ISRAEL  –  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address US lawmakers in Washington DC on 24 July, congressional leaders announced last Thursday.

He will speak to both chambers of Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives – as the Israel-Gaza war continues.

Republicans and Democrats both invited the prime minister to speak, but the date of his speech was not made official until last Thursday.

Last month the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor applied for arrest warrants against the Israeli leader and his defense minister, Yoav Galant, on charges related to the war.

Mr Netanyahu condemned the ICC move, saying he rejected with disgust that “democratic Israel” had been compared to what he called “mass murderers”.

Mr Netanyahu said, according to a statement released by congressional leaders, that he was “very moved to have the privilege of representing Israel… to present the truth about our just war against those who seek to destroy us”.

In their letter inviting the prime minister, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – both Republicans – said they hoped Mr Netanyahu would take the opportunity to “share the Israeli government’s vision for defending democracy, combatting terror, and establishing a just and lasting peace in the region”.

Mr Netanyahu’s visit comes as that relationship with the US has grown tense, especially among leading US Democrats.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a separate statement that he supported the invitation despite his “clear and profound disagreements with the Prime Minister, which I have voiced both privately and publicly”.

“But because America’s relationship with Israel is ironclad and transcends one person or prime minister I joined the request for him to speak,” he said.

US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has also grown more critical of Israel as the war continues and the death toll in Gaza climbs.

Mr Biden, who is running for re-election in November, has come under political pressure from his party’s left flank to do more to convince Israel to limit its war in Gaza.

Some progressive leaders, such as Sen Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have said they intend to boycott Mr Netanyahu’s speech in protest at Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage during an attack on southern Israel on 7 October.

At least 36,470 people have been killed in Gaza in almost eight months of fighting since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Mr Biden has recently made public his administration’s push for a ceasefire deal that would begin a six-week cessation of hostilities in Gaza.

The three-part plan that the president unveiled last week would see a “surge” of humanitarian aid, as well as an exchange of some hostages for Palestinian prisoners before a permanent end to the war.

The proposal, however, has encountered vocal opposition from some members of Israel’s government, which has raised doubt that an agreement might be reached.

Hanoch Milwidsky, a senior member of the Knesset for Mr Netanyahu’s Likud Party, told the BBC last Sunday that Israel’s governing coalition was unified in opposition to the deal, which he called “completely unacceptable”.

Mr Netanyahu last spoke to the US Congress in 2015, when both chambers were controlled by Republicans. He used the opportunity to criticize then President Barack Obama, a Democrat, for pursuing a deal with US allies and Iran to curtail Tehran’s nuclear program. (BBC)…[+]

BEIJING – China will further promote the reform and high-quality development of public hospitals as part of the efforts to deepen its healthcare reform, according to a list of healthcare reform tasks for 2024 recently released.

The document, released by the General Office of the State Council, encourages local governments to learn from the successful healthcare reform practices implemented in Sanming, a city in Fujian Province.

Sanming started to reform its public hospitals in 2012 to address the overpricing of drugs and medical consumables, and the overuse of medication and tests in healthcare services, which led to expensive medical care services and a heavy burden for local medical insurance funds.

The document calls for a deepened reform of the payment system at public hospitals, stating that medical workers’ income should be stable and must not be linked to bills for drugs, medical materials, examinations and tests.

According to the document, China will promote the national centralized volume-based procurement of drugs and medical consumables and adjust the pricing of medical services. Since 2018, China has conducted nine rounds of volume-based procurement bids for medication and several bids for medical consumables such as coronary stents, artificial joints, and intraocular lenses.

The country will improve its medical service system, including enhancing health service capacity at the primary level, and establish a multi-tiered healthcare insurance system with efforts to both improve the basic health insurance system and promote commercial health insurance.

China will also deepen reform regarding drug use and management, the mechanism of drug evaluation and approval, and the supply of drugs, according to the document. (Xinhua)…[+]

GEORGETOWN – A Jamaican born singer living in Guyana was shot dead last Thursday by his friend in Sophia, Greater, Georgetown.

Police identified him as Navar George Barton, age 29, but he is better known by his stage name, Stero Don. He reportedly lived in A-Field Sophia.

Police learnt that the suspect had allegedly gone to Barton’s home in A-Field by mini-bus to ask for his money and ended up shooting him in the head.

The suspect then ran out of the yard, re-entered the minibus and escaped.

Barton was rushed to the hospital but doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

Investigations are ongoing. (Kaieteur News)…[+]

ENGLAND   –  Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has apologized for leaving the 80th anniversary commemorations of D-Day early in order to film a TV interview, a decision that prompted incredulity and further derailed his floundering general election campaign.

Sunak attended the first part of the commemorative events in Normandy, France, last Thursday, but skipped the international ceremony at Omaha Beach, which was attended by other world leaders and veterans of the Allied operation in 1944.

“The last thing I want is for the commemorations to be overshadowed by politics,” Sunak wrote in a long apology on X. “After the conclusion of the British event in Normandy, I returned back to the UK. On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer – and I apologize.”

But the move had already caused anger and disbelief in Britain, and represented another major miscalculation in Sunak’s faltering election campaign.

Sunak left the event to record a campaign interview with broadcaster ITV, the network confirmed, in which he defended claims about the opposition Labour Party’s tax plans which fact-checkers and a senior civil servant have said were misleading or inaccurate.

More than 20 heads of state and government, and representatives from royal families across Europe, attended the international ceremony, which took place on a day of commemoration 80 years after the Allied beach landings in Nazi-occupied France laid the groundwork for the defeat of Germany in World War II.

“Look, I get the outrage. I get that this is a significant mistake,” Sunak’s own veterans minister, Johnny Mercer, told UK newspaper The Sun on Friday, while also attacking what he labelled as “faux outrage” from Sunak’s critics.

The UK was represented at the international ceremony by David Cameron, Sunak’s foreign secretary and a former prime minister, who took photographs alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden.

Also in attendance was Labour leader Keir Starmer, who was filmed speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the event. Labour was quick to condemn Sunak’s decision to skip the events, and the gaffe dominated British news coverage of the election on Friday.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Sunak said that his leaving early was a “mistake,” but added that “it’s important though, given the enormity of the sacrifice made, that we don’t politicize this.”

“The focus should rightly be on the veterans who gave so much,” he said, before stating that he “will always be proud of our record in supporting veterans here in the UK.”

Sunak’s campaign began with a rain-soaked speech outside Downing Street and has been beset by questionable decision-making and optically damaging events, all while failing to shift a cavernous poll deficit – but Thursday’s D-Day error felt like the most perplexing and detrimental moment of the campaign so far.

He was already batting back accusations from Labour that he lied about the cost of the opposition party’s tax plans – a topic in the debate he filmed with ITV on Thursday night. The UK Treasury flatly contradicted Sunak’s claim in a TV debate last Tuesday that its impartial officials had calculated Labour plans would “put up everyone’s taxes by £2,000.” Labour’s policy manifesto has not yet been published, and the party says its agenda is fully costed.

ITV News said its team had not specifically requested to speak to the prime minister last Thursday, and that the date was in fact put forward by Sunak’s team, despite it falling on the anniversary of D-Day.

“Today was the slot that we were offered, we don’t know why. Obviously it’s not our choice, but he certainly returned from Normandy ready to dive back into the campaign,” ITV’s UK Editor Paul Brand, who carried out the interview, stated in an ITV report last Thursday night.

“Yesterday’s D-Day commemorations were about remembering the bravery of all those who serve our country,” Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Paymaster General, said Friday. “In choosing to prioritize his own vanity TV appearances over our veterans, Rishi Sunak has shown what is most important to him.”

Sunak is projected to lose the election on July 4 to Labour by a hefty margin, and his campaign has failed to land a decisive moment that could swing opinion polls in his favor.

In recent days his efforts were dealt a further blow when Nigel Farage, an architect of Brexit and a populist thorn in the side of numerous Conservative leaders, announced he would lead the Reform Party’s campaign, directly appealing to right-leaning Tory backers to abandon Sunak and vote for his insurgent group.

Farage also leapt on Sunak’s lapse in judgment, writing on X that the Prime Minister “could not even be bothered to attend the international event above Omaha Beach.” In another post, he added: “Patriotic people who love their country should not vote for him.” (CNN)…[+]