Austria begins another national lockdown as COVD tightens its grip and protests spread across Europe
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.
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Thousands protest new lockdown in Austria
Austria will make vaccination mandatory from February next year
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.”
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Austria rules on COVID-19 jab
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.
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Water cannon used on COVID protesters in Brussels
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.
Swiss people protested in Zurich against a planned COVID-19 law
Demonstrators waved flags at a protest in Zagreb
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.
The bodies of three Israeli hostage taken by Hamas have been recovered in Gaza.
The remains were discovered in an overnight operation carried out by Israel’s military and intelligence agency Shin Bet, said chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari.
Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, Amit Buskila, 28, and Shani Louk, 22, were killed at the Nova music festival on 7 October, with their bodies then taken into Gaza by Hamas militants.
Ms Louk’s body was seen face-down in a pick-up truck travelling through Gaza in a video that was shared widely on social media after the hostages were taken.
Israel-Gaza war latest updates
Shani Louk
Itzhak Gelerenter
Amit Buskila
“They were celebrating life in the Nova music festival and they were murdered by Hamas,” said Mr Hagari.
He said their families have been notified.
“Our hearts go out to them, to the families at this difficult time. We will leave no stone unturned, we will do everything in our power to find our hostages and bring them home.”
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Ms Louk’s father has said the return of his daughter’s body to her family has been a form of closure.
Nissim Louk told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz his daughter “radiated light, to her and those who surrounded her, and in her death she still does”.
He added: “She is a symbol of the people of Israel, between light and darkness. Her inner and outer beauty that shone for all the world to see is a special one.”
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‘No respect’ for the world after Gaza horrors
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In November, the brother of Ms Louk told Sky News of their last phone call as his sister tried to escape Hamas.
Speaking about the video that was circulated online after she was taken, Amit Louk said: “I never thought I was going to be in contact with this type of video, seeing my sister in that brutal position.
“And just in that moment, the whole family just crashed.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking”, saying: “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”
Meanwhile, Professor Hagai Levine, a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, has said the recovery of the bodies is a “painful reminder” of those who are still in captivity.
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Child with rare genetic disorder stuck in Gaza
“We do not lose hope. We are preparing for the return of the hostages that are alive,” he added.
Israel has been operating in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, where it says it has intelligence that hostages are being held.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the 7 October attack.
Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
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Gaza situation ‘a complete disaster’
Mr Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back.
He faces pressure to resign, and the US has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas.
World
Slovakia PM shooting: Friend of suspect recalls laughing with him just days before assassination attempt
Mile L’Udovit is leaning on the front door of his apartment block when we meet, just as he has done so often since moving in four decades ago.
He was one of the original tenants of the tatty building and so was his dear friend Juraj Cintula – the man charged with trying to kill Slovakia’s prime minister.
Mile is at once shocked, bemused, appalled and bewildered.
“He’s a good friend,” he tells me. Both men are 71 years old and talked often. “He was a decent, polite man. A good worker. His wife is a professor and his kids were okay. He had a good reputation. Everything was okay.
“Nobody expected something like this to happen. No one could imagine it. That’s the worst thing about it.
“I spoke to him on Monday and we were having a laugh, like neighbours do. It’s so unpleasant.”
Suspect Juraj Cintula is the author of several poetry collections. Pic: ENEX
The apartment block where L’Udovit and Cintula have lived for decades. Pic: AP Photo/Denes Erdos
He shakes his head and gestures up to Cintula’s apartment on the top of the building. “He will either die or get a life sentence. It’s going to be so hard for his family.”
Cintula has not yet been officially identified as the suspect, but it’s common knowledge in Slovakia.
Read more:
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What we know about the shooting suspect
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Video shows moment Slovak PM was shot
Armed police even brought him back to the apartment, dressed in a bulletproof jacket and helmet, to help gather evidence. So why, I ask Mile, did his old friend allegedly try to kill Robert Fico?
“You know, I can’t really say,” he replies thoughtfully. “We took politics as something to laugh at. But we kept our own opinions – he had his, I had mine.
“He was opposed to certain acts of the government and his opinions were quite different. But what was in his mind? Really, nobody knows.”
World
Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico has second surgery in two days after assassination attempt leaves him in ‘very serious’ condition
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has had a second surgery in two days after being shot multiple times in Europe’s first assassination attempt in more than 20 years.
The 59-year-old was shot multiple times while greeting supporters in the former mining town of Handlova on Wednesday. A man has been arrested over the shooting.
Mr Fico was left with life-threatening injuries, and while his condition improved the president-elect of Slovakia said he escaped death “by just a hair”.
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Who is Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico?
He is currently recovering at the University FD Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica, and underwent a second surgery to remove dead tissue inside of his body.
Hospital director Miriam Lapunikova said he underwent a CT scan and is currently awake and stable in an intensive care unit, but added his condition is still “very serious”.
Miriam Lapunikova said Robert Fico underwent a second surgery to remove dead tissue on Friday. Pic: AP
Deputy prime minister Robert Kaliniak also told reporters: “I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development.”
While Mr Fico continued to recover from the attack – the first assassination attempt of a European political leader for more than 20 years – police brought the suspect to his home while they searched it.
Markiza, a Slovakian television station, showed footage of the suspect accompanied by police in the town of Levice and reported police had seized a computer and some documents.
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Slovak PM shooting suspect’s home raided
He was then escorted out and back into the police car.
The suspect was previously named as 71-year-old Juraj Cintula. He is said to be a writer and poet.
President-elect Peter Pellegrini said on Thursday that the prime minister is living “the worst hours and days of his life” after the shooting.
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If the “gunshot wounds were just a few millimetres either side, we would be talking about him as the late prime minister”, he said.
Mr Fico has long been a divisive figure. His return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American ticket led to worries among fellow EU and NATO members that he would turn his country further away from the Western mainstream.
Under his stewardship, the government has halted arms deliveries to Ukraine, and his opponents worry he will lead Slovakia in the footsteps of Viktor Orban’s Hungary.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest against Mr Fico’s policies.
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