Headlines

The war between the United States and Iran, raging since late February, remains the dominant global issue – and the Strait of Hormuz, decisive for global oil trade, is still effectively closed. The negotiations on a definitive peace settlement, conducted under Pakistani mediation, have stalled in recent weeks: Tehran has repeatedly tightened its conditions and demands, among other things, reparations for war damages before the strait is reopened.

Markets are reacting nervously: at the beginning of this week, the price of a barrel of North Sea Brent temporarily jumped back above the 90-dollar mark, while the US grade WTI approached 84 dollars – a gain of around ten dollars within just a few days.

This has long been noticeable at the pumps; in Germany, fuel prices have been above two euros per litre for weeks, and filling up remains painfully expensive in Austria as well.

The NATO summit in Ankara provided a bizarre sideshow: US President Donald Trump confirmed that he secretly switched planes before departing from the Turkish capital – according to media reports, because of a death threat from Iran. A rapid de-escalation of the conflict is currently not in sight.

Sources: orf.at, ZDFheute news ticker, agency reports (10–12 August 2026)

The cause: the panicked flight was apparently driven by sheer horror. She was picked up by a caregiver with facial tattoos and striking “devil’s horns”, at whose sight she fell into panicked terror. The girl, who had suffered severe abuse in the past, was scheduled to be collected by a female staff member. Instead, not only did no empathetic female caregiver appear – but “the devil” himself.

Political and administrative consequences: the incident has led to a full-blown scandal in Vienna. There is massive criticism of the responsible child and youth welfare authority (MA 11) and of the supervising association “Homebase”, as warnings about its questionable public image (including a devil logo) had already been raised beforehand.

The responsible bodies have announced internal investigations. No further consequences are known.

A single sentence on his “summer tour” has given Federal Chancellor Christian Stocker (ÖVP) his most turbulent week in a long time. At a citizens’ dialogue in Salzburg, replying to a visitor’s question about balancing family and career, he said that childcare was, for him, “not unpaid work” – he refused to regard the family as a “business case”. There were boos in the hall; the questioner had previously calculated that women perform an average of 96 hours of unpaid care work per week.

Criticism came promptly and from all sides – including from his own coalition partners: Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler (SPÖ) countered curtly with “childcare is work”, while NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger and the trade union accused the Chancellor of belittling the unpaid work of mothers. The next day, Stocker pulled the emergency brake: his sentence had been “wrong”, and he apologised “in all clarity” to everyone who felt hurt or unappreciated – women in particular, he said, achieve “great things” in raising children. The debate about real relief in childcare is nevertheless likely to accompany the government into the autumn.

A gruesome discovery has shaken the Mostviertel region: at a pig-fattening farm in the district of Amstetten, police and the official veterinarian discovered 400 dead, partly already decomposed pigs. Neighbours had raised the alarm at the end of July because of the ever-stronger smell of decay; during a first inspection attempt, the farmer had refused to let the officers onto the farm. Only 88 animals were still alive – they were distributed among neighbouring farms.

The evaluation of the purchase and sales records also revealed a “shortfall” of around 1,000 further pigs; based on bones found on site, police do not rule out cannibalism among the starving animals. The farmer, who ran the farm alone, is believed to have been in a state of psychological breakdown and to have stopped caring for the animals months ago. He has been reported to the public prosecutor’s office in St. Pölten for animal cruelty, the farm has been closed by the authorities, and a ban on keeping animals is being examined.

The Association Against Animal Factories speaks of a case “beyond one’s worst nightmare” and demands legislative consequences. State politics, too, is debating how such a tragedy could remain undiscovered for months.

Letters to the Editor

A pseudo-conservative ham actor is allowed to stick out the metaphorical chancellor’s backside in order to demonstrate to a compulsorily interested media audience what it means to hold an unseemly view of women.

After the question – posed “publicly” at a hand-picked party event – about the insufficient appreciation of women’s child-raising work, the villain voiced the audacious view that raising one’s own children has more to do with personal fulfilment than with a service to society that ought to be remunerated.

Under the slogan that Stocker holds childcare to be no work at all, an outrage mob promptly assembled – which the hapless fellow, however, was soon able to appease by remorsefully withdrawing his statement and adopting the opposite opinion. The classic behaviour of a politician with backbone and foresight?

Chapeau, in this context, to Michael Ludwig, who has so far not taken the secretly recorded jolly, wine-soaked remarks of his friend Walter Ruck as an occasion to distance himself from him. One might almost suspect that here, a minimum of integrity and common sense is still at work.

How does someone like this obtain funding from the City of Vienna? According to the relevant inquiries and official statements, the fact that daddy serves as a municipal official has absolutely nothing to do with it. A social Vienna that spends a great deal of tax money but at least truly serves the people? A fairy tale that has once again been debunked.

Consequences, however, there are none. The state-run, totally independent quality media had little leisure to concern themselves with the incident. They had more important topics to work through (see above).

The same goes for the SPÖ women under the aegis of Deputy Mayor Barbara Nowak, who, in their righteous wrath against career-hindering misogyny, were otherwise engaged – since, as everyone knows, it can only be misogyny when left-wing gilded feminists suffer status anxiety, and by no means the fact that they accomplish little to nothing for broad sections of the population and the weakest in society.

Classifieds