Thursday briefing: No American left behind

Top story: Biden defends handling of withdrawal

Hello, Virginia Harrison here with the top stories this morning.

Joe Biden has said troops may stay in Afghanistan beyond 31 August, the deadline the US president had set to end the war. Facing sharp criticism over America’s exit from the long-running conflict, Biden said there was no way for the US to withdraw from Afghanistan “without chaos ensuing”. In order to safely evacuate Americans via Kabul airport, he said US troops might stay past the end of the month. It follows fears from Whitehall that the Americans could pull out within days, raising concerns over the emergency airlift of thousands of people from Afghanistan.

The political fallout from the crisis has continued, as Boris Johnson faced a hostile House of Commons. Critics, many from his own side, asked if Britain could have been better prepared and if the collapse of the Kabul government might have been averted. Alongside the anger comes discussion of the plight of those displaced by the conflict. Political leaders in the north of England have promised to welcome Afghan refugees but said they must be distributed fairly across the country.

The Taliban appeared to move closer to forming a government, but any semblance of democracy has been ruled out. “We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it,” Waheedullah Hashimi, a spokesperson for the Taliban, told Reuters. Getting access to funds is likely among the most urgent challenges a Taliban regime would face. As Peter Beaumont writes, they may be headed for a rapidly developing financial crisis, with foreign currency reserves largely unreachable and western aid donors – who fund the country’s institutions by about 75% – already cutting off payments or threatening to do so.

Delta and vaccines – Fully vaccinated adults can harbour virus levels as high as unvaccinated people if infected with the Delta variant, according to a sweeping analysis of UK data. There is abundant evidence that Covid vaccines continue to offer significant protection against hospitalisation and death. But the new analysis shows while being fully vaccinated lowers the risk of catching the virus, a person infected with Delta can carry virus levels similar to unvaccinated people. It is not clear what this means for transmission, the researchers say, but it does make reaching herd immunity even more challenging.

Cosmetic claims – Hundreds of cosmetic products sold in the UK and Europe contain ingredients that have been tested on animals, despite bans that outlawed such testing years ago, new analysis has shown. Banned tests were performed on ingredients used in moisturisers, lipsticks, sunscreen and hair conditioner, the analysis found, with more than 100 separate experiments conducted on animals including mice and rabbits. At the heart of the issue are two sets of competing legislation: a law regulating chemicals introduced in 2007, and the EU ban on animal testing of cosmetic ingredients that came into force in 2009.

Teacher training warning – The University of Cambridge says it will cease teacher courses if the government persists with damaging proposals to change how primary and secondary school teachers are trained in England. Cambridge’s decision, which has been backed by its vice-chancellor, Prof Stephen Toope, is likely to be followed by Oxford and other universities that train thousands of new teachers each year, in a potentially huge blow to the teaching profession’s prestige and recruitment.

Ozone lift – A little ray of good news as saving the ozone layer appears to have given humans a chance in the climate crisis. Ozone-wrecking chemicals once commonly used in refrigerators and aerosols would have driven 2.5C of extra global heating by the end of the century had they not been banned, research has found. Modelling by climate scientists found that the 1987 Montreal protocol curbing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) gave humans a fighting chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C as set out by the Paris agreement. The atmosphere has already warmed 1.1C to 1.2C above pre-industrial levels, meaning the Earth could have been facing 3.5C of warming if CFCs were still in use.

Medieval meat lovers – It may have seemed a good day for medieval monks when a papal decree allowed them to start eating meat including mutton, beef, pork and venison. It wasn’t so good for their bowels.

As Mark Brown writes, research by English Heritage sheds light on the day-to-day lives and digestive troubles of monks at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset, in particular the consequence of a change in papal law, in 1336, which permitted the twice-weekly consumption of meat from four-legged animals. The monks already had, by modern standards, an unbalanced and calorie-rich diet. Adding meat as a luxury meant constipation and diarrhoea soon became a major problem.

Today in Focus podcast: The threat of ‘incel’ culture

The man who killed five people in Plymouth last week was part of a hateful online community of men who blame women for their status as “involuntary celibates”. Did that contribute to his violence – and does the incel movement radicalise some of the young men who are part of it?

Lunchtime read: Hot summer nights

“At a festival for the first time, I felt autonomous, desirable and free. Estranged from my parents at 17, I jumped at the chance to go on holiday to Spain. I danced, drank too much – and had a row that taught me about friendship.”

Sport

The England and Wales Cricket Board has intervened to ensure the publication of a report into racism at Yorkshire after Azeem Rafiq, whose allegations of abuse prompted the investigation, described the process as “a sham”. Nuno Espirito Santo said he must consider whether Harry Kane is in the right frame of mind before deciding whether to select him, with Manchester City keen on concluding a deal for the Tottenham striker before the close of the transfer window. Arsenal are closing on a GBP30m deal to sign the Sheffield United goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale. The Women’s Open has been handed a status and financial boost ahead of tee-off at Carnoustie with a $1.3m prize fund increase to $5.8m, making the tournament the most lucrative in female golf.

Mike Darcey, the British Gymnastics chairman, has said the organisation “must do better” to ensure there is no further abuse in the sport and he is sorry for letting down the gymnastics community. Naomi Osaka has admitted that at times over the last year she felt ungrateful about her view that playing tennis on the world stage was not enough of an accomplishment in itself. Dom Sibley has been dropped from the England squad for the third Test against India at Headingley next week, with the team’s head coach, Chris Silverwood, admitting the batsman “needs some time away to regain his confidence”. And Steve Smith will headline Australia’s list of returnees for the Twenty20 World Cup after the star batsman was named in a 15-man squad for the tournament.

Business

The GBP2.6bn takeover of the British defence firm Ultra Electronics by a US private equity company will be investigated on national security grounds. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business minister, has told the competition regulator to examine the deal and tabled an order in parliament preventing Ultra from disclosing “sensitive information” to Cobham. The FTSE100 looks like dropping 0.6% this morning according to futures trade, while the pound is on $1.372 and EUR1.175.

The papers

The Guardian leads with “MPs lambast Johnson over Afghanistan ‘humiliation'”, reporting the prime minister faced a wall of fury from all wings of the Conservative party over the UK’s conduct. The Financial Times takes a similar line, with “PM under fire: Afghan defeat draws anger” reporting that Johnson faced “stinging criticism” in the parliamentary debate on the Taliban’s rapid advance in Afghanistan. The Mirror says simply “Johnson humiliated”.

The Times splashes with “MPs condemn Biden over ‘shameful’ US withdrawal, while the Telegraph leads with “Parliament holds the president in contempt”. The paper says MPs and peers united to condemn the “dishonour” of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in an “unprecedented rebuke” of a US president. The Express says “PM defends Afghanistan exit” while Metro attacks both Johnson and Dominic Raab, supported by a quote from Keir Starmer saying: “You cannot co-ordinate an international response from the beach”. The Mail also takes aim at Raab, with its lead “Raab was ‘too busy’ on holiday to help brave translators”.

The i focuses on the troubles on the ground in Kabul, splashing with the headline “Hell on Earth”, as it reports mothers in Kabul threw their babies over airport barbed wire to British servicemen. “What did they do to deserve this?” asks the Daily Star, with a picture of a distressed Afghan boy, asking the British and American leaders to “Take a long, hard look” at the child’s face. And several papers pay tribute to the comedian Sean Lock, who died of cancer aged 58. Writing in the Guardian, fellow comedian Harry Hill reflects on his life: “He took his illness in typically dry style. I heard he was in a hospice for a bit of a rest. I called him up. ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘A hospice, what’s that like?’ ‘It’s OK,’ he said ‘… and the sex is amazing.'”

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