A proudly kilt-wearing Scot who helped survivors of the Boxing Day tsunami has been appointed as the UK's new ambassador to Azerbaijan.
Fergus Auld, from Edinburgh, has taken up the post at a sensitive time, given that the Caucasus nation borders both Russia and Iran. But the life-long diplomat has seized the role with zest, spending a year learning Azerbaijani beforehand and wearing a kilt for his first meeting with the country's president Ilham Aliyev.
The dad-of-three was one of the first to be deployed to Thailand to help survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, which killed over 200,000 people. And he's getting stuck into his new job, already putting pressure on Azerbaijan to stand against Russia's invasion of Ukraine and squeezing the country on its mixed human rights record.
