Stockholm - Swedish banking group Handelsbanken on Wednesday outdid analyst expectations and reported higher third-quarter operating profits and net interest income.

Handelsbanken was the first of the Nordic nation's four major banking groups to report results amid the ongoing financial turmoil.

Operating profits were up 6 per cent to 3.78 billion kronor (510 million dollars), the group said attributing this to "higher net interest income and lower costs."

Stockholm - Assa Abloy, a locks and security solutions group based in Sweden, said Tuesday it would consider moving a plant out of an industrial zone in an Israeli-occupied portion of the Palestinian West Bank after receiving criticism from Swedish human rights groups.

A group of Swedish human rights organizations earlier Tuesday published a report criticizing the company for operating the plant in the disputed zone in the town of Barkan.

The report, Illegal Ground: Assa Abloy's Business in Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the plant "contravenes both domestic Israeli law and a number of provisions in international law."

Stockholm - The Swedish government Monday unveiled details in a stability plan including to establish a fund to help banks that run into problems in future.

The programme was aimed at "restoring confidence" in the financial system, Finance Minister Anders Borg said at joint news conference with Financial Markets Minister Mats Odell.

The fund was to run along the lines recently approved by Eurozone countries, and Odell said the fast-track legislation could likely be passed early next week.

Stockholm - Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson's pre-tax income for the third quarter 2008 grew 10 per cent while sales increased 13 per cent, the group said Monday.

Pre-tax income was 6.2 billion kronor (836 million dollars), compared to 5.6 billion kronor in the corresponding business period in 2007, the company reported, adding that operating profit was basically flat at 5.7 billion kronor.

The group reported 49.2 billion kronor in sales for the quarter.

The report had originally been scheduled for release on Friday.

Stockholm - Sweden has no immediate plans to stage a referendum on introducing the joint European currency, the euro, leading cabinet members said Friday.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt touched on the euro in speeches at a conference organized by their conservative Moderate Party, the main force in Sweden's ruling four- party coalition.

Both Reinfeldt and Bildt supported introducing the euro in 2003, but the proposal was rejected by voters in a referendum.

Reinfeldt noted that his party had agreed to respect the outcome of the 2003 referendum for a decade, suggesting that the issue was not due until earliest 2013.

Stockholm - Swedish King Carl Gustaf was criticized Friday for saying that he supported culling the wolf population.

"We have to cull the wolf population, otherwise it will explode," the moanrch told Swedish television news during a moose hunt on Thursday.

"They eat a lot, that is a fact," the king added.

The remarks were welcomed by the Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management, but were criticized by, among others, the conservation movement WWF.

The king has been chairman of the Swedish branch of the WWF since 1988.