Free Republic

Finland has launched a range of erotic gay stamps, featuring a man in police uniform sitting on the shoulders of a naked man, and another with a man looking in between some naked legs. The stamps are to commemorate the life and work of the artist Touko Laaksonen, more commonly known as Tom of Finland, reports Pink News. The stamps, which will be available from the Autumn, are being launched by the Finnish Postal Service, Itella. In a statement they said: “His emphatically masculine homoerotic drawings have attained iconic status in their genre and had an influence on, for instance,...

CBS/ReutersMarch 5, 2014, 11:01 AM Vladimir Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize OSLO -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize but the conflict in Ukraine is also likely to be on the Nobel committee's agenda. A record 278 candidates, including 47 organizations, received nominations for the 2014 prize, said the Norwegian Nobel Institute's director, Geir Lundestad. Committee members who met on Tuesday added their own proposals with a focus on recent turmoil around the globe. "Part of the purpose of the committee's first meeting is to take into account recent events, and committee...

Archeologists have uncovered a unique funerary monument of the first millennium AD on the territory of Opolye, Suzdal. The discovery of this Finno-Ugric burial ground is a real event for archeologists. In the excavation around 300 square meters large there have been unearthed 11 tombs that make it possible to reveal the earlier unknown facts of ancient history. The monument dating back to the 3rd-4th centuries has kept Finnish jewelry and is evidence of a rich militarized society, where cattle breeding played an important role. All entombments are located in a row. Judging by their size at least four of...

‘Red Festival’ In Udmurtia 19 November 2010, 07:50 Nadezhda Volokitina The Udmurts are the most red-haired Finno-Ugric people, the most red-haired nation in Russia, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned, they are inferior only to the Irish in this respect. The so-called ‘Red Festival’, which gathers a lot of people, takes place annually in the capital of Udmurtia, Izhevsk. There organized such contests and competitions as ‘Mother, Father and I are a Red Family’ (the most red-haired family contest), ‘Mischievous Gingers’ (the most red-haired child contest), as well as ‘red’ pet contests for cats, dogs,...

Eighteen countries, including five of the world’s leading arms exporters, ratified a landmark treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade on Wednesday, giving a significant boost to the campaign for the treaty’s entry into force. […] Five of the world’s top 10 arms exporters—Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain—turned in their ratification documents at the ceremony. The other 13 were Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Among the hold-outs is the United States, the world’s largest weapons exporter. The Obama administration has signed the treaty but there is strong resistance in...

STOCKHOLM/HELSINKI (Reuters) - When Russian warplanes staged a mock bombing run on Sweden last year, air defences were caught napping. It was the middle of the night and no Swedish planes were scrambled.

Is the Republican Party's Middle East policy up for bid? For four days ending Sunday, a quartet of presidential hopefuls trooped to Las Vegas to attend the annual gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Impresario: Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas-Macau casino mogul whose fortune is estimated at $39 billion -- 8th richest man on the planet -- and who dumped $92 million into the election of 2012. Adelson kept Newt Gingrich alive with a $15 million infusion of ad money, gutting Romney, and then sank $30 million into Mitt's campaign. This time Sheldon wants to buy himself a winner. Ari Fleischer,...

Russian military drills near neighboring Finland have provoked concern that northern Europe may be the next focus of Moscow's seemingly renewed appetite for redrawing its borders. Troops and jet fighters from all four military regions of Russia were deployed Sunday about 150 miles east of the Finnish border, according to the English-language newspaper Finnbay. The Russian defense ministry said in a statement that the exercises were pre-planned and that more than 50 fighter pilots took part. Finland was part of the Russian empire for 108 years, from 1809 until Russia’s withdrawal from World War I in 1917. The Karelia region,...

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest ex-advisers has claimed that the ex-KGB agent ultimately wants to reclaim Finland for Russia. Andrej Illiaronov, Putin's economic adviser between 2000 and 2005 and now senior member of the Cato Institute think tank, said that "parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership." "Putin's view is that he protects what belongs to him and his predecessors," he said. When asked if Putin wishes to return to the Russia of the last tsar, Nicholas II, Illiaronov said: "Yes, if it becomes possible." Illiaronov admits...

THE HAGUE, March 24./ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian crisis has not adversely affected bilateral relations between Finland and Russia, Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto said in The Hague on Monday. Helsinki traditionally maintained friendly relations with Moscow, Niinisto said adding he intended to continue bilateral meetings with Russia if it was in Finland’s interests, though last week's EU summit recommended that EU members cancel such meetings. Niinisto also pointed out the importance of continued negotiations to avert a deeper crisis in Ukraine.

Watchdogs from several European countries have noticed no indication of a massive build-up of Russian military that would threaten the security of neighboring states, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Sunday. According to Mr. Antonov, as many as seven inspection groups paid visits to Russian border territories over the past month. “Our facilities and deployment areas along the Russian-Ukrainian border were twice checked by the Ukrainian military,” he noted.Monitors from the US, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland scrutinized Russia’s military camps stationed on its borders with neighboring nations. “It must have been a simple...

n September 1941, a medical officer performed a deed so heroic he was awarded an Iron Cross by the German high command. With little regard for his own safety, and in the face of heavy Soviet shelling, Major Leo Skurnik, a district doctor who had once fostered ambitions of becoming a concert pianist, organised the evacuation of a field hospital on the Finnish-Russian border, saving the lives of more than 600 men, including members of the SS. Skurnik was far from the only soldier to be awarded the Iron Cross during the Second World War. More than four million people...

Finnish YouTube user might not know how to speak many languages, but she sure sounds like she can. In a video uploaded on Monday 19-year-old Sara mimics what different dialects sound like to her. As she moves from language to language, she makes absolutely no sense yet sounds as if she speaks it fluently. For full disclosure, I wouldn't be able to fact-check most of the languages she speaks anyway. It's only when she gets to her American-English impression that her talent is confirmed. "Yeah, I mean, uh," she starts in her American accent, sounding as if she's a native...

SOCHI, Russia -- Teemu Selanne led his team around the ice, with a bronze medal draped around his neck, after he finished off his sixth Olympics with a sweet victory. If the Finnish Flash is retiring and hanging up his skates after the NHL season, he picked a pretty good way to go out on the world's stage. The final game at the Olympics turned out well for Finland's Teemu Selanne, who will go out on a high note, writes Pierre LeBrun. Story Selanne scored two goals and Tuukka Rask had a 27-save shutout, helping Finland rout the United States...

Jonathan Quick will leave Sochi empty handed, but not quietly. Humiliated after a 5-0 loss to Finland in the Olympic bronze-medal hockey game Saturday, the U.S. goaltender harshly criticized his team’s effort a day after losing to Canada in the semifinals. “It shouldn’t be too hard,” he told NBC. “We do that all year long. We’re professionals. We play back-to-backs all year long. “There’s no reason we show up and not piss a drop.” Quick also took responsibility for his own play. “My job is to stop the puck, and I didn’t do that very well,” the Los Angeles Kings...

It was over in a flash. A Finnish Flash. For Team USA, however, it was more like a flash finish. Team Finland scored two goals in 11 seconds early in the second period to snap a 0-0 tie en route to a 5-0 victory in the bronze medal game Saturday. Veteran Teemu Selanne, playing in his 35th Olympic hockey game, scored two goals including the game-winner to lead Finland. It was a wonderful conclusion to what has been a splendid Olympic hockey career for a classy gentleman. Selanne scored on a nifty backhand shot at 1:27 of the second period...

As many as 4,000 reindeer die in traffic accidents every year in Finland, the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute says. Most incidents occur in the dark months of November and December, when roads are prone to becoming icy, the Helsingen Sanomat newspaper reports.

SOCHI, Russia -- The Russians dutifully shook the Finns' hands and then skated to the center of a rink built to showcase their return to hockey dominance. When they raised their sticks in a mournful salute, they got more whistles than cheers from their devastated fans. Alex Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk and their teammates had nursed dreams about this week for several years. They were all dashed in 60 frustrating minutes. Russia crashed out of the Olympics in the quarterfinals Wednesday with a 3-1 loss to Finland, extending a historic hockey nation's gold-medal drought past 22 years and putting an enormous...

Result in Comment section

An Alaska senator said the State Department called his office today to say that they would be creating a post for a U.S. ambassador to the Arctic. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) introduced the United States Ambassador at Large for Arctic Affairs Act a year ago, pressing Secretary of State John Kerry to make the appointment on economic and national security grounds. Six of the eight Arctic nations currently have ambassador-level diplomats representing their interests before the Arctic Council. The United States will assume the chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2015. “It’s not always easy explaining to Washington bureaucrats how...