Plus, the race to save 26 frog species
| PM to face MPs on Afghanistan crisis |
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| | | With questions, criticism and now the UK's top general saying "everybody got it wrong" on the how quickly the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is poised to defend his handling of the crisis in the Commons. He, like Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, faced criticism over the UK’s response and in an emergency House of Commons debate last month the prime minister faced a barrage of criticism from MPs on all sides, despite saying Nato's "core mission" in Afghanistan had succeeded. Mr Johnson will, when Parliament officially returns from its summer recess later and in the week of the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks, pledge to "use every economic, political and diplomatic lever to protect our country from harm and help the Afghan people”. The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan - bar the Panjshir Valley - on 15 August after being ousted by US-led forces 20 years ago. But after intense battle they are now claiming to have taken full control of Panjshir, however the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan denies this. This latest offensive comes as Gen Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff, says the pace of the takeover "surprised us". And this regaining of power has brought fears Britain may now be less safe because of the events in Afghanistan, says Labour. "The urgent task for the government... is to make sure Afghanistan doesn't collapse once again into a haven of terrorism," shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy says. | |
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| Pupils return amid Covid fears |
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| Conjoined twins see each other for first time |
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| After a 12-hour operation, one-year-old conjoined twin sisters have seen each other for the first time. The girls, who haven’t been named, were conjoined at the back of their heads and underwent surgery - which has only been conducted 20 times worldwide - in Israel with experts from the country and abroad on hand. "To our delight, everything went as we had hoped," says Mickey Gideon, Soroka's chief neurosurgeon at the Soroka medical centre, and "they are breathing and eating on their own," adds Eldad Silberstein, the head of Soroka's plastic surgery department. The girls are on the road to recovery and are said to be doing well. | |
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| | | | | Artists and bands must swap private jets for trains, festivals and venues need to generate more of their own renewable energy and gig tickets should include free public transport. These are just some of the recommendations being made by scientists at the University of Manchester to help the music industry reduce its carbon emissions to stop climate change. The roadmap for live music was based on tour data supplied by the band Massive Attack. The findings are being shared across the industry and, it's hoped, will inspire millions of fans to live more sustainably, too. Since 2019, scientists have been poring over every detail of Massive Attack's last tour. They then used lessons learned to create a roadmap for the whole industry. Their recommendations for "super low carbon practices" deal with how musicians, promoters, tour managers and agents should work in order to keep the rise in global warming restricted to 1.5C. | |
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| | Laura Foster | Health, Science and Environment Reporter | |
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| | | | Prime Minister Boris Johnson's expected plan to raise taxes to help fund social care leads many of the front pages this morning. The Guardian says Mr Johnson faces "mutiny" within the Conservative party over the plan to increase National Insurance contributions. The i describes the situation as Tory "panic", the Daily Mail says there’s a "mounting Cabinet revolt" and the "young face tax crunch" splashes the Metro. The paper splits its front page to carry a picture and tribute to Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding who died on Sunday. Pictures and tributes to the 39-year-old, who had breast cancer, appear in most of the papers including the Sun which leads on the story with the headline "our shining star". Read the newspaper review in full here. | |
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| | | | | Media Pro-Kremlin trolls target news website comments, study says |
| | | | Fertility Frozen eggs and sperm to get 55-year storage limit |
| | | | Football Brazil-Argentina abandoned over Covid issue |
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| If you watch one thing today |
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| If you listen to one thing today |
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| If you read one thing today |
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| Need something different? |
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| Another Paralympic Games is over, with Great Britain winning 124 medals, including 41 golds, and finishing second in the medal table. We saw Sarah Storey become the most successful British Paralympian of all time and a new generation of stars emerge in Tokyo. Take a look at some more memorable moments we've pulled together. Now, you may remember that a few weeks ago Perseverance rover collected its first rock sample from Mars - but the container was empty. Well, US space agency Nasa has confirmed the first one's been retrieved. Find out more about what’s been described as a historic moment. And finally, could this be one for the history books? Sales of business cards have fallen as a result of the pandemic, many people have changed how they work and there's a worry about spreading germs. So what does the future hold for the purse/wallet-sized contact card? We’ve investigated. | |
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| | | | 1997 The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, takes places after an unprecedented week of mourning. |
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