Austrian police say the man who held his daughter prisoner for 24 years and fathered seven children with her had no accomplices and planned his crime too meticulously to have been caught any earlier. Josef Fritzl (73) has admitted to keeping his daughter locked in a windowless bunker, repeatedly sexually assaulting her and later imprisoning their children.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave a gloomy report on Saturday on prospects for the world economy to a dozen leaders debating how to respond to global financial turmoil. Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a high-powered forum that most of the downside risks to the world economy feared six months ago had now become reality.
Austria sought international help on Monday to free two nationals seized three weeks ago in Tunisia after the kidnappers, a group linked to al-Qaeda, extended their deadline for a proposed prisoner swap. Abductors from the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb are now demanding a ransom of €5-million.