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April 04, 2025 
The government’s expert advisers on vaccination are resisting intense political pressure to give the go-ahead for Covid jabs for all Britain’s teenagers because of fears it could disrupt the programme of boosters for vulnerable older people, The Independent has learnt.
Meeting comes as Dominic Raab says number of British nationals in Afghanistan is in ‘low hundreds’ 
Defence secretary Ben Wallace hails ‘Dunkirk by WhatsApp’ effort to help left-behind Afghans 
Climate change is putting a number of tree species at risk 
The treatment will be rolled out to those who have already suffered a heart attack or stroke
The Big Question 
What is Sharia law and what might it mean for Afghanistan? A Taliban spokesman recently sought to allay fears his group would once more impose oppressive authoritarian rule on Afghanistan by promising they will instead govern “within the framework of Islamic law”, without going into precise details as to what that might mean in practice, particularly with regard to the hard-won rights of women.
The Sharia law to which he was alluding - a phrase too often the cause of confused right-wing alarm in the US and Europe - simply refers to the system that governs how Muslims conduct their lives on a daily basis in accordance with the lessons of the Quran, the Sunnah and the Hadith - their holy book and the deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Simply put, this amounts to the human interpretation of divine sources, with any moral conclusions reached constantly open to revision and dispute. It is not a concrete legal system as we understand it in the West, making a nonsense of fears about its “creeping” imposition.
“Sharia” translates from Arabic as “the clear, well-trodden path to water” and its precepts aim to advise adherents to the faith as to best practice on all manner of everyday concerns - from prayers, when to fast, how much money to donate to the poor and how to behave in business transactions - with the ultimate intention of pleasing Allah.
NUMBER OF THE DAY 7% The East Midlands is projected to be the fastest-growing region in England, growing by 7.0% between mid-2018 and mid-2028 (ONS)
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Neither threats of Covid-19 nor conflict will stop me from completing my education” – Student Afghan midwife 19-year-old Fariba
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