Zauchensee, Austria  - Lindsey Vonn of the United States recaptured the overall alpine ski World Cup lead after a third-place finish in the women's downhill in Zauchensee, Austria on Sunday.

Vonn, who won the super-combined at the venue on Saturday, was eclipsed by Sweden's Anja Paerson and Switzerland's Dominique Gisin who dead-heated for first place.

Paerson, who was third on Saturday, matched Gisin's time of 1 minute 47.52 seconds, with Vonn 0.17 seconds back.

It was a 40th World Cup win for Paerson, 28, and the first for 23-year-old Gisin.

Vonn overtook Maria Riesch in the overall standings after the German finished seventh, 0.78 seconds behind the joint winners

Zauchensee, Austria - Lindsey Vonn of the United States captured her third alpine ski World Cup win of the season with victory in the women's super-combined in Zauchensee, Austria on Saturday.

Vonn, lying fourth after the downhill run, put in the third fastest slalom time for an overall 2 minutes 40.53 seconds.

Austria's Kathrin Zettel was second, 0.30 seconds behind, with Sweden's Anja Paerson third, at 0.66 seconds.

Germany's Maria Riesch, winner of the last four slalom races, was well placed in third position after the downhill but caught a gate on the second leg to go out.

Vienna - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is concerned about a possible credit crunch in Central and Eastern Europe, in case Austrian banks start pulling out funds from stalling economies in the region, the daily Der Standard reported Friday.

Austrian banks have issued around a quarter of total foreign loans in CEE countries, trailed by Germany and Italy, according to the still unpublished report by the Washington-based IMF.

Vienna - Falling by 0.46 dollars on Thursday, the basket price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continued to hover above 40 dollars.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at 40.85 dollars Thursday, the Vienna-based cartel announced Friday.

In its latest outlook report, OPEC said global oil demand would fall by 180,000 barrels per day in 2009. That is an additional decrease of 30,000 barrels per day, compared with the previous forecast in last December.

Production projections were also lowered. The report said output from non-OPEC producers would grow by 580,000 barrels per day in 2009, down 70,000 barrels per day from the last forecast.

Vienna - After a young Chechen refugee was shot execution-style in Vienna, a prosecutor on Thursday did not rule out that the young man said to have been a critic of the Chechen regime was murdered for political reasons.

According to witness reports, two unknown men were involved in the fatal shooting of Umar Israilov, 26, outside a grocery store on Monday. A third man, also a Chechen, was detained as he is suspected of having driven the getaway car.

Austrian and US media reported that Israilov was a former Chechen rebel fighter who later turned bodyguard of pro-Russian Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.