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Today in Austria For Members

Today in Austria: A roundup of the latest news on Wednesday

Catherine Edwards
Catherine Edwards - [email protected]
Today in Austria: A roundup of the latest news on Wednesday
This Vienna neighbourhood is in the news today. Photo: Dimitry Anikin/Unsplash

Every weekday, The Local brings you an English-language summary of the news you need to know in Austria.

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Arrests at clearing of Vienna protest camp

This week, a protest camp set up by environmental campaigners has been cleared from a planned construction site where a road is going to be built in the Donaustadt neighbourhood of Vienna.

The camp has been in place for months, and there were demonstrations alongside the eviction, with 48 people placed under provisional arrest.

Mayor Michael Ludwig said that the protestors had refused "countless offers of talks". The city council argues that the road is necessary to provide access to a new housing development for 60,000 people.

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Netflix comes to Vienna

The Donaustadt area of Vienna is the set for a new Netflix film, Tyler Rake: Extraction 2, starring Chris Hemsworth.

Filming is underway for 18 days, ending on February 14th, and the DC Tower (the tallest building in the picture at the top of this article) was supposedly a big part of the appeal for the film crew. This means there will be some loud noises including explosions in the area, so that one kindergarten has closed for the duration of filming.

For those hoping to catch a glimpse of the city in the film, it is currently set to be released in spring 2023.

Austria offers vaccination days with interpreters

Austria's Integration Fund is supporting the Covid vaccination effort by stepping up the availability of multilingual support for people who don't speak German.

This includes online appointments to talk through the vaccine. The support is primarily aimed at asylum seekers and refugees, but is open to anyone who would benefit, with interpretation available in languages including Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi.

Updates on Covid measures for schools expected 'in the next few days'

So said Education Minister Martin Polaschek on Wednesday, saying that the measures in schools are currently being discussed with National Covid Crisis Committee GECKO.

At the moment schools remain in a so-called safety phase with compulsory masks and Covid tests three times a week, one of them a PCR test (and two in some regions).

Nationwide, around 12 out of 6,000 schools are currently closed due to Covid outbreaks, as well as over 2,000 individual classes. These numbers change day to day now that classes only need to use distance learning for a relatively short five-day period after an outbreak (two confirmed cases in a class).

 

 

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