Austria

Eurovision 2014: “I felt like tonight Europe showed that we are a community of respect and tolerance…”

Pete Baker on May 12, 2014, 6:46 pm | Readers 77

Well, perhaps… A bearded Austrian man in a dress, Conchita Wurst, won the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen on Saturday night with “Rise Like a Phoenix” – the title quote was his line from the winner’s press conference. The 25-year-old singer also told reporters in Vienna On the theme of tolerance, Wurst told reporters in the Austrian capital: “This will remain an issue for a long time and I fear I won’t see the end of it in my lifetime. It …

Euro crisis: “The worst, I fear, still lies ahead.”

Pete Baker on March 20, 2012, 6:36 pm | Readers 562

In a recent column in the FT, Wolfgang Münchau asked an interesting question [free reg req] The markets have concluded that the eurozone crisis has ended. Several politicians said that they, too, believed that the worst was over. Complacency is back. I recall similar utterances in the past. Whenever there is some technical progress – an umbrella, a liquidity injection, a successful debt swap – optimism returns. If you think the European Central Bank’s policies have “bought time”, you should …

Anglo’s Austrian branch used to launder Mafia money?

Mick Fealty on September 12, 2010, 11:43 pm | Readers 9

Looks like things just got a little more complicated at the end of a very complicated week for the troubled government owned Anglo Irish Bank: Banks in Austria were used to launder about 2 billion euros ($A3 billion) for the Italian mafia between 2005 and 2007, the Austrian weekly profil reports, citing Rome prosecutors. According to prosecution documents, the money was laundered through 14 accounts at Raiffeisen Zentralbank, Bank Austria – which now belongs to Italy’s UniCredit Group – and …