Page 62 - Mark Sedwill News Today

'Specific targets' for staff to return will not be imposed, with departments to decide on any quotas for ‘in-person’ working

All the times Boris Johnson holidayed during a national crisis

More than half of the 21 biggest civil service jobs have been held for no longer than 18 months.

The 29th edition of the Pontignano Conference, the most important event on the Anglo-Italian agenda, is being held in Siena from 16 to 18 September.

Among those we may come to call "the abandoned" is a former British soldier who helped many people leave Kabul after the Taliban’s invasion.

Middle-East Arab News and Opinion - Asharq Al-Awsat is the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The rapid fall of Afghanistan to Taliban control presents the U.K. and its NATO allies with two primary dilemmas — the first is immediately pressing, the second has longer-term implications. The urgent task is to determine a policy for Afghans seeking refuge.

The humiliation of the lightning Taliban takeover in Afghanistan after a 20-year war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives has raised a question for the United States' staunchest European ally: Is America really back as President Joe Biden promised?

Britain fears the Talibans return and the vacuum left by the Wests chaotic withdrawal will allow militants from al Qaeda and Islamic State to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, just 20 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The ex-spy (pictured) is a regional adviser and will provide strategic advice to the US banking giant using his expertise.