Vienna - An Austrian court stopped a case of motherly love gone too far by fining a 73-year-old woman for calling her son up to 49 times per day, the daily Kleine Zeitung reported Thursday.

The court in the Southern Austrian town of Klagenfurt convicted and sentenced the woman to a fine of 360 euros (476 dollars) for stalking her grown son for two and a half years.

"I just wanted to talk to him," the newspaper quoted the mother as telling the judge.

Vienna  - Austrian police and judicial authorities are plagued by "institutional racism" and treat people according to skin colour, the human rights watchdog Amnesty International concluded in a report presented on Thursday.

The problem was not only that 55 per cent of alleged victims of ill-treatment by police were foreigners or of foreign origin, according to the study.

A wider issue was racial profiling practiced by police, Heinz Patzelt, the head of Amnesty's Austrian chapter, told reporters in Vienna.

Vienna  - Schurli, the giant tortoise, is the oldest inhabitant of the Vienna zoo. But despite his age of more than 100 years, the animal has started a fitness training programme.

The exercise regime is part of a research project conducted by scientists from the zoo and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to learn about the animal's visual and learning capabilities.

The male Seychelles giant tortoise is not the most animated creature, but when he notices his keeper Roland Halbauer approaching, he knows his training session is about to start.

Vienna - Austria's anti-doping agency NADA has started procedures against two Austrian cyclists, one of whom is being linked to the country's disgraced cross-country skiing coach Walter Mayer.

The names of Christoph Kerschbaum, 32, and Ferdinand Bruckner, 37, appeared on a list of banned or suspected cyclists published on the website of the Austrian Cycling Federation on Wednesday.