Vienna  - The Austrian government was set to announce on Monday afternoon plans to recapitalise banks and to raise their liquidity, according to an official statement.

The leading ATX index of the Vienna Stock Exchange soared by 11.88 per cent in the first hours of trading, following the news of the plan which is part of a package agreed to by the 15 eurozone countries on Sunday.

Citing banking sources, Austrian media reported Monday that the government might subscribe for nonvoting shares of major Austrian banks.

Vienna  - Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider died on the way to the hospital Saturday morning after the car he was driving had left the road and flipped over repeatedly, officials said at a press conference in Klagenfurt.

The accident occured at 1:15 am (23:15 GMT) on the outskirts of Klagenfurt in Carinthia, the province where Haider was governor, said Ernst Friesenegger, the town's police chief.

Shortly after overtaking another vehicle, "he came off the road for unknown reasons," Friesenegger said.

Vienna - Austrian political and religious leaders expressed shock about the death of far-right Joerg Haider in a car accident on Saturday morning, but many pointed to the divisive nature of his politics.

"He was a politician of great gifts and talents," President Heinz Fischer told national broadcaster ORF.

"He sparked intense approval as much as intense criticism," the social democratic president said about Haider, who was leader of the Alliance of the Future of Austria and governor of the province of Carinthia.

From the 1980s, Haider turned Austria's small right-wing movement into a force to be reckoned with by often denigrating political opponents, and by tapping into revisionist and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Vienna - Austrian politician and populist Joerg Haider, 58, the man behind the resurgence of the country's right wing parties, died in a car crash on Saturday.

With his death, Austria's right loses its most important figurehead, a man both reviled and admired by many Austrians.

The crash occurred near Klagenfurt in the province Carinthia, where Haider was a popular governor.

Vienna -

Vienna -