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According to 2015 figures, the UK fishing industry is made up of more than 6,000 vessels. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

The government has announced its withdrawal from an arrangement that allows other countries to fish in British waters. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, claimed the UK was taking back control.

On Monday ministers will trigger withdrawal from the London fisheries convention, signed in 1964 before the UK joined the European Union, to start the two-year process to leave the agreement. The convention allows vessels from the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands to fish within six and 12 nautical miles of each others coastlines.

We will be saying were taking back control, Gove said on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. We will have control. We can decide the terms of access.

Gove said leaving the European Union would involve exiting the EU common fisheries policy, which allows all European countries access between 12 and 200 nautical miles off the UK and sets quotas for how much fish nations can catch.

When we leave the European Union we will become an independent political state and that means that we can then extend control of our waters up to 200 miles or the median line between Britain and France, and Britain and Ireland, he said.

One critical thing about the common fisheries policy is that it has been an environmental disaster. And one of the reasons we want to change it is that we want to ensure that we can have sustainable fish stocks for the future I think its important that we recognise that leaving the European Union is going to help the environment.

According to 2015 figures, the UK fishing industry is made up of more than 6,000 vessels, landing 708,000 tonnes of fish worth 775m. About 10,000 tonnes of fish were caught by other countries under the London convention, worth an estimated 17m.

Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermens Organisations, welcomed the governments decision, saying it was an important part of establishing the UK as an independent coastal state with sovereignty over its own exclusive economic zone.

Ben Stafford, head of campaigns at WWF, said achieving sustainable fishing was about much more than which country fishes where. He said: It is about ensuring that fishermen use the right fishing gear, that fishing takes place at levels that maintain sustainable stocks and that we pioneer ways to monitor what is happening at sea in order to understand the impacts of fishing.

Leaving the EU means we could get these things right, but we will still need to cooperate with our neighbours, as fish do not recognise lines on a map.

Will McCallum, Greenpeace UKs head of oceans, said: For years, successive UK governments have blamed Brussels for their own failure to support the small-scale, sustainable fishers who are the backbone of our fishing fleet.

If Brexit is to herald a better future for our fishers, the new environment secretary, Michael Gove, must keep the 2015 Conservative party manifesto commitment to rebalance fishing quotas in favour of small-scale, specific locally-based fishing communities.

Tom West, a consultant at the environmental law firm ClientEarth, described the move as a negotiating tactic. As a country outside the EU, we need to consider how we can best cooperate with our neighbours rather than unilaterally withdrawing from all agreements in the hope that standing alone will make us better, he said.

Many fish stocks in UK waters are shared with our neighbours and so need cooperation and shared management.

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UK to 'take back control' of waters after exiting fishing convention - The Guardian

Alberto Cairo (back row in brown sweater) poses with his staff and players at a basketball tournament in Kabul, Afghanistan. Olivier Moeckli/ICRC hide caption

Alberto Cairo (back row in brown sweater) poses with his staff and players at a basketball tournament in Kabul, Afghanistan.

When he was 10, a war injury put him in a wheelchair. His spine was permanently damaged. He was so depressed there were days he refused to get out of bed.

Now Mohammadullah Amiri can't wait to get up in the morning.

Mohammadullah Amiri, who was paralyzed when he was a child, has transformed his life since he started playing wheelchair basketball in Afghanistan. ICRC hide caption

Mohammadullah Amiri, who was paralyzed when he was a child, has transformed his life since he started playing wheelchair basketball in Afghanistan.

It's all because of wheelchair basketball. Since the 36-year-old from Afghanistan discovered it, he has become a changed man, says Jess Markt, his coach.

"He has this full life. All that has come since he played basketball," says Markt, an American who trains wheelchair basketball teams for the International Committee of the Red Cross in countries like Afghanistan, South Sudan and India. Like Amiri, he has paraplegia.

Since 2011, Markt has been working with Alberto Cairo, head of the Red Cross orthopedic program in Afghanistan, to get people who have been physically injured from war or illness to play sports. Cairo, a physical therapist from Italy, has helped over 100,000 people learn to use prosthetics or re-learn to use their limbs through physical therapy.

Wheelchair basketball has been a game changer for the patients, says Cairo, who has been living in Afghanistan for past 30 years. "Rehab is painful. Learning how to use artificial limbs is painful, too. For the first time with this sport, we were able to give only fun, only joy."

Today, there are 500 recreational players and a national men's and women's wheelchair basketball team across the seven Red Cross rehabilitation centers in Afghanistan. The national teams haven't won any international tournaments just yet, but Markt has his eye on the Paralympics.

Markt, 40, and Cairo, 60, visited NPR headquarters in May to talk about what they've learned from their Afghan patients, how people with disabilities are viewed in Afghanistan and the power of a high-five. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did the idea for wheelchair sports come about?

Alberto Cairo: People asked me, "Can you do something for our leisure time?" I was a bit reluctant. In Afghanistan, there are so many things missing [like basic infrastructure]. To waste your time in leisure is something that should not be done. But that's a mistake. So we decided to start some sport activity.

Cairo, a physical therapist, says wheelchair basketball has been a game changer for his patients. "Rehab is painful. Learning how to use artificial limbs is painful, too. For the first time with this sport, we were able to give only fun, only joy." Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

Cairo, a physical therapist, says wheelchair basketball has been a game changer for his patients. "Rehab is painful. Learning how to use artificial limbs is painful, too. For the first time with this sport, we were able to give only fun, only joy."

Seems like that turned out to be a good idea. What else have your patients taught you?

Cairo: In the beginning, the physical rehabilitation center was only for war victims. But I remembered, there was a lady. She kept coming, bringing her child with polio. He was not, strictly speaking, a war victim.

That's why you didn't want to treat him.

Cairo: If you are a child with polio, it's because you were not vaccinated. This lady kept coming. She told me: What is the difference between my son, who is paralyzed, and that man sitting over there who is paralyzed because of a land mine? Both of them cannot walk. Then I understood.

The Afghans opened my eyes. I learned to listen to them. Very often, they give me the right path.

Is there stigma around people with disabilities in Afghanistan?

Cairo: In Afghanistan, if you're disabled, you're not rejected from the family and the community. There is a kind of hyper-protection. The family says don't worry, I will take care of you. It's nice in a way, but it's disempowering. Patients should be given the chance to restart their lives.

What has been the impact of the wheelchair basketball program?

Jess Markt: We've seen the players, one by one, go through this transformation as they started to play sports. They no longer think of themselves as disabled people.

Now that they started playing basketball and [achieving] success, people come to watch them. The [audience is] amazed. The ones that are most successful get to play on the national teams, play internationally and have their national anthem played for them. They wear the flag of their country on their back, and people watch them on television.

Jess Markt has been working with Cairo and others to create sports programs for disabled people in war zones. He has his eye on the Paralympics for the Afghan national basketball teams. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

Jess Markt has been working with Cairo and others to create sports programs for disabled people in war zones. He has his eye on the Paralympics for the Afghan national basketball teams.

Tell me more about Amiri.

Markt: He comes from a pretty conservative family. He's got a big long beard, a serious expression; he's quiet, a little stern. As I got to know him, I found out he was the sweetest person.

Amiri was injured during the war when he was a child. He was a patient of Alberto's. When he went home after his rehab, he went back to an environment where he wasn't expected to contribute to his family. He had no active life.

Then he started playing wheelchair basketball [at age 29] and very quickly, he went through this transformation. He said, how could he be sad? He always had basketball practice to look forward to.

He's more severely disabled than a lot of the players. But he worked very hard, and now he's a member of the men's national team. He's an extremely valuable player. He was one of the first to understand concepts like making your teammates better. Instead of always calling for the ball and wanting to score for himself, he found ways to make everyone else score.

He has also benefited from the Red Cross microfinance program, which makes small loans to patients.

Markt: Not only has he become a really great basketball player and coach, he used one of the microcredit loans to start his own automotive parts and repair business. He's the center of his community when he's at his shop.

Cairo: When he decided to get a microcredit loan, he gave back his relief card the card that all disabled people get that entitles them to receive every month some food. He said, "No, I don't need this anymore. That's charity. I have a job now."

Jess, you coach the women's wheelchair basketball team in Afghanistan, one of the hardest places in the world to be a woman. In a society where physical contact between men and women is limited, how did you teach them to shoot hoops?

Markt: I was very lucky in that whatever combination of being a foreigner, a teacher and in a wheelchair allowed me a pass that I could coach them. I had to be careful that I was doing everything within their cultural boundaries. I couldn't just grab a girl's hand and show her how to shoot the ball like I could with a male player or any other player here in the States. I had to describe how to do things but without physical contact. Which was fine, but challenging.

Eventually a few members of the women's national team gave you a high-five, after they saw other female players do it at an international wheelchair basketball training camp in Thailand in April. How did that happen?

Markt: They feel like now they're a part of the international community and can do the things that international players can do.

Were you worried that you might be putting the women in danger by high-fiving?

Markt: I wasn't too nervous. We were in a safe place, the gymnasium, and I definitely wasn't going to stifle their social breakthrough by ignoring the attempt. I didn't have a choice!

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Hoop Dreams: Wheelchair Basketball Is Changing Lives In Afghanistan - NPR

The photo taken on February 9, 2017 shows Afghan nationals waiting to cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Torkham Border Post in Pakistan. (Photo by AFP)

Pakistans military has begun erecting fencing along the country's porous border with Afghanistan in order to stop cross-border infiltration and improve security in the region.

According to a high-ranking Pakistani security official, in the first phase, at least 43 border posts havebeen constructed in the northwestern tribal region alongtheborder. Sixty-three others are under construction in Dir Lower, Bajaur, Mohmand Agency, and Khyber Agency border areas.

The plan includes building 338 border posts and army forts along the border.

"There are several legal routes to cross into Afghanistan in Chitral, Dir, Bajaur, Mohmand Agency, Tor Kham Khyber Agency, Kurram Agency, North and South Waziristan, and the Chaman area of Baluchistan, but despite these legal routes, there are over 300 [illegal] crossing points, and terrorists always enter via those hard mountainous routes to carry out attacks in Pakistan and now the army will close them," media outlets quoted the official as saying.

Speaking to local TV media on Friday, Pakistani militaryspokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said the move to fence the border was aimed at curtailing the movement of militants and stopping them from entering the country.

"The Daesh terrorist group has been gaining strength in Afghanistan along the Pakistan border, as we heard media reports that the group has also captured Afghanistans Tora Bora area. Pakistan will never tolerate any terrorist group setting foot on our soil and these are all efforts underway to eliminate terrorist groups," Ghafoor said.

Both countries have long pledged to improve security in the region and go after militant groups based in the rugged and mountainous border areas. But the exact location of the border has long been disputed by Kabul.

Last year, Pakistan started building a barrier at the main border crossing in the northwestern town of Torkham. The move irked the Afghan government.

The Pakistani military hasdismissed Afghanistan's criticism of the fencing plan, saying the activity is being performed well inside the Pakistani territory.

The two countries are in a dispute over the demarcation of the border, which is a key battleground in the fight against the Taliban and other militant groups.

Islamabad recognizes the Durand Line, the 1896 British-mandated border between the two neighbors, but Kabul says activity by either side along the line must be approved by both countries.

Successive governments in Afghanistan have never recognized the British-drawn colonial era border line.

Pakistan and Afghanistan regularly accuse each other of sheltering their enemy insurgents. Both sides, however, deny such an allegation.

Kabulblames elements inside the Pakistani spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI), for supporting the Taliban militants, while Islamabad blames the Afghan government for giving refuge to militants on its side of the border. The two sides also accuse each other of not doing enough to stop militants engaging in cross-border raids.

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Pakistani army starts fencing border with Afghanistan - Press TV

A rogue SAS unit killed unarmed Afghan civilians then covered up the details of the potential war crimes, it was claimed today.

The shocking allegations emerged in Operation Northmoor, a classified multimillion pound probe run by the Royal Military Police.

Senior defence sources have said that evidence gathered on the elite Who Dares Wins regiments alleged war crimes are credible, according to the Sunday Times .

A source close to Operation Northmoor, which is being run from a secure bunker at RAF St Mawgan near Newquay, Cornwall, said there was strong evidence unarmed Afghan civilians were murdered rather than captured during night raids on their homes.

In one allegation dating back six years, which is now being investigated, SAS commandos are accused of handcuffing and hooding some of the victims before later shooting them dead.

After the alleged murders, SAS mission reports are said to have been altered to make it look as if its Afghan special forces partners, rather than British soldiers, carried out the shootings.

That meant the killings were not investigated at the time.

But drone and other footage obtained by investigators, nicknamed kill TV, is said to show British troops opening fire on unarmed people.

An examination of bullets found in the victims bodies showed they were a type used by the SAS.

There were also claims SAS troopers planted Russian Makarov pistols on victims bodies and then took photos of the corpses to suggest the British special forces had killed armed Taliban insurgents in self defence.

Jeremy Corbyn branded the allegations extremely serious and called for them to be fully investigated.

The Labour leader added: Our Armed Forces have a reputation for decency and bravery.

If we do not act on such shocking allegations we risk undermining that reputation, our security at home and the safety of those serving in the armed forces abroad.

Our values and respect for the rule of law require full accountability.

We owe it to our Armed Forces and the victims and their families to ensure that a thorough investigation takes place.

There can be no question of a cover up. The Government must now establish an independent inquiry into what has taken place.

An MoD spokesman said: The Royal Military Police has found no evidence of criminal behaviour by the Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

They have discontinued over 90% of the 675 allegations made and less than 10 investigations remain.

Our military served with great courage and professionalism and we proudly hold them to the highest standards. Where allegations are raised it is right they are investigated.

Operation Northmoor was set up in 2014 and involves more than 100 Royal Military Police officers.

It has since been investigating dozens of alleged unlawful killings by SAS forces between 2010 and 2013.

Detectives had been looking into 52 alleged killings, but are now examining just one incident which involved four family members being shot dead during a night raid in Helmand province in 2011.

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Rogue SAS unit 'killed unarmed civilians in Afghanistan then covered it up' - Mirror.co.uk

According to her husband, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffes arrest may be connected to her work for Reuters and the BBC. Photograph: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/PA

A British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail sentence in Tehran on unspecified charges relating to national security is losing her hair and experiencing low and despairing moods as her incarceration lasts far beyond her familys expectation.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffes conviction was upheld by Irans supreme court in April, one year after her arrest. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has told the Guardian that he is now focusing on political pressure, urging the UK government to take up her case more seriously after recent elections in both countries.

Ratcliffe said while his wifes physical health has become more stable, she is applying to see a psychologist, as she says her mood is very unstable quick to sink into depression.

We dont know how long this will last, he said. Weve had Irans elections and UK elections and theres no obvious sign of anything moving, the whole court case is finished, there is basic powerlessness that theres nothing we can do.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, was arrested in April 2016 while she and her then two-year-old daughter, Gabriella, were about to return to the UK after a family visit to Iran. Since then, she has spent most of her time in Tehrans Evin prison, away from her daughter.

The Revolutionary Guards, the elite forces that arrested her at the airport, have accused her of attempting to orchestrate a soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Her husband condemned the criminal charges as a self-serving fabrication, indicating in a petition update that her imprisonment might be connected to her work as a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the news agencys charitable arm, and her previous work at the BBC in London.

Iranian authorities loathe the BBC because of its Persian service, which is watched by millions of Iranians via illegal satellite dishes. Reuters journalists were expelled from Iran after their Tehran office was closed down in April 2012.

Ratcliffe said he is going to meet Alistair Burt, the new foreign office minister, next week. Now that weve exhausted possibilities in Iran, its time to put the focus back on pushing the British government to do more, he added.

I dont think the [UK] government has been protecting us; they have provided consular assistance and they have expressed concerns, and the ambassador has been to visit Gabriella to check she is OK, but in terms of criticising her treatment and saying its abuse, theyve never said that this does not meet the minimum legal standards, that its not a fair trial. That this is a nonsense. Shes obviously not important enough yet.

Ratcliffe said he was upset the UK government always emphasised that she is a dual national, rather than shes a British citizen. Iran cant play these games, it doesnt recognise dual citizenship on one hand and on the other hand, theyve been holding her until she gets some sort of agreement with the British government.

A string of dual nationals languish in Iranian jails, but exactly how many is unclear. One lawyer has put the number as high as 40. Among dual nationals behind bars are Karan Vafadari, an Iranian-American national belonging to the Zoroastrian faith, and his wife Afarin Neyssari. Kamal Foroughi, a British-Iranian businessman, has been imprisoned in Iran since 2011.

Also in jail is Ahmadreza Djalali, a scientist from Sweden. Foreign Policy reported this week that the UN chief, Antnio Guterres, has reached out to Irans president, Hassan Rouhani, regarding the imprisonment of Iranian-American Baquer Namazi, a former Unicef official, who has been given 10 years alongside his son, Siamak Namazi.

It seems to be that there are different motives at different times but broadly, Nazanin was part of a wave of people that were taken for what feels to me internal politics between different parts of the Iranian regime fighting with each other, Ratcliffe said.

There clearly is a phenomenon, its got a domestic policy aspect, its got a foreign policy aspect and its something that weve been pushing the UN special rapporteur to try and take up you cannot hold people like this as a tool of foreign policy.

He said he recognised that Rouhani was not driving the treatment of his wife but appealed for him to help. She was taken by the Revolutionary Guards, and the judiciary its a different part of the regime [but Rouhani] can make it very clear that this has to stop; its not good for Iran. Normal Iranians are being held like this. Its affecting Irans image globally.

Nazanin voted for President Rouhani this time, she voted for President Rouhani last time, that really was with a view that his promises of improving civil rights and of allowing Iran to become a normal, proud country.

Ratcliffe said his wifes case had been hijacked by opposition figures that pictures from their campaign were used by those who want to justify very strong action against Iran.

It just looks terrible ... allowing those voices that want to do terrible things to Iran to point and say, look what these people are doing, I think the human cost of it is not small.

An official from the Iranian embassy in London told the Guardian in April that Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained due to her illegal acts, but she had access to medical care and could visit her family.

Earlier this month, she was able to meet her daughter in prison during a family visit, marking her third birthday. She was able to make a cherry cake, which the family were allowed to take home to eat, according to a petition update posted by her husband.

The British-Iranian wrote a letter addressed to her daughter from inside prison, according to Irans defenders of human rights centre. In it, she recounted memories of her birth, times of feeding and sleeping, and the hiccups and the non-stop sneezes.

But those sweet and beautiful days did not last long, she wrote. Our trip to Iran last Norouz [2016], when you were 22 months, was one of no return.

The past 14 months, my share of you is only the occasional hour in the visiting room at Evin prison. How young you are to be forced to go through such a horrible experience?

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British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran in state of 'despair' - The Guardian