2008 Woodie Awards
Week in Review: Europe
Mary Kate Nevin '09 and Kieran Whelan '09
Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: World
Austria: Far Right Gains in Vote
The leaders of Austria's two far-right parties had their strongest showing in decades in general elections held on Sunday, Sept. 28.
The Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria, populist parties that are considered far-right, took around 29 per cent of the vote, preliminary results showed on Monday, Sept. 29. This reflects a more than doubling of support since the last polls in 2006.
"Today, we are the winners of election night," Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said, according to the BBC.
The Social Democrats, Austria's center-left party, still won the polls with 30 per cent. But they, and the more traditionally conservative People's Party, with 26 per cent, suffered their worst results in half a century.
The polls were called after the ruling coalition between the Social Democrats and the People's Party collapsed this July. Experts say the nature of the next coalition will now be hard to predict.
Science and Technology: Space Freighter Destroyed Over Pacific
Europe's "Jules Verne" space freighter destroyed itself on Monday, Sept. 29, in a controlled burn-up over the southern Pacific Ocean.
The cargo ship, weighing approximately 13.5 tons, had just completed a six-month mission to the space station, and was packed with the orbiting platform's trash and debris.
In order to slow the freighter sufficiently to pull it into the atmosphere, two engine firings were required. Both the United States and European space agencies had planes in the air to attempt to capture the destruction of the Jules Verne space freighter on tape, while astronauts on the space station reported seeing the light from the falling freighter.
"Everything went correctly, nominally, smoothly. This was the last section of the chain," said Simonetta di Pippo, head of human spaceflight at the European Space Agency (ESA).
Jules Verne, also known by the more general name Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), cost about €1.3 billion ($1.8 billion) to develop. After launch, this "space truck" can work out where it needs to go in space and then makes a fully automatic docking once it arrives at its destination. It was developed as part of ESA's ISS membership agreement to bring cargo, water, and oxygen to the space station, and also to provide propulsion capacity at the station.
The leaders of Austria's two far-right parties had their strongest showing in decades in general elections held on Sunday, Sept. 28.
The Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria, populist parties that are considered far-right, took around 29 per cent of the vote, preliminary results showed on Monday, Sept. 29. This reflects a more than doubling of support since the last polls in 2006.
"Today, we are the winners of election night," Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said, according to the BBC.
The Social Democrats, Austria's center-left party, still won the polls with 30 per cent. But they, and the more traditionally conservative People's Party, with 26 per cent, suffered their worst results in half a century.
The polls were called after the ruling coalition between the Social Democrats and the People's Party collapsed this July. Experts say the nature of the next coalition will now be hard to predict.
Science and Technology: Space Freighter Destroyed Over Pacific
Europe's "Jules Verne" space freighter destroyed itself on Monday, Sept. 29, in a controlled burn-up over the southern Pacific Ocean.
The cargo ship, weighing approximately 13.5 tons, had just completed a six-month mission to the space station, and was packed with the orbiting platform's trash and debris.
In order to slow the freighter sufficiently to pull it into the atmosphere, two engine firings were required. Both the United States and European space agencies had planes in the air to attempt to capture the destruction of the Jules Verne space freighter on tape, while astronauts on the space station reported seeing the light from the falling freighter.
"Everything went correctly, nominally, smoothly. This was the last section of the chain," said Simonetta di Pippo, head of human spaceflight at the European Space Agency (ESA).
Jules Verne, also known by the more general name Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), cost about €1.3 billion ($1.8 billion) to develop. After launch, this "space truck" can work out where it needs to go in space and then makes a fully automatic docking once it arrives at its destination. It was developed as part of ESA's ISS membership agreement to bring cargo, water, and oxygen to the space station, and also to provide propulsion capacity at the station.
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