In a major shake-up within Austria's Conservative Party, Sebastian Kurz, a 24-year-old law student with a beautiful blond hairdo, has been appointed junior minister in the coalition government led by the Socialist Party. Even before the young Sebastian is shown the way to his office, he has become a political sensation. The media has gone overboard questioning the appointment of one so young as minister of integration.
The air is rent with, "Oh my god! A boy asked to do a man's job, what?"
The weather has not exactly cleared, but the two-week Festival of India that opened in Vienna recently is a colourful reminder that spring can't really be far behind.
More than one thousand and one hundred years before great filmmaker Jafar Panahi was sentenced to prison in Iran, Persian poet Mansoor Hallaj was accused of blasphemy and publicly executed.
This year marks the 100th birth anniversary of Bruno Kreisky, executive head of Austria's first Socialist Party government from 1970 to 1983.
One is grateful to Radha Anjali, particularly in times of slush and snow, for warming hearts in Vienna with glowing performances of bhav, raga, tala and natyam, or Bharatnatyam in short.
TITLED SHAHRUKH KHAN and Global Bollywood, the international conference hosted here by the University of Vienna recently was a celebration of the fact that Indian film and media are finally conside
It is cinema season in Vienna. Of course, there is cinema throughout the year here, including the open air screenings under the summer skies when each star seems as big as the moon.
But the Viennale is different. The grand festival of international films forces the city to open its doors every autumn to the whole world, at least on screen.
Perhaps Vienna is different too. No wonder it has been voted second year in a row as the city with the best quality of life in the world.
The world losta critical eye on its commoners the day French filmmaker Claude Chabrol died at the age of 80.
Curse upon those community leaders who confuse society! Thanks to them, male circumcision is largely identified today as an act practiced by Muslim men obeying a diktat from the God of Islam.
It is the job of empires to drool over their majestic past.
