Morning briefing Friday 21st 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 Good morning. Prince Harry and Meghan's security status when they returned to the UK later this month is still unknown.

0:38Andy Burnham said their protection was a private matter. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are moving back with their children ahead of the new school year. Sebastian Salek is a former Labour councillor. He said it's good for the UK. People around the world really care about this. And we talk a lot about Britain's falling place in the world and decreasing relevance. and sadly a lot of that is true. But one thing that people keep coming back for is this ongoing royal story. So if we can feed the world something, I think that's positive for Britain and positive for our soft power. Are they going to end up back in the royal family officially?

1:12Probably not. The French government says it has prevented 185 small boats from crossing the Channel in the three months since Britain agreed a£660 million deal to patrol the beaches. The figure accounts for 61 % of all attempted crossings. That's up 5 % on the same three months last year, but slightly lower than the three months before the deal was struck. Meanwhile, video footage shows French police being attacked by migrants who were trying to board a small boat headed for the UK. People wearing life jackets appeared to throw objects at officers who then used parva spray against them before slashing the dinghy.

1:49Iran has dismissed Donald Trump's new sanctions campaign as a diversion from domestic American issues, warning the so-called economic D-Day would only bring further defeat to Washington. This comes after Trump announced the launch of an unprecedented crushing economic operation against Iran. It's after the two countries failed to reach a deal. Ambassador Dennis Ross is a former US Middle East peace envoy under Bush and Clinton. It's fairly typical for President Trump to overclaim what it is that he's doing. We have had sanctions on Iran for a long time. We have had secondary sanctions on Iran for a long time, meaning someone who does business with Iran runs the risk of being sanctioned by us.

2:31What he's describing is we're going to go much farther than we've ever gone before on that. Now that would be interesting. He's going to have a summit, President Xi of China. Who buys 90 % of Iran's oil? China. Nations including the UK, France and Canada have criticised Israel's plans to open up tenders for the construction of 1 ,200 homes in the West Bank. They've called the decision unacceptable and are urging Tel Aviv to retract the plans immediately. Angela Rayner took a£20 ,000 donation from an oil advisory group to cover some of her staffing costs. That's despite having criticised the industry in the past.

3:09Meanwhile, she insists she's an advocate of the net zero agenda. England is becoming a maths powerhouse. The head of the exams regulator said it's thanks to reforms introduced by Michael Gove when he was Education Secretary. The chief executive of Ofqual said maths grades were rising after improvements in teaching, plus the adoption of maths mastery programmes used in countries like Singapore. For a round-up of the news on demand, subscribe to the Times Radio News Briefing on any podcast platform.

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