The Telegraph looking at the 5th week of June

June 27

Boris Johnson imposes steel tariffs to win back Red Wall Boris Johnson hit by new letters of no confidence from Tory MPs Boris Johnson: Women cannot be born with a penis

Joe Biden to block Boris Johnson’s answer to global food crisis “Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine are creating terrible aftershocks across the world, driving up energy and food prices as millions of people are on the brink of famine,” Mr Johnson will tell his counterparts on Monday. “Only Putin can end this needless and futile war, but global leaders need to come together and apply their combined economic and political heft to help Ukraine and make life easier for households across the world. Nothing should be off the table.”

The first English-language biography of Zelensky reveals what Ukrainians really think of him prior to the war, very few Ukrainians regarded their leader as St Volodymyr of Kyiv.

June 28

Doctors threaten to join rail workers by going on strike as they demand 30pc pay rise Doctors are calling for a 30 per cent pay rise and have warned they are willing to join rail workers in strikes if their demands are not met. Medics at the British Medical Association’s annual conference said a real-terms pay cut in the last 12 years meant doctors had lost millions of pounds. Delegates at the union’s meeting in Brighton cheered in favour of industrial action, with members praising the train unions for their stance over pay. One medic warned: “It’s likely that industrial action will be required to move governments on this issue.”

The assault on Ukraine has given Nato the jolt it needs to shape itself for the uncertain future

By Dominic Nicholls, Madrid, DEFENCE AND SECURITY EDITOR

Nato members gathering today in Madrid are set to agree to a historic and fundamental rewiring of the defence alliance, in response to Russia’s indiscriminate violence in Ukraine. The expansion of the high readiness forces to 300,000 (up from just 13,000 in 2014) is the most obvious example of this new ‘Strategic Concept’ but there are other less quantifiable markers of a new resolve. At its core, the old concept of deterrence by punishment has been judged outdated, dangerous and not fit for purpose after the brazen display of Vladimir Putin’s boundless ego. The problem was that the posture and messaging adopted by the alliance under this old model said that an attack on one would eventually be met by a response from all. Nato members on the eastern flank, most recently Kaja Kallas, prime minister of Estonia, have for many years grumbled that this idea of ‘eventually’ left them a bit exposed. Under current plans, an invasion in any of the three Baltic states would be expelled after a maximum of 180 days. Given the atrocious scenes uncovered in Ukraine in those areas liberated from Russian occupation, it is not hard to see why a delay of around six months was unpopular. Hence calls for Nato to adopt a new posture and beef up its forces sufficiently to resolve any ambiguity. The new idea is one of deterrence by denial; offering a potential enemy such assurity that their plans will become rapidly undone in the event of an aggressive move that they choose instead to keep the troops at home. Better to keep your tanks in their sheds, the new model tells any potential adversary, than have them displayed in our city squares as momentoes of your imperial folly. Meanwhile Spain, as conference hosts, will be keen to ensure Nato’s new posture doesn’t distract from existing concerns. Spanish political and military leaders will likely make the point that Russia is a menace not just in the east, but to the south as well. Wagner Group mercenaries are understood to be operating in Mali, Libya and other areas of Africa, with an increasingly strong hand on the tap controlling the flow of migrants onto Europe’s southern shores, with Spain on the frontline. How will Nato respond to these pressures, they will ask, if all attention is to the east? The assault on Ukraine has given Nato the jolt it needs to shape itself for the uncertain future. With problems like Russia, China, global disparity and climate change, the world’s premier defence alliance needs all the help it can get.

Find also to read:

1. 1. 1. Social media for Trumpists and changing nature of warfare
      2. Andy Walton’s Weekly World Watch for October 3 – 9, 2021
      3. The Telegraph’s view 2022 March 21-27
      4. Wagner Group
      5. Wagner group founder under sanctions
      6. Russian Mercenaries May Be President Putin’s ‘Coercive Tool’ In Africa
      7. Wagner Group Part 2 – Corruption
      8. United Russia: Rape, Torture and the Wagner Group
      9. Ukraine’s week of 2022 March 21-27 in view
      10. Mali: Roundup on the Massacre at Moura, the Mass Grave at Gossi, and the Surrounding Information War
      11. How a Sanctioned Russian Company Gained Access to Sudan’s Gold
      12. Russian Mercenary Wagner Group Linked to Massacres in Mali, Documents Leaked to The Guardian Show
      13. Anticipating Threats From North Africa, Spain Urges NATO To Take Action

Vital medical supplies destined for besieged Ukrainians are falling into the wrong hands. But, despite the odds, volunteers delivering aid are sidestepping a corrupt healthcare system.

June 29

Support for rail strikes rises after week of working from home

GPs vote for industrial action over being told to work Saturdays

June 30

Support for rail strikes shrinks as workers tire of ‘union spin’

Exclusive: Boris Johnson faces ‘kangaroo court’ over inquiry into partygate ‘lies’, No 10 fears The inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled Parliament over partygate risks becoming a “kangaroo court”, Downing Street sources have claimed. On Wednesday, allies of the Prime Minister accused the House of Commons’ privileges committee of relying on “hearsay evidence”, after MPs ruled that witnesses will be granted anonymity. They also questioned why Harriet Harman has been allowed to chair the investigation, which could determine Mr Johnson’s fate as Prime Minister, despite the Labour grandee suggesting as recently as April that Mr Johnson had lied. By questioning the integrity of the investigation, it is likely that Downing Street is preparing to challenge any negative findings made by the committee. It also raises the prospect that the Prime Minister would refuse to resign if he is found to have misled Parliament.

Vladimir Putin is a ‘lunatic’ with ‘small man syndrome’, says Ben Wallace

The CCTV footage that debunks Russia’s lies about Kremenchuk shopping centre attack Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russia “deliberately” targetted a shopping centre filled with civilians two days ago that killed at least 18 Ukrainians. The Ukrainian president shared a video on social media of the moment the missile hit the central town of Kremenchuk, adding that the Kremlin’s forces wanted to “kill as many people” as possible. In the clip, a missile can be seen soaring through the air before a fiery explosion that throws debris into the air. CCTV footage from Kremenchuk, an industrial city in central Ukraine well behind the front line, showed families walking in a public park enjoying the summer sun. However, their peace quickly turned to panic when a Russian missile struck a shopping centre half a mile away. Parents scrambled to grab their children and take cover. Another missile would soon land nearby. Some 20 people were killed in the shopping centre on Monday, in what Kyiv has described as a targeted attack on a shopping mall with 1,000 civilians inside. Moscow claimed that no missiles hit the mall. However, newly released footage has shown a long-range anti-ship missile landing on the Amstor shopping mall before another missile struck an industrial site just a kilometre away. The latest CCTV video, released by Volodymyr Zelensky late on Tuesday, gave the clearest evidence yet of a direct hit on the mall.

An abortion rights protester outside the Supreme Court in Washington. Credit: Al Drago /Bloomberg

The reaction to Roe v Wade is another illustration of America’s ever more stark political divide By Rozina Sabur, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US CORRESPONDENT Mere moments after the US Supreme Court revoked the constitutional right to an abortion last Friday, the highest court in the land was surrounded by protesters. Americans had braved the baking heat in their hundreds to voice their fury at the ruling, vastly outnumbering the pro-life groups marking the occasion. Weaving my way through the crowd, I was struck by how many of the demonstrators had never known a world without access to abortions. Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling, had protected a woman’s right to choose for almost half a century. The young women I interviewed seemed to be struggling to confront their new reality. For many who waited in clinic waiting rooms as the ruling came down, the impact was immediate: they were being turned away. Outside one such clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the very next day, I met with a very different crowd to the one before the Supreme Court. Pro-life activists had gathered here to celebrate, some singing as they paraded by the clinic’s locked door. The split-screen reaction was yet another illustration of America’s ever more stark political divide: jubilation and vindication on one side, fury and despair on the other. Outside the Wisconsin clinic, pro-life activist Corrie, a 36-year-old who works for a non-profit, showed me the body camera she had strapped to her chest. Did she fear for her safety? “Definitely,” she replied, describing the numerous threats she had faced from those on the other side of the debate. One man, she said, had even brandished a gun. “This is just a little extra protection and just to make sure everything’s okay,” she said, patting her camera. Just behind her, two police officers stood barring the entrance to the clinic, suggesting the safety fears are felt on both sides. With the Supreme Court ruling, a pre-Civil War law banning almost all abortions is once more in effect in Wisconsin. The state is part of a patchwork of abortion “deserts”, leaving more than half of women of reproductive age unable to terminate pregnancies unless it is to save their own life. While Republican-controlled states march towards greater restrictions, Democrat-controlled states have moved to shore up abortion access. The checkered map reflects two Americas, divided not just on the issue of abortion, but also on gun rights, children’s education, and access to the ballot box. For Corrie and her peers, the fight to criminalise abortions has not ended with the overturning of Roe v Wade. While the clinic in Milwaukee has halted services, it has not closed down, instead helping women travel to the neighbouring blue states of Illinois and Minnesota. “They were still open and so we still came out,” she said. The debate is reverberating in election battlegrounds across the US. But many fear this November’s midterm elections will drive these two Americas further apart, not closer together.

‘Ghislaine Maxwell forced me into a room to be raped’: One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims explains why the socialite’s sentencing was a cause for celebration – and why she no longer fears her.

July 01

Nadhim Zahawi seeking 9pc pay rise for teachers to avert strike threat

Jordan Peterson: ‘Gay kids are being convinced they’re transsexual. That’s not so good for gay people, is it?’

July 02

How Jeffrey Epstein’s other ‘assistants’ escaped the same fate as Ghislaine Maxwell

Venice to charge tourists €10 to enter the city in world first

Russia says last Ukrainian-held town in the Luhansk region has fallen Russian forces on Saturday claimed victory in the battle for the last Ukrainian-held town in the Luhansk region, an important step in Vladimir Putin’s mission to conquer the Donbas. Pro-Russian forces posted videos on social media of them placing a red “victory banner” in the centre of Lysychansk at the Memorial of the Fallen. Russian newswires also started to describe Lysychansk as having been “liberated” on Saturday. “Lysychansk has been taken and is under the control of the allied forces,” a RIA Novosti correspondent reported. … “Today the Luhansk popular militia and Russian forces occupied the last strategic heights, which allows us to confirm that Lysychansk is completely encircled,” said Andrei Marotchko, a spokesman for the separatist forces. … Taking Luhansk, which makes up half of Donbas, has become Mr Putin’s priority target since his forces retreated from outside Kyiv in March. Ukrainian forces have said that they are outgunned by 10-to-1 in the battle for Donbas and have begged for more heavy weapons from Western countries.

Revealed: How Russian ships are turning off trackers in the Black Sea to sell Ukraine’s stolen grain Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has wrought chaos on the Pontic Steppe, the fertile black earth region that produces a disproportionate quantity of the world’s cereals. A de-facto Russian naval blockade of the Black Sea ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv has strangled Ukraine’s usually enormous food exports to a trickle, leaving some 20 million tons of grains, mostly wheat, rotting in silos and warehouses. As many as 25 African countries, including many least developed countries, import more than a third of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The United Nations has warned of a food crisis if the standoff is not resolved.

Captured British aid worker Dylan Healy faces death penalty in separatist-held Ukraine A British volunteer aid worker who was taken prisoner by Russian forces in Ukraine has been charged with being a mercenary and will face the death penalty, Russian media has reported. Dylan Healy, 22, was detained at a Russian military checkpoint in the Zaporizhzhia region in late April while evacuating a Ukrainian woman and two children from a battle zone.

July 03

Why Germany secretly fears losing power if Ukraine joins EU

Britain must pay EU eye-watering £9.4bn Brexit divorce bill – and it does not stop there The Treasury puts the final tally of the divorce bill at £35 billion to £39 billion, whilst the Commission has priced it slightly higher at £41 billion. It was agreed in 2019 and covers money that the UK had already pledged to EU schemes as a member, plus the pensions of British officials. But ministers have confirmed the cash is not ring-fenced and goes into the bloc’s general budget, meaning Eurocrats can use it how they wish.

Boris Johnson ‘turned blind eye to Chris Pincher sex pest warnings’