A ship cruises in the Wanzhou section of the Three Gorges Reservior, April 23, 2018. [Photo/IC] CHONGQING - It's 11 am and 40 degrees Celsius on deck. Liu Bo and his cleaning team have been working for four hours straight, collecting trash from the river. Working on the river is harsh. It's either too hot in summer or too cold in winter, Liu said. Liu is a member of the cleaning team in Wanzhou, a district in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. Since the Three Gorges Dam was built, the flow of the Yangtze River has slowed down. As a result, trash and withered plants accumulate rapidly on the water. This is not just unpleasant to look at, but also hinders ship navigation. If the trash is not cleared in time, it will rot. You could smell the odor even on the other side of the river, said Chen Yu, deputy director with the district's environment and sanitation office. So in 2003, the local government started a river-cleaning project and assembled a cleaning team to collect trash and clean the river. We live on the boats, sailing with the wind and fighting the waves as we collect the trash, Liu said. Usually, we start work at six o'clock in the morning and work for a dozen hours straight. The cleaning team now has 25 full-time members, and 20 boats. And recently, technology has become a great help. The team is equipped with four new mechanized boats, and the cleaners can now collect more than 50 tonnes of trash in an hour. Manual labor doesn't come close. If the team only has nets and pitchforks, 5 tonnes of trash is a whole day's work, said Chen. Last year, the team collected 28,000 tonnes of trash from the river. The local government knows that just cleaning up isn't enough. To solve the problem at its root, chemical plants and battery factories along the river have been shut down, and illegally-operated private dining ships have been blocked from entering the river. Tourists and locals are encouraged not to throw their waste into the river. My parents used to complain about my job, saying that it was toilsome and lacked high pay, Liu said. But when I took them to the river bank, they stopped complaining as they saw the river was clean and peaceful. We made the river beautiful again and I'm proud to be on the team. cheap silicone wristbands canadaextra large silicone wristbandsprinted wristbandsplain black silicone wristbandsdual-layer-wristbandcheapest place to buy silicone wristbandsmiscarriage awareness silicone braceletsathletic silicone wristbandsfuck cancer bracelet
CNS Liuzhou is a Type 054A frigate. The vessel exported to Pakistan is said to be based on this class. [Photo/Xinhua] China recently started construction of an export version of one of its advanced warships and will deliver it to Pakistan as part of a major arms deal, according to China State Shipbuilding Corp, a large State-owned defense contractor. It said the ship is a version of the Chinese Navy's most advanced guided missile frigate, without specifying its type. In late December it said the ship is under construction at its Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai, noting it will be equipped with modern detection and weapon systems and will be capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and air-defense operations. According to the Pakistani Navy, the ship's class is Type 054AP, which means it is based on the Type 054A of the People's Liberation Army Navy. It previously said four such ships had been ordered. Once constructed, the warship will be one of the largest and technologically advanced platforms of Pakistan's Navy and strengthen the country's capability to respond to future challenges, maintain peace and stability and the balance of power in the Indian Ocean region. It will also support the Pakistani Navy's initiative of securing sea lanes for international shipping by patrolling distant waters, it said in a statement on its twitter account. Type 054A is the best frigate in service with the PLA Navy. Military sources said the ship has a fully loaded displacement of about 4,000 metric tons and is equipped with advanced radars and missiles. About 30 Type 054As are in service with the PLA Navy, observers said. Cao Weidong, a senior researcher at the PLA's Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said that in the past, the Pakistani Navy would ask its Chinese contractors to use Western radars or weapons on ships constructed by Chinese shipbuilders because it believed Western naval technologies were better than Chinese ones. But it seems that all weapons and radars on the new ship will be Chinese products, which reflects our progress in the industry and the Pakistani Navy's confidence in our technology and capability, he said. Cao said there are many nations selling frigates in the market, so Pakistan must have made thorough comparisons in terms of combat capability and costs. I believe the reason they chose our type is that ours is one of the few that can carry out all of the air-defense, anti-ship and anti-submarine tasks, he said, expecting the service of the Chinese frigate to substantially boost Pakistan's defense capability. An insider in China's shipbuilding sector with knowledge of the Type 054AP program told China Daily on condition of anonymity that the ship is the largest and most powerful combat vessel China has ever exported. Based on pictures circulating on the internet, the ship will have vertical launch cells that can fire Chinese HQ-16 air-defense missiles and other kinds of missiles. Vertical launch cells will bring flexibility to the user in terms of weapons portfolio, thus giving it a stronger fighting capability, he said, adding that the Type 054AP is the best frigate Pakistan can access in the international market. The service of Type 054APs will double the combat power of the Pakistani Navy's surface fleet, he said.
