The Number of Journalists Murdered for Their Work Doubled in 2020

The number of journalists killed in retaliation for their work more than doubled in 2020, a year when more news people than ever were jailed by authoritarian governments, according to new figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

AP Photo

Twenty-one journalists were murdered because of their work—up from 10 the previous year, and the non-profit advocacy group said it was investigating the circumstances of 15 other deaths. All told, between Jan. 1 and Dec. 15, at least 30 journalists were killed around the world, CPJ reports. Criminal groups were most often suspected in the deaths, notably in Mexico. Politics was the most dangerous beat. The three journalists killed in combat—all in Syria, apparently from Russian air strikes—was the lowest number since 2000.

Earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists released its annual tally of jailed journalists, which at 274 worldwide was the highest in the nearly three-decade history of that census. This year an Iranian journalist appeared on both lists: Roohallah Zam was kidnapped by Iranian operatives—apparently from neighbouring Iraq—imprisoned and then hanged on Dec. 12. He had spread information on demonstrations and otherwise embarrassed the Iranian government on the Telegram messaging app. “Zam’s killing is nothing but state-sponsored murder,” said CPJ executive director Joel Simon.

Simon noted that while the Trump Administration condemned Zam’s death, it undermined press freedom around the globe over the last four years. President Donald Trump has attacked the integrity of journalists, promoted the concept of “fake news” to dismiss accurate reports it deemed unwelcome—and failed to condemn the 2018 assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi Arabian consulate. CPJ called on President-elect Joe Biden to restore the U.S. tradition of supporting freedom of expression abroad by appointing a special envoy for press freedom.

The New-York based organization maintains a “global impunity index” ranking nations by how likely killings are to remain officially unsolved. Somalia, which has had no functioning central government since the early 1990s, ranks first. The top ten includes Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Sudan and Brazil.

Source: TIME

Sweden edges closer to NATO membershipParliament voted in favor of the NATO option

STOCKHOLM — Sweden is rethinking its security, and whether it really is safest outside NATO.

Two years out from the next election, debate over whether to join the Western defence alliance is intensifying, setting up a left-versus-right clash on the question in 2022.

The current minority government of Social Democrats and Greens — plus their allies the Left Party — remain staunchly against, citing the value of neutrality in what they see as a polarizing world.

On the other side, four traditionally allied centre-right parties — the Moderate Party, the Liberals, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats — are in favour, saying Sweden needs the security of the defence guarantees that NATO membership offers.

The pro-NATO side scored a big win last week when the far-right Sweden Democrats, who are angling for closer cooperation with the centre-right bloc in a range of policy areas, reversed a previous anti-NATO stance and backed a motion for Sweden to adopt a so-called NATO option — allowing it to join NATO at some point in the future. Parliament voted in favour of the motion by 204 votes to 145.

“Issues of defence don’t normally sit high on the agenda in elections here, but since the Sweden Democrats have now moved their position, we could well see more interest,” said Allan Widman, a lawmaker with the Liberal Party and spokesman on defence policy.

Adopting a “NATO option” is not a commitment to join — Finland has had such an option since 1995 and remains outside the pact — but is widely seen as a movement in that direction. The government has acknowledged as much by so far refusing to act on it.

Foreign Minister Ann Linde called parliamentary backing for the move “a significant negative event for Swedish security.”

For Sweden, joining NATO would be a big policy shift, as it would end more than 200 years of official military neutrality. The country has not formally taken sides in a war since Napoleon was advancing across Europe, and has over recent years sought to carve out a diplomatic role as an impartial international arbiter while at the same time developing a closer partnership with NATO.

Swedish NATO membership would also shake up a delicate balance of power in the volatile Baltic Sea region, where officially unaligned Sweden and Finland and NATO members Denmark, Germany, Poland and the Baltic states regularly face off against Russia.

In August, Sweden deployed troops to its Baltic island of Gotland after a security scare triggered by Russian warships sailing close to the island.

Russian military jets regularly enter Swedish airspace without permission and many pointed the finger at Russia when a mysterious submarine was detected in waters close to the capital Stockholm in 2014.

Analysts say that last week’s vote in the Swedish parliament on the NATO option likely signals the start of a new phase in the wrangling over full entry into the alliance.

“We can now expect a more comprehensive political debate about an eventual Swedish membership,” Calle Håkansson, an analyst at the think tank the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, told public service television.

The arguments of both sides are already clear. The Social Democrats’ resistance is based on a long-held belief that Sweden’s “freedom from alliances,” as the party calls it, has served the country well.

Tom Little/AFP via Getty Images

Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist has engineered a range of joint training exercises with NATO, such as the cold weather exercise Northern Wind in Sweden in March 2019, but at every turn, he has sought to underline Swedish independence.

The Social Democrats say that joining NATO would represent unnecessary antagonization of Russia, and risk destabilizing an already tense security situation along Europe’s eastern flank.

“We don’t want to go down a road of security policy experiments or adventurism,” Hulqvist wrote in an editorial in August.

Meanwhile, Widman, of the pro-NATO Liberals, said Sweden’s strategy has left it in a security “no-man’s land,” viewed by Russia as part of the “European security system” but lacking the guarantee of the NATO members’ commitment to mutual defence.

“That is a very dangerous position to find yourself in,” he said.

While public support for NATO membership in Finland has remained low and steady, in Sweden it has been rising.

Research by Gothenburg University’s SOM Institute shows roughly equal support (around 30 percent) for joining NATO as those opposed. In 1994, when the SOM Institute began researching the question, 48 percent said joining was a bad idea versus 15 percent in favour.

How the issue develops will depend on the rival sides’ abilities to convince voters ahead of the 2022 vote. If the pro-NATO side does well at the polls and knock the minority centre-left incumbents out of power, they could push for a referendum on the question, experts say.

Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson has previously said that he believes Sweden will be a member of NATO before the decade is out and he called the NATO option vote “historic.” In a social media post, he said it would allow Sweden to “update and modernize” its security stance and tell the world that Sweden is ready to join NATO at a future point of its choosing.

“A government can’t just look away from a parliamentary majority view in a foreign policy or security question,” he said. “We expect the government to get behind the parliament’s security policy line.”

Oxford vaccine still under review, says UK medicine agency

Jab could be given green light by 28 December, triggering immediate NHS distribution

The Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is still being reviewed, the UK’s medicine agency has said, amid reports that doses could be ready by 28 December.

It is thought that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will give the vaccine the green light at some point during the week of 28 December, triggering its immediate rollout by the NHS.

But Whitehall sources said that while they hoped the vaccine would be available that week, it was by no means certain, and the authorisation could be delayed until the beginning of January.

The delay has caused frustration in Whitehall and the NHS, with the vaccine taking much longer to meet approval than the Pfizer vaccine, which was rolled out in the UK last week.

Complications around the results of the initial trial, unveiled by the University of Oxford last month, appear to be to blame for the delay, with data from the university giving a range of different results for efficacy of the vaccine.

Data from the university suggested that the vaccine has 62% efficacy when one full dose is given followed by another full dose. However, when people were given a half dose followed by a full dose at least a month later, its efficacy rose to 90%. This results in an average efficacy of 70.4%.

A report in the Daily Telegraph said the MHRA would authorise the vaccine on 28 or 29 December, after final data on the vaccine’s performance is submitted to the MHRA on Monday.

Large-scale testing sites, including football stadiums, would be opened in the first week of January to allow the biggest mass-testing programme in the UK so far, the newspaper said.

But an MHRA spokeswoman said: “Our rolling review of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is ongoing.

“Our process for approving vaccines is designed to make sure that any Covid-19 vaccine authorised meets the expected high standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.

“Any vaccine must undergo robust clinical trials in line with international standards, with oversight provided by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and no vaccine would be authorised for supply in the UK unless the expected standards of safety, quality and efficacy are met.”

Prof Sarah Gilbert, who has led the design of the vaccine at the University of Oxford, said on Friday that she hoped the vaccine was not “too far off”.

She said the results of the vaccine tests had been positive, but also “intrigued” researchers and “immediately led to thoughts of wanting to do more work”.

“It wasn’t quite the climax that it might have been,” she said. “But we’re very happy with the way the vaccine is performing, really looking forward to the point where people can start to be vaccinated outside of clinical trials.

“Obviously I can’t prejudge that moment, the regulators have to be given their time to make their decisions but I really hope that moment isn’t too far off.”

Martin Marshall, the Royal College of GPs chair, said that approval of the Oxford vaccine could speed up he distribution of the coronavirus vaccine in care homes.

“At the moment we are dealing with this Pfizer vaccine, which is difficult,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“On the assumption that we are going to get approval for the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is much more familiar because it is much more like the flu vaccination, then I think we will be able to roll out at a much faster pace, but certainly over the next few weeks and next couple of months we expect all care homes to be covered.”