Category Archives: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

UK spies who allegedly passed questions to CIA torturers subject to English law, court rules

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Abu Zubaydah, tortured at CIA ‘black sites’ in six different countries, has right to sue UK government

UK intelligence services who allegedly asked the CIA to put questions to a detainee who was being tortured in “black sites” were subject to the law of England and Wales and not that of the countries in which he was being held, the court of appeal has ruled.

The three appeal judges were asked to decide whether Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to extreme mistreatment and torture at secret CIA “black sites” in six different countries, has the right to sue the UK government in England.

Zubaydah had no control whatever over his location and in all probability no knowledge of it either.

His location was irrelevant to the UK intelligence services and may have been unknown to them.

The claimant was undoubtedly rendered to the six countries in question precisely because this would enable him to be detained and tortured outside the laws and legal systems of those countries.

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Priti Patel under fire over chaotic Ukrainian refugee policy

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Home Office sources contradict earlier government denials that third way to enter Britain may be introduced

Priti Patel has been accused of presiding over chaos after Ukrainian refugees arriving in Calais were greeted by posters telling them to get their UK visas in Paris or Brussels, while her pledge to expand the visa scheme was contradicted by Downing Street.

On a day of confusion and uncertainty for Ukrainian refugees making the 1,400-mile journey to Britain, the home secretary admitted that she has not yet set up a visa application centre (VAC) near the French port of Calais where refugees have gathered.

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UK government accused of ignoring victims in efforts to tackle ‘sex for aid’

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Foreign office’s ‘top-down’ approach failing people it is seeking to protect, says watchdog, with abuse cases still underreported

The British government has not listened to victims in its efforts to tackle abuse in the humanitarian sector after the “sex for aid” scandals, a UK watchdog has said.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai) said the government was falling short because of a “top-down” approach and needed to listen and learn from recipients of aid who remained reluctant to report abuse allegations.

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Exiled Chagos Islanders return without UK officials for first time

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Fifty years since they were deported to Mauritius by the UK, Chagossians are still fighting for their homeland

Returning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the pale sand and stood – hands joined together – in thanksgiving prayers.

For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated – the first time they could step ashore without close monitoring by British officials.

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Liz Truss heads to Moscow with ‘toughest sanctions’ plan delayed

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Foreign secretary told MPs laws would be in place by 10 February but nothing has been put to parliament

The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, will meet her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday with her plan to have put the UK’s “toughest sanctions regime against Russia” on the statute book in time for the trip having fallen through.

Truss told MPs the laws would be in place by 10 February, but nothing has been put to parliament, raising suspicions among opposition MPs that government lawyers are struggling to frame the sweeping and unprecedented new laws.

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Boris Johnson accused of lying as emails suggest he approved Afghan dog rescue

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PM called claims he intervened to help evacuation of animal charity ‘complete nonsense’

Foreign Office emails appear to contradict Downing Street’s insistence that Boris Johnson did not personally authorise the controversial rescue of cats and dogs from a British animal charity in Afghanistan.

The release of two emails on Wednesday prompted claims that the prime minister lied, while he faces separate accusations about misleading parliament over the Downing Street parties scandal.

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Ukraine taking UK claim of Russian invasion plot seriously, says adviser

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Warning greeted with shock and some scepticism in Kyiv but aide says it fits ‘logical chain’

Ukraine is reacting “seriously” to UK Foreign Office allegations that Moscow has plans to invade the country and install a puppet government, a senior government adviser has said, adding that Kyiv is resisting Russian efforts to destabilise its government and economy.

The extraordinary Foreign Office claims that Moscow may topple the government and install Yevhen Murayev, a former MP who controls a pro-Russia television station, were met with shock and some scepticism in Ukrainian political and media circles on Sunday.

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Death of British man in Thailand confirmed amid reports he was attacked

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Second British man taken to hospital following incident that reportedly took place in early hours of Saturday

The death of a British man in Thailand has been confirmed by officials amid reports he was attacked.

A second British man was taken to hospital after the incident, the Foreign Office confirmed.

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‘We’ve been forgotten’: the British embassy security guard in Kabul

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Abdullah says guards who risked their lives for the British cannot understand why they have been abandoned

Abdullah*, 34, was a security guard for the British embassy, employed under contract by GardaWorld, and had a senior management role, looking after other locally employed embassy guards. He and about 180 colleagues had hoped to be evacuated to the UK at the end of August, but the evacuation was stopped by a bomb at the airport. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) made a clear commitment that all GardaWorld staff would be allowed to travel to the UK, but this has not happened.

We’ve heard nothing from the Home Office or the FCDO and life is becoming very hard for everyone who worked for the British embassy. Surviving when there is no income and no work is very difficult. We’re still hoping we will get an email about evacuation plans, but we haven’t heard anything. The UK government is helping footballers and writers to leave the country, but there has been no help for us. We feel like we should be first in line because we risked our lives for the British government. It’s a huge disappointment for all of us.

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UK accused of abandoning world’s poor as aid turned into ‘colonial’ investment

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Rebrand of Foreign Office’s development arm, seen as effort to rival China’s loans, will shift aid to private sector, warn NGOs and unions

The British government has been accused by NGOs and trade unions of “chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies” at the expense of the world’s poorest as they urge Liz Truss to keep aid focused on poverty reduction rather than geopolitical manoeuvring.

In a joint letter to the foreign secretary, the group criticises the rebranding of the UK’s development investment arm, which will see the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) become British International Investment (BII) next year.

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Women stage global fast to pressure UK over Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe

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Participants in women’s fasting relay will demand Boris Johnson repay £400m to Iran for 1970s arms deal

Women around the world will take turns to fast for 24 hours in an attempt to put pressure on the UK government to secure the freedom of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from detention in Iran.

The campaign by FiLiA, a female-led volunteer organisation working for the liberation of women, follows the 21-day hunger strike Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, mounted outside the Foreign Office in London until mid-November.

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Liz Truss to take on Brexit brief after David Frost resignation

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The foreign secretary is assuming responsibility for the UK’s relationship with the EU, says Downing Street

The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is to take over responsibility for the UK’s relationship with the EU after the Brexit minister Lord Frost’s resignation, Downing Street has said.

She will be adding ministerial responsibility to her foreign portfolio with immediate effect.

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How an Afghan reporter was left to the Taliban by the Foreign Office

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‘Fahim’ was cleared to leave Kabul. Then the phone went dead. Now he moves house every two days to evade capture

Fahim, a journalist who had worked with British media organisations, was one of thousands of Afghans who approached the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for help to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban’s conquest this summer.

Told he was cleared to travel with his family to the UK, he was also one of the many left behind as the promised help from the FCDO failed to materialise.

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Whistleblower condemns Foreign Office over Kabul evacuation

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Ex-diplomat claims string of failings within department led to ‘people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban’

Tens of thousands of Afghans were unable to access UK help following the fall of Kabul because of turmoil and confusion in the Foreign Office, according a devastating account by a whistleblower.

A former diplomat has claimed bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, lack of planning and a short-hours culture in the department led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.

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Call to British Airways might have averted 1990 Kuwait hostage crisis

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Ambassador warned Foreign Office an Iraqi invasion was under way but this was not passed on to airline

Hundreds of British passengers might have avoided being taken hostage by Saddam Hussein in 1990 if a call by a British ambassador regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been relayed to British Airways, the Foreign Office has disclosed.

The revelation of the phone call and the decades long cover-up was made on Tuesday under the 20-year disclosure rule, but was known to ministers and diplomats since 1990. The current foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has apologised for the omission.

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UN Palestine aid agency is ‘close to collapse’ after funding cuts

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UK has cut relief grant for Palestinians by more than 50% from £42.5m in 2020 to £20.8m in 2021

Cuts to the budget of the UN’s relief agency for Palestinians – including a halving of the UK grant – means the agency is close to collapse, the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, has said. The UK has cut its core grant by more than 50% from £42.5m in 2020 to £20.8m in 2021.

Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which serves Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza but also in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, said the agency was in an existential crisis due to a $100m (£74m) shortfall this year, but also because of a method of long-term funding that has proved unsustainable.

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Assad regime ‘siphons millions in aid’ by manipulating Syria’s currency

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Government pocketed half of donations in 2020 as central bank forced UN agencies to use lower exchange rate


The Syrian government is siphoning off millions of dollars of foreign aid by forcing UN agencies to use a lower exchange rate, according to new research.

The Central Bank of Syria, which is sanctioned by the UK, US and EU, in effect made $60m (£44m) in 2020 by pocketing $0.51 of every aid dollar sent to Syria, making UN contracts one of the biggest money-making avenues for President Bashar al-Assad and his government, researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Operations & Policy Center thinktank and the Center for Operational Analysis and Research found.

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‘Use your £11bn climate fund to pay for family planning,’ UK told

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More than 60 NGOs call for spending rule change, saying people on frontline of climate crisis want greater access to reproductive healthcare

The UK government has been urged to open up its £11bn pot of climate funding to contraception, as research from low-income countries shows a link between poor access to reproductive health services and environmental damage.

In a letter to Alok Sharma, president of the UN Cop26 climate conference, an alliance of more than 60 NGOs has called for the funding eligibility rules to be changed to allow projects concerned with removing barriers to reproductive healthcare and girls’ education to access climate funds.

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‘I saw children falling down’: panic and despair in Kabul as time runs out

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Faced with crowd stampedes and Taliban reprisals, even those eligible for travel to UK have begun to give up hope

For the past four days, Nangyalai, a 42-year-old minicab driver from south London, has been queueing with his wife and 11-month-old baby outside the Baron hotel on the edge of Kabul airport, trying to get close enough to the entrance gate to show guards his British passport.

There is a sign by the gate stating “British passport holders only”. Inside the hotel, officials are working to grant evacuation visas for thousands of UK nationals and Afghan citizens who have worked for British organisations. Diplomatic staff say they are “processing hundreds every hour”, but there is a growing sense of despair among the crowds who have been waiting outside since the start of the week – and tensions are rising.

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UK imposes sanctions on seven Russians over Navalny poisoning

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FCDO says the individuals, said to be FSB members, will be subject to travel bans and asset freezes

Sanctions have been imposed on seven Russian nationals accused of involvement in the nerve agent poisoning of the key Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, the UK government has said.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) announced that the individuals, said to be members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), would be subject to travel bans and asset freezes.

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