Stockholm - Sweden is prepared to weather the global economic downtown, Finance Minister Anders Borg said Monday when he presented the centre-right coalition's budget bill.

"This budget is a strong package aimed at softening the downturn in the global economy," Borg told parliament.

"Dark clouds were gathering and cast a shadow over Sweden," Borg added when he presented his third budget since conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt took office in October 2006.

The government is trailing the opposition in opinion polls at half-time in its term. Many details in the budget were released in advance as the government has sought to shore up its support.

Stockholm- An Egyptian national who was handed over to the CIA in 2001 and deported to Egypt in a much-criticized decision is to be awarded damages by the Swedish government, reports said Friday.

Ahmed Agiza's lawyer was quoted as telling the Swedish news agency that her client had accepted the offer of 3 million kronor (450,000 dollars) in compensation.

Agiza was along with Mohammed al-Zari in December 2001 handed over to CIA agents and flown to Egypt where they were suspected of terrorist activities.

Stockholm - A Swedish pilot boat averted a potential accident in the busy waters between Sweden and Denmark when it detected a drifting freighter, reports said Friday.

The Swedish pilot boat was on a routine mission late Thursday in the Oresund straits when the crew detected a Dutch freighter apparently heading for shoals in Swedish waters, the Helsingborgs Dagblad newspaper reported.

Stockholm - Sweden has yet to get its first full-time female rabbi after a selected candidate withdrew her name for the post for personal reasons, reports said Thursday.

Rabbi Chava Koster of the Village Temple in New York, a Reform congregation, was in June unanimously selected as non-Orthodox rabbi by the Jewish Community of Stockholm.

The community has some 4,500 members, and is the largest in the country. An estimated 18,000 to 20,000 Jews live in Sweden.

Koster, 46, had agreed on salary and other employment terms when she withdrew her name, citing "personal reasons," the Dagen newspaper reported.

Stockholm - The Swedish cabinet Thursday approved to provide civilian observers and other personnel to support a European Union ceasefire mission to Georgia.

The Swedish contribution would number some 25 personnel to staff a field office, a government statement said.

"The Swedish contribution of personnel and equipment is an expression of Sweden's commitment to peace and security in the southern Caucasus," the ministers for defence, justice and international development cooperation said in a joint statement.

The exact division of observers and other staff was yet to be decided, officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Budapest - A venerable Hungarian porcelain factory said Wednesday it has landed an order to make china tableware for Swedish home furnishing retailer Ikea.

Zsolnay Porcelanmanufaktura expects to sign a seven-year deal shortly to supply 5,000 tons of china a year for Ikea starting in September 2009, the MTI news agency reported.

While Zsolnay would be one of about 1,300 Ikea suppliers, the contract would be a lifeline for the loss-making 156-year-old company.