Vienna  - Iran has slowed the expansion of its uranium- enrichment programme, but the country still is not cooperating fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a report by the organization said Thursday.

The report by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei stated that since last November only 164 additional centrifuges have started producing low- enriched uranium. Currently, 3,936 such machines are operating, the report said.

Vienna - Raiffeisen Bank reported a record net profit of 982 million euros (1.24 billion dollars) for 2008 on Thursday, although the Austrian bank operating in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) experienced a difficult fourth quarter.

Since last May, Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG's stocks have lost 88 per cent of their value, as investors, seeking to reduce risk, unloaded shares of banks exposed in the CEE region.

The bank said it had reduced the number of foreign-currency loans, stopped expanding its branches and reduced staff numbers in Hungary and Ukraine.

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

Prague  - An Austrian pharmaceutical firm sent a flu vaccine, which it had accidentally contaminated with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, for testing in the Czech Republic, a report said Tuesday.

The Austrian firm Baxter said it contaminated the vaccine with the dangerous virus by accident, likely during packaging in Austria, the Mlada Fronta Dnes daily reported, citing Baxter's representative.

Baxter shipped the infected vaccine to the Czech biomedical firm Biotest for testing on ferrets in late January.

Graz, Austria  - Two members of a backcountry skiing expedition died Monday after being buried in an avalanche in the Austrian Alps, police said.

The victims were part of a group of 12 people skiing in deep, ungroomed snow, so-called ski touring, when the avalanche struck Monday afternoon at the foot of a mountain in the Rantenbach valley of Austria's Styria province