An Australian journalist who was kidnapped and freed by Iraqi militants drew fierce criticism yesterday for suggesting that the executions of British and US hostages were understandable. \nJohn Martinkus was seized in Baghdad last Saturday and held for about 24 hours before being freed. The 35-year-old reporter was released after his captors looked up his name on the Internet and accepted that he was a freelance journalist rather than someone working for the US-led coalition. He sparked outrage among government officials and former hostages when he said his captors would not kill people indiscriminately. \n"These guys, they're not stupid. They are fighting a war but they're not savages. They're not actually killing people willy-nilly. There was no reason for them to kill me," Martinkus told reporters on his arrival at Sydney airport on Tuesday. \n"There was a reason to kill [British hostage Kenneth] Bigley, there was a reason to kill the [two] Americans. There was not a reason to kill me," he added. \nForeign Minister Alexander Downer expressed outrage at the comments, saying Martinkus should not "give comfort" to Iraqi insurgents by saying their actions were understandable. \n"I just could not believe he said those things, I was just appalled," Downer told Melbourne radio station 3AW yesterday. "[It's] pretty close to the most appalling thing any Australian has said about the situation in Iraq." \nSteve Pratt, a former aid wor-ker accused of spying for the West and held captive in Yugoslavia for more than five months in 1999, said Martinkus's comments were irresponsible. \n"There is no mistaking the arrogance in his remarks -- the dis-gusting disregard for the deaths of British hostage Ken Bigley and US civilians murdered by terrorists," he wrote in a letter to The Austra-lian newspaper yesterday. \n"There is no excuse for anybody hacking those poor men's heads off. But Martinkus seems to be making excuses for their executioners," he said. \nBut Phil Martin, the head of news and current affairs at SBS, said Martinkus was traumatized and had not been given the opportunity to explain his remarks.
UNCERTAINTY: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not specify measures NATO might take, but many believe that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project could be canceled The US has said it has evidence that Russia has made plans for a “large scale” attack on Ukraine and said NATO allies are “prepared to impose severe costs” on Moscow if it attempts an invasion. Speaking at a NATO ministers meeting in Latvia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that it was unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a decision to invade, but added: “He’s putting in place the capacity to do so in short order, should he so decide.” “So despite uncertainty about intention and timing, we must prepare for all contingencies while working to see to
‘TRAVEL APARTHEID’: Biden’s top medical adviser said the US was considering lifting restrictions on travel from African nations imposed after the variant was discovered The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly spreading throughout the US, but early indications suggest it might be less dangerous than the Delta variant, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations, US health officials said on Sunday. US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union that scientists need more information before drawing conclusions about Omicron’s severity. Reports from South Africa, where it emerged and is becoming the dominant strain, suggest that hospitalization rates have not increased alarmingly. “Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it,” Fauci
HOPEFUL: ‘We found a really good immune response across the board,’ even higher than with two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the study’s lead author said A major British study on mixing COVID-19 vaccines has found that people had a better immune response when they received a first dose of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines followed by the Moderna vaccine nine weeks later, the results showed on Monday. “We found a really good immune response across the board ... in fact, higher than the threshold set by two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine,” said Matthew Snape, the University of Oxford professor behind the trial dubbed Com-COV2. The findings supporting flexible dosing offer some hope to poor and middle-income countries that might need to combine different brands between the
South African hospitals are bracing for a surge in admissions as the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 drives a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections and as more evidence emerges about the severity of the illness caused by the strain. The seven-day moving average of daily new cases in the country rose to 10,055 last week, from fewer than 300 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations also picked up, but remain relatively low, with admissions standing at 3,268 on Sunday. Whether there would be a deluge of new patients is the biggest question. Severe symptoms in patients who contracted earlier variants typically developed between one and three
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