The chairman of the Canter party Maud Olofsson would not accept to sit in the same government as the Left party. She said this in an interview in the Swedish television today. There have been speculations about different kinds of new coalitions if neither of the blocs gets a majority. Olofsson said that she would never be in the same government as a communist.

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Football: Sweden beat San Marino 6-0 in Malmö in today’s qualification game for the European championship. The defender Olof Mellberg was sent off in the first half and misses the crucial game against the Netherlands in October.

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The police are investigation a potential corruption scandal in Gothenburg. False invoices have been sent to a housing company owned by the city. The police suspect that the purpose might have been that an employee at the housing company would arrange with the payment of the false invoices for provision. (SvT)

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The airline SAS might finally be on their way to a more stable financial position. The total number of passengers went up 7% in August compared with the same month last year. SAS has been appointed the most punctual airline in the world by Flightstats. (SvD)

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Football: Zlatan Ibrahimovic says he will not return to the Swedish league by the end of his career to play with his club Malmö FF. The Milan player claims he would not have the energy for that; when he finish his international career he will just relax. Ibrahimovic is currently in his childhood city of Malmö where he was saluted by 6000 fans yesterday. Sweden plays tomorrow against San Marino at Malmö's new stadium, Swedbank Arena.

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SAAB has to pay their debt on SEK 110.7 million (about 11 million euro) to the County Administrative Board in west Sweden before September 20. The failure to do so will result in contact with the Senior Enforcement Officer (sw: kronofogde). (SvT)

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Football: The coach of second division team Hammarby, Michael Borgqvist, resigns after threats from suporters. Borgqvist and Jesper Blomqvist have been criticized for bad results and it seems unlikely that Hammarby will return to Allsvenskan next season. Borgqvist also has been in Hammarby’s local rivals AIK and Djurgården as a player.

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The Social democratic leader Mona Sahlin said today that if neither of the political blocs gets a majority of the votes (i.e. if the nationalistic Sweden democrats gets a decisive position) she will try to start negotiations with either Centerpartiet (green liberals) or Folkpartiet (socialliberals) to create a majority. The Prime Minister has said that the bloc which gets most votes should form the government, regardless whether they have a majority.

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An elderly woman in the small city of Falkenberg in south Sweden is a regular customer in a small gaming shop. That saved her life. When she did not show up last Friday the owner called the police who went to the woman’s apartment and rescued her – she had fallen and would not had survived on the floor for much longer. The shop owner has received flowers and cards from all over the country and also from abroad. (Hallands nyheter)

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Football: Sweden got a good start in the qualification for the 2012 European championship. The yellow and blue beat Hungary at home with 2-0 after two goals from the newcomer in the national team, Pontus Wernbloom. Sweden will play San Marino on Tuesday. The other teams in the group are the Netherlands, Finland and Moldova.

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The Social democrats (s) has arranged a “voting school” for first time voters, mostly immigrants, in the suburb Vivalla outside Örebro. The event has been criticized since prepared envelops with Social democratic ballots were given to the voters. (S) claims however that they only inform the voters on how to do and that they afterwards are free to vote as they want without any pressure.(SvT)

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"There has been an unusually cold start to September across the country," says Anna Österman, at the Swedish Meteorological Institute. For the first three days in September, the cold has kept its grip on the country. "In Stockholm the temperature has been three degrees below the daily average," says Österman. And the cold weather will continue for a while, at least in the southern parts of Sweden. (TT)

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The Board of Directors at HQ Bank, who earlier this week was faced by liquidation by the authorities, and later was bought by competitor Carnegie, allowed the bank to take risks far beyond the ordinary. This writes business paper Dagens Industri. According to the report by the Finance Inspectorate, in 2009 the Board of Directors decided that the roof of daily trading losses should be set to SEK 150 million, corresponding to 24 per cent of the banks year-end equity.

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Presented today was another election poll showing that the Alliance gets an absolute majority. The centre-right party coalition gets 50.5 per cent of voter sympathy, while the centre-left Red-Greens gets 44 per cent in support. In the poll from Demoskop, published in newspaper Expressen, the Moderate Party, the Social Democrats, and the Greens slopes slightly, while the Centre Party, the Liberals, the Christian Democrats, and the Left Party increases. The Sweden Democrats reaches over the parliamentary threshold with their 4.2 per cent.

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If train traffic is delayed, train companies will have to pay fines. It is the recent major problems in Sweden's train traffic that makes the government to propose fines for train companies. More distinct rules for train operators will also show who exactly is responsible for each incident.
 

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Football: Tonight Sweden plays Hungary in the qualification to the European Cup 2012 in Poland and Ukraine. This will be the first 'real' match for the new Swedish coach Erik Hamrén. The match will take place at Råsunda stadium north of Stockholm and starts at 8 pm.

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The interest rates increased and the Swedish currency Krona (SEK) was strengthened today. It was especially new labour market figures from the Unites States that caused the situation. One euro now equals 9.32 SEK and one US dollar equals 7.24 SEK. The TCW index which indicates the strength of the currency went from 127.87 to 127.84. The lower index, the stronger Krona. (SvD)

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Today, Crown Princess Victoria officially opened the new building project of a new hospital in Solna, north Stockholm. The new Karolinska hospital will host 800 beds but the main focus will be on science and research. Around 6,000 employees and 1,000 researchers will have the new hospital as their workplace. The Nya Karolinska Hospital is the most expensive hospital project in Swedish history. It will cost SEK 52 billion (appr. 5.5 billion euro) over a 30 years period. (SR-Stockholm)

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The sexually transmittable desease gonorrhea, is increasing in Sweden. During the first six months of 2010, 339 new cases were reported to the Swedish Institute for Infectious Desease Control. That is an increase with 22 percent compared with the same period in 2009. The increase is especially significant in Stockholm and among homosexual men. The trend is worrying because gonorrhea increases the risk for HIV infection.

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