Vienna  - The global economic and financial crisis has softened the traditionally eurosceptic attitude of the Austrian population, a European Union poll released on Wednesday showed.

According to the latest Eurobarometer poll which was conducted amid the global financial crisis last October and November, 47 per cent of Austrians said EU membership was good for their country, an 11-per-cent increase from the previous poll.

Vienna - The price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum

Vienna  - Arabic states have filed charges with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Israel used weapons in its recent offensive in the Gaza Strip containing ed partially-enriched uranium, an official said Tuesday evening.

A letter containing the complaint was received by the IAEA on Monday, the IAEA spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Vienna.

Vienna - A lucky Austrian man won a villa on Tuesday after buying a 99-euro (131-dollar) ticket in the country's first real estate sale by lottery, but notaries and real estate brokers expressed concern about this new trend.

Traude Daniel sold 9,999 tickets for her 400-square-metre villa in Klagenfurt in southern Austria, as the house had become too big for her, she told Austrian news agency APA.

Vienna - Austrian police knew in 2008 that a Chechen refugee killed last week in Vienna had received politically motivated threats, the Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday, while defending its decision not to protect the man.

Umar Israilov, 27, was shot dead in broad daylight on January 13. According to a statement by his father, the younger Israilov had been tortured by security forces of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and had brought his case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.