Vienna's Natural History Museum returns human remains to Hawaii
The museum is giving the looted skulls of two Hawaiians, a man and a woman, to representatives of a Hawaiian NGO.
The remains ended up in the museum's collection after an English explorer stole them from a grave in the 1800s, according to the museum, after which they were held in a collection in the UK before being donated to the Austrian museum. A commission of experts, including the Natural History Museum's director, was recently established to work out procedures for dealing with the colonial legacy in Austria's museums.
Covid contact tracing has broken down
In the first week of February, of all confirmed cases of Covid in Austria, the source of the infection was only known in eight percent of cases. This proportion has been falling steadily since the start of the year.
Due to the fast spread of the currently dominant Omicron variant, it has been hard for Austria's contact tracers to keep up with the high number of cases, and several regions had already announced that they had basically given up on contact tracing efforts to focus resources elsewhere.
Austria's Foreign Minister criticises withdrawal of foreign embassy staff from Ukraine
He said that this action, which several western countries including the US have taken, sent a "questionable sign" to Ukraine residents and that Austrian staff would remain in the country for the time being. Minister Alexander Schallenberg also criticised US President Joe Biden's word choice after the latter said the crisis posed the danger of a "world war".
It's 'Equal Pay Day' in Austria...
...but it's not something to celebrate. That's because February 15th is the 46th working day of the year, and on average that's the proportion of the year that women in Austria have been working "for free", based on the 12.7 percent gap in average salaries between men and women. The gap has reduced slightly since last year, but Austria still has one of the biggest gender wage gaps within the EU.
Lidl increases starting salaries
Staying on the topic of pay but onto a more positive note for workers, discount retailer Lidl announced that from March 1st, it will increase its minimum full-time wage to €2,090 gross per month. That's 16 percent higher than the retail union's collective agreement requires.
Lidl is currently advertising for around 900 open positions. Its Austrian headquarters are in Salzburg.
Applications are open for vaccine mandate exemptions
This applies to people who are not able to get vaccinated against Covid-19 due to medical reasons. That includes for example recent organ transplant recipients, cancer patients and people with certain autoimmune diseases.
The exact application process varies between the regions, but generally you will first need to go to a doctor who is able to issue the medical exemption certificate, and then upload this proof and an official ID to the regional online portal. Here are the links for Vienna, Styria, Vorarlberg, Lower Austria and Burgenland for example.
Talks in Vienna today over city protests
Protests against Austria's Covid measures and vaccine mandate have taken place weekly in Vienna's city centre, with businesses complaining that footfall and their revenues have taken a hit as a result. This afternoon, the Interior Ministry is holding talks with representatives of local businesses, police and others to find a solution.
What happened to Austria's vaccine lottery?
After regional vaccine lotteries, the government earlier in the winter announced plans for a nationwide version as a way of offering an incentive for people to get the jab, but this is now off the cards as Chancellor Karl Nehammer confirmed in an interview with the Krone Zeitung this weekend. Instead, the Green Party has proposed using the allocated money to give a bonus to people who have been key workers during the pandemic, such as healthcare staff.
Winter Olympics update
Austria has now earned 16 medals in this year's Winter Olympics: six gold, six silver and four bronze, which puts it fourth in the medals table.
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