in that time they've given billions of dollars to charity they say they'll keep working together at the bill and melinda gates foundation the largest private charitable organization in the world it's cases $1750000000.00 toward the fights against corporate 19. this is al jazeera and these are the headlines india's official kinds of corona virus infections since the start of the pandemic a surpassed 20000000 with more than 220000 deaths a surgeon infections has been blamed on governments mismanagement and more contagious call that 1000 variants tanzania's new president some in a saloon who has son is following through with her promise to drastically change the government's covert 1000 response a mandatory 14 day core unseen will be required for travelers coming in countries with new variants also have to present a negative tests at border points it marks

a significant shift from the late president john michael felipe. an elevated metro line has collapsed in mexico's capital sending a train crashing down on to cars below these 23 people have been killed rescue crews have been pulling people from the wreckage of the carriages which are hanging precariously over the roads we will move to. help a friend who came from work at 1050 her mother lost contact with her by the time she is a dentist we don't know anything about her i talk to her what she left work she was in contact by messages we have been friends for 15 years she is 6 months pregnant the police and paramedics don't tell us anything they tell us to call the hospitals because of the pandemic the only answer at the last to wait they have been on the answering machine for 20 minutes and they don't say anything. it's been 6 months since the start of the conflicts in ethiopia's to drive region the violence broke

out last november between the national army and the to grind people's liberation front and the sea international has published a report which says the lack of international response to the situation in ukraine has lied to a number of human rights violations g 7 foreign ministers are meeting in london for the 1st in paris and talks since the pandemic began they are expected to discuss covert 19 tensions with russia and china and climate change. and voting is underway in spain's capital madrid's in a regional election it's being seen as a referendum on the handling of the pandemic the favorite for a regional president is conservative incumbent isabel diaz are you so she's a longtime skeptic useful to keep the city open despite high covert 19 infection rates and those are the headlines to keep it here on al-jazeera inside story is up next.

press freedom and journalists harassed and killed isn't information a public good hall can the reliable information be sas well press day this is. hello welcome to the program ha shem attacks on journalists on the rise and becoming more vs and open around the world the international press institute or

record at 635 violations globally and says at least 49 journalists were killed in the past year the main a fund authoritarian leaders who are increasingly emboldened in vacuo on the media they almost never face justice for the. dentists' i.p.i. says the pandemic is accelerating those negative trends as governments use the public health crisis to press freedom. walls ship rules could become the permanent norm. the organizations executive director bob barr to office said the rise in open attacks on press freedom and the targeting of journalists in dictatorial and illiberal minded with jeans around the world is an ominous sign for the future of democratic freedoms press freedom is under assault everywhere we look with tactics and methods for doing so being shared and copied by

governments antidemocratic with jeans increasingly feel the vic and silence the media with impunity this has a domino effect encouraging other states to follow suit the international press institute says india has committed press freedom violations more than any other country in the world with 84 offenses afghanistan have the greatest number of targeted killings against journalists with lying cases in march china and the philippines belarus and hungary are among the countries cracking down on media and an alarming number of physical and verbal attacks on journalists were reported in europe during the pandemic so called fake news laws 'd that provide governments with control over the flow of information were introduced in at least 18 jurisdictions.

let's bring in our guests in paris palin. is editor in chief and spokeswoman the reporters without borders in hong kong tom grundy editor in chief and founder of the hong kong fia press an independent publication in doha mohammed el masri chair of journalism program. for graduate studies welcome to the program pauline how do you explain the rise in attacks threat targeting journalists worldwide. the theory with the family meet we've seen a number increase. we've seen it became increased and the attacks on journalists of course due to the pandemic it it's extremely worrying and we have released of a late. shortly our last index on press freedom which shows that

73 percent of the country safe money to us throughout the world happened now some have put some block after block. in different ways the information and john it has to do their job so it's worrying tom how do journalists are prate in hong kong against the backdrop of the security law there was introduced in the last year or jennifer been scrambling to to react to that law which is basically worded it's being broadly applied and i would say is having a chilling effect of a 1000000000 every newsroom and we're not getting straight answers when we seek to work out how to deal with this such as can we interview this and can we film that in a peer 5th floor is designed purposefully to make the media and over correct we've already seen a newsroom raided its proprietor arrested so i would say we're in the midst of

a full throated crackdown and to be honest we all got whiplash from the speed of what's going on. mohammed for decades the journalist sentiment was basically there there are areas which are safe for journalists to operate others buz really historically speaking we're talking about asia sub-saharan africa and parts of latin america which were why dissin as unsafe but those lines seem to be in our more and more blurred. absolutely i mean 1st of all i think we have to note that governments everywhere in democratic societies and also in non democratic societies have an interest in trying to control media narratives and journalists are often seen as troublemakers and and rabble rousers but it has become increasingly difficult for journalists to to navigate their spaces but it's always

been difficult you know just a couple of weeks ago in minneapolis where i'm from journalists were targeted by police when they were covering or trying to cover the show been trialled horsehair show and being the officer who killed our georgian who are so it's it's a problem obviously everywhere but it's more of an acute problem in non-democratic societies put enough got inside the country with what's number of a targeted killings of journalists how do you see the situation evolving particularly that there is now growing sense of uncertainty. for the future. well with the incident here on the mic of course we are wary it worried about what's going on and i think it's very important that organizations like ours continue to do not the murders that have been know put in place by several

countries during the pandemic to knock on at least 2 of prevention at least to do their job on the field. especially the measures that have been taken during at the 1st lockdown at the beginning of 2020 the other thing is that we have to make sure also that the in countries where there were restrictions they are now or they have now disappeared and journalists can work in better ways they cannot be under a such a few or locked down for so long and it is important that. the situation which had been implemented are not. left in place for too long the other see and it is probably the most worrying thing ever right now for for us is the spread of these information that has. increased that was despondent me in the past year it is very important that all together we fight to

express to the international audience the keep what information he says and what information. brings is an issue really at the time of the week tom with the security law you spoke about is vaguely worded clauses and there are some paragraphs which talk about trials that are going to be heard behind closed doors and some cases which are going to be tried in mainland china. is this an indication that we're talking about the end of an era the beginning of a new era for journalists operating in hong kong. well hong kong was always a bastion of press freedom within asia and i think there are certainly worse places to be journalists even now and certainly safety wise but i don't know where else in the world you can point to where you have seen such a rapid sense of going from

a free and open society with all of the guarantees on which this newsroom was built it would free expression press freedom. to this author or italian atmosphere we have now where indeed figures like jimmy live the pro-democracy apple daily could be facing trial in the mainland you can have want most raids under the security law hand-picked judges court cases behind closed doors so you know the rule of law it's certainly under fire because it's just so unpredictable as to whether you're going to you know step on a landmine just doing your daily job mohamed in places like of linus tan helium and syria iraq and different parts of the middle east we're talking about the same pattern which has been going on for quite some time journalists targeted a campaign of discrimination but it's it's a it's a very dire situation for those people. well there's no question i mean you know we

talk about when we talk about the middle east or we talk specifically about the arab region i do think we have to be careful to differentiate between and among countries i try to resist the temptation to treat the arab world as a monolith are clearly it isn't there are places where there are comparatively greater levels of freedom places like tunisia coates lebannon obviously in court that we have al-jazeera so we don't want to treat those places like some of the others that you that you mention obviously the situation in syria is extremely dire the situation in yemen we can look to a country like egypt which is one of the countries that i focus on in my my own research and egypt took a step forward you know during the arab spring or in the meat immediate aftermath of price in 2011 and then it took several steps backwards pauline we were

talking about those concerns expressed by different international reports of the international press institute but that they what is quite striking this time is that it's also happening in europe with a case of toughening. yaga's kind of us it is really alarming situation. it's an alarming situation and the situation is really deteriorating in europe in the case that the greek journalists we are still waiting for the investigation to. bring some new elements because. at this stage we still do not know what has happened whether these are real linking with this profession. but yes you mentioned ethnic karen again q 2017 and quite shocking 2018 not talking about the number of thought

attacks on the italian journalist covering the mafia and the criminal networks and not the news you know is said. or not a negro where john at least are i mean shot at we are talking about countries which are. looking to enter the european union so the situation is not good right now in the european union. is frank 100 and 12th now index help that 180 countries the worst in the all region. attacks of german journalist and a number of journalists not able to report in a proper way or. just not being able to get the information and publish them in proper conditions so europe east not anymore a place where press freedom is free and there are some good countries like the old

ones but. it's there the whole of the day aeration of the press only 7 percent of the country is ever so if money does for the world are you in the white zone though and where they can do their job in good conditions tom in hong kong and different parts of the well there's this debate between the need to. preserve the here were riots and liberties values with respecting the national security issues but most of the time the ground seems to be tilting to words the national security matters which explains why the clampdown will different to have to continue you know what we see a lot of excuses around asia whether it's coded 1900 national security or so-called fake news or authoritarians to crack down on the press having initially being emboldened to do so from the trump era we now see particularly beijing actually

empowering inspiring and in some cases literally equipping you know countries small countries like cambodia to do so to censor the internet and particularly when it comes to fake news. we seeing potentially this year such a law being rolled out in hong kong according to the city's chief executive according to the leaf and the big question that raises is who defied what is fake is it news that is inconvenient to the government the authorities in hong kong should not be the arbiters of truth the media are here to hold the powerful to account and i would say we are already seeing the or far out is trying to fill that role of journalists with now chief executive kerry lamb appearing on t.v. 4 times a day every day in her own show interviewing people and doing time in one scene we saw the police you know picking up microphones and reporting on the front lines of

the protests so it is not for them to be adopting the roles of the journalists under this guise of you know combating misinformation mohamed for quite some time the biggest challenge facing journalists and fear of a suppression was basically the warlords the fanatics the dictator. intent on clamping down on dissent now we have leaders elected democratically but suddenly they have been moving forward towards a populist agenda and they have become one of the main people of the forefront of the fight and the clampdown on expression freedom of expression. you know i think here you know we would be remiss if we didn't you know talk more about donald trump i think his presidency was particularly. harmful as tom said he sort of emboldened leaders all throughout the world to take these sort of aggressive

stances against against the media right he was constantly engaging in what herman and chomsky called black right sort of disciplining members of the press except you know the difference with trump is that he was very explicit and very out who work in the way in which he was doing that there was no there was no subtlety to him you know or in the united states there's a long tradition of the government are engaging in tactics that manipulate media right you can read for instance manufacturing consent by herman and chomsky they talk about the various filters that exist there are natural structural constraints built into the system in the west and so we only end up with the news that is quote fit to print but donald trump comes along and is basically not even trying to hide

his his intentions and he took measures quite honestly that went far beyond anything that we had seen now in modern american history pauline and the european council has warned against what i describe a systematic attempt to dismantle freedom of expression in hungary and poland which seems to be impressed by the size of the one given authorities on which seem to be also a picketing across the board. absolutely and gary actually the country which put in place there for us to go was measures to prevent journalist to investigate on the sunday me and threatening journalist for we said. prison sentences for publishing fic news even though no one knew what exactly we're fit news according to the angering government. and the and gary in

prime minister viktor orban is. problem for a president because he's also followed by a number of. authoritarian leaders and in slovenia for example the new prime minister is also acting in the same way you mentioned paul and which is in a very very wearing state right now with the law and justice party in power since 2015 and all lee pretties all. freedom of expression and freedom of the press have sort of these appear to be attacks on 300 just there was one latest one. against the man it's not anyone it's the ombudsman of the country so having such attacks on press freedom and civil liberties you know be country they this has

an impact and an effect ok sequence and others tom it's not only the rest for is not only the physical threats and attacks targeting journalists now governments are using restrictive laws commercial takeovers financer regulations to silence journalists do you think it's about time to rethink international regulations and laws to put an end to impunity and to protect journalists. well certainly you're seeing you know ownership issues in hong kong and there has been efforts to sort of self regulate i suppose through the journey for association here but in addition to the security law you're getting the rise of sort of in direct bureaucratic and legal attacks on the press 2 if you look at the case of about choice of freelancer who was holding to court for using public records to investigate the police action during a a mob attack in 2019 i imagine we're going to see more you know imaginative or

innovative sort of ways for going out to journalists in hong kong at the same time as these new laws coming in to regulate so-called fake news and such but these are not things i think that any or 40 internationally or here should be seeking to regulate as i say they should not be the self-appointed arbiters of truth it can cause problems for clearly having press freedom but it should not be upon governments to be seeking to regulate it is the use of information got to a point where governments in the philippines in india in different parts of the world using the emergency laws for covert 19 are putting into place all sorts of mechanisms and punitive laws that was consider anyone who would dare work out an investigation into what went wrong and accuse him of inciting sedition.

we've seen that in india in the philippines we've also seen it in latin america we've seen it in the arab region in places like egypt and it's not just the issues that you described it's really simple matters of reporting or fact when journalists try to describe accurately the number of cases for instance in particular countries they've been they've been disciplined recently in egypt a journalist for the guardian's or a western journalist in egypt was expelled or contradicting the government narrative on the coronavirus and another journalist from the new york times was warmed by the egyptian government so this is all documented in some recent analyses including a report that was published our recently by our human rights so it's very it's very concerning when the governments are using their coronavirus and demick eyes and as

an excuse to try and exert greater and greater control palling of the same time we have this report from the united nations about what it described as a novelist of mrs ginnis stick abuse targeting women journalists well the wind was social media platform the main forum the has been used to spread those attacks targeting women well when journalists worldwide. it is true they are rights of ethics on children least on the social networks and that one of the explanation is also that the female journalist hour or so at that along with their families their children fail from their daughter is that. they we've seen a number of the keys and they are the facts against a few mention at least to our stronger but not done in the same way as for maybe

journalists that eris if it is a document team money touring in the situation because even in the base countries of our index at the nordic countries in finland. the netherlands' that all these countries at the top of the index we see a rise on these of these at that so they face journalists that are just. insulted by trolls and any means trolls busy or groups of. people using the social networks and this is extremely worrying he also describes young journalists to do the job tom from our to the top of the world chomsky and others the general sentiments was there was always going to be someone there waiting for the moment to put his pressure on the community and to silence those

who dare say no to him but you get a sense that the lines are completely blurred here we're talking about democratic societies which are colluding where leaders elected democratically to silence people. you know i well i think what you're seeing in hong kong right now is a true microcosm of what's happening on the world stage a rising increasingly assertive somewhat authoritarian china versus you know the open more democratic values on the west we talk about on kong being east meets west and it's literally playing out in the streets here and it's worth paying attention to because the sort of crackdown we're seeing here is is could could happen elsewhere but at the same time you're seeing the pushback executives from the public broadcast what h.k. have been quitting in protest and in a crackdown there we hear you know every day seeking to respond to their business

and legal advice moving to a private offices it's hard to do so no co-working space using encrypted devices and having an openness with staff about you know potential self-censorship i think everyone is is picking a hell to die on and a lot of us it is only it will seem hard news and getting the news out seems to be a grim reminder of the way we have to go for freedom of expression to live in that if you survive going to be a commitment from every one of us to continue to fight for the world to be a better place to live in fully in. time grandel have a mostly i would appreciate your insights thank you for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website dot com for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com focus last a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story from the hashim and the entire team here in the by phone.

i. the health of humanity is its stake a global pandemic requires a global response. w.h.o. is the guardian of global health delivering lifesaving to lose supplies and training to help the world's most vulnerable people uniting across borders to speed up the development of test treatments and of that seed keeping you up to date with

what's happening on the ground in the wood and in the lab now more than ever the world needs w.h.o. making healthy a world for you. to everyone. logan piece it'll be here in doha the top stories from al-jazeera india's official counts of corona virus infections since the start of the pandemic has surpassed 20000000 with more than 220000 deaths experts say the actual figures are almost certain to be much higher a surgeon infections has been blamed on government mismanagement and more contagious covert 19 variants elizabeth iran has more now from new delhi the health minister on monday the health ministry rather and they were talking about her.