Tarja Halonen News

Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen will pay an official visit to Vietnam on November 15-17 at the invitation of PM Nguyen Tan Dung.

On Thursday, Speaker of Parliament Sauli Niinisto did not get any support for his proposal that the President and the government ministers should be allowed to jump ahead of the queue to get their H1N1 shots.

Aside from blonde, Barbie-like women, freezing cold weather and Nokia mobile phones, there is little the general public associates with Finland.

Finland's foreign policy leaders are in no great hurry to update their assessment of how changes in Afghanistan's international crisis management will be reflected in Finland's contribution to the international effort.

This could come as a disappointment, but there are no sinister plots in the strange confusion over the additional Finnish forces sent to Afghanistan, nor is there a single guilty party.

For the past four years Syria has been begging for a partnership with the EU. Now the EU agrees, Syria says it'll think about it, Bassel Oudat reports from Damascus On 8 October, the EU said it was ready to sign a Syrian- European Partnership Agreement.

The upcoming appointments to leadership positions of the European Union dominated the summit of the leaders of EU member states in Brussels on Thursday.

European Union leaders argued on Thursday over how to split the bill for helping poor countries tackle global warming in a deal to be agreed in December in Copenhagen.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb says that the government has not yet decided whether or not to give Parliament any additional reports on the timing of the withdrawal of a contingent of Finnish crisis management forces from Afghanistan, and on a break in communications linked with the schedule.

Juha Korkeaoja , the chairman of the Finnish Parliament's defence committee, was quoted as saying by regional daily Aamulehti on Tuesday that the defence staff had informed the defence ministry about the withdrawal date of troops deployed into Afghanistan to help secure the country's presidential election.

Finland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb has accepted partial responsibility for not sufficiently informing President Tarja Halonen about the schedule of the departure of the contingent of Finnish crisis management forces from Afghanistan.

Damascus, Oct 22 Finnish President Tarja Halonen began an official three-day visit to Syria, with talks with her peer Al-Assad on the European Union''s role in Middle East peace negotiations.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday in Damascus affirmed Syria's support for Lebanon in forming a national unity government, saying such a government would bring the situation in Lebanon back to normal after years of turmoil and division.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said on Thursday that he would order an investigation into why some of the country's leaders were in the dark about when Finnish soldiers in Afghanistan would be withdrawn.

'We must review the association agreement with Europe,' Assad told a news conference after talks with visiting Finnish President Tarja Halonen.

The confusion on when Finnish forces would leave Afghanistan has added fuel to a long-standing rivalry between Finland and Sweden.

THE PALESTINIAN question topped the list of issues that President Hosni Mubarak discussed with European leaders this week.

" Israel must choose between occupation and peace," Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday, adding that the two concepts "do not go hand in hand". Cooperation Syria says to hold military exercises with Turkey / Reuters After cancelation of Turkish military exercise with Israeli participation, Syrian Defense Minister Ali Habib says Syria, ...

The additional force of about 80 Finnish crisis management soldiers sent to Afghanistan to help ensure security during the Presidential elections in August will definitely be brought back to Finland in October.

Brigadier General Veli-Pekka Parkatti, the chief of operations of the Finnish army, told the Finnish News Agency on Tuesday that the Defence Forces would withdraw the extra troops deployed to secure Afghanistan's presidential election at the end of the month, before a runoff scheduled for 7 November.