Stockholm - Swedish state-owned energy group Vattenfall said Monday it has bought the Thanet Offshore Wind project off the British coast for 35 million pounds (55 million dollars).

The wind farm off Margate, Kent, was on completion in 2010 estimated to be able to produce some 300 megawatts, or almost three times as much energy as Lillgrund, the group's largest Swedish wind farm.

Completing the wind farm was estimated to cost some 780 million pounds, and would further boost Vattenfall's wind power production, the group said.

Vattenfall said it bought the rights to build Thanet Offshore Wind from CRC Energy Jersey 1 Limited in competition with other energy companies.

Stockholm - Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt held talks Friday with visiting Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.

Bildt said he welcomed the joint declaration this week by the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to seek a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, referring to the breakaway region claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Stockholm  - Climate issues including how to tackle global warming were to top discussions at a gathering of some 30 religious leaders and policy-makers from various faiths of the world, Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd said Friday.

The two-day meeting was to adopt a manifesto that contains "demands and commitments," Wejryd said of the envisaged document to be signed November 28 in Uppsala, north of Stockholm.

"We call on international policy- and decision-makers to take certain steps and we also call upon our own faiths to be active," he said of the tract.

Stockholm  - Swedish state-owned energy group Vattenfall on Wednesday said it is buying an 18.7-per-cent stake in Polish energy company ENEA S. A. for 4.5 billion kronor (584 million dollars).

ENEA is one of four state-owned energy groups in Poland and accounts for some 8 per cent of the country's energy production, the Vattenfall statement said.

Vattenfall chief executive Lars G Josefsson noted that ENEA's energy production is mainly coal-based. He said this would present an opportunity for Vattenfall to gain from the group's knowledge of CCS, or carbon capture and storage, technology.

Stockholm - Sweden's centre-right government has failed to agree on new legislation allowing same-sex couples the right to marry, but will press ahead with legislation to that effect, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Wednesday.

Opposition from the Christian Democrats, one of the four parties in Reinfeldt's four-party coalition, has forced the other three parties to go it alone and seek support from the opposition.

Reinfeldt said his conservative Moderate Party, the Liberal Party and Centre Party would present a bill on same-sex marriage with an amendment stating it would take effect as of May 2009.

Stockholm - The SAS Group, the operator of the joint carrier
Scandinavian Airlines, on Wednesday posted a pre-tax loss for third-
quarter 2008, citing high fuel costs, the economic downturn and a
goodwill writedown in its Spanish-based carrier.

SAS chief executive Mats Jansson said the group needed to implement
more belt-tightening measures saying the "crisis in the air travel
industry strikes indiscriminately."

He noted the recent bankruptcy of low-cost rival Sterling Airlines, one of some 30 carriers to fold so far this year.

The SAS Group posted a third-quarter pre-tax loss of 1.78 billion
kronor (231 million dollars) compared to a pre-tax profit of 457
million kronor in the corresponding business period of 2007.