Vienna - Opponents of the Turkish Ilisu dam seized rooms in the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG (OeKB) in Vienna on Wednesday, calling on the bank to pull out of the project on ecological and cultural grounds.

Austrian, German and Swiss export guarantees worth an estimated 450 million euros (577 million dollars) underpin the financing of the project to dam the Tigris river in south-eastern Turkey and build a power plant.

Vienna - The price for oil produced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose for a second day in a row Tuesday, inching upwards to
38.19 dollars.

Vienna  - Austria's postal workers announced Tuesday they would hold a warning strike Wednesday to protest planned personnel cutbacks and post office closures.

To prepare the partly state-owned Oesterreichische Post AG for the end of the state monopoly on letter services in 2011, its management is reportedly planning to reduce the 25,800-strong workforce by 9,000 by 2015 and to close 77 per cent of post offices.

Vienna - After dropping to 36.67 dollars at the end of last week, the basket price of th

Vienna - The Vienna stock exchange announced Tuesday it had received Czech regulatory approval for the takeover of the Prague stock exchange, boosting its control of bourses in Central and Eastern Europe to three.

Besides acquiring 92.4 per cent of the Prague bourse in November, the Vienna exchange in June bought an 81.01 per cent of Slovenia's bourse in Ljubljana and raised its stake in the Prague bourse to 37.7 per cent.

Vienna - Lufthansa AG on Friday signed a deal in Vienna to buy 41.65 per cent of Austrian Airlines from Austria's state holding OeIAG, creating Europe's biggest airline.

The debt-ridden flag carrier will be sold for the token price of 366,000 euros (465,000 dollars), OeIAG confirmed in a statement.

On Wednesday, the German carrier announced that it planned to take over 100 per cent of its smaller Austrian rival, first through the privatization, and then through buying free-floating shares.