The Israel Defense Forces confirmed shortly after 2am local time that they had launched ground operations in Lebanon, the first major incursion into the country since 2006.

It followed days of devastating air strikes focusing on the Shia-dominated south of Lebanon, as well as Beirut, which killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, and a slew of his key lieutenants.

As Tuesday began, it emerged that Israeli special forces had conducted a number of cross-border raids over the weekend, preparing the way for a “limited, localised and targeted ground offensive”.

By breakfast time, the IDF said it was involved in “intense fighting” with Hezbollah. The language was a reminder that air strikes or not, the Shia group is immeasurably better trained and prepared than Hamas, Israel’s enemy in Gaza.

In what could be considered an echo of the campaign in Gaza, the IDF warned Lebanese civilians not to drive south of the Litani River, which runs parallel with the border.

As their troops advanced, Israeli jets and artillery pounded the area.

From the far south of the region, the Yemen-based Houthi rebels began to target Tel Aviv and Eilat with drones.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah tried to strike back by firing Fadi-4 missiles at the Glilot Base headquarters of the Mossad intelligence agency, north of Tel Aviv. They missed but succeeded in injuring two people, including a bus driver who was hit in the head with shrapnel.

Four further reserve brigades were mobilised for Israel’s northern operation, the army announced.

By early afternoon, footage emerged showing Israeli commandos entering Hezbollah’s feared network of tunnels at some point in the past year, reinforcing the analysis that Operation Northern Arrows had been under intense preparation for many months.

No sooner had Israeli society begun to process the news, than the warnings began of a potential retaliation from its arch-foe Iran.

Washington warned that Tehran was preparing to “imminently” launch a ballistic missile attack on Israel. A White House official warned of “severe consequences” if it did.

Iran launched a barrage of rockets and drones in April, but in a manner judged to have made it easy for Israel and its allies to shoot most of them down, thus stopping short of a full-on war.

Potentially, this was different. Was the regional conflagration that has been warned of for so much of the last year about to ignite?

Citing “great challenges” ahead, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, spoke directly to the nation, asking his people “to strictly obey the directives of the Home Front Command. It saves lives”. Secondly, he asked them “to stand together”.

In the north, the IDF carried on much as before, adding a “precise strike” in Beirut to its barrage in the hills.

But by then all eyes were on Iran. Joe Biden said the US was prepared to help Israel defend itself.

Air raid sirens began to sound throughout Israel. For the benefit of any Israeli civilians thinking twice about heading to a shelter, Rear-Adm Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, warned the population that the country’s formidable Iron Dome and other air defences were “not hermetic”.

By 8pm Israel time, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it had fired ballistic missiles. Explosions were heard in Jerusalem. Footage began to be uploaded showing tens of missiles at a time streaking across the sky.

It soon became plain that the barrage was massive, reportedly involving nearly 200 missiles. 

Footage shot from a rooftop in Tel Aviv showed a rocket or its fragments hitting the north of the city.

Footage also emerged of civilians in Gaza, who have been under bombardment for the best part of a year, celebrating as missiles flew overhead.

In the West Bank, a Palestinian man was killed by missile shrapnel near Jericho, according to local media.

At the same time, grisly footage emerged of a gruesome terror attack in Tel Aviv, with six killed as two gunmen opened fire on civilians at a railway station.

In Washington, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said the missile attack was “defeated and ineffective”.

“This was first and foremost the result of the professionalism of the IDF, but in no small part because of the skilled work of the US military and meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack.”

Israel, as has become customary, vowed revenge, but on its terms. “This attack will have consequences. We have plans, and we operate at the place and time we decide,” said Adm Hagari.

Video footage of the Iranian missile attack on Israel appears to show the moment dozens of rockets rained down in the vicinity of Israel’s Nevatim air field.

Streaks of bright orange light can be seen piercing the night skies above the desert military base as Tehran launched about 180 ballistic missiles during a large-scale aerial assault.

Some appeared to be intercepted by the Iron Dome system, while others struck the ground.

Other footage shared on social media showed missiles exploding in the vicinity of the Mossad headquarters in the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Tel Nof, Israel’s largest and oldest air base, was also seemingly targeted in the barrage, according to geolocated footage.

It was unclear if there was any damage as a result of the strikes.

Most of the Iranian-launched missiles were intercepted by Israeli and US surface-to-air weapons, according to officials.

Israel’s air defence system – known as the Iron Dome – is designed to intercept incoming projectiles expected to hit populated areas or military facilities.

To conserve valuable interceptor rockets, the system has a mechanism that allows rockets through if they are not predicted to hit something on the ground.

The Pentagon confirmed two naval destroyers based in the Mediterranean Sea were involved in the operation.

Footage geolocated by open source intelligence analysts showed a huge crater from a missile impact on a road near Ramat, north of Tel Aviv.

The IDF said people had been injured in the Iranian attack but the only known death was a Palestinian man in Jericho, a city in the West Bank.

The strikes were the first time Iranian hypersonic missiles were used, state media reported.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed it had destroyed an unspecified number of batteries of Israel’s state-of-the-art Arrow air defence system using Fattah-2 hypersonic missiles.

Nevatim air base, about 40 miles south of Jerusalem, is one of Israel’s largest military bases and is known to house the country’s fleet of F-35 stealth fighter jets.

There were questions over any damage sustained during the Iranian assault late on Tuesday as the IDF was assessing hit sites.

The base had previously been targeted and damaged during a similar aerial raid in April by Iran on Israel.

A spokesman for the IDF said its air force “continues to operate at full capacity” after the bombardment was headed off.

The US, which joined the effort to intercept ballistic missiles fired at Israel, also said it was not aware of “any damage to aircraft or strategic military assets in Israel”.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is expected to exact a “heavy price” from Iran after it fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday.

He has a number of options at his disposal.

One Israeli official told The Telegraph that the military is assessing an assault on Iran that will cause “economic damage”.

Sources have also been briefing that early plans include an attack that could target Iran’s oil facilities, air defence systems or Iranian officials.

But there are other possibilities too, ranging from smaller to major attacks on energy facilities and Iran’s export chain, nuclear facilities – and even the leadership itself.

Mr Netanyahu’s security cabinet is yet to make a decision but Israel is currently thought to be coordinating closely with the US on the matter.

Here are the options ranked from lowest to highest risk of triggering a major escalation.

Israel could target Iranian energy assets, such as oil refineries, as oil revenues support Iran’s economy despite numerous international sanctions.

This could come through jets, long-range missiles or sabotage on the ground.

This has longer term implications and will not succeed in quickly crippling Iran’s military capabilities.

It would also likely trigger volatility in global petrol prices, which would risk upsetting Western allies despite much of Iranian fuel being under sanction.

Israel may attempt to target Iran’s vast missile programme, which spans across the country, from Bandar Abbas in the south to Tehran in the north.

Recent satellite images revealed an expansion of two complexes outside Tehran known as Modarres and Khojirm, both believed to be associated with ballistic missile development.

In the city of Isfahan, Iran is producing and assembling components for missiles, and in Qom the military is conducting missile tests.

A wave of airstrikes on its ballistic missile production sites, which are overseen by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), would be the least escalatory attack, as it would likely be seen as a fair response to Tuesday’s attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu already planned to attack Iran’s nuclear programme in 2010-2011 but his intelligence and army chiefs opposed the idea due to the risks of a major retaliation.

Since then, Iran has secured its most vital nuclear facilities, some of which are deep underground, such as the enrichment facility at Fordow.

Iran claims the programme is part of civilian energy plans, but uranium enrichment is now thought to be close to levels needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

The clamour to hit the nuclear programme is building, and hardliners believe now is the time to strike – while Western allies stand firmly behind Israel and Iran and its proxies appear to be weakened.

The attack would, however, be extremely difficult as Iran’s nuclear sites are also spread across a number of sites throughout the country, often deep underground, from uranium sites in the south to research centres in the north-west.

It is widely believed that Israel would need assistance from the US to effectively destroy the underground nuclear sites, using American B-2 Spirit bombers which can carry the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” bomb.

It would also most likely mean a full-scale war between Israel and Iran.

Lastly, Israel could go directly after Iran’s leaders, ranging from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, to Masoud Pezeshkian, the president, or Hossein Salami, the chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Ayatollah Khamenei was already brought into a bunker twice in the past week; first when Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and then again on Tuesday after the ballistic missile attack.

Mr Netanyahu strongly hinted that Iran’s leaders could be next: “The regime in Tehran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and to exact a price from our enemies. Sinwar and Deif did not understand this; neither did Nasrallah or Mohsen. Apparently, there are those in Tehran who do not understand this either. They will.”

But while attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites, oil facilities, or ballistic missile production would divide the international system, assassination of the supreme leader would likely be met with all-round condemnation, as it is a violation of international law to target heads of states.

Killing Hossein Salami would be considered less of an escalation, as the US killed his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, with the assistance of Israel.

Iran fired about 180 ballistic missiles in a massive aerial barrage on Israel on Tuesday – the majority of which were intercepted by Israeli air defences. 

But some made it through multiple layers of surface-to-air missile systems that are in place to defend the Jewish state. 

Footage circulating on social media appeared to show streaks of light smashing into the ground and the subsequent damage resulting from the strikes.

It prompted questions over whether Iran had successfully defeated one of the world’s most robust air-defence systems. 

While analysts have cautioned that it’s too early to tell, there are a few telltale signs to look out for when assessing the system’s performance. 

Timing

When Iran last launched an attack on Israel in April, the strike was telegraphed so far ahead that most of the world had a week to prepare.

Israel and its US, UK and European allies were given sufficient time to ready themselves to deploy fighter jets and warships to help take down the Iranian barrage of drones and missiles.

“This one was in relative terms more surprising,” Samuel Hickey, of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said. 

More advanced weaponry 

In Iran’s first large-scale attack on Israel, it used a combination of some 300 missiles and drones.

While the combined number is greater than the 200 fired late on Monday, the initial strike was made up mostly of cruise missiles and drones. 

“It used slower cruise missiles and drones – suicide drones – that can be shot out of the sky by aircraft,” Mr Hickey said. 

Ballistic missiles can fly at hypersonic speeds above mach-5 making them much harder to intercept by fighter jets or ground-based systems. 

“Fighter jets are less likely to have been a huge factor,” Mr Hickey added. 

Conserving ammunition 

Air defence is a costly business.

It was estimated the April attack cost Israel and its allies around £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) to head off the barrage. 

There is also the problem that interceptor rockets are limited in numbers. Western efforts to help Ukraine defend its cities against Russian bombardments has used up significant resources in this area. 

With both Israel and Ukraine largely reliant on the US for these interceptors, decisions have to be made. 

“We still don’t know how many missiles Israel decided to engage, any number of missiles do just land in areas that aren’t going to cause much damage to human life or infrastructure… they will choose to let them pass” Mr Hickey said.

Decisions like this could help Israel conserve interceptor ammunition for further attacks on its territory.

Saturation

Again, because there are genuine concerns about the scarcity of air-defence interceptors, there are fears Iran could attempt to overwhelm Israel in any large-scale bombardment. 

“Tonight it seems that Iran launched fewer but more advanced missiles, but if this was to escalate into a conflict, this is something Israel is probably aware of,” Mr Hickey said. 

“That might be a reason not to escalate this into a full conflict.”

RAF jets “played their part” in defending Israel when Iran bombarded Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with around 200 ballistic missiles, The Telegraph understands.

John Healey, the Defence Secretary, said British forces had helped deal with the attack and “played their part in attempts to prevent further escalation”. He did not provide further details.

According to the BBC, UK fighter jets were involved in the operation, as they were in April when Iran launched a similar attack on Israel.

Mr Healey thanked British personnel who were involved in the operation for their courage and professionalism.

He said: “The UK stands fully behind Israel’s right to defend its country and its people against threats.”

On Wednesday, Mr Healey will visit Cyprus to meet some of the British personnel preparing for the possibility of evacuating British nationals from Lebanon.

Britons in Lebanon have been told to register their presence with officials on the government’s website. A UK-chartered plane is set to leave Beirut on Wednesday.

Starmer ‘stands with Israel’

Responding on Tuesday to Iran’s attack, Sir Keir Starmer said the UK “stands with Israel” and recognises its right to self-defence.

It comes after a similar operation in April involving British jets. The RAF intercepted drones in Syrian and Iraqi airspace, where it was present as part of the Operation Shader mission against the Islamic State group.

The previous government took the decision to use British jets and this was supported by Sir Keir at the time.

Following the latest attack, Sir Keir condemned Iran’s attack on Israel, saying he was “deeply concerned that the region is on the brink”.

He said: “We stand with Israel and we recognise her right to self-defence in the face of this aggression.”

The Prime Minister added: “Together with its proxies like Hezbollah, Iran has menaced the Middle East for far too long, chaos and destruction brought not just to Israel, but to the people they live amongst in Lebanon and beyond.

“Make no mistake, Britain stands full square against such violence. We support Israel’s reasonable demand for the security of its people.”

Iran said that it attacked Israel with hypersonic missiles for the first time and that the attack was in revenge for the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Police said there is no evidence a gun was fired at a taxi carrying Ian Hislop.

The Metropolitan Police said that despite initial fears a firearm had been discharged, the force now believes a “mechanical fault caused the window to shatter”.

Officers were called to Dean Street, Soho, at 10.10am on Tuesday to reports of a shot being fired at a black cab in Soho.

The driver is said to have told police that a bullet hit the stationary black cab damaging its window, according to the Guardian.

There were no reported injuries and an investigation has been launched.

A spokesman said: “Urgent CCTV and forensic examinations have been conducted.

“While enquiries are ongoing, police have found no evidence of a firearms discharge at this time.

“Initial indications suggest a mechanical fault might have caused the window to shatter. We await further tests. Police have informed the driver and passenger.

A source told the Guardian that police are keeping an open mind as to any motive.

Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, regularly appears as a panellist and team captain on quiz show Have I Got News For You.

Hislop said in a statement that he “wishes to thank everyone for their concern which is greatly appreciated”.

He also sent his thanks to officers and “all who contacted me”.

A Christian teacher has been fired for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns.

Peter Vlaming lost his job at West Point High School, in West Point, Virginia, after insisting that referring to a biologically female student by male pronouns went against his religious beliefs.

Now, the school board has agreed to pay out $575,000 (£433,000) in damages and legal fees after the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled last year that the school had violated Mr Vlaming’s freedom of expression rights.

Following the ruling, Mr Vlaming said that he hoped his victory “helps protect every other teachers’ and professors’ fundamental First Amendment rights”.

“I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity—their preferred view,” Mr Vlaming said.

“I loved teaching French and gracefully tried to accommodate every student in my class, but I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience.”

Mr Vlaming had taught French at West Point High for six years when, towards the end of the 2017-18 school year, he learned that one of his students, who was biologically a female, was intending to transition to male, the supreme court was told.

In the autumn term, Mr Vlaming alleged he became aware that the child wanted to be referred to by masculine pronouns: a request that went against his Christian beliefs. His faith taught Mr Vlaming that “sex is fixed in each person and cannot be changed”.

According to the complaint, “Mr Vlaming’s conscience and religious practice prohibits him from intentionally lying, and he sincerely believes that referring to a female as a male by using an objectively male pronoun is telling a lie”.

Out of respect for his student’s preferences, the French teacher used the child’s new preferred name but avoided using the third-person pronoun.

In October 2018, Mr Vlaming met with the student to explain his practice of not using pronouns in class and thought the meeting went well. However, in a phone call with the child’s parents later that day, he was allegedly told he “should leave his principles and beliefs out of this”.

In the following days, Mr Vlaming met with assistant principal Suzanne Aunspach to discuss his treatment of the child and was told “that he should be aware of the law”, he alleged.

Right of address

He was referred to documents prepared by the National Center for Transgender Equality asserting that transgender students have the legal “right to be addressed by the names and pronouns that they use”.

The court heard he was also told that “personal religious beliefs end at the school door” and that he “should use male pronouns or his job could be at risk”, he alleged.

After a further incident which Mr Vlaming claimed was accidental, he was suspended and issued with a final warning.

When Mr Vlaming refused to comply with a written directive ordering him to use masculine pronouns to refer to the student, the school board sacked him, the court heard.

Mr Vlaming later sued the school on the grounds that his First Amendment rights had been impinged upon, but a circuit court ruled against him.

However, the state’s supreme court ruled in December that it would reinstate the lawsuit against the school because it said Mr Vlaming’s rights had been violated.

Now, as well as the payout, the school has changed its policies to conform to the new Virginia education policies that respect fundamental free speech and parental rights.

In its ruling, the court said: “No government can lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Tyson Langhofer, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said: “Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say.

“As a teacher, Peter was passionate about the subject he taught, was well-liked by his students, and did his best to accommodate their needs and requests. But he couldn’t in good conscience speak messages that he doesn’t believe to be true, and no school board or government official can punish someone for that reason.”

Once upon a time, Phil Shiner was the superstar Left-wing lawyer feted by civil rights groups Liberty and Justice. After all, he was the man daring to accuse members of the British armed forces of the murder and physical abuse of hundreds of Iraqi civilians during the Second Gulf War. Both Liberty and Justice named him as their lawyer of the year in 2004.

But now, in the space of just a few short years, 67-year-old Shiner has been declared bankrupt and disbarred from the legal profession. The accusations against British troops were false, and Shiner illegally pocketed millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money pursuing them. 

He has now pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud relating to applications made in 2007 for public funding for legal action against the Ministry of Defence. When he is sentenced in December, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Suffice to say, few will shed a tear for a man who is seen by many as the embodiment of the arrogant, corrupt, grasping lawyer. 

Brought up in Coventry, where he attended a Catholic comprehensive school, Shiner studied law at Birmingham University before graduating in 1978. He set up his Birmingham law firm Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) in 1999 and was once a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, professor of law at Middlesex University, the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Kent University and a former vice-president of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.

The controversy over the war in Iraq, which began in 2003, offered Shiner and his company the opportunity to cash in on claims being made by Iraqi civilians that they and their families were victims of abuse, and in some cases murder, by British troops. 

Shiner’s reputation as a human rights lawyer peaked during his pursuit of justice on behalf of the family of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, who died after being beaten by British troops in Basra in 2003. The report of the official inquiry into Mousa’s death, published in 2011, found that British soldiers inflicted “violent and cowardly” assaults on Iraqi civilians but refuted allegations that there had been a policy of systematic abuse of detainees.

Yet Shiner consistently argued that Mousa’s killing was symptomatic of a wider problem and often claimed that the British Army wasn’t an organisation with one “bad apple” in a barrel but a barrel full of bad apples. At that stage, he represented more than 150 Iraqis in other claims and called for a single inquiry into the UK’s detention policy in Iraq.

Foremost among those claims were allegations about the 2004 “Battle of Danny Boy” near Basra, in which members of the Mahdi army, an Iraqi militia, ambushed a British patrol. Shiner claimed that Iraqi civilians had been captured, tortured and executed by British troops in the aftermath of the battle. 

Among them was an allegation by Khuder Al-Sweady that his nephew, Hamid Al-Sweady, 19, was unlawfully killed while in the custody of British troops at Camp Abu Naji. Such an implausible and complex conspiracy would have required the active participation of several hundred soldiers from the lowest ranks to the unit’s commanding officer. Yet this central flaw in Shiner’s claim seemed to have been lost in the seemingly endless swirl of allegations emanating from his law firm.

In 2007, Shiner made an application to the Legal Services Commission in which he sought up to £200,000 of legal aid funding for his firm to represent clients including Khuder Al-Sweady, in an application for judicial review. But, crucially, in making his application, Shiner failed to disclose that an agent acting on his behalf and with his knowledge had been cold-calling and making unsolicited approaches to potential clients in Iraq. He also failed to disclose that he was paying referral fees.

The same year, Shiner was named solicitor of the year at the “excellence awards” run by the Law Society, the industry’s professional body. As ceremony host Jeremy Vine asserted, he had firmly established himself as one of the most famous lawyers in the country.

The National Crime Agency (NCA), which later investigated and brought fraud charges against Shiner, said the practices he had employed were not permitted as part of gaining a legal aid contract. The “Danny Boy” claims resulted in the judge-led Al Sweady inquiry, which lasted five years, from 2009 onwards, and cost the British taxpayer around £25m. According to the NCA, Shiner received about £3m as part of the contract to represent alleged victims.

British lawyers for the Iraqis conceded a year into the hearings that there was “insufficient evidence” to establish that Iraqis were unlawfully killed in the British camp. However, they did not withdraw the allegations of ill-treatment of Iraqis. Lawyers for the MoD described the allegations as “the product of lies,” and evidence that was deliberately fabricated. Those making them were guilty of a criminal conspiracy, the MoD said.

In 2010, the then Labour Government established the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) after 146 Iraqi men, many of whom were represented by Shiner, said they had been brutally assaulted by British troops at three interrogation sites near Basra which had been operated by the Joint Interrogation Centre between March 2003 and 2008.

The evidence of abuse was at best thin: in one case, one Iraqi who claimed he was a victim of torture, had actually been tapped on the head with a rolled up piece of A4 paper. Wrapping up its work in 2014, the Al-Sweady Inquiry rejected allegations that British soldiers murdered insurgents and mutilated their bodies during the Battle of Danny Boy.

In the wake of the inquiry’s conclusion, Shiner’s admission to paying an Iraqi middleman led to him being charged by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. But he did not attend its two-day hearing, held in 2016, claiming in writing that “he was unwell and could not afford to pay for a defence lawyer.” The tribunal marked the beginning of a vertiginous fall for Shiner, the one-time doyen of those members of the Left who appeared to revel in trashing the reputation of the Armed Forces and those who served within it.

The tribunal found him “guilty of multiple professional misconduct charges, including dishonesty and lack of integrity” and 22 misconduct charges were proved to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. By February 2017, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal struck him off the Roll of Solicitors and also ordered him to pay for the full costs of the prosecution, starting with a down payment of £250,000.

In the same year the then Tory Defence Secretary Michael Fallon announced that the IHAT investigations would be shut down within months. MPs had called it an “unmitigated failure” after it failed to bring a single prosecution despite costing almost £5 million.  A subsequent House of Commons Defence Committee report found failings in the conduct of investigations and concluded that those serving personnel and veterans being investigated had suffered unacceptable stress, had their lives put on hold and careers damaged.

Five years later, in June 2022, Shiner was charged with three counts of fraud relating to allegations of cold calling and using agents in Iraq. At that point, he entered a not guilty plea. Shiner was alleged to have failed to disclose to the Legal Aid Agency that he had engaged in cold-calling to solicit cases and had paid referral fees to agents in Iraq. It was also alleged that he committed fraud by false representation by providing an “untrue and misleading” response to a question from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Despite claiming he was innocent, Shiner changed his plea on September 30 this year to guilty.

Shiner’s damage arguably extended beyond slander and fraud, however. Many senior officers believe that his approach helped in the recruitment of young Iraqis into the various Shia militias that launched attacks against British troops, leaving hundreds dead and wounded.

I also witnessed first hand how his lies were propagated. At the time I was The Sunday Telegraph’s defence correspondent, and I once attended a press conference where Shiner described how on one day in Basra a British soldier on patrol dropped into a kneeling position, pulled his SA80 assault rifle into his shoulder and inexplicably shot dead an eight-year-old Iraqi girl wearing a yellow dress as she played with friends in the litter-strewn streets of her neighbourhood. 

At the end of the press conference, I found Shiner chatting to a group of journalists about the atrocities he claimed were being committed daily by British soldiers in Iraq. I asked him whether he had any more details about the girl who had allegedly been murdered. I asked Shiner if he knew the date of the shooting. “No,” he responded curtly. “How about the name of the regiment involved?” Shiner refused to answer and instead asked for my name. When I answered he said: “So, you’re Sean Rayment. I ought to punch you in the face. My family has received death threats because of your articles.”  “But what about the murder allegations?” I responded. Shiner remained silent and eventually left. I had written a series of articles questioning Shiner’s claims – particularly his allegations at the Battle of Danny Boy. The Basra incident was, of course, all fabricated.

Even today the mere mention of Shiner’s name has the capacity to invoke a bilious response from members of the veterans community who served in the Iraq War. “Shiner has destroyed the lives of so many good people, heroes of this country who have put their lives on the line,” says Colonel Philip Ingram, a former Army Intelligence Officer, who served in Iraq during the time that Shiner claimed British soldiers murdered and abused civilians. “This disgusting individual thought of a way of ripping the taxpayer off for personal gain, giving false hope to people who have lost people in conflict, made the world less safe for our service personnel and destroyed lives. He is the epitome of all things evil – the law doesn’t allow what I think should happen to him so I hope he rots in prison for the rest of his life. I would be insulting rats if I called him an evil rat – he is worse.”

Moderna has been rebuked by regulators after offering children cash to test the Covid vaccine.

The pharmaceutical company was ordered to pay £14,000 after it emerged that a representative had sent a WhatsApp message offering £1,500 to children to take part in Covid booster trials.

The UK Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) ruled that the offer amounted to “inappropriate financial inducement” and found the company had brought “discredit upon the pharmaceutical industry”.

The offer was made by a paediatrician from an unnamed NHS trust, inviting those aged between 12 and 18 years old to enrol in the NextCove trial, which was examining the efficacy of Moderna’s booster jab.

The inducement was made even though a research ethics committee had warned about the “large amount of money” that Moderna was offering participants, and voiced concern it was “much higher than would be considered a reasonable reimbursement”.

Moderna later amended the offer to just £185, but despite the change, at least one trial centre carried on offering the original sum.

Under The Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations it is prohibited for incentives or financial inducements to be given to children or their parents.

Too little too late

In a statement, the PMCPA ruled: “The panel noted that the financial incentive offered within the unapproved WhatsApp message was never paid but considered that it might have encouraged participants to apply to take part.

“The panel considered that the unique circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the particular circumstances of this trial, which involved the recruitment of children, meant that Moderna should have been especially cautious.

“On balance, the panel considered that this brought discredit upon and reduced confidence in the pharmaceutical industry.”

Moderna must provide a written undertaking that the practice will “cease forthwith” and pay for administrative costs.

However, critics said that the sanction was too small to be effective.

Esther McVey MP, formerly of the APPG on Covid-19 vaccine damage said: “A charge of £14,000 to a company that enjoyed a total revenue of $6.8 billion in 2023 is hardly likely to make them think twice before breaking the rules again.

“Not only are the charges too small but when they come, they come too late. There is a major backlog in handling these kinds of complaints, with a recent case against Moderna taking the PMCPA 18 months to consider.

“The system is clearly broken and failing to keep patients safe from misleading information and advertising about medicines. The public’s trust in healthcare authorities will only continue to be damaged unless meaningful action is taken.”

The company was also found in breach of the code for the way it had promoted its Spikevax Covid vaccine at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in April 2022.

Although the session was supposed to be a round-up of how mRNA technologies helped during pandemics, the PMCPA found it had been used to promote its own vaccine.

“The panel noted that only four of the 23 slides, including the title slide, made no direct reference to Spikevax; the panel was therefore concerned that Moderna had submitted that the presentation was not promotional.

“In the panel’s view, the presentation could not be seen as anything other than promotion of Spikevax,” the PMCPA said.

The presentation also included off-label data.

Molly Kingsley, from the campaign group Us For Them said: “There’s been a long string of these decisions against Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GSK for similar serious contraventions, and yet there have been no real world consequences for any of these groups.

“It’s incredible that the PMCPA, as an industry self-regulatory body, has no powers to impose fines or other meaningful penalties for serious breaches of its rules.

“Self-regulation is a privilege that the pharma industry is arrogantly exploiting to the detriment of us all.”

Since 2019, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and GSK have all been rebuked by the PMCPA for misleading the public about the efficacy of their vaccines.

Moderna was approached for comment.

Corporate interests vs the public’s right to know 

By Rt Hon Esther McVey

It is time for real transparency in clinical research. 

The PMCPA ruling against Moderna is another reminder of an all-powerful pharmaceutical industry, able to breach the rules without fear of meaningful or timely repercussions. 

A £14,000 charge is a paltry sum indeed for a company that enjoyed revenues of $6.8 billion last year. The case details the company’s inappropriate and unacceptable use of social media and big financial incentives to recruit healthy children into its Covid-19 vaccine trial.

For me, this case prompts further questions about how and why Moderna’s NextCOVE trial was ever approved in the first place. The NHS Health Research Authority (HRA), which is responsible for ethical reviews and approvals of clinical trials, prides itself on its laudable aims to make “transparency easy” and “information public”. It is time for the authority to do the right thing and release the important documents that surely were considered in relation to the ethical basis of trial.

Earlier this year, Philip Davies, the former MP for Shipley, emailed the HRA asking for further information about the ethical rationale for including healthy children in this trial. It has been well known for years that healthy children are, mercifully, at a vanishingly low risk of serious ill health from Covid-19, so he wanted to know why healthy children aged 12 years and up were being included in this study at all.

Such an ethical approach has an important historical context. After the horrors of the Second World War, much ethical groundwork was laid out in the Nuremberg Code and has since been built upon by the globally recognised Declaration of Helsinki. 

The Declaration is a universal ethical framework that scientists and healthcare professionals are expected to work within if they wish to conduct any experiments on humans. It clearly states: “While the primary purpose of medical research is to generate new knowledge, this goal can never take precedence over the rights and interests of individual research
subjects”. This fundamental principle is surely never more applicable than when dealing with research subjects who are vulnerable and unable to give fully informed consent. A group that includes children.

The Declaration also requires that subjects only be recruited to a clinical trial if they as individuals have a reasonable expectation of significant benefit when balanced with the risks associated with their participation. Potential benefits for adults, or society as a whole, that may result from a trial is not an adequate justification and such potential general benefits certainly do not trump that fundamental ethical principle.

The HRA decided to treat Philip’s email as a Freedom of Information request and said it would respond within the statutory 20 working-day time frame. Except, it did not. It wrote shortly before that deadline had expired to say that because of “staffing issues” it would need a week’s extension to its deadline.

When its response eventually came back, there was documentation overload. To be exact, 1,135 pages of information arrived. In all those pages, there was nothing that constituted a coherent and robust ethical justification for including healthy children in this trial and nothing that showed that the specific Declaration of Helsinki requirements, discussed
above, regarding children, had been considered at all. Worryingly, this basic and essential pre-requisite did not appear to be in place.

One of the most important documents in any ethical consideration and judgment is the Clinical Study Protocol. This document sets out in detail exactly why and how the study is to be conducted. The HRA was specifically asked for the Protocol document. However, it decided that the Protocol was “commercially sensitive” and refused to share it. So much for transparency and openness. 

We argued, to no avail, that it should be possible to redact any commercially sensitive information, as we were only interested in the sections, which relate to the ethics of the inclusion of healthy children. 

An internal review of its response was requested and when that got us no further, a complaint went to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The ICO’s verdict was quite extraordinary and suggests a rather disturbing trend that the development of “commercial sensitivities” is taking priority over the public’s right to know important information. The Commissioner’s view was that public interest is best served by the HRA maintaining good relationships with pharmaceutical companies. In other words, putting corporate interests before greater transparency and openness.

I am supportive of initiatives to attract more clinical research to the UK. However, that research must be transparent and conducted properly. At the same time, we must be able to protect people, particularly the vulnerable, from unethical studies. The public and their elected representatives should also have the right to ask questions about, and investigate, studies, when legitimate concerns are raised.

Until the HRA releases all the relevant information about the ethical considerations undertaken for this study, one starts to wonder if they even happened at all. It should be obvious that hiding behind assurances such as “the public interest favours withholding the information” does little to put minds at rest. Let’s hope the HRA can reflect on this. If the decline in childhood vaccinations is anything to go by, it seems clear that trust in public health is being rapidly eroded. The best way to reverse this is more discussion, more information and more transparency. The British public should expect no less.

Rt Hon Esther McVey is the MP for Tatton

Senior Labour figures have received gifts worth £1 million from the gambling sector, it has emerged.

Rachel Reeves accepted three tickets for a musical last year from the Betting and Gaming Council, as well as £20,000 in donations to fund her private office from gambling bosses ahead of the general election.

Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, also accepted a ticket for the European Championship semi-final at Wembley between England and Denmark from a company that owns Ladbrokes and Sportingbet.

The £3,457 ticket and matchday hospitality was given to Mr Reynolds by Entain in July 2021, according to analysis of MPs’ registers of interest by The Times.

Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, also received tickets and hospitality for a League One match between Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday at Wembley in May 2022, among £1,421 of gifts from the firm.

Overall, the party has accepted £1.08 million from figures within, and connected to, the gambling sector, the majority from an ex-casino entrepreneur.

The revelations come after Sir Keir Starmer became embroiled in a donations row last month over gifts including clothes and spectacles accepted from Lord Alli, the Labour peer.

The Prime Minister previously accepted a £25,000 donation in support of his leadership campaign in 2020 from Peter Coates, the chief executive of bet365.

The donations from the gambling sector risk further inflaming the row over gifts and hospitality accepted by the Labour Party and senior Cabinet figures.

Donations from former poker player

Derek Webb, a former international poker player and table game designer, gave £750,000 to Labour this year and £300,000 in 2023.

Mr Webb has provided financial support behind efforts to reform the gambling sector, including legal support for Gambling with Lives, a charity that represents families bereaved by suicide.

Tens of thousands of pounds have also come from Richard Flint, the former chief executive of SkyBet, and Lord Mendelsohn, a Labour peer and the chairman of Evoke, a firm behind William Hill.

Rosie Duffield, a backbench MP, quit the Labour Party last week accusing Sir Keir of presiding over “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” that is “off the scale”.

She said he was unfit for office after “inexplicably” choosing to accept designer suits from Lord Alli, while at the same time pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies, such as the two-child benefit cap and the scrapping of winter fuel payments.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Lord Alli.

Labour has been contacted for comment.

A clear win for the man with the harder job

If viewers of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate were expecting fireworks, they were sorely disappointed.

Unlike in the debate clashes earlier in this campaign, there were no car crash moments, undignified spats or vicious name-calling.

In fact, both JD Vance and Tim Walz approached the debate with remarkable restraint, referring to each other politely and graciously acknowledging when they had found a point of agreement.

“I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting,” said Mr Vance, turning to his opponent during an exchange on gun crime. “I’m sorry about that. Christ have mercy.”

“I appreciate that,” Mr Walz replied. Later, he told Mr Vance: “I’ve enjoyed this debate.”

The only moment of real heat, when the moderators muted both men’s microphones, came during a debate over migrants in Springfield, Ohio.

When the same topic came up in the presidential debate last month, Donald Trump provoked days of headlines with his claim that migrants were “eating cats and dogs”.

This time, there was an arcane disagreement about the specific legal status of Haitian migrants, and the forms they use to obtain Temporary Protected Status.

As the candidates squabbled, the host Margaret Brennan interjected: “Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut.”

Mr Vance, who has made a name for himself with bizarre pronouncements about “childless cat ladies” and his awkward manner on the campaign trail, managed to come across as warm and human. He was not, in the words of Mr Walz in an earlier rally, “weird”.

His answers on policy issues were detailed, and he spoke repeatedly about children and families in a way that was designed to appeal to the female voters who are driving Kamala Harris’s poll lead.

It was Mr Walz, the man picked by Ms Harris for his folksy Midwestern charm, who came unstuck in front of the cameras.

Stuttering over his words, getting agitated and failing to pick up on some of the most obvious attack lines to use against Mr Vance, he looked out of his depth on the stage.

At one point, he mistakenly said he had become “friends with school shooters”, while apparently referring to their parents.

Perhaps the worst moment of his night came when he was challenged about his claim that he was in China at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Acknowledging he can be a “knucklehead”, he admitted that he “misspoke” and that he actually travelled to Hong Kong months later.  “I will get caught up in the rhetoric,” he said.

His pre-scripted attack lines on “Project 2025” and the claim that Trump and Mr Vance would impose a nationwide pregnancy register came unstuck when his opponent gave a surprisingly moderate answer on abortion.

“We’ve got to do a better job at winning back people’s trust,” Mr Vance replied. “Donald Trump and I are committed to pursuing pro-family policies.”

There is an obvious reason for the friendliness of the exchange on the debate stage.

Both candidates, in truth, were debating each other’s bosses. As Mr Vance put it at the start of the event: “A lot of Americans don’t know who either one of us are.”

On some issues, including border control, climate change, and the economy, there were interesting points of difference between the two men.

But the harshest criticism was instead reserved for Trump and Ms Harris, who were not in the room.

“A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment,” said Mr Walz, in response to a question about the crisis in the Middle East.

Mr Vance hit back: “When did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris.”

Tuesday’s debate is unlikely to have a major impact on the polls ahead of next month’s election.

In a presidential race, the only two people who truly matter are the two candidates for the top job, who will not face each other again before polling day.

In a debate where the prize was for each man to charm the audience on behalf of his boss, Mr Vance had a much harder job. Nonetheless, he was the clear winner.

This dud performance could make all the difference

Why was JD Vance, a hardcore MAGA convert with apparently limited electoral ability, selected as VP over Marco Rubio or Tim Scott? Tonight showed us why. Putting his Yale-honed debate skills to the test, the senator from Ohio launched a series of forensically devastating attacks on the Biden administration, and called into question the judgement of the VP’s pick for VP.

Vance’s obvious advantages were made clear in the first few minutes of the debate, with a clear response to the unfolding tensions in the Middle East after Iran’s massive rocket barrage of Israel, he presented a powerful rhetorical defense of a vital ally while craftily reminding voters that no new wars were started under Donald Trump’s premiership. It’s hard to believe this was the same man who notoriously struggles to engage one-on-one with voters, and there were no signs of his occasional awkward vocal tics and stilted delivery. This was pure Ivy-league gloss.

There would be no repeat of Kamala Harris’s bait-and-switch strategy that worked so well in drawing out her Republican rival in the presidential debate. Indeed, Tim Walz struggled to keep up with the young senator, ignoring his direct provocations in favour of railing against Donald Trump – the man he would clearly have preferred to take on.

Mr Walz’s failure to hold Mr Vance to account on his unpopular positions on contentious issues like abortion left the CBS moderators to fill in the gaps. Well-prepared, Mr Vance was able to fight back without falling into the trap of appearing petulant. He called out the selective fact-checking of the CBS moderator, before launching his own version against his opponent.

Immigration was always going to produce a powerful soundbite for the MAGA faithful, but Mr Vance’s masterful linkage of the crisis at the border to the fentanyl crisis will resonate particularly with working-class swing state voters. Thumbing his nose at the loaded terminology of the CBS moderator, Mr Vance argued that “the real family-separation policy in this country is Kamala’s open border”. Mr Walz’s “dehumanisation” rejoinder felt like a Clinton-era moralistic finger-wagging exercise. From his panicked expression, he knew that too.

And what about Hong Kong? Mr Walz’s face contorted into a Bidenesque confused grimace. Hadn’t he once claimed to have been in Hong Kong during the brutal crackdown at Tiananmen Square, despite actually residing in Nebraska? Mr Walz awkwardly tried to dodge the question, before conceding that he “misspoke”.

Looking like a distracted student called upon by a teacher to answer a tricky math question, Mr Walz’s performance hardly improved in the second half of the debate. In one particularly brutal episode, Mr Vance systemically rattled off the material policy wins of the Trump administration like lowered inflation and higher take-home pay. Mr Vance empathised with the “tough job” of “whack-a-mole” Mr Walz would have to play to avoid giving the former president credit. Gulping, his eyes started to widen.

If presidential debates don’t matter, VP debates are so unimportant as to hardly warrant a second thought. Normally. But this is no normal election cycle. A bizarre debate performance exposed Joe Biden’s mental infirmity, setting in motion a brutally quick defenestration of a sitting president and queen-making of his lowly regarded deputy.

The Harris campaign has since sought to sustain itself purely on good vibes and high energy, a strategy that has failed to move the all-important independent voters in a nail-biter of an election. Make no mistake, Mr Walz’s folksy gee-shucks routine was a purposeful attempt to bring those voters on board. But like his boss, Mr Walz has proved that a compelling media narrative does not make a leader. In a nail-biter election, this dud performance could make all the difference. The real mistaken VP pick revealed himself on Tuesday night – and he wasn’t the man from Ohio.

Russian troops have raised their national flag – and the Soviet victory banner – on buildings in the frontline Ukrainian town of Vuhledar.

Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly ordered the retreat of his badly mauled Ukrainian forces from a town once considered an impregnable “fortress” for Ukraine.

But Russian military bloggers said the withdrawal came too late, as the town was already surrounded by Kremlin troops.

“Currently, the town of Vuhledar is being liberated from scattered groups of Ukrainian Nazis,” said one Russian account. “The suppression of the last resistance in the northern outskirts of the city is underway.”

The claims were supported by Ukrainian military bloggers, who said they had authenticated videos of Russian soldiers raising their flags on ruined buildings across Vuhledar.

Alongside modern Russian flags, Moscow’s troops have made extensive use of Soviet-era symbols during the war in Ukraine.

Other reports described Ukrainian soldiers trying to fight their way out of the surrounded town in small groups, leaving wounded comrades and equipment behind.

Significant victory

Although Vuhledar now lies in ruins, its Soviet-era apartment blocks shattered and its trees reduced to burnt stumps, its capture is Vladimir Putin’s most significant battlefield victory since his forces took control of Avdiivka in February.

Vuhledar sits on high ground above an important east-west road, which could be used as a launchpad to attack other Ukrainian military transport hubs to the west.

Analysts said victory in Vuhledar would be seen as a vindication of Russia’s grinding mass-infantry tactics, which have brought steady gains along the front line, at great cost, over the past 12 months.

Putin has not yet commented on the capture of Vuhledar but Dmitry Peskov, his press secretary, said he was monitoring the battle personally and was anxious for news that his forces had conquered the town.

“We are waiting for official information from the ministry of defence,” Mr Peskov said.

Russian forces had been trying to capture Vuhledar, on the southern side of the front line running through Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, since the start of the war but had been repulsed by stubborn resistance, mainly from Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade.

The 72nd Brigade is regarded as one of the toughest Ukrainian fighting units and is known as “The Black Zaporozhians”.

Russian failures to take Vuhledar in 2022 and 2023 resulted in several humiliating setbacks and in April 2023 prompted the Kremlin to fire Col Gen Rustam Muradov, commander of the eastern district forces – one of the most senior sackings of the war.

In November 2023, Russia’s 155th Marine Brigade, usually based 5,500 miles away in Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast, was ambushed near Vuhledar and suffered up to 1,000 soldiers killed.

Russian forces regrouped and in May and June this year launched another series of attacks with more troops, artillery and glide bombs.

By the start of September, after what soldiers from the 72nd Brigade described as some of the “most intense” bombardments they had experienced, Russian soldiers reached the eastern edge of the town.

With Ukrainian forces overstretched across the front line, Ukrainian commanders in Vuhledar complained that they also lacked enough air power to push back Russian forces.

By last weekend, it appears that senior Ukrainian commanders knew that the battle was lost. They pulled the commander of the 72nd Brigade out of the besieged city and then gave the order for units to retreat or surrender.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-Right National Front (FN), has been filmed singing along to a neo-Nazi song with a fascist-linked rock group.

The 96-year-old is under investigation for misappropriation of public funds in a case in which his daughter, Marine, and 25 other people linked to the FN and its successor, National Rally, are on trial. 

The trial opened in Paris on Monday and Ms Le Pen and her co-accused deny the charges, which relate to alleged embezzlement from the European parliament.

Mr Le Pen is not appearing in court as it has been ruled he is not fit to stand trial for health reasons.

However, footage circulating on social media shows him at his home outside Paris singing along with members of Match Retour, a far-Right rock group from Lyon. In the clip, one of the band’s members is wearing a T-shirt glorifying the Hitler Youth.

Match Retour is known to be affiliated with an international neo-Nazi network known as Blood and Honour, which emerged from the UK’s far-Right music scene in the 1980s. Its members call for violent action to ensure the “survival of European races”.

The former far-Right leader, who shocked France when he made it to the second round of the 2002 presidential election, can be seen happily singing along with the band in the clip.

Marine Le Pen, the 56-year-old former president of National Rally, has said she will take legal action against the group and those who allowed them into her father’s house, claiming they took advantage of his frailty and alleged dementia.

She said that she had lodged a complaint against the group for “abuse of weakness”.

He ‘may not know what year it is’

‘It’s a fact that (Jean-Marie Le Pen) is not in a position to give his consent to any act whatsoever,” Ms Le Pen told AFP, denouncing “the scandalous behaviour of those I will take to court to have condemned”.

“Jean-Marie Le Pen is capable of reciting Musset, but may not know what year it is,” she added in a statement.

In the video, the group’s members sing a Napoleonic song, “Fanchon”, and serenade the aged leader with a specially written piece that refers to notorious homophobic remarks he made in public in 1997.

According to Mediapart, a French investigative outlet, Match Retour performed in May 2022 at a rally in Sainte-Croix-aux-Mines (Haut-Rhin) in tribute to French SS soldiers killed by the French army in 1945.

The video clips emerged at a delicate time for the National Rally, with its leaders and dozens of staff on trial over allegations they used fake jobs to defraud the European Parliament of millions.

In their indictment, investigating judges found Mr Le Pen and his daughter were “co-decision-makers” in an alleged “system”, which began in 2004, “designed to use European Parliament funds to pay employees who were actually working for a political party”.

Ms Le Pen faces a potential 10-year-prison term, a million-euro fine and a five-year ban from elected office that could scupper her hopes of claiming the French presidency on her fourth try in 2027.

It threatens to cast a shadow over her record score in July’s snap parliamentary elections that saw the RN win 126 seats and claim a kingmaker role over Michel Barnier’s fragile minority government.

Mr Le Pen has multiple past convictions for racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, famously once dismissing the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history”.

A North Korean defector living in South Korea has been detained after apparently trying to drive back to the reclusive regime in a stolen village bus.

The man in his 30s allegedly stole the bus from a garage before ramming and crashing it into a barricade on the so-called “Unification” bridge near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, reported the Yonhap news agency.

The man, who has not been named, hit the barrier on the bridge in Paju, about 18 miles northwest of the capital Seoul, after ignoring warnings from the guards to stop.

He is now under investigation by the police, who said he had informed them he defected more than a decade ago and had recently been living in Sillim-dong, a suburb in southwest Seoul.

At the time of his arrest, he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He reportedly said he wanted to return to the North after experiencing hardship in South Korea.

According to Seoul’s unification ministry, around 34,200 North Koreans have resettled in the South after fleeing oppression and poverty under authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un’s rule.

Most have faced a perilous escape across the border followed by a tough and dangerous journey through China and south-east Asian nations.

Often their struggles do not end when they arrive in South Korea and find it difficult to integrate in a modern and ultra-competitive society that contrasts sharply with their own upbringing and education.

Attempts to return North across the heavily mined and tightly guarded border are rare but not unknown.

In 2022, the South Korean authorities, who provide resettlement support for defectors, confirmed that about 30 people had gone back since 2012, although there may be unreported cases.

In January 2022, a North Korean gymnast who stunned the nation by vaulting his way through the hazardous high-security border zone, evading surveillance, surprised the public again by climbing back through it after spending only one year in the South’s democratic system.

Local media said he had become disillusioned with his job as a cleaner and had financial problems.

Ji Seong-ho, a high-profile defector who has held senior positions in office since arriving in Seoul, told The Telegraph in an interview last month that many of those who fled from North Korea were burdened with trauma and often forced to take up menial jobs.

“People who need to support their families have no freedom in the choosing of jobs and they just need to work to make ends meet,” he said.

As a former member of the South Korean parliament, Mr Ji previously advocated for incentives for businesses to employ North Koreans who did not have the same networks as their peers in the South, but he said the proposal had met with resistance and not been adopted.

The Socialist mayor of Paris has hit the city’s motorists with a double whammy of a ring road speed limit cut and a tripling of parking fees for heavy vehicles, such as SUVs.

Anne Hidalgo’s cut to the speed limit, from 70 to 50 kph, which will be progressively introduced across the Boulevard Périphérique until Oct 10, has sparked disapproval from the opposition Right and the French government.

Ms Hidalgo, 65, who has made no bones about waging war on petrol-driven cars, insists that slowing the Périph, as it is known to Parisians, will improve air quality in the heavily polluted French capital by reducing “stop and go” driving, in which vehicles speed up and slow down repeatedly.

She also said noise pollution would be lowered for half a million people around the highway, where lower-income families tend to live.

Those caught speeding less than 20 kph above the limit face a €135 fine and the loss of one point on their driving licence.

Valérie Pécresse, the Right-wing head of the Ile-de-France region, denounced the move as “socially unjust” for those with little choice but to use the Périph.

“It affects almost exclusively night and early-morning workers who have to use the ring road to get from suburb to suburb,” she said. Small business representatives have expressed similar grievances.

Drivers questioned on Tuesday also appeared unimpressed. “It’s ridiculous, this is just another of the mayor’s whims,” Claude, a motorist, told BFMTV, a French news channel. “I’m going 50kph and I’m being overtaken by everyone. It’s untenable.”

Last week, François Durovray, France’s new transport minister, tried unsuccessfully to persuade Ms Hidalgo to backtrack.

“The minister regrets this decision, which will affect millions of people in the Paris region. He hopes that future public policies relating to the ring road, which is used by the people of Ile-de-France and not just Parisians, will take a more collaborative and balanced approach,” the ministry said after the meeting.

However, the Mr Durovray and the mayor agreed that an “ongoing and independent” analysis of the lower speed limit would be carried out, with a review in one year’s time.

“If the assessment proves negative and the mayor fails to draw the necessary conclusions, the minister reserves the right to amend the law to ensure that this issue does not fall within the sole remit of the mayor,” warned the ministry.

Before slowing down the Périph, Ms Hidalgo spearheaded a referendum in February over whether to triple parking fees for heavy vehicles such as SUVs.

Sadiq Khan ‘watching closely’

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said at the time he would be watching the results closely, adding: “We always examine policies around the globe. I’m a firm believer in stealing good policies. Rather than inventing [new policies] badly, if other cities are doing stuff that works, we will copy them.”

While the increase in fees was approved by 55 per cent of those who voted, only 5.7 per cent of eligible Parisians took part.

From Tuesday, cars weighing 1.6 tons or more will be charged between €12-18 for one hour and €150-225 for six hours in the city, depending on the arrondissement. Fully electric cars must weigh more than two tons to be affected, while people living or working in Paris, taxi drivers, tradespeople, health workers and people with disabilities are all exempt.

David Belliard, of the Green party, Ms Hidalgo’s transport chief, said only around 10 per cent of vehicles in Paris will be hit by the higher parking fees, which could bring in up to €35 million per year.

But Philippe Nozière, the president of 40 Millions d’Automobilistes, denounced the referendum as a “sham of democracy” and the measure a “masquerade”.

He pointed out that smaller, older cars, such as a 20-year-old Porsche 997, produced more emissions than a newer hybrid SUV.

“It’s a big farce,” he told BFMTV. Others said it punished families in need of larger vehicles.

Supporters said Ms Hidalgo is a green visionary who has pedestrianised many streets, including the banks of the Seine, and built a network of cycle lanes in an effort to discourage driving and reduce harmful transport emissions.

However, critics said she defends bourgeois, bohemian Parisians over working suburbanites who have little choice but to drive to work. They also said her penchant for ugly urban architecture has defaced the City of Lights, and that the capital has become grimy and rat-infested.

Nationwide, Ms Hidalgo is unpopular. When she ran for president in 2022, she received only 1.7 per cent of the vote – the worst performance ever for a Socialist Party candidate.

However, she claimed plaudits when the Paris Olympic Games were widely hailed as a triumph.

Afterwards, she took aim at her detractors in an expletive-laden diatribe, saying in English:  “F— reactionaries, f— the extreme right, f— all those who want to shut us in a war of everyone against everyone.

“Our vision has been contradicted, contested, mocked, caricatured. It is a great pleasure to see the city the way we had planned it and to hear people thank us.”

Sir Daniel Day-Lewis will come out of retirement to star in a film directed by his son.

The 67-year-old publicly quit acting without giving a reason, after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread.

However, the triple Oscar winner is now set to star in Anemone, the directorial debut of his son, Ronan Day-Lewis.

The father and son duo co-wrote the film, which is described by US production company Focus Features as an exploration of father-son relationships and the “dynamics of familial bonds”.

Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green will also star in the film, which has been shooting in Manchester.

“We could not be more excited to partner with a brilliant visual artist in Ronan Day-Lewis on his first feature film alongside Daniel Day-Lewis as his creative collaborator,” said Peter Kujawski, Focus Features chairman.

“They have written a truly exceptional script, and we look forward to bringing their shared vision to audiences alongside the team at Plan B,” he added.

Day-Lewis is best known for his award-winning and nominated roles in films such as My Left Foot, The Last of the Mohicans, Gangs of New York, Lincoln and There Will Be Blood.

The London-born actor made his screen debut as a 13-year-old in 1971 in John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday.

He went on to become widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation, and one of only six actors ever to win three Oscars.

During his career, he developed a reputation for his dedication to method acting and an insistence on staying in character throughout the production of a film, even when the cameras were not rolling.

In 2014, Day-Lewis, who holds dual British and Irish citizenship, received a knighthood for services to drama.

A police officer shot and killed a young black man who tried to ram through a roadblock in a car linked to a firearms incident, a court has heard.

Chris Kaba died after he was struck by a single bullet fired by Martyn Blake, a Metropolitan Police firearms officer, on the evening of Sept 5 2022.

The 24-year old had been driving an Audi Q8 through the streets of south London when he was stopped by armed police officers who were alerted to the fact the same vehicle had been involved in a shooting in Brixton the night before.

When Mr Kaba used the car in a “concerted attempt” to ram the police vehicles out of the way and escape, Mr Blake opened fire, killing him.

The officer later explained he had done so in the belief that his life and those of his colleagues were in danger.

But following an independent investigation into the circumstances of the shooting, the decision was made to charge Mr Blake, 40, with murder.

At the opening of the trial at the Old Bailey, Tom Little KC, prosecuting, told jurors: “This case undoubtedly involves a decision by this defendant to shoot Chris Kaba with an intention to kill. 

“It was undoubtedly a decision taken to use lethal force with a firearm by a firearms officer in the Metropolitan Police.”

He went on: “We say the unassailable evidence of what actually took place that night reveals that it was not reasonably justified or justifiable.

“The body-worn footage and footage from cameras on police vehicles reveals, we say, that it was not necessary to shoot.

“The immediate risk to both the defendant and his fellow officers at the scene did not, we say, justify … firing the bullet into vehicle Chris Kaba was driving.

“That is why we say that this is a case of murder rather than the use of lawful self-defence or lawful defence of another.”

‘Only he knows’

Mr Little explained that the police officer did not know the identity of the man in the car and said what the Mr Blake was thinking when he opened fire “only he knows”.

But Mr Little suggested the officer may have acted as he did because he was “angry, frustrated and annoyed” at Mr Kaba’s refusal to obey police instructions.

Mr Kaba’s mother became visibly upset and was comforted by a relative as the case was opened.

The prosecutor said while the incident may have been “challenging” for the police officers, it had not been nearly as life-threatening as suggested, because Mr Kaba’s car was stationary when Mr Blake opened fire.

The court was told that the night before Mr Kaba was killed, members of the public had contacted the police to report hearing gunshots in Brixton and seeing a man with a shotgun.

Mr Little explained: “The reports also included the detail that three men, wearing dark hoodies, had changed their clothing and got into two vehicles and had driven away. One vehicle was black and the other was white.

“A registration number given for one of the vehicles was YF19 NMM. That is the registration number of the Audi vehicle that Chris Kaba was driving on the night you are considering.”

Mr Blake denies one count of murder and the trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues.

The disused Victorian prison that once held Oscar Wilde could be turned into a police shooting academy.

Thames Valley Police want to use Reading Gaol, which has been closed for more than decade, as a temporary site for firearms training.

Under a planning application submitted to Reading borough council, the Grade II listed building would be used for “scenario-based training” where armed officers will take part in “real world” missions.

The planning authority will consider the application and is due to make its decision on Oct 23.

Wilde, a playwright and author, was interned at the jail from 1895 to 1897 after being found guilty of gross indecency for homosexual acts. Upon release he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem based on his memory of an execution at the prison.

The jail, which was formerly known as HM Prison Reading, also held Irish prisoners involved in the 1916 Easter Rising. It was closed in 2014 by the government as part of its jail modernisation programme and put up for sale in 2019.

Since its closure, there have been several attempts to repurpose the structure including campaigns to create a theatre, an arts and cultural hub and a housing development.

But so far none of these plans have been successful.

Thames Valley Police want to use the structure for five years, as the current owners, who purchased the building in January 2024 have yet to submit development plans.

In its application, the force said: “The application seeks a temporary planning permission to utilise the site for Firearms Training by TVP.

“The use would be a mixture of classroom-based training and scenario training within some of the buildings on site.

“For clarification the application does not propose any physical changes to the buildings or site, it is solely for a temporary and limited ‘change of use’.”

It added: “The use of the site is to supplement TVP’s existing training facilities at our main training site at Sulhamstead.

“The use of the buildings provides additional variety and opportunities to experience ‘real world’ scenarios for students.

“Training sessions would operate typically once or twice a week with a maximum of 14 students and six firearms instructors per day.

“Sessions would commence at 8pm, finishing at 4pm and only operate during weekdays.”

The application stressed that no live ammunition would be used.

“No kit and equipment would be stored on site with everything returning to secure storage at Sulhamstead at the end of each training day,” the force added.

Just a decade ago, in deep-blue California, Usha Vance was a registered Democrat.

This week, the Yale Law School graduate has been deep in preparation-mode, coaching her Republican husband JD Vance ahead of his vice-presidential debate against Tim Walz.

It will be one of the highest-profile political clashes of the election campaign.

“Neither JD nor I expected to find ourselves in this position,” she said, with a hint of understatement, when she addressed the Republican National Convention (RNC) this year.

Until this year, Mrs Vance worked for a San Francisco law firm that boasts of its “radically progressive” values.

Friends told the Washington Post that she was “generally appalled” by Donald Trump and revolted by his actions on January 6 2021, when a violent mob stormed the Capitol.

Yet the high-achieving child of Indian immigrants will be elevated to Second Lady of the United States if Trump wins the White House this year.

Mr Vance has undergone a similar conversion, having reportedly compared Trump to Hitler before reinventing himself as a liberal-bashing junior senator for Ohio and a darling of conservative media.

Mrs Vance, née Chilukuri, was born in San Diego, California, to a marine molecular biologist and an aerospace engineer.

Like her parents, she excelled academically, studying history at Yale before heading to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, where she studied early modern history.

She met her future husband at Yale Law School when they joined a discussion group on “social decline in White America”.

Mr Vance, whose entry to the elite law school had been less gilded, growing up with an alcoholic mother and joining the US Marines, would describe her as his “Yale spirit guide”.

“She instinctively understood the questions I didn’t even know to ask and she always encouraged me to seek opportunities that I didn’t know existed,” he wrote in his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

Mrs Vance, who edited the Yale Law Journal, would advise Mr Vance on cultivating relationships with professors and honing his writing. At the RNC, the pair are reported to have gone through each other’s speeches before they addressed the crowd in Wisconsin.

She embarked on a high-flying legal career after university, working as a clerk for John Roberts, the Supreme Court chief justice, and Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump would eventually elevate from the District of Columbia court of appeals to the Supreme Court.

“I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud. I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am,” Mr Vance told a podcast in 2020.

“People don’t realise just how brilliant she is.”

Racist abuse

The couple married in 2014 and have three children, two sons, Ewan and Vivek, and a daughter, Mirabel.

Mrs Vance resigned from her role as a corporate litigator for the California-based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco to “focus on caring for our family” in July. A spokesman described her as an “excellent lawyer”.

Since her husband was announced as Trump’s running mate, her ascent to the upper echelons of the Republican Party has not been all plain sailing.

Mrs Vance, a practising Hindu, and her children, have come in for racist abuse from the far-Right on social media.

While she has kept a relatively low profile on the campaign trail, she has occasionally emerged to soften her husband’s public image.

The Ohio senator has endured months of negative headlines since he joined the Republican ticket, after his comments about the country being run by “childless cat ladies” resurfaced.

Speaking to Fox News in August, Mrs Vance described the comments as a “quip” and tried to downplay them.

He would “never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family, who really, was struggling with that,” she said.

A surgeon used a Swiss army knife to cut open the chest of a patient in cardiac arrest because he claimed he could not find a sterile scalpel.

The patient, who was treated at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton in December 2023, survived.

The BBC has reported that internal documents show colleagues felt the surgeon’s behaviour was “questionable” and that they were “very surprised” he was unable to find a sterile scalpel to carry out the procedure.

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said the patient was due to have an emergency operation but went into cardiac arrest before going into theatre, which meant life-saving treatment was needed.

Professor Catherine Urch, the trust’s chief medical officer, said: “The patient’s life was thankfully saved as a result of the actions of the surgical team, but everyone involved has accepted that those actions taken in the moment were outside normal procedures, and should not have been necessary.

“The surgeon involved reported the incident, and together with the wider team they have reviewed what happened, to learn lessons.

“The patient was fully informed as part of our commitment to duty of candour, and the team rapidly made changes as a result, as well as sharing their learning with colleagues at patient safety meetings.”

It comes as Sussex Police are investigating allegations of medical negligence at the trust between 2015 to 2021, relating to neurosurgery and general surgery at the Brighton hospital.

‘Genuinely shocking’

A Sussex Police spokeswoman said: “A number of cases from within the specified NHS departments and during the specified time period have been assessed and are forming part of the ongoing investigation.

“A dedicated team of specially trained officers are in contact with those patients or families of patients whose cases are included in the investigation and providing information to support them while the investigation is ongoing.

“We are working closely with partner agencies and the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust is co-operating fully with our investigation.”

Nisha Sharma, principal lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who is acting for patients and families in cases of poor standards of care at the Royal Sussex, said: “For months we have been shocked by ongoing details emerging from the Royal Sussex, but this case involving the surgeon using his own penknife is absolutely appalling.

“The facts that are being uncovered about practices at this hospital are genuinely shocking to the community – people living in Brighton rely on the Royal Sussex for their own care and that of their families, and this is yet another reason for them to be deeply concerned.”

A £1 billion fleet of commuter trains has been left idle in storage for years after trade unions objected to the size of their windscreen wipers.

Ninety Arterio trains were bought for South Western Railway (SWR) to replace 40-year-old ex-British Rail carriages that are still in use on commuter lines out of London Waterloo.

However, the Derby-built fleet has been delayed from entering full passenger service for years, partly because train drivers’ trade union Aslef raised objections to the size of its windscreen wipers, The Telegraph can disclose.

Union reps claimed the wipers were so big that they blocked drivers’ views of the trackside signals used to tell trains when to stop and go.

The Arterio train has one of the largest windscreens of any modern UK train, with other designs (such as the Siemens Desiro also used by SWR) restricting the driver to a small side window so a connecting gangway and door can be fitted beside him.

Problems with couplers used to connect the trains together, electrical traction equipment, and even cab doors that “proved difficult to open” have also delayed the Arterios’ entry into use, according to Rail magazine.

SWR has acknowledged the flaws and says it aims to get 10 of the new trains into service within the next four months, once the company’s 700-plus drivers have been trained on them.

Aslef is said by SWR sources to have dropped its objections to the trains as part of a deal for a 15 per cent pay rise with Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, earlier this year.

SWR is only running two Arterios every day out of London Waterloo despite promising to have all of them operational years ago.

‘Major and complex project’

A spokesman said: “As is well documented, introducing the Arterios has been a major and complex project, introducing both a new fleet and method of operation, while facing extensive production and software issues and all against a backdrop of Covid and industry recovery.”

Gareth Dennis, a railways expert, said: “From a software perspective, it has become more and more difficult for Derby to create a train that works within a reasonable timescale.”

Flaws and union intransigence both contributed to the delays to the Arterios’ entry to service, which was scheduled for 2020 when the trains were ordered in 2017.

Most of the Arterio fleet is now stored in depots around the country, such as a vast rail yard at Eastleigh, Hants, instead of being driven on commuter services.

And rather than travelling on the modern air-conditioned vehicles, SWR passengers are instead crammed into trains so old that the company even repainted one in heritage British Rail livery to celebrate its 40th birthday.

Sources within SWR admit the first Arterios received from Alstom, the manufacturers, were “not fit for purpose”, with some having to be sent back to be reworked.

An insider said: “There was a lot of production line disruption during Covid.

“It took a long time to get the unions to agree to a new method of working as well.”

More trains in service

The SWR spokesman added: “Our first train entered customer service earlier this year and, following good progress on training colleagues and the trains performing well, we are now expanding the phased rollout of the 90-strong fleet – as evidenced by the new service to Shepperton this week.

“This is an important milestone on the Arterio programme and another step toward the full rollout of the fleet of 90 Arterio trains that are set to transform capacity and comfort on SWR’s suburban network.

“We’re looking forward to introducing more Arterio services and will be sharing the wider rollout plan in due course.”

Both Aslef and Alstom were contacted for comment.