Stockholm - It is "extremely urgent" to get a ceasefire and end the violence in Gaza including the Israeli ground and air offensive as well as rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Thursday.

Bildt - just back from a visit to the Middle East as part of a European Union delegation - told reporters he was "at present not interested in laying blame" but wanted to "see an end to the violence."

Stockholm - Sweden is to earmark 1.1 billion kronor (139 million dollars) for bilateral aid to climate change programmes in "high risk" countries over the coming three years, the government said Wednesday.

International Development Cooperation Minister Gunilla Carlsson said the programmes would target countries "at high risk in combination with high vulnerability."

These included Bolivia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, and Mali as well as regions in Africa and Asia, Carlsson said in an article in Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter.

Stockholm - Unkown people spraypainted slogans against Israel on the walls of Israel's embassy in the Swedish capital Stockholm, reports said Monday.

Copenhagen/Stockholm  - Shares in SAS, the operator of the joint-carrier Scandinavian Airlines, surged Friday on a report that Lufthansa is interested in the Scandinavian market and is in talks with SAS.

A Lufthansa executive quoted by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, however, did not say if a possible merger was being considered.

SAS shares climbed some 15 per cent in late afternoon trading on the Stockholm bourse.

Stockholm - The foreign ministers of the Czech Republic, France and Sweden are to go Sunday to the Middle East amid ongong violence between Israel and Hamas, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Sweden's Carl Bildt are due to begin their visit Sunday in Cairo, a foreign ministry statement said.

On Monday, they are to continue to Jerusalem and then visit Ramallah on the West Bank for talks with some of the Palestinian leaders.

Stockholm  - The outlook for the Swedish economy in 2009 is bleak, although predictions are difficult to make, Swedish central bank governor Stefan Ingves said Wednesday.

The Swedish central bank's assessment is that the "the global financial crisis will continue to impact the Swedish economy despite sizeable countermeasures," Ingves said in an op-ed piece in the Dagens Nyheter daily.

The Swedish gross domestic product was expected to fall in 2009.