Over 3500 military personnel have started martial exercises across six regions in Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reported Thursday.
«The exercise involves army control structures, communications brigades, tank, infantry, artillery, missile, air defense units,” TASS quoted the Western Military District press service as saying, adding that nuclear, chemical and biological protection troops; reconnaissance and supply units were also taking part.
The scheduled exercises are aimed at checking combat readiness and include practicing alarms, dispatching vehicles, marching and deployment. They are taking place in the Voronezh, Belgorod, Bryansk, Smolensk, Kursk and Moscow regions.
Earlier this week, more than 3,000 military personnel from the Baltic Fleet’s units also participated in large-scale routine combat training drills, TASS reported.
Some 1.29 million workers in China internment camps each year
China has published a white paper defending its Xinjiang internment camps for Uighurs and other ethnic minorities following the US announcing it will block some exports from the region over alleged human rights abuses.
Beijing’s paper, published on Thursday, also gives some indication of the scale of the labour programmes, stating that an average of 1.29 million workers were trained annually between 2014 and 2019 in Xinjiang.
The document does not clarify whether workers have passed through these “vocational training centres“ multiple times.
In the report, the Chinese Communist party government defends its labour programme by claiming it exists to alleviate poverty through employment, saying: “Through its proactive labor and employment policies, Xinjiang has continuously improved the people’s material and cultural lives, and guaranteed and developed their human rights in every field.”
Beijing has come under fire for accusations of human rights abuses and even cultural genocide against the camps’ Uighur Muslims, allegations it has repeatedly denied.
Soldier charged after video shows him accosting Black man for being in ‘wrong neighbourhood’
A soldier has been arrested and charged after video showed a Black man being accosted for being in the “wrong neighbourhood.”
Jonathan Pentland, 42, was captured on camera confronting the young man and shoving him on the street in Summit, South Carolina.
Now Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says Sergeant Pentland, who is stationed at Fort Jackson, has been charged with third-degree assault and battery over the Monday incident.
The charges reportedly carry a maximum penalty of a $500 fine or 30 days in prison.
In the video the US Army soldier asks the young man what he is doing in the neighbourhood, and he replies that he is taking a walk.
Mr Pentland then told the man “you’re in the wrong neighborhood,” before swearing at him and and telling him to “get out.”
The man told him that he lived there, but the video showed that he was then shoved by the soldier, who threatened to get more physical with him.
Mr Pentland then claimed that the man was “harassing the neighborhood,” which he told him was “tight knit.”
Officials at Fort Jackson have confirmed they have launched their own investigation into the incident and that the Justice Department was also looking into it.
Fort Jackson Commander Brigadier General Milford Beagle Jr, said that military leaders did not condone the behaviour seen in the video.
“I remain deeply concerned for the members of our Army family, the young man and his family, and the tensions that activities like this amplify over time,” he said in a statement.
