Sylvia Westall
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/ 13 May 2008

Austria flaunts quirkiness for Euro 2008

With yob insurance, football-shaped cakes and 100 life-size statues of former soccer hero Hans Krankl, joint host Austria is gearing up for Euro 2008 in its own special way. In a country better known for mountains and Mozart than midfielders, gradual preparations for the three-week tournament are taking on a distinct Austrian flavour.

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/ 29 April 2008

Austrian to appear in court over abuse case

A 73-year-old Austrian who has confessed to locking his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children will appear before a judge on Tuesday. Investigators were searching the 60 square metre cellar beneath electrical engineer Josef Fritzl’s two-storey home, Franz Prucher, head of security in Lower Austria said.

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/ 28 April 2008

Austrians shocked over latest ‘horror house’

Austrians expressed shock and horror on Monday after police arrested a 73-year-old man they say imprisoned and abused his daughter in a windowless basement for 24 years and fathered seven children with her. The woman told them her father Josef lured her into the basement of the block where they lived in the town of Amstetten in 1984, and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

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/ 7 April 2008

Homoerotic Jesus sparks art debate in Austria

They knew it would be risky to exhibit a homoerotic version of Christ’s Last Supper, but curators at the museum of Vienna’s Roman Catholic cathedral weren’t ready for a barrage of angry messages and calls to be shut down. The source of the dispute is a retrospective honouring Austria’s cherished artist Alfred Hrdlicka.