Austria plans to reopen German border on June 15

Austria plans to reopen the border with Germany as early as June 15. The UK economy has suffered its greatest contraction since the global financial crisis. Follow DW for the latest.

07:15 The Austrian government has confirmed reports that it plans to reopen the border with Germany on June 15. Austrian Tourism Minister Elisabeth Köstinger told radio station Ö1 it had come to an agreement with Germany.

The border has been closed to travelers since mid-March due to coronavirus. The federal cabinet in Berlin will discuss the opening of borders today, as will the European Commission, which is expected to recommend opening borders between mutually low-impacted areas.

 “From June 15, the opening of the border between Germany and Austria will be possible,” Tourism Minister Koestinger said. She said some restrictions on border traffic will be eased from Friday and border controls will be completely lifted from June 15.

06:55 The British economy contracted a record 5.8% in March, compared to February. Over the entire first quarter, it shrank 2.0% — the largest quarterly fall since the global financial crisis. Many economists are predicting even greater falls for the second quarter, with the Bank of England warning that the British economy could fall 30% in the first half of 2020, before a strong recovery in the second half of the year.

“The speed and scale at which coronavirus has hit the UK economy is unprecedented and means that the Q1 decline is likely to be followed by a further, more historically significant, contraction in economic activity in Q2,” Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, said.

06:10 German travel giant TUI will slash 8,000 jobs worldwide, it has announced. This equates to about 10% of its workforce. CEO Fritz Joussen said TUI will emerge strengthened from the crisis,”but it will be a different TUI and it will face a different market environment than before the pandemic. This makes cuts necessary.” The tour operator has already received a €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) government loan. It will reduce administrative costs by 30%, and its investments will be cut back. The travel industry has taken a massive hit from pandemic restrictions.

05:35 Austria’s APA news agency is reporting that the country’s border with Germany is set to open on June 15. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told Swiss television last night that he expected the border to be opened in June. The Austrian Chancellery told APA that by Friday there would just be random checks at the border. The mountainous nation’s tourism industry is heavily reliant on German travelers.

05:00 A crowded United Nations civilian protection camp in South Sudan has been hit by the pandemic for the first time. Two cases have been confirmed in the camp in Juba, the UN confirmed. Almost 200,000 people are still sheltering in UN camps across South Sudan, despite a peace deal ending the five-year civil war more than a year ago. Almost 30,000 of those are sheltering in Juba.

Aid workers have warned that the only real option for treating outbreaks in the camps is by using isolation centers to stem the spread. There is practically no public health care system outside of NGOs.

04:40 European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni has insisted that a summer holiday season will take place this year. “We will definitely have a tourist season in summer, but with security measures and restrictions,” the Italian told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

The commission plans this to publish guidelines today on lifting border controls within the bloc. According to a draft version, border restrictions should first be lifted between areas with fewer cases, avoiding discrimination based on nationality. It will also recommend protective measures such as physical distancing in hotels, restaurants and transport.

German Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer last week ordered the extension of border controls with Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Denmark until Friday. Only those with a valid reason, such as commuters, can cross. North Rhine-Westphalia State Premier Armin Laschet has been pleading for an end to border controls after Friday. ”It hurts my soul when I see that the barriers in Europe are up again,” he told Süddeutsche Zeitung. 

04:00 New Zealand reported zero new cases for the second consecutive day. This comes as the country prepares to ease many of lockdown restrictions from Thursday.

Most businesses will be able to reopen, but social distancing rules will remain in place. Public gatherings will be limited to ten people.

The easing of restrictions coincides with the government’s release of the annual budget, which will be aimed at the country’s economic recovery.

03:52 The vice mayor of China’s Jilin city warned that there is a high risk that the virus could spread further within the population after six new cases were reported in the city.

Five of the new infections could be traced to one confirmed case in the city of Shulan, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) away from Changchun, the capital of Jilin province, where an infection cluster was previously reported.

Vice Mayor Gai Dongping said that authorities are preparing to ramp up measures to curb the spread of the virus. The city has also temporarily suspended rail services at a main train station.

03:06 Germany has reported 798 cases, and 101 new deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 171,306 and the death toll to 7,634, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Both figures mark a decrease from the previous day’s count of 933 new cases and 116 deaths.

03:00 Lives have been lost in the pandemic due to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) continued exclusion of Taiwan and refusal to allow it to share best practices and information, a US government commission on China revealed in a report.

Taiwan says that China and the WHO have conspired for political purposes to keep it from participating in talks, that the WHO has not responded to requests for coronavirus information, and that the organization has misreported Taiwan’s case count. The US has supported many of those claims.

In a report released by the US Congress’ US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the commission said Taiwan’s exclusion contributed to “critical delays” in timely receipt and accurate guidance for WHO members in the early stages of the outbreak.

“Had the WHO allowed Taiwan’s health experts to share information and best practices in early January, governments around the world could have had more complete information on which to base their public health policies,” it said.

“The lives lost as a result of these missteps offer a tragic reminder of how global health is compromised by the WHO’s politically-motivated exclusion of Taiwan,” the report read.

Meanwhile, a poll released by the Pew Research Center showed that about two-thirds of Taiwanese people don’t identify as Chinese.

The center found that 66% view themselves as Taiwanese, while 28% see themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese and 4% see themselves as just Chinese. The results show that China could have difficulty presiding over the self-governing island, which claims its own sovereignty. However, China says Taiwan remains one of its provinces.

02:09 Fears are abound that Brazil may become the globe’s new epicenter and those concerns have been given added credence by global health experts.

“Certainly, the increase of cases (in Brazil) in the last several days is a case of concern,” Marcos Espinal, head of the communicable diseases department at the Pan American Health Organization, told a briefing in Washington.

Indeed, there are even suggestions that the figures in Brazil are greatly underestimated.

“Brazil is only testing people who end up in the hospital,” said Domingo Alves, one of the authors of a study published last week that estimated the real number of cases in the Latin American country was 15 times higher than the official figure.

Source: dw.com