I've returned from Syria where I witnessed first hand the destruction caused by this week's earthquake, and the lack of assistance from any quarter, except for some tents from Turkey, itself hard hit. The UN is noticeable by its absence. Ibraham lost nine members of his family. This is in the village of Sawran, which I first visited in 2012, just after it was bombed by an Assad regime jet. Since then it has been bombed a lot more, over-run by Isis, recaptured by rebels with Turkish support, shelled by Kurdish factions. And now an earthquake.

Tonight is an important night: it marks the 25th anniversary of my one and only encounter with Christopher Hitchens. Which was also the single most humiliating moment of my career. A 🧵 for anyone interested/wanting to sneer. Context 1: It was the Friday after Princess Diana was killed in the car crash. Context 2: I was at the time night news editor of the @telegraph. Not a glamorous job. Career a bit doldrum-y. Also had two v. small offspring.

There's a news blackout on the Ukrainian offensive in Kherson, south Ukraine, so we tracked down injured soldiers to tell us what was going on. It's grim. Ukraine moving forward slowly, at a cost.

thetimes.co.uk/article/ukrain… One interesting point - doctors said the injuries being sustained by Ukrainian soldiers were in general less serious than in early stages of the war, and they attributed this directly to improved western-supplied artillery reducing effectiveness of Russian tactics.

This is an extraordinary 🧵 in which a Russian soldier complains about his treatment at the hands of his officer and confesses to a murder - exactly the same murder which, by total coincidence, I described in a piece from the village of Andriivka, west of Kyiv, months ago.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1562874112707801088

I was taken by @jackhillphoto to the garden in the village where he had photographed the body of Ruslan Yeremchuk. From that start, we built up a picture of life in Andriivka and neighbouring villages while it was home to the famous Russia "column of tanks" in March-April.

Britain rightly condemns the hijacking of a Ryanair flight and the arrest of Roman Protasevich. But are we entirely innocent? Has everyone forgotten that what happened here is a carbon copy of a similar incident in 2010? (1/n)

thetimes.co.uk/article/anger-… On February 23 2010, a passenger plane flying from Dubai to Bishkek airport in Kyrgyzstan was forced to land in similar circumstances - jets threatening it - and came down at Bandar Abbas airport. Iranian security forces boarded it.

This is not a coup nor is it comparable to what happens in "failed states" or developing world countries. As @kshaheen says, it's a bit insulting to say it is. The army is not seizing power (it's resisting an illegal seizure of power, apparently). The army and police haven't taken over the television stations.

US sends an aircraft carrier to the Middle East to counter Iran: a thread. Lots of spin to counter here, which shouldn't be surprising because military posture is 50pc smoke and mirrors, something worth remembering. USS Abraham Lincoln is in fact already on its way to the ME. It's no big deal - militarily. You might think from statement by John Bolton this was a rare event - in fact USS John C. Stennis was in the Gulf last month. (2) whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat…

The true story about Corbyn's wreath-laying that no-one seems to want to mention is that he laid his wreath at the grave of a man who was killed by Abu Nidal Organisation on Saddam Hussein's orders for working for the CIA. Salah Khaled, aka Abu Iyad, may or may not have been the boss of Black September, which carried out Munich in 1972 - almost certainly was, according to numerous accounts.