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A popular TV series cuts to an ad: A young Croatian family in a car, meandering through the idyllic Tuscan landscape. At a crossroads, they ask two carabinieri for directions. When the police officers realise where the lost travellers are from, one of  them starts gushing about how the Croatian prosciutto is better than the Italian – he should know, he spends his summer holidays in Croatia!

It had been snowing heavily for three days and three nights in Lech am Arlberg, a ski village in the far west of Austria. The main street through the village was frozen white and the parked cars were so laden with snow that they looked like a row of soft white pillows.

It was perhaps the Austrian broadcasting corporation’s (ORF) biggest hit: Launched before Christmas, the reality TV show “Who Wants To Be A Media Exec?” kept audiences in Austria – and even Germany – under a spell until 18 Jan., when their favourite candidate, the dashing and dastardly Nikolaus Pelinka, quit the

In his time, many people didn’t know what to make of Gustav Klimt: To the romantics he was trapped in ornamentation, to the purists in symbols. He was called a “purveyor of perversities,” yet also “provincial”. Traditionalists dismissed him as decadent, once naturalist described him as merely “irritating”.  

The descent into homelessness can be dizzyingly fast, explains social worker Susanne Peter, but the climb back out is painstakingly slow.

While a duo of lute and violin played a solemn tune accompanying an Arabic song, Austria’s foreign minister Michael Spindelegger leaned over to say something to the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Alfaisal. That was all it took. Suddenly, the music was lost in a cacophony of flashing cameras and clicking shutters.  

Indeed, this was the perfect photo op to accompany suspicions of ulterior motives behind the Saudi king’s giant investment in Vienna. 

Alan had a comfortable life working as a manager for a packing company in Mexico City, earning the equivalent of €3,500 a month. As a young engineer, he was building a successful career doing what he loved most. Then, one night at a trendy club in an exclusive neighbourhood, he met a striking young woman who would turn his world upside down. 

Emerging from the escalator at the Westbahnhof U-Bahn station, the crowd surged forward, carrying us directly into the swelling group of activists. 

On 14 Oct., a Friday evening, there was not a single spare seat in the council chamber of the Austrian Parliament. But it wasn’t politicians. Instead-, the chamber was occupied by a very mixed public audience – ranging from elegantly coiffed society ladies to flat-capped young hipsters.

Toni walks down a long hall in the Vienna courthouse (Landesgericht für Strafsachen), his regard fixed ahead of him, his gait relaxed, a slight tremble in his hand. At the end of the hall his two assailants from the night of his beating stand waiting to enter the courtroom. As he enters with a solemn face and walks through the crowd of five defendants, their eyes follow him as he sits down outside the courtroom for the hearing. They haven't seen him since the early morning hours of Feb.