Raab admits British nationals still in Afghanistan face ‘challenge’ to find route out of country
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has admitted it will be a “challenge” for British nationals left in Afghanistan to now find a route to the UK.
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Raab said the number of British nationals who had not been taken as part of the now-ended UK evacuation effort was in the “low hundreds”.
Acknowledging it was “unclear” when the airport in Afghanistan‘s capital Kabul would again be operating – following this weekend’s pullout of US and UK troops – Mr Raab advised those still seeking to leave the country they could find a route to the UK via neighbouring countries.
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UK troops how now left Afghanistan following an evacuation effort after the Taliban takeover
The foreign secretary said, since April, more than 17,000 British nationals, Afghans who worked with the UK, and other vulnerable people had been evacuated from the country.
But, of those UK nationals who were still left in Afghanistan, Mr Raab admitted there were “low hundreds” remaining in the country.
“Most of those are difficult cases where it’s not clear around eligibility because they’re undocumented,” he said.
“We’ve now put in place the arrangements with third countries, or we’re putting them in place.
“I’ve spoken to some of the key third countries, so have other ministers, to make sure we can have a workable route through for those outstanding cases.”
Asked whether his advice for those UK nationals still in Afghanistan would be for them to head across one of the country’s borders, Mr Raab added: “It depends if they are eligible or not and, of course, we’re in contact with them to be able to establish that.
“That’s made more difficult because we don’t have the base at the airport.
“Certainly if they’re eligible British nationals, there are embassies in those third countries – whether it’s Pakistan or one of the stans.”
Pressed on how British nationals in Afghanistan might reach one of Afghanistan’s borders, now the country is under Taliban control, Mr Raab admitted it would be a “challenge”.
But the foreign secretary said the UK would hold the Taliban to their “explicit assurances” – as well as the terms of a UN Security Council resolution passed on Monday – that they “must allow safe passage not just for our nationals but other Afghans, particularly vulnerable ones, who wish to leave”.
The Taliban are now in control of Kabul’s airport following the final withdrawal of Western troops in recent days. And Mr Raab said there was “a degree of scepticism” about the group’s “capacity to run that airport safely”.
“We know that some countries are trying to help them with that effectively functional capacity,” he said.
“Of course the previous government had air traffic controllers and things like that. But at what stage that will be ready and viable for international travel, at this point, is unclear.”
He added: “What support they get and how quickly they can then salvage a functional operational capacity remains to be seen.
“Which is why we’re making sure – working with those third countries, working with our embassies – that, actually, if people can get to the border, we can process those cases.”
Mr Raab also rejected claims that a UK request may have contributed to the risk of a terror attack at Kabul airport.
According to the Politico website, the US decided to keep Abbey Gate at Kabul airport open longer in order to allow the UK to continue evacuating British personnel.
The gate was subsequently the location of a suicide bomb attack for which ISIS-K, an offshoot of Islamic State, have been held responsible.
But Mr Raab said it was “just not true” that the UK was “pushing to leave the gate open”.
“We coordinate very closely with the US, in particular around the ISIS-K threat that we anticipated – although tragically were not able to prevent,” he told Sky News.
“It is certainly right to say we got our civilian staff out of the processing centre by Abbey Gate.
“But it is just not true to suggest, other than securing our civilian staff inside the airport, that we were pushing to leave the gate open.
“In fact, and let me just be clear about this, we were issuing changes of travel advice before the bomb attack took place and saying to people in the crowd, about which I was particularly concerned, that certainly UK nationals and anyone else should leave because of the risk.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released its annual report detailing complaints and losses due to scams and fraud involving cryptocurrency in 2024.
According to the report released on April 23, the IC3 received more than 140,000 complaints referencing cryptocurrency in 2024, resulting in roughly $9.3 billion in losses. The bureau reported that individuals over the age of 60 had been the most affected by crypto-related fraud, with roughly 33,000 complaints and $2.8 billion in losses.
“Last year saw a new record for losses reported to IC3, totaling a staggering $16.6 billion,” said the report. “Fraud represented the bulk of reported losses in 2024, and ransomware was again the most pervasive threat to critical infrastructure, with complaints rising 9% from 2023,” notes the report, adding that, as a group, those over the age of 60 suffered the most losses and submitted the most complaints.
The report added that the resultant losses had increased roughly 66% since 2023, from roughly $5.6 billion to $9.3 billion. The most significant percentage of losses occurred due to crypto investment schemes, while the largest number of complaints related to “sextortion” schemes, in which fraudsters manipulated photos and videos to create explicit content. Other scams included schemes involving the use of crypto ATMs or kiosks.
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In February, the FBI reported its “Operation Level Up” had saved potential victims of crypto fraud roughly $285 million between January 2024 and January 2025. However, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis speculated that 2025 could see the largest number of scams to date, given that generative AI is making the practice “more scalable and affordable for bad actors to conduct.”
Globally, Chainalysis estimated that there had been roughly $41 billion in illicit crypto volume in 2024, with roughly 25% of the funds involved with “hacking, extortion, trafficking, or scams.” Some of the most high-profile crimes included the $1.4 billion in crypto stolen from the Bybit exchange in March and North Korean hackers taking more than $1.3 billion.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently called for “Bretton Woods institutions,” such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to reorient themselves, a signal that the global monetary order could be shifting.
Speaking at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) on April 23, Bessent called on the IMF and the World Bank to correct trade imbalances and protect the value of fiat currencies against exchange rate risk.
“The Bretton Woods institutions must step back from their sprawling and unfocused agendas,” Bessent said. He added:
“The IMF’s mission is to promote international monetary cooperation, facilitate the balanced growth of international trade, encourage economic growth, and discourage harmful policies like competitive exchange rate depreciation.”
Bessent’s call for the IMF to correct trade imbalances between countries, specifically the US and China, coincides with a decline in the US dollar to three-year lows, $36 trillion in US government debt, and stiff economic competition from China.
Investor and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio argues that the world is experiencing a global macroeconomic shift that will upend the post-WWII financial order and eventually replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency, potentially with a digital form of money.
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The Bretton Woods Agreement
The Bretton Woods Agreement was signed in 1944 and pegged the currencies of 44 countries to the value of the US dollar, which, at that point, was pegged to the value of gold at $35 per ounce.
Eliminating complex foreign exchange risks between freely floating currencies to make global trade more efficient was the primary goal of the agreement.
In August 1971, US President Richard Nixon announced the end of the dollar’s convertibility to gold — formally ending the Bretton Woods agreement in a move that was supposed to be temporary.
“Your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it does today,” Nixon incorrectly told Americans during his now-infamous address.
The IMF and the World Bank, which were spawned from the Bretton Woods agreement, continue operating in an attempt to curb the effects of free-floating fiat currencies on the foreign exchange market.
Bessent eyes stablecoins to protect the US dollar, BTC advocates have another idea
Speaking at the White House Digital Asset Summit on March 7, Bessent said stablecoins could drive international demand for US dollars and US government debt instruments.
Bessent added that the Trump administration will use stablecoins to protect the US dollar and its status as the global reserve currency.
Bitcoin maximalist Max Keiser argued against this plan, predicting that gold-backed stablecoins would outcompete dollar-pegged tokens due to the desire for low-volatility, inflation-resistant money.
In March this year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote that the $36 trillion US national debt could drive investors to Bitcoin (BTC) as market participants start to see BTC as a better store of value than the US dollar.
Bitwise executive Jeff Park voiced a similar prediction in February, focused on the effects of US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
The analyst wrote that the tumult from the ongoing trade war would cause worldwide inflation, which would cause individuals to seek alternative stores of value like Bitcoin, driving its price much higher in the long term.
Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins
The Alabama Securities Commission, a financial regulator for the US state, dropped its lawsuit against crypto exchange Coinbase, which accused the company of violating securities laws by offering staking services to clients.
The regulator cited the ongoing work between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the crypto industry to develop clear crypto regulations as the primary reason for dropping the litigation, according to the April 23 legal filing shared by Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal.
The filing read:
“The SEC has announced the formation of a new task force to, among other things, provide guidance for the promulgation of rules regarding the regulation of cryptocurrency products and services.”
“Due to the foregoing, the Commission believes it would be apt to allow policymakers time to consider regulatory constructs,” the filing continued.
The Alabama Securities Commission filed its lawsuit against Coinbase in June 2023, alongside state regulators from California, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The Commission’s dropped lawsuit reflects the positive regulatory shift toward cryptocurrencies in the United States as reform at the federal level matriculates into state-level regulatory policy.
Related: Oregon targets Coinbase after SEC drops its federal lawsuit
US states drop Coinbase lawsuit but half still holding out
Five of the 10 states that filed the litigation against Coinbase for its staking services have dropped their lawsuits.
On March 13, Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation became the first of the 10 state regulators to drop the staking lawsuit against Coinbase.
South Carolina’s securities watchdog was the next to drop the 2023 litigation against Coinbase, dismissing the lawsuit on March 28.
Grewal announced that Kentucky’s Department of Financial Institutions followed Vermont and South Carolina’s lead on April 1 by also dismissing its Coinbase lawsuit.
Despite the domino effect of states rescinding litigation against the crypto exchange, the Coinbase chief legal officer said that more work needs to be done.
“Five holdouts are still electing to waste taxpayer resources on lawsuits, and four of those have banned staking with Coinbase, depriving consumers of the right to earn on their platform of choice,” Grewal wrote in an April 23 X post.
Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
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