Afternoon Briefing Thursday 14th August

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Hello, this is your Times Afternoon Briefing for Thursday the 14th of August with me, James Kitchen. The Education Secretary has told Times Radio some universities have become too dependent on international students.

0:45Hundreds of thousands of young people received their A-level, T-level and B-tech results this morning, with a record number getting into their first choice university. Meanwhile, boys have outperformed girls at A-level for the first time in seven years. Speaking to Times Radio Breakfast, Bridget Philipson warns some universities are too open to fluctuations in student numbers. International students make an important contribution not just to our universities but also to our economy and to our country and they will always be welcome here in the UK. But it's also fair to say that some institutions, their business model has allowed them to become too dependent on international students and therefore too open to any fluctuations that may happen around that.

1:27Thoremy Zelensky has left Downing Street after talks with Sir Keir Starmer at Number 10. The meeting comes before the highly anticipated summit in Alaska tomorrow between President Donald Trump and the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The Times reports Moscow and Washington have discussed a model for Ukraine that mirrors Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Under the plan, Russia would have military and economic control of occupied regions under its own governing body. Daniel Davis is a foreign policy analyst and former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He says Moscow is going into the negotiations with a strong hand.

2:00For all of Russia's significant advantages in the air, artillery, in glide bombs, in air power, air defense, munitions production, military, industrial capacity, all of those are definitely on the Russian advantages. But the biggest one is the manpower pool. Ukraine is suffering more losses each month than they can force mobilize to bring in. The density of the Ukrainian troops is too small. There's too few of them to defend too big of an area. More than 100 organizations have signed a joint letter calling on Israel to stop what they call the weaponization of aid. Humanitarian groups, including Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières, say they're being increasingly told they're not authorized to deliver supplies.

2:41Israel denies there are restrictions and says the rules ensure aid reaches the population directly, not Hamas. Speaking to Times Radio, Chapin Fay from the U.S.-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accused the UN and other groups of hypocrisy. The United Nations has worked with militaries and armed groups just like ours all over the world. Bosnia, Haiti, Congo. This is the only place in the world where the UN and other NGOs have a problem with how the aid is getting delivered. And we are successful. We've put 120 million meals directly into the hands of people who need it. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has described the latest GDP figures as positive, but added there's more to do.

3:23The economy expanded by just 0.3 % in the three months to June, down from 0.7 % in the first quarter. And there's been a small rise in the number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment in England. At the end of June, just over 6.23 million patients were on the waiting list, which is 10 ,000 more than the month before. Around 1 ,100 people have been waiting for more than 18 months. And remember, you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much.

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