Stockholm - Sweden's central bank said Wednesday it was to cut its interest rate by 0.50 percentage points to 4.25 per cent.

The cut was to take effect October 15, the Riksbank said, adding that the move was part of a coordinated measure with five other central banks.

The bank's board of governors noted that "economic growth in Sweden is slowing down and that inflationary pressures are diminishing as an effect of the financial crisis."

The Riksbank said it was to revise its forecast for both inflation and GDP, and noted that "the labour market is also showing clearer signs of weakening."

Stockholm - Volvo, the Swedish carmaker owned by Ford, is to shed a further 3,400 jobs mainly in its home base, the company said Wednesday, citing weaker sales in Europe and the United States.

The new cuts would affect some 2,000 blue-collar workers and 700 white-collar employees in Sweden, the company, which is owned by US carmaker Ford, said.

Paris  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday congratulated Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who were awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine for their discovery of the retrovirus that causes AIDS.

After extending his "heartiest congratulations," in his own name and that of the nation, Sarkozy noted, in a statement released by his office, that it was the first Nobel Prize for Medicine awarded to a French team since 1980.

"The discovery of the AIDS virus at the beginning of the 1980s marked the start of a period of intense research that led to the creation of anti-retrovirus treatments," Sarkozy said. "Today millions of people around the world are benefiting from these treatments."

Stockholm/Copenhagen  - Sweden and Denmark on Monday joined the growing group of European countries that have raised state guarantees for bank deposits amid the ongoing financial turmoil.

The Swedish government said it planned to double the state guarantee to 500,000 kronor (70,000 dollars) for deposits in Swedish- owned banks.

"The measure aims at ensuring that savers continue to trust the financial system," Finance Minister Anders Borg and Local Government and Financial Markets Minister Mats Odell said.

Stockholm, Oct 6 : The remains of a Viking-era stave church, including the skeletal remains of a woman, have been uncovered near the cemetery of the Lannas church in Odensbacken outside Orebro in central Sweden.

Stave churches, common in medieval northern Europe, are constructed with timber framing and walls filled with vertical planks.

According to a report in The Local, the site was excavated late in the summer following an examination of the area in preparation for the building of a new parish home.

Stockholm  - Swedish schools were criticized Thursday for widespread use of surveillance cameras inside their premises, violating personal integrity rules.

The Swedish Data Inspection Board that issued the criticism based its findings after inspecting seven randomly selected schools, saying they used surveillance cameras indiscriminately.

About one in five Swedish schools have surveillance cameras.

The decision to shut off the cameras during daytime hours was to apply country-wide, Goran Graslund, head of the board, said, citing the privacy protection law.