China and India completed their first-ever joint military exercises yesterday with a drill in which they "wiped out" a group of supposed terrorists along their border, state media reported.
In the mock scenario, 56 members of an unnamed international terrorist organization had taken hostages after establishing a training base along the two countries' border, Xinhua news agency said.
"The finale maneuver involved establishing a joint command post ... before wiping out a group of `terrorists' and rescuing `hostages,'" Xinhua said.
The three-hour drill was the culmination of five days of exercises between about 100 troops from each of the two countries' militaries in southwest China's Yunnan Province, which borders India.
Chinese officials had initially said the exercises were meant to last for nine days. However the Xinhua report said they were only a five-day operation, without giving a reason for the different timeframe.
The military exercises were the first ever between the regional rivals, which fought a brief war 45 years ago over rival claims to Himalayan territory in a dispute that has still not been resolved.
India says China occupies 38,000km2 of its territory, while Beijing claims the whole of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is 90,000km2.
Nevertheless China and India have enjoyed a thaw in relations in recent years and the military exercises have been characterised by both sides as a sign of the warming ties.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person