The boss of Twitter and Square has said that both firms will honour Juneteenth as a company holiday in America.
Jack Dorsey also said Twitter was working to identify which days it made most sense to recognise the end of slavery in other countries.
Juneteenth is observed by many African-Americans on 19 June every year to mark the emancipation from slavery in the US.
It comes as companies respond to Black Lives Matter protests around the world.
The roots of Juneteenth, which is also known as Freedom Day and Jubilee Day, date back to 1865, when Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived in Texas to spread news that the American Civil War had ended and slavery along with it.
More than two years earlier President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation to abolish slavery, but the practice continued in parts of the country after the end of the war.
The day is traditionally celebrated by local events which often include readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, traditional songs and the reading of works by noted African-American writers.
Mr Dorsey made the announcement in a series of tweets, saying it would be a “day for celebration, education, and connection”.
Last week Mr Dorsey tweeted that he was making a $3m (£2.4m) donation to former NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp to “advance the liberation and well-being” of minority communities.
Mr Kaepernick is best known for kneeling during the US national anthem when he was a player for the San Francisco 49ers to protest against police killings of African-Americans.
His protests were heavily criticised by conservative figures including US President Donald Trump.
The announcement comes as other major US companies have voiced their support for the Black Lives Matter protests for racial justice after the death in police custody of African-American man George Floyd.
Also last week, tobacco giant Altria said it would celebrate Juneteenth as a corporate holiday to give employees time for “personal reflection and healing” and said that it would donate $5m to organisations that address racial inequality.
Some technology firms – including Google owner Alphabet, Uber and Intel – have also pledged millions of dollars in donations to organisations working on racial justice.
Several large Silicon Valley companies have faced criticism in recent years for the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in both their staff and leadership.
Meanwhile, Japan’s SoftBank has launched a $100m fund that will invest in companies led by “people of colour”.
In a series of public service announcements (PSAs) in March 2020, Malaysia’s Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development (KPWKM) provided ‘tips’ on how women can avert domestic conflict during Malaysia’s COVID-19 lockdown: “If your husband does something that conflicts with what you would like him to do, avoid nagging him. Instead, use a humorous approach: say for example, ‘this is the way to hang the clothes, my darling’, (impersonate Doraemon’s voice and giggle playfully and affectionately).â€
It is likely that the female empowerment agenda may critically regress under Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s new administration, and the push for reforms of gender equality may not be as robust as it was under the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, ousted from government by Perikatan Nasional (PN) earlier this year. However, Malaysia’s civil society, the Opposition, and the urban professional class are alert and have vocally pushed back on any signs of official chauvinism under the current administration.
Political Representation and Agendas
PH had nine women in the Cabinet: five ministers and four deputy ministers. While this figure remains the same under the PN administration, the ratio of women to men in the Cabinet has reduced from 18 per cent to 13 per cent given that Muhyiddin’s Cabinet is larger. KPWKM that was previously helmed by then Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah and her deputy, Hannah Yeoh, is now led by Rina Harun, from Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), and her deputy minister, Siti Zailah, from PAS.
Both Rina and Siti have come under fire since taking office. The former received flak after a tweet from her Ministry that announced the Talian Kasih hotline would be suspended for two weeks from 18 – 31 March, due to the movement control order (MCO) in Malaysia. Talian Kasih, a hotline for complaints on domestic abuse and child protection, was set up by the previous government.
After pressure from Wan Azizah, Hannah Yeoh, several women’s rights groups, and female politicians  including Azalina Othman, an UMNO Member of Parliament (MP) and former minister, the tweet was deleted and Rina declared the reinstatement of the hotline services.
However, Siti continues to prioritise her agenda of pushing for policies that would ensure the uniforms of Muslim flight attendants and athletes are Syariah-compliant. A cursory glance over the chronicle of her political history does not inspire confidence in progressive Malaysians. In 2013, Siti suggested a female dress code to prevent indecent dressing in public, contending that it would curb growing rates of sex crimes and sexual harassment. The following year, when Malaysians were still grieving on the MH17 tragedy, Siti stirred uproar stating that the government should ban serving alcohol in flights and pay attention to the dress code of female air stewardesses so that no one dies in sin, as “Allah’s wrath†is inevitable. In 2017, Siti endorsed child marriage as “the guidance of Allah†and described it as a “blessingâ€.
Siti’s positions are consistent with PAS’ ideology. In 2018, PAS’ state agencies in Kelantan arrived at a consensus that underage marriages are in keeping with Islamic laws and are a “necessity†in the state. They also rejected two United Nations conventions on women and children, stating that they were not apt for Muslims in Kelantan.
The change in government has left PH’s proposed reforms for women up in the air. Their ministry had introduced a national strategic plan in January 2020 to address child marriages and was looking at the amendment of the Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) Act 1984 to raise the minimum age of marriage for Muslims to 18. They had also sought to table a Sexual Harassment Act and anti-stalking laws in the Parliament’s seating scheduled for March 2020, and were planning to enact an anti-gender discrimination law and a Gender Equality Act.
UMNO MP Azalina Othman has criticised Siti’s comments and urged her to not enable sexual predators to use marriage and justify exploitation through religion to negate or manipulate laws that protect children, especially the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017. This Act was passed by the Parliament when Azalina held the position of the then de facto law minister.
The women’s wing of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), another component party of the PN government,  has also raised its voice to check PAS’ Islamist agenda, supporting the protection of the rights and welfare of children and the outlawing child marriage. Heng Seai Kie, the chairperson of MCA’s women’s wing has consistently maintained an abrasive relationship with PAS, claiming that the implementation of hudud is unconstitutional. However, as MCA holds only one seat in Muhyiddin’s Cabinet, it’s political capital may not be sufficiently strong to push for policy reform. Arguably, PAS’ conservative influence may be somewhat mitigated by UMNO members of the coalition. While in government, UMNO sought to promote the socioeconomic position of women, including supporting their participation in tertiary education and the workforce. But UMNO is also under-represented in the Bersatu-dominated Cabinet and most of the male ministers may not share Azalina’s views or are altogether apathetic on women’s issues.
Setbacks for Female Empowerment?
Muhyiddin has reassured the nation that even though Siti has her personal views on specific issues, the government’s stance takes precedence. He also said that Rina will need some time to study her new portfolio, and that both of them should be given a chance.
As Muhyiddin is striving to win the confidence of Malaysian women, it is unlikely that PN would implement policies that would further undermine women’s current position in society. However, the apparent blind spots of ministers charged with protecting and advancing women’s interests remain a serious cause for concern. Furthermore, issues that may touch on religion, such as child marriage, will be challenging to address regardless of which coalition is in power.
Despite female politicians’ ambivalence about gender quotas, they remain an essential tool in making politics more representative.
When Senior Minister Fadillah Yusof stipulated that only the “head of the family†was allowed to step out of the house during the MCO to purchase daily essentials or medicines, women reported on social media that they had, in fact, been stopped by the police and questioned if they were head of the household. These incidents underscore that chauvinist attitudes or a certain inattention to the need to promote gender equality among segments of the government and society remain, alongside a wary public that will repudiate such proclivities.
Malaysia has scored poorly on female political empowerment and economic participation, and ranked 104 out of 153 countries in the 2020 World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index. Indeed, entrenched sexism in ministries and bureaucratic agencies is only the tip of the iceberg. There are darker dimensions to the perpetuation of patriarchal power in families: since the MCO, reports indicate that Talian Kasih has received around 1893 calls from distressed women, a 57 per cent increase from the usual number. This behoves the government and society at large to be vigilant.
Rapper Wretch 32 has shared a video of his 62-year-old father being tasered by police at his home in north London.
The footage shows Millard Scott tumbling downstairs after an officer is heard to warn: “Police officer with a Taser. Stay where you are.”
As officers ask if he is OK and tell him to keep still, a distressed woman can be heard saying: “They’ve tasered him.”
Speaking to ITV News, Mr Scott said he believed he would not have been Tasered if he were white.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” he said.
“The only people who have invaded our space are the Metropolitan Police. The only people who seem to ignore the guidelines put out there are the Metropolitan Police.
“It seems at this moment in time we are being singled out and targeted.”
His 35-year-old son, rapper Wretch 32, whose real name is Jermaine Scott, told the broadcaster there has been “no progression” since he grew up watching his father and uncle “fight against police brutality”.
He shared the 36-second clip on his Twitter account and wrote: “This is how the police think they can treat a 62 year old black man in Tottenham but this 1 happens to be my dad.”
At the start of the clip officers can be seen entering the front door of the house as a woman tells them: “I’m not resisting, don’t touch me, social distancing, please don’t touch me.”
The Met said officers went to the property as part of “a long-running operation to tackle drugs supply linked to serious violence”.
A statement said: “As officers entered the premises, a man came downstairs and started moving towards an officer suddenly.
“He was ordered to remain where he was but continued towards officers who, after several warnings, deployed a Taser.
“The man was not arrested, but was assessed by the London Ambulance Service at the scene. He did not require further medical treatment.
“The incident, including body worn footage, has been reviewed by the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards and no indication of misconduct has been identified.”
Police said a 22-year-old man found in the house was arrested and charged with encouraging another to commit an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007, while a 52-year-old woman was charged with obstructing police after being interviewed under caution at a later date.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called for an investigation by the police watchdog.
“I have asked the Metropolitan Police for an urgent explanation of this distressing incident which is understandably causing considerable concern,” he said.
Dover Post photographer Andre Lamar was arrested on Facebook Live while covering protests in Delaware.
USA TODAY
DOVER, Del. — A staff photographer/reporter for the USA TODAY Network was arrested by Delaware State Police on Tuesday night while covering a protest near the state’s capital.
Andre Lamar, who has covered several demonstrations for The Dover Post since the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a now-fired Minneapolis police officer held his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, was filming a Facebook Live of police officers detaining several protesters.
The protesters are seen on the ground with their hands behinds their backs, their signs nearby. Lamar can be heard on the video saying, “The police have arrested protesters. We don’t know why they arrested them. They slammed them to the ground.”
He is heard asking officers repeatedly why they were being arrested. Then he filmed his own arrest.
His camera is turned upside down and Lamar can be heard screaming, “I’m with the press!” multiple times as police placed him on the ground. He is later heard saying that he can’t breathe.
The video is a little more than two minutes long and ends with officers confiscating his press badge and a camera bag. Lamar was released from police custody later in the night, USA TODAY confirmed.
Delaware Gov. John Carney immediately denounced Lamar’s arrest.
“Reporters have a fundamental right to cover the demonstrations we’re seeing in Delaware and across our country,†Carney said in a statement to USA TODAY. “They should not be arrested for doing their jobs. That’s not acceptable.â€
Delaware State Police said a statement regarding Lamar’s arrest would be coming “in the near future.”Â
The incident is the latest in a string of police arrests of journalists covering protests — including multiple USA TODAY Network reporters. In some cases, the arrests have turned violent.Â
USA TODAY Network President and USA TODAY Publisher Maribel Wadsworth called the arrests of journalists covering protests “unacceptable.”
“We have seen, incident after incident, over the last many days of reporters, photographers, other journalists on the front lines of this coverage being arrested, yes, but worse, being pepper sprayed, hit with rubber bullets,” Wadsworth told USA TODAY. “These attacks on journalists absolutely are unacceptable and absolutely must be stopped.”
She added, “When law enforcement are trying to keep journalists from reporting on the news as it’s happening, they’re going against our very constitution. The journalists are there to document the story. The journalists are there to shine a light on what’s going on. We absolutely will defend every one of our journalists with the full weight of our company to ensure the freedom of the press in this country.”Â
Dover Post News Editor Ben Mace said he watched the livestream and was disturbed.
“It’s shocking,†Mace said. “I can’t believe that after he identified himself as the press that it still happened. It didn’t look like to me that he was interfering with anything.â€
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Beijing has dismissed as “ridiculous” a Harvard Medical School study of hospital traffic and search engine data that suggested the new coronavirus may already have been spreading in China last August, and scientists said it offered no convincing evidence of when the outbreak began.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, asked about the research at a news briefing on Tuesday, said: “I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume.”
More:
The research, which has not been peer-reviewed by other scientists, used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan – where the disease was first identified in late 2019 – and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as “cough” and “diarrhoea”.
The study’s authors said increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the coronavirus pandemic in December 2019.
“While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market (in Wuhan),” they said.
Paul Digard, an expert in virology at the University of Edinburgh, said that using search engine data and satellite imagery of hospital traffic to detect disease outbreaks was “an interesting idea with some validity”.
But he said the data were only correlative and, as the Harvard scientists noted, not able to identify cause.
“It’s an interesting piece of work, but I’m not sure it takes us much further forward,” said Keith Neal, a professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the UK’s Nottingham University.
Increased hospital traffic in Wuhan
The Harvard research, which was posted online as a so-called “preprint”, showed a steep increase in hospital car park occupancy in August 2019.
“In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhoea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data,” it said.
Neal said the study included traffic around at least one children’s hospital and that while children do get ill with flu, they do not tend to get sick with COVID-19.
Digard cautioned that by focusing only on hospitals in Wuhan, already known to be the epicentre of the outbreak, “the study forces the correlation.”
“It would have been interesting, and possibly much more convincing, to have seen control analyses of other Chinese cities outside of the Hubei region,” he said.
Dr Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the research method was not validated and was “very indirect and imprecise.”
Topol, who was not involved with the research, said he doubts the outbreak began in August, based on the evidence he has seen so far.
He and others pointed to genetic evidence suggesting the virus made the leap from animal host to humans sometime in the later months of 2019.
“I don’t know about the August start,” said Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who was not involved in the study.
Daily life in Wuhan after the lockdown was lifted in early April [File: Roman Pilipey/EPA]
“It’s clear this had been spreading for some time before it was recognised and reported to the World Health Organization in December.”
Meanwhile, with much of China reopened under safety measures, the National Health Commission on Wednesday reported three new confirmed cases of coronavirus, all brought from outside the country.
No new deaths were reported Wednesday, and just 55 people remain in treatment for the virus, while another 157 were being monitored in isolation for showing signs of having the virus or having tested positive for it without showing symptoms.
China has officially reported a total of 4,634 deaths among 83,046 cases of infections since the virus was first detected in Wuhan.
Four members of the US military were injured Monday when a transport plane overran the runway at Camp Taji air base in Iraq.
The US-led military coalition said an Air Force C-130 Hercules struck a wall, damaging the aircraft and causing a fire onboard that was then put out by a response team.
The four injured military personnel were treated at Camp Taji’s medical facility, according to the coalition. A US military source with knowledge of the matter told Al-Monitor that the prognosis for the injured was “looking good.â€
Three of the injured were released, an Associated Press report said. It said the plane had 26 passengers and a crew of seven Wyoming Air National Guard members, one of whom was among the injured.Â
The US-led military coalition against the Islamic State said in a statement Monday night that it did not suspect the accident was related to “enemy activity.â€
US military personnel in Iraq consolidated earlier this year at larger garrisons Taji, Ain al-Asad and Erbil air base — a move hastened by the global coronavirus pandemic and repeated rocket attacks by local militias on US positions.
The global count of confirmed coronavirus cases now stands at 7.2 million, with 409,242 deaths and 3.6 million recoveries. Since May 27, upwards of 100,000 cases have been reported worldwide every single day.
In India, there now are more than 266,000 cases of Covid-19 infections, of which 129,813 are still active. There have been 7,471 deaths in the country so far. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi are continuing to add high numbers every day.
Here are some statistics on the spread of the virus:
#1. Asia adding new Covid-19 cases at faster pace than other regions
After Europe and North America, now Asia has become the fastest-growing region in terms of confirmed cases of coronavirus. It surpassed South America’s daily growth on June 9. March and early April had been bad for Europe, while North America had suffered in April and most parts of May. Since mid-May, South America and Asia have surpassed all other regions in terms of daily growth.
#2. Brazil is adding 100,000 new cases every four days
Brazil, the second-worst-affected country in the world, is adding 100,000 cases every four days. It now has over 700,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, roughly 10 per cent of all cases in the world. There have been 37,312 deaths in the country, while 325,602, or roughly 43 per cent of all cases in the country, have now recovered.
#3. A sudden surge in daily new cases in Manipur
The northeastern state of Manipur on June 9 reported its highest ever single-day spike of 100 new cases. In the past two weeks, the number of daily new cases in the state had been sub-30. Manipur had under 10 cases until May 20. Now it has 282 confirmed cases, of which 218 are still active. There have been no deaths in the state so far.
Due to the difference in reporting times between states, territories and the federal government, it can be difficult to get a current picture of how many confirmed cases of coronavirus there are in Australia.
Here, we’ve brought together all the figures in one place, along with comparisons with other countries.
Guardian Australia has gone through every state and territory press release to construct and maintain an up-to-date database of coronavirus cases, as well as maintaining live data feeds from other groups collating data, such as Johns Hopkins University.
This is necessary to get a broader picture of how Covid-19 is affecting Australians and to track the impact of government measures.
National view
This chart shows the “epidemic curve†for Australia with a timeline of measures introduced by the federal government. It aims to track our progress in “flattening the curveâ€, and the measures we have introduced to do so.
The following chart shows the percent growth in cases, with a trend line based on a five-day average. Generally, we want both lines to be heading downwards towards zero:
Here is the daily count of confirmed cases – the epidemic curve – for each state and territory. The most recent day will usually be an incomplete total:
This table has the number of deaths for each state and territory, as well as the number of patients requiring hospital treatment. It also includes the number of patients currently in intensive care, or requiring ventilators.
This chart shows the daily new case count by the source of infection to compare overseas v local cases. It’s important to also note that a large number of cases are under investigation at any point in time, and so these figures can change retrospectively with further updates.
Only four states are currently reporting cases by location – NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
Here’s the geographic distribution of cases within New South Wales. The map shows the outbreak is concentrated in metropolitan Sydney, in areas with dense populations and large numbers of overseas travellers.
You can see an earlier rough comparison of these rates with other countries here.
International comparisons
This chart uses a log scale and re-indexes the time to the first day since cases were above 50 to make the trajectory of the pandemic in selected countries directly comparable:
Added chart showing source of infection for new daily cases
About the data
This database is available for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (CC BY 3.0 AU) licence, which means it is OK to re-use, but please provide attribution and a link to Guardian Australia. The data is available in Google sheets here or as a JSON feed here.
We assign cases to the date on which they were reported by the given health department, and deaths are assigned to the date they occurred. Extended data on testing and demographics varies between each state and territory so may not always be available. Please contact nick.evershed@theguardian.com if you spot an error in the data or to make a suggestion.
Due to the nature of collating data daily under time pressure and differences in how data is collected, we recommend cross-checking with other data sources where possible. It is quite likely these figures will vary from other figures due to differences in data collection methods.
Here are a few other websites doing similar work:
Due to the unprecedented and ongoing nature of the coronavirus outbreak, this article is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects the current situation at the date of publication. Any significant corrections made to this or previous versions of the article will continue to be footnoted in line with Guardian editorial policy.
STOCKHOLM — Sweden may finally get an answer to the question that has nagged its psyche for more than 30 years: What happened the night of February 28, 1986?
Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme had been walking home from the movies with his wife Lisbeth in Stockholm when an attacker shot them from behind, killing Palme.
The attacker fled the scene and, despite years of intense investigations, was never identified. Every lead turned cold. It was as though he had vanished into thin air.
The murder was a defining moment in Swedish politics — and one most people were forced to accept would always remain a mystery.
That may soon change: Nearly three and a half decades after Palme was killed, the prosecutor leading the case made an announcement that caught the country by surprise.
Olof Palme served as leader of the Social Democrats from 1969 until his murder.
“I feel positive that we are going to be able to present what happened around the murder and who was responsible for the murder,†Krister Petersson said in an interview with Swedish public service television in mid-February.
“My goal is that, by the end of the first of half of 2020, we either charge someone, or we close the investigation,†he said.
The interview unleashed fevered speculation and debate among criminologists and investigative journalists. On Wednesday, officials are set to announce the outcome of the 34-year investigation.
Could this really be the beginning of the end of the biggest investigation in Swedish criminal history?
 * * *
As a lawmaker, Palme had been a polarizing figure: His push to expand the welfare state and empower labor unions divided public opinion at home, while his sharp criticism of U.S. foreign policy, especially during the Vietnam War, proved divisive abroad.
The year he was killed, the economy was struggling and the government was under intense pressure to turn things around. He was one year into a second term as prime minister, after winning elections in 1982 and 1985.
His killing — and the authorities’ failure to identify the killer — became an enduring source of national pain. At an event to mark the 30th anniversary of Palme’s assassination in 2016, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven called the case an “open wound.â€
According to testimony by Lisbeth Palme, who survived the attack and died in 2018, the night of her husband’s murder began in unremarkable fashion.
It was a Friday, and the couple had decided on a whim to meet their son MÃ¥rten for a movie at the Grand Cinema in central Stockholm. They had given their security detail the night off.
After the movie, they parted ways and Lisbeth and Palme set off south along Sveavägen street to walk back to their apartment in Stockholm’s Old Town quarter.
Olof Palme had been a polarizing figure: His push to expand the welfare state and empower labor unions divided the Swedish public opinion | AFP via Getty Images
A couple of minutes into the walk, they crossed the street to look in a shop window. Witnesses describe how a man approached the couple from behind and shot them both, before running east along Tunnelgatan, up some steps and out of sight.
A witness, Anders Björkman, described the shooter to the police as “wearing a dark or dark-blue knitted hat which had been rolled up a couple of times and a dark coat-like garment which went down to his knees.â€
But after a flurry of activity in the early days, the investigation soon slowed, sparking fierce criticism of the police’s approach.
Anger was temporarily assuaged when a local man, who witnesses claimed was in the area at the time of the murder, was convicted of the crime after Palme’s wife picked him out of a police line-up.
However, her testimony was later challenged in court and the man was acquitted on appeal.
Other lines of inquiry also emerged. One persistent theory has been that South African security services killed Palme because of his vocal criticism of the apartheid regime.
Another is that a second local man, who came forward as an eyewitness to the crime in 1986, in fact carried out the murder because he objected to Palme’s politics. He denied involvement and died in 2000.
 * * *
The prosecutor’s interview, promising a big reveal, has raised more questions than it answered.
It’s unclear why he chose to pre-empt his own final conclusions, for example, or why he raised two options — bringing charges or closing the case — if he is confident that he knows who is responsible for the killing.
Experts have pointed out that there are a number of scenarios under which Petersson could both identify the murderer and still close the case, including if the murderer is dead. He declined a request to be interviewed for this piece.
The lead police officer on the case, Hans Melander, told POLITICO that interviews on the case are ongoing, but declined to give further details about lines of inquiry being pursued.
For Sweden, a resolution to the 30-plus year saga could help soothe a national sense of trauma | EPA/STR SWEDEN OUT
But he, too, said he believes the case is close to being resolved.
“It is satisfying to be able to see some kind of ending to this investigation, it has been going on for a long time,†he said, adding he is more certain of a resolution than at any time during his 15 years working the case.
Experts who have followed the investigations also appear cautiously optimistic.
“I am of course very curious,†Leif GW Persson, a former professor of criminology for the National Police Board, told the Swedish newspaper Mitt i Stockholm. “Prosecutor Petersson is no fool,†he said.
Persson, a former police officer, speculated that investigators may have found the murder weapon, which has been missing since 1986.
 * * *
News of a potential breakthrough is “gratifying and sparks hope,†Palme’s son Mårten, now 58 and a professor of economics at Stockholm University, told Swedish daily Expressen.
For Sweden, too, a resolution to the 30-plus-year saga could help soothe a national sense of trauma.
Every year on February 28, people commemorate Palme’s death by laying roses on the street corner where he was shot.
Sara Ã…sberg, a 36-year-old lawyer, was one of the many passersby who stopped at the spot a few weeks ago to look at the flowers.
“From what I have heard, the prosecutor thinks he is onto something with the case, and I really hope that he is,†she said. “Swedes need closure.â€
This article has been updated to note Wednesday’s announcement.
Nathalie Tocci is director of Istituto Affari Internazionali, a special adviser to European High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, and the author of POLITICO’s World View column. Her opinions are her own.
ROME — Before the coronavirus crisis, the defining words of the EU’s agenda of intent were “sovereignty†and “autonomy.†Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged her term would represent a tilt toward the “geopolitical†— by which she meant that Europe would need to learn to stand up for itself in the world.
Today, Europe finds itself forced to reconsider its agenda as it grapples with the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic. As it does so, it must remember that von der Leyen’s original impulse remains more important than ever.
Gone are the days when the EU could conduct its internal and international policies insulated from geopolitical encroachments. Today, Europe finds itself squeezed between acrimonious rivals: the United States and China.
In this unstable global environment, the EU is increasingly unable to depend on its most powerful ally even as the multilateral order it has championed threatens to unravel. Sovereignty and autonomy are no longer luxuries. They are necessities.
The threat to democracy in the U.S. comes from an administration that sees large swathes of society as enemy combatants rather than fellow citizens.
The U.S.-China rivalry isn’t new. It has surfaced in disputes over trade and technology: a tariff war and the tussle over 5G. It has corroded multilateralism, beginning with the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.
But the pandemic has aggravated the confrontation. And with both Beijing and Washington looking to deflect from domestic troubles, including their handling of the virus, the enmity threatens to turn chronic.
The turmoil caused by the killing of George Floyd and the desire for democracy in Hong Kong might seem to be taking place far from European shores. But they have very real implications for the Continent.
The U.S. is a liberal democracy, of course, but it is one that has long been plagued by racism, inequality and injustice. These traits, engrained in the country’s social fabric, have been unearthed by a president cynically set on securing his grip on power.
American protesters are not attacking public institutions or upending the constitutional order. The threat to democracy in the U.S. comes from an administration that sees large swaths of society as enemy combatants rather than as fellow citizens.
After Floyd’s harrowing death, Donald Trump — far from addressing police bigotry, economic inequality and racial hatred — laid bare his disdain for civil rights. He aired the deployment of military forces on the country’s streets while disregarding both the right to peacefully assemble and the institutional racism that ignited social rage.
With well over than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, tens of millions unemployed and not a single foreign policy success, fanning the flames of social divisions is the only card Trump can play. His are the desperate actions of a president on a reelection campaign with precious little to show.
On the other side of the world, Chinese President Xi Jinping is faring little better. Unrest in Hong Kong has been sizzling for some time. Last year, protesters had secured a partial victory with the suspension of an extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kong’s citizens to be tried on the mainland. The issue was anything but solved however, with unrest persisting into 2020.
Then came the coronavirus. As the first country to be hit by the pandemic, China made critical missteps, both domestically and abroad, that will not be forgotten no matter how many millions of protective masks it distributes overseas. Its troubles are likely to be heightened by a worldwide recession that undercuts the benefits of globalization that have served Beijing so well.
The inner workings of the Communist Party are difficult to gauge, but President Xi must be well-aware that unless he continues to deliver prosperity for the middle classes, pressure from the Party would grow. He may be China’s undisputed leader, having secured the abolishment of the two-term constitutional rule on his presidency in 2018, but ultimately power lies in the Party’s hands. Were it to turn against him, his days in office would be numbered — and Xi must know that China’s troubles could add up to a lethal cocktail for a president who is not seen to have done his job well.
China’s increased aggression toward Hong Kong and Taiwan can be read in this light. The national security bill tabled by Beijing goes much further than the extradition bill. It would effectively hollow out Hong Kong’s autonomy altogether, allowing mainland Chinese security forces to be deployed in the territory.
Pro-democracy protesters march in Hong Kong on June 9, 2020 | Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images
The move no doubt resonates among those in Beijing keen to demonstrate to the West that China is no pushover. Likewise, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s omission of the adjective “peaceful†in the standard reference to China’s reconciliation with Taiwan, coming alongside the escalating breaches of Taiwan’s airspace, all point in the same ominous direction: the search for external enemies to alleviate domestic pressure.
Washington and Beijing are each trying to exploit their opponent’s fragilities. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has threatened sanctions on China in response to its moves on Hong Kong, while officials in Beijing have reveled in deriding U.S. civil unrest.
So where does Europe stand in all of this? When it comes to Hong Kong, the EU response so far has been characteristically hesitant.
It’s never easy for Europeans to unite behind an assertive stance toward Beijing. China’s economic leverage, notably on member countries like Hungary and Greece, has diluted the EU’s rhetorical punch. Even when the issue falls squarely in the remit of international law, such as the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s 2016 ruling on the South China Sea, the EU has struggled to speak out.
Europeans find themselves exposed — asymmetrically dependent on the U.S. even as they recoil from events there.
And so it’s all the more hard for the bloc when the issue falls under the far “fuzzier†legal realm of self-determination. Indeed, with the exception of High Representative Josep Borrell’s statement of “grave concern,†there has only been deafening silence from Europe.
Sanctions against China are clearly off the EU table, while plans to hold an EU-China summit in Leipzig, Germany, if possible later this year, remain very much on.
When it comes to events in the U.S., the EU’s conundrum runs much deeper. This is not because the U.S.’s violations are graver than China’s; far from it. But it’s precisely because these violations are taking place in the world’s greatest democracy, and not in an authoritarian country, that they are far more unsettling for Europeans.
Amid all this turmoil, Europeans find themselves exposed — asymmetrically dependent on the U.S. even as they recoil from events there.
As difficult as it may be, it’s only by uniting that Europe will be able to stand up to figures like Trump and Xi (and Putin, of course). This will require spending more together on defense, not because the U.S. president bullies us into doing so, but because we care about European security and the transatlantic partnership.
This will entail investing in European economic and digital autonomy, even if it means paying the short-term price of transatlantic friction or Chinese retribution.
It may not be easy. But just as Europe must work together to ensure its internal socioeconomic recovery, it must also learn to stand united during a time of escalating global confrontation.
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