Austria

VIENNA, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen secured a second six-year term in office on Sunday by winning a clear majority of votes in an election to avoid a runoff, according to projections based on almost all votes cast except postal ballots.

The 78-year-old former leader of the Greens has garnered broad popularity by projecting calm during times of national crisis, including the collapse of the government in 2019 and the resignation of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz a year ago over corruption allegations that Kurz denies.

VIENNA, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Energy ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday rejected accusations that they were "endangering the global energy market" and causing "energy poverty in the West" with their latest oil production cut.

OPEC and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, held its ministerial meeting on Wednesday and announced a major production cut of 2 million barrels per day (bpd) starting November as oil prices have recently tumbled over recession fears. The cut equals around 2 percent of this year's global oil demand.

VIENNA, October 5. /TASS/: Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi is heading for Kiev, he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

"On our way to Kiev for important meetings. The need for a Nuclear Safety and Security Protection Zone (NSSPZ) around Zaporizhzhya (Zaporozhye - TASS) Nuclear Power Plant is now more urgent than ever," Grossi tweeted.

3 October 2022; MEMO: The OPEC+ group of oil producers is discussing output cuts of more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd), OPEC sources said, and voluntary cuts by individual members could come on top of that, making it the largest cut since 2020, Reuters reports.

The meeting will take place on 5 October against a backdrop of falling oil prices and months of severe market volatility which prompted top OPEC+ producer, Saudi Arabia, to say the group could cut production.

VIENNA, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been released, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday after a detention that Ukraine blamed on Russia and called an act of terror.

Ukraine said a Russian patrol detained Ihor Murashov on Friday as he travelled from Europe's largest nuclear power plant to the town of Enerhodar, where many of the plant's staff live. Ukrainian staff continue to operate the plant in conditions the International Atomic Energy Agency says put safety at risk.

VIENNA, September 26. /TASS/: Russia is ready to continue talks to establish a safety zone around the Zaporozhye NPP and expects a non-politicized approach from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Alexey Likhachev, director general at Rosatom, has said.

"We are ready for cooperation on the technical aspects of the protection zone and physical nuclear safety of the Zaporozhye NPP. We are ready to agree on its establishment as quickly as possible," he said at the 66th Session of the IAEA’s General Conference.

VIENNA, Sept 17 (Reuters) - One of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant's four main power lines has been repaired and is once again supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid two weeks after it went down, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Saturday.

Even though the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia, Europe's biggest nuclear power plant, have been shut down, the fuel in them still needs cooling to avoid a potentially catastrophic meltdown. That means the plant needs electricity to pump water through the core of the reactors. 

VIENNA, September 15. /TASS/: The report of IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant does not mention from which side the plant was shelled, this is the weakest and most problematic part of the document, Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said on Thursday in a speech to the IAEA Board of Governors.

VIENNA, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors on Thursday passed a resolution demanding that Russia end its occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

The resolution is the second on Russia's invasion of Ukraine passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's board, and their content is very similar, though the first in March preceded Russian forces taking control of Zaporizhzhia, Europe's biggest nuclear power plant. 

13 Sep 2022; MEMO: Western powers are lobbying other states on the UN nuclear watchdog's board to jointly pressure Iran to give the agency the answers it has long sought on uranium traces found at three undeclared sites, diplomats said on Tuesday, reports Reuters.