Arjeplog, Sweden - Car makers are very creative about hiding their prototypes from amateur photographers and paparazzi just waiting to snap a spy shot of the new model.

"The natural enemy of the prototype is the horsepower paparazzi," says Peter Gyllenberg, who runs a test centre in Arjeplog, Sweden, where many car makers hold winter tests.

Stockholm - Sweden's central bank said Tuesday it was to cut its interest rate by half a percentage point to 0.50 per cent, saying the move was "necessary to dampen the fall in production and employment."

One of the six governors on the Riksbank board, Lars O Svensson, wanted a greater cut to 0.25 per cent, and "entered a reservation," the central bank said in a statement.

The Riksbank governors said Sweden has been hit "hard" by the global financial dowturn.

Stockholm - Two-time overall World Cup champion Anja Paerson of Sweden is to retire from skiing at the end of the 2010 Olympic season.

"I intend to retire next year," the 2006 Olympic slalom gold medallist told Swedish television Sunday.

Paerson has won 40 World Cup races in her career and netted seven individual titles, becoming the first woman to win world championship gold in all five skiing disciplines.

Stockholm- Police have ruled out a targeted campaign of sabotage against Swedish poultry producers or other food companies despite numerous incidents of pieces of glass found in chicken and other food. "In our view this is not a coordinated attack against food supplies," Anders Wretling of the National Criminal Police told the Saturday edition of Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter.

"These are separate cases," he added, saying the police had no knowledge of extortion attempts against food producers.

A Swedish court has finally handed down its verdict to the four defendants in the Internet file-sharing case! Each of the four - Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Carl Lundstrom, - has been sentenced to a one-year jail term. The court has also ordered them to make a 30-million kronor payment in damages to top entertainment companies, like Warner Bros, EMI, Columbia Pictures, and Sony Music Entertainment.

Stockholm - Four men were convicted Friday by a Swedish district court of operating a website which allows illegal file sharing, and sentenced to year-long jail terms.

The Stockholm district court also ruled that the four should pay damages of some 30 million kronor (3.6 million dollars) for violating copyright infringements by allowing the Pirate Bay website to be used to swap films and music.