Vienna/Hamburg  - Best-selling Austrian writer Johannes Mario Simmel died Thursday at the age of 84 in Switzerland, his lawyer said in Hamburg Friday.

With 73 million copies of his 35 novels and novellas printed, Simmel was one of the most successful German-language writers.

But critics regarded the prolific novelist and screenwriter as a popular fiction writer, rather than as a creator of serious literature.

Simmel was born in Vienna on April 24, 1924. While his Jewish father fled to Britain from the Nazis, Simmel spent the war in Austria.

After a career as a reporter, his breakthrough came in 1960 with You Don't Always Have Caviar, a spy novel set in World War II and arguably his most famous book.

Vienna - Around 6,000 protesters gathered in Vienna on Friday to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to police estimates, in a demonstration largely organized by Muslim groups.

While most signs carried by demonstrators read "Stop the massacre in Gaza," some in the crowd in Vienna's city centre had placards saying: "I have a dream: A world without Israel."

"Many people must scream," said Reyep Imanz, a 24-year-old immigrant from Turkey. "Maybe Israel's president hears us and calls back his army."

Some 400,000 Muslims live in Austria, accounting for over 4 per cent of the population. Many of them have their roots in Turkey and the former Yugoslavia.

Vienna - Vienna-based Bank Medici AG is set to come under state control, as the bank was exposed to funds of the failed US investor Madoff, Austrian news agency APA reported Friday.

Financial authorities put together an order under which the small bank will be managed by a government commissioner, APA reported.

While the small bank said in December that it was exposed to 2.1 billion dollars through two of Madoff's funds, Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported a sum of at least
3.6 billion dollars.

Vienna - The price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose back above the 35-dollar-mark Wednesday, the cartel announced Friday.

Vienna  - The premier of the eastern German state of Thuringia remained hospitalized Thursday night, but was out of imminent danger after a severe skiing accident earlier in the day in the Austrian

Linz/Vilnius  - Both Vilnius and Linz planned to start their terms as 2009's joint European Capitals of Culture in the waning hours of 2008. But the residents of Linz couldn't even wait that long.

Work began Wednesday afternoon on a four-metre tall clock display, one of 220 cultural projects planned across Europe throughout the year to market the city's year as a cultural capital. Appropriately enough, since work will begin in 2008 but end in 2009, the display comes with the motto Time is Being Made.

Vilnius has 120 such projects planned, though none of them seem to have started in 2008.