Stockholm  - The foundation that funds the awards known as the Alternative Nobel Prize said Wednesday a university in Malaysia is to host the first Right Livelihood College.

Jacob von Uexkull, founder of the Right Livelihood awards, os to sign the agreement Thursday setting up the college with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) based in the city of Pinang, 200-kilometres north of Kuala Lampur, the foundation said.

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.

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.

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.