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👋 Alii!* Welcome to Tuesday, where at least eight people were killed in a school shooting in Austria, Israel is set to deport Gaza aid boat activists including Greta Thunberg, and today’s quiz question looks into a small marble sculpture that sold for nearly 900,000 euros in central France. Meanwhile, La Marea’s Juan Samaniego reports […]
As 2024 comes to an end, the words we’ve chosen reflect a year of division, from “polarization” in the U.S. to “brain rot” in the UK, or Switzerland’s “non binario”, international Words of the Year show how languages mirror the complex issues of our world.
After Italy and the Netherlands, Austria has also broken a post-War taboo in choosing the far-right party in Parliamentary elections. It is a direct challenge to the European Union’s founding ideals at a moment when global uncertainty requires a strong democratic voice.
Along with much of central Europe, Poland has experienced large scale flooding that has impacted the country’s infrastructure, budget, and sense of safety. Will this tragedy change the way Poles view climate change?
Canada has become the most recent country to impose restrictions on non-residents buying real estate, arguing that wealthy investors from other countries are pricing out would-be local homeowners. But is singling out foreigners the best way to face a troubled housing market?
As Poland considers lowering the voting age to 16, what can other countries’ experiences with reducing the voting age teach us about political trends and ralling young constituents?
Neville Tranter and Nikolaus Habjan, global stars of the puppet world, are performing in Berlin. Their caustic satire about Austria is definitely not for kids. It shows why hand puppets are not only hot right now, but they’re also incredible actors capable of convening the magic of theater at its utmost.
There are currently supply bottlenecks for around 500 medicines, including the antibiotic penicillin. Every second box of the active ingredient in Europe comes directly or indirectly from one place: a factory in the Tyrolean town of Kundl, Austria. Die Welt takes a look at the factory and what’s causing the supply problems.
While Sweden and Finland are fast-tracking NATO applications, the writer’s homeland of Austria continues to cling to longstanding “neutrality” status, sleepwalking through the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The government has the polls on their side. But in reality, it’s not our neutrality that protects us.
The rise and fall of 35-year-old Sebastian Kurz was breathtaking in any context. Yet the resignation of the Austrian chancellor offers unique insights into a political scenario that was very much of our COVID times.
Austria’s conservative-green coalition, though currently facing a crisis linked to corruption allegations, has been cited as a possible model for Germany’s current post-election talks to form a new government. Could there be a logic to pairing the center-right CDU and the Greens in Berlin?
Across southern Europe, all eyes are on the German elections, as they hope a change of government might bring about reforms to the EU Stability Pact.
Heated debate over an ‘Islam Map’ is drawing new attention to the center-right government’s aggressive policy, which some in Germany now see as a model.
In Austria, they call it Darmwind — literally “bowel wind.” In June 2020, a man was fined 500 euros for intentionally letting one such Darwmind go at police officers approaching him for an identity check as he sat on a bench in a Viennese park. The Vienna Regional Administrative Court has now reduced the fine […]
They haven’t actually gone anywhere. But because of the pandemic, the city’s celebrated cafés are off limits — and sorely missed.
Chancellor Kurz deserves credit for trying to work with the populist FPÖ. But he’s also right to end the relationship in the wake of the damning scandal
Strict integration protocols can have the opposite effect on asylum seekers, compounding their sense of otherness, a Syrian man now living in Austria argues.
-OpEd- BERLIN — With his most recent visit to Vienna, made on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now met Austria’s 32-year-old Chancellor Sebastian Kurz for the second time this year. Meanwhile, Richard Grenell — U.S. ambassador to Berlin and a Donald Trump confidant — has called Kurz a “rock star” in a recent interview […]
-Analysis- Is this the “return of Austria-Hungary”? Following the formation of the new right-wing government in Vienna, acknowledging the like-minded leadership next door in Budapest is a legitimate point — even if imagining the Austro-Hungarian empire rising from the ashes seems far-fetched. It’s also worth noting that this provocative historical analogy, as reported by Berlin-based […]
On two separate trips, we visited the Hofburg imperial palace you see here in the bustling center of Vienna, as well as the emperors’ exuberantly baroque summer residence at Schönbrunn. Even if this photograph is better, my memory is quite clear that the summer palace was far more stunning in person.
PARIS — Winter is coming. People here in the Northern Hemisphere are ready to start bundling up before leaving home. But if you’re in Austria, you might want to think twice about pulling your wool hat too far down or wrapping your scarf up too high. That’s because a new law, which came into effect […]
BERLIN — Sebastian Kurz was faster than Emmanuel Macron. Following the rapid rise of this year’s other young political superstar, Kurz’s victory Sunday in Austria“s parliamentary election was even more stunning — and swift. He needed only five months to pull off three unbelievable feats: to rebuild the washed-out Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) into a […]
-Analysis- Hamburg is a sleepy place most days. When the G20 isn’t in town, the port city churns with the comings and goings of large, steel barges in its spacious harbor. To the millions of visitors who arrive in the city each year, for business or pleasure, Hamburg appears as a sort of peaceful locus […]
My grandson — Worldcrunch’s photo editor and once a chubby baby in my wife’s arms — has just made me a great-grandfather for the fourth time. Bienvenue to the world, Félix! The new dad’s two older sisters, posing in this family portrait in the Austrian Tyrol, have already given me three adorable great-granddaughters. While my […]
-Analysis- BERLIN — Europe’s leaders were jubilant when Alexander Van der Bellen won the Austrian election Sunday. The bitter pill came later with confirmation that Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, a strong supporter of the European Union, had lost the constitutional referendum he’d staked his reputation on — and would resign. Italy was one of […]
Oil prices surged today to $50 per barrel, after OPEC and Russia reached what the oil producing cartel described as “a historic agreement” in Vienna. Under the deal, their output will be reduced by 1.2 million barrels per day starting in January, the first time since 2008 that OPEC nations have agreed to cut production. […]
The city of Rust, in eastern Austria, stands near the border with Hungary. This geographical and cultural proximity was particularly visible in the way the women dressed, on their way to the market.
BRAUNAU AM INN — With its church spires and colorful facades, my hometown has a certain postcard charm. But growing up in this corner of northern Austria, near the German border, I learned early that my town was well-known for a very different reason: Adolf Hitler was born here. In school in the 1990s, thanks […]
Among the tombstones at Petersfriedhof cemetery in the Austrian city of Salzburg are those that are not stones at all, but intricate works of wrought iron.
Although there have been all-inclusive winter resorts by “Club Méditerranée” since the 1950s, it was still strange to come across one in the mountainous landscape of the Austrian Tirol.
The far-right candidate may have lost the Austrian presidential election in the end, but the campaign has already changed the country for the worse.
SPOTLIGHT: AUSTRIAN LESSONS European leaders are wiping sweat from their collective brow. Once the final votes were counted late yesterday, Austria’s ecologically-minded independent Alexander Van der Bellen had edged far-right Freedom party candidate Norbert Hofer in the country’s presidential election. Had he won, Hofer would have been the first far-right European head of state since […]
VIENNA — The front page of the Kleine Zeitung daily on Monday puts into stark colors the hard split down the center of Austria, as the presidential elections remain deadlocked, pending the counting of write-in ballots. By midday Monday far-right presidential candidate Hobert Hofer, from the populist Freedom Party (FPÖ), hhad obtained 51.9% of the […]
Austrian daily Die Presse went for an ominous-looking front page Wednesday, asking “What if Donald Trump …,” as it imagines what a Trump presidency would entail. Building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border; a more hostile relationship with China; abolishing Obamacare; using torture methods to help defeat ISIS: The Austrian daily analyses four of Donald […]
Niki Lauda is a Formula 1 legend. After the accident at the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring nearly killed him, Lauda was back in the driver’s seat seven weeks later. In an exclusive interview with Suddeutsche Zeitung, the son of Austrian industrialists speaks about his family’s attempt to derail his career, living with the daily […]
The Schönbrunn Palace, formerly the summer residence of successive Austrian monarchs, is one of the country’s most majestic Baroque designs. It even features a Gloriette (a “little glory”), a building whose rooftop overlooks the magnificent gardens.
Six month later, a reporter is reconnected to a family who’d fled war in Deir ez-Zor, Syria. They wound up in a small village, where they are building a new life. Integration is not easy.