#AUSTRIA

Foot-and-mouth disease mostly affects cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals.

Some 400 law enforcement officers across Austria and Slovakia have detained 15 people suspected of beating and humiliating queer people after using fake identities to lure them with promises of sex.

Vienna has rejected a plan by Berlin to turn back asylum seekers arriving at the German border via Austria, in a move that could cause tensions between the two neighboring countries.

New Chancellor Christian Stocker will have to address unease about migrants.

The government is due to be sworn in on Monday.

The parties are due to publish their program later on Thursday.

Talks to form Austria's first coalition government led by the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) collapsed on Wednesday, days after the FPÖ's negotiations with the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) ground to a halt, with each side blaming the other.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will take over as caretaker chancellor on Friday from Karl Nehammer, who resigned after centrist coalition talks collapsed last weekend, President Alexander Van der Bellen's office said on Wednesday.

Austrian far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Herbert Kickl has called on the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) to be "honest" in their imminent coalition talks or face the prospect of a snap election, with his support still rising and the ÖVP's falling.

The move comes after centrist attempts to assemble a coalition collapsed.

The new leader of Austria’s ruling conservatives has said that he expects the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) to be tasked with forming a government, adding that his party is ready to engage in coalition talks with FPÖ.

Talks between the two biggest centrist parties in Austria on forming a coalition government without the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) have collapsed, Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Saturday, adding that he would step down in the coming days.

The smallest of three parties in talks to form Austria’s next government unexpectedly quit those negotiations on Friday, throwing into disarray an effort to form a centrist ruling coalition without the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ).

Austria’s national fuels company, OMV, terminated its contract with Russia’s Gazprom Export for natural gas delivery with immediate effect on Wednesday.

Austria is dropping its veto on Romania and Bulgaria becoming full members of Europe’s Schengen free-travel area, its interior ministry has said, paving the way for European Union interior ministers to approve the move at a meeting on Thursday.

Before the Ukraine war, Russia was the biggest single supplier of natural gas to Europe.

Russia told Austria it is suspending gas deliveries from Saturday in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow's last remaining gas flows to Europe.

Vienna’s authorities have ultimately decided against installing a monument to the Polish king who in 1683 led a multi-national force to alleviate the city’s siege by the Turks, saying it would fan “Islamophobic and anti-Turkish sentiments.”

The Austrian president, overseeing post-election coalition talks, will undergo spinal surgery and be represented by Chancellor Karl Nehammer during his treatment and recovery, his office announced Saturday.

The head of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, which won this week's parliamentary election, urged other parties on Saturday to accept that he should lead the next government and warned them against forming a "coalition of losers".