France reports 23,306 new cases as Pas-de-Calais locked down, US Senate passes $1.9tn pandemic economic relief plan, arrests during Vienna protests
Thousands turned out Saturday for the latest protest in Vienna against coronavirus restrictions and several arrests were made for breaching public order laws and Covid regulations, AFP reported.
Many of the protesters did not wear masks or observe social distancing as they made their way through the centre of the Austrian capital to a park where the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) had called a rally.
South Korea and the US will conduct its springtime military exercise this week, but the joint drill will be smaller than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic, Seoul said on Sunday.
The allies will begin a nine day “computer-simulated command post exercise” on Monday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, according to a Reuters report.
South Korea and the United States decided to move forward with the drills after “comprehensively taking into consideration the Covid-19 situation, the maintenance of the combat readiness posture, the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of peace,” the JCS said, noting that the exercise is “defensive” in nature.
The drills will not include outdoor manoeuvres, which have been carried out throughout the year, and the number of troops and equipment will be minimized due to the pandemic, Yonhap news agency reported.
The exercises also provide a chance to assess South Korea’s readiness to take over wartime operational control (OPCON), and the series of scaled back drills could complicate President Moon Jae-in*s drive to complete the transfer before his term ends in 2022.
Even before the pandemic the drills had been reduced to facilitate U.S. negotiations aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear programmes. The combined drills are closely monitored by North Korea which calls them a rehearsal for war.
