China’s ruling Communist Party is seeking to create “client economies and governments"

"China’s ruling Communist Party is seeking to create “client economies and governments,” said Jeremy Fleming, head of the secretive GCHQ, Britain’s intelligence, cyber and security agency. Fleming said this in an address to the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London. 

"In a future crisis, Beijing could exploit information covertly extracted from client economies and governments, or use its monopoly to demand compliance in international fora. To catch a glimpse of that future, one only needs only look at how China has already sought to do just this, leveraging its influence over many smaller nations in votes over technology, ethics and foreign policy," he said.

Fleming also spoke about Russia's failure in the Ukraine war and “strategic errors in judgment” committed by President Vladimir Putin.

You can go through the full transcript of Jeremy Fleming's lecture and also watch the entire video here.

“This notion that somehow banning Russian oil would raise prices on American consumers is an admission that this guy, that this killer, that this butcher, Vladimir Putin, has leverage over us.”

Marco Rubio

Said Florida senator Marco Rubio (R) on Sunday’s US TV talk shows. This appears in a news item published in today's The Guardian. 

Rubio said he supported Biden’s resistance to issuing a Russian oil import ban so far. But the US could “phase that in pretty rapidly” using “reserves for the purposes of buffering that”.

“We have more than enough ability in this country to produce enough oil to make up for the percentage that we buy from Russia,” Rubio said, adding that: “This notion that somehow banning Russian oil would raise prices on American consumers is an admission that this guy, that this killer, that this butcher, Vladimir Putin, has leverage over us.”

“I think we have enough that we should produce more American oil and buy less Russian oil or none – actually, none at all,” Rubio added.

Marco Antonio Rubio is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States Senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008. Wikipedia

Read the full news item here.

'Putin's personal security is very good and it will be very good until the moment it isn't.'

Eliot A. Cohen

Said Eliot A. Cohen from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank in an article by Elmira Tanatarova for Mailonline and AFP.

'That's happened numerous times in Soviet and Russian history.'

The article discusses five different ways set out by Experts that Russia's invasion could develop.

 
Russian President Vladimir Putin is keeping a close eye on domestic dissent. Though not seen as likely at this stage, the possibility of Putin being brought down in a popular backlash or even a palace coup is not being ruled out.

Read the full article here.