Coronavirus variants have been renamed with letters of the Greek alphabet following criticism of the way they have been labelled up until now.
Under a new system revealed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Kent variant will now be known as Alpha, the Indian variant as Delta, and the South African variant as Beta.
Their scientific names - B.1.1.7, B.1.617.2 and B.1.351 - had been considered too complicated to remember, but there were also concerns about referring to them by the locations where they were discovered.
#COVID19 does not care who we are, where we live, or what we believe.
Yet the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) May 8, 2020
Critics have warned this can stigmatise countries where variants are first found and some have warned the rise in coverage of the so-called Indian variant as it becomes more widespread could fuel racism against Indian people.
Human Rights Watch said that "political parties and groups... have latched onto the COVID-19 crisis to advance anti-immigrant, white supremacist, ultra-nationalist, antisemitic, and xenophobic conspiracy theories that demonize refugees, foreigners, prominent individuals, and political leaders".
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Last year, the fact the pandemic originated from China led to an increase in hate crimes against Asian people, and former US president Donald Trump was condemned for regularly referring to coronavirus as the "China virus", among other such labels.
The UK's East and Southeast Asian communities saw a 300% increase in hate crimes during the pandemic, according to advocacy group End the Virus of Racism.
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Rise in hate crime against Chinese people
As a result, the WHO has sought to rename the new variants using a different system.
These are the new names for each of the variants:
• Kent / B.1.1.7 - Alpha • South Africa / B.1.351 - Beta • Brazil / P.1 - Gamma • India / B.1.617.2 - Delta • US / B.1.427 / B.1.429 - Epsilon • Brazil / P.2 - Zeta • B.1.525 - Eta • Philippines / P.3 - Theta • US / B.1.526 - Iota • India / B.1.617.1 - Kappa
The choice of the Greek Alphabet followed months of deliberations, with ideas such as Greek gods and pseudo-classical names floated by experts.
However, many were already the names of brands, companies or aliens.
Border force has imposed tough restrictions on Belarusian citizens and foreign nationals with a residential permit in Belarus. Those with a temporary residence card in another country are not allowed to leave.
A temporary residence permit in a foreign state is not a basis for leaving Belarus, the State Border Committee said.
It added departure from the country through ground checkpoints is limited for both Belarusian citizens and foreigners with a residence permit in Belarus.
Belarus sparked widespread condemnation from the international community last week, after officials re-routed a Ryanair plane to Minsk and arrested a dissident journalist and his partner.
Officials in Belarus scrambled a MiG-29 fighter plane to escort the aircraft to Minsk airport then apprehended Roman Protasevich - a blogger and critic of President Alexander Lukashenko - and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
The flight had been en route to Lithuania from Greece on May 23.
Ryanair said the crew had been "notified by Belarus of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk".
The European Union has urged its airlines to avoid Belarus amid the outrage over the forced landing of the passenger plane.
The bloc is considering imposing sanctions on Minsk.
Belarus has been isolated by large parts of mainland Europe, but has Russia in its corner.
Moscow will defend Belarus and provide help if Brussels enforces economic sanctions on Minsk, a Russian foreign ministry official.
Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, has been holding cosy talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the weekend.
He added the Kremlin would take note of the fact Ms Sapega also has a Belarusian residency permit.
Russia will also press ahead with a second £352million ($500million) loan to Belarus next month.
Moscow promised Minsk a £1.1billion ($1.5billion) loan in 2020 as part of efforts to stabilise its neighbour.
Minsk received a first instalment of £352million ($500million) in October.
China will allow couples to have three children, loosening its historic family planning policies in the face of a looming demographic crisis just weeks after reporting that its population grew at the slowest rate in decades.
The Chinese Communist party’s politburo, which comprises its 25 most senior officials, concluded that the new “three-child policy” was intended to “actively address the ageing population, and maintain China’s natural advantage in human resources”, according to Xinhua, the state media agency.
Experts, the public and China’s central bank have called for the government to abolish birth limits entirely after the census published this month showed the population grew 5.4 per cent from 1.34bn in 2010 to 1.41bn in 2020 — the lowest rate of increase between censuses since the People’s Republic of China began collecting data in 1953.
But Beijing has been unwilling to break with the decades-old population control apparatus used to enforce a widely unpopular one-child policy, often employing brutal means, including forced abortions and sterilisations. Abolishing population controls would mean having to repurpose a huge part of its civil service, as well as suggest an embarrassing about-turn.
Demographers have said rising incomes, urbanisation and the increased costs of raising children had led to a long-term decline in fertility rates that would be extremely difficult to reverse. In the past five years, China’s official fertility rate has fallen sharply to 1.3 births per woman, one of the world’s lowest.
The one-child policy was introduced from 1979-80 as the population approached 1bn. The cap was lifted to two children in 2015 but the change had little impact on the birth rate.
As a result of the one-child policy, many Chinese children are in a so-called 4-2-1 family structure, meaning they will have to support four grandparents and two parents on one income. The UN projected that China’s old-age dependency ratio would double to more than 40 per cent by 2040, putting severe pressure on the pension system.
A rapidly ageing population will also shrink the labour pool, putting pressure on economic growth.
Experts said the decision to raise the cap to allow three children would not reverse the overall trend.
“The policy might be able to slightly slow, but cannot stop, the huge decline in births. It could bring a few tens of thousands of new births, while in recent years there has been a drop of 60-70,000 per year,” said Huang Wenzheng, a demographer at the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think-tank.
Huang added that existing policies carried sufficient exemptions that nearly anyone who was not a government employee could already have three children — they simply did not wish to.
The government previously said it would provide more “appropriate support” for parents to help convince couples to have more children. Peng Xizhe, professor of demography at Fudan University in Shanghai, said this would probably mean help with early-age care and paternity leave.
“Opening up to three children on the one hand keeps in place the concept of population controls, while also letting people who want to have children realise that wish,” he said.
The announcement of the three-child policy was met with a swift backlash on social media, despite widespread censorship of government criticism, reflecting concerns that the measures would not address the underlying reasons why Chinese were not having more children.
“I recommend you first resolve the fundamental problems of child support plus . . . the unfair treatment of women in the workplace, before asking them to have children!” read the most-liked response under the Xinhua announcement on Weibo, the microblogging platform.
“So many of us were the only child in our generation. Back then [the government] fined us. Now they want us to raise four ageing parents plus three children . . . only in your dreams,” read another reply.
Additional reporting by Nian Liu and Xinning Liu in Beijing
Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping would be toppled and Beijing would be liable for unprecedented reparations around the world if the Wuhan lab leak theory is proven true, according to a leading WHO advisor. Jamie Metzl told LBC's Maajid Nawaz that if the Wuhan lab leak theory on the origin of Covid is proved true, it would be a "massive geopolitical blow" for China. On Sunday, it was revealed that British intelligence services are now considering the theory that COVID-19 originated in and was leaked from a lab in Wuhan as "feasible".
Mr Metzl said: "In China, if it was absolutely proven, I think there is a real chance Xi Jinping could be overthrown.
"There would be claims for reparations around the world against China.
"It would be a massive geopolitical blow to China.
"Just think of the anger of everyone around the world who has lost a spouse, a child, parents, would feel. Not just at the original mistake but the criminal cover-up afterwards."
Mr Nawaz told LBC listeners that the "consequences are incredibly serious" for the Chinese regime if the theory is proved.
He said "the entire planet for the first time in history has been locked down because of this thing" and the Chinese Communist Party would have to "foot the bill" for that.
The radio broadcaster said China will face the full force of the international community.
The move from British intelligence services to step up research into the lab leak claims has sparked a sharpening of tension with Beijing.
China's foreign ministry accused the US of "political manipulation and blame shifting".
Meanwhile, MPs in the UK are demanding a fresh investigation, with the Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat telling the Sunday Times: “The silence coming from Wuhan is troubling.
"We need to open the crypt and see what happened to be able to protect ourselves in the future.
"That means starting an investigation, along with partners around the world and in the WHO.”
Former defence chief and Netanyahu ally officially parts ways with Israeli PM, announces bid to become prime minister.
Naftali Bennett has moved a step closer to replacing Israel’s veteran prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bennett is a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur who made a name in politics with right-wing, religious-nationalist rhetoric.
The 49-year-old, who has made pitches to far-right voters throughout his career, leads the Yamina party, which has called for Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
A firebrand politician who has not shied away from controversy, Bennett is ultra-liberal on the economy and takes an aggressive line against Iran.
He shares this ideology with Netanyahu and has served in several of the Likud leader’s governments. In recent years, however, the two have become increasingly opposed.
He agreed to join centrist Yair Lapid in a coalition to remove the prime minister. Lapid has offered to share power, letting Bennett serve the first term rotating as prime minister.
A former special forces commando, Bennett is the son of US-born parents and lives with his wife Galit and four children in the central city of Raanana.
He entered politics after selling his tech start-up for $145m in 2005, and the next year became chief of staff to Netanyahu, who was then in opposition.
After leaving Netanyahu’s office, Bennett in 2010 became head of the Yesha Council, which lobbies for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.
He then took politics by storm in 2012 when he took charge of the far-right Jewish Home party, which was facing annihilation.
He increased its parliamentary presence fourfold, while making headlines with a series of incendiary comments about the Palestinians.
In 2013, he said Palestinian “terrorists should be killed, not released”.
He has courted controversy on several occasions, once stating that the West Bank is not under occupation because “there was never a Palestinian state here”, and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be resolved but must be endured.
Beyond holding the defence portfolio, Bennett has served as Netanyahu’s economy minister and education minister.
He re-branded Jewish Home as Yamina (Rightward) in 2018, and was part of Netanyahu’s coalition which collapsed the same year.
But he was not asked to join a Netanyahu-led unity government in May last year – a move seen as an expression of the prime minister’s personal contempt towards him, despite their shared ideology.
In opposition and with the coronavirus pandemic raging in 2020, Bennett dampened his right-wing rhetoric to focus on the health crisis, moving to broaden his appeal by releasing plans to contain the virus and aid the economy.
When Joe Biden, US president, last week ordered US intelligence to intensify efforts to determine the origins of Covid-19, he gave fresh life to the theory that the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Biden said that US intelligence had “coalesced around two scenarios” — that the virus had either emerged naturally or was the result of a lab accident.
It was the first time that the president had given credence to the possibility that the virus had leaked from a lab — a notion widely slammed as a conspiracy theory when Donald Trump first made the claim.
Current and former officials said there were several reasons why the Biden administration was willing to publicly entertain a theory that Democrats had once slammed.
A crucial factor was that critics were more open to the lab-leak theory now that Trump, who was viewed as wanting to vilify China to deflect blame for his handling of the pandemic, was out of office.
They also said that Biden was reacting to what the intelligence had found. He is now under political pressure to find answers.
“The Biden administration has now studied the mountain of disturbing evidence that we were confronted with in the last few months of the Trump administration,” said David Asher, who led a state department investigation into the origins of Covid. “It is jaw dropping. And as they have noted, a great deal more needs to be assessed.”
Days before Biden was sworn in, the state department issued a fact sheet on the Wuhan institute which said that several researchers had fallen ill with Covid-like symptoms before the first publicly known case. It also said that the institute had worked secretly with the Chinese military.
Critics did not take the claim seriously because of the view that Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, tended to politicise intelligence. People were also focused on the aftermath of the riots on January 6 and the inauguration.
“We assumed the fact sheet wasn’t going to make immediate headlines. We wanted to put the information into the record so that people could reckon with these facts when tensions and fevers had dropped,” said David Feith, a former state department official who was involved in the release.
In March, Asher said publicly that some Wuhan staff were so sick that they were hospitalised. That and a recent Wall Street Journal story that three staff were hospitalised, helped focus attention on the lab-leak theory.
But one person familiar with the debate said the driving factor was a shift among scientists who had been wary of helping Trump before the election or angering influential scientists who had dismissed the theory. He said this had helped make Democrats more willing to consider the theory.
“The most important thing that has happened is that prominent virologists have since spoken out,” he said.
In a letter to the Science journal, a group of 18 prominent scientists said that both theories were “viable” and should be taken “seriously” until sufficient data were obtained. They said the recent investigation that the World Health Organization conducted with China had not given balanced consideration to both scenarios.
“Even those of us working the issue inside the government were not well aware of how much scientific opinion was on our side because scientists were generally not speaking up, but you have had certain dams break over the past few months,” said Feith, referring to developments including the letter and the WHO investigation.
Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also appeared to change his stance. Last year, he said the science “strongly indicates” that the virus emerged naturally, but he recently said he was “not convinced” and backed an investigation.
While Biden was just outlining the view of the intelligence community in his highly unusual statement, his willingness to make their tentative conclusions public also shone more attention on the lab-leak theory.
Mathew Burrows, a former senior intelligence official, said he could not remember a president making such a statement, saying that they have historically not wanted to be viewed as trying to force a conclusion.
“There are obviously Republicans who are trying to criticise anything that would seem to be a weak response to China, so I think Biden wants to show that he will not shy away from charging them [China] if there is united agreement in the intelligence community on the fact that the virus came out of the Wuhan lab,” Burrows said.
Mike Gallagher, a Republican congressman who has introduced a bill to declassify all the intelligence related to the investigation, also said that Biden appeared to be responding to political pressure, particularly after members of his team called on China to allow a transparent investigation — something few experts believe Beijing will allow.
“Biden was feeling the pressure,” said Gallagher. “They felt a little bit of blowback . . . but it’s a good move.”
One person familiar with the situation said the National Intelligence Council, which collates information from the entire intelligence community, produced two reports last year assessing US intelligence on the origins of Covid. The director for national intelligence declined to comment.
Those efforts, coupled with a third “scrub” of the intelligence this year, led to Biden saying last week that two of the 18 branches of the intelligence community leaned towards the natural origin scenario, while a third was more inclined towards the lab-leak theory.
Biden said the three had only “low or moderate confidence” in their conclusions while the other branches did not have enough evidence. That has sparked concern that 90 days is not sufficient for intelligence officials to reach any solid determination.
“The community as a whole is far away from reaching anything that we could call even a halfway firm conclusion,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA official. “The fact that many of the agencies involved have not reached a consensus even for a ‘low confidence’ judgment tells you they’re a long way away from anything conclusive.”
Hundreds of people have had to leave their homes as parts of New Zealand are hit with what has been described as a one-in-100-year deluge.
Worst-hit was the province of Canterbury in the country's South Island, where at least 300 homes had to be evacuated overnight.
Several roads, schools and offices were closed.
Image:Soldiers have been sent to the area to help people leave their homes. Pic: NZ Defence Force
A state of emergency was declared in the region following similar declarations on Sunday in the nearby areas of Timaru, Selwyn, and Ashburton.
In Ashburton, about 50 miles southwest of Christchurch, 19 roads were closed and three bridges had collapsed or been washed away, according to NZ news website Stuff.
The town's mayor Neil Brown said on Facebook that the river was running at 1400 cumecs (cubic metres per second) instead of its usual 10 cumecs.
He told the NZ Herald that "half of Ashburton" would need to be evacuated if the river's levees broke but there was "still quite a bit of capacity".
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"We really need it to stop raining to let those rivers drop," he added.
Image:Flooding in the town of Akaroa, on New Zealand's South Island. Pic: Christchurch City Council
The New Zealand Defence Force used helicopters to rescue three people stranded in flooding in the surrounding area.
The Royal NZ Air Force said the crew of one of its NH90 helicopters had rescued a man from a tree surrounded by floodwater in Darfield and an elderly couple from a car roof in the small town of Ashburton Forks.
In Akaroa, a small town about 50 miles southeast of Christchurch, Christchurch City Council said flooding appeared to be caused by blocked pipes.
Residents were warned the water could be contaminated and they should take precautions such as changing out of wet clothing and washing their hands as soon as possible.
A number of surrounding roads have been closed due to slips.
Image:The province of Canterbury was worst-hit by the flooding. Pic: TVNZ/Reuters
Further south, Environment Southland activated its flood warning system as persistent rain caused river to rise.
The country's MetService issued warnings for heavy rain in Canterbury and elsewhere until later on Monday morning UK time.
It said that the main focus would be north of the Rakaia River in the Canterbury Plains, where 50-90mm could accumulate, on top of the rain that has already fallen during this event - more than 400mm in some parts.
The government announced a NZ$100,000 (£51,000) fund to support Canterbury people affected by the floods.
New Zealand's acting minister for emergency management Kris Faafoi said: "While it is still very early to know the full cost of the damage, we expect it to be significant and this initial contribution will help those communities to start to get back on their feet."
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that a proposed new unity government would be "a danger for the security" of the country.
He urged right-wing politicians not to support a deal after ultra-nationalist leader Naftali Bennett said he would join talks with centrist Yair Lapid.
Mr Lapid has until Wednesday to form a new coalition government.
If successful, it would end Mr Netanyahu's time as the country's longest serving prime minister.
Mr Netanyahu, who is on trial for fraud, fell short of a decisive majority at a general election in March. It was the country's fourth inconclusive vote in two years - and again he failed to secure coalition allies.
"Don't form a left-wing government - such a government is a danger to Israel's security and future," the 71-year-old, who has been in power for 12 years and has dominated Israeli politics for a generation, said on Sunday. He did not elaborate.
Mr Netanyahu accused Mr Bennett of "misleading the public" and of carrying out "the fraud of the century" - a reference to the Yamina party leader's previous public promises not to join forces with Mr Lapid.
Mr Bennett, 49, earlier announced that his party would join talks to form a governing coalition in a televised address.
"Mr Netanyahu is no longer trying to form a right-wing government because he knows full well that there isn't one. He is seeking to take the whole national camp, and the whole country, with him on his personal last stand," Mr Bennett said.
"I will do everything to form a national unity government with my friend Yair Lapid."
Before the announcement, Israeli media reported that under the proposed terms of the deal, Mr Bennett would replace Mr Netanyahu as prime minister and later give way to Mr Lapid, 57, in a rotation agreement. The arrangement has not been officially confirmed.
The proposed coalition would bring together factions from the right, the left and the centre of Israeli politics. While the parties have little in common politically, they are united in their desire to see Mr Netanyahu's time in office come to an end.
EPA
Mr Lapid, a former finance minister, was given until 2 June to form a new coalition government after Mr Netanyahu failed to do so. His Yesh Atid party came second to Mr Netanyahu's right-wing Likud at the last election.
Mr Bennett's party holds a crucial six seats in the 120-member parliament that would help give the proposed opposition coalition a clear majority.
Netanyahu fights on
After an evening of high political drama on Sunday, Israel is much closer to a new coalition that will unseat its long-time prime minister. But Benjamin Netanyahu should not be written off.
He was quick to respond to the latest announcement with his own appeal to right-wing members of Naftali Bennett's Yamina party - and those of Gideon Saar's New Hope - to not join the agreement.
He taunted them by asking "Who will take care of settlements?" and suggested the proposed unity government would offer a weak security cabinet that would be unable to stand up to Israel's rival, Iran.
If he chips away just a couple of members of parliament with these attacks, then the prospective government could tumble.
And even if this coalition does get sworn in, it will be a fragile one - bringing together parties from across the political spectrum with stark ideological differences. To stay in power, it will be forced to kick many sensitive issues into the long grass.
On Saturday night, Mr Netanyahu's Likud party made an offer to Mr Bennett and the leader of another potential coalition party to share the premiership in a three-way split.
However, his offer was rejected. But the prime minister repeated the same option on Sunday.
Under Israel's electoral system of proportional representation, it is difficult for a single party to gain enough seats to form a government outright. Smaller parties are usually needed to make up the numbers needed for a coalition.
Mr Lapid was initially given a 28-day mandate to form a government, but this was interrupted by the recent 11-day conflict in Gaza.
One of his potential coalition partners, the Arab Islamist Raam party, broke off talks because of the violence. There were also clashes in Israeli cities between mixed Arab and Jewish populations.
Armed men on motorcycles have kidnapped a large number of children following the ambush of a school in Nigeria.
The pupils were at the Salihu Tanko Islamic School in Rafi, in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger, when they were abducted by the men, who were firing "indiscriminately", said state police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun.
He said the abduction was carried out by "armed bandits on board motorcycles in their numbers" and while they were still trying to ascertain exact numbers, they believe around 200 children are missing.
All "tactical teams" have been mobilised to rescue the victims and the police will "ensure the children are rescued unhurt", he said.
Armed groups carrying out kidnappings for ransom have been behind a series of raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 700 young people since December.
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One of the most notable, was the mass abduction in April 2014 by jihadist group Boko Haram of 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok in Borno state.
More than a hundred of the girls are still missing.
Image:Some of the girls from Jangebe after their release
On Saturday, 14 students were freed after being abducted last month from a university in neighbouring Kaduna state.
In 2019, a British aid worker, Faye Mooney, was killed by kidnappers in the country.
Teachers have been forced to flee from state to state for protection, and many children have had to abandon their education amid frequent violent attacks in their communities.
A key Israeli opposition party has backed a unity government that would bring to an end to Benjamin Netanyahu's time as the country's longest serving prime minister.
The ultra-nationalist leader Naftali Bennett said his party would join talks to form a governing coalition with centrist party leader Yair Lapid.
Mr Lapid has until Wednesday to announce the result of his efforts.
Mr Netanyahu, meanwhile, said the proposed deal would "weaken Israel".
The prime minister, who is on trial for fraud, fell short of a decisive majority at a general election in March. It was the country's fourth inconclusive vote in two years - and again Mr Netanyahu failed to secure coalition allies.
Mr Bennett, 49, who leads the Yamina party, made his announcement in a televised address.
"Mr Netanyahu is no longer trying to form a right-wing government because he knows full well that there isn't one. He is seeking to take the whole national camp, and the whole country, with him on his personal last stand," he said.
"I will do everything to form a national unity government with my friend Yair Lapid."
Before the announcement, Israeli media reported that under the proposed terms of the deal, Mr Bennett would replace Mr Netanyahu, 71, as prime minister and later give way to Mr Lapid, 57, in a rotation agreement. The arrangement has not been officially confirmed.
The proposed coalition would bring together factions from the right, the left and the centre of Israeli politics. While the parties have little in common politically, they are united in their desire to see Mr Netanyahu's time in office come to an end.
Speaking shortly after Mr Bennett's announcement, the prime minister accused Mr Bennett of carrying out "the fraud of the century" - a reference to the Yamina leader's previous public promises not to join forces with Lapid.
Mr Netanyahu said Mr Bennett's approach would be "a danger for the security of Israel". He did not elaborate.
EPA
Mr Lapid, a former finance minister, was given until 2 June to form a new coalition government after Mr Netanyahu failed to do so. His Yesh Atid party came second to Mr Netanyahu's right-wing Likud at the last election.
Mr Bennett's party holds a crucial six seats in the 120-member parliament that would help give the proposed opposition coalition a clear majority.
Netanyahu fights on
After an evening of high political drama, Israel is much closer to a new coalition that will unseat its long-time prime minister. But Benjamin Netanyahu should not be written off.
He was quick to respond to the latest announcement with his own appeal to right-wing members of Naftali Bennett's Yamina party - and those of Gideon Saar's New Hope - to not join the agreement.
He taunted them by asking: "Who will take care of settlements?" and suggested the proposed unity government would offer a weak security cabinet that would be unable to stand up to Israel's rival, Iran.
If he chips away just a couple of members of parliament with these attacks, then the prospective government could tumble.
And even if this coalition does get sworn in, it will be a fragile one - bringing together parties from across the political spectrum with stark ideological differences. To stay in power, it will be forced to kick many sensitive issues into the long grass.
On Saturday night, Mr Netanyahu's Likud party made an offer to Mr Bennett and the leader of another potential coalition party to share the premiership in a three-way split.
However, his offer was rejected. But the prime minister repeated the same option on Sunday.
Under Israel's electoral system of proportional representation, it is difficult for a single party to gain enough seats to form a government outright. Smaller parties are usually needed to make up the numbers needed for a coalition.
Mr Lapid was initially given a 28-day mandate to form a government, but this was interrupted by the recent 11-day conflict in Gaza.
One of his potential coalition partners, the Arab Islamist Raam party, broke off talks because of the violence. There were also clashes in Israeli cities between mixed Arab and Jewish populations.
Media reports say opposition leader Yair Lapid close to establishing a coalition that would end Netanyahu’s 12-year reign as prime minister.
Israel was gripped by political drama on Sunday over the possible imminent end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s record run as the country’s leader.
After four inconclusive parliamentary elections in two years, a 28-day mandate for opposition leader Yair Lapid to form a new government runs out on Wednesday, and media reports said he was close to putting together a coalition that would end Netanyahu’s 12-year stretch as prime minister.
Lapid’s chances of success rest largely with far-right politician Naftali Bennett, a kingmaker whose Yamina party has six key seats in parliament.
Bennett, 49, was widely expected to announce, possibly as early as Sunday, whether he would team up with Lapid, who leads the Yesh Atid party.
But first, Bennett would have to rally his own party’s legislators behind joining what Netanyahu’s opponents have described as a government of “change” comprising factions from the left, centre and right.
Still short of a parliamentary majority after a March 23 election that ended in impasse, such a diverse grouping could be fragile, and would require outside backing by Arab members of parliament (Palestinian citizens of Israel) whose political views differ sharply from Yamina’s.
Bennett has maintained public silence in recent days, with Likud party chief Netanyahu fuelling speculation his own tenure was about to end in a tweet and video on Friday. “Real Alert,” he wrote, warning a dangerous “left-wing” administration was in the cards.
Yamina announced late on Saturday that Bennett would meet and update its legislators on Sunday, after reports emerged he had agreed to a deal in which he would serve first as prime minister before handing over to the centrist Lapid.
A former defence minister, Bennett has reversed course before over removing Netanyahu, 71, a right-wing leader in power consecutively since 2009, and now on trial on corruption charges that he denies.
With an agreement with Lapid widely reported to have been finalised just before fighting erupted on May 10 between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Bennett said during the hostilities he was abandoning efforts to form a coalition with the centre and left.
But a ceasefire is holding, a recent wave of street violence in Israel between Palestinian citizens and Jews has ebbed, and a Lapid-Bennett partnership could be back on course.
Israeli political commentators, however, are taking nothing for granted.
“The anti-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government of change is still not an accomplished fact,” political columnist Yossi Verter wrote in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper on Sunday.
“It’s premature to pop open the champagne, and also too early to wear sackcloth,” he said, questioning whether Yamina’s lawmakers could withstand pressure from the right against a deal with Lapid.
If Lapid, 57, fails to announce a government by Wednesday, a fifth Israeli election since April 2019 – a prospect Bennett has said he wants to avoid – is likely.
Thousands of people have gathered across Brazil to protest at President Bolsonaro's management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
People turned out in at least 16 Brazilian cities on Saturday, including the capital Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, calling for his impeachment and demanding more coronavirus jabs.
Mr Bolsonaro's popularity has plummeted in the past year, with more than 460,000 people dying during the COVID pandemic.
Image:Protesters in Sao Paulo burned a figure of Mr Bolsonaro
Image:A banner in the capital Brasilia reads 'Bolsonaro virus out'
This weekend's protests were organised by left-leaning political parties, unions and students' associations.
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Most people wore masks and tried to observe social distancing as they called for a faster vaccination programme.
Image:Mr Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the crisis
Brazil's population is 211 million but according to official figures only 66.4 million doses of a vaccine have been administered, with about 10% - or 21.9 million people - fully vaccinated.
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In Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, thousands of people blocked one of the largest avenues in the city.
Protests in Brasilia and Rio were peaceful but police in the northeastern city of Recife used tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators.
Some people also carried images of former leftist President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva wearing the presidential sash.
Image:In Recife, the police fired tear gas at protesters
Earlier in May, the former leader met centrist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, also a two-term former president, for lunch in a public show of their common purpose to block Mr Bolsonaro from gaining a second term in next year's election.
Meanwhile, Brazil reported another 2,012 deaths on Saturday, its health ministry said.
Cases also remain high, with 79,670 new infections - taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 16.47 million.
Scotland Yard is hunting a masked extremist who called for “Jewish blood” at a pro-Palestinian demonstration next to the Israeli embassy in west London.
The youth was filmed telling an Islamist mob: “We’ll find some Jews here ... We want the Zionists, we want their blood!”
The comments were made last weekend within earshot of two police officers, who appeared to do nothing to challenge the remarks. Minutes earlier, a firebrand speaker and YouTuber called Mohammed Hijab had whipped up the crowd against the “terrorist apartheid state of Israel” by declaring: “We love death.”
The incident follows claims of antisemitism at a rally in support of Gaza at which protesters carried placards referring to Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust. Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour
MYSTERY surrounds a bat infested cave in China where a Covid-like virus may have killed three miners in 2012 before the sample was sent to the Wuhan lab at the centre of the leak allegations.
Guarded by Chinese police and sealed off from the outside world, this former copper mine in Mojiang some 1118 miles away from Wuhan could be a smoking gun on the origin of the pandemic.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) - a high security bio lab specalising in coronaviruses - is in the eye of the storm as questions rage whether Covid could have originally emerged from escaped from its campus.
However, the story of Covid may go back the best part of a decade - potentially to a copper mine in the mountainous and forested region of Yunnan in April 2012.
A team of miners were given the job of cleaning out the abandoned shaft which was infested with roosting horseshoe bats.
The men found themselves shoveling knee-deep piles of guano - a repulsive combination of bat faeces and urine.
And within weeks, three of the men were dead.
The miners succumbed to a mystery infection which made them develop pneumonia-like symptoms, hacking coughs and high temperatures - chillingly similar symptoms to what we now know as Covid.
The fatal infection mostly flew under the radar beyond a smattering of reports in the West, such as an article in 2014 in Science which asked "New Killer Virus in China?".
The deaths didn't really get much attention beyond that, until suddenly Covid emerged as a once-in-a-century global pandemic that has so far killed 3.5million people.
Questions begun to be asked about where the new coronavirus came from as China reported the first cases in Wuhan to the World Health Organisation in December 2019.
It turns out virus samples from bats roosting in the cave were sent to WIV, and one of the nine viruses identified was a 96.2 per cent march for SARS-CoV2.
The virus - recovered from the anus of a horseshoe bat - is around ten mutations away from Covid, and is by far its closest known relative.
While nothing is proven as the politically mired investigation trudges on, it raises questions between the link between the Mojiang miners and Covid.
Chinese scientiss recovered samples from the Mojiang mine which were studied at WIVCredit: EcoHealth Alliance
Chinese scientist Shi Zhengli is known as 'Bat Woman' for her studies
The Sunday Times reported researchers in China have been unable to dig out any media reports on the miners deaths - suggesting a media blackout or a cover up.
But one piece of key evidence exists, a thesis by a young medic Li Xu.
Li wrote a paper on the infections, and while he was unable to say exactly what killed them, he argued it was most likely a coronavirus from a bat.
"This makes the research of the bats in the mine where the six miners worked and later suffered from severe pneumonia caused by unknown virus a significant research topic," he said.
And it is exactly this type of research which was undertaken when the samples were sent to WIV.
The virus that may have killed the miners is just one of 100 believed to be stored in the lab, but with key databases are still missing the world does not know for sure what else they were up to.
What do we know about the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
THE WUHAN Institute of Virology is the highest security lab of its kind in all of China - and can be found right at the heart of the origins of the global pandemic.
Various theories have been swirling about the lab, which is headed up by Chinese scientist Dr Shi Zhengli, known as “Bat Woman”.
Most scientists do not believe the virus leaked from the lab, and the lab itself has categorically denied the claims.
The lab specialised in bat-borne viruses and had been carrying out experiences on them since 2015.
Airlocks, full body suits, and chemical showers are required before entering and leaving the lab - the first in China to be accredited with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4).
BSL-4 labs are the only places in the world where scientists can study diseases that have no cure.
Scientists from the lab even tested mysterious
virus which killed three miners 1,000 miles away in Yunnan province back in 2012.
It has been suggested this fatal mystery bug may have been the true origin of Covid-19.
Experts at the lab also engineered a new type of hybrid 'super-virus' that can infect humans in 2015, according to medical journal Nature Medicine
Despite fears surrounding the research, the study was designed to show the risk of viruses carried by bats which could be transmitted to humans.
There is no suggestion the facility's 2015 work is linked to the pandemic.
The lab was also recruiting new scientists to probe coronaviruses in bats just seven days before the outbreak.
China has began tightening security around its biolabs with President Xi Jinping saying it was a “national security” issue to improve scientific safety at a meeting last February.
WIV is known to have been carrying out gain-of-function research - experiments designed to soup up viruses to make them more infectious - alongside the US-funded EcoHealth Alliance.
The theory goes: could the virus that killed the men in Mojiang have been manipulated and transformed into what we know as Covid, before being accidentally allowed to escape in a lab accident?
The world does not know for sure.
But scrutiny is ratcheting up on China, with questions over lab safety at the facility as researchers previously admitted being bitten and sprayed with bat blood.
Despite being condemned as a "conspiracy theory" for the last year, the possibility that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak has become increasingly mainstream in recent weeks.
Dr Shi has denied all allegations about a lab leakCredit: AFP
And the answers may be hard to come from at the Mojiang mine, with reporters who visited the site being tailed by Chinese government agents and being turned away by police.
Associated Press reporters who visited the site in November 2020 were met with roadblocks as the mine has become a black hole of information.
BBC News also saw their journalists stopped by police as they were told to turn back as they approached Yunnan.
The extraordinary revelation shows how seriously the West is taking the possibility, despite the narrative being firmly dismissed in the early days of the pandemic by scientists and politicians.
Questions are being asked of WIV as circumstantial evidence mounts for the lab leakCredit: AFP
China has long been accused of covering up or distorting its role in the early days of the pandemic, with claims the Communist Party manipulated case and death figures while withholding information from WHO.
But circumstantial evidence is mounting, and even WHO have ordered a fresh probe after a its first effort was derided and accused of being a "whitewash".
Beijing hit back as US President Biden this week as it accused him of playing politics by indulging the idea of a lab leak.
His predecessor Donald Trump repeatedly suggested in the final months of his term that the virus came from WIV - and insisted the US had concrete evidence.
And his former medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci made his own admission that he is now no longer convinced the Covid originated naturally and called for a full investigation.
It emerged this week Wuhan lab staff became sick and needed hospital care weeks before China admitted it was facing an outbreak.
Citing a previously undisclosed US intelligence report, the Wall Street Journal said the dossier revealed fresh details and claimed the lab workers fell ill in November.
A National Security Council spokeswoman said the Biden administration continued to have "serious questions about the earliest days of the pandemic, including its origins within the People's Republic of China".
