Trump’s Afghanistan vow and Brexit legal plan

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He said his original instinct had been to pull US forces out, but a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan would leave a vacuum for terrorists to fill and risk repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq.

He spelled out that he wanted to shift from a time-based approach in Afghanistan to one based on conditions on the ground, adding he would not set out deadlines.

He also warned Pakistan that the US would no longer tolerate the country offering “safe havens” to extremists, an accusation quickly dismissed by the Pakistani army.

By Jonathan Marcus, diplomatic correspondent

After some 16 years, the battle for Afghanistan – America’s longest running war – is going to get a whole lot longer.

This was the essential message from President Donald Trump’s address. His stress on abandoning timetables and moving to a “conditions-based approach” as he called it, means that US troops will be in Afghanistan for a considerable time to come.

The decision on a new Afghan strategy was much delayed, but after much prevarication he has essentially followed the line of his senior military advisers.

The government is to publish its latest position paper on Brexit, calling for “close co-operation” with the EU to resolve cross-border legal disputes after UK withdrawal. An agreement needs to be reached on how divorces, commercial disputes and consumer claims that span multiple countries are handled – currently EU regulations specify how the appropriate court is chosen. Lawyers and MPs have warned that the UK’s status as a “global legal centre” for commercial contracts could come under threat from rival countries unless clear arrangements are put in place for after Brexit.

A 4.0 magnitude earthquake on the Italian island of Ischia has left at least one person dead and 25 more injured. Italian media say up to 10 others are unaccounted for after buildings in the town of Casamicciola, off the coast of Naples, collapsed. Local reports say a hospital has been evacuated and emergency workers are attempting to free people from collapsed structures. Areas of the island are said to be without power, and relief workers are being transported by ferry and helicopter from the mainland.

Ford is offering UK customers £2,000 off a new model if they trade in cars that are over seven years old. Unlike schemes by BMW and Mercedes, which are only for diesels, Ford will also accept petrol cars from any manufacturer. All of the part-exchanged vehicles will be scrapped, Ford said, which would have an “immediate positive effect on air quality”. The BBC’s transport correspondent, Richard Westcott, says the move is also designed to boost new car sales, which have been slipping in recent months.

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