Stockholm  - A jury Wednesday named winners from Germany, India, Somalia and the United States as recipients of the 2008 Right Livelihood Awards, often called the Alternative Nobel Prize.

Two of the award winners were from the North and have worked to create ties with the so-called developing world, Ole von Uexkull of the Right Livelihood Foundation said.

Four of the five prize winners were women, he noted.

Stockholm - Swedish heavy-vehicle maker Volvo Trucks said Tuesday it planned to cut some 1,400 jobs in its workforce, citing the need to reduce production capacity over "declining demand for trucks in the European market."

The measures planned for the coming months included cancelling evening shifts and were to affect plants in the Swedish towns of Gothenburg and Umea, and in Ghent in Belgium, Volvo Trucks chief executive Staffan Jufors said in a statement.

Stockholm - Swedish clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) said Tuesday its pre-tax profits for the third quarter 2008 were up 4 per cent, noting that production and transport costs had increased.

H&M pre-tax profits for the third quarter stood at 4.58 billion kronor (678 million dollars), compared to 4.4 billion kronor for the corresponding business period 2007.

The group posted sales of 20.87 billion kronor, excluding value added tax (VAT), for the third quarter, up 12 per cent on the corresponding business period 2007. Third quarter sales had however, been "affected by a weaker retail business in most markets."

Stockholm - Nordic telecommunications group Telia Sonera on Friday said it had bought "controlling interests" in two mobile operators in Nepal and Cambodia, respectively.

The move, worth 3.2 billion kronor (484 million dollars), was part of Telia Sonera's "strategy to expand into new high-growth emerging markets," chief executive Lars Nyberg said in a statement.

By gaining a majority in the holding company Telia Sonera Asia Holding, Telia Sonera will control Spice Nepal, the second largest mobile operator in Nepal, and 100 per cent of the shares and votes in Cambodian start-up mobile operator Applifone.

Stockholm- Workers in Asia who assemble parts for several leading mobile phone companies suffer under poor working conditions that include being punished for mistakes, Swedish rights agencies said in a report said Wednesday.

Workers in plants in China and the Philippines have to work long hours, sometimes 10-12 hours a day to make ends meet, according to the report compiled jointly by the non-governmental Fair Trade Centre organization, the watchdog Swedwatch, and Church of Sweden Aid.

Stockholm- While fishing with a friend Sunday near Jonkoping, in central Sweden, Joel Lagerkvist felt his hook snag on something very heavy.

"We rowed closer and I started to pull the rod, and then I saw the head of a moose," Joel Lagerkvist was quoted Monday as telling the Expressen tabloid.

Lagerkvist, 24, said he dropped the rod in fright - afraid the animal might attack him and his friend.

The animal was, however, dead. It took a while for the two men to get help, but eventually bystanders and police came to their aid and helped them winch the dead animal ashore.