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Hello and welcome to News Hour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service

Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. One of the big set-piece moments in Washington's

current calendar has just taken place. It took place within the last hour. A speech to both houses of Congress by King Charles. A key moment. Well, a lot of people have been saying it's a potentially key moment at a rather fraught time in the relationship between the UK and the US. We'll have much more on that in just a moment.

Also, though, in 30 minutes, I want to let you know that we're going to be bringing you news of another relationship

that has fractured in a way that could be rather significant in the long term, at least when it comes to energy prices.

And that's the announcement by the United Arab Emirates that it is going to leave OPEC, the oil cartel,

after long complaining that it didn't want to be so constrained by production quotas.

We're going to begin, though, in Washington with that state visit for the King.

It's been a busy second day.

The trumpet volunteer. day. A trumpet voluntary to greet him at the White House, where he was then bathed in praise by the President, Donald Trump.

And then this afternoon, Washington time.

It was time for the king to travel the short distance to Capitol Hill and to deliver a speech to both houses of Congress.

It's an event which has only taken place once before, at least from a British monarch, when his mother, Queen Elizabeth, addressed Congress in 1991.

King Charles highlighted the fact that the relationship between the US and Britain,

though of course dates back much, much further.

Whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we may have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to protect all our people from harm,

and to salute the courage of those who daily risk their lives in the service of our countries.

Standing here today, it is hard not to feel the weight of history on my shoulder, because the modern relationship between our two nations and our own peoples spans not merely 250 years, but over four centuries.

As for what are the demands now, King Charles went on to say that the two countries should

leverage their alliance towards supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion.

In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and

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