Category: Austria

Vienna, August 17, 2025 — Panic rippled through Vienna’s bustling Westbahnhof station on Saturday night when a man launched a sudden knife attack on three strangers, leaving them injured before police moved in to arrest him. The assailant, a 30-year-old Somali national, reportedly struck without warning around 9:00 p.m. One victim suffered a stab wound […]

Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) has reaffirmed his tough approach to asylum, vowing to continue deportations to Syria despite resistance from humanitarian groups and recent intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as reported by Austrian News Agency APA. Karner told Der Standard that roughly 5,500 asylum cases involving Syrian nationals from […]

The Austrian Foreign Ministry has launched an internal investigation into a scandal involving obscene blog posts allegedly authored by a senior diplomat, reported by 5 Minuten. On Thursday, a commission appointed by Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger began its work, the ministry confirmed to the Austrian Press Agency. Led by her security adviser Thomas Starlinger, the […]

VIENNA – Austria’s government is signaling it may curb the powers of the country’s provincial doctors’ chambers to push through a long-stalled nationwide contract between physicians and the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK), reported by Die Presse . Social Democratic (SPÖ) State Secretary for Health Ulrike Königsberger-Ludwig said Thursday she takes the national Court of […]

VIENNA – Austria’s deportation figures have stabilized at last year’s levels, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said Wednesday, with 6,554 people removed from the country in the first half of 2025—about half voluntarily, half by force. “Thirty-five people must leave Austria every day,” Karner told reporters in Vienna, hailing what he called a “very good and […]

VIENNA – Austria will extend its cross-border crackdown on illegal migration and human smuggling after reporting a dramatic fall in asylum-related arrests along the frontier with Hungary, reported by ORF News. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced Tuesday in Nickelsdorf that “Operation Fox,” launched in December 2022, has sharply reduced both migrant apprehensions and smuggler detentions. […]

Austria’s political debate over asylum policy erupted anew after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) halted the deportation of a Syrian man with multiple criminal convictions, reported by Kronen Zeitung. The decision drew sharp reactions across the political spectrum, reigniting tensions between the ruling Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ). […]

VIENNA — Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a prominent American Jewish leader, says he was assaulted at a pro-Palestine rally in Vienna on Friday and then treated as a suspect by Austrian police, underscoring concerns over rising antisemitism in Europe, reported by Euro News. Boteach, known in the U.S. as “America’s Rabbi,” told Euronews he encountered the […]

Austria’s Task Force on Welfare Fraud, working alongside financial and criminal police, uncovered cases last year totaling more than €23 million in damages, reported by ORF News. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced Monday that nearly 4,900 cases involving over 5,000 suspects were reported in 2024—roughly ten percent more than in 2023. In the coming months, […]

VIENNA — Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) has signaled an even tougher asylum policy, saying refugee family reunification should remain near zero and indicating deportations to Afghanistan are likely. Citing falling illegal migration figures, Karner said the government will scale back border management infrastructure. He pointed to what he called milestones since the coalition […]