On Sunday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation”and said that the world is “insisting” that China should cooperate as further investigations have to be carried out to find the origins of COVID-19. An earlier probe, conducted by experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) was unable to pinpoint the origin of the infection which has spread throughout the world.

Blinken said that the main reason   to find its origin was to ensure that proper policies and mechanisms can be put in place to prevent another pandemic from taking over the world as the COVID-19 one did so as well as to prevent another major outbreak.

The Secretary of State said that transparency, access for international experts and information sharing “has to happen” and that countries are coming together to insist that it happens.

Last month President Biden has asked the U.S. intelligence community to redouble efforts and investigate the origins of the virus. According to Blinken, after the recent G-7 summit, the Group of Seven leaders were calling for a “Phase II” study from the WHO to trace the origins of the coronavirus and to find out “how the pandemic started.”

In March 2021, the WHO reported that its studies on the origins of COVID-19 showed that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. However, some scientists and experts have raised doubts about the report.

A while ago, the New York Times broke a story saying that three workers from the Wuhan lab had been admitted to a hospital with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in November, much before the spread of the virus was confirmed by the Chinese.

The Biden administration later raised concerns about how sufficient information has not been disseminated and also about the lack of cooperation and transparency from China.

The Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the U.S. government is working with the WHO and is working on the matter individually to understand what happened.

On Sunday, Knesset – Israel’s parliament approved of the formation of a new government which is a coalition of several diverse parties. The government was formed with a razor thin margin of 60-59 votes. The country has a new Prime Minister after 12 years, The vote finally removed the country’s longest serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It also spared the nation from a fifth election within two years.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is among the many who congratulated the  newly-appointed Israeli cabinet.

“On behalf of the UK, I offer my congratulations to @naftalibennett and @yairlapid on forming a new government in Israel. As we emerge from COVID-19, this is an exciting time for the UK and Israel to continue working together to advance peace and prosperity for all”, Johnson tweeted.

Wishes from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who congratulated Lapid on his appointment.

“Israel is a true friend of Ukraine, and I look forward to working together on further strengthening our partnership”, Kuleba tweeted.

Tel Aviv is celebrating the end of the Netanyahu era pic.twitter.com/18WuN2vAvN

— Noga Tarnopolsky × ×’×” טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي (@NTarnopolsky) June 13, 2021

Israeli tech millionaire and leader of right-wing party Yamina, Naftali Bennet is the new Prime Minister. He was received jeers from mainly Likud party members who called him a “traitor” and a “lair” as he has aligned himself with leftist, centrist, and Arab parties, instead of the right-wing Likud party headed by Netanyahu. Yuriv Levin, the speaker, had to remove more than four politicians for the ruckus and chaos that they created during the new Prime Minister’s address to the Knesset.

Thousands of Israelis celebrate at Rabin square in Tel Aviv the swearing in of the new government and the ousting of Netanyahu pic.twitter.com/DMzYNF6EeX

— 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍, 𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐃,𝐇𝐒𝐂 (@Utred_Allan) June 13, 2021

Addressing the parliament, a defiant Netanyahu accepted that his Likud party was now in the opposition though he added that they would be back. A continued fight by him is to be expected as the coalition is very diverse. Netanyahu also needs to be in power to fight several corruption charges that he and his family face. He also criticized the new legislation proposed by the government which would limit a prime minister’s term to eight years.

The new government, whose main uniting factor was the ouster of Netanyahu, has said that it would concentrate on social and economic issues including education, health. affordable housing and growing businesses rather than the divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The coalition is fragile, and it needs to work unitedly as even one defection could have a domino effect and bring the government down.

Despite having a minority of six seats Bennet emerged as a kingmaker and got the coveted post of Prime Minister for two years. Yair Lapid, head of the centrist party Yesh Atid is the foreign minister till 2023. He has the   unenviable task of keeping the coalition together as it came into being mainly because of his efforts.

President Joe Biden congratulated Bennet and other leaders of the new government and spoke of strengthening all aspects of the close and enduring relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

After a successful G7 summit at Cornwall in Britain, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden went to Windsor Castle to meet the Queen. This was the second time he was meeting her. According to his memoir published several years ago, the senator of Irish descent was told not to bow down to her, by his mother before he met her in 1982. He did not bow down to her in his second visit on Sunday, as well.

After his meeting he described Queen Elizabeth as an “extremely gracious” woman who reminded him of his mother. He also said that they had a great talk. This was the Queen’s first one-to-one visit with a world leader since the pandemic began and after the death of her husband Prince Phillip. It was an informal meeting over tea.

Earlier, on Friday, the Queen had attended a reception held at a biosphere in Cornwall. She had joined the world leaders after their G7 summit and had joked with them asking them if they were supposed to look as if they were enjoying themselves. There was also a photo of her talking to the Biden’s outside the domes and Prince Charles and his wife Camilla were in the background, holding drinks.

We’re working to tackle this century’s most pressing challenges – together. pic.twitter.com/DJYSnh4jUd

— President Biden (@POTUS) June 14, 2021

President Biden said that the Queen had asked him about Russian President Vladimir Putin, during their     personal conversation. He also said that he wished that he could have spent a longer time speaking to her, when he spoke at Heathrow, before he left for Brussels. The Biden’s were with Queen Elizabeth II for almost an hour.

He also called her generous and said that she reminded him of his mother “in terms of the look of her and the generosity.” He also said that he didn’t think she would be insulted by the comparison. When asked if he had invited her to the White House he answered in the affirmative.

Unlike recent former presidents Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden is not an Anglophile, given his Irish roots. However, he was also charmed by the Queen and compared her to his mother, a fiercely Irish woman with the Irish surname Finnegan.

Image Credit White House