Up to 10 people had been feared buried after incident between Zuers and Lech am Arlberg on Sunday
Ten people initially feared buried under snow after an avalanche swept across ski trails in western Austria have been found, according to authorities.
Just before 1am on Monday, police confirmed all the missing had been accounted for, the Austria Press Agency reported.
Continue reading...Austrian city also intends to rename three other thoroughfares bearing ‘tainted’ names after commission’s report
The Austrian city of Linz has announced plans to rename a street honouring the founder of the luxury carmaker Porsche after a commission investigating controversial names found his Nazi past “problematic”.
The renaming of streets and other public places is still a hotly debated issue in Austria – Adolf Hitler’s birthplace – which Nazi Germany annexed in 1938 and which long cast itself as a victim.
Continue reading...Pair attack Death and Life painting in Leopold Museum in protest against fossil fuel ‘death sentence’
Climate activists in Austria have attacked a painting by Gustav Klimt, with one throwing a black, oily liquid at it and another gluing himself to the glass covering the painting.
Members of Letzte Generation Österreich (Last Generation Austria) tweeted that they had targeted the 1915 painting Death and Life at the Leopold Museum in Vienna to protest against their government’s use of fossil fuels.
Continue reading...Lisa-Maria Kellermayr was targeted by conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers before taking her own life
Austrian medical representatives have called for greater protection for doctors after a GP who faced months of violent threats from anti-vaccination activists and pandemic conspiracy theorists took her own life.
Lisa-Maria Kellermayr was found dead in her practice in the lakeside resort of Seewalchen am Attersee on Friday. Prosecutors told the media they found three suicide notes and were not planning to carry out an autopsy.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
Continue reading...The festival defends decision not to cancel Teodor Currentzis’s appearance despite links to ‘Putin’s private bank’
The official opening of one of the world’s leading classical music festivals is being overshadowed by the appearance of a conductor whose orchestra and choir are funded by a bank controlled by the Russian government.
Cultural commentators have described Austria’s Salzburg festival, which is also receiving sponsorship money from a foundation with close ties to the Kremlin, of being in the grip of Vladimir Putin’s influence. Along with other classical music events in the region, they argue it has turned itself into a paradise for dubious and often intransparent cultural-corporate partnerships, referred to as “toxic sponsorship”.
Continue reading...Increases reported in countries including Greece, Spain, France and Germany as Omicron variant BA.5 spreads
Holidaymakers heading to and from the European mainland are being warned of a growing incidence of coronavirus, especially in tourist hotspots, which risks hampering travel plans.
Health officials are calling in some cases for a reintroduction of face masks and other measures, and are urging travellers to exercise personal responsibility, warning that an escalation of the virus could lead to the swift return of restrictions.
Continue reading...Peak at Sonnblick in Austrian Alps has melted more than a month before previous record time
The snow at the highest observatory in the world to be operated all-year-round is expected to completely melt in the next few days, the earliest time on record.
Scientists at the Sonnblick observatory in the Austrian Central Alps, which is 3,106 metres (10,190ft) above sea level, have been shocked and dismayed to see the snow depleting so quickly.
Continue reading...Annual rankings return Austria’s capital to first place, as former title-holder Auckland tumbles to 34th and Ukraine war sees eastern cities slump
The Austrian capital, Vienna, has made a comeback as the world’s most liveable city, according to an annual report from the Economist.
Vienna snatched the top spot from New Zealand city Auckland, which tumbled down to 34th place due to coronavirus pandemic restrictions, according to the report by the Economist intelligence unit published on Thursday.
Continue reading...The ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right network is allegedly seeking to replicate anti-choice efforts in the US
A network of ultra-Christian, anti-abortion and far-right organisations is building momentum in its quest to influence abortion policy in Europe as the US supreme court considers striking down Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalised the procedure in America.
Elements of the network originally came together under the name Agenda Europe, holding yearly summits across the continent between 2013 until at least 2018, by which time it had grown to comprise 300 participants, including politicians and Vatican diplomats.
Continue reading...Energy suppliers in Germany and Austria confirm they are looking at sanctions-compliant methods
Energy companies in Europe are considering opening Russian accounts to pay for gas from Gazprom after Vladimir Putin’s regime cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria and insisted other countries must pay in roubles.
Big gas distributors in Germany and Austria confirmed they were seeking ways to continue to make payments after Putin signed a decree at the end of March calling for a “special procedure for foreign buyers’ fulfilment of obligations to Russian suppliers of natural gas”.
Continue reading...This liveblog is now closed
There have been no successful major prosecutions over the last 30 years in Ukraine, with the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general dogged by accusations of corruption and inefficiency since the country declared independence. Now Iryna Venediktova, appointed to the role in 2019, is attempting to gather evidence of Russian war crimes.
More from Guardian correspondent Isobel Koshiw in Borodianka:
Surrounded by a scrum of reporters with a backdrop of bombed-out apartment buildings and rubble in Borodianka, a town in the Kyiv region, stood Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
Venediktova is carrying the weight of bringing almost 2,000 cases of war crimes committed by Russia’s occupying forces to court at home and abroad. Her office is the only body in Ukraine with the power to investigate. It is through her office that information relating to war crimes is being collected, investigations will be conducted and domestic and international cases will be built.
Continue reading...Bundestag debate on general mandate unlikely before end of March when Covid-19 cases are forecast to fall
Germany’s plans to introduce a general vaccination mandate this spring are faltering, as a growing number of politicians question if it will find a majority in parliament.
The Bundestag was originally due to debate motions in favour and against mandatory vaccinations this week, after the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, indicated he considered such a step necessary to cope with a possible resurgence of the virus in the next few months.
Continue reading...The Austrian director torments everyone, including the audience, in this grotesque tale set in the Italian resort out of season
Wretchedness, sadness and confrontational grotesquerie once again come together in a movie by Ulrich Seidl, although it’s leavened by something almost – but not quite – like ordinary human compassion. If you’ve seen Seidl’s other movies you’ll know what to expect and you’ll know to steel yourself for horror. Perhaps this one doesn’t take Seidl’s creative career much further down the road to (or away from) perdition, but it is managed with unflinching conviction, a tremendous compositional sense and an amazing flair for discovering extraordinary locations.
The Italian coastal resort of Rimini in winter is an eerie, melancholy place; Seidl shows it in freezing mist and actual snow. Refugees huddle on the street and some groups of German and Austrian tourists take what must be bargain-basement package vacations at off-season rates in the tackiest hotels. It is here that Ritchie Bravo, played by Seidl regular Michael Thomas, plies his dismal trade. He is an ageing lounge singer with a drinking problem, a cheery, bleary style, an Islamophobic attitude, a bleached-blond hairdo of 80s vintage and a spreading paunch. Ritchie makes a living crooning to his adoring senior-female fanbase, who show up in their coach parties to catch his act. (You could compare him to Nick Apollo Forte in Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose or Gerard Dépardieu in Xavier Giannoli’s The Singer – except much, much more horrible.) He also tops up his income by having sex with some of the fans for money – truly gruesome scenes in the starkly unforgiving Seidl style.
Continue reading...Several suffered from hypothermia during journey and some fainted from exposure to exhaust fumes
Austrian police found eight people from Turkey hidden in life-threatening conditions in a narrow wooden pallet box attached to the underside of a lorry.
Police said the group had been trafficked from Romania via Hungary. Several of them suffered from hypothermia during the trip in freezing temperatures, and some fainted because they were exposed to exhaust fumes for hours.
Continue reading...58-year-old local man dies as heavy snowfall followed by warm weather makes for dangerous conditions
One person was killed and four others injured in an avalanche in western Austria on Saturday, police said, a day after two other avalanches killed seven skiers as heavy snowfall followed by warmer weather made for unusually dangerous conditions.
Austrian broadcaster ORF said the person killed in Saturday’s avalanche in the municipality of Schmirn, in the state of Tirol, was a 58-year-old local man.
Continue reading...Rescue workers in Tyrol searching for survivor, as five others rescued after being buried at ski resort
An avalanche in Austria’s Tyrol province has killed five people on an unusually dangerous day in the Alps after heavy snowfall was followed by warmer weather.
“Unfortunately five people lost their lives,” a rescue official said on Friday.
Continue reading...The British-Iranian dual national is staging a strike in solidarity with Barry Rosen who is campaigning outside Vienna nuclear talks
A British-Iranian man imprisoned in Iran is to start a hunger strike on Sunday in support of a 77-year-old American who is protesting outside nuclear talks in Vienna against Iranian hostage taking.
Anoosheh Ashoori, who is being held in Evin prison in Tehran, is staging the strike in an act of solidarity with Barry Rosen, who started his own four days ago. He told the Guardian he was humbled by the support, as well as other messages being sent to him by Iranians in jail.
Continue reading...Carrot-and-stick approach includes vaccine mandate and lottery tickets for fully inoculated
Austria has announced plans to give Covid-19 vaccine recipients an almost one-in-three chance to win a €500 (£415) gift voucher while MPs voted to fine those who decline it, as the Alpine republic implements its “carrot and stick” strategy for overcoming reluctance to take the jab.
The conservative-green coalition government of chancellor Karl Nehammer on Thursday morning unveiled what it called its “vaccination lottery” programme, which will run from 15 March until the end of the year and cost the government approximately €1.4bn.
Continue reading...Several more injured in separate incidents despite Germany introducing ban this year on sale of fireworks for personal use
Exploding fireworks killed two men on New Year’s Eve, one in Germany and the other in Austria, according to local media.
A 37-year-old man died in Hennef, near Germany’s western city of Bonn. A 39-year-old was severely injured in the same incident and taken to hospital.
Continue reading...Iranian-Austrian Kamran Ghaderi is serving a 10-year sentence for spying and his family are still waiting for answers
Six years ago on New Year’s Day, an Iranian-Austrian IT businessman said goodbye to his wife and three children and boarded a flight from Vienna to Tehran via Istanbul. Kamran Ghaderi was due to return five to six days later, but instead, on 2 January 2016, he was arrested and has now spent six years in Evin prison in Tehran.
In October 2016, he was sentenced to 10 years for spying for a foreign country at a trial in which neither he nor his lawyer were able to say more than two words. His sentencing was based on a confession he gave under what his wife, Harika, says was torture, in the belief she might be in danger. No written judgment has ever been given to his family.
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