The minister for Afghanistan was also on holiday last week as Kabul fell, Sky News has learnt. Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, the minister of state directly responsible for South Asia, was on leave until Sunday, the day the Taliban marched into the Afghan capital. The Conservative peer has been in his post for four
Politics
Dominic Raab is facing new calls to quit after claims that he defied a call to return from his luxury holiday in Crete to deal with the Afghanistan crisis and stayed for two more days. It is reported that the beleaguered foreign secretary was told by a senior Downing Street official to return to London
Nicola Sturgeon has described a new power-sharing agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens as “groundbreaking”. Announcing the new pact during a news briefing at Bute House in Edinburgh, Scotland’s first minister said the move would help to create “a greener, fairer, independent Scotland”. Ms Sturgeon described the partnership as “groundbreaking in both Scottish
Boris Johnson says he “absolutely” has confidence in Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab – and insisted the government is working “virtually round the clock” to help evacuate people from Afghanistan. Speaking after a meeting of the government’s emergency COBRA committee on Friday afternoon, Mr Johnson dismissed criticism of Mr Raab’s summer holiday as Afghanistan’s capital Kabul
CNN’s Clarissa Ward reports from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, where hundreds of people wait for flights to evacuate the country after the Taliban’s takeover. #CNN #News
President Joe Biden speaks about US military evacuations of American citizens, Special Immigrant Visa applicants and vulnerable Afghans as chaos continues around the Kabul airport. #CNN #News
An Afghan interpreter who became a US citizen after years of working with the US military in Afghanistan talks to CNN’s Brianna Keilar about the struggle to get his family out of Kabul. #BriannaKeilar #CNN #NewDay
Dominic Raab has said he did not call Afghanistan’s foreign minister when he was on holiday as he was prioritising securing Kabul airport so that evacuation flights could depart. Amid mounting criticism over the speed of his response to the Taliban’s takeover, the foreign secretary said in a statement on Friday the government has been
Ministers”blindsided themselves” by ignoring a warning eight months ago about the implications of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. A report submitted to the government in January laid out how the US pull-out risked undermining the Afghan government and allowing the country to descend into civil war. But the Conservative chair of the International Relations
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has been criticised for being too busy to speak with Afghanistan’s foreign minister as the country descended into chaos. Mr Raab has been accused of failing to ask Hanif Atmar for urgent assistance in evacuating Afghan interpreters who had worked for UK military personnel during the 20-year conflict in the country.
Ministers are continuing their scramble for a co-ordinated international response to the crisis in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s dramatic takeover. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday night resumed his series of calls with world leaders following the fall of the central Asian country to the extremist group. He spoke with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi,
President Joe Biden tells ABC News that there was no way out of Afghanistan “without chaos ensuing,” contradicting what the White House has said about pulling troops out of the country for the last several months. CNN’s chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins reports. #CNN #News
CNN’s Clarissa Ward reports on the hurdles Americans and Afghans are facing trying to get to Kabul’s airport as Taliban fighters attempt to block access with gunfire and violence. #CNN #News
The collapse of Afghanistan’s government happened faster “than even the Taliban predicted”, the prime minister has told MPs, but he denied the UK had been caught “unawares”. Opening a recalled session of parliament to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan, Boris Johnson claimed it was “not true” to say the UK was “unprepared” for or “did
The UK will take up to 20,000 vulnerable Afghans over the coming years as part of a resettlement plan, following the Taliban takeover of their country. Under the new bespoke scheme – modelled on the UK’s seven-year programme to resettle Syrian refugees – the prime minister has promised thousands of Afghans who are most in
The situation at Kabul airport is “stabilising”, Dominic Raab has said, after crowds rushed to flee the city. The foreign secretary admitted he was taken by “surprise” at the speed of the Taliban’s advance over the weekend, but vowed the efforts of veterans in the conflict “wasn’t all for nothing”. It comes as scenes of
CNN’s Clarissa Ward is in Afghanistan after the government collapsed and the Taliban took over the country. #CNN #News
Boris Johnson is set to announce a bespoke resettlement scheme for those “most in need” in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s dramatic takeover of the country, Downing Street has said. Number 10 said the prime minister and his government were finalising details of a specific scheme to allow Afghans to claim asylum in the UK. The
CNN’s Jamie Gangel previews a new book from journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa detailing the final days of Trump’s presidency and the transition to the Biden administration. #CNN #News
Carrie Johnson has told other pregnant women there is nothing to worry about, after getting her second COVID-19 vaccine. The prime minister’s wife, who is due to give birth to her second child in December, said she got her second jab on Saturday and was “feeling great”. Mrs Johnson, 33, said she was concerned about