How has Brexit affected ferry travel?

Meeting expectations

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had a telephone call prior to US and Russian officials meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was the first time the US and Russian leaders had spoken in three years. How often did US and Soviet leaders meet during the Cold War?

— After Harry S. Truman met Josef Stalin in Potsdam in July/August 1945, shortly after the end of the second world war in Europe, Stalin did not meet a US president again. Nikita Khrushchev met Dwight Eisenhower three times, at Geneva (1955), Washington (1959) and Paris (1960). John F. Kennedy also met Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961.

— After the Cuban missile crisis US and Soviet leaders did not meet again until Richard Nixon met Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow in 1972. They met twice more. Gerald Ford met Brezhnev in Vladivostok in 1974 and Helsinki in 1975. Jimmy Carter also met him in Vienna in 1979. After Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader in 1985 meetings became frequent.

Military ranks

Which countries have the highest military expenditure as a percentage of GDP (2023 or most recent year available)?

Ukraine 37
Eritrea 21
Lebanon 8.9
Algeria 8.2
Saudi Arabia 7.1
Qatar 7
South Sudan 6.3
Russia 5.9
(UK is on 2.3% and the US 3.4%)

Source: World Bank

Clearing the air

Air pollution has tumbled since reliable records were kept from 1970 onwards. What is the record in the past decade? Emissions in 2023 as a percentage of those in 2013:

Ammonia 103
Nitrogen oxides 53
Non-methane VOCs 86
PM10 particles 79
PM2.5 particles 72
Suphur dioxide 26

Source: Defra

Ship shape

What has happened to ferry travel since the Brexit vote? Number of passengers passing through ports:

2016 / 2023

Dover 12.02m / 8.95m
Portsmouth 1.92m / 1.3m
Harwich 706,000 / 649,000
Plymouth 440,000 / 347,000
Newhaven 394,000 / 392,000
Poole 206,000 / 156,000