A row breaks out between Slovenia and Austria over the name of a sausage – and it is a matter for the EU.

Read more here:
Austria in sausage fight

Heavier than usual snowfall in many parts of Austria has left villages and tourist resorts cut off, and part of a major railway route has also been shut.

Excerpt from:
Unusually heavy snow hits Austria

VIENNA, Austria — The U.N. nuclear agency’s most recent resolution on Iran criticizes Tehran’s nuclear defiance, but with language moderate enough to secure Russia’s and China’s support. Diplomats characterize the document, obtained by The Associated Press, as a compromise. It will be put before the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board over the next two days. Read full article > >

See the original post here:
APNewsBreak: Russia, West agree on Iran text moderately critical of Tehran’s nuke program

The measure, supporting an expansion of the euro currency zone’s bailout fund for heavily indebted countries, passed following a bruising debate in Parliament.

Visit link:
Austria Approves Euro Bailout Fund

In less than a day, a call for readers’ help to identify the Nazi photographer who took 214 never-before-seen images of Adolf Hitler was answered. The New York Times Lens blog says it identified Franz Krieger (1914-1993) of Salzburg, Austria, after getting important crowdsourcing contributions from two readers: Harriet Scharnberg, a woman studying German propaganda photographs, and Peter Kramml, a man who has published a book about Krieger’s work as a Nazi photographer. Solving photo mysteries like this one isn’t as difficult as it used to be, with the help of crowdsourcing, viral photos, photoshopping, and social media. But the ease of tracking down photos online can also endanger our privacy. Read full article > >

Originally posted here:
Nazi photo album and other camera mysteries solved

Several towns in Austria are checking their archives to see if Adolf Hitler is still an honorary citizen of their communities, the BBC’s Bethany Bell in Vienna reports.

View post:
Hitler honour row grips Austria

A member of Austria’s Olympic swimming team has been rescued after becoming buried in sand on a Florida beach.

Read the original post:
VIDEO: Swimmer digs himself into a hole

A drug so painful that veterinarians aren’t allowed to administer it to animals will soon be used to execute Cleve Foster Updated 12:12 p.m. : The Supreme Court granted a temporary stay of the execution of Cleve Foster based on whether he received adequate counsel during the course his trial.  Texas prison officials are about to carry out an execution with a combination of drugs and procedures that they have not used before, and that a veterinarian is proscribed from using when terminating an animal’s life. In order to minimize pain and suffering of animals being put to sleep, Texas has adopted detailed regulations. Only a licensed veterinarian may administer the drugs, the dosage is determined by the animal’s weight, and even the lighting in the room is regulated by law. If the Lundbeck drug does not work properly, Mr. Foster will be subject to “excruciating pain likened to having one’s veins set on fire.” When it comes to carrying out executions of death-row inmates, however, the state does not take the same care. The Texas legislature has given the director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice the absolute power to decide on the drugs used and how they will be administered. The current director is a former corrections officer with no training in anesthesiology, pharmacology, or science. “Death-row inmates appear to have fewer rights than domesticated animals,” concludes a study released on Sunday, “Regulating Death in the Lone Star State: Texas Law Protects Lizards from Needless Suffering, But Not Human Beings” ( PDF ). The 10-page report was written by the ACLU of Texas, the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, and the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law. The study is part of a last-minute effort to block the execution of Cleve Foster, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection in Texas at midnight Tuesday. Foster, an army veteran who fought in Desert Storm, was convicted for the murder of a woman he and a friend had met in a bar. Foster has said he had passed out from a drug overdose and that the other man killed the woman. In executing Foster, Texas will use a protocol of three drugs that it has not used before, and this is where the anti-death penalty activists come in. The first drug in the protocol, pentobarbital, is intended to anesthetize the condemned man (or the animal), so that he does not suffer when the next two drugs are administered. They are pancuronium bromide, a paralytic agent, which paralyzes lung muscles and disguises any outward signs of pain before the third drug, potassium chloride, which stops the heart, is injected. The Supreme Court has held, 7-2, that the Eighth Amendment proscription on cruel and unusual punishment does not bar lethal injection as a means of execution. In a concurring opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens noted nevertheless that most states do not allow pancuronium bromide in the euthanasia of animals. Until now, Texas, as well as the other capital punishment states, used sodium thiobarbital as the anesthetic. But the American company that manufactured it ceased production last year, and states have had difficulty procuring it from abroad . Britain has prohibited the drug’s export for execution purposes, and Germany and Austria have indicated they will not allow companies in their countries to export it. That has led capital punishment states to turn to pentobarbital.* The major supplier of pentobarbital is the Danish company Lundbeck. A British-based human rights organization called Reprieve has launched a campaign to persuade the company not to sell the drug to states for use in executions. The company has said that it strongly opposes its drug being used for this purpose but that it has no control after selling the drug to wholesalers in America. Clive Stafford Smith, founder and director of Reprieve, made an “extremely urgent” plea to Lundbeck last Friday asking the company to conduct an analysis of the use of pentobarbital with the other two drugs before they were used to execute Mr. Foster. The three drugs “have never been used together in clinical procedures,” nor have there been any controlled trials, Mr. Stafford Smith wrote the company. (Ohio has used pentobarbital in an execution last month, however). “The effects of the new procedure could be torturous,” Mr. Stafford Smith wrote. If the Lundbeck drug does not work properly, Mr. Foster will be subject to “excruciating pain that has been likened to having one’s veins set on fire,” he wrote. In response to Mr. Stafford Smith, Lundbeck said that its pentobarbital was not intended for use in executions and, therefore, it could not conduct the analysis. In response to an email seeking comment, a company spokesman, Anders Schroll, added that Lundbeck had notified the Texas Department of Criminal Justice that it was “adamantly opposed” to the use of its pentobarbital “for the purpose of capital punishment.” Such use “contradicts everything we are in the business to do — provide therapies that improve people’s lives.” When it comes to putting animals to sleep, pentobarbital is not an appropriate anesthetic in combination with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, according to guidelines by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Thus, “veterinarians in Texas are prohibited from using the combination of drugs that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has deemed suitable for the execution of human beings,” the report by the Northwestern University law students says. “It is no exaggeration to say that Texas regulates the euthanasia of reptiles more strictly than the execution of human beings,” the report concludes.  Image: Reuters/STR New * This story originally said Texas used sodium thiobarbital as the anesthetic. We regret the error.

Read more:
In Texas, a Brave, New Lethal Injection

Officials in western Austria say exhumations will take place at a psychiatric hospital thought to contain the remains of Nazi victims.

Follow this link:
Nazi-era graves to be dug up in Austria

Two newly translated texts provide an opportunity to correct the woeful stature of the Austrian playwright and novelist Thomas Bernhard in the English-speaking world.

Read the original here:
Thomas Bernhard, the Alienator

More than 100 people are charged with child pornography offences in Austria after police seize material from computers across the country.

Read more:
Austria holds child porn suspects

Former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who is wanted in connection with a corruption investigation, has been arrested in Austria, Croatian police say.

Follow this link:
Croatia ex-PM arrested in Austria

Maybe he and Charlie Sheen will share a cell one day: Austria’s infamous “dungeon dad,” Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years, tells a German newspaper from his jail cell that “My favorite show is Two and a Half Men with…

Follow this link:
Dungeon Dad Loves Charlie Sheen

A man thought to be the first person to drive a car using a bionic arm is badly hurt in a crash in Austria, according to local media.

Read more here:
Bionic-armed driver in car crash

On bicycle from village to village, travelers visit the intimate family wine gardens and restaurants unique to Austria.

View post:
Journeys: Austrian Vineyards Are All in the Family