del Banco Central Europeo (BCE), Jean-Claude Trichet, en una conferencia de prensa en Helsinki.

Les gouverneurs de la Banque centrale européenne (BCE), réunis jeudi à Helsinki, ont décidé de maintenir son taux directeur à 1,25%, mais les économistes s'attendent à sa hausse très prochaine en...

The European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged at 1.25 percent Thursday at a meeting in Helsinki, Finland.

ECB holds fire on interest rates Financial Times The decision to hold fire on Thursday was expected. Jean-Claude Trichet, president, prefers not to surprise financial markets. However, at its meeting in Helsinki, Finland – one of two occasions each year when it gathers outside its Frankfurt home ... and more »

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will show its determination to check firming price pressures at its meeting on Thursday with markets focusing on whether it uses the "strong vigilance" codewords to signal a rate rise in June.

We decided to interview William Wolfram, the CEO of DealDash. A startup that's registered in Finland, but operates mainly in the US market. Not a very common sight, but then again neither is the business DealDash is in. The interview is quite a long one, but then again - we felt it should be published in its entirety as it contains a wealth of valuable information.

ArcticStartup (AS): In a few words, what is DealDash?

William Wolfram (WW): DealDash combines proven game-mechanics with discount shopping to create a fun and exciting buying experience.

Each day, DealDash lists hundreds of brand new products up for auction for shoppers to bid on. Every bid placed raises the price of the auction by $0.01 and restarts the countdown clock from 20 seconds. If no new bids are placed before the time runs out, the auction is sold. Shoppers purchase virtual credits before they can bid, each bid placed costs one credit ($0.60/each). Unlike traditional "penny auctions" which have unfortunately received a bad reputation during the last few years due to a few unethical companies in the market, DealDash removes all the risk of bidding by making it possible for any bidder that lost an auction to buy an identical product from DealDash at a normal, non-discounted price and get a full refund on all credits lost while bidding. We also generate a significant portion of our revenue from this "no risk" feature and DealDashers love it.

AS: DealDash is an interesting company, based in Finland, but operating in the US - what was the thinking behind this?

WW: We side with Frank Sinatra on this one - New York, New York! If we can make it there, we can make it anywhere. We want to be in business where if we succeed, we have the potential to have a massive influence on the gamification of discount shopping. The US market is tougher to break, but with the increased challenges comes far greater rewards. The gamification of online shopping has begun and we are determined to be a key player in the soon-to-be billion dollar market.

AS: What are some of the concrete advantages and challenges regarding the setup of the company (located in Finland, operating in the US)?

WW: We are very lucky to have such a brilliant international team. Our team members come from 4 different continents and we are very Silicon Valley inspired in our approach and working habits. DealDash maintains both a US office in Sunnyvale and an office in Helsinki, sometimes there are timezone challenges dealing with California, but that´s nothing that a few Red Bulls won't solve. There are many things to love about Finland, but when it comes to growing a tech based startup, there are few greater places to be. Especially in regards to the quality of engineers, international commitment, public support and smart people in general. We love it here and see it as a great place to launch out to other international markets from.

AS: How has DealDash been able to grow the business in the last 6 months or so?

WW: It has truly been an exciting time for our team and investors. We have again more than doubled our revenues and gross profits since January and the growth is creating new opportunities for DealDash. The game-shopping market is also expanding and maturing quickly, with more than 200 US based competitors vying for a piece of the action, many major competitors that have been funded with millions of dollars in venture capital have gone bankrupt. DealDash has been extremely fortunate to have made the right product and business decisions when it has mattered the most. We could not maintain our competitive edge and profit margins without our extremely dedicated team and world class board of directors.

Thanks to the growth, there is always enough work to go around - we are now processing 1+ million bids/month and hundreds of product orders daily, a very significant part of the business is also generated in the DealDash store which provides losing bidders with a convenient way to get a full refund on all the credits lost while bidding by purchasing an identical product from DealDash at a normal, non-discounted price.


AS: What about 2011, what are you expecting to happen later this year - where are you headed?

WW: Like earlier mentioned, many people have come to see the traditional "penny auction" business model as 'shady' or untrustworthy. We tackle these issues on a daily basis by maintaining complete transparency in everything we do, like for instance releasing auction audit reports conducted by independent third-parties or providing losing bidders or our 100% money-back guarantee. We hope to shed some light on this market and help legitimize the gamification of discount shopping. As we speak, our team is adding new gamification elements into to the shopping and bidding processes and we hope to continue to add to these through-out the year. We rigorously analyze the effects the new features have on specific segments of our userbase and constantly request and respond to customer feedback. Our customer lifetime value is increasing as a result of our data-centric approach.

During the remaining part of 2011, we hope to grow even faster than during the previous 6 months. Online discount shopping is truly lacking elements of fun and excitement that we would personally want to see in our own shopping experiences. We hope to integrate more social elements with DealDash and we are constantly adding new gamification functionality to the site.

AS: Anything else you'd want to add about DealDash or tell our community?

WW: We have some very exciting news that we wish to uncover soon. We are in the works of substantially increasing our market share in North America. We are also hiring more awesome people to join us in Helsinki so if you are a UX/UI designer guru or a genius web developer (PHP, MySQL, Memcached), direct response marketing expert or a B2B merchandiser rock-star come visit us ASAP!

Editor's note: You can reach DealDash through their website over here or contact us to put you in touch with William Wolfram.

The Czech Helsinki Committee has called for the dismissal of Ladislav Batora, an aide to the education minister, since he attended neo-Nazi meetings and supported some anti-Semitic works, CHV chairwoman Anna Sabatova told CTK yesterday.

Czech Helsinki committee wants education minister's aide dismissed over racism Prague Daily Monitor Prague, May 4 (CTK) - The Czech Helsinki Committee (CHV) has called for the dismissal of Ladislav Batora, an aide to the education minister, since he attended neo-Nazi meetings and supported some anti-Semitic works, CHV chairwoman Anna Sabatova told ...

It is difficult to determine the exact date of birth of the Linux kernel . Is she is in April 1991, when Linus Torvalds started actual work on its proposed new kernel? Is it August 25, 1991, when he posted his famous message ( "just a hobby, will not Be big and professional like GNU" ) on the newsgroup comp.os.minix?? Do we remember September 1991 when version 0.01 was made ??on the FTP server of the Technology University of Helsinki? Whatever option is chosen, the year 2011 marks the twentieth anniversary of this amazing project and to participate in the celebrations , LinuxFr conducted an interview with Linus Torvalds, you will find a translation in the second half of the mail.

Immediately following the "Hell on Earth" tour with Slayer, Rob Zombie will begin production on his sixth feature film, "The Lords of Salem," that he wrote and will direct. Set to be filmed in Los Angeles and Salem, MA, Zombie explains, "There were twenty people that everyone knows about, obviously all innocent, executed as witches in Salem. The basic premise of the film is that there was a small coven, actual witches, who were put to death secretly, and vowed one day to return to wreak havoc on Salem's descendants.

"As it stands now, this is probably the bleakest of all of my films," Zombie continued, "a long, slow decent into the bowels of Hell."

The complete udpated Rob Zombie 2011 itinerary is as follows:

MAY
25 Ventura Theatre, Ventura, CA
26 Fat Cat, Modesto, CA
27 Crest Theatre, Fresno, CA
28 Knitting Factory, Reno, NV

JUNE
3 Rock Im Park, Nurnberg, Germany
4 Rock Am Ring, Nurburgring, Germany
6 Turbinenhalle, Oberhausen, NW, Germany (headline)
7 Astra Kulturhaus, Berlin, Germany (headline)
10 Sweden Rock Festival, Solvesborg, Sweden
12 Donnington Festival, Donnington Park, UK
14 Grose Freiheit, Hamburg, Germany (headline)
15 Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (headline)
17 Hellfest Festival, Clisson, France
18 Sonisphere Festival, Athens, Greece
20 Gasometer, Vienna, Austria (headline)
21 Rockhal, Luxembourg, Luxembourg (headline)
23 Azkena, Vitoria, Spain (headline)
25 Sonisphere Festival, Imola, Italy
26 Graspop Metal Meeting, Dessel, Belgium
28 Olympia, Dublin, Ireland (headline)
29 Ulster Hall, Belfast, Ireland (headline)
30 Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, Scotland (headline)

JULY
2 Sonisphere Festival, Kalasatama, Helsinki, Finland
14 Chippewa Valley Rock Festival, Cadott, WI
15 KRRO KRROFest IV, Sioux Falls Stadium, Sioux Falls, SD
17 Hot As Hell Music Festival, Brady Theatre, Tulsa, OK

(Hell on Earth tour with Slayer)
20 Sovereign Center, Reading, PA
22 DTE Energy Music Theatre, Detroit, MI
23 Stage AE, Pittsburgh, PA
24 Heavy T.O.

Since I’ve been on the Discover Magazine website for one year I thought I’d look at some patterns in Google Analytics. Specifically, over the interval from April 1st 2010 to April 30th 2011 (alas, I lost access to the ScienceBlogs traffic data). For example, what institutions are people coming to this website from? To do that I just filtered for “university” and “college” in Google Analytics. Below are those institutional addresses which sent 500 or more visits to this website over the year.

Institution Visits HARVARD UNIVERSITY 2568 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 1973 STANFORD UNIVERSITY 1372 BEIHANG UNIVERSITY 1359 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 1283 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1188 OXFORD UNIVERSITY 1169 UNIVERSITY OF UTAH 1009 YALE UNIVERSITY 990 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON 974 UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS 958 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 936 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 893 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 879 UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 842 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES 841 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 840 YORK UNIVERSITY 835 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 805 UPPSALA UNIVERSITY 802 BOSTON UNIVERSITY 784 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA 784 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 746 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 732 DUKE UNIVERSITY 724 UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 723 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI 710 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS 700 UNIVERSITY SIEGEN CAMPUS NETWORK 670 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 669 UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA 665 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY 654 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 650 SMITH COLLEGE 637 BROWN UNIVERSITY 626 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 614 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND 611 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL 589 THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY 583 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 552 WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY 532 SAINT JOHN S UNIVERSITY – COLLEGE OF SAINT BENEDICT 518 MCGILL UNIVERSITY 505 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ACADEMIC AFFAIRS 501

Now let’s look at visitor loyalty:

Visit that was the visitor’s nth visit % of all visits 1 times 824746 62% 2 times 114278 9% 3 times 51544 4% 4 times 32629 2% 5 ...

The European Central Bank may decide on the timing of a further increase in interest rates at a meeting in Helsinki later today.

Le Figaro

La BCE programme la hausse des taux Le Figaro Jean-Claude Trichet indiquera jeudi s'il relève le prix de l'argent début juin ou à l'été. Le Conseil des gouverneurs de la Banque centrale européenne se déplace jeudi à Helsinki, selon un rite bien rodé consistant à tenir une fois par semestre son ... La BCE devrait de nouveau augmenter son taux directeur de 0,25 ...EasyBourse.com BCE : passage en mode "vigilance" dès jeudi prochain (Natixis)Boursorama La décision de la BCE et six publications au Cac 40Investir.fr 20minutes.fr -MoneyWeek -Trends.be 28 autres articles »

The demise of Osama bin Laden continues to dominate the news. The White House debated for two days whether to release the death photo of Mr. Bin Laden, and then finally decided against it. Meanwhile, a Reuters photographer scooped everybody else by getting into the compound an hour after the raid and photographing various dead bodies, although apparently not Osama’s. Christian leaders have spoken out against celebrating the Al Qaeda leader’s death, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been chastised for expressing joy over the occasion.

In other news, Finnish parents in a culturally enriched neighborhood of Helsinki are going to great lengths to make sure that their children do not go to immigrant-dominated schools, including arranging for legal separations in their marriages.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Kitman, Nilk, SJ, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

I'm tongue-tied and dizzy, and I can't keep it to myself. *Manchester Orchestra* - Simple Math (http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=2278681) (Adam Pfleider) *Architecture in Helsinki* - Moment Bends (http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=2279342) (Jeremy Aaron)

AsiaOne

Finland Minister: Portugal's Fate Rests With Parliament Wall Street Journal By Arild Moen Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES HELSINKI (Dow Jones)--Finland's caretaker finance minister, Jyrki Katainen, Wednesday said the fate of the euro-zone bailout for Portugal lies in the hands of the Finnish parliament. Katainen is working to establish ... Finnish parties cool to attempt to resolve Portugal bailoutMonsters and Critics.com all 169 news articles »

Ahead of their imminent European tour, LA's Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti have posted a Dam Funk remix of their song, 'Fright Night (Nevermore)' online today.

One of the many highlights from last year's high-definition breakthrough album Before Today, 'Fright Night (Nevermore)' - in its virgin state - is a gothic slice of 80s pop, suffused with the spirit of Frank Zappa. Reworked by fellow West Coast native Dam Funk (né Damon Riddick), the "ambassador of boogie funk" has toned down the gothic aspects of the original and added his trademark Saturday night drive time groove to the mix. Download the MP3 below



Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti begin their European tour next Friday at London's KOKO. The band return in August for a string of festival appearances. All dates can be found below.

May
13th - KOKO, London (TICKETS)
14th - All Tomorrow's Parties, Minehead
(curated by Animal Collective) (TICKETS)
17th - Thekla, Bristol (TICKETS)
18th - Academy 3, Manchester (TICKETS)
20th - London Calling @ Paradiso, Amsterdam (TICKETS)
21st - Casa de Musica, Porto (TICKETS)
22nd - La Machine, Paris (TICKETS)
23rd - De Kruen, Kortrijk (TICKETS)
24th - Rotown, Rotterdam (TICKETS)
27th - Primavera Festival, Barcelona (TICKETS)
28th - Palazzode, Milan (TICKETS)
August
5th - Big Chill, Eastnor (TICKETS)
6th - Field Day, London (TICKETS)
7th - Off Fest, Katowice (TICKETS)
11th - Rock Café, Tallinn (TICKETS)
12th - Flow Fest, Helsinki (TICKETS)
13th - Way Out West, Gothenburg (TICKETS)

As the European Central Bank’s governing council gathers in Helsinki, the talk will be of the next rate rise, but prospects could take a turn for the worse

Reuters

Android became clear smartphone leader in first quarter: Canalys Reuters HELSINKI (Reuters) - Google's Android platform rose to a dominant position in the smartphone market in the first quarter, research firm Canalys said on Wednesday, increasing its lead over struggling Nokia. The news underscores how quickly Google, ... Android dominance of worldwide smartphone sales goes on, says CanalysThe Guardian (blog) Nokia Smartphone Not as Popular Research ShowsThinking Clearly Android Clobbers The Competition, Takes 35% Of The World's Smartphone MarketThe Business Insider Business Wire (press release) -CRN - UK -Channel Partners all 23 news articles »

European Senior Teams Championship Round 1
3-11th May in Thessaloniki - Olympus region, Greece

The European Chess Union, Greek Chess Federation and AMO Galaxias Sports' Club organize the 10th European Senior Teams Championship, from May 3rd to May 11th , 2011 in Thessaloniki - Olympus region.

The Championship started Tuesday with 35 teams from 20 countries and 52 titled players. England is lining three teams, Finland, Denmark, Israel, Norway and Sweden are represented by two teams each. In addition, the teams of Turku and Helsinki (also Finland) are competing.

The top rated teams mostly didn't have problems to cash in the regular rating advantage in the first round of Swiss pairings. However, there were some surprises as Turkey stunned Sportfreunde Katernberg and England 2 tied the score with Catalonia.

American Airlines on Sunday began seasonal nonstop service between Chicago O'Hare and Helsinki. The carrier will fly one daily round-trip flight ...

Drei Männer mit "Kontakten zur Skinheadszene" attackierten TeilnehmerInnen mit Tränengas - Weitere Beteiligte entkommen

In the days after September 11, then-Illinois state senator Barack Obama published an article in the Hyde Park Herald, his local newspaper, emphasizing the “difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness.” (The reference comes via David Remnick, who quoted the piece in The Bridge, his biography of Obama, and again on Monday in his reaction to the killing of Osama bin Laden.) “The essence of this tragedy,” Obama wrote, “derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy,” he continued, “such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity.”

These lines, it could be said, are not particularly insightful. The jihadist’s lack of empathy for the victims of a terrorist attack is not necessarily a failure of imagination; rather, the jihadist’s choice to disregard empathy—to fixate on cosmic reward rather than the short-term sufferings of individuals—is part of what it means to be a jihadist. But Obama’s words resonate in the wake of bin Laden’s death for another reason. Empathy is not what we expect from jihadists, but it is what we look for in our novelists. Unfortunately, only a handful of American novelists have even made an attempt to write about terrorists close-up. And their efforts have largely suffered from precisely the sort of failure of imagination for which Obama criticized jihadists, offering remarkably little insight into the sources of the madness. A list of suggested reading about bin Laden published by The New York Times on Monday did not include a single work of fiction.

Part of the problem is lack of knowledge. The conventional wisdom about Osama bin Laden, we now know, was all wrong. He wasn’t secreted off in some remote cave deep within the hills of the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands, far from civilization. Instead he was in a Pakistani McMansion, a generously proportioned compound surrounded by concrete and barbed wire, situated a stone’s throw from a prestigious military academy in a a midsize city. To be sure, the digitally rendered immediacy of bin Laden’s killing—from the nearly instantaneous reports of the raid in electronic media to the much-circulated Google Earth screen shots of his hideout—make it all seem bizarrely proximate. But our collective imagination of the inner workings of Al Qaeda proved deeply at odds with the reality. And, as the efforts of novelists have shown, the place we still cannot travel is the mind of a jihadist.

The most egregious demonstration of this was John Updike’s Terrorist, from 2006, in which the main character—an Arab-American teenager in the thrall of a storefront imam—is patched together so incompletely that, as James Wood wrote in his review of the novel for TNR, Updike’s attempts to give him depth are like “icing a hollow cake.” In contrast, the protagonist of Pearl Abraham’s American Taliban, which came out last year, is boldly imagined and certainly no stereotype: John Jude Parish is a blond surfer and skateboarder who is vaguely drawn to mysticism in a typical teenage-slacker manner. When a broken leg keeps him away from his sports, he finds in studying Arabic the discipline his life is lacking; his meandering path leads him from the Arabic-language school in Brooklyn to an Islamic academy in Peshawar and, from there, to an Al Qaeda training camp. But Parish is so far from a typical terrorist, his journey so wild and fantastic, that he sheds little light on the phenomenon more generally.

One could argue that Western novelists have a strike against them from the start. Are we likely to trust that a writer named Updike or Abraham can have insight into the mind of a jihadist? While they both have things of value to say, their uncertainty about their subject matter shows through on the page in the lack of precision that each brings to the Islamic trappings surrounding their character. A certain shorthand is being called upon, gesturing at things we think we know about—things we have heard about—but do not really know. What is a storefront imam, anyway? What does his mosque feel like inside? We get a description—up a flight of stairs, through a double door, carpets that need to be vacuumed, and so on—but it is so unvisceral that one can almost see the novelist standing behind the curtain with his pen and paper, taking care to make note of the adjacent nail salon and check-cashing establishment. Updike admitted that his research for the novel was superficial—he even consulted a book called The Koran for Dummies.

Lorraine Adams, whose 2004 novel Harbor is both the most realistic and most successful book in this small group of novels about terrorism, builds the reader’s trust by establishing her protagonist’s identity as a distinctive character—he is an Algerian refugee who ends up in Boston after stowing away on a ship—before altering his trajectory into jihad. When a writer thinks through her character’s predicament deeply enough—from the physical damage he sustains from the conditions on the ship to the constant confusion of his adjustment to America—we don’t get bogged down in wondering whether she has done her homework. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Adams is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter who covered counterterrorism and had access to material collected by the FBI.) But her book, like Abraham’s, treats an accidental terrorist, a man who is mainly carried along by others. Perhaps an intentional jihadist presents an imaginative barrier too difficult to cross.

Updike said in an interview that he could only feel comfortable writing about an American character. “With so many journalists and other novelists on the job, there was no need to try to understand the Saudi or Syrian or Palestinian terrorist,” he said. “Others can do that better.” But the trouble is that the American market is not exactly overflowing with novels by Saudi Arabians or Syrians or Palestinians exploring the motivations of homegrown terrorists. A few anthologies have appeared over the last year, including Beirut 39, a collection of work by young writers around the Arab world, and Reza Aslan’s Tablet and Pen, a hefty volume that includes sentimental favorites like Khalil Gibran and Naguib Mahfouz as well as more cutting-edge writers. But anthologies are panoramas, not stereoscopes: The picture they present is wide, not deep. Beirut 39 provides a tantalizing excerpt of a novel called The Twentieth Terrorist by the Saudi writer Abdullah Thabit, a former extremist who received hate mail and death threats for revealing details of ideological indoctrination. But the book has yet to be published in English translation; only a few pages are available. 

Granted, literature shouldn’t be a game of identity politics. The best writers—David Mitchell, who brilliantly pulled off his recent epic about eighteenth-century Japan, comes to mind—are true ventriloquists, able to speak in the name of characters with whom they share little superficially. But logic tells us that it might well be impossible to write a truly great realist novel about a culture of which one knows little, because realist fiction requires an amount of precision that can be gained only through comprehensive contact. Could Dostoevsky have written Crime and Punishment about a student in Helsinki rather than St. Petersburg? What if Flaubert had made Madame Bovary a country wife in Appalachia? No amount of research and preparation can equal total immersion in a world.

But even immersion can go only so far. In a moment of cosmically serendipitous timing, the latest edition of Words Without Borders, the Internet magazine devoted to literature in translation, is now featuring writing from Afghanistan. The issue includes some excellent work, including a story by a very young writer named Mahmud Marhun depicting the inner monologue of a jihadist who discovers himself excluded from paradise and another remarkable story by Zalmay Babakohi, an émigré who now lives in Canada. Yet even these works shrink from an up-close view of bin Laden. Babakohi’s story, “The Idol’s Dust,” describes the destruction by the Taliban of the Bamyan Buddhas, the giant sculptures that once stood in central Afghanistan. In Babakohi’s vision, the dust from the Buddhas settles on the Talibs and covers them; when they try to scrub themselves clean, they discover they have been transformed into idols. Finally, word reaches “the Commander of the Faithful” about the situation, and the mullah in charge of the operation is ordered to present himself. When he appears, quaking with fear, before his leader, seeing him up close for the first time, he is so shocked he cannot speak. All he sees of the Commander—and all that we see, through the mullah’s eyes—is the same idol’s dust on the Commander’s forehead.

Ruth Franklin is a senior editor at The New Republic.

Follow @tnr on Twitter.

Position announced on: May 3, 2011 Apply at latest on: May 23, 2011 at 3:45 PM Fixed-term: Aug 1, 2011 – Dec 31, 2014 Employer: Networks and campus organisations Helsinki University Centre for Environment Henvi   The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) jointly with the Helsinki University Centre for Environment (HENVI) is inviting applications for a . [...]

Delta Air Lines today announced expanded codesharing with the Virgin Blue Airlines Group that will add five new destinations in Australia and New Zealand to Delta’s network. The new service, which will begin May 21, will allow Delta customers to seamlessly connect to Perth, Adelaide and Canberra in Australia, as well as Auckland and Christchurch, [...]

Delta, Virgin Blue to Expand Codeshare Flights is a post from: Aviation news - Planegrazy

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NIGHTWISH singer Anette Olzon recently completed tracking all the vocal parts for the band's new album, "Imaginarium" at Finnvox studios in Pitäjänmäki, Helsinki, Finland.

The Motorship

Wärtsilä to power Statoil support ship PennEnergy- Energy News (press release) HELSINKI, Finland -- Sartor Shipping has contracted Wärtsilä to provide the VS465 vessel design and diesel electric propulsion system for a new field support vessel to be built in Norway. The ship, which will be constructed by the Bergen Group BMV ... Wärtsilä to supply ship design and full diesel electric propulsion system ...Reuters (press release) Design and DE system for support shipThe Motorship all 10 news articles »

HELSINKI - A Nokia, maior fabricante de celulares em volume do mundo, começou a buscar um novo presidente do conselho para suceder Jorma Ollila,... ( Reuters )

HELSINKI (AP) — Finland's prime minister-elect delayed government formation talks on Tuesday, throwing more uncertainty into the eurozone's plans for Portugal's bailout and other financial aid to cash-strapped member countries.

Not much to see here, folks. Got some new stuff from Architecture in Helsinki, Beastie Boys, Pygmy Lush and Vandervelde. Then there’s best-of or live albums from Lou Reed, Morrissey and Loudon Wainwright III. :: 1990′s – (My Baby’s) Double Espresso :: 31 Knots – Trump Harm :: Amanda Shires – Carrying Lightning :: Architecture [...]