Austria begins another national lockdown as COVD tightens its grip and protests spread across Europe

Published

4 years ago

November 22, 2021

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Austria is beginning another COVID-19 lockdown, as the government seeks to limit the spread of the virus.

The lockdown is the first since vaccines became widely available, but it comes as just 65% of the population is fully vaccinated.

Most gathering places – such as restaurants, cafes, bars, theatres, non-essential shops, and hairdressers – will be closed for 10 days, but this could be extended to 20 days, the government has said.

Hotels will close to tourists who were not already staying in them when the lockdown began.

The country’s famous Christmas markets will also close, although ski lifts will remain open to those who have been vaccinated.

People can leave their homes for a limited number of reasons, such as going to work or buying essentials.

They can also go for a walk but can only meet one person from another household at a time.

Workplaces and schools will remain open, although the government has said parents should keep children at home if possible.

Health minister Wolfgang Mueckstein told ORF TV: “It is a situation where we have to react now.

“A lockdown – a relatively tough method, a sledgehammer – is the only option to reduce the numbers (of infections) here.”

It comes a week after a lockdown was imposed on those who are not vaccinated but Austria’s government has said it will make vaccination compulsory from the beginning of February.

The number of new cases daily in Austria has hovered between 14,000 and 15,000 in recent days.

This is up sharply from just a few hundred a day during the summer, and under 3,000 a day for much of October.

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Europe accounts for more than half of the average seven-day cases worldwide and around half of latest deaths – the highest levels since April last year when COVID-19 was at its initial peak in Italy.

But governments face a delicate balancing act between trying to contain the disease and maintaining a fragile economic recovery.

Thousands of protesters have rallied in cities across Europe over the weekend, as leaders look to tighten COVID-19 restrictions to tackle the latest wave of infections.

In the Netherlands, riots broke out for the third night in a row on Sunday evening in several towns and cities, including Leeuwarden and Groningen in the north, the eastern town of Enschede and Tilburg in the south.

Two football matches in the country’s professional league had to be paused on Saturday after fans broke into stadiums, while police in the Hague said five officers were injured as they tried to stop rioting youths who set at least two fires and threw fireworks.

The most violent scenes came on Friday night in Rotterdam where police clashed with mobs of angry youths who set fires and threw rocks, resulting in 51 arrests.

In Belgium, tens of thousands of people marched through Brussels on Sunday to protest reinforced COVID-19 restrictions imposed to counter the latest spike in coronavirus cases.

Many among the police estimate of 35,000 at the rally had already left for home when the demonstration descended into violence as several hundred people started smashing cars and setting garbage bins ablaze whole police responded with tear gas and water cannon.

Three police officials and one demonstrator were injured in the clashes. In addition, 42 protesters were detained and two were arrested and charged in the violence that followed the march, police said.

In Austria tens of thousands of protesters – many from far-right groups – marched through Vienna over the weekend with fire-lit torches and banners saying: “My body, my choice”. Others burned face masks.

Protesters threw fireworks and bottles while police used pepper spray.

Several people were arrested but police did not specify how many.

In Croatia, thousands of people protested in the capital Zagreb, holding Croatian flags, nationalist and religious symbols, and anti-vaccination banners.

In Switzerland, thousands of people protested in Zurich against the idea of a Swiss COVID certificate, which could become compulsory for entry to some public places, but unlike previous protests in the capital city of Bern, the weekend’s demonstrations were peaceful.

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.