Migrants 

Express
FRENCH presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen will be able to limit the number of migrants journeying to the UK as the nationalistic leader will crackdown on refugees entering France in the first place therefore preventing them from getting to France’s northern beaches.
Former rear admiral and managing director of Merl House Consultants Dr Chris Parry spoke to Express.co.uk and forecast while National Rally leader Marine Le Pen searches for allies, the  French presidential candidate may be able to prevent Channel crossings to the UK through her domestic policies. Dr Parry explained the eurosceptic leader has often looked at the UK “as an example” and will “consolidate” French national pride to her advantage, adding Ms Le Pen admires the nationalism of the UK. But the former Navy officer added Ms Le Pen’s domestic policy of shutting out refugees would have a knock-on effect on migrants crossing into the UK as fewer would be able to get to the northern beaches.
Ms Le Pen is the leader of the French National Rally party which historically has been eurosceptic, anti-immigration and has had ties to the far-right. 
However, after learning from her defeat in 2017, Ms Le Pen has sought to distance herself from the far-right elements of her party and has toned down extremist rhetoric.
Political pundits suggest due to the looming Afghan refugee crisis which is set to grip Europe, Ms Le Pen may see a positive uptick in her support for her 2022 presidential election campaign. 
Politico suggests Emmanuel Macron and Ms Le Pen will enter the second round of voting with Mr Macron narrowly winning 55 percent to 45 percent.  

EU 

Telegraph
The European Union will act to prevent “uncontrolled” mass immigration in the wake of the Afghan crisis, according to a draft statement in Brussels leaked to media, as Turkey ruled out taking more refugees.
EU states are eager to avoid a repeat of the bloc’s handling of the huge influx of refugees and migrants to Greece and Italy in 2015 that fuelled tensions and support for anti-migrant, far-Right movements. A call for “solidarity” via a system of migrant quotas prompted a threat to slap huge fines on several Eastern European countries who refused to take part.
“Based on lessons learned, the EU and its member states stand determined to act jointly to prevent the recurrence of uncontrolled large-scale illegal migration movements faced in the past, by preparing a coordinated and orderly response,” interior ministers are due to declare at an emergency meeting in Brussels on Tuesday. 

Trade 

Sun
BRITAIN was last night on the cusp of striking a post-Brexit trade deal with New Zealand.
Negotiators are locked in final talks on a £2.3bn pact to ditch tariffs and boost business ties.
Industry insiders have been told the agreement is set to be inked “imminently”.
It comes just weeks after Liz Truss signed the UK’s first major trade deal outside the  EU  with Australia.
Brits will be able to benefit from cheaper prices in the shops on New Zealand produce like wine and food.
The deal will remove up to 20p of tax from a bottle of Kiwi plonk in the supermarket.
And the pact will boost exports of iconic UK goods including chocolate, gin, buses, and clothes.
It is also another step towards No 10’s ambitions to join the £9 trillion Trans-Pacific Partnership area. 

Covid 

Mail
They’re the figures that have ruled our lives for the past 18 months; decided our freedoms; deepened our fears.
The Covid dashboard published on the UK Government website has offered the public a window into the state of the UK’s epidemic, displaying daily Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths, both nationally and regionally, since April 2020. 
Some people have avoided looking at the figures – published at 4pm every day, including weekends. But a surprising number of us have become secretly addicted to poring over them.
Back in January, the dashboard attracted 76 million views in a single day. In more recent months, the dashboard has offered a source of celebration, thanks to the addition of the vaccination tally.
Scientists and politicians alike agree the UK’s Covid dashboard has been a resounding success, allowing the public to draw their own conclusions about the level of threat the virus poses to them.
It’s also been a crucial yardstick for how stretched the NHS is, providing exact figures of how many Covid patients are in each hospital around the country.
But now, with nearly eight in ten Britons protected against getting seriously ill, thanks to the vaccine, are daily Covid figures still necessary? 

Guardian
A new Covid variant detected in South Africa has made headlines around the world.
On Monday the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa issued an alert about the “C.1.2 lineage”, saying it had been detected in all provinces in the country, but at a relatively low rate.
C.1.2 was first detected in May, the alert said, but Delta is still the dominant variant spreading in South Africa and the world.
A pre-print, non peer-reviewed paper published about the variant said C.1.2 “has since been detected across the majority of the provinces in South Africa and in seven other countries spanning Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania”.
The C.1.2 lineage has drawn the attention of scientists because despite its low rate in the population, it possesses mutations within the genome similar to those seen in variants of interest and variants of concern, like the Delta variant, as well as some additional mutations.
So what do we know about the new variant, and how concerned should we be? 

Express
SCHOOLS have been warned by unions that tougher Covid measures will have to be reintroduced in the coming months as students prepare to return to in-person lessons.
As summer holidays draw to a close and many pupils return to school this week, the country’s largest education union has warned families that Covid restrictions may be put in place by the end of September. These tougher measures are expected to cause significant disruptions to learning.
These warnings come amid a rise in Covid cases in the country.
Most classrooms are welcoming back pupils over the next fortnight, but first days are staggered from Wednesday onwards.
On Monday, Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, told the Telegraph: “We have much higher prevalence now in the community than it was.  

A similar story appears in the Telegraph. 

Afghanistan 

Express
XI JINPING and Vladimir Putin have exchanged their views and found common ground on their outlook for Afghanistan. Here are the four key stipulations China has for the Taliban now the group is back in control in the country.
All eyes are on Afghanistan now the Taliban has seized control of the country once again. The US and UK are evacuating staff and citizens hastily to meet the deadline of August 31, concluding what has been 20 years of military presence in the region.
Amid ongoing evacuations, the terrorism threat has increased in Kabul.
A suicide bombing, which ISIS-K claimed responsibility for, killed dozens of people near the gates of Kabul airport on Thursday, August 26.
Among those killed in the conflict on Thursday were 13 US soldiers, and several other US military staff and civilians were injured in the attack.
President Joe Biden said in response to the attack that the US will hunt those responsible down. 

Mail
Escaping Afghanistan by land is all but impossible because borders are closed, foreign embassies have been abandoned and the Taliban have put up hundreds of checkpoints, former interpreters warned yesterday.
The limited options were laid bare in a briefing document circulated among British military officers as the final RAF evacuation flights left Kabul at the weekend.
It examines all the rescue options through Afghanistan’s neighbours – but spells out that few are currently realistic or viable. 
The most obvious route is through Pakistan but the document warns that this ‘is looking very problematic’.
Examining Pakistan’s key routes, the document says that the popular Torkham crossing is ‘now impassable’ and ‘blocked by Taliban’. 
Referring to the crossing from the town of Spin Boldak, the note says there are ‘huge numbers of people at the border’. 

Similar stories appear in the Guardian, Sun, Independent, Times,  

Evening Standard
British forces are prepared to launch air strikes to target so-called Islamic State terrorists in  Afghanistan, the head of the RAF indicated as the US-led military presence in the country came to an end.
US forces finally withdrew from Afghanistan on Monday, a day ahead of the deadline set by Joe Biden, bringing to an end a deployment which began in the wake of the September 11 attacks two decades ago.
The end of the Western military presence – the UK had already pulled out its remaining troops – also concluded the airborne evacuation effort from Kabul leaving Afghans wanting to escape the Taliban facing an uncertain future.
But while the international community appears to have accepted the reality of Taliban rule, the UK and US remain willing to take on Islamic State, also known as Daesh.
The group’s Afghan offshoot, Isis-K, carried out the bloody attack on Kabul airport in the final days of the evacuation effort which killed two Britons and the child of a British national, along with 13 US service personnel and scores of Afghans.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the global coalition against the terrorist group was ready “to combat Daesh networks by all means available, wherever they operate”. 

Vaccine passports 

Breitbart
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of London on Saturday, demanding that the government does not implement the proposed vaccine passport system.
Gathering in Hyde Park, demonstrators marched throughout Central London, crossing the River Thames and culminating at Clapham Common.
Protesters were seen carrying placards reading “Big Pharma Loves You”, “Vaccines, a Choice Not a Passport”, “Media is the Virus”, and “Hands Off Our Kids”.
Towards the end of the protest, London’s metropolitan police were filmed by Breitbart London forcibly arresting one of the protesters.
A witness to the police action remarked: “Extinction Rebellion can do what they want, block off Central London, they can sit there for hours and nothing but a couple of people come to Clapham Common and… this is what happens”.
As he was being dragged into a police van, the arrested man shouted out: “Disgrace, traitors, criminals, we are peaceful, they are violent. As ever, bribed traitors.”
In total, four arrests were made throughout the day, however, none of the arrests were made at various protests from the climate change extremist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) happening at the same time.
XR also enjoyed considerably more media attention than the protests against mandatory or coercive vaccination in Britain’s mainstream media. 

Extinction Rebellion 

Order-order
Extinction Rebellion has shown little regard for people’s lives when it comes to blocking ambulances, so Guido’s not surprised to hear their protests are now affecting the vaccine rollout. Yesterday a friend of Guido’s turned up to a pop-up vaccine clinic in SW1, having booked in for their second jab. After a couple of minutes, a member of staff came out to inform the queue of around 10 people that there was a “problem with a few of the vials” and they weren’t sure they’d have enough to do everyone – all of whom had appointments.
The queue were informed the centre would be unable to get replacements in the time left before closing due to “the Extinction Rebellion protests” blocking much of Westminster, especially Victoria Street by BEIS. As a result the vaccine hopefuls were turned away around forty-five minutes before the the centre would otherwise have closed. At least two among the expectant group had their first doses effectively prevented as a result of Extinction Rebellion’s expensive, police time-wasting protests. Still over a week to go… 

Similar stories appear in Evening Standard, Independent 

BBC licence 

Mail
The BBC licence fee will increase by less than inflation over the next five years as ministers are concerned over the rising costs of households bills.
Talks between the government and the BBC over the £159-a-year TV licence are set to conclude in the coming weeks.
And ministers are said to have rejected calls from the corporation for the cost to increase in line with inflation like previous years, according to The Times.
A government source said: ‘The BBC is a hugely important national institution. But equally these are hard times.
‘Nobody wants to punish the BBC but it’s got to be subject to the same efficiency savings as everyone else.’
While another source said the BBC had warned that not raising the licence fee in line with inflation could lead to significant cuts to ‘quality’ programming.
The fee currently earns the corporation £3.2billion a year. 

Similar stories appear in the Times, Sun 

Hospitals 

Times
A trip to A&E is nobody’s idea of a holiday but it could one day be as inviting as flying first class under plans that envisage luxury airline-style pods in place of cubicles.
A senior NHS doctor who has been working in A&E during the pandemic thought of the idea and is one of five finalists for the £250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize.
Entrants were asked how they would “design and plan new hospitals to radically improve patient experiences, clinical outcomes, staff wellbeing and integration with wider health and social care”.
They were told that they should demonstrate how their project was deliverable within an existing budget for a capital project or had benefits, which would justify additional investment.

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