China on Thursday delivered the world’s first seaborne drone carrier, the Zhu Hai Yun, capable of operating on its own. The unmanned carrier can be controlled remotely and navigate autonomously in open water. It will undertake marine scientific research and other observations.
The Zhu Hai Yun entered its home port of Zhuhai Gaolan port in South China’s Guangdong Province on Thursday morning and was officially put into use after a year and a half of construction.
Built under the auspices of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), the Zhu Hai Yun is the world’s first unmanned system scientific research ship with autonomous navigation and remote-control functions, and has been awarded the first intelligent ship certificate by the China Classification Society (CCS).
The design and construction of the Zhu Hai Yun have followed the principles of green intelligence, scientific support for unmanned systems and "sense of the future." Meanwhile, its power systems, propulsion systems, intelligent systems, power positioning systems and investigation support systems have been independently developed by Chinese research teams.
“This is the first professional sea trial of the Zhu Hai Yun, which aims to test its autonomous navigation performance and the launching of the unmanned craft,” said Chen Dake, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory.
For the first time, the carrier navigated autonomously for 12 consecutive hours, and realized obstacle avoidance and path planning. It achieved the desired effect and validated the design, Chen added.
The 88.5-meter-long intelligent unmanned carrier is one of the landmark achievements of the Southern Marine Laboratory, with a designed displacement of about 2,100 tons and a top speed of 18 knots.
The ship has a spacious rear deck, which can carry a variety of unmanned air, sea and submarine observation instruments. It can carry out comprehensive marine survey tasks such as ocean surveying and mapping, ocean observation, sea patrol and partial survey and sampling.
Nvidia would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday, Bloomberg reported. A Chinese expert said the move is shortsighted, noting that tightening restrictions despite domestic industry opposition will only accelerate China’s tech innovation and further diminish Nvidia’s chances of reentering the Chinese market.
Known as the Secure and Feasible Exports Act, the bill would order the US Commerce Department to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries, including China and Russia for at least 30 months. Any processors more powerful than those already approved for export to those nations would be subject to the measure, the Bloomberg report said.
The legislation comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the....more below
A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent's analysis of public court records.
The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence ...
Hundreds of retired Israeli police officers have urged the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, to reject Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in corruption cases.
On November 30, Netanyahu, who faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust in three separate cases, submitted a formal pardon request to the office of Herzog, claiming the long-running corruption cases were tearing the regime apart.
In a letter to Herzog, about 400 former officers, including ex-commissioners and deputy commissioners, said Netanyahu’s request contains “not even a hint of admission of guilt,” making it unacceptable.
They warned that “such a step without [Netanyahu’s] confession and remorse is liable to ignite severe violence in Israeli society.”.....more below
