Austria, Germany far-right slump

Far right-wing parties have suffered big losses in local elections in Austria and Germany.

With most votes counted in municipal elections in the Austrian capital, Vienna, the Freedom Party had lost nearly eight points compared with the previous election.

The party's leading figure, Joerg Haider, ran a campaign in Vienna which had been widely criticised as racist and anti-semitic.

The Social Democratic Party, which easily retained control of Vienna, welcomed the result.

In Germany, early returns suggest that the extremist Republican Party had lost all its seats in voting for the state election in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The conservative Christian Democrats retained power there, while in the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the Social Democratic party of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder looked certain to stay in power.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service