Four people are dead after a lone gunman went on a shooting spree in the Espoo shopping centre near Helsinki, Finland Thursday morning 31 December. Another is injured. The man, who reportedly has a criminal record, opened fire on the second floor of the mall. The Times, UK, reports that “there are 1.6 million firearms in private hands in Finland, which has a population of just 5.3 million. It ranks in the top five nations in the world for civilian gun ownership.”
Links to other sites: The Times, UK,
London, England (Economist Intelligence Unit) – The annual Economist liveability survey of 140 cities worldwide ranks Vancouver in first place with an almost perfect 98 score out of 100. There are four European cities among the top 10. Vienna is in second place, Helsinki in seventh, just ahead of eighth-tied Geneva, Sydney and Zurich.
