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Annoyed’: Austria’s National Lockdown Dampens Holiday Mood

Published

4 years ago

November 24, 2021

Editor

After indulging in one last night out, Austrians awoke groggily Monday to their fourth national lockdown of this pandemic, cutting short a Christmas season of shared merriment to fight rising coronavirus infections.

In the capital, Vienna, people headed to work, brought children to school or exercised outdoors, more or less normally. This was not the draconian lockdown of the pandemic’s dawn in 2020, when movements were strictly monitored. Police cars circulated Monday, in keeping with government promises to step up controls, but no spot checks were being made.

“I am particularly annoyed by the lockdown,” said Georg Huber, a lawyer on his way to the office. “One should have implemented a mandatory vaccination in the summer, when it turned out it would not be enough to hope that people get there without any coercion. I think the government just overslept.”

Austria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in western Europe, about 66% of its population of 8.9 million people, with a vocal minority who refuse to be inoculated.

The government announced a 10-day nationwide lockdown on Friday as the average daily COVID-19 deaths tripled in recent weeks and hospitals in hard-hit states warned that intensive care units were hitting capacity. It also pledged to be the first European country to mandate vaccines beginning Feb. 1.

Under the lockdown, people can leave their homes only for specific reasons, including buying groceries, going to the doctor or exercising. Day care centers and schools remained open for those who need them, but parents were asked to keep children at home if possible.

The restrictions are likely to be extended, for a total of 20 days, after which the government has indicated plans to open up so many Austrians can celebrate Christmas as normal. Restrictions, however, are expected to remain for the unvaccinated.

At Vienna’s largest vaccine center, the government’s actions were apparently pushing more people to get vaccinated. The daily numbers of vaccinations has grown from 1,000 a day two weeks ago to 12,000 a day this week, with at least 20% coming for their first jab.

“There are some who waited to see how it was going with the vaccinations, which is a deeply human problem,″ said Dr. Susanne Drapalik, the chief physician for Samaritans Federation, which is running the center. Others were getting vaccinated so they can work, such as truck drivers who drive to countries where a health pass is required, or getting jabs ahead of the Feb. 1 mandate.

“Compulsory vaccinations are a hotly debated topic,″ Drapalik said. ”The argument that every citizen has a responsibility to himself and to others did not work.”

Barbara Kier, a singer and voice-over actor, was there for her booster shot, but said her 57-year-old mother was still unpersuaded to get her first.

“I can only give her my opinion. She must decide for herself,″ she said ”She said she won’t go yet, not that she will never go. I don’t know what she is waiting for!”

Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said the lockdown was needed to bring down the number of new daily infections, which have spiked to as many as 15,000 a day, and to reduce the number of virus patients in intensive care. But most of all, he said, it was needed to bring relief “to the people who work in this sector, the nurses and doctors who cannot take it anymore.”

“It is a situation where we have to react now. The only way is with a lockdown, a relatively hard method, to lower the numbers with a wooden hammer,” Mueckstein told national broadcaster ORF.

Political analysts say the Austrian government did not effectively communicate the importance of vaccines early enough, and that many Austrians did not take the vaccination campaign seriously after former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz declared the pandemic “over” last summer. Kurz was forced out in a corruption scandal last month, replaced by his foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, who within a week expanded the controversial lockdown on Austria’s unvaccinated people to a lockdown for everyone.

Schallenberg also has pledged to make vaccinations mandatory by Feb. 1, with details still to be hammered out. Experts have speculated that it could be limited to certain age groups or even tied to employment, as Italy has done. In Italy, health passes are required to enter workplaces, and can be obtained with a negative test as well.

On the eve of Austria’s latest lockdown, people flocked to Christmas markets for one last night of public socializing and in-person holiday shopping. The Austrian Trade Association said sales were up 15% on Saturday, compared with the same day in 2019, before the pandemic.

Still, many business owners feared the pre-lockdown boost would not be enough to salvage their holiday season.

Boutiques in Vienna’s main shopping district adjusted to the lockdown by putting up signs advising customers they could order online for pickup. Sales people remained on the job behind locked doors to fill orders.

Sophie Souffle, who sells jewelry at markets all year round, makes most of her money over the six-week Christmas market period. Any promised help from the government will be enough to get by, she said, “but it won’t be enough to invest for future business.”

She looked around Sunday as people strolled among the market stands, window shopping more than buying, and socialized in small groups, sensing more desperation than holiday spirit.

(AP)

Headline

White House Threatens Mass Firings Amid Stalled Shutdown Talks

Published

1 day ago

October 2, 2025

Editor

Efforts to swiftly end the US government shutdown collapsed Wednesday as Democrats in Congress went home without resolving a funding stand-off with President Donald Trump and the White House threatened public sector jobs.

Federal funding expired at midnight after Trump and lawmakers failed to agree on a deal to keep the lights on, prompting agencies to wind down services, while the White House warned of “imminent” firings of public sector workers.

Senate Democrats — who are demanding extended health care subsidies for low-income families — refused to help the majority Republicans approve a House-passed bill that would have reopened the government for several weeks while negotiations continue.

Voting in the Senate is now adjourned until Friday, frustrating hopes for a quick resolution.

Around 750,000 federal employees are expected to be placed on furlough — a kind of enforced leave, with pay withheld until they return to work.

Essential workers, such as the military and border agents, may be forced to work without pay and some will likely miss their checks beginning next week. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association voiced fears for air safety as more than 2,300 members were sent home.

The crisis has higher stakes than previous shutdowns, with Trump racing to enact hard-right policies that include slashing government departments and threatening to turn many of the furloughs into mass firings.

Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters the administration was “working with agencies across the board to identify where cuts can be made… and we believe that layoffs are imminent.”

The Department of Energy announced plans to terminate clean energy projects, all in blue states, according to White House official Russell Vought, who said the slashed funding had been used to advance “the Left’s climate agenda”.

The Department of Transportation also froze nearly $18 billion in federal funding for major infrastructure projects in New York, which Governor Kathy Hochul called “political payback”.

– ‘Ridiculous’ –

Shutdowns are a periodic feature of gridlocked Washington, although this is the first since a record 35-day pause during Trump’s first term in 2019.

They are unpopular because services used by ordinary voters, from national parks to permit applications, become unavailable.

“I think our government needs to learn how to work together for the people and find a way to make things not happen like this,” said Terese Johnston, a 61-year-old retired tour guide visiting Washington from California as the government shut down.

“You compromise. You find ways. So everybody gives a little bit, everybody takes a little bit, and things work.”

Democrats — spurred by grassroots anger over the expiring health care subsidies and Trump’s dismantling of government agencies — have been withholding Senate votes to fund the government as leverage to try and force negotiations.

As the messaging war over the shutdown intensified, Vice President JD Vance took center stage at a White House briefing normally headed by Leavitt to upbraid Democrats over their demands.

“They said to us, ‘we will open the government, but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens.’ That’s a ridiculous proposition,” Vance said in a rare appearance in the briefing room.

US law demands that anyone who presents at a publicly funded emergency room is treated, regardless of their ability to pay. But it bars undocumented immigrants from receiving the health care benefits Democrats are demanding, and the party has not called for a new act of Congress to change that.

– No compromise –

Republicans in the House of Representatives have already passed a stop-gap funding fix to keep federal functions running through late November while a longer-term plan is thrashed out.

But the 100-member Senate does not have the 60 votes required to send it to Trump’s desk, and Democrats say they won’t help unless Republicans compromise on their planned spending cuts — especially in health care.

Senate Republican leaders, who have just one rebel in their own ranks, need eight Democrats to join the majority and rubber-stamp the House-passed bill.

They got three moderates to cross the aisle in an initial vote Tuesday and were hoping to peel off five more as the shutdown chaos starts to bite. But Wednesday’s result went the same way.

Congress is not voting Thursday out of respect for the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday but the Senate returns to work on Friday and may be in session through the weekend.

The House is not due back until next week.

AFP

Headline

NIS Begins Crackdown On Foreigners With Expired Visas

Published

1 day ago

October 2, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Immigration Service has commenced a nationwide crackdown on foreign nationals who have overstayed their visas or breached entry conditions, following the expiration of a three-month amnesty granted by the Federal Government.

The amnesty, which opened on July 5 and lapsed at midnight on September 30, allowed foreigners with irregular immigration status to regularise their stay without penalties.

“With the expiration of the amnesty period, effective October 1, 2025, enforcement actions will commence nationwide against foreign nationals who have overstayed their visa or violated their entry conditions,” NIS spokesperson, Akinsola Akinlabi, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The exercise targets holders of expired Visa on Arrival, expired single and multiple-entry short visit or business visas, and individuals with expired Comprehensive Expatriate Residence Permits and Automated Cards.

Foreigners caught in violation face removal, daily fines, or entry bans. Overstayers of less than three months risk deportation, a $15 daily fine, or a two-year entry ban. Those who overstay between three months and one year face removal, daily fines, or a five-year entry ban, while individuals exceeding one year risk deportation and up to a 10-year or permanent entry ban.

The Service said the measures are aimed at safeguarding national security and ensuring strict compliance with immigration laws.

Interior Minister, Olubunmi, had earlier warned members of the diplomatic corps to advise their nationals to take advantage of the amnesty window, stressing that Nigeria’s immigration laws “are not meant to be abused but respected.”

The crackdown is part of wider reforms introduced in April, including a $15 daily surcharge for visa overstays, with a temporary moratorium to encourage compliance.

Headline

Earthquake Kills 72 In Philippines

Published

1 day ago

October 2, 2025

Editor

The death toll from a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines rose to 72 on Thursday, officials said, as the search for the missing wound down and rescuers turned their focus to the hundreds injured and thousands left homeless.

The bodies of the three victims were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel overnight Wednesday in the city of Bogo, near the epicentre of the 6.9-magnitude quake that struck on Tuesday.

“We have zero missing, so the assumption is all are accounted for,” National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council spokesman Junie Castillo said, adding that some rescue units in Cebu province have been told to “demobilise”.

The government said 294 people were injured and around 20,000 had fled their homes. Nearly 600 houses were wrecked across the north of Cebu, and many are sleeping on the streets as hundreds of aftershocks shake the area.

“One of the challenges is the aftershocks. It means residents are reluctant to return to their homes, even those houses that were not (structurally) compromised,” Castillo said.

Cebu provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro appealed for help on Thursday, saying thousands needed safe drinking water, food, clothes, and temporary housing, as well as volunteers to sort and distribute aid.

President Ferdinand Marcos flew to Cebu with senior aides on Thursday to inspect the damage.

He also visited a partially damaged housing project in Bogo, built for survivors of the 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit the Philippines.

Eight bodies were “recovered from collapsed houses” in the project following the quake, a local government statement said.

A tiny village chapel in Bogo was serving as a temporary shelter for 18-year-old Diane Madrigal and 14 of her neighbours after their houses were destroyed. Their clothes and food were scattered across the chapel’s pews.

“The entire wall (of my house) fell, so I really don’t know how and when we can go back again,” Madrigal told AFP.

“I am still scared of the aftershocks up to now; it feels like we have to run again,” she added.

Mother-of-four Lucille Ipil, 43, added her water container to a 10-metre (30-foot) line of them along a roadside in Bogo, where residents desperately waited for a truck to bring them water.

“The earthquake really ruined our lives. Water is important for everyone. We cannot eat, drink, or bathe properly,” she told AFP.

“We really want to go back to our old life before the quake, but we don’t know when that will happen… Rebuilding takes a long time.”

Many areas remain without electricity, and dozens of patients were sheltering in tents outside the damaged Cebu provincial hospital in Bogo.

“I’d rather stay here under this tent. At least I can be treated,” 22-year-old Kyle Malait told AFP as she waited for her dislocated arm to be treated.

More than 110,000 people in 42 communities affected by the quake will need assistance to rebuild their homes and restore their livelihoods, according to the regional civil defence office.

Earthquakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most are too weak to be felt by humans but strong and destructive quakes come at random, with no technology available to predict when and where they might strike.

AFP