News Briefs

Austrian newspapers continue to prosper in spite of the financial crisis and the wrenching changes in the industry that have shaken the print press elsewhere, outperforming all other countries in the study by some measures, according to an soon-to-be-released study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Compared to a decline in revenue in the industry of almost 30% in the United States, revenue to the Austrian newspaper industry fell by just 2%, followed in Europe by France at 3%, although from an already lower level, and Germany at 10 %. The second-biggest decline was in the U.K, down 21%.

With currently 27 member states, the unification of Europe is still not and will not be complete until the six remaining Western Balkan countries join the Union, stated the Commission of the European Communities in 2003. Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro have filed their candidacy already at the beginning of the new millennium and expect to become full EU members in the maximum span of 10 years.

This fall, Austria’s first Chinese-German bilingual kindergarten will open its doors in the Viennese District of Meidling.

In the “Meidlinger Sonnenblume” (“Meidlinger Sunflower”) German and Chinese native speakers will care for small groups of German-and Chinese- speaking children, ideally in equal numbers. Directors Jun Lu Berger and Karl Berger believe it will allow the children to learn two languages effortlessly.

Chinese is spoken by 1.3 billion people today, making it the most common language worldwide. Mandarin, the mother tongue of 800 million, will be the language used to converse with the children in the “Meidlinger Sonnenblume” kindergarten

Around 811.8 million of travelers used Vienna’s public transportation services in 2009 – the highest record in the recent years. The study conducted by the Austrian Institute for Social Research and Statistics showed that around 35% of Vienna’s residents ride on buses, trams and metros on a daily basis, far more than in Graz or Linz with only 20% and 25% respectively.

This surging usage has contributed to a significant decrease in the number of people using private cars in the city. In 2009, public transport moved ahead of private for the first time, which now accounts for only 32% of primary travel by the Viennese.

The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) will hold its annual World Congress in Vienna, Austria, and Bratislava, Slovakia, from 11-14 September 2010, in honor of its 60th anniversary, the organization announced Mar. 3.

The three-day conference, entitled “Thinking the Unthinkable: Are We Losing the News? (Media Freedom in the New Media Landscape),” will focus attention on the state of the news media, providing new business models and solutions for the media, and the unique opportunity to meet and interact with major players from both traditional and new media outlets.

The 2008 research project on the two mass graves, dating back to the years of WWII, has been recently brought to a halt. The burial sites were found in bomb craters underneath a sports field in Graz that was once the location of the Nazi SS Wetzelsdorf barracks. Austrian Defense Minister Norbert Darabos presented the results of the findings on Mar.10.

The graves contained the bodies of dozens of people executed by the Nazis, believed to be killed shortly before the arrival of the Soviet troops. According to historian Dieter Binder, chairman of the Military History Memorial Commission, the victims included two Allied soldiers, resistance fighters, prisoners and Hungarian Jews. The Americans are assumed to be pilots, shot down and imprisoned during the war.

The immense catastrophe in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, has been met with an equally large international humanitarian effort. The poor island nation has received aid from all over the world, Austria included. The City of Vienna has donated 500,000 euros to the relief fund.

The support organization known as Nachbar in Not (Neighbor in Need) includes many charities like the Austrian Red Cross and Caritas Austria. These non-profit organizations have been delivering supplies like blankets, tools, water and food to Haiti from Vienna’s airport, which has specifically waived parking and landing fees.

A planned € 2 million renovation of Stephansplatz by the private association Unser Stephansdom (Our St. Stephen’s Cathedral) has been heavily criticized by Vienna’s Green Party (Die Grünen), following the release of details of the project.

Association chairman Christian Konrad said the intended renovation would include reposition the construction site office -- the so-called Dombauhütte currently located to the north of the cathedral -- to an underground location beneath the cathedral. The Bischofstor (Bishop’s Gate) now covered by the Dombauhütte will be again visible following its relocation to the Underground site.

Jewish cemeteries in Austria, many neglected since before World War II will finally receive financial support from the Austrian government, agreed on a majority in parliament on Fri, Jan. 29.

Most of Austria’s 63 Jewish cemeteries are in very bad condition. There were 200,000 Jews registered by the Nazis as living in Austria in 1938 when large-scale emigration began. By Reichskristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) in November, there were 97,000 left, nearly all of whom were deported to concentration camps and died there. After the war about a thousand returned. With these small numbers, neither individual families nor the Jewish community as a whole were able to maintain the cemeteries.