The 48th and 49th escort fleets of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy have recently held a mission handover ceremony in China's support base in Djibouti, marking that the 49th Chinese naval escort taskforce formally took over the escort mission from the 48th taskforce in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia.
The two fleets also organized a joint escort mission and a joint patrol. On Saturday local time, the two fleets held a split-off ceremony in a certain sea area of the Gulf of Aden.
The 49th escort fleet, mainly composed of naval forces from the Southern Theater Command, consists of the guided-missile destroyer Kunming, the guided-missile frigate Yueyang and the comprehensive supply ship Luomahu, with dozens of special operations personnel and two helicopters on board, totaling over 700 personnel on the mission.
In line with relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, China has maintained a regular naval escort presence in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters since 2008 to safeguard the security of international shipping routes, escort Chinese and foreign vessels, and rescue, protect or assist ships in distress.
49th Chinese navy escort fleet takes over mission in Gulf of Aden, Somali waters
The World Young Scientist Summit opened on Saturday in Wenzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, gathering more than 800 scientists and entrepreneurs from over 60 countries and regions.
The event also features an exhibition center outside the main conference venue, with innovative products designed for real-world applications drawing visitors from around the world.
Many are looking beyond the displays to explore potential partnerships, with innovations ranging from the recycling of valuable minerals from construction waste to artificial intelligence (AI) applications across industries.
"Our new approach to handling solid waste uses low-carbon, firing-free and low-temperature rapid-drying processes to turn various types of solid waste into industrial raw and auxiliary materials and recycled building materials," said Shao Zhang, vice president of the Wenzhou Hailuo Group.
"Because in Brazil, we don't have this kind of technology [of using] construction waste to build this. We have searched for new technology, and we are the representative association of engineers in Brazil. We came to China maybe to bring this technology to Brazil," said Leonardo Monteiro Rodrigues from the Brazilian Federation of Engineers.
Priyanga Talagala, a senior lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, highlighted the multilingual capability of an AI agent on display.
"It can understand many different languages. Actually, we are from Sri Lanka, and we tried with our own mother tongue, and she could understand our language very easily, even though it's not very common all around the world," she said.
A wheelchair caught the eyes of Ashutosh Tiwari, secretary general of the International Association of Advanced Materials, which is headquartered in Sweden. Tiwari said he had decided to introduce the product to the European market in cooperation with the Chinese exhibitor.
"So I've taken a picture of the company. And officially, our office will contact [them] to start the business in Sweden and Europe," he said.
New technologies draw global young scientists to Wenzhou
