Helsinki, Finland — Two seasoned politicians face off in Finland’s presidential election on Sunday, with the president’s role having gained importance in light of the country’s NATO membership and rising tensions with neighboring Russia.

Some 4.3 million voters will have to choose between former conservative Prime Minister Alexander Stubb and ex-Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, a Green Party MP running as an independent.

The changing geopolitical landscape in Europe will be the main concern for the new head of state, who — while having limited powers compared to the prime minister — leads the country’s foreign policy together with the government and also acts as supreme commander of Finland’s armed forces.

Relations between Moscow and Helsinki deteriorated following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, prompting Finland to drop decades of military nonalignment and join NATO in April 2023.

Russia, with whom Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer border, swiftly warned of “countermeasures.”

“The fact that we’ve just joined NATO has a lot of significance because the building of the NATO institution in Finland and what it will look like will largely be a task for the new president,” Theodora Helimaki, doctoral researcher in political science at the University of Helsinki, told AFP.

“The top two were perhaps the most experienced in terms of foreign policy,” she added regarding the first round.

Radio silence

Stubb came out ahead in the first round on January 28 with 27.2% of votes, while Haavisto came in a close second with 25.8% of the vote — qualifying them for the second round.

An opinion poll by public broadcaster Yle published on Thursday saw Stubb getting 54% of the vote, compared to 46% for Haavisto.

In the post-Cold War period, Helsinki maintained good relationships with Moscow.

Outgoing president Sauli Niinisto, first elected in 2012, once prided himself on his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin before becoming one of his most trenchant critics.

Niinisto contacted him directly to announce the decision to join NATO.

Since then, there has been radio silence and neither candidate is expecting a phone call from the Kremlin if they win the election.

In August 2023, Finland observed an influx of migrants entering through its eastern border without visas.

Helsinki claimed Moscow was pushing the migrants to destabilize it, and in response closed their border in November — a move supported by both candidates.

Stubb and Haavisto, who have both served as foreign minister, share similar visions for the country’s position toward Russia, calling for additional sanctions against Moscow and support for Ukraine.

“The European Union can do much more to help Ukraine,” Haavisto said during a televised debate on Thursday evening.

“Ukraine’s road is our road, and at the moment they are fighting for the freedom of Europeans. They deserve all the support that we can give to them,” Stubb agreed.

Nuclear arms

For Helimaki, the differences between the candidates come down to nuance on certain issues, such as the storage or transport of nuclear weapons in Finland.

Haavisto does not want them on Finnish soil though he recognizes that as a member of NATO, the Nordic country must take part in exercises relating to the alliance’s nuclear policy.

Stubb meanwhile feels that the country should not exclude “any part” of NATO’s nuclear deterrence.

Given the lack of significant foreign policy differences, voters are likely to make their decision based on their political preferences, according to Matti Pesu, leading researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

“While Stubb’s liberalism is related to Western organizations and Western values, Haavisto has more of a global emphasis: the U.N., peace, development,” Pesu told AFP.

When it comes to personality, Stubb comes across as a “kind of modern politician and fairly open in how he talks,” while Haavisto “is a more traditional, more careful Finnish politician.”

Voter turnout in the first round was 75% and polling stations open at 9:00 a.m. local time and close at 8 p.m. 
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BERLIN — Three Dutch citizens were found dead in western Switzerland after an apparent hiking accident, police said Saturday.

The mother and her two adult children, who had been reported missing Thursday, were found near the Rochers-de-Naye mountain in the canton of Vaud, local police said in a statement.

The 57-year-old woman, her 25-year-old daughter and her 22-year-old son set off on a hike Wednesday morning and were not heard from since. A large-scale search operation was launched Thursday, and the grim discovery — the bodies of all three were found Friday morning about 300 meters (1,000 feet) below a steep path.

Police did not give details about the nature of the deaths or any details about the apparent accident scene.

The mother and daughter were on vacation in Switzerland while the son lived in the region, police said. The three victims were not identified by name, in line with Swiss privacy rules.
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london — In British history, the secrecy of the monarch’s health has always reigned supreme. Buckingham Palace’s disclosure that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer shattered that longstanding tradition. 

On the heels of the shock and well-wishing that followed the official statement Monday came the surprise that the palace had announced anything at all. Indeed, the unprecedented missive was sparse on details: Charles, 75, had begun treatment for a cancer it did not name after being diagnosed during a recent corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate. The king is stepping back from public duties but carrying on state business during his treatment, which he’ll receive as an outpatient, the palace said. 

“The King has cancer,” The Times of London declared in a terse banner headline Tuesday. It was unlike any other in British history. 

Never complain, never explain, as Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was known to say. Charles has withheld details of his illness and treatment, and in that way is carrying on her approach. But in beaming a sliver of light from inside the palace walls and his own life, the king has broken with his mother and royal tradition.

Royals’ health a mystery

The world still does not know the cause of Elizabeth’s death in 2022 at the age of 96. In the final years of her life, the public was told only that the queen was suffering from “mobility issues.” Her death certificate listed the cause simply as “old age.” 

The British public wasn’t told that Charles’ grandfather, King George VI, had lung cancer before his death in February 1952 at the age of 56, and some historians have claimed that the king himself wasn’t told he was terminally ill. 

Given that Charles rules in a media-saturated age, “I do think it’s incumbent on him to reveal more than he’s revealed,” said Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life.” 

“He was admirably candid in what he said about being treated for an enlarged prostate, and his impulse was to be open and also to encourage men to have the necessary examinations,” she added. “But then he reverted to the traditional royal form, which is mystery, secrecy, opacity.” 

On Tuesday, former royal press secretary Simon Lewis told BBC Radio 4 that Charles’ openness about his cancer diagnosis has been his style as a monarch. 

“I think 20 years ago we would have got a very abrupt, short statement, and that’s about it,” he said. The palace statement goes as far as possible, “given that the King has had a diagnosis of cancer and, as a lot of people know, processing that is a pretty tough process.” 

One reason for disclosing his illness, the palace statement said, was “in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.” Cancer patient advocates reported glimmers of success on that front, with Cancer Research UK reporting a 42% rise in visits to its cancer information page, according to Dr. Julie Sharp, the group’s head of health and patient information. 

The jump “reflects that high-profile cancer cases often act as a prompt to encourage people to find out more or think about their own health,” she said. 

But there was another pragmatic reason: To keep control of the information in the age of lightning-fast social media and misinformation. The palace statement said Charles “has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation.” 

Privacy part of past

In the annals of power, leaders and their advisers strive to maintain — or at least, not undermine — the perception of being in strong and in control. Because to allow any perception of vulnerability or weakness could spark a fight for the gavel or the crown — or encourage a coup. 

The former Soviet Union was famous for neglecting to mention when its leaders are sick or dead — think Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, secretly sick and soon deceased one after the other in the 1980s. Each event sparked scrambles for succession. 

In the United States, there’s little to no debate about the public’s right to know the health status of their leaders. It’s a key feature of the 2024 presidential rumble between President Joe Biden, 81, and former president Donald Trump, 77, with other contenders, such as GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, arguing that they’re both too old to preside. 

And on February 1, U.S.. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — sixth in the presidential line of succession — apologized for keeping secret his cancer diagnosis and surgery. In a rare press conference, he acknowledged missing a key chance to use the experience as a teaching moment for those he leads across the Defense Department and, even more importantly, for Black Americans. 

How much does the British public have a right to know? 

Whether the monarch owes the world more information about his health than other Britons do is a tense subject. 

Royals are private citizens but also, in a sense, part of the public trust given that they are subsidized by British taxpayers and play an important — though largely powerless — constitutional role. Unelected, they inherit their wealth under a 1,000-year-old monarchy that Republican activists have long tried to dislodge. 

And though some polls show the public is friendly toward Charles, opposition and apathy to the monarchy are both growing. In a recent study by the National Center for Social Research, just 29% of respondents thought the monarchy was “very important” — the lowest level in the center’s 40 years of research on the subject. Opposition was highest among the young. 

Remaining relevant is part of what makes Charles’ legacy and succession so urgent. Maintaining at least the appearance of vitality can be key to leaders’ pursuit of and hold on power. The king, the palace was careful to note, would step away from public-facing duties during his treatment but continue to manage other duties of state. 

In Charles’ case, succession has long been set: Next in line is his son, William, the prince of Wales. But the king’s illness makes William’s preparation more critical at a time when he’s also caring for his wife, Kate, princess of Wales, who is recovering from abdominal surgery. 

Charles’ news was received with great sympathy in a country in which 3 million people live with cancer, according to Macmillan Cancer Support, a London-based charity. On average, it says, one person is diagnosed with cancer in the UK every 90 seconds. That’s about 1,000 new cancer cases detected every day, according to the National Health Service. 

That the king has joined those ranks — and, critically for a British monarch, shared that vulnerability with the world — heralded for some a new era of transparency in an era of social media and misinformation. 
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budapest, hungary — Hungary has rejected criticism of its new sovereignty protection law after the European Union instigated legal action against Budapest on Wednesday over concerns the legislation breaches basic democratic rights. 

Hungary passed the Defense of National Sovereignty Act in December 2023, creating a new investigative body with sweeping powers to gather information on any groups or individuals that receive foreign funding and influence public debate. Hungary’s intelligence services can assist in investigations with little or no judicial oversight.

The legislation says that “the use of foreign funds in the context of elections should be punishable under criminal law” with a penalty of up to three years in jail.

Critics say the law could potentially target a broad range of people in public life.

“We have very vague provisions about a potential threat to sovereignty coming from foreign funding which might affect the voters in Hungary. So, we’re using very broad definitions here,” Barbara Grabowska-Moroz, senior fellow at Central European University’s Democracy Institute, said in an interview with VOA.

EU criticism

The European Union, which has repeatedly criticized what it sees as democratic backsliding in Hungary in recent years, announced Wednesday it had launched infringement proceedings against Budapest.

“The [EU] Commission considers that the laws violate EU law, in particular when it comes to the principle of democracy and the electoral rights of the EU citizens, the fundamental rights enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the EU Data Protection Law and several rules applicable to the internal market,” EU spokesperson Anitta Hipper told reporters in Brussels.

“In addition, the setup of a new authority with the wide-ranging powers, and a strict regime of monitoring enforcement and sanctioning, also risks to seriously harm the democracy in Hungary. In terms of the process, Hungary has now two months to reply to the letter of formal notice,” Hipper said.

Hungary repeatedly refused VOA requests for an interview.

Writing on X, government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs said the law was introduced after Hungarian opposition parties took foreign funding during the 2022 election, including from Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros, a frequent target of the ruling Fidesz Party. Opposition parties deny acting illegally.

The law states that “Hungary’s sovereignty is increasingly under unlawful attack. … In order to ensure democratic debate, transparency in public and social decision-making processes, disclosure of foreign interference attempts and the prevention of such attempts, an independent body should be set up to investigate them, and the use of foreign funds in the context of elections should be punishable under criminal law.”

Critics have compared the legislation to Russia’s foreign agents law, which has forced out several nongovernmental organizations and shuttered civil society.

Consolidating power

The new investigative body is another tool for the government to consolidate its grip on power, according to journalist Andras Petho, founder of the Direkt36 investigative journalism center, one of the few independent journalism organizations left in Hungary.

“Its responsibilities and its role is very vague. Basically, it can look into the activities of anyone — it can be private individuals, it can be organizations, the media, it can be civil society organizations. So, it’s very vague. That’s why we and a lot of other people think that it’s dangerous for the public discourse,” Petho told VOA.

“The government has been building this story, this narrative, for years now, that Hungary — by which they mean themselves — they are under attack from foreign interests, forces. And basically, anyone who criticizes them, or anyone who is not actually serving their interests, is part of that foreign operation,” he said.

Miklos Ligeti, head of legal affairs at Transparency International in Budapest, said the new law could target organizations like his.

“We believe that the new regulation — the whole sovereignty package — was designed to put further constraints on operations and activities of those civil society organizations which are successfully embarrassing the government,” he said.
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GENEVA — A U.N. watchdog group Thursday accused Russia of violating the rights of Ukrainian children in both Russian occupied territories in Ukraine and in Russia.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body of 18 independent experts that monitors implementation of the convention, raised many concerns about the killings and injuries of hundreds of children by the indiscriminate use of explosive devices by Russia in Ukraine.

The committee also strongly criticized the forcible transfer and deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation “in violation of rights under the convention.”

Russia was one of six states parties whose record came under review during the committee’s latest three-week session. The states parties are the countries that ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In presenting its major findings, committee Vice Chair Bragi Gudbrandsson highlighted “measures that Russia has taken, including the presidential decree from January 2024 providing Russian citizenship to forcibly transferred or deported children in a simplified procedure.”

He said the committee also was concerned about “evidence that suggests that children are deprived of their Ukrainian nationality in violation of the rights of a child.”

According to the Ukrainian government, at least 20,000 children have been forcibly deported to Russia. Gudbrandsson said several reliable sources have confirmed the number.

“However, Russia denied this,” he said. “They submitted information that over 700,000 children had fled to Russia, to safety, as they defined it.”

He said the committee assessed the information and evidence that was presented and “it is our conclusion that there is evidence of forceful transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia.”

“We cannot identify the number of these children, but we know there are many and we can support this with the actual measures Russia has taken to simplify procedures to acquire Russian citizenship and to place Ukrainian children with Russian families,” he said.

Russia stands accused of trying to erase Ukraine’s cultural and national identity, a charge that the committee corroborates.

Committee Chair Ann Skelton told journalists in Geneva that the Russian delegation denied that Ukrainian children were being adopted. It said that the children were being fostered by Russian families.

“On the other hand, they also acknowledged that there were a lot of children who were being given Russian citizenship, which would also in itself mean that these children were losing their identity and were being given a Russian identity. We consider it to be a very big risk for the future — these children who are being indoctrinated.”

To ensure that no child is deprived of their Ukrainian nationality in violation of their rights under the convention, the committee has asked the Russian delegation to provide information about the precise number of children taken from Ukraine and about the whereabouts of each child.

Gudbrandsson said that was important so “parents and other legal representatives can track them, including through identification of such children … so the children can be returned to their families as soon as possible.”

The committee says it has received worrying reports of sexual violence, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture of children by the Russian authorities in the occupied Ukrainian territory.

The human rights experts say they also are seriously concerned about reports of violations of children’s rights in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, including “arbitrary arrests of children by Russian law enforcement officers, including for participation in peaceful assemblies.”

In both instances, the committee is calling on Russian authorities to investigate the crimes against children and to punish the perpetrators.

In his concluding remarks, committee Vice Chair Gudbrandsson urged the state party “to cease military operations in Ukraine without delay, to avoid further devastating consequences for children in Ukraine, Russia, and all over the world.”

In response, Alexey Vovchenko, deputy minister of labor and social protection of the Russian Federation and head of the delegation, said he valued the work of the committee and that “The state would be attentive to all the recommendations made by the committee.”

“However, the Russian Federation would not consider itself obliged to fulfill recommendations which were not aimed at fulfilling the rights of children in Russia,” he said, “but were biased and sought to interfere in the affairs of the sovereign state.”
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TALLINN, Estonia — Antiwar politician Boris Nadezhdin was rejected Thursday as a candidate in next month’s presidential balloting by Russian election authorities, a strong signal from the Kremlin that it would tolerate no public opposition to the invasion of Ukraine.

The move by the Central Election Commission provides an even smoother path for President Vladimir Putin to win a fifth term in power. He faces only token opposition from pro-Kremlin candidates in the March 15-17 vote and is all but certain to win, given his tight control of Russia’s political system.

Nadezhdin, a local legislator in a town near Moscow, had needed to gather at least 100,000 signatures of supporters — a requirement that applies to candidates of political parties that are not represented in the Russian parliament.

The Central Election Commission declared that more than 9,000 signatures submitted by Nadezhdin’s campaign were invalid, which was enough to disqualify him. Russia’s election rules say potential candidates can have no more than 5% of their submitted signatures thrown out.

Nadezhdin, 60, has openly called for a halt to the war in Ukraine and for starting a dialogue with the West. Thousands of Russians lined up across the country last month to sign papers in support of his candidacy, an unusual show of opposition sympathies in the country’s rigidly controlled political landscape.

Speaking to officials at the election commission on Thursday, Nadezhdin asked them to postpone their decision, but they declined. He said he would appeal his disqualification in court.

“It’s not me standing here,” Nadezhdin said. “Hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who put their signatures down for me are behind me.”

Putin is running as an independent candidate, and his campaign was required to gather at least 300,000 signatures in his support. He was swiftly allowed on the ballot earlier this year, with election officials disqualifying only 91 out of 315,000 that his campaign submitted.

Most of the opposition figures who might have challenged Putin have been either imprisoned or exiled abroad, and the vast majority of independent Russian media outlets have been banned.

Three other candidates registered to run were nominated by parties represented in parliament and weren’t required to collect signatures: Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and Vladislav Davankov of the New People Party.

The three parties have been largely supportive of the Kremlin’s policies. Kharitonov ran against Putin in 2004, finishing a distant second.

Exiled opposition activists threw their weight behind Nadezhdin last month, urging their supporters to sign his nomination petitions.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the Kremlin doesn’t view Nadezhdin as “a rival.”

Nadezhdin urged his supporters not to give up despite the setback.

“One thing happened which many could not believe: citizens sensed the possibility of changes in Russia,” he wrote in an online statement. “It was you who stood in long lines to declare to the whole world: ‘Russia will be a great and a free country.’ And I represented each of you today in the auditorium of the Central Election Commission.”

Nadezhdin is the second antiwar hopeful to be denied a place on the ballot. In December, the election commission refused to certify the candidacy of Yekaterina Duntsova, citing problems such as spelling errors in her paperwork.

Duntsova, a journalist and a former legislator from the Tver region north of Moscow, had announced plans last year to challenge Putin. Promoting a vision of a Russia as “peaceful, friendly and ready to cooperate with everyone on the principle of respect,” she said she wanted to end the fighting in Ukraine swiftly and for Moscow and Kyiv to come to the negotiating table.

Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter who became a political analyst, said the decision to keep Nadezhdin off the ballot showed how hollow the support for Putin was.

“All of Putin’s mega-popularity, which official sociology constantly broadcasts, all that ‘rally around the national leader’ that Peskov regularly talks about is, in fact, a highly artificial and unstable structure that does not withstand any contact with reality,” he said.
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BERLIN — Russian and Iranian government officials have not been invited to this year’s Munich Security Conference, as they did not seem open to meaningful dialogue, according to the chairperson of the annual event.

The conference, attended by the world’s defense and security elite and sometimes known as “Davos for defense,” will take place in the southern German city on February 16-18.

The event will open days before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and four months after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, which has deepened instability across the Middle East as Western nations battle Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

Christoph Heusgen said Tuesday he hoped the meeting would discuss these conflicts as well as others that received less attention but were causing major humanitarian crises, such as the 10-month-old war in Sudan that has displaced millions.

U.S. and Chinese officials, for example, had spoken with one another for the first time in a long while at last year’s event, which led to further engagement, he told Reuters.

“So we hope Munich offers the opportunity to make these small steps,” said Heusgen, who was a longtime foreign policy adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He also expected the attendance of high-ranking Chinese officials. Last year top diplomat Wang Yi attended the event.

Heusgen told German press agency DPA the Iranian and Russian governments had not been invited because they had not shown a serious interest in negotiations. However, Iranian and Russian non-governmental organizations had been invited, he said.

Heusgen, roundly condemned by Israel’s ambassador to Germany for warning in October against an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza, said he expected high-ranking Israeli officials to attend.

Germany was in a dilemma on Israel, he said, as it was committed to the country’s security but also disagreed with its current leadership on a number of issues and had therefore suspended bilateral government consultations.

Heusgen praised Germany’s support for Ukraine, as the second biggest provider of military help to Kyiv. However it would need to have a discussion throughout society on the importance of higher defense spending and how to finance this, he said.
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