If anyone ever deserved to be on the Honours List. 👏🏻

In light of his recent comments to President Zelenskyy, one might suggest Mr Vance should put on a nice suit and say 'thank you' to the British servicemen and women who, after 9/11, deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq alongside their US allies.

Also, one would imagine the UK Strategic Defence Review would include the requirement of long and medium range missile defence systems. I'd be astonished if that wasn't a recommendation of the SDR.

A contract there could act as a sweetener to any potential trade/economic deal between US & UK.

Correct me if this isn't how it works but if the Trump admin slaps tariffs on the EU and Canada, but the UK somehow manages to get away with it, and even manages to strike some sort of trade/economic deal, wouldn't businesses try get into and invest in the UK for tariff free access to US market?

This is madness. Absolutely nothing is off-limits for this man.

I'm tempted to put a tenner on him announcing that he's going to blow up the moon!

I thoroughly agree, though I may struggle with learning Russian. 😄

No fan of Trump, but in this instance he is right. The NATO 2% target was set at the Cardiff Summit in 2014, over ten years ago.

Spain, as all NATO members, should have met that target long before now.

I agree that European NATO members need to increase defence spend. However, as the US defence budget currently represents approximately 3.4% of its GDP, how does Trump propose making up a further 1.6%?

2.5% would be a more credible NATO target in the immediate, 3% medium term, 3.5% long term.

By the same logic, I guess Mr Zhuravlev won't object to China reclaiming the area outlined in red, seeing as it previously belonged to the Qing Dynasty.

Thank God for that. Either sense prevailed, or he's realised his coup attempt failed and it's a climb-down.

Either way, President Yoon's premiership is left in tatters and is untenable.

An absolute debacle played out before the eyes of the world.

bsky.app/profile/sema...

South Korean Parliament votes to block the martial law declaration, as reported below by @remcobreuker.bsky.social.

Praying the military refuse an order to seize control of Parliament. An awful position for military personnel to be put in by their own commander in chief.
bsky.app/profile/remc...

Ah. So, hypothetically, if a vote were to be called it would likely require a 'two-thirds' majority to change the status-quo?

Goodness me, that's a powerful visualisation.

One would imagine any vote on unification would stir an awful lot of trouble in NI, regardless of which way the vote goes.

If Sinn Fein are largest party and Mary Lou McDonald becomes Taoiseach, with the current composition of the NI assembly, what are the chances of a unification vote?

Do you think Westminster would even entertain the idea?