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.

Washington, Dec 31 : In a new study, which involved analyses of deposits of pollen grains, it has been determined that Sweden may have been virtually free of ice for long periods during the latest ice age, which suggests that the glaciation might have started some 20,000 years later than was previously assumed.

The study is part of a new doctoral dissertation at Stockholm University in Sweden.

Stockholm - Two of Sweden's 10 nuclear reactors that have been offline since October were Tuesday granted permission to restart operations, the nuclear watchdog said.

The reactors were taken offline after cracks were detected in some control rods. Faulty rods have now been replaced.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said the two plants were to be allowed to go back online until scheduled maintenance work next year.

The agency said it would closely monitor efforts by the operators to determine the cause of the cracks in the control rods used to control the nuclear fission process.

Stockholm  - A 76-year-old Swedish man said he was "lucky" to have survived a kick from a moose cow in the northern town of Gallivare, reports said Sunday.

"It was pure luck that the hoof just grazed my chest, it it had impacted fully I would have been crushed to death," Mauritz Henriksson told the Expressen newspaper.

The seasoned moose hunter said he had been walking his four elk hounds on Saturday evening when they started to bark furiously.

Two of the dogs pulled free and raced off, after apparently picking up the scent of a moose in a neighbour's yard.