Vienna - Austrian ski hero Hermann Maier may have to to miss upcoming World Cup races in North America due to a back injury, the Austrian ski federation said on Thursday.

Maier, 35, injured his back in mid-October, but the exact nature of the disc injury was not determined until recently.

Vienna - Incest suspect Josef Fritzl is not only charged for raping and imprisoning his daughter for 24 years, but is also indicted for murder, as a boy he fathered with his daughter died after birth, a spokesman of the prosecution said Thursday.

Fritzl, who has admitted most of the allegations, now faces imprisonment for life. In total, the 73-year-old is charged with six crimes.

Vienna - Incest suspect Josef Fritzl is not only charged for raping and imprisoning his daughter for 24 years, but is also indicted for murder, as a boy he fathered with his daughter died after birth, Austrian news agency APA reported Thursday.

The prosecutors at the court in Sankt Poelten said Fritzl, 73, had killed the infant born in the dungeon beneath his house in 1996, as he "neglected to call the necessary help by third parties, although he was aware of the life-threatening situation of the infant."

Fritzl, who has admitted most of the alleged crimes, now faces imprisonment for life.

Vienna - The price for crude oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell to 49.94 dollars Wednesday, reaching yet another record low for this year.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC crude was priced 2.30 dollars lower than on Tuesday, the Vienna-based cartel said Thursday.

Oil prices fell as markets reacted to plans in the United States to shift some of its economic rescue package to consumer debts, away from buying up bad mortgage assets from finance firms, analysts at JBC Energy said in Vienna.

Frankfurt - Austria forward Umit Kormaz fractured his right foot for the second time in five months on Wednesday and is sidelined for several months in the latest injury shock at German Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt.

Korkmaz picked up the injury during training. He suffered the same fate in his first training at the club in July after a move from Rapid Vienna and was out for three months.

"I have never seen such bad injury luck in my many years in football," said Frankfurt board chairman Heribert Bruchhagen.

Vienna  - Survivors and relatives of victims of the Kaprun cable car fire in 2000 want to restart legal proceedings and are seeking 2 million euros (2.5 million dollars) of compensation per victim, their lawyer Gerhard Podovsovnik confirmed Wednesday.

In 2005, an appeal court in Linz found 16 defendants not guilty of having caused the accident in November 2000, when a cable car at the Kitzsteinhorn glacier in the state of Salzburg caught fire in a tunnel, leading to the death of 155 skiers from eight countries.