Markus Andrews

Sir Keir Starmer is demanding Boris Johnson disclose whether he has personally urged the US president Joe Biden to extend the evacuation period in Afghanistan beyond the 31 August deadline. In a letter to the prime minister on Sunday evening, the Labour leader raised concerns over a “lack of planning and foresight” in the government’s strategy during the crisis – as he put seven “urgent questions” to Mr Johnson.Sir Keir also demanded Mr Johnson update the UK public with a statement in the coming days “given the scale of national concern for those trying to leave” Kabul and amid scenes of desperation at the weekend at Hamid Karzai International Airport.It comes after the armed forces minister said both Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, had made “representations” to their counterparts in Washington over the evacuation deadline.Minister James Heappey also echoed comments from cabinet ministers this week that the government cannot “confidently say” that all British nationals will be airlifted from the country that was seized by the Taliban last week.Despite several deaths occurring in the vicinity of the airport, Mr Heappey said the queue was now “flowing better”, insisting that individuals with instructions from the UK government to come forward should have the “confidence” to do so.However, concerns have been raised that US troops pulling out of the airport by 31 August could jeopardise efforts to evacuate all British nationals and Afghans provided with visas by the government.Last week, according to Bloomberg, a Pentagon press secretary said the “mandate by the president is to complete the mission by 31st of August” and Mr Biden has previously vowed to remove all troops from the region on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks.Speaking on Thursday, however, the US president suggested the end of the month deadline may be extended, insisting: “If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out”.Mr Heappey told Sky News on Sunday that senior cabinet minister had made “representations” to their counterparts in Washington, adding: “If the programme is extended, then there is the opportunity to continue with flights.”But he added the Taliban insurgency that seized the country’s capital, Kabul, seven days ago, would “get a vote in that too”.“It’s not just a decision made in Washington, and so I think it’s important to make another point is people shouldn’t despair that whenever the airbridge, the military airbridge, ends, that that is the end of their chances with leaving Afghanistan.”Ahead of Mr Johnson session at the G7 leaders’ meeting on the situation in Afghanistan, Sir Keir said there were “too many unanswered questions” remaining about the rescue mission in Afghanistan as the end of August deadline approaches.“Proper planning for the coming days will ensure that no-one to whom we owe so much will be left behind,” said Sir Keir, who posed seven questions in his letter to Mr Johnson.They included whether the prime minister had personally spoken with Mr Biden “to ask him to extend the evacuation period beyond the end of August” and whether there was a joint UK-US plan “for fully completing the evacuation of both civilians and military personnel” ahead of the deadline.Echoing questions also put to ministers by shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy and shadow defence secretary John Healey, Sir Keir questioned whether the UK was among those in the Nato foreign ministers’ meeting on Friday that “pressed for an extension” to the evacuation.He also queried whether the UK government was “working with Nato allies to hold Kabul airport without US troops” should it “become necessary” in the event Washington pulls its armed forces personnel out before efforts are over.A Government spokesperson said:“We are doing all we can to get as many people out of Afghanistan as possible including British nationals, our Afghan staff and others. Since Sunday we have evacuated more than 5,000 people and these life-saving efforts continue. “The Prime Minister has been clear a coordinated and concerted international effort is needed. We are in close contact with our Commonwealth and NATO partners to facilitate swift evacuations and have set out that there is no time limit to the resettlement programme.” More

Several thousand people demonstrated Sunday in Montenegro over the planned inauguration of the new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the small Balkan state.Ethic tensions have soared over the scheduled ceremony for Metropolitan Bishop Joanikije II. The protesters in Montenegro’s former capital, Cetinje, where the Sept. 5 inauguration is to take place, waved Montenegrin flags and chanted slogans against the country’s government, accusing it of being pro-Serb. Hundreds of police officers were deployed in the city and the U.S. Embassy warned Americans to avoid the protest.Despite calls to respect COVID-19 health measures, most protesters did not wear masks while chanting “Treason!” and accusing the government of setting the stage for the “occupation” of Montenegro by Serbia.Montenegro declared independence from the much larger Serbia in 2006. The country is deeply split between residents who consider themselves Montenegrins and those who deny the existence of the Montenegrin nation. About 30% of the country’s population of 600,000 identifies as Serb.Joanikije II is to succeed the Serbian church’s previous most senior cleric in Montenegro, Metropolian Bishop Amfilohije, who died in October after contracting coronavirus. The inauguration ceremony is set for the Cetinje Monastery, which is considered the historic cradle of Montenegrin statehood.Protest leaders said they do not oppose the naming of a new church leader but are against his enthronement in a shrine that symbolizes Montenegro’s centuries-old struggle for sovereignty and independence.“We will not allow further desecration of Montenegrin shrines by those who don’t recognize Montenegro as a state and Montenegrins as a nation,” Predrag Vusurovic, a protest organizer, told the crowd.Joanikije said in a statement that it’s “a shame” that his inauguration is being challenged.“I’m not being sent by the church in Serbia, nor by its state,” he said. “I’m not a foreigner. I was born in Montenegro, I’m a citizen of this country.”The Serbian Orthodox Church, the largest religious institution in Montenegro, played a key role in a movement that helped defeat a long-ruling pro-Western government last year. The church led months of protests against alleged plans by that government to take away its property, which Montenegrin officials denied.The former government had steered Montenegro away from Serbian as well as Russian influence. The Adriatic nation joined NATO in 2017 and is seeking European Union membership.___Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade Serbia. More

The crisis unfolding in Afghanistan shows there has been a “demise” in the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States, according to a senior Conservative MP.Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the Commons Defence Committee, said the UK had “not been included in the conversations” over the withdrawal from the region, adding: “The relationship is not what it was.”His comments come amid scenes of desperation at Hamid Karzai international airport in Kabul, as thousands of foreign nationals and Afghans granted visas attempt to flee the new Taliban regime.In an update on Sunday, the armed forces minister James Heappey said 1,721 people had been airlifted from the Afghan capital in the latest 24-hour period by the royal air force, but the defence secretary has also admitted that some may not make it out of the region.Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Ellwood, who served in Afghanistan, said: “Why is it that we didn’t stand up and tell the United States, if you want to get Afghans out – you have a duty of care for these people who will be pursued by the Taliban – you don’t get your military our first, you get the civilians out, then you retreat yourselves?”However, he stressed: “We’ve done it the other way round.“We’ve not been included in the conversations and the one thing we bring to the table – yes we have a certain amount of hard power, we have effective soft power as well – but it is our ‘thought leadership’ that the Americans actually appreciated us for.”The senior Conservative MP added: “Being able to look at things with an alternative perspective, to provide a different view, and we could have done that but the back channels have disappeared, the relationship is not what it was.“The consequences of this is that huge geopolitical decisions are being made which I feel could have wider consequences on where Britain and America stand as a force for good in who actually supports and defends the international rules of law.”The remarks also follow an intervention from the former prime minister Tony Blair, who took Britain to war in the region almost two decades. On Saturday, he used a 2,700-word article last night to criticise the “imbecilic” decision to withdraw.He said the UK had “little or no consultation” in the United States’ decision to broker a deal with the Taliban, in Doha, Qatar, last year over the withdrawal of troops, warning Britain had “serious reflection to do”“We don’t see it yet. But we are at risk of relegation to the second division of global powers. Maybe we don’t mind. But we should at least take the decision deliberatively.”“The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours,” Mr Blair said.Lord Ricketts, who served as the UK government’s first national security adviser from 2010 to 2012 , said the UK will need to “rethink” its foreign policy stance following the United States’ handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.”It has been a humiliating period for the UK,” he told Times Radio.“I’m afraid we’ve learnt that Joe Biden has put US politics ahead of Nato alliance solidarity and Britain hasn’t counted for much in that decision, if anything at all.He added: “The hard fact is we are going to need to continue to work with the Americans in all sorts of areas and this has been a difficult experience, but we need to bring the Americans back to working with their allies, taking account of our views.“But we can’t somehow invent a foreign policy without the Americans so we’ve got to take a deep breath and do some frank talking to Joe Biden and then get back to work with him.” More

Dominic Raab was reportedly advised by No 10 officials to return from his holiday on 13 August as the Afghanistan situation deteriorated — but stayed for a further two days after Boris Johnson’s approval.The claim comes amid calls for the foreign secretary to resign after failing to make a call to his Afghan counterpart over the evacuation of interpreters while he was overseas on the Greek island of Crete.A government official told The Sunday Times that Mr Raab was “told to come back” on Friday 13 August — the day the prime minister held a first emergency Cobra meeting on the crisis in Afghanistan.“On Sunday there was a sense of disbelief among everyone at the most senior levels in No 10 that he wasn’t there,” the official added. “He seems to have nobbled Boris after he was told to come back.”Allies of the foreign secretary, however, told the newspaper he was to “begin the process of coming home” and it was agreed with the prime minister Mr Raab would return on Sunday — the day the Afghan capital, Kabul, fell to the Taliban insurgents.In response to the report, the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, posted on social media: “This makes it impossible for Dominic Raab to stay in office”The shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, added: “It’s staggering that the foreign secretary found the time to pick up the phone to lobby the prime minister to extend his own holiday, but refused to call the Afghan government in the hours before Kabul fell to the Taliban.”“It’s little wonder that the prime minister wasn’t able to order others back to Westminster when he chose to go on holiday himself as the Taliban were advancing in Kabul,” the Labour frontbencher said.The report came as a poll for the Observer by Opinium found that just 23 per cent approved with the job the foreign secretary is doing — compared to 41 per cent disapproving.However, speaking on Friday after a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra meeting, Mr Johnson defied calls to sack Mr Raab, insisting he “absolutely” had confidence in the foreign secretary.The prime minister stressed: “I can tell you that the whole of the government has been working virtually around the clock, hitting the phones to do what we can to sort it out, to deal with the situation that has been long in gestation, and to make sure that we get as many people as back as possible”.Elsewhere, it also emerged Lord Ahmad, a foreign office minister for South Asia, whose responsibilities include Afghanistan, was on staycation until Sunday — the day the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban.According to Sky News, the Conservative peer had been in regular contact the former foreign minister in Afghanistan, Haneef Atmar, as talks were underway in Doha, Qatar, with the Taliban.A foreign office spokesperson, however, insisted Lord Ahmad had been “working closely with the foreign secretary and the FCDO team throughout the response to events in Afghanistan, including engaging with international partners”.The Independent has contacted No 10 and the Foreign Office for comment. More

The parents of a British woman who went missing in the US Virgin Islands, have written to foreign secretary Dominic Raab asking for help to locate their daughter.Sarm Heslop, aged 41, went missing from her boyfriend’s boat in the Caribbean in the early hours of 8 March and has not been seen since.In a letter, released on Saturday, Ms Heslop’s parents called on the UK government to help with their daughter’s case.Brenda Street and Peter Heslop have said they have not given up hope of finding their daughter, in a BBC interview, Ms Street said: “I still do not feel she’s gone.”Ms Heslop’s American boyfriend, Ryan Bane, has so far refused to allow police to carry out a search of his yacht. He also refused to allow coastguards full access to his boat, Siren Song, when Ms Heslop went missing. He told officers he awoke at 2am on the yacht they were sharing to discover that she was missing.Mr Bane has since left the US Virgin Islands and it is not clear whether local police are aware of his current location.In an appeal to Mr Raab, who is currently under fire for his handling of the situation in Afghanistan, Ms Heslop’s parents asked him to put more pressure on authorities in the US Virgin Islands and to up their investigation into her disappearance.In the letter to the UK Foreign Secretary, Ms Heslop’s parents expressed their frustration at the situation and the lack of action and support provided to them by the UK government and Foreign Office.“Disappointingly, we feel that there has been only minimal support from the UK government and the Foreign Office and we are now requesting your involvement to do all you can to assist us,” they wrote in the letter, seen by The Telegraph.Ms Heslop is described as being five feet eight inches in height and of slim build. She has a brightly coloured tattoo on her left shoulder which depicts a seahorse, bird, butterfly and a pink flower. She has not been seen since 8 March. More

Dominic Raab and Ben Wallace have made “representations” to the United States in a bid to extend the Afghanistan evacuation deadline beyond the end of August, the armed forces minister has said.As Britain continues to navigate the complexities of airlifting citizens and Afghans out of Kabul, James Heappey echoed comments from cabinet ministers that the government cannot “confidently say” all British nationals will be evacuated.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) minister revealed, however, that 1,721 people had been airlifted out of the country in the past 24 hours by the Royal Air Force, which he added was currently increasing its capacity.Despite several deaths occurring in the vicinity of the airport over the weekend, Mr Heappey said the queue was now “flowing better”, insisting that individuals with instructions from the UK government to come forward should have the “confidence” to do so.Boris Johnson has also said on Sunday he will convene a meeting of the G7 leaders on Tuesday for “urgent talks” on the situation in Afghanistan, stressing it was “vital the international community works together to ensure safe evacuations” from Hamid Karzai International Airport.It comes amid concerns that US troops pulling out of the airport by 31 August could jeopardise efforts to evacuate all British nationals and Afghans provided with visas by the government.Last week, according to Bloomberg, a Pentagon press secretary said the “mandate by the president is to complete the mission by 31st of August” and Joe Biden has previously vowed to remove all troops from the region on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks.Speaking on Thursday, however, the US president suggested the end of the month deadline may be extended, insisting: “If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out”.Pressed on Sky News on how important it was that Mr Biden approves an extension of the deadline, the armed forces minister Mr Heappey said: “We assume nothing.“You know the foreign secretary has made representations to his opposite number [Antony Blinken] and the secretary of defence likewise. If the programme is extended, then there is the opportunity to continue with flights.”Mr Heappey added, however, that the Taliban insurgency that seized the country’s capital, Kabul, seven days ago, would “get a vote in that too”.“It’s not just a decision made in Washington, and so I think it’s important to make another point is people shouldn’t despair that whenever the airbridge, the military airbridge, ends, that that is the end of their chances with leaving Afghanistan.“The home secretary [Priti Patel] has announced that there will be other routes into the resettlement programme from around the wider region, through maybe handling centres in refugee camps, through embassies, through high commissioners,” he said.Mr Heappey also rejected assertions from the former prime minister Tony Blair, who used a 2,700 word article at the weekend to suggest Britain could be relegated to a “second division of global powers” as he criticised the lack of UK involvement in the US decision to withdraw troops.“No I think that is is not absolutely true and if I look around the world at what the UK is doing now, there’s evidence to the contrary,” the minister said.He added: “What is happening in Afghanistan right now in terms of the humanitarian challenge is clearly very distressing, but the withdrawal from Afghanistan is something that we have been expecting for some time, which is a consequence of Donald Trump’s Doha agreement which meant a decision needed to be taken this year.“Everywhere else around the world – the United States and the United Kingdom are working together to be the force of good that we want to be. And I don’t think we should allow what is going on in Afghanistan to somehow persuade us that all of that wider international effort has relegated us somehow. I don’t recognise that at all.” More

Sajid Javid has announced that home antibody test kits will be available for up to 8,000 people per day who test positive for Covid under a new government scheme.The UK-wide programme will aim to improve understanding and gain “vital” data on antibody protection following a coronavirus infection after being vaccinated.From Tuesday, anyone over the age of 18 will be able to “opt in” to the antibody scheme when they book a PCR laboratory test through Test and Trace.The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the two-finger prick antibody tests will need to be returned for analysis.“Our new national antibody testing will be quick and easy to take part in, and by doing so you’ll be helping strengthen our understanding of Covid-19 as we cautiously return to a more normal life,” Mr Javid said.The health secretary said the initiative would provide “valuable insights” into how Covid vaccines are protecting people, after suggesting earlier this week that almost 100,000 deaths in England had been prevented due to the jabs.On Thursday, Public Health England (PHE) suggested between 91,700 and 98,700 fatalities had been avoided since December 2020, alongside 82,100 hospital admissions and millions of infections.According to DHSC, people who opt in to the new scheme must take their first antibody test as soon as possible after testing positive for Covid-19.The department said this will be “before the body has had time to generate a detectable antibody response” to the virus and “will determine the level of antibodies a person had before their current infection”.A second test must then be taken 28 days later.UK Health Security Agency chief executive Dr Jenny Harries said: “We are rolling out antibody testing across the UK to gain vital data into the impact of our vaccination programme and on immune responses to different variants of Covid-19.“This has been made possible thanks to the incredible British public who continue to come forward for testing when they develop symptoms and the millions of people who have had their jabs.“The best way to protect yourself and those around you is by getting vaccinated. I encourage anyone who has not yet come forward to book their first and second jabs.” More

Tony Blair has criticised the decision of western forces to withdraw from Afghanistan as a “tragic, dangerous, unnecessary” move in his first public comments since the Taliban insurgency seized control.The former prime minister said the country had been returned to the same group “which from the carnage of 9/11 arose” and in a “manner which seems almost designed to parade our humiliation”.He added troops were withdrawn by US President Joe Biden “in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars’”, and urged caution in likening the situation this year to that of “20 or even 10 years ago”.Mr Blair, who took Britain to war in Afghanistan against the Taliban almost two decades ago in 2001, said that troop numbers had declined “to a minimum” and that “no allied soldier had lost their life in combat for [the] 18 months” into 2021.He claimed that the decision to pull out of the region “was not driven by grand strategy but by politics”.“The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours,” he said.In a 2,700 word article – published on Saturday evening – Mr Blair, the prime minister between 1997 and 2007, said the UK must also evacuate and “give sanctuary to those whom we have responsibility”.It comes after Boris Johnson described “formidable” logistics involved in airlifting British nationals and Afghans granted visas out of the region from Hamid Karzai International Airport in the capital.Speaking on Friday, Mr Biden also suggested that troops involved in the evacuation mission may stay longer than the 31 August deadline, pledging to get “all” American citizens out.But Mr Blair warned against the “repetition of arbitrary deadlines” in his article. He also said that we should evacuate people “not grudgingly but out of a deep sense of humanity and responsibility”.The former PM also hit out at the deal reached between the US government under Donald Trump’s administration and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020 to withdraw American troops.“The world is now uncertain of where the west stands because it is so obvious that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in this way was driven not by grand strategy but by politics,” he wrote.“We didn’t need to do it. We chose to do it. We did it when the sacrifices of our troops had made those fragile gains our duty to preserve.“We did it when the February 2020 agreement, itself replete with concession to the Taliban, by which America agreed to withdraw if the Taliban negotiated a broad based government … we did it with every jihadist group round the world cheering.”Claiming Britain had “little or no consultation” on the decision by the US – the country’s “greatest ally” – to the withdraw troops, Mr Blair said Britain had “serious reflection to do”.“We don’t see it yet. But we are at risk of relegation to the second division of global powers. Maybe we don’t mind. But we should at least take the decision deliberatively.”His intervention follows the call from the Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, who wrote in an article this week that the Labour Party should apologise for leading Britain into war with Afghanistan alongside the United States, and also described the intervention as a “mistake of catastrophic proportions” during an emergency Commons debate.Addressing his own role, Mr Blair said: “As the leader of our country when we took the decision to join America in removing the Taliban from power, who saw the high hopes we had of what we could achieve for the people and the world, subside under the weight of bitter reality, I know better than most how difficult are the decisions of leadership and how easy it is to be critical and how hard to be constructive.”In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Mr Blair went on: “We forget this now, but the world was spinning on its axis.“We feared attack, possibly worse. The Taliban were given an ultimatum: yield up the al-Qaeda leadership or be removed from power so that Afghanistan could not be used for further attacks. They refused. We felt there was no safer alternative for our security than keeping our word”.However, he added: “We held out the prospect backed by substantial commitment of turning Afghanistan from a failed terror state into a functioning democracy on the mend.“It may have been a misplaced ambition, but it was not an ignoble one. There is no doubt that in the years that followed we made mistakes, some serious ones”.After Mr Johnson suggested the UK would work with the insurgent group if “necessary” – as the evacuation of British nationals and Afghans granted visas continues – Mr Blair also said the government needs to “work out a means of dealing with the Taliban and exerting maximum pressure on them”.Ahead of a meeting of the G7 leaders – chaired by the UK – he said governments should commit to coordinating help to the people of Afghanistan and “holding the new regime to account”.“We need to draw up a list of incentives, sanctions, actions we can take including to protect the civilian population so the Taliban understand their actions will have consequences,” he added. More