The Czech Republic announced the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats from the country. They are suspected of working for the Russian special services.

The United States supports the decision of the Czech Republic to expel Russian diplomats On Sunday, April 18, State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter against the background of Prague's decision to expel Russian diplomats from the country.

"We must act decisively in response to Russian actions that threaten territorial integrity, energy security or the vital infrastructure of our allies and partners," Price said.

It is known that on the eve of the Czech Republic demanded to leave the country 18 Russian diplomats, whom it considers employees of the Russian special services. They were given 48 hours to leave. Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis said that the country's authorities suspect employees of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (formerly the GRU) of involvement in the explosions at ammunition depots in 2014 in Vrbetica, which killed two people.

https://korrespondent.net/world/4349369-ssha-podderzhaly-reshenye-chekhyy-o-vysylke-rossyiskykh-dyplomatov

> as many as a million people in the camps—a statistic echoed by the United Nations and others. Not since the Holocaust had a country’s minority population been so systematically detained.

>2005, the Chinese government began placing surveillance cameras throughout the country, in a plan called Project Skynet.
>2017 China’s Ministry of Public Security set a requirement: facial-recognition software used with surveillance cameras had to be trained to distinguish Uyghur faces. Several leading Chinese manufacturers quickly began to develop the technology—an “Uyghur alarm,” as one system was called in a Huawei test report. Although the race-based monitoring systems are of uncertain accuracy, they have been deployed in at least a dozen jurisdictions outside Xinjiang.

>Within the first two years of Chen’s crackdown, nearly four hundred thousand children were transferred into state-run boarding schools, designed to block the “thinking and ideas” that they might encounter at home. New infrastructure had to be quickly built to house the children, many of whom had “double-detained” parents. One orphanage worker told Radio Free Asia, “Because there are so many children, they are locked up like farm animals.” Sabit recalled that mothers held in her facility were very pliant: “In order to see their children, they were willing to do everything.”

>Kuytun had become an open-air prison. The city was ringed with checkpoints, where Uyghurs and Kazakhs were forced through scanners, even as Han residents passed freely. “We will implement comprehensive, round-the-clock, three-dimensional prevention and control,” Chen Quanguo had proclaimed. “We will resolutely achieve no blind spots, no gaps, no blank spots.” The technology was deployed to create a digital-age apartheid.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/12/surviving-the-crackdown-in-xinjiang

In my country, orphan children between the ages of 5 and 18 began to organize and train to fight drug trafficking...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9461363/Boys-young-five-trained-fight-drug-gangs-violence-ravaged-Mexican-state.html

https://www.explica.co/in-photos-they-arm-an-army-of-orphaned-children-to-face-drug-traffickers-in-mexico.html

https://elpais.com/mexico/2021-04-11/los-ninos-soldado-de-guerrero-claman-al-gobierno-contra-el-narco-con-tiros-al-aire.html

Beijing may consider sending a peacekeeping force to Afghanistan if the security situation in the South Asian country poses a threat to the neighbouring Chinese province of Xinjiang after American troops pull out, analysts said.
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he would withdraw all remaining US troops – about 2,500 – from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack in New York.

The withdrawal may pose a threat to Afghanistan’s security and stability, which could spill over into Xinjiang and disrupt China’s counterterrorism efforts.

In 2018, China trained Afghan troops and helped set up a mountain brigade. The training took place in China and the aim of the brigade was to counter possible attacks by al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
“The security forces of the Afghan government are not capable of ensuring Afghan security,” said Sun Qi, an international relations specialist at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
“The situation in Afghanistan might go further into chaos in the future. Cross-border crime, drug trafficking and smuggling of firearms may proliferate,” he said.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3129707/china-may-send-peacekeeping-force-afghanistan-after-us-troops

In a letter to China's President Xi Jinping, more than 200 Iranian political activists have protested to the signing of the 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation pact on March 27, calling it "invalid and inhumane. "

"The Iranian nation, particularly its political elite many of whom are being tortured in jail or have been forced to live in exile, believe that this contract is not valid," the letter said. Many Iranians, including some politicians, have also protested against the secrecy around the pact with China and asked why the nation is being kept in the dark about the contents of this document. Some have also asked why the Iranian Parliament's views were not sought prior to signing the document.

Iranian officials and some news agencies have argued that the document is simply a roadmap, not a contract or agreement, so the government has no obligation to reveal its contents. They said the document in its present form simply reflects the two sides' interest in expanding mutual ties, but many believe there are hidden aspects in the deal.

Foreign Minister Zarif and other Iranian officials had promised to publish the contents of the deal once it became finalized. A "leaked" version of the initial document was widely published in 2020 but its authenticity could not be ascertained. Details of the agreement signed by Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Sunday have not been disclosed yet but to appease public criticism, the Iranian foreign ministry on Monday published a fact sheet that lists some of the things that the agreement does not include.
https://iranintl.com/en/world/protests-sino-iranian-pact-mount-activists-write-chinese-leader

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-us-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan/2021/04/13/918c3cae-9beb-11eb-8a83-3bc1fa69c2e8_story.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQuaa9xhLlY
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/politics/biden-afghanistan-withdrawal/index.html

President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, people familiar with the plans said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that first drew the United States into its longest war.

The decision, which Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country beyond the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration negotiated last year with the Taliban, according to one person familiar with the matter, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe plans that are not yet public.

While the Taliban has vowed to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops are not out by the deadline, it is not clear if the militants will follow through with those threats given Biden’s plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September.

A 16-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a Maryland State Police trooper was an honor student who loved cooking with his mother and spirited political debates at the family dinner table, the teenager's relatives said Wednesday
Investigators determined(CLAIMED) that Ham had an airsoft gun and a knife and pointed the replica toy gun at the trooper, who was responding to a pair of 911 calls, ACCORDING to State Police Superintendent Woodrow Jones III.

The trooper who shot Peyton Ham responded ALONE.


The first caller, a man, said he thought that the suspiciously acting(SHOOTING CANS) “guy” had a gun, Jones said, adding, “The dispatcher asked for his location, but the call was disconnected."

The second 911 caller also said he saw a “guy” acting suspiciously(SHOOTING CANS) and thought he had a gun, according to the superintendent. That caller gave a street address for the suspicious person but hung up without giving a name, according to Jones.

“Peyton dreamed of attending a 4 year university to obtain an undergraduate degree, and move on to pre-law, with the ultimate dream of being an elected Senator or Delegate, to represent his home state of Maryland,” the statement says.


Maryland State Police troopers DON'T WEAR BODY CAMS.

https://news.yahoo.com/mother-teen-killed-trooper-mourns-174656770.html

https://www.al.com/news/2021/04/500000-jefferson-davis-chair-stolen-in-selma-will-be-a-toilet-unless-confederate-group-meets-demands-email-claims

A Confederate monument valued at $500,000 was stolen in March from a Selma cemetery, officials confirmed today.

This morning, a group that claims to have taken the monument, the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair, sent emails to AL.com saying they will give the chair to the United Daughters of the Confederacy if that organization agrees to hang a banner outside its Richmond, Va. headquarters.

In those emails, a group calling itself White Lies Matter say they stole the chair from the Old Live Oak Cemetery and are demanding that the UDC hang a large banner at 1 p.m. on Friday -- the anniversary of the Confederacy’s surrender in the Civil War -- and leave it there for 24 hours.

The banner bears a quote from Assata Shakur, a Black Liberation Army activist wanted by the FBI for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper: “The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives.”

White Lies Matter said it had already delivered the banner to the UDC.

“Failure to do so will result in the monument, an ornate stone chair, immediately being turned into a toilet,” the email states. “If they do display the banner, not only will we return the chair intact, but we will clean it to boot.”

A woman who answered the phone at the Virginia offices of the UDC said she had heard the reports of the theft and ransom demand were “fake news” and there was no immediate response to an email to the organization seeking further comment.

Selma police and District Attorney Michael Jackson confirmed the theft and said they were aware of the ransom demand.

The felony theft occurred sometime between midnight and 3 a.m. on March 19, according to a Selma police report.

District Attorney Michael Jackson said the chair is reportedly worth $500,000.

So apparently there's a new country forming in Europe located between Croatia and Serbia. So far, it seems it has been pretty successful and growing with some really good objectives such as humanitarianism and being environmentally conscious. It seems to have had a lot more a positive approach from locals than another state nearby named Liberland.

https://verdisgov.org/