Calls for a ban on face coverings in schools have now also reached Helsinki, reports Helsingin Sanomat.

Seida Sohrabi, a city councillor from the National Coalition Party, has urged the capital to prohibit face-concealing veils in its primary schools. Her proposal would bar pupils from wearing veils that conceal the face.

The debate follows a decision announced on Monday by the neighbouring city of Vantaa, which said pupils would no longer be allowed to cover their faces at school.

She said equality should take precedence over freedom of religion when the use of face-covering veils is weighed.

"There is no reason to interfere with religious freedom in one's private life," she said. "But in public spaces and institutions, equality has to come first."

Shawn Huff, Helsinki's deputy mayor responsible for education, has downplayed the need for a formal policy. According to the city, no cases have been reported during the current school year in which a child attended school wearing a face-covering veil.

Nuclear graveyard expertise

Finland has effectively become the first country to solve the problem of how to permanently dispose of nuclear waste. The solution lies deep underground in a geological repository known as Onkalo.

No other country has yet progressed as far in implementing a comparable system, Kauppalehti reports.

The commercial potential in this expertise is considerable. Around 11,000 tonnes of new nuclear waste are produced globally each year, while roughly 450,000 tonnes of spent fuel remain in interim storage awaiting a permanent solution.

Countries such as Sweden, France and China are among the closest followers, but even they are still several years behind Finland.

Bank fraud gets personal

Fraudsters are increasingly approaching Finns directly, according to business weekly Talouselämä, which says bank scams targeting individuals are evolving.

S-Bank told the magazine that scammers are transitioning to phone calls or WhatsApp, rather than relying on fake websites or mass phishing campaigns.

"Criminals adapt their methods quickly, depending on the kinds of scams people fall for," says Leo Niemelä, chief information security officer at S-Bank.

Increasingly, fraudsters pose as representatives of banks or public authorities, trying to establish a personal connection with their targets.

At the beginning of this month, the National Cyber Security Centre Finland warned that an unusually large number of scam phone calls made in the name of banks were circulating.