UK set to slash aid funding to fight deadly diseases – putting 250,000 lives at risk

Sir Keir Starmer is poised to slash £150m from Britain’s contribution to the international fight against Aids, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, putting 255,000 lives at risk, The Independent understands.

The government is preparing to announce its contribution to the Global Fund as soon as next week, in one of the first major decisions since announcing it would dramatically reduce foreign aid to pay for defence spending.

The prime minister is expected to pledge £850m towards the Global Fund’s work over the next three years – a 15 per cent reduction compared with the previous pledge of £1bn in 2022, which itself was down from a pledge of £1.4bn in 2019.

The government has indicated that it will use Britain’s aid budget to contribute to the humanitarian response in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, as well as in support of global health. It has named the Global Fund, along with the global vaccine alliance Gavi, as organisations that are in line to receive a bigger share of its aid spending.

Nevertheless, the cut in aid could threaten the Global Fund’s plan to raise $18bn (around £14bn) to save 23 million lives between 2027 and 2029. Worldwide NGO the ONE campaign calculates that a £1bn commitment by the UK would save 1.7 million lives, so a £150m drop would see an estimated 255,000 lives lost.

Former secretary of state for international development Sir Andrew Mitchell said the cut in aid was “a bitter pill to swallow”, adding: “Not just for the many thousands of people who will lose their lives, but also for the many people in Britain who are proud of the work Britain has led in preventing death from malaria, HIV/Aids and tuberculosis, which is now being curtailed by the first Labour government ever to cut development spending.”

Conservative MP David Mundell, a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on HIV/Aids, said the decision was “seriously disappointing”.

“Obviously, there are constraints on funding, but the track record of the Global Fund is well established in terms of delivery, and therefore is one of the most effective ways of providing funding,” he said.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said that the UK would continue to “play a significant role in the global response to fight disease globally” by providing funding to the Global Fund, and that its pledge would be announced in due course. “The UK remains firmly committed to tackling global health challenges, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because it will help us deliver on our Plan for Change in the UK by supporting global stability and growth.”

The world was on track to end the Aids pandemic by 2030 until funding cuts, especially those implemented by the US, took effect earlier this year. Now, potentially millions of additional deaths are predicted to occur in the coming years.

“Unplanned cuts, like the US cuts, always have adverse consequences for the people who are being supported,” said Mr Mundell, referring to the deaths linked to Donald Trump’s decision to withhold funding that was used to provide HIV services in lower-income countries, as reported by The Independent.

The Global Fund pays for a quarter of all international HIV treatment and prevention programmes, more than half of the world’s malaria programmes, and three-quarters of those aimed at the prevention and treatment of TB. It is estimated to have saved 70 million lives in the past 20 years.

This work is mostly funded by contributions from more than 80 governments, as well as support from private industry and philanthropy. Currently, the UK is the Global Fund’s third-largest donor, and will co-host its fundraising event in South Africa on 21 November.

After Mr Trump entered office, the US withheld money that had already been pledged to the fund, with disastrous consequences. Countries supported by the fund were immediately forced to cut at least 10 per cent of their work.

When The Independent recently visited programmes in Senegal, we found disabled people dying for lack of transport to reach lifesaving drugs; hospitals no longer able to give out food kits to malnourished patients; and challenges in the distribution of preventative HIV medication.

A spokesperson for the US Department of State said: “Over the last year, the United States has provided more than $60m of health assistance programming for Senegal to support the most urgent health needs, including HIV prevention and treatment.”

Dr Katherine Horton, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s tuberculosis modelling group, said that a reduction in the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund would result in thousands of extra deaths. TB kills more people each year around the world than any other infectious disease.

“Global health broadly is really strained at the moment, [largely] because of the US cuts that have already happened. And so I think, in the wake of the US cuts, there’s a real need for other countries to contribute as much as they can to try to fill some of that gap,” she said.

TB programmes have been successful in bringing down the number of deaths and reducing the threat of the disease spreading across borders, Dr Horton added. “Any further cuts are just going to cause greater damage and greater harm to these global health systems and individual lives.”

This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project

Trump is in a power battle more important than the New York mayor

As an asthma sufferer you become acutely aware of things that are triggers for it: cats, horsehair, damp etc. But I swear I know to the day when summer turns to autumn (another irritant) because the air just feels different with that first morning chill.

There was a similar change in air quality in America this week, a year to the day that Donald Trump vanquished the Democrats – and left them wheezing and more or less breathless. But on Wednesday morning liberal America, where the last rites had been read, was heaving in great lungfuls of air and celebrating some rude health once again.

Understandably, nearly all the attention has been on Zohran Mamdani’s remarkable victory in New York. I mean, it is pretty remarkable. 34 years old. Ugandan born. Muslim. Socialist. In the city that doesn’t sleep he’s giving a lot of the well to do even more cause for insomnia with his radical agenda.

But the real significance of the Democrat victories in the Big Apple – and New Jersey and Virginia were they found an issue that they could all rally around, regardless of whether they were from the centrist or progressive wings of the party. And that was affordability.

Because Donald Trump is such an astonishing self-publicist and a marketing genius when it comes to telling people how brilliant he is, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s true what he’s saying. But that’s not the mood in the US right now. Prices have not come down, voters don’t have more money in their pockets – and that is at the heart of why Republicans did so badly on Tuesday night.

Now let me put in the necessary caveats. These are off year elections. The Dems were expected to do well. They were hardly going to lose in New York. Some of the Republicans who stood were right old duffers. So what that they’ve regained the governors’ mansions in New Jersey and Virginia; 2028 is still years away.

Yes, yes, yes. I accept all of that. But these results are not nothing either.

The president’s approval ratings are sliding, and the trendlines on cost of food, cost of living, the state of the economy are heading in the wrong direction. And say it quietly, there are those in the White House who know this, but fret about how to make Donald Trump accept the seriousness of the situation.

It’s not just that the Democrats have rediscovered the sweet, aphrodisiacal smell of victory, it’s having a profound psychological effect too. They have been so lost and bewildered since last year’s election defeat, and have been so intent on settling scores with each other, that they had stopped speaking to the American people.

I have written in this column of Donald Trump’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for power, and how – so far – he has encountered remarkably little resistance from anywhere or anyone. But maybe that is about to change.

One other vote that took place on Tuesday was the not very exciting sounding Proposition 50 in California. But it matters. You remember that brilliant soundbite from Michelle Obama when she said ‘when they go low we go high?’ Well the Democrat Governor of Gavin Newsom is changing that so that if Republicans want to go low, he’ll go low too.

This vote will allow California to do some redistricting of congressional seats that should harvest an additional 5 seats for the Dems in next year’s midterms. He’s doing this in response to Texas’s Republican Governor – at Donald Trump’s behest – doing the same in the lone star state. It’s gerrymander a go-go right now in the US. And you can be sure other states will be looking to do the same.

There is just this slight sense now that Trump is not invincible, that maybe he has a glass jaw. Tides (to mix metaphors) can turn quickly in politics. Whether it has been the legal profession, academia, the media, congress or the courts, the preferred position has been that of the supine crouch. But are these bodies going to stay like that if there’s a hint of vulnerabiity?

Which brings us to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority – and three of those justices having been appointed by Donald Trump in his first term. This week they heard a challenge to the president’s tariffs policies, and whether it was lawful for the administration to use emergency powers to bring in sweeping tariffs on countries across the world.

To be honest I thought this would be a dull affair. It was anything but. A majority of the justices were sharp in their questioning of the solicitor general who was representing the administration. The legislation Trump used – the International Emergency Powers Act – has nothing to say about taxes, tariffs or anything close.

Of course, the Supreme Court’s deliberations should be purely about the law, but their reputation has taken an absolute battering for their limp acquiescence to anything that the president wants. Could it be they’re about to show some resistance? It certainly sounded like it.

Just imagine if they did. Just imagine if they shredded Donald Trump’s signature economic policy. Just imagine how much weaker he would look in the eyes of America and the rest of the world if that happened.

I’ll insert the proviso one more time. This may not signify that much. But there is a sense of the resistance to Donald Trump feeling a little more emboldened. It may all peter out.

But there’s something in the air.

Mystery of war heroes solved ahead of Remembrance Sunday

Dozens of British and Commonwealth war heroes, whose identities have remained a mystery for decades, have finally been identified by Ministry of Defence (MoD) “war detectives” ahead of Remembrance Sunday.

A total of 52 personnel killed in action during the First and Second World Wars have been named through meticulous historical research and advanced DNA testing.

Additionally, 33 previously unidentified individuals have been rediscovered and laid to rest.

This significant work, carried out by the MoD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC), has brought recognition to those who served across the British Army, Royal Marines, and Royal Air Force.

While some had received formal burials as unknown soldiers, others had lain where they fell for much of the past century, without a marked grave.

Of the 85 soldiers now commemorated through funeral and rededication services this year, 74 fought in the First World War and 11 in the Second World War.

The youngest of the casualties to be identified, Trooper Francis Dominic, was just 19 when he was killed in Normandy in August 1944.

The oldest was Serjeant Henry Ashton, a career soldier and former railway worker from Derby who died aged 44 in Lens, France, in 1917.

The British Army used serjeant as the spelling of the rank until the mid-1950s.

Rededication services to honour the rediscovered casualties will take place in Belgium on 12 and 13 November at St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons.

A rededication service will be held for Serjeant William Augustus Fritz of 4th Battalion of The Royal Fusiliers who was killed in the first action of the First World War on 13 November.

On the morning of 23 August 1914, Sgt Fritz’s battalion was located north of Mons, holding outposts along the canal at Nimy.

German forces attacked and his battalion sustained heavy casualties of around 150 men, including Sgt Fritz, who was just 34 when he died.

He left behind a wife and children who would never know what became of him.

Soldiers of 1st Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and 5th Battalion of The Rifles, and personnel from Nato’s nearby European headquarters, will attend the service.

Commemorations case worker for the JCCC Rosemary Barron said it is “a privilege” to help identify the personnel.

Ms Barron said: “As the nation stops this week to remember service personnel who paid the ultimate sacrifice in war, this has been a poignant time to rededicate the graves of these brave men.

“All of these men left behind families who would have mourned their loss and who were left with unanswered questions as to their exact fate.

“It is a privilege to be able to do the work we do and bring these soldiers’ stories to a fitting conclusion.”

Additional rededication services will be held in Belgium on 12 November for Lieutenant Norman Frederick Hunter, Serjeant George Goodson Moore DCM and Private George Hall. All three were killed in the First World War.

Lt Hunter, a keen golfer from Edinburgh, died aged 36 after he was fatally wounded taking part in an attack on Bellewaerde Lake near Hooge.

Sgt Moore, 21, from Southwark in central London, was a brass musical instrument maker who was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions leading a bombing attack near Heninel during the Battle of Arras on 11 April 1917. His remains were discovered near Polygon Wood, Belgium.

Pte Hall, from Stratford, Essex, died aged 31 on 27 October, 1918, when his battalion was heavily shelled just two weeks before the 11 November armistice.

Defence minister Lord Coaker said: “We must always remember those who laid down their lives for peace and freedom, and our modern-day armed forces personnel who guard that precious legacy.

“The work of the MoD’s war detectives is a vital part of keeping the memory of our fallen heroes alive.

“Every November, our armed forces draw upon the inspiration of their predecessors to recommit to defending our peace, freedom and way of life.”

The JCCC’s investigations were in collaboration with the armed forces, the National Army Museum and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Four more mistakenly-released prisoners at large – as manhunt for sex offender ends with arrest

The sex offender mistakenly released from prison last week was arrested by police in London on Friday after being spotted by a member of the public – as justice secretary David Lammy admitted there was a “mountain to climb” to tackle prison system crisis.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was serving a sentence at HMP Wandsworth in southwest London when he was set free on 29 October, sparking a nine-day manhunt. The Algerian national was arrested in Islington.

Kaddour-Cherif has convictions for theft and had previously also been convicted for indecent exposure.

The release, as well as that of fraudster Billy Smith, 35, who handed himself in on Thursday, has piled pressure on Mr Lammy. On Friday night, reports emerged that four more prisoners released in error are still at large. It is understood they form part of the 262 prisoners in England and Wales who were mistakenly released in the year to March 2025.

Earlier on Friday, during his arrest, Kaddour-Cherif tried to claim he was somebody else. The officer said: “We are just going to do some further checks because you look exactly like the person. I’ve had a look at the photo, you’ve got a very distinctive wonky nose which looks the same as the person.”

Nadjib Mekdhia, who is also Algerian, claimed he called the police after spotting Kaddour-Cherif and said he is “glad he is in prison”.

Mr Mekdhia, 50, who is homeless and stays in the Finsbury Park area of north London, said he recognised the prisoner from a newspaper photograph.

Mr Lammy said: “I can confirm Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been recaptured and is back in custody. My thanks are with the police and staff at HMPPS who have been working around the clock.

“We inherited a prison system in crisis and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing. I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.

“That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

It comes after migrant Hadush Kebatu was wrongly released from HMP Chelmsford on 24 October. Stronger security checks were put in place in prisons and an independent investigation was launched into releases in error following the blunder in Kebatu’s case.

The Epping migrant jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, which sparked a wave of protests, was accidentally freed from prison instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre last month. He was later traced.

Shortly before news of the latest incident broke, Mr Lammy had been asked in the House of Commons whether any more asylum seekers had been wrongly released since Kebatu. The deputy prime minister, who also serves as justice secretary, refused to confirm the question when asked four times.

It is understood Kaddour-Cherif is not an asylum seeker, but is in the process of being deported after he overstayed his visa.

The latest blunders were blamed on clerical errors in a system under “relentless strain”.

Housing secretary Steve Reed told Times Radio: “The problem is we’ve got a broken system, and you are going to see failings when you have a broken system.

“The key is to make sure we have a digital system so that no prisoner is ever released by mistake.

“There is not an acceptable number for this, but the way to fix it is not tittle tattle about David Lammy in the newspapers, it’s to get on and do the work and put in the investment that will digitise the system.

“David has already had the prison governors in his office yesterday, I imagine they felt pretty hauled over the coals given what’s been going on, but he was also making sure that they’re getting all the support they need to carry out the much tougher checks that will be required to make sure that the repeats of this are at an absolute minimum.”

Chris Philp MP, shadow home secretary, said: “This case sums up the total collapse of law and order under Calamity Lammy. A foreign sex offender, meant to be deported, strolling the streets of London because Labour can’t even keep track of its prisoners. He must be immediately deported as soon as his sentence is finished.

“The British public shouldn’t have to be the ones to catch escaped criminals. This is chaos, incompetence, and weakness from top to bottom, and it’s putting people’s safety at risk.

“Labour don’t have the backbone to get a grip of law and order. Only the Conservative Party has a common sense, hard-edged plan to restore order, put 10,000 extra police officers on our streets and put fear back where it belongs – in the minds of criminals.”

Labour needs its own Mamdani moment

Against the odds and his billionaire-backed opponents, Zohran Mamdani has made history as New York’s first Muslim leader.

Pundits will rightly highlight his talent as a communicator and his savvy ground campaign. But while these factors are significant, it was a democratic socialist agenda which focused on addressing the cost of living crisis, taxing the super-rich, and wealth redistribution that ultimately secured his victory. Mamdani’s messaging addressed the material needs of voters, and they paid attention.

Whether this government wants to admit it or not, these are policies which enjoy significant popular support in the UK. Instead of dismissing proposals like wealth taxes or rent controls as being either unrealistic or too good to be true, our leaders should embrace them. A convincing seventy-five per cent of Britons support introducing a wealth tax of one per cent on assets above £10m and two per cent on assets above £1bn. They are a blueprint to pull Labour back from the brink

Voters are desperate for real change in their lives, but right now our government is only offering tweaks – hardly reassuring for households on the breadline or behind on their rent. From Mamdani to Zack Polanski, politicians willing to take on the status quo on both sides of the Atlantic are surging. We can’t bury our heads in the sand to this reality. With a huge parliamentary majority, Labour has the power to make bold economic reforms now, not at the next general election in a face-off with Nigel Farage’s Reform.

Yet instead, this government seems trapped in defensive politics. Chasing the Reform vote has been a failing strategy, one that has created an ugly race-to-the-bottom on issues like migration and the rights of minority groups. In contrast, Mamdani’s inclusive campaign confidently addressed topics such as Gaza, trans rights and migration. Rather than retreating from the attacks of his political opponents, he confronted these issues in a way that resonated with much of the electorate.

His emotional speech about being targeted because of his Muslim identity was addressed to the many minorities facing similar oppression in New York. At a moment when the far right is on the rise at home and globally, like Mamdani, we must be courageous in our fight for equality, demonstrating that hate will never win.

It’s abundantly clear that the Labour Party needs its own Mamdani moment, yet instead, we are being strangled by our own undemocratic party machinery. In the UK, those currently controlling Labour selection processes would not allow a politician with Zohran’s politics to even make the shortlist as a mayoral candidate. We’ve seen time and time again progressive contenders get culled at the last minute.

For instance, last year, Faiza Shaheen, a left-leaning economist chosen by her local party to run in Chingford and Woodford Green, was dropped by the national party over her social media activity. In 2022, Maurice McLeod, a Labour councillor and anti-racism activist, was blocked from running to be the candidate for Camberwell and Peckham for liking a tweet from a Green MP.

Closer to my home city, Greg Marshall, a Broxtowe borough councillor for Beeston West in Nottinghamshire, was barred from standing for a parliamentary seat. This was despite his strong commitment to both the community and the Labour Party, along with support from eight unions at the time. Sadly, there are many more cases like this.

For all the deep flaws in the American political system and the Democratic Party, the existence of primaries has allowed popular candidates like Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to break through. Right now, the Labour Party won’t even allow local members the true choice in who they want as their candidate. There are many talented, democratic socialists in the UK who would make fantastic representatives. If our party is determined to block them, they will end up running against us and not for us.

Now, just a few weeks out from the next Budget, this government has one of its last chances to prove whose side they’re on and deliver the kind of Mamdani-style wealth redistribution that voters are crying out for. Rachel Reeves has already suggested tax rises are coming, but voters will not forgive us if these fall on working people, while billionaire fortunes balloon.

While wealth taxes aren’t a silver bullet, no excuse is good enough for not implementing them as inequality grows, pushing more people into poverty. According to Tax Justice UK, a range of tax policies targeting the rich and large corporations could raise £60 billion a year. This is money that could fund our communities, save our high streets and make life more affordable for millions of households.

When the 50 richest families in our country hold more wealth than half the population combined and billionaire wealth has gone up 1000% since 1990, while our wages stagnate, something has gone profoundly wrong. We’re living in an economy where we pay more and get less, while corporate profits seem to soar. A politics that fails to confront this reality, that refuses to challenge the flow of wealth upwards, is destined to lose.

To rebuild trust with voters, we must offer them policies that tackle the struggles they face every day. That means taxing wealth, investing in public services and councils, building social housing, and improving workers’ rights and pay, while at the same time proudly defending our diversity and rights, which are constantly under attack from the far-right. If we fail to offer these solutions, we will inevitably lose votes to those who will.

What is tacit knowledge – could your work skills spark a new career?

Whether it’s solving a logistical problem, navigating a tricky client meeting or being able to design, craft or build, we all have certain skills that feel straightforward to us yet can seem out of reach to others. A big part of this is tacit knowledge, the personal ‘know-how’ that individuals possess, built up over time. In a work context, this tacit knowledge can open interesting doors to potential new career paths, in which this real-world experience can be shared with the next generation of workers.

Understanding the concept of tacit knowledge is perhaps easiest when compared to its counterpart: explicit knowledge. “Explicit knowledge is something you can fully articulate linguistically and can be understood without context while tacit knowledge is something that can’t be described in the same way and needs its context to be appreciated,” Dr Neil Gascoigne, Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway University of London and co-author of Tacit Knowledge, explains.

Gascoigne gives the example of the famous physics equation of E=mc^2. This formula is considered a piece of explicit knowledge, as words can be used to explain the idea. However, the average person wouldn’t know how to use this formula. This is where tacit knowledge comes in. You would need to have studied physics, put your knowledge into practice and learned first-hand how to use formulas effectively in order to make the most of the explicit knowledge given.

In the workplace, a company handbook might explicitly set out the business’ practice for a certain task. However, you would need some tacit knowledge gained through work experience or time in the company to complete this task most successfully and efficiently.

As tacit knowledge is harder to explain with words, it often has a mysterious quality to it. However, as Gascoigne points out, this is only to the untrained eye. “Tacit knowledge often seems obscure to people unless they possess similar skills themselves. Without them, it doesn’t become apparent what expertise is exactly on display,” he elaborates.

“For instance, say I am watching a Grand Slam tennis match. I know there’s an astonishing kind of athleticism, but if I don’t play tennis or am not a committed tennis fan, I might not be able to tell the difference between a really great shot and a more average shot,” Gascoigne says.

This same idea applies in the workplace. Tacit knowledge is gained through experience and consequently, while we all have tacit knowledge, the areas we have it in differ. What’s more, it can even seem quite mysterious to ourselves. When we have worked in a certain industry for a period of time, we aren’t always aware of the tacit knowledge we have gained. While explicit knowledge relates to aspects of our job that we might have had to sit down and learn, our tacit knowledge is obtained in a practical way over time, by doing tasks again and again and subtly learning and improving as we go along.

After a while, we know exactly how to tackle projects or solve problems, almost without thinking. For instance, in the construction industry, this tacit knowledge would help you judge site safety or develop practical skills like site excavation, land levelling or brick laying. If you work in social care, it is only with time and experience that you can pick up on subtle emotional cues or manage crisis situations effectively. While in engineering, years spent tackling complex technical issues allow you to troubleshoot effectively, and draw on a myriad of possible solutions from projects past.

Whatever sector you work in, the knowledge needed to succeed is always a mixture of explicit and tacit, and the latter – this know-how built from personal experience, intuition, and practice – is incredibly valuable when it comes to judging real-world situations, solving complex problems and having an edge over competitors.

And while by definition, not explicit, that doesn’t mean that tacit knowledge can’t be shared. Indeed with time, attention and training, you can drill down on years-honed skills and information, and share it with others through teaching.

In fact, it is at the core of sharing your craft – and that’s far more than a simple list of instructions. “To learn how to do something, you really need to follow the example of somebody who already knows how to do it,” says Gascoigne. “These people have learnt the rules, internalised them and use tacit knowledge to know when they apply and when they don’t.”

Tacit knowledge is particularly valuable when it comes to Further Education teaching (defined as any education for people aged 16 and over who aren’t studying for a degree). This is because the focus is on preparing students for employment, and teachers need to draw on tacit knowledge to share how things really work in their industry. This ensures that students complete their qualifications not only with theoretical competence but also practical and employable skills.

This is why this type of practical learning that further education teachers specialise in can be so valuable. Workshop-style teaching and skills-led mentoring allows for those with experience to share the vital tacit knowledge they have built up over time in real-world scenarios. Meanwhile, those learning from them can see these nuggets of knowledge in action and have a chance to put them in practice as they learn.

If you’re passionate about your industry and interested in sharing your own tacit knowledge,  becoming a Further Education teacher can be a really rewarding and valuable career move. Further Education covers a huge range of industry sectors including construction, law, engineering, digital, hospitality, tourism, beauty and more. This includes BTECs (Business and Technology Education Council qualifications), T Levels, NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) or City & Guilds Qualifications.

Teaching in a mixture of colleges (often General Further Education Colleges or Sixth Form Colleges) and Adult and Community Learning Centres as well as workplace and apprenticeship settings, Further Education teachers share their years of real world industry  skills with people of all ages and backgrounds from those straight out of school aged sixteen to those making career switches later in life.

You don’t always need an academic degree or prior teaching qualifications to start teaching in Further Education. You can undertake teacher training on the job, often funded by your employer, so you can start earning straight away. Furthermore, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing option. Further Education offers flexible opportunities – so you could teach part time alongside your other commitments. This means you could have a best of both worlds set-up, where you are still working in your chosen industry and teaching alongside it at a time that suits your schedule.

Whether it’s shifting your career fully or adding teaching into the mix, becoming a Further Education teacher can be a life-changing decision. One that taps into your well of tacit knowledge and creates a sense of fulfillment from helping shape the next generation of workers in your field.

Why not consider sharing your tacit knowledge where it matters most – helping inspire the next generation of workers in the field you love? Visit Further Education to find out more

Peace talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan collapse

Peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan broke down, a day after both sides accused each other of mounting border clashes that risked breaching a ceasefire brokered by Qatar.

However, the ceasefire between the two South Asian neighbours will continue, a Taliban spokesperson said on Saturday.

Zabihullah Mujahid said negotiations had failed due to Islamabad insisting that Afghanistan assume responsibility for Pakistan’s internal security, a demand he described as beyond Afghanistan’s “capacity”.

But, he said, “The ceasefire that has been established has not been violated by us so far, and it will continue to be observed”.

An Afghanistan official earlier said four Afghan civilians were killed and five others wounded in clashes between Pakistani and Afghan forces along their shared border despite the joint negotiations.

Pakistan’s state media reported that the Pakistan delegation is leaving for the airport to return home. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif also told Pakistan’s independent Geo news channel that “as we speak, the talks are over.”

Mr Asif said the ceasefire will remain intact until there is no breach of it from the Afghan side.

In a statement thanking Turkey and Qatar for mediating the talks, Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar maintained that the Afghan Taliban has failed to meet pledges it made with the international community about curbing terrorism under a 2021 Doha peace accord.

Mr Tarar said that Pakistan “will not support any steps by the Taliban government that are not in the interest of the Afghan people or neighboring countries.” He did not elaborate further, but added that Islamabad continues to seek peace and goodwill for Afghans but will take “all necessary measures” to protect its own people and sovereignty.

In Kabul, Mr Mujahid also thanked Turkey and Qatar for hosting and mediating the Istanbul talks, saying on Saturday that the Afghan representatives “participated in good faith and with appropriate authority,” hoping for constructive engagement from Pakistan.

However, in a statement he said the discussions did not produce tangible results, citing differences over security responsibilities. He reiterated that Afghanistan “will not allow anyone to use its territory against another country,” and affirmed that the Islamic Emirate “will firmly defend the people and land of Afghanistan against any aggression, with the help of Allah and the support of its people.”

Ali Mohammad Haqmal, head of the Information and Culture Department in Afghanistan’s Spin Boldak district, blamed Pakistan for initiating the overnight shooting, but said Afghan forces did not respond due to the peace talks in Istanbul.

However, a tense calm largely prevailed along the Chaman border in southwest Pakistan, where the two sides briefly exchanged fire Thursday night, with both sides blaming the other.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi on Friday said Afghanistan initiated the shooting. Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said late Thursday on social platform X that “the shooting was initiated from the Afghan side, but the situation was brought under control.”

The ministry said a ceasefire brokered by Qatar on Oct. 19 remained intact.

Mr Andrabi said Pakistan’s national security adviser Lt. Gen. Asim Malik is leading the Pakistani delegation in the talks with Afghanistan. The Afghan side is being led by Abdul Haq Wasiq, director of general intelligence, according to Mujahid.

Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring Pakistani militants who carry out cross-border attacks, a charge Kabul denies.

Tensions have remained high since last month, when deadly border clashes erupted, killing dozens — including soldiers, civilians and suspected militants – and wounding hundreds on both sides. The fighting began after explosions in Kabul on Oct. 9 that the Taliban government blamed on Pakistan and vowed to avenge.

The violence, the worst between the neighbours in recent years, subsided after Qatar brokered a ceasefire.

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks in recent months, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban — known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP – a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN and the US.

Though separate, the TTP is closely allied with the Afghan Taliban. Many of its leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, further straining ties between the two countries.

(With additional input from Reuters)

Majority of people not proud of post-Brexit Britain, survey reveals

The majority of Britons do not feel proud of their country, a new survey has revealed.

The wide-ranging polling on attitudes also suggested that people increasingly believe the UK is divided, that so-called culture wars exist, and that life was better in the past.

Researchers from King’s College London (KCL) said a “frightening increase in the sense of national division” that began post-Brexit appears to have “morphed into” party political and other splits around immigration and “culture wars”.

The findings, which are from the college’s policy institute and pollster Ipsos, showed that less than half of Britons now have a sense of pride in their country, falling from 56 per cent to 46 per cent in the past five years.

When it comes to a feeling of division in the UK generally, 84 per cent of people said they feel this way, up from 74 per cent in 2020.

Exactly half of people said they believe the culture in the UK is changing too fast, up from just over a third (35 per cent) five years ago, while a similar amount (48 per cent) say they would like their country to be “the way it used to be”. This is up from around a quarter (28 per cent) in 2020, and the findings showed a rise across all age groups.

Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the policy institute at KCL, said: “This latest study shows a frightening increase in the sense of national division and decline in the UK in just a few years. We’ve seen steep rises in the beliefs that the UK is divided, that ‘culture wars’ are real and that things were better in the past.”

The poll also suggested that 86 per cent of people now feel there is tension between immigrants and people born in the UK – up from 74 per cent in 2023 and marking a new high.

And the findings show public opinion on transgender rights has “shifted significantly”, researchers said, with those saying these rights have “gone too far” more than doubling since 2020 – now at 39 per cent, up from 17 per cent.

The view has become more prominent among all age groups, and while fewer than a fifth (19 per cent) of 16-to 24-year-olds feel this way, this has more than doubled in the past five years, up from 9 per cent in 2020.

Overall, 19 per cent of all those asked said they felt transgender rights have not gone far enough in the UK, down from 31 per cent in 2020.

The polling of 4,027 people aged 16 and older in August came four months after the Supreme Court ruling, which said the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

Elsewhere, almost half (48 per cent) of the public said they consider being described as “woke” as being an insult, rather than a compliment – up from under a quarter (24 per cent) in 2020.

Woke is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as being “aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality”.

Mr Duffy said the UK had lived through “an incredibly divisive period around the EU referendum and its aftermath” and that division appears to have “morphed into party political and other splits, with attitudes to immigration and the speed of culture change more generally at the heart of them”.

Gideon Skinner, senior director of UK politics at Ipsos, said: “Perceptions of political and cultural disharmony are growing, reflecting a society grappling with nostalgia, the pace of change, and growing tensions over immigration, and with polarised views over what terms like ‘woke’ signify.”

But he cautioned that: “On many issues there is no clear consensus, with a need to understand the differences under the topline figures; it should not be forgotten that many people are not on the extremes in their views.”