Six In The Morning Thursday 3 June 2021

 

Benjamin Netanyahu calls to block Israel's newly formed coalition

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at a newly agreed coalition which looks set to remove him from power after 12 years as prime minister.

Mr Netanyahu called on right-wing members of parliament to block the coalition from taking office.

Eight opposition parties reached an agreement to work together to form a new government late on Wednesday.

But the group, from across Israel's political spectrum, still needs parliamentary backing to take office.

Leftist teacher takes on dictator’s daughter as Peru picks new president

Dan Collyns in Lima

@yachay_dc

Thu 3 Jun 2021 16.04 BST

Peruvians must choose between the son of illiterate peasant farmers who pledges to upend the country’s free-market economy and the unpopular daughter of a 1990s autocrat, who faces jail on corruption allegations, when they vote on Sunday in the most polarized election in living memory.

Amid surging poverty, one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks, months of political crisis and rampant anti-left scaremongering, Peruvians will choose the fifth president in as many years.

Rightwing Keiko Fujimori, 46, who narrowly lost in the previous two presidential runoff votes, is technically tied in opinion polls with Pedro Castillo, a former teachers’ union leader who belongs to the hard-left Peru Libre party and holds a lead of just two percentage points over his rival.

Belarusian journalist says he was set up ‘by associate’ in latest prison video

A dissident journalist arrested when Belarus diverted his flight says in a video from prison that he has been set up by an unidentified associate

Via AP news wire

A dissident journalist arrested when Belarus diverted his flight said in a video from prison that he has been set up by an unidentified associate.

The footage of Raman Pratasevich was part of an hour-long TV program aired late Wednesday by the state-controlled ONT channel. In the film, the 26-year-old Pratasevich is also shown saying that protests against Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko are now pointless amid a tough crackdown and suggesting that the opposition wait for a more opportune moment.

The film claimed that the Belarusian authorities were unaware that Pratasevich was on board the Ryanair jet en route from Athens to Vilnius when flight controllers diverted it to Minsk on May 23 citing a bomb threat.

Doctors, healthcare workers sound alarm over health risks of climate change

A growing number of doctors and front-line healthcare workers are turning to climate activism to urge global leaders to declare climate change a public health emergency.

Doctors and health workers, some clad in white coats and brandishing placards, marched to the headquarters of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva on Saturday to demand that health authorities and governments prioritise climate change to avert a global health crisis.

Their demands for immediate action included a focus on preventative healthcare with education programmes in schools and the wider community, more equitable distribution and access to medical care, reducing the carbon impact of health care, and stricter control of industries to ensure clean water and air. 

Olympics chief says cancelation unlikely with 50 days to go

The Tokyo Olympics chief on Thursday said the Games would only be canceled in extreme circumstances.

Exactly 50 days before the opening ceremony, Tokyo 2020 president Seiko Hashimoto said the show would go on unless the pandemic stops a majority of teams from traveling.

"If various countries around the world experience very serious situations, and delegations from most countries can't come, then we wouldn't be able to hold it," she told the Nikkan Sports daily. "But conversely, unless such a situation emerges, the Games will not be canceled."

Britain's royals have denied being a racist family. Archived papers reveal recent racist past

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN

Updated 1514 GMT (2314 HKT) June 3, 2021

It wasn't long ago that Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, claimed members of the British royal family had made overtly racist comments about the skin color of their first-born child.

The implication was clear: That there was concern at the heart of the monarchy over how a baby who may look different from the rest of the family because of his biracial mother would fit in.

The fallout was huge. But reactions were largely split between people who saw it as a sign of institutional racism in the monarchy and those who thought the couple had made the whole thing up. After all, there was no hard evidence to back up the claim.