Special Reports

“Sanctions are not Iran’s main problem, the economic incompetence of the government is,” insisted Prof. Ali Ansari, head of Iranian Studies at St. Andrews and one of the world’s leading experts on the Islamic Republic. Along with dozens of academics, journalists and experts, he had come to the event hosted by the Liechtenstein Institute in Viena (LIVA) at the Diplomatic Academy on Jun. 12 to discuss the phenomenon of the Green Movement in Iran.

Full employment, a solid social state, an influential foreign policy and a ‘Sun-King’ chancellor who appeared to be an unbeatable. These are the images which are called up when you speak to Austrians about the time when Bruno Kreisky was Chancellor of Austria (1970-1983).

Even the FPÖ, a party not well-known for their love of socialists, claimed once in a manifesto to want to continue Kreisky’s policy of full employment. Clearly, people from across the whole political spectrum look back on the Kreisky Era as a ‘golden age’.

Only a month after the tragic death of Lech Kaczynski, Poland is once again in chaos. In the seemingly endless rain showers throughout the months of May and June rivers throughout the country have overflowed their banks. In their wake, villages and parts of cities have been submerged and thousands left homeless.

This is an election year in Vienna, and for the first time in 70 years, it’s unclear if the centre left SPÖ will hold on to its majority. On one side of the race is the Vienna-born leader of the Freedom party, Heinz-Christian Strache, and in the other, the Social Democrat incumbent, Michael Häupl.

Raising a kid is a tough job. Raising an adoptive child from a foreign country is even more so. When something really bad happens to your own child it’s a tragedy, but when something goes wrong with an adoptive foreign kid – it’s an international scandal.

What happened on Apr. 10 was a shock, but what followed was just as much of a surprise. That morning, a Polish Tupolev Tu-154 military airplane carrying the heads of state crashed into a forest, just short of the Smolensk airport runway. Russia’s reaction to the incident could potentially help to heal an open wound; one that has haunted relations between the two nations for a very long time.

Possibly the greatest Shakespearean tragedy of the decade, the recent passing of Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria and most of the Polish cabinet, rekindled an old feeling of dismay all too familiar in Poland.

It was an ordinary Saturday morning; I woke up at around eight and made my way out of bed to make myself some breakfast. I turned the computer on to listen to some music as I prepared for my day. I had a football match in a few hours.

My phone rang with an SMS. It was from Ammar, a friend of mine from school, it read “the Polish President has died in a plane crash.”

Since arriving in Vienna from London, the author has noticed that it’s all those little details that give away that this is somewhere a bit special...

Driving

Drivers are more considerate here and will frequently stop to let pedestrians cross, even far away from a crossing. The most dangerous spot for pedestrians unfamiliar with this city is when they wander into a bike lane – beware of psychopaths on cycle paths.

The Africans were perched on the low brick walls of a bridge over the moat of Sforzesco Castle with dozens of bags laid out on rugs. They whispered to the tourists coming out over the drawbridge of the red fortress into the blinding brightness of Sempione Park.

One of the bag-sellers, who introduced himself as Ahmadou*, sidled up to me as I was taking a photo.