Stockholm - Swedish state-owned energy group Vattenfall posted higher operating profits for the second-quarter of 2008, boosted by its operations in the Nordic region, the group said Wednesday.

Operating profit before tax and interest was 6.3 billion kronor (1 billion dollars), up 11 per cent on the corresponding business period in 2007.

Second-quarter turnover increased by 9.9 per cent to 35.4 billion kronor.

Vattenfall Chief Executive Lars G Josefsson said the group's Nordic Business unit contributed to the increased operating profit.

Higher electricity prices on the local electricity market in the Nordic region contributed to the profits.

Stockholm - A man wanted by Interpol over allegedly abducting his six-year-old Swedish daughter arrived Tuesday in Sweden after being deported from Cambodia, police and local media said.

The girl, Alicia Elfversson, arrived Friday in Sweden with her mother and aunt who for the past year have been looking for the girl.

Alicia was reported missing on June 4, 2007, after her father, Torgier Nordbo, picked her up for a routine visit to see relatives in Norway.

Nordbo, who has business interests in Thailand, was later tracked to Cambodia. The 47-year-old was detained last week by Cambodian police.

Stockholm - The Swedish weather service SMHI on Monday warned of more local thunder storms and lightning in parts of central Sweden, the day after two people were killed by lightning.

Two people who suffered severe burns and have yet to be identified were found Sunday in the province of Dalarna, north-west of Stockholm.

Police believed they had sought shelter during a thunder storm when the temporary shelter was hit by lightning.

Falun, the main city in Dalarna, registered the unusually high temperature of 33 degrees Celsius on Sunday.

It is a well known fact that the Psychological stress and tensions make way for various diseases. The research by the experts from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm showed that anxiety can increase the risk of diabetes in men. The researchers found that a range of symptoms like anxiety, sleeping disorders which are basically connected to psychological distress can double a man's risk of developing diabetes.

The team of researchers lead by Professor Anders Ekbom analyzed the data collected from 2,127 middle-aged men in Sweden for eight to 10 years. The researchers also studied data collected from 3,100 women. These people were asked questions related to distress, including anxiety, apathy, depression, fatigue and insomnia in the beginning of the study.  

Stockholm - A current heatwave in the Baltic Sea region has contributed to algae blooming in the sea, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute SMHI, said Monday.

The institute and local radio reported sightings of large belts of blue-green algae, off the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea and also in outlying parts of the Stockholm archipelago.

Experts said people should avoid swimming in waters with high concentrations of the algae, citing that it was poisonous.

Dog owners were also advised to ensure that their pets did not drink such water.

Stockholm - A mutation is believed to be the reason why some horses are white including the famous Lippizaners, according to a new study by Swedish researchers.

The mutation was traced back thousands of years to a common ancestor and was identified by researchers at Uppsala University who published their results in the online edition of Nature Genetics.

The study suggested that a large majority of white horses carry the dominant mutation causing them to grey with age.