From Salzburg to the slums of Colombia

Categories
General News

A pensioner from Pongau in the Salzburg region is to be honoured on her 80th birthday in the province of her birth for her work over 60 years in Colombia in helping the poor and dispossessed. Margaretha Moises, who is originally from Bad Hofgastein (Pongau), was voted as Salzburger of the year in 2006 and […]

Big spenders

Categories
Business

Health bosses are spending millions rebuilding an obesity clinic in Rissen, Austria, because their XXL patients are getting even fatter. Designers have created wider doors, reinforced beds with thicker mattresses, two metre-wide operating gowns and even super-sized paper undies. Officials say people have grown larger and larger since the clinic first opened and a typical […]

Revival for rightist Hofburg Palace bash

Categories
Politics

The Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been given the all-clear to host a ball at Hofburg Palace next year. The right-wing faction headed by Heinz-Christian Strache has been accused of failing to disassociate from right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis for decades. Several FPÖ parliament members (MPs) and high-ranking representatives of the party as well as spearheads of […]

One life: Live it well @ Holmes Place

Categories
Lifestyle

Already broken your new year’s resolution? Well if you have, you are not alone. Statistics show that only 50 per cent of people even manage to keep their resolution past the end of January whereas 25 per cent of people give up after just one week so…  if you are still going strong as spring […]

Cold snap causes higher jobless rate

Categories
Business

The number of unemployed people is on the rise in Austria. Statistik Austria announced yesterday (Thurs) that 310,000 residents of the country had no job in February. This is an increase of 6.1 per cent compared to the same month of 2011. Styria experienced the strongest increase among Austria’s nine provinces at 9.4 per cent. […]

Stronach wants to fund political revolution

Categories
Politics

A renowned businessman has explained why he is ready to financially support a new political movement. Frank Stronach, the founder of automotive industry giant Magna International, made headlines a few days ago by claiming to be determined to provide a new political party of young people with “a lot of money”. Now the Austrian-Canadian entrepreneur […]

Soaring petrol prices hardly affect Austrians’ love for cars

Categories
Business

Traffic researchers and motorists’ associations are at odds over how to react to rising fuel prices. Investigations by car club Arbö show that the average price for one litre of diesel fuel reached a four-year record last Monday at 1.397 Euros. The price for petrol shot up too, according to the association. Arbö and ÖAMTC, […]

Mikl-Leitner denies lack of reforms

Categories
Politics

Johanna Mikl-Leitner has defended the government’s disputed pension system agenda. The interior minister dismissed accusations that the recently presented budget consolidation agreement featured too many open questions. Mikl-Leitner told Die Presse that substantial structural reforms would be achieved if the average retirement age rises from the current 58 to 61 or 62 in 2020. The […]

Police accused of ignoring neo-Nazi attack

Categories
General News

Viennese police officers are facing jail over failing to help a retired politician after he was assaulted by a right-wing mob. Albrecht Konecny, the former head of the Social Democrats’ (SPÖ) delegation in the federal council (Bundesrat), said a group of policemen were watching on as he was beaten up on his way home from […]

Brothel for the homeless in Vienna

Categories
General News

Homeless people are queueing up for free rooms in an Austrian brothel after owner Peter Laskaris said it would be unfair not to do everything he could during the current cold spell. Laskaris, owner of the Red Rooms Laufhaus in the Austrian capital Vienna, has opened his door to the homeless as temperatures of minus […]