Vienna - The price of

Vienna - Nazi war crime suspect Milivoj Asner is unfit to stand trial, an Austrian court spokesman confirmed Thursday.

The court had hired a German expert to give a second opinion on a contentious previous verdict by local psychiatrists that the 96-year old Asner was suffering from dementia.

Asner, who has lived in Austria for decades, is listed as number three among the most wanted war criminals by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem.

Vienna - Austria-based Erste Group Bank saw its net profits drop 26.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, the bank said Thursday, reflecting its high exposure to loans to central and Eastern Europe.

The bank, one of Central and Eastern Europe's biggest lenders, made a net profit of 232.1 million euros (306.7 million dollars) in the first three months of the current year, down from 315.6 million euros in the same period of the previous year.

With the exception of the Ukraine, all of Erste's Central and Eastern European operations were profitable.

Vienna - Mexican star tenor Rolando Villazon has again cancelled performances for a period of several months, as his management said Wednesday he will have to undergo vocal chord surgery. The opera singer is not expected to perform until 2010, according to the press release.

The Vienna State Opera said it would have to replace Villazon for his title role in Jules Massenet's Werther in May.

The tenor has been troubled by health problems since 2006, which have forced him to pause in past years. He currently suffers from a cyst on his vocal chords.

Vienna - The search for a successor to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei officially entered its second round Wednesday as the nuclear watchdog confirmed its list of five candidates. The Japanese and South African candidates, Yukiya Amano and Abdul Samad Minty, re-entered the race after a deadlock in a first round of voting.

The three new candidates are the nuclear industry executive Jean-Pol Poncelet from Belgium, the Slovenian constitutional judge Ernest Petric, and Luis Echavarri of Spain, who heads the nuclear branch of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Vienna - The search for a successor to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei officially entered its second round Wednesday as the nuclear watchdog confirmed its list of five candidates. The Japanese and South African candidates, Yukiya Amano and Abdul Samad Minty, re-entered the race after a deadlock in a first round of voting.

The three new candidates are the nuclear industry executive Jean-Pol Poncelet from Belgium, the Slovenian constitutional judge Ernest Petric, and Luis Echavarri of Spain, who heads the nuclear branch of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).