The Chinese are particularly incensed by the lead role Australia has taken in orchestrating calls for an independent inquiry, and have responded by banning imports of Australian beef.

Chinese President Xi's offer, therefore, to support an inquiry by the WHO into the pandemic amounts to little more than yet another attempt by China's communist rulers to avoid proper scrutiny about Beijing's culpability for spreading Covid-19 throughout the rest of the globe.

President Trump's misgivings about Mr Tedros could not be better founded.... With someone like Mr Tedros, with his clear pro-China tendencies, at the helm of the WHO, it is clear that the body is simply not fit for purpose, and that any attempt to reform it is doomed to fail.

A far better solution, one that will help to protect the western democracies from suffering any future catastrophic pandemics similar to the Covid-19 crisis, is to set up a completely new international health body -- one that, rather than subjugating itself to Beijing's pernicious influence, is genuinely interested in protecting the interests of the people it serves.

Recently, Iran's parliament, the Islamic Consultative Assembly, unanimously approved an "urgent bill" directed against Israel. We are therefore to assume, it would seem, that passing a bill against the State of Israel was more "urgent" for the Iranian regime than concentrating on protecting the lives of the Iranian population during this public health crisis.

Although the traditional anti-Israel marches are cancelled this year due to the spread of coronavirus, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stated that people will be able instead to march by cars, join a motorized phalanx or join an online event organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Not only have Iran's ruling clerics failed to rein in their rogue behavior amid the coronavirus; they seem instead to be exploiting the "distraction" to boost their expansion.

Iran has further entrenched itself in Syria and Lebanon, including that included building a new underground weapons-storage facility at Iran's Imam Ali military base in eastern Syria. They have boosted their support for Shia Iraqi militias and the Houthis in Yemen. They have rolled out a new missile on the way to developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons to Israel and any capital in Europe. And they have ratcheted up their anti-Israeli and anti-American agenda.