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London: Coincidence or a subliminal message? Queen Elizabeth has stirred up social media as she opened parliament in a hat looking very much like a European Union flag.

Delivering a formal speech in which Prime Minister Theresa May's government laid out its strategy for exiting the EU, the monarch sported a blue chapeau decorated with an arc of blue flowers each with a bright yellow disc at its centre.

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Queen Elizabeth II said the UK government will work to secure the best possible deal on leaving the EU, as she addressed the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

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The Australian government is offering support to the Philippines as its military battles Islamist militants aligned with Islamic State. National Security correspondent David Wroe explains.

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In an interview with US magazine Newsweek, Prince Harry has said nobody in his family wants to be king or queen.

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The fatal bashing of a Muslim girl with a baseball bat has sparked outrage in the US, but police say there is nothing yet to indicate it was a hate crime.

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The embattled White House press secretary has not had an easy time in the spotlight, but he could have gotten a few facts (and names) straight.

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There was yoga in Stonehenge and festivals in France, but the bravest celebration may have been in Tasmania.

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On August 21st, for the first time in almost a century, a total solar eclipse will reach across the United States, plunging a strip over 100 kilometres wide, into darkness.

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There are also concerns about the impact of a change of succession in Saudi Arabia on the oil market, David Pollard reports.

Queen Elizabeth II said the UK government will work to secure the best possible deal on leaving the EU, as she addressed the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

It was all a bit Brussels and Strasbourg, where the EU flag a blue ensign with a circle of yellow stars on it holds pride of place,

"Queen delivers speech outlining Brexit plans wearing a hat that looks suspiciously like a EUROPEAN flag," the right-wing, anti-EU Daily Mail newspaper tweeted.

Some thought it might have been deliberate on the Queen's part.

"A bit like her insisting on driving the Saudi king! Subtle royal politics," Simon Hix, political science professor at London School of Economics tweeted.

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As head of state, the British monarch refrains from taking public positions on political issues.

A headline published in British tabloid The Sun last year claiming that the Queen "backed Brexit", prompted official denials and a complaint to press regulators, which ruled that it was significantly misleading.

USPresident Donald Trump's proposed visit to the UKlater this year was conspicuous by its absence from the Queen's speech.

Despite Mr Trump accepting an invitation for a state visit during the prime minister's visit to Washington in January, the queen only said she and her husband Prince Philip "look forward to welcoming" the king and queen of Spain in July.

State visits have traditionally been announced by the monarch in her speeches to Parliament.

There were protests after Mr Trump was invited so soon after his inauguration, and Mrs May said on June 6 that the president was "wrong" to criticise London Mayor Sadiq Khan over his response to the London Bridge terrorist attack that killed eight people.

Mr Trump used Twitter to accuse Mr Khan of being "pathetic," in contrast to Mrs May saying that the mayor, a member of the opposition Labour Party, was "doing a good job."

Britain is trying to persuade Mr Trump to sign a post-Brexit trade deal.

While his predecessor Barack Obama said Britain would be "at the back of the queue" if it voted to leave the European Union, Mr Trump initially promised a quick deal with the UKbefore appearing to prioritisean agreement with the bloc it is leaving.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said in February that the visit would take place in June and the force was preparing for "lots of protests."

That was before Mrs May called the June 8 election that cost her Conservative Party its parliamentary majority and a fire in a London apartment block killed dozens and led to anti-government protests on the streets.

The prospect of Mr Trump being greeted with demonstrations was only one aspect of planning for the proposed visit by the head of state of a crucial ally to Britain.

The speaker of the House of Commons also made it clear that he would not be allowed to address Parliament.

"I feel very strongly our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons," John Bercow said when explaining his decision in February.

Asked about the state visit earlier this month, the London mayor said: "I don't think we should be rolling out the red carpet to the president of the USA in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for."

The absence of Mr Trump's visit from the speech is a far cry from the way the invitation was announced in the early days of his presidency.

"I have today been able to convey Her Majesty the Queen's hope that President Trump and the First Lady would pay a state visit to the United Kingdom later this year and I'm delighted that the president has accepted that invitation," Mrs May said in a press conference in the White House in January.

Reuters, Bloomberg

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Queen Elizabeth stirs social media with hat resembling the European Union flag - The Sydney Morning Herald

A man is transported to hospital after the car bomb attack in Lashkar Gah. Photograph: Abdul Malik/Reuters

At least 30 people have been killed in Helmand province after a car bomb targeted soldiers, government employees and other civilians queueing to collect pay cheques from a bank in the provincial capital.

The blast outside New Kabul Bank in Lashkar Gah is the latest in a series of brazen attacks in Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. It has been responsible for similar attacks against the bank, where most government employees have their salaries deposited.

The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, condemned the attack. The perpetrators have no respect for any religion or faith. They are enemies of humanity, he said.

Lashkar Gahs main trauma centre, received 23 bodies and admitted 43 injured patients. Several windows shattered at the hospital, which is close to the bank, but staff were unharmed, said Dejan Panic, a programme coordinator.

Omar Zawak, spokesman for the Helmand governor, said 30 people had been killed and more than 60 injured, many critically. He said most of the fatalities were soldiers.

It is the third time in three years that militants have targeted crowds collecting salaries at the bankA suicide bomber and a gunman killed 10 people in 2014, and seven were killed in a suicide bombing in February. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.

A border police officer who gave his name as Rahmatullah said he had kept his distance from the queue as he waited to get inside the bank because of the spate of attacks.

I was waiting in front of the bank to take my salary, but I was worried about an explosion so I didnt join the crowd. And then suddenly the blast happened. I saw lot of injured and dead people, he said. He sustained a leg injury in the blast. .

Helmand has long been a Taliban stronghold. Lashkar Gah is one of the only populated areas in the province under government control.

US Marines returned to Helmand for the first time since 2014 in April, deploying 300 personnel to a province where more foreign and Afghan soldiers have lost their lives than anywhere else in the country.

The Trump administration has said it will deploy about 4,000 extra troops in Afghanistan, in addition to the 8,400 still serving there. Nato allies such as Australia and Denmark have also pledged more troops.

Most analysts doubt the Taliban can be defeated militarily, particularly given that it proved impossible with 150,000 foreign troops at the height of Barack Obamas surge.

The US defence secretary has said that while the country is not winning the war in Afghanistan, we will correct this as soon as possible. In response to criticism from senators, James Mattis said he would provide details of a new strategy in mid-July.

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Afghanistan: Taliban claims responsibility for suicide car bomb attack - The Guardian

Photo President Trump arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday after a day trip to Miami. He has given Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, the authority to send several thousand additional troops to Afghanistan. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re President Cedes Afghan Strategy to the Pentagon (front page, June 19):

I read with shock and dismay that President Trump has in effect given over the planning and implementation for the war in Afghanistan to the military, which argued to expand the military effort even though Afghanistan is an unstable country with endemic corruption. Even though Afghanistan is far from the American mainland. Even though the 3,000 to 5,000 troops are being asked to deploy without an overall strategy, let alone an endgame.

Has President Trump no feeling at all about the extreme danger to which he is subjecting these troops with apparently no interest in providing a rationale for their deployment? Is there no end to ill-conceived military exploits in a faraway land we know nothing about?

Have we not learned anything since Vietnam?

BRUCE CHADWICK, BROOKLYN

A version of this letter appears in print on June 22, 2017, on Page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: Handing Off Afghanistan.

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Handing Off Afghanistan - New York Times

In an effort to check the deteriorating security conditions in Afghanistan, the Trump administration is expected to approve an increase in the number of United States troops there. Yet as should now be unmistakably clear, such a deployment will have no impact on the military balance there, will not improve prospects for peace, and perhaps most critically, will not accomplish any U.S. national security objectives.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand how advocates of our 16 years of war in Afghanistan continue to argue, emphatically, that not only should the mission continue, but we should expand it.

Reportedly, the president is considering up to 5,000 more troops. This proposal should be rejected.

In a 2009 report I authored while at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, I argued that the then-30,000 troop increase under consideration would not succeed. I warned that by sending that many troops, "we risk upsetting the local population upon whom we rely for support but providing too few to militarily defeat the Taliban."

In February 2012, after I returned from my second deployment to Afghanistan, I publicly reported that despite numerous positive assessments from senior U.S. officials, the troop surge had failed to accomplish its mission, and in fact, the U.S. was on a path to defeat. I wrote that as "this report has shown conclusively the military surge failed to reduce the insurgency, and with the drawdown in full swing, our future efforts are virtually certain to likewise fail."

With the Taliban stronger today than at any time since 2001, we now know the surge failed.

Therefore, I continue to argue that in the current environment it wouldn't matter if the U.S. deployed 5,000 troops, 50,000 troops, or even a massive 250,000 troops. U.S. national security would not improve, the insurgency would not be defeated, and untold numbers of U.S. men and women would again sacrifice their lives for a mission that will fail. There are several reasons why I make this assessment with such confidence:

First, as has been well documented, the Pakistani intelligence service has for decades been supplying, harboring and sometimes directing insurgent attacks in Afghanistan from its territory in Pakistan. Until or unless that support is eliminated or severely curtailed, the war will continue.

According to Sen. Hasibullah Kalemzai, the deputy speaker of the Afghan legislature's upper house, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has confirmed that the blast materials for the horrific attack on May 31 that killed 150 in Kabul had come from Pakistan and that the ISI had supported the attack. It was necessary, Kalemzai believes, for the U.S. "to put full diplomatic pressure on Pakistan" to stop their support to the Taliban.

Second, as has also been well documented, corruption of the Afghan government is pervasive. Secretary of Defense James Mattis testified at a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing, "This is a critical problem. I'd say this is the biggest strategic problem we face, is corruption."

Finally, stabilizing Afghanistan cannot be militarily attained. Afghanistan is a massive country, containing more than 250,000 square miles of territory, much of which is mountainous and inhospitable. I traveled throughout eastern and southeastern Afghanistan during the 2010-11 surge and observed that even with 140,000 NATO troops there were vast swaths of the country where the Taliban had free reign. It is a physical impossibility to prevent nefarious actors from operating in Afghanistan.

Of far greater importance, however, is the fact that political solutions cannot be imposed on any nation from outside by means of military power. The people on the ground who will have to live with the results must be the ones to craft the solution.

At present, the overriding priority for the U.S. is to keep the nation safe from terrorist strikes originating from overseas. To protect the U.S., we don't need to rebuild the entire country of Afghanistan. Thankfully, as with the rest of the vast territory around the globe, the Pentagon and intelligence community can and should continue their important work of identifying and eliminating security threats. That is a totally different mission than that which policy makers have pursued there for many years.

Instead of surging military forces into Afghanistan, Washington could engage in a concerted diplomatic effort in the region, including Islamabad, Kabul, and New Delhi, to convince Pakistan to cease or severely curtail cross-border support for the insurgency. If the Taliban and other entities lost their support from Pakistan, the Afghan security forces might be able, on their own, to sufficiently degrade the insurgency.

The U.S. could also put pressure on the Kabul government to make genuine, measurable progress in reducing corruption. Whatever course of action the administration chooses, however, Congress should demand assurances that further aid, or the life of one more American troop, won't be wasted.

The U.S. government has an obligation to keep our citizens safe. We must now recognize, however belatedly, that accomplishing that objective cannot be accomplished in Afghanistan by deploying additional U.S. combat power. Sending more troops into Afghanistan now cannot and will not make the U.S. safer. It is time to instead employ means and tactics that have a chance of success.

Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities. He retired from the Army as a Lt. Col. after 21 years of active service.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read ourguidelines on submissions here.

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Instead of sending more soldiers to Afghanistan, Trump should do this - Washington Examiner

ICC news June 22, 2017

ESPNcricinfo staff

Afghanistan and Ireland have been approved as Full Members by the ICC, meaning they have become cricket's 11th and 12th Test-playing nations. This was signed off on by the ICC Board in London on Thursday, during the ICC's AGM.

Afghanistan and Ireland's boards had applied to the ICC to have their status upgraded from Associates, and this was put to vote at the meeting on Thursday and unanimously supported.

Ireland first gained ODI status in 2005 after finishing runners-up in the ICC Trophy tournament, which they hosted, to gain their first World Cup berth. Two years later they scored a shock upset of Pakistan on St Patrick's Day in Jamaica and they've never looked back, qualifying for two subsequent World Cups in which they defeated England and West Indies to further press their case that they could maintain competitiveness with other Test nations.

"Test cricket is the pinnacle, it's the best. Not being able to play Tests was the reason cited by some players, who weren't able to achieve that career fulfilment with Ireland, as the reason they went to England," Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom said. "That reason is now removed, we can play Tests ourselves. Who can say for certain that players won't leave in the future, but that can't be the reason for it now."

Afghanistan's rise has been even sharper having first gained ODI status in 2009 with a sixth-place finish at that year's World Cup Qualifier in South Africa. It followed three consecutive promotions over the previous year when they began in Division Five of the World Cricket League. Like Ireland, they have demonstrated the talent to stand toe-to-toe with Full Member nations, securing three straight ODI and T20I series wins over Zimbabwe as well as a win over eventual champion West Indies at the 2016 World T20. Most recently they drew their maiden ODI series in West Indies.

"Another day that we can lock in our history and be proud," Shafiq Stanikzai, ACB chief executive, said, adding there was still more work to be done. "Every achievement is great, but it opens the door to challenges. We'll be hosting our international matches in Greater Noida and Sharjah, there should be a day when we can host inside Afghanistan."

The vote is not just an endorsement of each country's respective on-field talents but a seal of approval for efforts made in recent years to build up their domestic structures. In the last three years, both countries have started a multi-day competition with each receiving first-class designation from the ICC in the last year, a harbinger of Thursday's Full Member affirmation.

Since 2005, both countries have demonstrated their readiness for five-day cricket through their dominance in the Intercontinental Cup, the ICC's first-class competition for Associates. Ireland has won four of the last five editions, with Afghanistan interrupting that streak with a victory in the 2010 tournament. The two sides currently sit in the top-two spots in the current edition of the competition, Afghanistan holding a one-point lead after securing an innings victory at Greater Noida over Ireland earlier this year.

Afghanistan have only lost once in the 20 Intercontinental Cup matches they've played, that coming in the 2013 final to Ireland. Ireland's record is just as enviable, with 24 wins, three losses and 10 draws in 37 matches. But they will now be leaving that competition behind at the end of the year, with the door to Test cricket now wide open to them.

ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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Afghanistan, Ireland get Test status - ESPNcricinfo.com