Stockholm - Despite posting record sales for its latest financial year, Swedish furniture retail giant Ikea is gearing up for lower demand in several key markets, reports said Wednesday.

Ikea posted global sales of some 21 billion euros (29 billion dollars) for the financial year that ended August 31 and said it was the best in the group's history, Sweden's financial daily Dagens Industri reported.

Ikea's Chief Executive Anders Dahlvig attributed the strong sales to the 22 new department stores that were opened in the US, Europe, China and Russia.

Since 1999 the furniture giant's global sales have almost tripled.

Stockholm - Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and visiting Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said Tuesday that while they differ over the status of Kosovo, both support future Serbian membership in the European Union.

Bildt told reporters there was "nothing to fear" over Serbia's plans to ask the General Assembly of the United Nations next month to ask the International Court of Justice to give "an opinion" on the secession by the breakaway province of Kosovo.

Jeremic said Belgrade had "acted with utmost restraint" after Kosovo declared its unilateral declaration of independence in February and had "opted for diplomacy and international law" rather than sanctions or other means.

Stockholm - More than 150 nominations have been made for the 2009 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, one of the largest literary awards for writers and illustrators of literature for children and young people, organizers said Monday.

The prize was created 2002 in honour of Lindgren, the Swedish creator of numerous popular fiction characters, including Pippi Longstocking, who died 2002 aged 94.

In all, 153 candidates from 60 countries, including some 30 institutions that promote reading, were nominated for the 830,000- dollars prize.

Stockholm - Sweden was set to phase out the current tax break offered for ecologically friendly cars some six months earlier than planned, citing the aims of the tax had been "achieved," a cabinet member said Monday.

"The rebate scheme was introduced to give eco-cars a flying start. The rebate has been a success. Roughly every third new car sold today is an eco-car," Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said

"We have achieved our aims," Carlgren said.

The scheme, offering a 10,000-kronor (1,500-dollar) rebate, was launched in April 2007 and was initially due to be in place until the end of December 2009, but was now slated to end in June 2009, Carlgren said.

Stockholm - A Swedish teenager was praised for accurate shooting when he shot a bear over the weekend while out on a moose hunt with his father, reports said Monday.

Filip Wikner, 15, was hunting under the supervision of his father when their dog tracked a bear near the village of Hornmyr, northern Sweden.

They subsequently spotted the bear in a thicket, Wikner told the Vasterbottens-Kuriren newspaper.

The duo had agreed that Filip would firet the initial shot, and when the bear turned its side on them he opened fire from some 20 metres.

"The bear went down immediately but got back up," Wikner said, adding that his father, seasoned bear hunter Peter Wikner, then fired a second shot.

London, Sept 6 : A woman suffering from multiple sclerosis was imprisoned for nine years in a small cabin in south-central Sweden, the police has reported.

The woman is believed to have been held by her 58-year-old partner in a cabin measuring 15 square metres in Eksjo, in south-central Sweden since 1999.

The man has been ordered by a court to be held in custody, local media reported, reports the Mirror.

He has, however, denied all charges.

The woman weighed less than 40 kilos when she was admitted to hospital earlier this week, Swedish television channel SVT reported on its website.

A prosecutor told news agency TT there was no indication this was due to ill treatment, but rather to her illness.