Belarus president defends plane diversion

President Lukashenko of Belarus has hit back at international condemnation over the diversion of a commercial flight to Minsk, where an opposition journalist on board was arrested. We get more details from our correspondent and speak to a journalist who was imprisoned in Belarus last year while he was covering pro-democracy protests.

We also spend time with our India correspondent Yogita Limaye to hear more about how it has been covering the new epicentre of the global pandemic over the past few months.

We look at today’s other coronavirus stories with one of our regular coronavirus experts Dr Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist from the Federal University of Pelotas in the south of Brazil.

(Photo: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks to parliamentarians, members of the Constitutional Commission and representatives of government bodies, at the Parliament in Minsk, Belarus, 26 May 2021. Credit: MAXIM GUCHEK / POOL/EPA)