VIENNA, July 11 (Reuters) – Austria needs to cut state debt,
curb early retirement and lay out a path for strengthening banks
to ensure its export-dependent economy prospers, the OECD club
of industrialised nations recommended on Monday.

“The authorities should seize the opportunity to strengthen
reforms and maintain high growth, which in the past has been
considerably boosted by European integration effects which are
likely to fade out in the future,” its economic survey found.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Otto Habsburg-Lothringen, the eldest son of the last Austrian emperor who became a champion of European unity, died aged 98 at his home in Germany on Monday, his family said.

“He died peacefully with his family present,” a man who identified himself as a grandson said by telephone from Poecking, on Lake Starnberg in southern Germany, where Habsburg had lived since 1954 during a life spent mostly in exile.

VIENNA, July 1 (Reuters) – Cyber criminals are outwitting
national and international legal systems that fail to embrace
technological advances, a top U.S. official said on Friday,
demanding a cross-border campaign to combat the security threat.

“Most countries don’t even have a legal framework that
really governs cyber. It is such a new phenomenon in that regard
so the legal systems — both domestic and international — have
not kept pace with the technological advances we have seen,”
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The technical sophistication of cybercriminals is swamping the world’s ability to cope, a top U.S. official warned on Friday, demanding an accelerated cross-border campaign to combat the security threat.

“Most countries don’t even have a legal framework that really governs cyber. It is such a new phenomenon in that regard so the legal systems — both domestic and international — have not kept pace with the technological advances we have seen,” U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said.

VIENNA (Reuters) – NATO’s chief said on Thursday it was up to Libyan insurgents to fight Muammar Gaddafi’s forces on the ground and dismissed warnings of “mission creep,” but a rebel leader said they needed more arms to finish the job.

They spoke in Vienna a day after France became the first NATO member to openly acknowledge arming forces seeking to oust Gaddafi, who has so far resisted a three-month-old bombing campaign that has strained the alliance and rebel firepower.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The IEA order to release emergency oil stocks should be halted immediately, OPEC’s Secretary General said on Monday at the end of cooperation talks with the European Union.

Years of producer-consumer harmony have come under threat after the International Energy Agency last week ordered the release of 60 million barrels of oil following the collapse of an OPEC meeting early in the month without a deal.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran’s OPEC president stuck to its uncompromising stance as it headed into talks with the EU on Monday, saying there was no need to add extra oil to the market and the IEA emergency stocks release was an act of meddling.

OPEC president Iran fired a warning shot at the start of producer-consumer talks on Monday, sticking to its view there was no need to add extra oil to the market and the IEA emergency stocks release was an act of meddling.

VIENNA, June 24 (Reuters) – Austria’s opposition Greens
could block creation of the euro zone’s permanent rescue fund
for indebted countries unless it binds in contributions from the
private sector, the party’s leader said on Friday.

Opposition from the environmentalist party could prevent the
governing coalition of Social Democrats and conservatives from
winning the required two-thirds majority approval when Austria’s
parliament addresses the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran’s nuclear energy chief said on Tuesday he had held “very good” and “transparent” talks with the head of the U.N. atomic agency and had invited him to visit the Islamic state’s nuclear facilities.

The rare meeting in Vienna between Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Director General Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) follows increasingly strained ties between Tehran and the U.N. body over the last year.

VIENNA, June 21 (Reuters) – Austrian banks are better placed
to withstand renewed market turmoil than they were a year ago,
the Austrian National Bank said on Tuesday, playing down the
potential impact of any Greek debt default.

“Austrian banks’ exposure in euro area countries subject to
to higher risk is comparatively low…and has continued to
decline in the past year,” Executive Director Andreas Ittner
said in a statement on the semi-annual report.