welcome to bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories: the taliban take advantage, with us troops pulling out of afghanistan, they seize more districts, while 1,000 afghan soldiers are said to have fled the country. in england the prime minister confirms plans to scrap most remaining covid restrictions — despite a sharp rise in coronavirus cases. a russian gang behind a huge global cyber attack demands seventy million dollars in ransom from dozens of companies. and the british teenager emma raducanu's wimbledon journey ends abruptly as she pulls out on medical grounds in the fourth round.

welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. in afghanistan, a development many people feared, and many predicted. violence is on the rise since the us military withdrew from bagram air field last week, and the taliban have seized more districts. this map, from a us defence research think thank, shows the areas now in taliban control — they are in dark grey. contested areas are in red and areas controlled by the afghan government in light grey. it's not possible to verify, but the taliban says it has captured 150 out of 369 districts in the past two

months of fighting. afghanistan's interior ministry says it does not mean all of those areas have completely fallen. more than a thousand afghan government soldiers have fled across the border into tajikistan according to the government there. the bbc�*s security correspondent frank gardner reports. gunfire. on their own now, but still fighting the taliban. afghan security forces are in action this week without the us military support they've relied on, for the past 20 years. the strategic bagram air base, just north of kabul, is an afghan government hands now. the americans pulled out last week, leaving behind a deeply unstable country. the former president, hamid karzai, blames the west. the entire mission with regard to the stated objective of the united states and its nato allies in defeating terrorism and extremism has failed. the military compartment that was intended to fight extremism and terrorism, that, rather than doing the job correctly

and where it was needed, began to hurt and harass and bomb and imprison afghans. that's where it failed. and that's where our failure today is. 0thers blame endemic corruption, inefficiency and massive waste. the conflict has costed an estimated $1 trillion and over 100,000 lives, and it could be about to get worse. taliban insurgents are on the offensive. they reportedly control a quarter of afghanistan's districts after overrunning several government outposts. they are insisting no western forces be left behind. all foreign forces should withdraw from the country whether they are contractor, adviser and trainers, because they were part of the occupation. that's a violation, we will react. but that reaction would be based on the decision

of our leadership. in kandahar province — the former taliban stronghold — residents have been voicing their fears of what they think the return to power might mean. translation: the taliban don't want peace, - the taliban want the whole government. the taliban are only killing. and there's another concern. 0sama bin laden may be dead, but his organisation, al-qaeda, lives on. many fear a return of the taliban means a return of al-qaeda. a nightmare scenario not just for afghanistan, but for much of the world. frank gardner, bbc news. the british prime minister borisjohnson has confirmed that he intends to lift all coronavirus restrictions in england in two weeks time, with a final decision next week. that would mean workers returning to the office and an end to social distancing. but it comes as cases

across the country continue to rise. there's been an average of over 25,000 daily cases over the past week. but the uk government says this is manageable because the vaccine rollout has meant hospitalisations and deaths are comparatively low. this graph shows the growth of cases in the second and the current third wave of the virus — which includes the new delta varient — with both growing rapidly. but this graph shows that current hospitalisations are lagging far behind the second wave — although they are still rising. and a similar pattern can been seen in the statistics for deaths. as you can see they are far fewer than in the last wave. mrjohnson has warned that covid infections across the uk were predicted to rise to 50,000 a day later this month. 0ur deputy political editor vicky young reports.

all around us the signs of life interrupted by a pandemic. instructions about where we can go, who we can see, even in our own homes, how far apart we must stand, but in two weeks things could change. covid has not gone but most restrictions in england are likely to disappear. restaurants and pubs can operate normally, theatres and cinemas can fill every seat, large crowds can meet once more. the prime minister putting the emphasis on personal responsibility instead of government orders. i want to stress from the outset that this pandemic is farfrom over. and we must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from covid. there's only one reason why we can contemplate going ahead to step four in circumstances where we would normally be locking down further, and that is because of the continuing effectiveness of the vaccine roll—out. and in bristol, people are starting to contemplate life with fewer rules.

personally i think it's better to be safe than sorry, but just like every normal person, i welcome the change. it's the wrong thing, wrong decision. reporter: why? why? — because the cases are going up. at least give it a go and then, if anything just gets worse, go back to it — you can always go back. i think we've just have to live with it, and that's that. you can't keep living your life being told what to do. people are now afraid — they're even now afraid to go out, some people. for some, the face mask has become a hated symbol of intrusive government. it will still be recommended in hospitals and enclosed public spaces but the legal requirement to wear face coverings will go. unions say that will put workers at risk. the days of hundreds of pages of rules and regulations to follow will soon be gone. instead the government is asking us to use our common sense, make personal decisions about how we stay safe. it's a big shift in approach but it comes at a time

when cases are rising. the prime minister has been marking the nhs's birthday, and making sure hospitals can cope has been at the heart of his covid strategy. can you tell us how bad you expect it to get? obviously we have to be cautious and we will continue to look at all the data as we progress. if we don't go ahead now when the summer fire break is coming up, the school holidays, all the advantages that that should give us in fighting the virus, then the question is when would we go ahead? what the modelling would imply is that we will reach that peak before we get to the point where we have the kind of pressures that we saw injanuary, for example, of this year. labour says some will need more support. to throw off all protections at the same time, when the infection rate is still going up, is reckless.

we need a balanced approach, we need to keep key protections in place, including masks, including ventilation and, crucially, something we've been asking for throughout the pandemic, proper payment for those that need to self—isolate. later in the week we will find out about government's plans for foreign travel and what happens when we come into contact with a positive covid case. in schools, whole classes or bubbles won't be sent home. for 16 months we have lived under restrictions we could never have imagined. today, borisjohnson signalled that it is time for life to get back to normal. vicki young, bbc news, westminster. these changes have elicited some very strong reactions. earlier i spoke to eric fiegl—ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the federation of american scientists. i asked him if the british government had made the right decision. this is absolutely the wrong time and the wrong decision, period. the only thing i can

say is it's a horrible, terrible, no—good, very bad decision, because the delta variant is not your normal variant. the delta variant is the most contagious, fastest—tra nsmitting variant, much more than we've ever seen before, it is much more severe, it is about 11—5 times greater risk of hospitalisation than the old strain, and also it is vaccine somewhat attenuating and evasive, we know that one dose is not enough and we know that with two doses, in israel we've seen the efficacy drop from the 90s to just 64%, according to the latest data — this is the wrong time. eric, you are absolutely clear on that. isn't the point, though, that vaccinations in the uk are at a pretty high level — i know you mentioned israel there — and that whilst it is easily transmissible, it is not as virulent as previous strains have proved to be.

so that is a complete misinformation and completely false. that data was...you are comparing apples and oranges. the fact is that the delta variant is way more severe, way more virulent, it causes severe disease and greater risk of hospitalisation by 4— to 5—fold, according to the studies peer—reviewed, and also according to government data. so it is completely false to say it is less severe. what would you say then to the prime minister when he says, "look, if we don't go ahead now, when do we go ahead?" what is your message there? he's framing it as, "0h, we don't want to live under a shroud of lockdowns, or we want to reopen." look, this is not a choice between lockdowns or reopening. if you want to avoid lockdowns — everyone wants to avoid lockdowns, nobody wanted more lockdowns — if you want to avoid lockdowns, the path to do that is actually not

the one he chose, the path to do that is more masks, ventilation, aircleaning, ppes, and things we've discussed, but the path he's chosen is the path towards lockdowns and we do not want that because hospitalisations — you know, nhs workers, healthcare workers, there is a toll that they can take, and when every medical ethics dictate you should always protect and prevent people from suffering, hospitalisations and long covid — which 1 in 7 adults and 1 in 12 children sufferfrom long covid — that is not an acceptable statistic, and so just saying, "let's flood the hospitals right now, our hospital beds are not empty," that is just complete dereliction of any public health and ethical measures, especially as a government leader. asi as i said, some strong views held there. let's stay on the covid theme.

an alarming number of doctors in india have found themselves the targets of attacks by family members of patients who say their loved ones haven't received sufficient medical care. the indian medical association is now calling for a new law to protect healthcare workers. divya arya has more from delhi, and a warning that her report contains disturbing scenes at the very start. they used whatever they could lay their hands on, a metal bedpan, a wooden stick, orjust theirfists. shocked by the death of their loved one from covid, these relatives took out their anger on dr seuj kumar senapati, on just a second day of work, on dr seuj kumar senapati, on just his second day of work, after graduating from medical school. one month later, the memory of the attack was still fresh. translation: i was very scared. and it felt like i wouldn't survive the attack. they were hitting my head. my nose was constantly bleeding.

i begged them to stop, but they didn't. 36 people have now been charged. a shocking case, but not by a long way india's first during the pandemic. chant: we want justice! in some cases, doctors have taken to the streets, complaining about the ongoing attacks that have occurred throughout the pandemic. you are responsible for all these things so we are not seeing the case properly. they started throwing a plastic chair. nobody was arrested over the attack, which has left the dr reddy suffering flashbacks. at the peak of the second wave of infections, angry relatives damaged property at apollo hospital.

translation: the most| common factor is the lack of infrastructure in hospitals, because of this, hospitals get overcrowded, and as a result, the junior doctors often become the target of violence by relatives. last month, doctors across india held demonstrations, calling for legal protection for health care staff, saying there has been a sharp increase in attacks during the pandemic. many indian states have laws against attacking health workers, but the indian medical association says state legislation is not always enfored or even publicised. they believe on the a new law passed by the central government can help stop this violence. india has very few doctors for its billion plus people, now it is struggling to keep them safe. divya arya, bbc news, dehli. divya arya, bbc news, delhi. stay with us on bbc news,

still to come: wimbledon woes for the british teen, tennis sensation, emma raducanu. them are central london has been rocked by a series of terrorist attacks. police say there have been many casualties, and there is growing speculation that al-qaeda was responsible. germany will be the hosts of the 2006 football world cup. they pipped the favourite, south africa, by a single vote. in south africa, the possibility of losing hadn't even been contemplated. celebration parties were cancelled. a man entered the palace i through a downstairs window and made his way to the queen's private bedroom, then _ he asked her for a cigarette and, underthe pretext- of arranging for some to be i bought, summoned a footman on duty who took the man away. cheering and applause. one child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. education is the only solution.

this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: us troops head for the exit in afghanistan — as the taliban continues to seize more districts, and over a thousand afghan soldiers flee the country. in england — where coronavirus cases are rising rapidly — the prime minister confirms plans to scrap most of the remaining restrictions in two weeks. a russian—based hacking group known as reevil has compromised the computer systems of at least 1,000 businesses worldwide by targeting an american it provider, that writes and updates their software.0ne of those affected is

sweden's co—op supermarket, which has had to close some 500 outlets — that's more than half its stores — because tills and self—service checkouts had stopped working. reevil has tailored its ransom demands to the size of each respective company, but on sunday said it would settle the lot for $70 million if someone were prepared to pay it. earlier i spoke to jon bateman, a former intelligence analyst for the us government. what we're seeing here with this hack is really the combination of two things that have happened before, but rarely together. one is a supply chain compromise, whereby hackers gain access to one victim and then use that to then get a follow—on access to many, many other victims. the other is ransomware, where a company's data is held hostage unless they pay cryptocurrency. but again, both of these things are increasingly common, but this is one of the most expansive hacks that combines both techniques together, and that is why people are calling this the biggest ransomware attack of all time, although it is still a bit

early to quantify the impact. yeah, ijust wonder what you make of this �*job lot�* approach, saying, give us $70 million and we'll clear everybody? i mean, these are all completely separate businesses? it's fascinating and we haven't seen that before. some people theorise it's actually just too many victims for the ransomware gang to process. keep in mind these ransomware gangs operate much like businesses. they have a customer service line and there are people who are paid primarily to negotiate and interact with victims. but another possibility is that the ransomware gang involved here realised that they had done a bit more damage than they had intended and the level of law

enforcement and intelligence scrutiny could be beyond what they anticipated. right. these are just two theories. yeah. you call it a "ransomware gang". i mean, any idea on how many are involved in this sort of thing? i think we recognise it may not be the work of a state, but how many people does it take to form a gang like an revil? it's hard to say, because most of them operate now on an affiliate or franchise model, whereby one set of people develops the malware and another set of people go out and gain access to victims and installs that malware. and then there may be a third set of people that actually does the negotiations and payment processing. but it's likely that this was the responsibility of russian cyber criminals and not something specifically ordered by the russian state. but it's also important to realise that is somewhat beside the point, because moscow has a long—standing governmental policy of tolerating and legally

protecting these sorts of gangs. so, ultimately, vladimir putin is culpable for such attacks. jon bateman. president of georgia has condemned the attacking of offices in the capital related to the pride movement. the "march for _ to the pride movement. the "march for dignity" - to the pride movement. the "march for dignity" has also been called, by the president, a recipe for civil strife. they call it manic monday at wimbledon — and it's lived up to that name, as all the men's and women's last—16 matches have been taking place. defending men's champion novak djokovic is through — as is roger federer. former women's champion, german angelique kerber beat coco gauff but perhaps the most manic moment was reserved, very u nfortu nately.

for the last remaining british player in the singles, emma raducanu, who had to retire for medical reasons. she was largely unknown before these wimbledon championships, but has already become a feature of newspaper headlines. ben rothenberg is a writer for the new york times and host of the �*no challenges remaining' tennis podcast. hejoined me from the press room at wimbledon a short time ago saying there's been little information released about emma raducanu's retirement from the match. yeah, very abrupt, mysterious, and disappointing, for sure. raducanu was playing well and in the second set and seemed to be have some breathing difficulties and was hyperventilating a bit and then left court with the doctors for treatment and did not come back. and it's very unusual for a player to sort of retire from a match or abandon a match without coming back on the court to shake the opponent's and everything. so, it was concerning for her that she was not able to make it back to the court. hopefully she is doing well. there hasn't been much information from the tournament or from her about how she's doing, except to say the official reason

for her withdrawal was for her breathing difficulties. yes, speculation there. one very exciting teenager does go out. as indeed does the other, coco gauff, who we are familiar with now. only 17. and angelique kerber, i saw that match — kerber looked pretty good. yeah, kerber is rounding into form very well. she has had a couple of quiet years. she hadn't made a grand slam quarterfinal even since winning wimbledon in 2018, which is her last of her three major titles, but she's really growing in confidence. i think she's a player who builds on that confidence really well and she's someone who — no—one remaining in the draw will want to see across the net. she is also the only former wimbledon champion left in the side in this final eight. and we are still in that bizarre era with women's tennis, aren't we, where no—one is establishing themselves. i mean, even serena williams, let's be honest, is struggling to maintain her prowess, if you like, on the court. and i think you were pointing out something like there have been 22 different women's names in the quarterfinals for the slams this year, out of 2a possible places? yeah. no, it's been really remarkable and a completely new slate of players compared to the final eight in paris. so, it's already complete 100% turnover. and one of those names who have been in two,

ash barty, who is the number one ranked player, i think she has a chance to solidify herself as being a force if she goes on a good run here. maybe she will add a little bit of stability for the title. and then obviously naomi 0saka when she comes back, someone who is still very competitive there. it might look random at a casual glance, but certainly nowhere near the stability of the men's side with novak djokovic. we have an australian producer working on this story, at the moment, ben. so i have got to mention it — it is an all—australia quarterfinal. ash barty against either tomljanovic, who basically had that win... it shows how late it is there! the light is going! do you think ash barty could actually emerge as the winner in the women's side? 0h, absolutely! she is comfortable on grass, she — no—one doubts

after she recovered at the french open from that hip injury. and through her four matches, she makes it look like she is doing 0k, and her wins were convincing so far. she should probably go in as the favourite for every match she plays for the remainder of this tournament. a quick word about the men. no surprises, djokovic is through. federer is through but it wasn't easy, but straight sets in the end? but there is no—one but novak djokovic for the men's — to win the men's singles, is there? i think if novak djokovic loses, it will likely be due to himself — beating himself. there are some capable players in the final that are still there. matteo berrettini, the winner of queen's club is really emerging as a solid player on grass. but i think djokovic is still ahead of the field and pulling his way over christian garin today was very convincing. and so not many signs of slowing down at this point in the tournament. ben rothenberg.

plowing through the night. this is bbc news. hello there. monday was drierfor a while across england and wales, but we certainly saw the weather going down hill from the south. this rain here is marching its way northwards across the uk up into northern england and scotland, where already in the past few days in edinburgh, we have had a month's worth of rain. now that early rain is moving away, but this area of low pressure is taking a band of rain — heavy at times — northwards up towards scotland and northern england with blustery showers following to the south. for a while, we will have some unseasonably windy weather along the coast of england all the way from dorset across to suffolk, gusts of 50mph in the morning. it won't be as windy in the afternoon, but there will be some heavy showers

around, and we have still got this more persistent rain, never really clearing away from northern england, pushing into eastern scotland. elsewhere, some brightness and maybe some sunshine. the showers are never too far away, and they may well be heavy as well. generally, temperatures a bit lower on tuesday, 18—19 typically, could be chillier than that where it stays wet in northern england and eastern scotland. and as we have seen, there are some showers around, they could well affect wimbledon once again. it's going to be another day where we may well have the covers on and off. those showers will probably tend to ease off though during the evening and into the night. more places become dry, still got some wetter weather towards the north—east of scotland. the breeze tends to ease down a little bit, and we will find temperatures typically again around 12—13 degrees. now, it's low pressure that's brought all the rain over recent days, in the centre of the low pressure, by the time we get to wednesday, it's close to the north—east of scotland. so there's more cloud rolling in here and some patchy rain around, too. elsewhere, there may

well be some sunshine, but we are going to find showers breaking out, and those could turn heavy and thundery come the afternoon, particularly across wales, the midlands, across to lincolnshire as well. temperatures may be a notch higher on friday, still no better than 20—21 celsius. let's end with a glimmer of hope, because the low pressure is trying to move away. this is where high—pressure is, dry weather, and this is trying to nudge up from the south—west across the uk. so during thursday and friday, the winds won't be as strong, and for more places, it will be dry. some sunshine, although still rather cloudy for scotland and northern ireland. temperatures should be a little bit higher.

this is bbc news. the headlines: russia, iran and turkey have suspended work at their consulates in the afghan city of mazar—e—sharif, as the taliban make advances across the region, a week after us troops completed their exit. over a thousand afghan soldiers have been forced to flee across the border into tajikistan. england's covid lockdown will end in two weeks' time despite scientists urging caution as the number of cases is still rising. the british prime minister says it's possible because 86% of adults have been vaccinated. from the 19th ofjuly, face masks will be voluntary and social distancing scrapped. a cybercrime gang thought to be behind a huge global ransomware attack, is demanding $70 million in cryptocurrency. the russia—linked revil group says it will unlock all the computer systems it's blocking in exchange for the payment.