The document released earlier this week by the Guggenheim Foundation proposes the south waterfront area of Katajanokka as the site for the facility. A feasibility study also said found that the museum would come at a cost of EUR 140 million and would attract some 500,000 visitors annually.

Helsinki deputy mayor Tuula Haatainen said in a statement, “By giving artists, designers and architects access to major international networks, and by promoting new types of conversations of the arts, a Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki would offer global exposure and unprecedented opportunities to practitioners in the field of visual culture in Finland as well as in the Baltic and Nordic regions in general,” YLE reports.

An official decision regarding the construction of the museum is expected from the City of Helsinki and its city council within the next few weeks. If given the green light, additional approval would be needed from Guggenheim Foundation’s board.

The proposed facility is slated to be about 12,000 square-metres in size, with nearly 4,000 square-metres dedicated to exhibitions. Helsinki officials say that funding will come via a combination of private, corporate and public sources.

A temporary secretary, who worked at the Haartman facility for just four months last spring, is suspected of data protection crimes after gaining unauthorised access to the electronic records of 188 patients.

The secretary was sacked as soon as the violation was discovered, but the victims are only just being informed of it now. The Data Protection Ombudsman said such offences are becoming increasingly common in Finland.

Speaking to YLE, Seppo Saarela from Helsinki described the letter he received from the Haartman accident and emergency hospital last week. ”A secretary working at the city hospital had opened my case history file and could have seen my patient record,” he said. ”The department’s secretary did not have the right to open the case history file. It feels like that any summer intern can get into Haartman hospital’s database. Unbelievable!”

Jukka Toivonen, the hospital’s chief physician, said, “Helsinki health services decided to notify all those whose names we know. Altogether, 188 of these letters have been sent. We have no information about the motive. It could have been just curiosity. Police are investigating this too.”

London-based publication Monocle rates cities across the globe on factors such as crime, water quality, green spaces, hours of sunshine and transport efficiency, concluding this year that Finland’s capital is a cut above the rest.

Rising from a fifth-place ranking in the 2010 survey, Helsinki edged past Copenhagen and Zurich as third place runners-up to claim this year’s top spot. Stockholm was ranked 11th, sitting just outside a Europe-dominated top-ten.

Of American cities, only Seattle (25th place), Honolulu (19) and Portland (18) made the list, with Fukuoka (16) and Tokyo (9) representing for Asia, and Auckland (13), Sydney (7) and Melbourne (5) holding up Australia’s end. Monocle’s home city of London was notably absent from the top 25.

“When you look at all the things Helsinki is quietly doing right, benchmarking whole categories for other cities, it becomes clear that Helsinki is a plucky city that doesn’t take shortcuts,” said Monocle editor Andrew Tuck .

“Finns might take for granted their low crime rate, for example, but the rate of break-ins Helsinki has per year is less than what many other Western cities experience every two weeks. The social cohesion you see in Helsinki is really remarkable,” Tuck added.

According to another list released this week, the price of such civilisation does not come cheap, however. ECA International ranked Helsinki as the 13th most expensive city in the world, costing residents even more than if they were living in New York, Paris or Moscow.

The ECA list, which is used by international companies to calculate salaries and location strategies, also named Copenhagen as the sixth most expensive place to live. Oslo, however, earned the dubious accolade of being second-only to Tokyo in cost, while not even ranking on Monocle’s liveability chart.

Aby Suleiman al–Nasser, an influential al-Qaeda blogger, paid tribute to the acts, which occurred in the Finnish capital, on an internet discussion forum.

Police were tipped off by a passer-by on Friday 3rd June about a suspicious-looking canister in the Pasila district. The area was cordoned off, but restrictions were quickly lifted after the home made device was not deemed to be in any danger of immediate explosion. No suspects have so far been detained, but the case is being investigated as attempted sabotage.

The following morning, a petrol bomb was thrown onto the forecourt of a service station in Tapaninvaino. It is not clear whether the two incidents are connected and the police have so far refused to speculate on the second incident.

Speaking to YLE, Finnish Security Police (SUPO) director of communications, Liinu Lehto-Seijavaara, said the organisation would provide assistance if needed, but that the main responsibility for the investigation lies with officers in Pasila. “Naturally, we are employing our own channels. Previously we have not had such threats to civilian targets,” she said.

Pasila police inspector Kari Martikainen said there is so far no evidence that the crimes were linked to extremists, but confirmed that officers are looking to the public and at surveillance footage in an attempt to ascertain what happened.

Officials from the famous Temppeliaukio Church attraction say the majority of the visitors come from Russia and China, where tour groups have not received the memo that the site will be shut until the first week of June.

Seppo Puttonen, foreman of the church, said despite the closure, ”On Monday I relented and let in a group of 35 foreign architects,” the Helsingin Sanomat reports. He added, “Usually I maintain a hard line on this. Then again, this is a construction site, so we cannot keep the doors locked. Last week a group of Germans came in undetected through the back door.”

Guides say that the phenomenon continues despite efforts to temporarily deter visitors. Head guide Veikko Laitinen said, “We have done our best to inform all the organisers of sightseeing tours that the church is closed for the duration. The Helsinki City Tourist and Convention Bureau, various guide organisations, and the cruise line companies are well aware of the situation, but there is also false information going about on the Internet.”

The Temppeliaukio Church is among the top four tourist attractions in Helsinki, designed by prestigious architects and brothers Tuomo and Timo Suomalainen. The 1960s-built structure sees around 500,000 visitors annually, primarily foreign.

Officials from the new facility, situated in Paaskylanrinne, said that last Thursday alone saw 80 people stop in for a shower. Marjatta Vesalainen, a full-time worker at the centre, said that word of its opening had spread very quickly and Finland has seen a new influx of Roma, this time coming from Bulgaria.

The facility, backed by the City of Helsinki and the Deaconess Institute, is dubbed Hirundo (‘swallow’ in Latin). It was formerly a homeless service centre, and now opens its doors for several hours every day of the week so that the Eastern European immigrants can use washing machines, the internet, showers and more.

Amid the new surge of Bulgarian Roma, a few in the area have complained about the centre, as previously the city’s Roma went mainly to the Finnish Roma Kaalo day centre for services.

Workers say the new centre has opened as a result of growing tension between police and the city’s Roma population. Camping without permission is banned by the city and the Bulgarian Roma in particular claim they have been targeted with this rule.

Georgi Georgiev, a Bulgarian who has been living with a large group at a recently dismantled camp in Helsinki, said “We are discriminated against. The police only chase away the Bulgarians, but not the Romanians,” the Helsingin Sanomat reports.

A ladder truck and net was used by fireman George Juden, who eventually managed to trap the forlorn looking bird. The baby eagle owl was then tagged and placed back in the nest by researcher Tapio Solonen.

According to Solonen, the bird has a wingspan of 1.5 metres already, despite being only between nine and ten weeks old. ”Its wings are already almost fully developed,” he said in a Helsingin Sanoman report.

He also warned Helsinki residents to call the emergency services rather than approaching the birds if another chick finds itself in a compromising position.

”They can get nervous if they are approached. In addition, the adult birds may turn up, especially at twilight or at night when it is dark. Then there is every reason to be extremely careful,” Solonen noted.

(Owl picture not an eagle owl. Used for illustration purposes only)

The names of the candidates will not be made public until later this month, but the beneficiaries will include members of all the country’s parties, except the Green League.

Last week, secretly filmed footage of animals appearing to be living in poor conditions in Finland’s fur farms circulated in the media. Facilities run by senior members of Finnish Fur Sales and the Finnish Fur Breeders’ Association featured in the clips.

Head of communications at Finnish Fur Sales, Paivi Mononen -Mikkila, however said that despite the controversy, the fur industry is still thriving. She added that 90 percent of the fox furs seen at this year’s Milan Fashion Week had come from Finland.

Mononen-Mikkila urged MPs to remain impartial, claiming that there is a systematic campaign against fur production currently going on in Finland. “It is extremely important that politicians should understand matters pertaining to the field,” she said in a Helsingin Sanomat report.

It has not yet been revealed whether Prime Minister Mari Kiviemi will be one of the recipients of the donations. She has, however, previously accepted contributions from the fur industry and has hinted that she would do so again. “It is appropriate to receive election funding from a business that operates legally,” she said in Parliament at the end of February.

The number of possible terrorists is believed to have grown in recent years, while police surveillance has also been stepped up. According to Inspector Seppo Ruotsalainen of the National Police Board, it is not clear whether the increase in the amount of people coming to their attention is because of an actual rise in extremism or a better system of information gathering. “At this stage, it is difficult to say,” he told YLE.

Tablighi Jamaat is an active organisation in Finland with known links to al-Qaida, but the authorities have declined to specify exactly which foreign organisation are known to house radicals. Police did disclose however that while no terrorist training is thought to take place in Finland, many people are recruited from the country to attend training camps abroad.

As well as being home to the majority of the people picked out by police as budding terrorists, Helsinki is also said to be the most likely place for an attack. Plots from across the European Union have been aimed almost exclusively at major or capital cities. According to Inspector Ruotsalanien, this is because of a greater potential for civilian casualties and the promise of increased publicity.

Across the country, conditions are still appalling, even by Finnish winter standards. In Uusimaa province, over 100 accidents left roads littered with vehicles and a report from Kaisaniemi duty meteorologist Antti Jylha-Ollila indicates the region’s record for depth of snow in December, 70cm, is about to be broken.

After hitting Helsinki, the freezing front was expected to move east towards Uusimaa, then veer to the north overnight. Finland’s border regions are seeing the least snow at present, with Enontekio on the northwest tip at 45cm, northernmost Utsjoki with 34cm and Lappeenranta in the southeast getting only 16cm.