As the war in Ukraine enters its ninth month, some analysts believe the Saudis will likely remain defiant of Western pressure to align against Moscow. They say that, for the leadership in Riyadh, maintaining relatively neutrality serves Saudi interests and the kingdom is using this war – and its reaction to it – to send a message to the US that Saudi Arabia is not Washington’s vassal state. Xi was a princeling - the son of one of Mao's lieutenants, Xi Zhongxun, who had been purged and later rehabilitated. Colleagues described the younger Xi as humble, self-disciplined and hardworking but otherwise unremarkable. Even on the eve of his elevation to general secretary of the Communist Party there was little hint of what was to come. irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru The characters had both been drinking alcohol, they met in a nightclub, and there were misunderstandings about how they were going to get home and whether the man was going to stay with the woman. She'd been "blacklisted" by the Russians, allegedly because she supplied villagers with food and helped them evacuate. At first glance, the parallels are striking. Chairman Mao, as he was known, was the defining political figure of 20th Century China. He ran the Communist Party - and the country - from the republic's founding in 1949 until the day he died in 1976. No other Chinese leader has since come close. Until now. Certainly some MPs backing Rishi Sunak are hoping, and urging, her to do so as they feel more days of camps thrashing it out - and a members' vote that may not necessarily align with the MPs' vote - will only cause more divisions. The two-minute video, from an account with about 1,700 followers, has been viewed more than 1.2 million times. As Russia's grip on Kherson continues to weaken, fears grow of it deploying a "scorched-earth" policy. "Our community guidelines specifically call it out as a hateful ideology and we are crystal clear that we do not want that content on our platform," said a spokesperson.