TAIWAN: Taipei’s opposition-controlled legislature passed changes today that are seen as diminishing the power of the island’s president.

The changes pushed by the opposition Nationalist Party and its allies give the body greater power to control budgets, including military spending that the party has blocked in what some observers see as a concession to China.

BELGIUM: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today picked up a second $1 billion (£783 million) promise of military aid in as many days for his war with Russia during a whirlwind tour through the European Union.

The Netherlands added to the goodwill by promising to quickly assemble with key EU partners a Patriot air defence system, which Zelensky sees as key in stopping Russia from hitting his country’s power grid and military targets with devastating glide bombs that cause widespread destruction.

POLAND: Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said today that the Nato nation should not exclude the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and should keep Russian President Vladimir Putin in suspense over whether such a decision would ever be made.

In an interview published on Tuesday in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Mr Sikorski said: “We should not exclude any option. Let Putin be guessing as to what we will do.” 

NETHERLANDS:  A former head of the Dutch spy agency and counterterrorism office was tipped today to become the Netherlands’ next prime minister, leading a four-party coalition headed by Geert Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom.

Dick Schoof is the former head of the country’s General Intelligence and Security Service and currently the top civil servant at the Ministry of Security and Justice.