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The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong and based on an "imbecilic" slogan, former PM Tony Blair has said. He described the decision to withdraw troops from the country as "tragic, dangerous and unnecessary". Mr Blair, who sent troops into Afghanistan 20 years ago, said UK involvement in Afghanistan was not a "hopeless endeavour" despite the Taliban takeover. And the sacrifice made by British troops "was not in vain", he added. Mr Blair said achievements in the country over the past 20 years - including a generation growing up without Taliban rule - was a "good cause" that "matters today,...

Former Conservative prime minister David Cameron lashed out at Boris Johnson today, branding his decision to axe the UK’s foreign aid department a “mistake”. In what is believed to be his first policy intervention since quitting in 2016. ex-premier Mr. Cameron joined his Labour predecessors to criticize Mr. Johnson’s decision to scrap the Department for International Development. The Prime Minister told MPs in the Commons today it will be merged into the Foreign Office to create the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, in a bid to “maximize British influence” overseas. He said the move would “unite our aid with our...

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is pressing his long-held view that voters should be given a chance to re-think Brexit once plans for Britain’s departure from the European Union are clear. Blair said Thursday that the Labour Party he led for 13 years should be actively challenging Brexit rather than going along with plans laid out by Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative Party allies. May’s government is negotiating exit plans and the outlines of a new trade relationship with the EU with an eye toward departing the bloc by a March 2019 deadline. Blair and other opponents...

Stopping Brexit is a more important priority than Labour winning the next election in Britain, former British prime minister Tony Blair suggested as he criticized the party’s strategy under Jeremy Corbyn. The ex-premier said Labour was “in the same position as the Tories” on Brexit, but if it came out in opposition to leaving the European Union, it would not only “be saying what’s right”, it would also expose the divisions within the Conservative ranks. Mr. Blair said he believed that “stopping Brexit is the route to win power” for Labour, and rejected the suggestion that accepting the result of...

Tony Blair has defended his call for new controls on EU migration as a cabinet minister accused him of a belated “epiphany” on the issue. The ex-PM said the UK could stay in the EU after all with new curbs in place. He claimed this would address people’s “grievances” without the “sledgehammer” of Brexit. Critics have pointed to his Labour government’s decision not to apply transitional controls to eastern European migrants in 2004. Mr. Blair’s proposals are to “tighten” existing free movement rules, including on benefit entitlement, and seek to negotiate an “emergency brake” on EU migration in certain sectors....

There’s a chance Britain won’t leave the European Union, former Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saturday, arguing that stopping Brexit is “necessary” to avoid severe economic damage. In an article published by Blair’s Institute for Global Change, he wrote that EU leaders might be willing to “reform and meet us half way” to keep the U.K. in the bloc. He said that might include compromise on freedom of movement — a key EU principle that conflicts with Britain’s goal of placing limits on immigration. […] Blair also told Sky News that “every day is bringing us fresh evidence” of Brexit’s...

Britain's exit from the EU could be blocked, Tony Blair has said, as he ruled out a return to frontline politics because there is “too much hostility” towards him. The former Labour prime minister said he had been accused of “treason” for suggesting that Britain keep its “options open” over Brexit. But he insisted that voters had a right to decide they want to stay in the EU after “scrutinising” Theresa May’s final deal with European leaders.

Gordon Brown must surely have had what senior ministers call "one of his little moments" last Thursday when George W Bush was asked about Tony Blair's departure date. "My attitude is," Mr Bush said, gazing fondly at the Prime Minister, "I want him to be here so long as I'm the President." That would give Mr Blair till noon on January 20, 2009 (teatime in Downing Street, allowing for the time difference). "Well, what more can I say?" said the Prime Minister, with one of his 1,000-watt grins. To which the Chancellor doubtless growled inwardly: "Say you're going tomorrow, you...

Jayson Blair says NYT still lax (CNN) -- Jayson Blair, the former New York Times reporter who started a scandal that prompted the resignation of the newspaper's two top editors, said Tuesday on CNN's "Larry King Live" that "there are these journalist war criminals still at the New York Times that have not been caught." Blair resigned from the Times on May 1, 2003, after a Texas newspaper questioned whether he had plagiarized its article about the family of a soldier missing in Iraq. Blair's book, "Burning Down My Masters' House," released last Saturday, details how he faked trips to...

NEW YORK -- The long wait is over. Now you can order Jayson Blair's forthcoming book, Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at The New York Times at amazon.com. The cover of the tightly guarded book, which will not be published until March, is also available at the online bookseller. It features a mock front page of the Times, with the paper's logo partly cut off at the top, the book title as a huge headline, and a fairly small picture of Blair in a light colored T-shirt (but looking very serious) in the lower right corner. You can...

"That was my favorite," Jayson Blair said. It was the morning of Monday, May 19, and the disgraced former New York Times reporter was curled in a butterfly chair in his sparsely furnished Brooklyn apartment. He was eating a bagel and talking about one of his many fabricated stories—his March 27 account, datelined Palestine, W.Va., of Pvt. Jessica Lynch’s family’s reaction to their daughter’s liberation in Iraq.Mr. Blair hadn’t gone to Palestine, W.Va. He’d filed from Brooklyn, N.Y. As he’d done before, he cobbled facts and details from other places and made some parts up. He wrote how Private Lynch’s...

INTERNET MARKETING AND ACTIVISM ONLINE By definition, an activist uses direct, often confrontational action, such as a demonstration or strike, in opposition to orsupport of a cause. The Internet has been a growing channel of communication for activists groups as a means of reaching both the global audience and their next door neighbor. Through the Internet and all in one fell swoop, activist organizations are now able to promote their causes, collect signatures, raise money, plan rallies, or disseminate leaflets and other electronic documents. And activism is actually marketed online. How? Let's find out. More often than not, activism is...