Vienna - Falling by 0.46 dollars on Thursday, the basket price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continued to hover above 40 dollars.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude stood at 40.85 dollars Thursday, the Vienna-based cartel announced Friday.

In its latest outlook report, OPEC said global oil demand would fall by 180,000 barrels per day in 2009. That is an additional decrease of 30,000 barrels per day, compared with the previous forecast in last December.

Production projections were also lowered. The report said output from non-OPEC producers would grow by 580,000 barrels per day in 2009, down 70,000 barrels per day from the last forecast.

Vienna - After a young Chechen refugee was shot execution-style in Vienna, a prosecutor on Thursday did not rule out that the young man said to have been a critic of the Chechen regime was murdered for political reasons.

According to witness reports, two unknown men were involved in the fatal shooting of Umar Israilov, 26, outside a grocery store on Monday. A third man, also a Chechen, was detained as he is suspected of having driven the getaway car.

Austrian and US media reported that Israilov was a former Chechen rebel fighter who later turned bodyguard of pro-Russian Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Vienna - Vienna's Jewish community on Thursday called for the suspension of a local Islamic preacher who has called Israel a "beast" for its military actions in Gaza.

"If a rabbi talked like that in a house of the Jewish community, he would lose his job within a second," community chairman Ariel Muzicant told national broadcaster ORF.

Imam Adnan Ibrahim said in a sermon on January 9 that "Israel is the real beast, Israel is the criminal," according to a report by the newspaper Der Standard.

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

Vienna - Austrian steelmaker voestalpine AG announced Wednesday it would reduce the working hours of around 4,000 workers, reacting to the global economic downturn.

In the coming months, some 10 per cent of voestalpine's total workforce of around 42,000 will be affected, mostly in Austria, but also in Germany and the Netherlands.

These workers would receive up to 10 per cent less pay, the company said in a statement.

In the current economic climate, everyone would have to make sacrifices said voestalpine's chief executive Wolfgang Eder.

"That is the only way to reach our ultimate goal of avoiding large-scale redundancies based on the business situation," Eder said.

Vienna - The price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell slightly on Tuesday, to 40 dollars, OPEC said on Wednesday.

One barrel (159 litres) of OPEC-produced crude was 0.24 dollars lower than on the previous day.

The Vienna-based cartel could decide on further production cuts at its next meeting in March to support prices, OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri indicated Tuesday.