This week APN delves deeper into the news that central Finland's resident pandas, Lumi and Pyry, are set to return to China eight years ahead of schedule.
"It was a long and difficult decision," Risto Sivonen, chair of Ähtäri Zoo's board, tells APN.
"It's our financial situation. The world has changed, the behaviour of customers has changed, and we find that we don't have the financial possibilities to continue."
The giant pandas were leased to Ähtäri Zoo by China in 2017, as a symbol of goodwill and friendship to mark Finland's 100 years of independence. The gesture was noted at the time to be a continuation of Chinese 'panda diplomacy'.
"The government of the People's Republic of China discovered early on that the panda is a perfect way to soften the international image of China, which is the image of an authoritarian communist regime," Yle's Asia correspondent Mika Hentunen explains.
"Everybody loves these animals, so it's a way to use soft political power on the world stage."
While the arrival of Lumi and Pyry in Ähtäri was seen as a high point in Finnish-Chinese relations, the relationship has since become more strained.
Incidents have included a Hong Kong-flagged ship causing damage to the Balticconnector pipeline, suspicions of espionage, and the closure of Helsinki University's Confucius Institute.
"It's quite symbolic that the pandas came here during the high tide of Sino-Finnish collaboration, but they go back home at a time when Finland's and the rest of the West's willingness to collaborate with China in economic, scientific and political terms is fading," Liisa Kauppila of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) notes.
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This week's show was presented by Ronan Browne and the sound engineer was Tuomas Vauhkonen.
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