#helsinki final act

[tomorrowusa]

Ukraine is totally correct not to fall for phony agreements with Russia. Russia has a long history of not keeping its word – maybe that's why Trump is such a Putinphile..

Russia's invasion violated at least three major international agreements.

The 1945 United Nations Charter [Article 2, Section 4].

The 1975 Helsinki Final Act [1. (a) III and 1. (a) IV] by the CSCE which in 1990 became the OSCE.

The 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

Why should anybody trust Putin's Russia to observe any new agreements?

Tim Mak is a journalist working in Ukraine. He was formerly with NPR and The Daily Beast. This is from his Substack The Counteroffensive. He and two colleagues spoke with diplomat and international attorney Oleksandr Merezhko who participated in negotiations with Russia of previous ceasefires known as the Minsk agreements.

"I believed that [the agreements] could be implemented with good will... but Russia did not even try to achieve a result, they just wanted to use it for purely propagandistic military purposes to destroy Ukraine," Merezhko said. As February 2022 approached, when the full-scale invasion began, Oleksandr began to suspect that Russia was planning something more significant. After all, Moscow was increasingly spreading information online that Ukraine was violating the Minsk agreements. "Russia was looking for an excuse to abandon the ceasefire, accuse Ukraine of violating it, and then its hands would be free for full-scale aggression... We did everything to prevent Russia from having a chance to say that even if it was aggression, an attack, it was provoked by Ukraine," Merezhko said. [ ... ] The main problem is that the Russians were uninterested in a ceasefire and negotiations. They comply with rules and requirements only when it is to their advantage. "The Minsk agreements have once again confirmed that we cannot have anything to do with the Russians, because they are liars and never keep their commitments, or keep them only when it is in their interest. When [their] interest disappears, so do the obligations," Ukrainian diplomat and former foreign minister Volodymyr Ohryzko told The Counteroffensive. The main conclusion to be drawn from the Minsk agreements is that to negotiate anything with the Russians is to disrespect oneself, said Ohryzko. Therefore, the main argument in talks with Russia is strength.

Anybody who believes that Russia would observe a new agreement without Ukraine getting solid security backing from the West probably attended Trump University and bought a year's worth of Trump Vitamins.

The Russian word показуха generally means "window dressing" but can sometimes be used to describe a staged event. In that sense, that's what the Trump-Vance hissy fit in the Oval Office was.

I suspect that somebody told Trump that Ukraine got the better end of the minerals deal. The only way Trump could weasel out of it was to have a temper tantrum to keep it from being signed as scheduled.

As for Ukraine not being grateful, fact checkers pooped all over Trump's lies about that.

Fact check: 33 times Zelensky thanked Americans and US leaders

How often does Trump thank people? He probably never thanked the doctor who faked the diagnosis of a bone spur to keep him from getting drafted.

Back to 1994 for a moment. In the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons for secure borders. Now that Ukraine's territorial integrity has been violated, does that mean it's okay for them to have nukes again?

[carionto]

Humans are Loud

Most cultural exchange is done formally through official channels.

No matter how advanced a civilization you are, when meeting a whole new species, they are fundamentally alien to you in ways that need to be handled carefully and introduced to gradually, or you risk creating a bad first impression, or worse - incite conflict over something that is trivial to one side, but a grave taboo to the other.

However, once you have done preliminary work and both sides have emissaries and ambassadors stationed with each other, it becomes easier and more appropriate to learn about one another through unofficial means. Without curation.

And the most effective method, though legally dubious, is to disguise yourself as one of them and go to some places of public gathering.

Kol Rathar, from the bipedal Jorval race, wanted to experience what a day in the life of a regular Human was. So they picked a random population center on the Earth, engaged their personal disguise kit, tucked in some documents that explain who they are and the legality of their actions should they be discovered, and landed in the city of Neljaes-Helsinki.

It's the dead of winter, a bone chilling -1 degrees Celsius, Kol Rathar immediately turns up their life support to max and heads for the nearest public space. They enter what's called a "bar", take a seat, and order a beer. So as to not arouse suspicion, they "drink" the poison like a Human would, but there is a filter between the mouth on the hardlight holographic disguise and Kol Rathar's that detoxifies the alcohol and turns it into potable water. It still reeks and is hard to swallow, but it won't kill them.

They engage in general banter with some other patrons - Humans tend to dislike quiet in public spaces and often find it odd or unnerving. Universal topics like the weather, traffic, Mondays (most civilizations have an equivalent), and how everything is more expensive again (also a common occurrence across the Galaxy).

Then one of the patrons shouts to "Turn it up!" and the bartender raises the volume of the broadcast receiver to where Kol Rathar almost jumped from the shock, but thankfully the noise suppression kicked in just in time. it displayed a competitive engagement between two teams of Humans in heavily padded suits and helmets, wielding curved sticks and trying to push a small black object into the opposing net.

It did not take long for an act of violence to happen. One participant slammed their gloved fists into another, they retaliated, then a third assaulted the first, another three came out of nowhere and in seconds it was an incoherent pile of bodies slamming into each other, helmets flying off, the safety barriers were constantly vibrating, and it took a whole minute before the referees could dismantle the armageddon.

Kol Rathar thought this was the end of the game, something had gone horribly wrong, but before they could think further, they noticed everyone else in the bar was acting normal, most were looking at the altercation, but their behavior seemed... normal. Like this act of violence was common, expected even. Kol Rathar decided to maintain their cover and continue observing. They still couldn't believe that the competition was resuming after that.

Several minutes passed without another incident, the players of this "hockey" game were all very agile and adept at manipulating the small puck with their hockey sticks. WHILE SKATING ON ICE WITH THIN PIECES OF METAL ON THEIR FEET!

Kol Rathar had not even registered that fact earlier due to the "excitement" and was now awed by the sheer level of mastery and multitasking these players displayed.

Then one team finally scored a goal and Kol Rathar lost consciousness.

When they came to, they were in a hospital bed of the local Coalition embassy building being treated for shock and residual toxin exposure. The dense Human atmosphere saturated with bar patron activities will eventually overwhelm most low to medium threshold filtration systems that disguise kits come standard with.

The medic explained that there are very valid reasons for the strict requirements of Aliens visiting Human environments, and it's not a result of bureaucratic meddling over millennia as is with some other Coalition members. Nobody wants to read five hundred pages of anything, they get that, but Kol Rathar was lucky the Humans at the bar had mostly only recently arrived for the game and were not as intoxicated as they became after they were taken by the ER.

Kol Rathar's experience has been added to the guide for visiting Humans, which has recently been renamed to:

"Don't, but if you have to READ EVERYTHING HERE. There's an embedded audio book too. We know it's thirty hours long, but you will DIE if you don't listen to us!"

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2006 - Number 3 - Lordi - "Hard Rock Hallelujah"

What else is there to say about Hard Rock Hallelujah that hasn't already been said? The barrier-breaking, template-busting power-metal anthem featuring demons and ghouls shrieking about hell and probably as many fireworks on stage at one time as had been used in all of Eurovision history to this point. The classic winner that always features in any video on YouTube explaining to Eurovision novices exactly what Eurovision is.

Everyone knows it, and everyone one knows Lordi.

The band had been slowly, painstakingly assembled by Mr. Lordi (Tomi Petteri Putaansuu) over a decade, starting with him as a solo act in 1992. Members were recruited, left, returned and the aesthetic developed until at the end of 2002, in Helsinki, Lordi as we know them gave their first stage performance. They toured Finland and Germany, and their reputation grew. Shortly before Euroviisut 2006, they had more line-up changes. The line-up you see on stage at Eurovision had only been together for a few months.

Hard Rock Hallelujah nearly didn't make it to the final. In the heats, each band had two songs that went up against each other. Lordi's other song was Bringing Back the Balls to Rock which only lost out on a televote 58% to 42%. Having said that, once Lordi got to the semi-final and final, the televote decisively swung in their favour. There was never really much doubt that they'd be Finland's representative.

Going into the contest, Finland and Lordi were not favourites. Not even in the top ten of the odds. They had to get through the semi-final and that's where they introduced Eurovision not only to hard rock and metal but also a new concept in staging (for Eurovision) - spectacle. There had been great staging before, but never anything like this. The costumes, the make-up, the pyro, the demonic wings, the top hat. It was attention-grabbing in the extreme and it crushed the semi-final, finishing top with 292 points.

In the final, they were eagerly anticipated. When asked what changes they'd make to their final performance, Mr Lordi said:

We'll scream louder, and turn the amps up

In the end he wore an iconic Finnish flag top hat and proved that with a performance that amazing, seeing the same thing twice isn't a bad thing. 292 points exactly again in the final, and an even bigger margin to second place.

Lordi are the band that not only brought rock and metal to Eurovision, not only the band that blew the entire concept of Eurovision wide open to all sorts of acts and musicians, broke the pop meta, but perhaps most importantly, showed that emphasising what the audience sees on stage is perhaps the most important element of any Eurovision performance. From this point forward how a song is going to be staged would be as talked about as the song itself.

[misfitwashere]

The 3 Baltic States — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — are all very much aware that they are Putin’s next target if he wins in Ukraine. So they are understandably nervous about our election, as their future is at stake as much as ours.

We just wound up a 10-day trip to the Baltic capitals — Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn — and are now in Helsinki, so I thought it a good time to report on what I saw and heard.

One local quoted to us Putin’s 2005 claim that the collapse of the Soviet empire “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. Not World War I, or World War II, or the Holocaust, and certainly not Stalin’s planned famines, but the breakup of the Russian/Soviet Empire. He means to restore it, including not just Ukraine but the Baltic States. And Byelorussia — but he already owns it in all but name. And Central Asia, and Poland, and anything else he can. He wants to make Russia as powerful, as respected, and as feared, as the old Soviet Union was.

The Baltic states are doing more than watching Russia in Ukraine; they are acting. All 3 states, but especially Lithuania (being the closest) have taken in many many Ukrainian refugees. Ukrainian flags fly on official buildings in all 3 capitals, and in many other places. I didn’t get a chance to visit the Russian embassy in Vilnius, but in Riga and Tallinn, there are protest signs and messages — some quite nasty — in front of and facing the embassies there. (See the photo on top for an example.)

These are not exactly actions calculated to make the Russian bear play nice. Putin already hates the Baltic states, Lithuania in particular, because their declarations of independence in 1991 are what helped trigger the final breakup of the old Soviet Union. (It’s more complicated, but that’s a decent short summary.) Yet the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Estonians are speaking and acting in ways that will anger Putin even more. Their love of freedom, pride in their heritage, and sense of responsibility all demand it of them. In one city, we visited volunteers making camouflage netting for Ukrainian soldiers, and even helped (or tried to help) weave a few strands. More important than trying to help, though, was our showing up, hearing their stories, and encouraging them to persevere. They are spending as much as 5% of their GDP on their defense (the exact numbers are not clear). They are preparing for war. One expert told us that it is an open secret that their plan is to hold out for 72 hours, long enough for the West to respond.

Which we will be obliged to do. All 3 nations have been members of NATO since 2004, and entitled to Article 5 protection which proclaims that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all, and that all will respond to such an attack with all means necessary, including armed force.

This is why I called the Baltic States the canary in the coal mine in my title. They are members of NATO, while Ukraine is not. If Putin attacks any of them, the United States is obligated to come to their defense. Putin is very well aware of this, and so will only attack if he has calculated that we will not respond as we ought. When we read reports about Russian interference in our elections, we must understand what Putin is trying to accomplish: the destruction of NATO so that it will not be able to respond when he invades a NATO ally like Lithuania, or Latvia, or Estonia.

We are with a group of Americans and not supposed to discuss US politics, but I managed several private talks with locals, including a diplomatic contact. All of them are very aware of our upcoming election and very concerned about what it will mean for them if Trump manages somehow to regain power. They know very well what he’s had to say about our NATO responsibilities.

The US has generally been fortunate in its wars (the Civil War being a major exception). We have not had to fight on our home ground; when we go to war, we fight on other people’s land. That allows an illusion of safety which we can no longer afford. It’s not just the missile threat; it’s cyber threats and terrorism. A Latvian reporter for the New York Times wrote the other day about how Putin is able to reach out anywhere in the world to attack individuals who oppose him (or who even decline to support him by joining the army): Putin Is Doing Something Almost Nobody Is Noticing

There are also the hundreds of thousands of Russians who left home because they did not want to have anything to do with Vladimir Putin’s war or were forced out, accused of not embracing it enough. These low-profile dissenters are subjected to surveillance and kidnappings, too. Yet their repression happens in silence, away from the spotlight and often with the tacit consent or inadequate prevention of the countries to which they have fled. It’s a terrifying thing: The Kremlin is hunting down ordinary people across the world, and nobody seems to care.

One cannot travel to the Baltic States without becoming aware of just how fragile our freedoms really are. ALL our freedoms — for if the Baltic States fall, so too will the rest of Europe, and so too will we. It is critical to defeat Trump and elect Harris for many reasons, including reproductive rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to dissent, freedom to think. In addition to that, it is critical to stop Trump in order to stop Putin (with the recognition that Putin will still keep trying even if he fails to put Trump in power). In the United States, this can seem a bit abstract. Here in the Baltic States, it is much more immediate and real.

[shinekudasaine]

Norway, Ireland and Spain have announced to recognise the State of Palestine. Now 140 countries in the world, out of 193 would officially recognise the State of Palestine (2/3 of countries in the U.N). This is historic and comes with extreme ramifications for Israel. By officially recognising Palestine, Israel becomes officially illegal.

The “State of Israel” was founded after the declaration of Human Rights charter was introduced to the world and the U.N was established. And its arguments for its existence were:

1) There was no such thing as Palestine

2) Palestine was an empty land (terra nullius)

3) Jews are indigenous to the land and are returning after expulsion, while Arabs were invaders and are not indigenous

Points 2 and 3 are just baseless propaganda and easily debunked but point 1 is where Israel uses international law to justify its colonisation.

Because Palestine was not recognised by the U.N, Israel has always maintained that the State rights and rights of a people do not apply to it. Meaning the land in which Israel occupies is not illegal, because Palestine is not an official state recognized by the U.N.

According to Articles 3 and 4 of the Human Rights Charter, indigenous people have the right to self determination, autonomy and self governance on the land to which they own. Article 1 of the international covenant of civil and political rights give indigenous people the right to freely determine their political status, and pursue economic, social and cultural developments.

A State cannot be built upon a State (colonisation) as it violates the previous articles, including Article 1, 2 and 55 of the Human Rights Charter. Not only that, Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People (UN Resolution 1514) forbids all forms of colonial settlement reaffirming the Human Rights Charter. And then last, but not least, and not the only, the Helsinki Final Act which establishes the right of indigenous people’s sovereignty.

In order to be an official state of the UN, a country must have recognised borders. Palestine has clear and recognizable borders (from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea), while Israel’s official borders also include parts of Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Meaning, for the purposes of its current status, Israel does not have internationally official recognised borders. Israel’s borders including the West Bank and Gaza is rejected by the U.N and international community, and the 1967 borders are rejected by both Palestine and Israel.

Israel argues itself not to be a colonising entity or a State upon another State because Palestine is not recognised, but when Palestine is recognised officially, then Israel will become officially (according to International law) a colonising State. Meaning countries will only face more and more legal international and domestic pressure by supporting Israel, causing the eventual collapse just like apartheid South Africa.

[mikamikapodcast]

Incident in Tattarisuo

On August 19, 1930, a normal school trip turned into a nightmare. In Malmi, then a rural municipality of Helsinki, a 14-year-old schoolboy found the severed hand of a woman in the Tattarisuo spring. The police were astonished by the discovery, but without further evidence, the case was quickly forgotten.

A year later, on September 18, 1931, the same source revealed its dark secret: several severed hands, feet, fingers, hair – and a head. Now there was no longer any doubt that something terrible was happening. The media seized on the incident, and the whole country held its breath. Evil was moving in the Helsinki night. The police investigation was wandering in the dark.

Many who should never have been suspected were suspected. At the center of the scandal were the caretaker of the Harju morgue, the leader of the esoteric Rosicrucian organization Pekka Ervast, and even the Freemasons. Lieutenant Colonel Paavo Susitaipale loudly accused the Freemasons and other secret societies, and as a result, the Freemasons were expelled from the Officers' Union – although their innocence was eventually proven. The investigation finally took a turn when it emerged that a small group practicing black magic was behind the acts.

They had dug up body parts from open mass graves in the Malmi cemetery – so-called line graves – and used them in their rituals at the Tattarisuo spring. The group’s goal was to connect with the spirit world and receive supernatural help, including healing from illnesses and the return of lost property.

The group was not unknown to the locals. The leader was revealed to be the driver Vilho Kallio, known as “Witch Kallio,” who believed that the water from the Tattarisuo spring had healing powers from the body parts preserved there. Also involved were the dock worker Ville Edvard Saari and Johan Ilmari Hedman, a deep believer in mysticism, whose mother hoped to have her son recognized in court as the illegitimate child of the late Dr. Parviainen – and thus share in the millions of euros inheritance.

Even the cider factory was not spared from suspicion. The Ajan Sana magazine ran a striking headline: "The mystery of the buckwheat swamp is solved - the traces lead to the cider factory." Although the suspicions turned out to be unfounded and the magazine was fined, a saying was born that still lives on: "The traces lead to the cider factory." Behind the mutilations was a surprising figure: seamstress Ida Widen, who claimed to receive instructions through visions and letters appearing on the wall. She read "secret messages" that instructed how body parts should be cut.

Widen and Kallio are also said to have prayed according to the instructions of the Black Bible at the Malmi and Lapinlahti cemeteries – hoping that the spirits would reveal to them the secrets of the lost money and the success of the trial. The dark saga of Tattarisuo culminated in September 1932, when the Helsinki Parish Court issued its verdict. Noita-Kallio received a sentence of 2 years and 4 months in prison, Ville E. Saari 3 years, and Ida Widen was sentenced to 3 years for incitement to mutilation and false reporting. The court found that their actions were not murders – but attempts at witchcraft that turned into sacrilege. The case also received widespread attention in literature.

The first work of thriller writer Aarne Haapakoski, The Mystery of the Black Swamp, was published in 1931. In 2015, Aki Ollikainen discussed the events in his novel The Black Fairy Tale. Ethnographer Vilho Rikkonen, in turn, published a study entitled "The Magic of the Dead in the Cause of the Horrors", discussing the case of the Tattari Swamp as an example of the power of superstition.

Elokuun 19. päivänä vuonna 1930 tavallinen koulumatka muuttui painajaiseksi. Malmilla, silloisessa Helsingin maalaiskunnassa, 14-vuotias koulupoika löysi Tattarisuon lähteestä irtileikatun naisen käden. Poliisi hämmästyi löydöstä, mutta ilman lisätodisteita tapaus vaipui nopeasti unholaan. Vuotta myöhemmin, syyskuun 18. päivänä 1931, sama lähde paljasti synkän salaisuutensa: useita irti leikattuja käsiä, jalkoja, sormia, hiuksia – ja pään. Nyt ei ollut enää epäilystäkään, että jotain kammottavaa oli tekeillä. Tiedotusvälineet tarttuivat tapaukseen, ja koko maa pidätti hengitystään. Helsingin yössä liikkui pahuutta.Poliisin tutkimukset harhailivat pimeässä. Epäilyksen kohteeksi joutuivat monet, joiden ei olisi koskaan pitänyt olla epäiltyinä. Harjun ruumishuoneen vahtimestari, esoteerisen Ruusu-Risti -järjestön johtaja Pekka Ervast ja jopa vapaamuurarit joutuivat skandaalin keskiöön. Everstiluutnantti Paavo Susitaipale syytti äänekkäästi vapaamuurareita ja muita salaseuroja, ja seurauksena vapaamuurarit suljettiin Upseeriliitosta – vaikka syyttömyys lopulta todistettiin. Tutkinta sai lopulta käänteen, kun selvisi, että tekojen taustalla oli pieni, mustaa magiaa harjoittanut ryhmä. He olivat kaivaneet ruumiinosia Malmin hautausmaan avoimista joukkohaudoista – niin kutsutuista linjahaudoista – ja käyttäneet niitä rituaaleissaan Tattarisuon lähteellä. Ryhmän tarkoituksena oli päästä yhteyteen henkimaailman kanssa ja saada yliluonnollista apua muun muassa sairauksien parantamiseen ja kadonneen omaisuuden palauttamiseen. Ryhmä ei ollut tuntematon paikallisille. Johtohahmoksi paljastui ”Noita-Kalliona” tunnettu ajomies Vilho Kallio, joka uskoi Tattarisuon lähteen veden saavan parantavia voimia siellä säilytetyistä ruumiinosista. Mukana olivat myös satamatyömies Ville Edvard Saari ja mystiikkaan syvästi uskova Johan Ilmari Hedman, jonka äiti toivoi saavansa oikeudessa poikansa tunnustetuksi edesmenneen tohtori Parviaisen aviottomaksi lapseksi – ja näin osalliseksi miljoonaperinnöstä. Edes sylttytehdas ei säästynyt epäilyiltä. Ajan Sana -lehti otsikoi näyttävästi: "Tattarisuon arvoitus selviää – jäljet johtavat sylttytehtaaseen." Vaikka epäilyt osoittautuivat perättömiksi ja lehti sai sakot, syntyi sanonta, joka elää yhä: "Jäljet johtavat sylttytehtaaseen."Silpomisten taustalla oli yllättävä hahmo: ompelijatar Ida Widen, joka väitti saavansa ohjeita näkyjen ja seinään ilmestyvien kirjaimien kautta. Hän luki "salaisia viestejä", jotka opastivat, miten ruumiinosat tulisi leikata. Widenin ja Kallion kerrotaan myös rukoilleen Mustan Raamatun ohjeiden mukaisesti Malmin ja Lapinlahden hautausmailla – toivoen henkien paljastavan heille salaisuuksia kadonneista rahoista ja oikeuden menestyksestä. Tattarisuon synkkä saaga huipentui syyskuussa 1932, kun Helsingin pitäjän kihlakunnanoikeus antoi tuomionsa. Noita-Kallio sai 2 vuoden 4 kuukauden vankeustuomion, Ville E. Saari 3 vuotta, ja Ida Widen tuomittiin 3 vuodeksi yllytyksestä ruumiinsilpomiseen ja väärästä ilmiannosta. Oikeus totesi, ettei heidän tekonsa olleet murhia – vaan pyhäinhäväistykseen kääntyneitä taikayrityksiä. Tapaus sai laajaa huomiota myös kirjallisuudessa. Jännityskirjailija Aarne Haapakosken esikoisteos Mustalais-suon arvoitus ilmestyi jo samana vuonna 1931. Vuonna 2015 Aki Ollikainen käsitteli tapahtumia romaanissaan Musta satu. Kansatieteilijä Vilho Rikkonen puolestaan julkaisi tutkielman "Vainajainpalvontataikoja tunnettujen kauhutapausten johdosta", käsitellen Tattarisuon tapausta esimerkkinä taikauskon voimasta.

[here-be-misfit]

Well today is definitely a rest day as it's 4pm and i just woke up. 😅 Sadly i didn't get good sleep because mattress and pillows suck.. But anyway, everything is closed today in Helsinki, plus it's rainy so I'd rather rest. Which i need a lot anyway. At least my dad finally is acting like a normal person and going out on his own instead of throwing a tantrum over me resting.

[beardedmrbean]

Ilta-Sanomat carries material from a new book that suggests Russia used a shooting in Imatra to advance its propaganda goals.

The book is titled Valehtelua, vakoilua ja valtiollista vaikuttamista (Lies, espionage and state-backed influencing) and written by Jouni Mölsä and Markku Mantila.

Mölsä served as head of communications for President Sauli Niinistö, so had a front row seat in watching this unfold.

The 2016 shooting saw three women shot by a man in the eastern Finland town, not far from the Russian border.

Soon afterwards troll accounts on social media began posting false claims that the women had been Russian and the perpetrator had worked for Finland's Defence Forces.

Those false claims had to be debunked by Finnish officials, but were likely aimed at Russians inside and outside the country.

The authors ask whether the Imatra operation was part of attempts to persuade Russians that they were under attack outside Russia, offering them a reason to assist Russians outside the country with money and weapons.

Good advice?

Business daily Kauppalehti leads with a piece on ministerial advisors, focusing on their number and salaries.

The paper checks on Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's (NCP) claim that the preceding government led by Sanna Marin (SDP) had spent too much money on too many advisors.

KL finds that the Orpo administration has managed to reduce the numbers. It has a total of 58 advisors, including 47 special advisors and 11 state secretaries.

Marin's coalition government, on the other hand, had a total of 79 advisors composed of 65 special advisors and 14 state secretaries.

The state secretaries all get 10,971 euros per month with the exception of Orpo's right hand man Risto Artjoki, who receives 14,278 euros per month.

Special advisor salaries range from just under 5,000 euros per month to just under 9,000 euros per month.

Espoo's women's swimming sessions a hit

Helsingin Sanomat goes to a swimming pool in Espoo that has started to offer women-only sessions on Sundays.

The paper finds plenty of happy swimmers queueing up outside, with staff estimating that between 120 and 150 people turn up each week for the sessions.

They are the first sessions held by the municipality of Espoo, but there are sessions offered in the Helsinki suburb of Jakomäki and at Vantaa's Korso swimming hall.

HS interviewed swimmers who said the sessions were fun, and they would immediately sign up for swimming tuition if that were an option.

Some of the swimmers were of immigrant background, but HS also interviewed a white Finn who said she had not swum for ten years because she did not want to wear a swimsuit during the normal swimming sessions.

The current run of Sunday swimming for women is a trial running until the end of November. It could continue, with that decision to be made next month.

Finns Party aiming to reduce quota refugees from Muslim-majority countries

The Finns Party has proposed reducing the number of quota refugees accepted from Muslim-majority countries while increasing the intake from Christian-majority nations, according to newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

According to sources, Mari Rantanen, the Interior Minister from the Finns Party, along with Lulu Ranne, who is currently acting while Rantanen is on leave, have directed officials to prepare next year’s quota to exclude refugees from countries like Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the quota would increase for countries such as Venezuela.

Interior Minister Ranne declined to comment on the matter to Yle and HS.

At present, Yle has not been able to independently verify the claims reported by HS. The final decision on next year’s refugee quotas is still pending.

[starlene]

Så som i himmelen proshot thoughts

Just some quick-ish notes on the cast and direction to sorta process watching the proshot for the first time!

Philip Jalmelid as Daniel: I've gone on record saying that acting-wise, he's not my favourite Daniel, but he really has a voice like no one else, and I really do appreciate him for that. He was also the first Daniel I saw, and he made me cry literally every time he opened his mouth to sing. You don't forget an experience like that. He's still no number one favourite of mine, but I have grown very fond of his portrayal of the character, and I especially enjoyed his first act on the proshot. I love Daniel Daréus so, so much!

Tuva B. Larsen as Lena: I enjoyed seeing all the closeups of her – there is really a lot going on under the surface in her Lena, more than I think I saw/understood live in theatre. With that said, I think the creative team has done the character of Lena a big disservice by not giving her a proper introspective/I want solo (like. How come Stig gets two but the female lead gets none?), so she always remains a bit of a mystery, no matter how talented the actor is. But I do like Tuva's portrayal. I just wish there was a bit more substantial stuff for her to perform!

Malena Ernman as Gabriella: potentially an unpopular opinion, but she's my absolute #1 musical Gabriella and I adore her. You can see that there's a tremendous capacity for joy inside this Gabriella, a bright spark that she has to suppress because of Conny. I can 100% see where the actors who make Gabriella meeker and more shy are coming from, but for me, Malena's Gabriella is where it's at.

Björn Kjellman as Arne: I mean, he's fine. It's just that Morgan Alling was so, so, so much better in the role.

Anders Ekborg as Stig: the only actor I've seen that I feel really gets this insane character... as much as you can get him, anyway. I have no idea why the musical spends so much time on Stig's marital troubles, nor why the thought of marital sex makes this Lutheran priest turn into an ultra-repressed Catholic monk, but Anders almost sells it to me. He has a voice like no one else, too. The red shirt in Stig's final scene is a piece of costume design I really, really like.

Sofia Pekkari as Inger: she's good, I don't really have further notes.

Rikard Björk as Tore: he's really good and has clearly done his research, but I gotta say, I think this is a role that truly benefits from having an actually disabled actor do it. I suppose it might not have been viable in the original production where they have to do a lot of cognitively very taxing workshopping and last-minute changes – but I'm so glad they cast the brilliant Jaakko Lahtinen as Tore in Helsinki. Jaakko's portrayal was so refreshingly honest and genuine, I don't really think any non-disabled actor can give the role that. That being said, Rikard also did a great job editing the proshot, he's clearly something of a renaissance man with all his talents!

Linus Eklund Adolphson as Holmfrid: love love love. Brilliant. Best Holmfrid I've ever seen by a mile. The bit in the beginning of the 2nd act where he mimes getting a kiss from the audience and putting it in his pocket? One of my favourite details in this entire show.

Christopher Wollter as Conny: hands down the best Conny I've seen, with the perfect mix of scary and incredibly insecure. Way too many actors just lean into the scary vibes. (Also the best Daniel in the original cast, but that's besides the point of this post.)

Annica Edstam as Florence: babygirl. The other half of my Gabriella/Florence otp that I know will come true one day. Love.

I know there are more named characters but these are the ones I feel the most strongly about!

Direction by Markus Virta: I've seen other productions do certain scenes better, but as a whole, I really do appreciate the simplicity and straightforwardness of Virta's direction. He lets the songs and the characters stand on their own, which I think is a good way to go – elaborate choreography/blocking and extra whatever can and has been nice, but this is not the sort of musical where you really need that. On the proshot, Virta's direction loses me during the last ten minutes, like it always has (we absolutely do not need to see Daniel's soul embracing his child self, not when absolutely nothing in the previous two hours has indicated we're dealing with a world where tangible afterlife visions like that are a thing) – but other than that, fantastic work, no notes.

Random notes:

I like how subtle Lena's "grandpa must go paint another angel on the wall" thing is here. I've written in length before how much I dislike the instant pregnancy thing – but I dislike it less here, where it's not a huge joyful declaration of pregnancy like in some other productions but a little unsure line that's left to the audience's interpretation. It's unclear if Daniel really gets what she means, and I'm also free to imagine she's really having her ex's child or whatever.

Am I losing it, or was there a short reprise bit of Den tid jag har in the last scene early in the run that wasn't included in the proshot anymore? I thought the last scene felt a little less overwrought and cringy than before, somehow.

Did anyone else watch the proshot yet? What did you think?

[mariacallous]

The Helsinki Final Act was a watershed of the Cold War. Signed by thirty-five European and North American leaders at a summit in Finland in the summer of 1975, the agreement presented a vision for peace based on common principles and cooperation across the Iron Curtain. The Final Act is the first in-depth account of the diplomatic saga that produced this historic agreement. Drawing on research in eight countries and multiple languages, this gripping book explains the Final Act’s emergence from the parallel crises of the Soviet bloc and the West during the 1960s, the strategies of the major players, and the conflicting designs for international order that animated the negotiations.

Helsinki had originally been a Soviet idea. But after nearly three years of grinding negotiations, the Final Act reflected liberal democratic ideals more than communist ones. It rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine, provided for German reunification, endorsed human rights as a core principle of international security, committed countries to greater transparency in economic and military affairs, and promoted the freer movement of people and information across borders. Instead of restoring the legitimacy of the Soviet bloc, Helsinki established principles that undermined it.

The definitive history of the origins and legacy of this important agreement, The Final Act shows how it served as a blueprint for ending the Cold War, and how, when that conflict finally came to a close, the great powers established a new international order based on Helsinki’s enduring principles.

[tomorrowusa]

Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights contributed to the fall of the Soviet empire.

President Carter had an almost instantaneous effect on human rights in Latin America when he became president. The Nixon-Kissinger policy of officially propping up dictators was replaced with one of supporting democracies. A majority of Latin American countries in 1976 were authoritarian. Within a decade, a majority were democratic or at least democratizing.

The Carter human rights policy had a more subversively indirect effect on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Historian and journalist Kai Bird said this at Washington Monthly:

He put human rights, that principle, as a keystone of U.S. foreign policy, and none of his successors have been able to walk back from that or ignore it completely. They’ve talked about some of the hypocrisy and impracticality of the policy, but you can’t ignore it. I make this argument in my biography, that human rights, the talk about human rights, and the focus on dissidents in the Soviet Union, and in Czechoslovakia, and Poland—all of that did much more to weaken the Soviet empire in eastern Europe than anything Ronald Reagan did by increasing the defense budget or threatening Star Wars. The Soviet Union was a weak adversary, not a strong adversary. It was falling apart, and along comes Carter, talking about human rights, and as Jon has said, ideas are powerful, and this idea remains powerful, and it really contributed monumentally to the falling of the Berlin Wall and people seizing power in the streets, and wanting to have personal freedom. That, in part, can be attributed to Jimmy Carter.

Michael Hirsh of the journal Foreign Policy (archived) was more emphatic.

Perhaps the least understood dimension of Carter’s much-maligned, one-term presidency was that he dramatically changed the nature of the Cold War, setting the stage for the Soviet Union’s ultimate collapse. Carter did this with a tough but deft combination of soft and hard power. On one hand, he opened the door to Reagan’s delegitimization of the Soviet system by focusing on human rights; on the other hand, Carter aggressively funded new high-tech weapons that made Moscow realize it couldn’t compete with Washington, which in turn set off a panicky series of self-destructive moves under the final Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. [ ... ] Although he was mocked for being naive at the time, it was in large part thanks to Carter and his more hawkish national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, that human rights issues later came to the fore inside the Eastern Bloc, acting like a gradually rising flood that eroded the foundations of Moscow’s power. Helped along by the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which authorized “Helsinki monitoring groups” in Eastern­ Bloc countries (perhaps most famously with Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, which set the human rights movement in motion with a 1977 petition), these newly formed dissident groups during the 1980s undermined the legitimacy of Warsaw Pact communist satellites—and thus the Soviet bloc—from within.

Daniel Friend, former US ambassador to Poland, has this to add at the Atlantic Council.

An implicit axiom of President Richard Nixon’s détente was that the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, marked by the imposition of the Iron Curtain, was a sad but by then immutable fact. Official Washington and most of US academia regarded the Soviet Bloc­­—communist-dominated Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea east of West Germany—as permanent and, though this was seldom made explicit, stabilizing. Talk of “liberating” those countries was regarded as illusion, delusion, or cant. Maintaining US-Soviet stability, under this view of Cold War realism, required accepting Europe’s realities, as these were then seen. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Final Act of Helsinki, a sort of codification of détente concluded under President Gerald Ford, did include general human rights language, and this turned out to be important. [ ... ] Carter’s shift toward human rights challenged this uber-realist consensus. It came just as democratic dissidents and workers’ movements inspired by them began to gather strength in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Poland. Carter, and his national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, put the United States in a better position to reach out to these movements and to work with them when communist rule began to falter as Soviet Bloc communist regimes started running past their ability to borrow money on easy “détente terms,” making them vulnerable. More broadly, by elevating human rights in the mix of US-Soviet and US-Soviet Bloc relations, Carter put the United States on offense in the Cold War and on the side of the people of the region.

President Carter's human rights policy was also popular among Americans of Eastern European descent.

[leopardom]

i've been listening to everybody's waiting and best year of my life on loop since they got released last midnight and oh boy the feeling i get from both songs is quite heavy but also... liberating??

why heavy? well, last year was anything but the best year of my life. it pretty much started with me realising (with some help) that i had fallen in love and, long story short, i got my heart broken very badly. at the same time, my mental health was deteriorating and as a result i started closing up and also lost one of the closest people to me. we're in good terms now, but never talked about what happened and we drifted apart like that. and it's been almost a year ever since

while losing that close connection with my friend proved to be helpful, the road to accepting this along with other things was very painful and i had to mask any negative feeling i had in order to keep functioning somehow and not make the rest of the people close to me uncomfortable. and i also had to focus on my thesis in order to finally get my bachelor's. and i did. but along with the new lows i had reached mentally, i reached and passed the point of burnout

my close ones were supporting me through my rants and i'll always be gratefull for that. but at the same time they still were telling me how good it would be when i'd be done with uni and how i would be able to get a proper job and make my own money and maybe do a master's etc. they all were waiting for something, they were waiting for more than i was already doing. they had been waiting for more than 3 years actually, but last year i was a lot closer to the goal and the pressure grew a lot bigger. and all the support i had was coming from a distance, i was still all by myself most of the time

from April til the beginning of July i was breaking down on a very regular basis, the panic attacks also became more frequent and my mental health was at the very bottom. and i couldn't even go to therapy anymore because i didn't have any time or energy for that. in the span of three months i had changed so much both physically and mentally that it made my head hurt and i couldn't process it

all i wanted was a hug from someone and to be told that i'll be okay. i didn't want everyone to tell me how things will be as soon as i graduate and how free i will feel yada yada. i only wanted a fucking hug, which i never got

after defending my thesis and graduating i blacked out completely. i can't remember myself feeling anything for the next couple of months. i only had a brief break when i went to Helsinki in September, attended all three of the jo finnish gigs and got to spend time with my friends in Finland. and when i got back from that trip i blacked out again. now i have a job and i make some money, but mentally i haven't recovered from the burnout and the high pressure. and people are still expecting things from me, from my students to my family to my friends to myself

lately, however, i kind of have started feeling again. my feelings are not usually nice and i cry a lot, but now there are days when i think that maybe things will get better with time and maybe i'll get there. a few months ago i didn't want to do anything at all and i was acting like a robot. now i want to do things, i'm trying as much as i can to do things that give me a serotonin boost so i won't have to rely only on my meds

to conclude, i still haven't gotten that hug i wanted so bad all these months ago. i'm not gonna lie, i still want it. but these two songs feel like that hug now. everybody's waiting is telling me that i'm not alone in this, there are people like me out there and we manage one way or another. best year of my life is telling me that i may have been and still am a mess, but you never know. maybe something different and even better is yet to come. and i have to be here to see it

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2007: The Interval Act and Other Performances

YLE went for a mix of ice and fire for this year's extra performances. The semi-final was given over to dance troupe Tsuumi together with the Finnish Vocal Ensemble and operatic soloist Johanna Rusanen.

The opening played into this year's slogan with a mix of fantastical characters entertaining a little girl. This included a variety of circus tricks, stunts and accordions plus a lot of tango - Finland is very big on tango.

The dancers and musicians came back for the interval act, this time for a longer piece portraying the courtship and marriage of a dancer and a guitarist accompanied by opera and a choir.

To break-up the running order and to give some space for ads where relevant, there were some, now traditional, Eurovision short pieces showing the arrival of the performers and delegations at the airport, as well as several backstage shots from rehearsals. It gave time for the hosts to engage in a little bit of flirty back and forth including introducing our backstage host, Krisse Salminen who was initially credited as Eurovision fan who happened to have front-row seats.

For the final only Lordi would do - and they opened the show with more pyro than could ever comfortably fit in the arena. It was an explosive rendition of Hard Rock Hallelujah north of the Arctic Circle, pursued by demons over glaciers and through frozen woods in the depths of a Finnish winter.

Cut to the area, and there they are on stage performing the last chorus to the audience again with as much pyro as they could get past the health & safety teams. Lordi's reception by the crowd demonstrated not only how popular they had become in Finland, but also how popular their win had been among the wider Eurovision community. There was a palpable sense of excitement and enthusiasm as the final chords played.

For the interval, YLE continued with the big names. They had Apocalyptica (great name), a cello quartet who got their start with neo-classical cover versions of Metallica hits. They'd been touring Europe since the start of the decade only becoming more popular with their huge shows filled with drama to big audiences.

They were also popular in Germany as evidenced by them taking part in the 2005 Bundesvision Song Contest representing Baden-Württemberg and finishing fifth.

Among them were a number of circus artists including trapeze artists, acro-balance, tumblers, bike stunts and a man in a big rubber ball. Apocalyptica played a medley of three of their own hits albeit without singing.

During the main-show there were the usual cuts away, with more green room chats plus roving reporter Krisse went outdoors to see the crowds absolutely filling Helsinki's Senate Square in front of the Cathedral - it was rammed full, with tens of thousands of Finns having the nights of their lives.

Finland were truly loving hosting Eurovision and their moment in the spotlight. Scenes like this would only help the EBU smile and build Eurovision's size and importance in year's to come. 2007 is the year the growth of the good vibes and scale of Eurovision took on entirely new proportions. It felt good.

[theflyingfeeling]

Hi 🤗🖤🌻, 5, 15, 25 and 35 for the concert asks? 🎶🎶🎶

Hello there! 🖤

5. Do you prefer intimate arenas or stadium shows?

- Definitely intimate arenas, as you're most likely to see the band/artist more up close, and it's probably a lot less stressful too, somehow 😅

15. Who is an artist you haven’t seen that you’d love to?

- Does McFly count? Because technically I've seen them as McBusted (a combination of the bands McFly and Busted) when they were the support act for One Direction, but I couldn't really see them, as they were only allowed to perform on the main stage from which I too quite far away. There was a catwalk thingy and I was close the the end of that, but only One Direction was allowed on it 😪 I'd love to see them on a headline gig, because being so far away from them that I could barely make out their forms and the people around me not really caring much about them wasn't exactly the concert experience I'm looking for from them 😆 (yes there were big screens but watching a live concert from the screen is not QUITE what I'm there for lol if I'd want to look at them perform on the screen I'd stay home where I wouldn't be pushed around by the people around me 🙄)

25. Which concert did you feel the most exhausted after?

- That^ very concert, that is One Direction at Helsinki Olympic Stadium in 2015. We spent the whole entire day standing or sitting (in awkward positions) in various queues, and when we finally got in we had to stand on our feet some more, and by the time One Direction started their set (a little late from the schedule, of course), I was hurting from head to toe and all my videos are shaky because my legs were just begging for mercy (I had to stand on my tippy toes as well to be able to see something) 😄 I was walking (and probably sounded) like a grandma afterwards lol. I was supposed to stay the night in Helsinki with my friend at her brother's place, but because the concert ended a little later than scheduled, the underground trains (metro) weren't running anymore until the morning, meaning we should've had walked ablut 2 kilometres to our accommodation. That's when I told my friend that no thanks, the only place where I'll be walking is the bus station to take the next bus back home 😂 I'm telling you, a bus seat never felt so soft when I finally got there, and once I arrived home in the wee hours, I actually sobbed my eyes out because I was so exhausted and overwhelmed and hurting all over and just happy to be lying down on my very own bed at long last 😂😭

thank you <3

[jossujb]

So hod did my birthday in Stockholm vent?

Elton John’s last concert in his final tour in Tele2 arena was exactly as fabulous expected. As you may know, my sister got the tickets back in 2020 cos I turned 30 that year, because of covid and wars and what ever the fucking political shit in Finland the Helsinki gig was cancelled - but our ticked were valid in Stockholm, and we even got upgrade on them for all the difficulty, so we actually had very nice seats all things considered. My favorite song from ELton John is Tiny Dancer, but I think my favorite for the evening was Rocketman, it just went all the places.

Gotta appreciate a sensible man, Sir Elton started sharply and ended on the clock, which I think for largely Swedish and Finnish audience was a pleasure.

After the gig some mishaps started to pile. My sister had reserved our knight in a quite fancy hotel - but a fire broke inside the hotel during the night and since I sleep like the dead I didn’t hear the alarm and my sister had to drag me and it happened so suddenly I rubbed contacts right out of my eye and didn’t see shit when evacuating. But it got under control, nobody was hurt and we got very fancy brekkie in the morning.

Then we went a museum of photography. There was a exhibition of Peter Lindbergh, which I very much liked. Then we went to Stockholm’s old town - I nearly bought myself a Supernatural themed deck of Tarot cards- They weren’t even expensive, Stockholm in general was somehow cheaper than Finland, since the war in Ukraine has inflated priced much much more in Finland for a reason or another. But I couldn’t see any goddamn real reason why I would need more SPN shit, so I let the urge go... I wanted to buy so much comics too, I was eyeing on a deluxe set of Death by Neil Gaiman, but like...I dunno, these days I try to think over what I actually want cos I am running out space.

We at nice foods... my skin was really acting up, and the teeth decay because of years of mild disorders was extra visible in pictures... I looked like I had some sort deadly illness going on the whole time. Felt quite ill too, because of the anemia and stuff, and my sister was quite mean about it. The photos we took in booths are nice keepsakes for sure, but I do genuinely look /very/ ill.

At Arlanda Airport it was news to us that Finnish borders are closed this week because of Joe Biden visits and stuff. Which was no problem otherwise, they just asked to see your passport eve though you don’t really have to show it between Finland/Sweden. For some reason communication about the situation was given so confusingly, like everyone panicked at the airport as if thy were not allowed to fly to Finland at all, so they flight was quite late because of the hassle. 

I had promised myself that I don’t contact my boss during my birthday trip... but at this point I made an exception said that since the flight is late, I might not be able to catch the last train from Tikkurila so if that happens I am gonna miss my schedule on work and need some assistance. But I actually managed to still catch the train and everything was just ok - except my boss went full on pressure/quilting/blackmailing spree and I actually felt quite ill, had rally taught time at work today, everything felt like it had made difficult for me on purpose.

My mum wanted to se me today and hear about the trip and I paid a visit. Unfortunately mum could also see that I look very sick and she force feed me bag of chocolate and sleeve of cookies and I feel so ill, so goddamn ill.

I dunno why the go-to method for everyone to make me feel better is to force feed me. Yeah like, I might have lost a bit of weight, there might be eating-related mental issue on top of it, yeah like my fave looks really ill at the moment, but I am by no means underweight, I just weigh less than you remember. Ad eating garbage doesn’t really make me look any better either.

Anyway, so. I am so happy I got to see Elton John in this lifetime. It felt like history right before my eyes. I wish I had also been beautiful and healthy, and I wish it didn’t ended in just being yelled at, but you know. It was a net positive.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.2

437 – Emperor Valentinian III begins his reign over the Western Roman Empire. His mother Galla Placidia ends her regency, but continues to exercise political influence at the court in Rome. 626 – Li Shimin, the future Emperor Taizong of Tang, ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng in the Xuanwu Gate Incident. 706 – In China, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang inters the bodies of relatives in the Qianling Mausoleum, located on Mount Liang outside Chang'an. 866 – Battle of Brissarthe: The Franks led by Robert the Strong are defeated by a joint Breton-Viking army. 936 – King Henry the Fowler dies in his royal palace in Memleben. He is succeeded by his son Otto I, who becomes the ruler of East Francia. 963 – The Byzantine army proclaims Nikephoros II Phokas Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea. 1298 – The Battle of Göllheim is fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg. 1494 – The Treaty of Tordesillas is ratified by Spain. 1504 – Bogdan III the One-Eyed becomes Voivode of Moldavia. 1555 – Ottoman Admiral Turgut Reis sacks the Italian city of Paola. 1561 – Menas, emperor of Ethiopia, defeats a revolt in Emfraz. 1582 – Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide. 1613 – The first English expedition (from Virginia) against Acadia led by Samuel Argall takes place. 1644 – English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor. 1645 – Battle of Alford: Wars of the Three Kingdoms. 1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine. 1723 – Bach's Magnificat is first performed. 1776 – American Revolution: The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4. 1816 – The French frigate Méduse strikes the Bank of Arguin and 151 people on board have to be evacuated on an improvised raft, a case immortalised by Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa. 1822 – Thirty-five slaves, including Denmark Vesey, are hanged in South Carolina after being accused of organizing a slave rebellion. 1823 – Bahia Independence Day: The end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the Portuguese crown loyalists in the province of Bahia. 1839 – Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 kidnapped Africans led by Joseph Cinqué mutiny and take over the slave ship Amistad. 1840 – A Ms  7.4 earthquake strikes present-day Turkey and Armenia; combined with the effects of an eruption on Mount Ararat, kills 10,000 people. 1853 – The Russian Army crosses the Prut river into the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia), providing the spark that will set off the Crimean War. 1864 – Dimitri Atanasescu founds the first Romanian school in the Balkans for the Aromanians in Trnovo, in the Ottoman Empire (now in North Macedonia). 1871 – Victor Emmanuel II of Italy enters Rome after having conquered it from the Papal States. 1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James A. Garfield (who will die of complications from his wounds on September 19). 1890 – The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Act. 1897 – British-Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London. 1900 – An airship designed and constructed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin of Germany made its first flight on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen. 1900 – Jean Sibelius' Finlandia receives its première performance in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus. 1921 – World War I: U.S. President Warren G. Harding signs the Knox–Porter Resolution formally ending the war between the United States and Germany. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Röhm. 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight. 1940 – Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta. 1940 – The SS Arandora Star is sunk by U-47 in the North Atlantic with the loss of over 800 lives, mostly civilians. 1962 – The first Walmart store, then known as Wal-Mart, opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas. 1964 – Civil rights movement: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places. 1966 – France conducts its first nuclear weapon test in the Pacific, on Moruroa Atoll. 1976 – End of South Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam annexes the former South Vietnam to form the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 1986 – Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana are burnt alive during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. 1986 – Aeroflot Flight 2306 crashes while attempting an emergency landing at Syktyvkar Airport in Syktyvkar, in present-day Komi Republic, Russia, killing 54 people. 1988 – Marcel Lefebvre and the four bishops he consecrated were excommunicated by the Holy See. 1990 – In the 1990 Mecca tunnel tragedy, 1,400 Muslim pilgrims are suffocated to death and trampled upon in a pedestrian tunnel leading to the holy city of Mecca. 1994 – USAir Flight 1016 crashes near Charlotte Douglas International Airport, killing 37 of the 57 people on board. 1997 – The Bank of Thailand floats the baht, triggering the Asian financial crisis. 2000 – Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional, after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. 2001 – The AbioCor self-contained artificial heart is first implanted. 2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon. 2005 – The Live 8 benefit concerts takes place in the G8 states and in South Africa. More than 1,000 musicians perform and are broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio networks. 2008 – Colombian conflict: Íngrid Betancourt, a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, is released from captivity after being held for six and a half years by FARC. 2010 – The South Kivu tank truck explosion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo kills at least 230 people. 2013 – The International Astronomical Union names Pluto's fourth and fifth moons, Kerberos and Styx. 2013 – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake strikes Aceh, Indonesia, killing at least 42 people and injuring 420 others.