Helsinki  - The prime minister of Iceland said Monday he hoped the cash-strapped North Atlantic nation will be able to get loans from its Nordic neighbours.

"We hope for a quick response," Prime Minister Geir Haarde told reporters before a meeting of Nordic prime ministers in Finland.

The global financial crisis that has battered Iceland was one of the main topics at the meeting of the Nordic Council organization that groups Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as three self-ruling territories including Greenland.

Helsinki - Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen's Centre Party dropped to third place after local elections held Sunday, final tallies showed Monday.

Vanhanen noted that his party had probably suffered from being in office and said election results differed.

The Centre Party dropped 2.7 percentage points compared to the 2004 local elections, scoring 20.1 per cent.

Analysts including Goran Djupsund, professor of political science and political communication at Abo Akademi University, did not rule out a shake-up of the party leadership.

Helsinki - A stamp featuring former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, iss to be issued December 10, the Finnish Philatelic Centre said Wednesday.

The stamp will go on sale the day Athisaari receives his Nobel prize at a ceremony in Oslo. He is being honoured for his mediation efforts in international hotspots.

The stamp with Ahtisaari's portrait will be worth 0.80 euros (1 dollar), for first class mail within Finland and abroad, Liisa Oksanen of the philatelic centre said.

A stamp featuring Ahtisaari, who served as president 1994-2000, was already issued 1997 when he turned 60.

Helsinki - Top military leaders from the United States and Russia met Tuesday near Helsinki for their first time since this summer's war between Russia and Georgia.

The agenda was reported to have included talks on the situation in Georgia, an ally of the United States that in August fought a short war with Russia.

The meeting was attended by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and General Nikolai Makarov, head of Russia's general staff.

Details of the discussions were not released, but it was reported to be the first direct meeting between these two defence chiefs.

Helsinki - The construction schedule for Finland's fifth nuclear reactor has run into a new delay, Finnish power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said Friday.

Work on the third reactor at Olkiluoto, south-western Finland, began in 2005. Power generation was now slated to begin in 2012 instead of 2011, TVO said Friday.

Two of the country's four operating reactors are also located at Olkiluoto.

TVO said the "the reactor plant civil construction works will take several months longer than earlier estimated."

A TVO spokeswoman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the delays were linked to the casting of the plant's concrete structures.

Helsinki - The construction schedule for Finland's fifth nuclear reactor has run into a new delay, Finnish power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said Friday.

Work on the third reactor at Olkiluoto, south-western Finland, began in 2005. Power generation was now slated to begin in 2012 instead of 2011, TVO said Friday.

Two of the country's four operating reactors are also located at Olkiluoto.

TVO said the "the reactor plant civil construction works will take several months longer than earlier estimated."