Stockholm - The Stockholm bourse dropped 3 per cent in opening trading on Monday in the wake of reports that US investment banker Lehman Brothers was to file for bankruptcy protection.

Shares in the four main banking groups including Nordea dropped some 5 per cent, although Swedish banking groups have said they have not been exposed to the troubled subprime US mortgage market.

Clothes retailer Hennes & Mauritz was also impacted negatively as was ball-bearing maker SKF and construction group JM, while the SAS Group share, operator of joint carrier Scandinavian Airlines, surged 15 per cent.

SAS on Friday confirmed it was in talks and "evaluating various structural possibilities."

Stockholm - Trading in the SAS Group, operator of joint carrier Scandinavian Airlines, was Friday halted on the stock exchanges of Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.

The Stockholm stock exchange said the move was "until further notice."

The move came after the share price climbed some 10 per cent amid media reports that Lufthansa of Germany was considering a possible bid for the SAS Group. Lufthansa has in the past often been linked to SAS.

In common with several airline groups, SAS has posted losses over record-high fuel prices and a drop in passenger traffic. SAS Group spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

Stockholm - A Swedish prosecutor Friday dropped charges against three men arrested in February on suspicion of funding terrorism in Somalia.

Prosecutor Ronnie Jacobsson told Swedish radio news that he had not been able to prove the suspicions against the three men.

Two of the men were released in June but were ordered to report regularly to the police. A third man was released already in February.

The men were Swedish nationals of Somali origin, and according to Swedish security police channelled funds to the militant Islamist group al-Shabab.

The group has been part of the insurgency against Ethiopian-backed forces in Somalia.

Stockholm- The Swedish carmaker Volvo is to shed a further 900 jobs in its Swedish home base, the company said Friday, citing weaker sales in Europe and the United States.

The economic downturn in Europe and the US had impacted "the premium car market" where sales were "deteriorating even more rapidly than in the volume market," Volvo Cars said in a statement.

Stockholm- The planned opening of a museum dedicated to former Swedish group ABBA next year has been cancelled, organizers said Friday, citing difficulties with the renovation of a 100-year-old former customs building housing it.

"It's better to make this decision at an early stage, even though it's a sad message," museum co-founder Ulf Westman said.

Westman and his wife, Ewa Wigenheim-Westman, had aimed to open the museum next June 4. No new date was set.

Stockholm - The fifth anniversary of the death of former Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh was marked with a low-key ceremony and a seminar Thursday.

Lindh, 46, was fatally stabbed during a visit to a department store in central Stockholm on September 10, 2003, and died early the next day.

Swedish opposition leader Mona Sahlin and other members of the Social Democratic party laid flowers on Lindh's grave.