There were 76, but they were dubbed the "Russian 100" — life-savers flown in from Moscow within hours of an appeal for help from Serbia as the heaviest rainfall in more than a century inundated the Balkans in May.

Azerbaijan's Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Adalat Valiyev and Austrian Senior Advisor for Strategies and Policies at the Interface of Arts, Culture and Education, member of the panel for the European Capitals of Culture Norbert Riedl held talks on September 23.

As the last of the thirty-seven participating countries weighed in (Israel, the Netherlands, Iceland, Slovenia), a dark-horse winner emerged: Conchita Wurst. A glamorous drag queen, the Austrian candidate was decked out in a long, glittering dress and sported a full beard.  “It’s a firm and clear rebuke against Putin’s anti-L.G.B.T. legislation and people who support it,” William Lee Adams, the editor-in-chief of WiwiBloggs.com, the Internet’s most-read Eurovision Web site, said. 

In Italy's Alps, at the border with Austria, there's a land where people speak in German and dream of independence. Once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, it was annexed by Italy at the end of World War I. But even today, not a single drop of Italian blood runs through the veins of its more than 500,000 inhabitants.

For the third time, Indonesian and Austrian civil society met in an interfaith dialogue. This year, dialogue took on a theme of “Religious Pluralism, Freedom of Religion – Responsibilities of the State, Society and Religious Communities”. The interfaith dialogue between Indonesia and Austria has become the model for many nations in establishing similar dialogue with Indonesia.

Austria and Qatar have boosted their bilateral relations with agreements on double taxation and air transport. While one accord ensures that income and capital aren't taxed twice, the other provides the basis for future negotiations on, among other things, the number of flights between the two countries.