The overturn of Roe v. Wade
On June 24th, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade case, a landmark legal ruling established in 1973 in which abortion was made legal across the US. Individual states are now able to ban the procedure again and half of the states are either certain or considered likely to introduced new abortion restrictions or bans using ‘trigger laws’. Following the news, protests broke out over the country, notably in South Carolina, where six people were arrested and video footage emerged showing police officers threatening protesters with tasers, although claiming that “they didn’t use them on anyone”.
Another referendum on independence for Scotland?
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has proposed the date of 19th October 2023 for another referendum on independence for Scotland. Sturgeon said the question would be the same as in the last referendum in 2014: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”. She has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ask for formal consent for the vote to be held but said she would press on with her plan if this was not granted by the UK government.
G7 summit in Germany
The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) economic powers are meeting in the Bavarian Alps in Germany from the 26th to 28th June, with support for Ukraine foremost on the agenda. Present are UK prime minister Boris Johnson, US president Joe Biden, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, French president Emmanuel Macron and the prime ministers of Canada, Italy and Japan – Justin Trudeau, Mario Draghi and Fumio Kishida – joined by Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel of the EU. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will also address the three-day summit, via live video link from Kyiv. But Ukraine is not the only topic under discussion; the leaders are later being joined by their counterparts from five fast-emerging economies – India, Indonesia, South Africa, Senegal and Argentina – to discuss climate change and other issues of global importance.
