The man who described late far-right Austrian politician Joerg Haider as `the man of my life,` raising speculation of a gay relationship, is to step down as head of Haider`s party, a report said Wednesday.

Stefan Petzner, 27, was named as Haider`s successor as leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria following his death in a car crash last month.

Salzburg says it could jump in to host the 2014 Winter Olympics if the Russian resort of Sochi fails to finish its facilities in time and in the wake of an alleged terror threat.

Salzburg governor Gabi Burgstaller told the economic daily WirtschaftsBlatt that the Austrian city could revive its bid for the 2014 Games, if asked by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Salzburg says it could jump in to host the 2014 Winter Olympics if the Russian resort of Sochi fails to finish its facilities in time and in the wake of an alleged terror threat.

Salzburg governor Gabi Burgstaller told the economic daily WirtschaftsBlatt that the Austrian city could revive its bid for the 2014 Games, if asked by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

VIENNA, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - A rare Leica camera fetched a world-record price of 336,000 euros (492,000 dollars) for cameras of its type at auction in Vienna Saturday, newsagency APA reported.

The tiny portable black camera dating from 1923 becomes the most expensive small camera in the world and the second most expensive camera ever sold at auction.

It was bought by an anonymous European collector.

The Leica camera was the seventh of a series made in Germany to test the market for portable cameras, and intended for export to New York.

VIENNA, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - The sudden arrival of winter across Austria Saturday caused a rash of road accidents, killing one elderly man, while one person was reported missing following an avalanche, officials said.

Alpine rescue services were searching for a Hungarian man in the southern province of Styria after he was caught in an avalanche while hiking in the Hochschwab region with altitudes of 1,800 metres (5,900 feet).

VIENNA, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Explosives found after an alleged bomb attempt against the US embassy in Vienna earlier this month could not have detonated, an interior ministry spokesman said Friday.

'They would have had to be assembled before they could have exploded,' spokesman Rudolf Gollia said.

A 42-year-old Bosnian man was arrested on October 1 after trying to enter the US embassy with a rucksack containing nails and explosives.

VIENNA, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Shares in Strabag, Austria's biggest construction company, began their first day of trading on the Vienna stock exchange at 50 euros on Friday, an increase of 6.4 percent over their issue price of 47 euros.

Demand for the shares was strong in early trading, with 973,691 shares changing hands in the first half hour, representing trading volume of more than 50 million euros (71 million dollars).

Strabag's share offering was the biggest ever on the Vienna stock exchange.

VIENNA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Strabag, Austria's biggest construction company, said Thursday that its share offer will be priced at 47 euros, the top end of the range, to raise some 1.325 billion euros (1.9 billion dollars).

One third of the shares on offer are being sold by existing shareholders so Strabag itself would pocket 893 million euros from the offering, the company said in a statement.

The funds will be used to finance Strabag's expansion in Russia and eastern Europe.

VIENNA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Strabag, Austria's biggest construction company, said Thursday that shares in its stock market flotation would be issued at 47 euros apiece, meaning it could raise up to 1.325 billion euros (1.9 billion dollars) in all.

The issue price of 47 euros per share was at the top end of expectations -- the so-called bookbuilding range had been set at 42-48 euros.

There had been very strong interest in the issue, with investors applying for 10 times as many shares as were actually on offer, a company spokesman said.

VIENNA, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Austrian police said Wednesday they have found the body of one of the four people missing after a small plane crashed into the Danube river northwest of Vienna at the weekend.

The body, which could be that of a 10-year-old boy who was on the plane, was found floating in the Danube on Wednesday morning, police said, adding that finger prints and DNA traces had been secured and the identity would be named later.

The single-engine Piper P28, crashed into the Danube in Spitz, northern Austria, on Saturday.

VIENNA, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The Austrian government agreed in principle Wednesday to a proposal to allow police to infiltrate the computer hard-disks of criminals and terror suspects, the first European country to do so.

'This is a heartening situation for the authorities,' Interior Minister Guenther Platter said, following a cabinet meeting where ministers agreed to the online-tracking proposal.

BUDAPEST, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A merger between Austrian oil giant OMV and its Hungarian counterpart MOL would give the Austrians an unacceptable monopoly that Brussels could never agree to, MOL's chief executive said Wednesday.

'If OMV and MOL were to merge, the new company would hold such a monopoly in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, that it would never get a green light from the European competition authorities,' CEO Gyorgy Mosonyi told reporters in Budapest.

BRUSSELS, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission said Wednesday it would freeze legal action against Austria for its illegal quotas on foreign university students, removing a sticking point that threatened to bog down an EU summit this week.

While unprepared to block the approval of a new EU treaty of reforms at the Lisbon summit, Vienna had said that it aimed to raise the quota issue unless a solution was found.

VIENNA, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission and Austria are set to reach a truce in a long-running spat over university quotas on foreign students, Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer indicated Wednesday.

The EU has taken Austria to court over the controversial quotas on foreign students entering its universities.

Austria argues the quotas are necessary to counter the large influx of German students in disciplines such as medicine and dentistry.

But the European Court of Justice has ruled it contravenes the EU treaty.

VIENNA, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - BAWAG, the Austrian bank that was recently acquired by US private equity group Cerberus, is looking to sell its Czech and Slovakian units, a sharp U-turn in its eastern European strategy.

Chief executive Ewald Nowotny and board members Jochen Bottermann and Alois Steinbichler told reporters late Tuesday that Istrobanka in Slovakia and BAWAG Bank CZ in the Czech Republic were being put up for sale.

VIENNA, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - Members of the European Green party said they were counting on climate change to help them win more seats in the European parliament in 2009, at the end of a three-day conference in Vienna on Sunday.

The EGP, which currently holds 42 seats in the 785-seat assembly, said it had to be better represented after the next European elections.

VIENNA, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - Austria's Interior Minister Guenther Platter has met with the 15-year-old asylum seeker from Kosovo whose story has stirred a national debate over asylum policy, Austrian newspapers reported Sunday.

Platter met with 15-year-old Arigona Zogaj on Friday afternoon, shortly after the teenager appeared for the first time before the press, the daily Kurier said. She had gone into hiding two weeks ago when her family was deported back to their native Kosovo.

VIENNA, Oct 13, 2007 (AFP) - Four people were missing after a small airplane crashed into the Danube river northwest of Vienna on Saturday, local police said.

Pieces of wreckage were found floating near the site of the crash but there was still no trace of the pilot or the three passengers, including one woman and two children, police said.

Divers from the fire department and river rescue services were taking part in the operation, assisted by a helicopter from the Austrian touring club OeAMTC.

The crash occurred late Saturday near Spitz, in northern Austria.

VIENNA, Oct 13, 2007 (AFP) - Rescue services were searching for victims after a small airplane crashed into the Danube northwest of Vienna on Saturday, the Austrian touring club said.

Pieces of wreckage were found floating near the site of the crash but there was still 'no trace' of the pilot or any passengers, the touring club OeAMTC said.

It was also unclear how many people had been aboard the plane, it added.

The crash occurred late Saturday near Spitz, in northern Austria.

PARIS, Oct 13, 2007 (AFP) - One of the two most wanted Nazi war criminals still at large, former death camp doctor Aribert Heim, was in fact hunted down and assassinated in 1982, a book to be published next week claims.

Author Danny Baz, a former Israeli air force colonel, provides no proof for his assertion in the book, written in French and entitled 'Ni oubli, ni pardon. Au coeur de la traque du dernier nazi' ('Not forgotten or forgiven -- on the trail of the last Nazi.')

A leading French Nazi-hunter called the book 'total fantasy' on Saturday.

VIENNA, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - A 15-year-old asylum seeker from Kosovo, whose plight has stirred national debate in Austria over its asylum policy, Friday recounted how she spent two weeks on the lam to escape deportation.

'I didn't feel good and I was scared all the time,' said Arigona Zogaj, who went into hiding last month, shortly before her father and four brothers and sisters were deported.

Gripping a teddy bear at a news conference, Zogaj -- who has threatened to commit suicide -- said she was hidden by various people whom she refused to identify.

VIENNA, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - One of the men arrested in connection with an attempted bomb attack against the US embassy in Vienna this month was released Friday, the prosecutor's office said.

A 34-year-old Bosnian man identified as Mehmed D. had been taken into custody on the basis of information given by the main suspect, Asim C., 42, who was detained after trying to enter the US embassy with a rucksack containing nails and explosives on October 1.

Asim C., also a Bosnian national, had told police he had been instructed to deliver the bag to the embassy by Mehmed D.

VIENNA, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Three people were killed Friday morning after they were hit by a train at a station in Goetzendorf an der Leitha, some 15 kilometres (nine miles) southeast of Vienna, emergency services said.

A spokesman for Austrian Rail said the accident involved three of its rail maintenance staff.

BUDAPEST, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Politics 'should stay out of' a hostile takeover bid by Austrian oil group OMV of Hungary's rival MOL, Austria's Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said here Thursday.

OMV launched a 14-billion-euro (19.8-billion-dollar) takeover offer last month in a bid to create a central European powerhouse, but the move was swiftly rejected by the Hungarian government and the company's management.

The unfriendly approach has raised diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

VIENNA, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - The presentation of the Nobel Literature Prize to British writer Doris Lessing Thursday was 'long overdue,' Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, who won the award in 2004, said.

'That was long overdue. I actually thought she had already received it,' Jelinek said Thursday following the announcement.

The Swedish Academy named Lessing as this year's winner Thursday for five decades of epic novels that have covered feminism, politics as well her youth in Africa.

VIENNA, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Austrian gunmaker Glock rejected reports Wednesday which said that the black market in Iraq was flooded with the company's semi-automatic pistols.

It was 'incorrect' that 80,000 pistols, many of them made by Glock, had disappeared in Iraq since 2004, the gunmaker's lawyers, Quendler, Klaus & Partner, told the Austrian news agency APA.

VIENNA, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A 15-year-old Kosovo girl who went into hiding in late September to avoid deportation from Austria and threatened to commit suicide, is safe and sound, a regional governor said Wednesday after meeting with the girl.

Upper Austria Governor Josef Puehringer told Austrian television he had met for half an hour Tuesday evening with Arigona Zogaj, whose case has ignited a national debate over asylum seekers.

'The girl is safe,' Puehringer said, adding that she was being sheltered by a priest who had called the governor for help.

ZAGREB, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A Russian lawmaker has sent a threatening letter to Croatian President Stipe Mesic over the case of a former Croatian general wanted here on corruption charges, a daily reported Wednesday.

Mesic confirmed earlier this week that he had received a letter from Russia warning him that the Vienna-based former general 'Vladimir Zagorec should be left alone.'

VIENNA, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Wienerberger, the world's leading maker of bricks, said Tuesday it had raised 440 million euros (618 million dollars) from its capital increase, which would be used to finance future growth.

Wienerberger, which is listed on the Vienna stock exchange, said in a statement it had issued a total 9.8 million new shares at a price of 45 euros apiece.

The final issue price was substantially lower than the building materials maker had been targeting.

VIENNA, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - An Austrian opposition party called Tuesday for a vote of no-confidence in Interior Minister Guenther Platter over a deportation case that has put the country's asylum laws in the spotlight.

The conservative Platter has come under fire from both opposition parties and the governing Social Democrats for deporting the Zogaj family back to Kosovo, after they had been living in Austria for over five years.

VIENNA, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Wienerberger, the world's leading maker of bricks, said Tuesday that it raised 440 million euros (618 million dollars) from its capital increase, which would be used to finance future growth.

Wienerberger, which is listed on the Vienna stock exchange, said in a statement that it issued a total 9.8 million new shares at a price of 45 euros apiece.

The final issue price was substantially lower that what the building materials maker had been targeting.

BERLIN, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Austria is opposed to French proposals for European Union sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme, Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said in an interview due to appear Tuesday.

'The basis of sanctions against Iran are the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council,' Plassnik, who is currently visiting Germany, told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

'France is free to slip in changes. We stick to our positions,' she said.

VIENNA, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Strabag, Austria's biggest construction company, said Monday it planned to raise up to 1.35 billion euros (1.9 billion dollars) from its upcoming stock market flotation, with the funds used to finance expansion in Russia and central and eastern Europe.

Strabag said in its flotation prospectus that a 28.2 million shares would go on sale as part of its initial public offering (IPO), slated to be the biggest flotation on the Vienna Stock Exchange this autumn.

VIENNA, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - The disappearance of a young girl who has threatened to kill herself if her family was deported to their native Kosovo has raised calls for Austria to reform its strict laws on asylum seekers.

Arigona Zogaj, 15, disappeared last week shortly before her family was due to be flown back to Kosovo after living in Austria for five years.

VIENNA, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - The main suspect in an attempted bomb attack against the US embassy here earlier this week has been transferred to a hospital ward for psychiatric treatment, prosecutors said on Friday.

The man, identified as Asim C., a 42-year-old Bosnian, was arrested on Monday after trying to enter the US embassy with a rucksack containing nails and explosives.

At the time, police said the man had been in psychiatric care in recent years and appeared confused.

VIENNA, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - A convicted Austrian Holocaust-denier, Gerd Honsik, was extradited Thursday to Vienna from Spain where he was arrested in August, Austrian media reported.

Honsik, 65, was convicted in 1992 under Austria's strict laws against denying the Holocaust for his book 'Acquittal for Hitler' and sentenced to 18 months in prison. But he fled to Spain, where he spent the next 15 years.

In the book, Honsik denied the murder of Jews by the Nazis during World War II and described the concept of gas chambers as absurd.