Starmer urges PM to award medals to troops involved in Afghanistan evacuation
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has urged the government to grant military medals to those British troops involved in the evacuation of Afghanistan last month.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Sir Keir told Boris Johnson to accept his party’s proposal to honour the “remarkable” work of those who served in Operation Pitting.
Following Afghanistan’s collapse to Taliban control, the military’s emergency evacuation effort saw 15,000 people brought back to the UK amid chaotic scenes in the country’s capital Kabul.
In a message to those troops involved in Operation Pitting, Sir Keir said: “Your service deserves recognition and honour and I hope the prime minister will accept Labour’s proposal to scrap the 30-day continuous service rule so that medals are awarded for your bravery.”
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20,000 Afghans to stay in UK
Speaking earlier in the Commons, the prime minister had paid tribute to the “biggest and fastest emergency evacuation in recent history”.
“The whole House will join me in commending the courage and ingenuity of everyone involved in the Kabul Airlift, one of the most spectacular operations in our country’s post-war military history,” he told MPs.
However, the prime minister admitted that 311 people eligible to come to Britain under a special resettlement scheme for those who worked with the UK in Afghanistan were still in the country.
Of those 311 Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) candidates, Mr Johnson told MPs that 192 had responded to calls from the UK government.
Labour want those troops involved in the Kabul airlift to be honoured
“We will do absolutely everything we can to ensure that those people get the safe passage that they deserve,” he added.
Mr Johnson also told the Commons that up to 20,000 vulnerable Afghans would receive indefinite leave to remain in the UK under a new separate resettlement scheme, under which the government has pledged to take 5,000 refugees in the scheme’s first year.
“We will of course work with the UN and aid agencies to identify those we should help as we have done in respect of those who fled war in Syria,” he said.
“But we will also include Afghans who have contributed to civil society, or who face a particular risk from the Taliban, for example, because of their role in standing up for democracy and human rights, or because of their gender or sexuality or religion.
“All who come to our country through this safe and legal route will receive not a five-year visa but indefinite leave to remain.”
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The prime minister said local councils and devolved administrations would soon receive details on funding for housing and extra school places for those arriving from Afghanistan, while he pledged all councils would “get the support and funding they need”.
Mr Johnson updated MPs on the situation in Afghanistan as the Taliban claimed it was now in charge of the whole of the country after taking Panjshir province, although resistance forces disputed this.
Both the prime minister and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who gave his own statement in the Commons after Mr Johnson, have been heavily criticised for their handling of the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan and the resulting Taliban takeover.
And the prime minister faced tough questions from among his own Conservative MPs as the Commons sat for the first time since a one-day emergency debate on the Afghanistan interrupted parliament’s summer break.
Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons’ defence committee, called for a “complete overhaul” of the UK’s foreign policy following a “void of leadership in the West and NATO”.
Tory former defence minister Johnny Mercer criticised the government for having “consistently failed” to meet its promises of support for military veterans.
Mr Johnson rejected a suggestion from his predecessor Theresa May that the terror threat to the UK had now increased following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
“We have no direct information as yet of any increase to the threat but I can assure her and the House that every effort will be made to make sure that our counter-terrorist agents have the resources they need to keep us safe,” he said.
Last week, Mr Raab told MPs he was “not confident with any precision” over how many people who are entitled to come to the UK remained left in Afghanistan following the end of the evacuation effort from Kabul.
Saturday will mark the 20th anniversary of the 11 September attacks on the US in 2001, which prompted the West’s long military intervention in Afghanistan.
A group of investors has filed a class-action lawsuit against decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Meteora, alleging the firm was involved in manipulating the launch and market price of the M3M3 token.
In an amended complaint filed on April 21 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the plaintiffs allege that venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, Meteora, and four current or former executives “intentionally misrepresented” information in the M3M3 launch in December 2024.
The investors claimed that they suffered at least $69 million in losses between December 2024 and February 2025 after the parties presented “trusted leaders in the Solana ecosystem” as being behind the token launch, rather than a “blatant fraud” in which sales were manipulated to artificially inflate the price.
“This artificially-inflated valuation communicated highly misleading information to non-insider investors, who reasonably relied on Defendants’ representations that the $M3M3 launch was fully accessible to the public and conducted in a transparent manner fair to non-insider investors, and thus reasonably relied on $M3M3 market price as a meaningful measure of its value,” the complaint reads. “The post-launch price spike also served to corroborate Defendants’ aggressively-marketed, but misleading, assertions that $M3M3 had intrinsic value and a comparatively low risk profile.”
The lawsuit is one of many involving different crypto firms that have alleged fraud through violations of US securities laws. Though the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under acting chair Mark Uyeda since US President Donald Trump took office, has scaled back or dismissed many enforcement actions involving digital assets, the agency said in February it still intended to pursue cases against fraudulent token projects.
The investors added:
“Together, Defendants designed the $M3M3 Token and planned its launch on Meteora in a manner intended to illicitly enrich themselves at the expense of the unsuspecting investing public.”
Related: Meteora says co-founder’s X account hacked after ‘parasitic’ memecoin post
Memecoins in the Solana ecosystem
Meteora has been tied to the launch of several high-profile yet controversial tokens, including those for Trump (TRUMP), his wife Melania (MELANIA), Libra (LIBRA), and online influencer Haliey Welch (HAWK).
According to the lawsuit, the firm “purported to offer a comprehensive solution to the problems in the memecoin investment market” with the launch of M3M3. The defendants in the case allegedly attempted to distinguish the token from other notable memecoins by highlighting the “legitimacy and trustworthiness” through the involvement of Meteora co-founder Ben Chow and the platform.
Kelsier Ventures, KIP Protocol, and Meteora face a similar class-action lawsuit filed in New York in March over LIBRA allegedly being launched in a “deceptive, manipulative and fundamentally unfair” manner. Argentine President Javier Milei briefly promoted the token over social media after his sister reportedly received payments from the project.
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More than 70 cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are slated for review by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this year. According to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, the list includes proposed ETFs holding a range of assets, from altcoins to memecoins to derivatives instruments.
“Everything from XRP, Litecoin and Solana to Penguins, Doge and 2x Melania and everything in between,” Balchunas said in an April 21 post on the X platform. “Gonna be a wild year.”
Related: ARK adds staked Solana to two tech ETFs
Uncertain institutional demand
The planned funds listings come as institutional investors turn increasingly bullish on crypto as an asset class.
Upward of 80% of institutions say they plan to increase allocations to crypto in 2025, according to a March report by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon.
However, analysts caution that just because ETFs are approved for US listings doesn’t guarantee widespread adoption, especially for funds holding more obscure alternative cryptocurrencies.
“Having your coin get ETF-ized is like being in a band and getting your songs added to all the music streaming services,” Balchunas said.
“Doesn’t guarantee listens but it puts your music where the vast majority of the listeners are.”
Sygnum Bank’s research head, Katalin Tischhauser, told Cointelegraph she expects altcoin ETFs to see cumulative inflows of several hundred million to $1 billion, far less than spot Bitcoin funds.
Funds holding Bitcoin (BTC) — the first spot cryptocurrency approved for listing in a US ETF wrapper — attracted upward of $100 billion in net assets last year.
However, ETFs using options and other derivatives to provide structured exposure to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether might see more institutional uptake, analysts said.
Options on spot cryptocurrencies unlock numerous potential portfolio strategies for investors and could potentially catalyze “explosive” price upside for digital assets such as Bitcoin, Jeff Park, Bitwise Invest’s head of alpha strategies, said in September.
Options are contracts granting the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a certain price.
On April 21, ARK Invest added exposure to staked Solana (SOL) to two of its existing ETFs. The asset manager said it marks the first time spot SOL has been available to US investors in an ETF.
Magazine: ‘Bitcoin layer 2s’ aren’t really L2s at all: Here’s why that matters
New filings from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reveal that several cryptocurrency firms and their executives made significant contributions to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration fund after the results of the 2024 election.
According to FEC filings made public on April 20 by the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams donated more than $245,000, Solana Labs donated $1 million, and software firm Consensys sent $100,000 in January 2025 to support the then-president-elect’s inauguration. Many major crypto firms had previously announced their support of Trump through donations to the inaugural fund, including Coinbase, Ripple Labs, Kraken, Ondo Finance, and Robinhood.
Altogether, the fund reported more than $239 million in net donations between Nov. 15 and April 20 from companies and individuals. These included $1 million from McDonald’s, $1 million from Meta, $1 million from Apple CEO Tim Cook, $1 million from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and various contributions from Delta Air Lines, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Nvidia, PayPal, Target, and Coca-Cola.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20 and appointed Mark Uyeda as acting chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency has dropped multiple investigations and enforcement actions against crypto firms, including those that donated to the president’s 2024 campaign or inauguration fund. In February, Uniswap reported that the SEC had dropped its probe into the firm, and Consensys founder Joseph Lubin said the agency had agreed to end a separate lawsuit.
Memecoins, stablecoin issuers, and future elections
Trump’s memecoin, launched on Jan. 17 on the Solana blockchain — along with his wife Melania’s, which was available a few days later — has many in the crypto industry and the US government questioning the president about conflicts of interest by capitalizing on his position. The president’s family is also behind the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm responsible for a US dollar-pegged stablecoin at a time when lawmakers are considering legislation to regulate the technology.
In addition to the Consensys case, the SEC said it intended to drop enforcement actions or investigations into Ripple, Kraken, Robinhood and Coinbase. The three firms donated a combined $9 million to the inauguration fund.
Related: Trump’s next crypto play will be Monopoly-style game — Report
The 2024 US election cycle saw crypto-backed political action committees (PACs) spending more than $131 million to influence races in crucial congressional districts. The Fairshake PAC has already said it had more than $100 million available, in part from contributions from Coinbase and Ripple, to spend on the 2026 midterms.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
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