Page 11 - Off Course News Today

Austin and his counterparts in europe. so that fact makes the interpersonal relationships, the diplomatic relationships that this minister of defense has had -- it makes it a bit of a question, and i think its a risky move for the ukrainians to make at this point in time. i think the calculation was that because theres a whiff of corruption around the ministry of defense because of a food procurement scandal, that zelenskyy wanted to clean house and make sure that from a european union perspecti...

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It, i know theres been a lot of conversation and a lot of debate about when you should shoot down this balloon or take it out. remember, theres at least three different considerations that the military and the intel officials are going through. the first one, of course, is what the intelligence vulnerabilities are, what kind of information that balloon is collecting about nuclear sites, about defense sites, and so forth. the second one is what is the counterintelligence value of observing what t...

Were told is the path. it swooped down from canada, flying over the northern, central, and eastern parts of the country, and that it loitered. it hung out, in the words of a senior defense official, for a longer period of time. of course we cant forget the very sensitive political moment were in right now. tensions with china. this balloon spotted and then shot down right as secretary of state antony blinken was due to travel to beijing for an important meeting. >> alex marquardt, thank you very...

That we can be incredibly proud of. i think hes going to talk about the economy, about where we are now. but i hope that hell talk about things like immigration and finally getting some big issues done that have been lingering with the congress and the administration for quite a while. you know, of course i think hes probably going to have to address the issues or some of the ways that republicans are waging culture wars in the country, like banning books in florida and so forth. all of these th...

Below that balloon, could be salvaged and could be used for counterintelligence reasons. that balloon, of course, shot down yesterday off the coast of south carolina. a lot of questions remain, jim, and the administration is going to have to answer a lot of them to lawmakers as early as tuesday, when we understand there will be a briefing to the so-called gang of eight. those are the leaders of both parties in both houses as well as chairman and ranking members of the senate and house intelligen...

Theyve dismissed the head of chinas national weather service. analysts see this as a move from beijing to try and shore up its argument that its a weather balloon. that, of course, is something the pentagon strongly rejects, saying they are confident it is a spy balloon and that this balloon and the one spotted over latin america are part of a fleet of chinese spy balloons that have been spotted around the world in the last few years. jim. >> all right. selina wang, thank you very much. stayin...

Incredibly interesting and incredibly telling. a sign, i thought, of chinese aggression and a little bit akin to what the russians did in 2016, where they essentially were part of an operation to dump all this information from the dnc and weaponize information. this, of course, was different. but in a similar vein, it was the chinese being more aggressive and not keeping quiet about intelligence. >> and if i could just sneak in one quick question about the state of the union speech, the presiden...

Ukraine. what does the timing signal to you about how ukraine is faring in this war, though? does it say anything about what russia may be preparing for in the months ahead because theyve been stating very confidently on the russian side that theyre going to step things up and turn the tide of this. >> yeah, thats -- you know, thats a real danger for the ukrainians right now because the russians are amassing troops. weve reported that there are -- theres an increased presence in the south, about...

This sort of thing cannot be engaged with, and china... this was simply blown off course. itjust doesnt blown off course. it ust doesnt wash. . ., , ., . wash. the context is that in recent months it appeared _ wash. the context is that in recent months it appeared there - wash. the context is that in recent months it appeared there was - wash. the context is that in recent. months it appeared there was some hope for a better cause for us—china relations, the wider context is very fraught. it ...