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Stockholm  - Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo was Friday named the first winner of the Birgit Nilsson Prize, worth 1 million dollars.

The prize was created by the late Swedish soprano star Birgit Nilsson who also set up a foundation that will handle the award in future.

Nilsson selected the Spanish tenor herself, making her selection before her death at age 87 in December 2005. Her choice was announced Friday when a sealed envelope was opened.

A prize ceremony for Domingo was due end of this year, the foundation said.

The prize is to be awarded every second or third year "for outstanding achievements in the international field of opera and concert."

Stockholm  - The upcoming Davis Cup tie between Sweden and Israel will be played behind closed doors over security concerns, politicians in Swedish host city Malmo said Wednesday.

The city council's board for leisure, recreation and sport activities voted Wednesday that the March 6-8 tie would be played without any paying spectators.

Politicians from the Social Democrats and Left Party won the vote by 5-4, supporting a proposal from board chairman Bengt Forsberg of the Social Democrats.

The Davis Cup match has been classified as a high-risk event over potential protests by groups wanting to protest against the recent Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

Stockholm - A Swedish district court Tuesday cleared a Swedish man charged with violating a ban against raising funds to organizations linked to the radical Islamic movement Hamas.

Khalid al-Yousef, was charged as head of the local al-Aqsa Grain Foundation described as the Swedish branch of the al-Aqsa Foundation. According to its own estimates it has raised some 4 million kronor (478,000 dollars).

In a case pertaining to copyright theft, four men working at The Pirate Bay file-sharing Web site go on trial in Stockholm. All four of them - Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom, and Fredrik Neij - were supposedly accomplices in breaking copyright law.

If convicted, the four men face a fine of $143,500, and a two-year prison term.

Jena, Germany - German police were seeking three Swedish nationals Monday, two days after neo-Nazis assaulted a group of leftists at a highway rest area at the end of a day of demonstrations in Dresden.

A 42-year-old man was hospitalized with serious head injuries in the eastern city of Jena after the Saturday evening violence.

Police took the names of 41 far-rightists riding in a chartered coach after the incident. They stressed Monday they had no evidence yet that the Swedes on the coach were specifically to blame, but wanted to catch them before they left Germany to go home to Sweden.